Cornerstone learns baseball history
WAYNESBURG – Zach Patton of Waynesburg presented a program on the history of baseball from 1900 to 1930 in Greene County at the January meeting of Cornerstone Genealogical Society.
One newspaper reported on a game of the “Fats versus the Leans.” These two teams played to raise money for the local playground but before the game the two teams marched from the Opera House to the field wearing women’s clothing, Patton said.
Doctors and lawyers played a game to raise money for the local hospital and the Greene County Barristers played the Fayette County lawyers with Uniontown winning, 8-3.
Patton said Waynesburg, Carmichaels, Nineveh, Rogersville and Ruff Creek all had independent teams and Sherriff John Korbett was an early coach for the Waynesburg Independent team. Joe “Hooker” Phillips, another of the early coaches, coached from 1922-1923.
John and Mary Nicholas had 12 children, with nine being girls, so they formed a baseball team. In 1922 they played a Pine Bank girls team and won 28-19. The Pine Bank’s catcher was 11-year-old Ross Jones who scored three runs. “Pretty good for an 11-year-old playing with adult women,” Patton said.
In 1900, the president of Waynesburg College threw out the first pitch at a local game, 10 years before the nation’s president did. In the early 1920s, the college was a member of the Tristate League. Later, however, the athletic director of the college discontinued baseball because of financial reasons.Golf, tennis and track became the sports of the day.
Patton went on to explain Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland League (POM) was a professional league from 1906-1907. On June 21, Waynesburg played Washington and all the Waynesburg players rode ponies from the town to the ball field. Uniontown won the pennant, because Waynesburg beat Washington and knocked them out of first place.
With no financial backing the Independent League was discontinued in 1923.
Church leagues also sprouted up during this time. Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and Christian churches had teams and the people who left these church league teams could move on to the Independent teams to play ball because they were just that good, Patton said.
The Dunkard Valley League had Mt Morris, Newtown, Star City, W.Va., and Brave. East End Greene County League had Clarksville, Mather, Carmichaels, Rices Landing, Crucible and Nemacolin. These mining towns recruited the best ball players to work at the mines. Players were treated special. “They could leave work early on game day,” Patton said.
County leagues included Morrisville, Brave, Rogersville, Clarksville, Mather, Carmichaels and Marianna.
In 1908, there was Little League baseball in Greene County. The Times Pirates, Daily Colts, North Side Cubs and East Waynesburg Winners were the teams.
Buck Montgomery, head of the playground system in 1928, started a playground league. The younger boys played in the morning and the older boys in the afternoon. Butch Beiry coached a team in the 1920s and they played and beat some Independent teams.
There are three holidays in the baseball season – opening day, Memorial Day and July 4. These days were made into festivals with music, dancing and the best teams playing on those days. Waynesburg College beat W&J College one game and the Waynesburg players celebrated, with the W&J players participating, by running through the streets in their night gowns, burning torches and burning “red tires.”
Playing on the Sabbath was an offense. Word was that some local boys were playing ball on Sunday at “Reese’s Mill sugar camp” and the local newspaper scolded the parents and told them they should be watching their children and be aware of what they were doing on a Sunday. In Jollytown, 19 men were arrested for playing ball on Sunday in 1920. They were fined $4 each, Patton said.
Company K had enough soldiers who were ball players so they formed a team, as did other Companies during World War I. They played ball as a way to raise money for the Company. On August 3, 1917, Company K played Company H of Washington and Company K won.
Patton said in professional baseball in Waynesburg ended with the demise of the Waynesburg Stogies.
Patton also said an electronic scoreboard was made by Raymond Kappes and Paul Mundall so that people could see what was going on with the game. This scoreboard was set in front of the Blair Hotel and people could come and “watch” the game. No one knows where this scoreboard is today.
There were African-American teams: Keystone Pirates, Fairmont Black Sox, Colored Giants, Fairmont Giants and Homestead Grays. The Homestead Grays, probably the most famous, played in Waynesburg, Brave, Mather and Rogersville.
At the opening of Throckmorton Grove, later Golden Oaks Park, Honus Wagner brought a baseball team to play a game here.
A silent movie, “Babe Comes Home,” starring Babe Ruth, played at the Eclipse Theater in Waynesburg in 1927.
The next meeting of Cornerstone Genealogical Society will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 12 with the Rev. John Doreen discussing his book, “Murder in Greene.” The meeting will be in the Log Courthouse on Greene Street.