Baseball Opener Postponed In Deference To Good Friday

The Lewiston Daily Sun - February 16, 1946

The Elephant Baseball Team

You might think that I'm referring to the Athletics. I'm not. These are honest to goodness pachyderms.

New-York Daily Tribune - March 24, 1912

The Washington Times - May 6, 1912

El Paso Herald - September 2, 1918

1929 LaGrange College Baseball Team

1929 Quadrangle - LaGrange College Annual

LaGrange College is the oldest private college in Georgia.  It was formed in 1831 as a women's academy and was not made co-ed until 1953. 

Four full games jammed into one!

Albuquerque Evening Citizen - July 15, 1907

This one is already chronicled in Phil Lowry's list of marathon games.

Baseball in Dublin

El Paso Herald - November 8, 1918

Now, if we were to take this single news article at face value, we would have something to celebrate.  But "the first international baseball game that Dublin has seen"?  I don't know.

A year before that a game was scheduled to be played in that same city.

The Democratic Banner - October 30, 1917

I haven't discovered if that came was just arranged or it was actually played.  Interestingly enough the following Mark Twain quote was on the same newspaper page.

The Democratic Banner - October 30, 1917

1887 Columbus Clippers

COPYRIGHT © 2012 THE COLUMBUS METROPOLITAN LIBRARY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

96 S. GRANT AVE. COLUMBUS, OH 43215 (614) 645-2275

John Lews, fellow SABR member, posted the following to the SABR-L list. I've edited it a bit, for formatting and link.

     I researched the Columbus newspapers of 1887 for Higgins. The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus Daily Times, and the weekly Columbus Recorder never mentioned that Higgins was colored. The first two times the Ohio State Journal mentioned him, it didn't. A notes column in the OSJ on July 4 ("Higgins, the colored catcher, played his initial game Saturday. He did fairly well...") was the only time his race was ever mentioned in the papers.
    The Columbus players sent letters to the Dispatch and Journal in support of their manager on August 1, signed by 14 players. The papers printed the letters. That is how his first initial J. was known. Several other players' initials or first names are given that are not included on the team roster on Baseball Reference.
    The players were paid on August 1. Several went out and drank too much beer. Higgins and Miller were suspended.
     There is a picture in the Arcadia Columbus baseball book that is supposed to be this 1887 Ohio State League team, including Higgins. (There is one black.) It is online on the Columbus Metropolitan Library's site [link].  Have any SABR photo experts looked at this? It says it is a 5 by 8 photo of the Clippers baseball team, which was an amateur team that also played at Recreation Park in 1887. Does it look like a minor league team or an amateur one? Does it look like an 1887 photo? The August 1 letter was signed by 14 players. The Dispatch a week before said the club had carried 16 or 17 players all season and were releasing a couple of players. There are only nine players in the photo. Three of the 14 that signed the letter played in the majors, Bill Schwartz, Ed Hutchinson, and Ben Stephens.
     G.B. "Ben" Stephens, age 19, joined the team a few days before Higgins, who was brought to catch Stephens. Higgins had caught him in 1886. Has anyone looked for them in the Detroit area in the 1886 Detroit papers?

I went to the Ancestry.com site and extracted the names of people associated with baseball from the Columbus, Ohio directories that were published from the years 1888 to 1892.  There were a number of J. Higgins (James Higgins, John Higgins, etc) but not information to declare any single one of them as the pictured ball player.

	Surname	Name	Location	Business Name	Occupation
	Backer	George E	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	Baker	William	125 1/2 N. High		ball player
	Bauer	Alley	545 S. High		base ball player
	Cowley	Wm A	51 Franklin avenue		base ball player
	Fitzsimmons	John	26 Montgomery	Columbus Base Ball Club
	Garvin	B L	boards Hotel Nelson	Columbus Base Ball Club
	Gilman	P C	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	Hamilton	R H	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	Handiboe	John A	130 E. Naghten		ball player
	Handiboe	Jas E	136 E. Naghten		ball player
	Handiboe	John	136 E. Naghten		ball player
	Morrison	J W	boards Hotel Nelson	Columbus Base Ball Club
	Munyard	Wm	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	Murphy	John A	64 W. Maple		base ball player
	Myers	Charles	boards Arcade Hotel		base ball player
	O'Brien	J	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	Pike	C H	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	Poth	George	room 5, 109 S. High		base ball player
	Rauschkolb	Jacob	246 E. Fulton		ball player
	Reark	Charles	boards Hotel Nelson	Columbus Base Ball Club
	Rourke	Wm A	826 S. 3d		ball player
	Schmelz	Gus H	212 S. 3rd	Cinncinati Base Ball Club	manager
	Schwartz	W A	boards Arcade Hotel		ball player
	Smith	Earnest	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	Twitchell	Lawrence G	214 Hamilton avenue		base ball player
	Wagner	Frank	boards Hotel Nelson	Columbus Base Ball Club
	Welsh	P J	boards Hotel Nelson		ball player
	West	Milton D	877 S.3d		base ball player
	Williams	James A	328 Oak	Cleveland Base Ball Club	manager

SOURCE INFO:
Ancestry.com. Columbus, Ohio Directories, 1887-92 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2000.

Original data:

Columbus City Directory, 1887-1888. Columbus, OH: J. Wiggins and Co., 1888.

Columbus City Directory, 1888-1889. Columbus, OH: J. Wiggins and Co., 1889.

Columbus City Directory, 1889-1890. Columbus, OH: R. L. Polk and Co., 1890.

Columbus City Directory, 1890-1891. Columbus, OH: R. L. Polk and Co., 1891.

Columbus City Directory, 1891-1892. Columbus, OH: R. L. Polk and Co., 1892.