ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!!

So today I was sharing my experience of interm with a old friend who is now an archivist at a college up North. He was quick to inform me that while it may be interesting there is no real room in the academic world for baseball to be looked at serious. Are you kidding? Not everyone can be a History Channel baby and only be concerned what Hitler was thinking when he helped cracked Davinci's code in some under ground lost city!! It is frustrating that people draw the line in trying to decide what worthy history is or isnt!!! Just had to get that off my chest. I am a historian(or like to think i am) and I love every type of History and refuse to fall into the Historian who only knows about military battles.

If you get board

Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be at the Shoeless Joe Jackson museum in Greenville tomorrow Saturday from 1000-1200. It is free and a neat learning experience to see his actual house. They areopne from 10-2 every Saturday.


I just finished up my second daft of my book review. It is really interesting to go back and red something that you just wrote the night before and see how many changes need to be made or things you weren't happy with. I am glad that at 28 I finally realize the importance of tedious task and now look forward to rewriting a paper multiple times.


Best of luck to everyone and excited to see what you all have learned!!!!!!

That was intense

Well it is about 1:15 am and I just finished up my first draft of the book review. I will say this, it is very difficult to write a objective review on a book that helped you so much during this project. I know that in order for it to be a beneficial book review I must highlight both the strengths and weakness. I would lie if I were to say that I was not a tad bit biased based on the professional relationship I have built with Mr. Perry.

Now I took myself out of that mind set in order to provide a usable review and after rereading the book I really only found one weakness that I think really would affect a reader. Which I discussed in my review. It was so odd because the whole time I was writing it I felt bad like I was disrespecting Mr. Perry. I could never be a critic they have to be so heartless it seems.

Well tomorrow will be focused on closing up loose ends on the project as a whole...by the way whatever happened to these crazy storms they said we were getting. I was really hoping for a thunderstorm I havent heard a good thunderstorm in years.

Having too much fun

So today I finished up my second draft of my paper and sent it off ot my editor. HAHAHHA it is my wifes grandma she is a magician with grammar. So I utilize her skills on all my writings. It truly is amazing how much she has helped me to improve my writing over the last few months. I am going to start on the book review this evening. This is going to be a project on its own. I think the last time I wrote  a book report was in high school so it will be interesting to see how it turn out. I am excited about writing it because I really enjoyed the book. Best of luck to everyone as we wrap this up see you all Monday,.!

Productive day

Finished the first draft of my paper today so I will go into editing tomorrow. In hindsight I wish I would have gotten the paper done earlier but a month is not  a lot of time. I wanted to write a 15 page paper and do the book review but I am not at the level in writing yet to accomplish all of it. I know it seems odd for a 28 year old to struggle with writing but they is my downfall. It is amazing how much you loos after six years of not writing at all. Well not writing ina formal setting that many other people have the potential to read. I had to force myself to stop researching and start finalizing. I am struggling with the PowerPoint, I know what I want to talk about but I am always afraid that I will have to much or not enough. Of coruse by always afraid this is the second power point I have done since leaving the military and military power points have to keys 1. too many slides 2. make you fall asleep. So I will give it my best and go from there. Looking forward to see what everyone has to offer.

What was life like when everything was grey?

I have had a few people ask me what the characteristics of the uniforms that the mill ball players wore. Of course black and white photography during the time period in which I am researching has left me wanting. So I decided to spend a few hours today looking online and making a few phone calls to see what I could uncover. What did they really look like? Did they very from mill to mill? What must it have been like to play in the thick cotton pants and the nylon stockings?

The three uniforms from the time period that I have felt are made of thick heavy cotton. Well no kidding you are saying, you are talking about cotton textile mill baseball teams!! That I am, still imagine a hot South Carolina day and you are playing a intense game in thick cotton jerseys and pants completed by a pair of stockings.

Surprisingly I have found that the uniforms did in fact contain color that differed from mill to mill. Victor Mill in Greer,SC is reported to have had a grungy yellow V on their black uniforms. Mills Mill of Greenville,SC provided their fans to a optical treat of blue pin striped uniforms with blue writing sheltered in red. 

MIllers Mill exhibit at the Upcountry History Museum 

I think it is safe to say that great pride was taking in the uniforms. By not only the players but the people of the mill themselves. The pride that must have ran through a mothers heart or the joy a older gentleman felt when they saw their team take the field in the mill colors. The colors that they worked so hard during the week to protect.  

Unforgivably the ill informed  have erased many of the uniforms from history. There are only a few remaining intact uniforms from the period in which I am focusing.  I hope that one day more can be uncovered so we can get a better idea of what they looked like.

A outtake from Milltown Pride(a movie about 1920's mill baseball)

Ugly, Rainy Day

There were quite a few visitors to the Shoeless Joe Jackson museum today. It really is such an amazing place I highly recommend going if you have never been. If you are  South Carolina native and you haven,t been...tsk..tsk.tsk. I learned some pretty interesting stuff today that I did not know. Even Comiskey(owner of the 1919 White Soxs) said that he did not believe that Joe had anything to do with the allegations. Hard to believe they still will not let him in the Hall. I did however talk with the curator of the museum today and there are talks of launching a nationwide campaign to have Selig(baseball commissioner)  clear Joe's name so that he can be allowed into the Hall, well at least considered. The really exciting thing is that I am going to be a part of something so important to History. They have invited me to help with the campaign, talk about leaving you stamp on baseball history! This will be quite a task, seeing as there have been movements before but no success. Jackson is on the ineligible list just like Pete Rose so it would take an act of god so to speak to get them cleared from the list and then considered for voting into the Hall.

http://what-the-hall.info/?jackson


The link has a little background on the story of Joe..

Also if anyone ever wants to come down and get a tour its free let me know I will make sure I am there. They are open from 10-2 on Satrudays and the group of tour guides are amazing

Greenville Touching the World one baseball bat at a time?

Zinn Beck

  Tonight I tried something that I honestly did not think would work but it did. I typed "textile mill baseball" into the search engine on Craiglist. I was really drawn to a post of a man who had a bat made by the Zinn Beck Bat Company, in Greenville!!! I thought wait a minute there has to be something behind this. The Zinn Beck Bat Company was founded by Zinn Beck. Beck played in the major leauges with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1913-1916 and with the New York Yankees in 1918.

Wouldn't ya know it very little is out there about his bat manufacturing career in Greenville. He was a bat manufacture during the 1920's and produced high quality pro model bats. These pro model bats were made to the exact specifications of pro players. Players like Ty Cobb, Roger Hornsby and Lou Gehrig, some of the greats of the game.  One of the Ty Cobb Diamond Ace Model(which is what all the pro bats were called, distinquished by a number such as 36 for Gehrig or 300 for Cobb) went for $8,124 dollars in a auction!!!

Ty Cobb, Zinn Beck bat

So you ask how does this tie into my research?  After reading what I could find about the Zinn Beck Company, I began to wonder if he tested this bats out with the local mill teams? I mean what better way to perfect a piece of lumber than to have to take a beating in a mill league ball game!!!

I have not found any proof of this yet but I will keep digging and maybe something might turn up.

My excitement as a baseball nerd has reached a high point today!

Today after about a week of emails and phone calls I was granted a membership into SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. Now granted any one can join if the fork over 45 dollars for a year but to be able to join the ranks of such intelligent minds is amazing. This is big for me because I love baseball and this is the epitome when it comes to baseball research and a network of great baseball minds. I was also invited into a a few groups withing the Society that focus on the Dead Ball Era (1900-1910) called this because the ball was so heavy. As well as a group that focuses its research on minor league ball in the south. I am really looking forward to learning all I can from everyone in the society as they hold keys to a lot of amazing information. My goal is to hopefully speak at the annual convention that is held every summer at a different Major league city. Who knows maybe one day this project will get published within the society. One thing I did notice and upset me was the lack of information regarding textile mill ball. This really goes to show that if we do not quickly start reading,writing and talking about this then we are on a road of destruction of what I believe is the most important time in South Carolina History.

Started the paper

So today I spent an hour looking through mill league pictures that I could find on Google images. It is always nice to take a break, give the mind a rest and just paint your own story by looking at the pictures. I really believe that you can learn so much from looking at a picture because each face or place can tell such an amazing story.

I began my paper for Interm today and hope to get a start on my presentation this weekend. I know to some this seems crazy but this works best for me to get an early start.I am just now finding my niche at 28 in my writing style so I look for anyway to improve and the earlier I write the more time I have to read through and I think this really is helping me find my writing style.

Charlie Wilson Pacolet Mill 1927

Here are some pictures I found today, sorry I overload you all with pictures but I truly am having such an amazing time with this project!!!!! So sad that we will be done in a little over two weeks.

Fulton Mill Team 1925

Shoeless Joe

A day at Woodside MIll Historic ball Park

Today was a really fun day in research because I was able to share an experience with my daughter. Today my daughter and I went to Simpsonville to visit the Historic Woodside Mill Ball park.  This ball field at one time probably saw some of the greatest players to ever play the game.  There has been renovations and with time there are natural changes but I could imagine in my mind while I was there being at a mill game. It was such a great experience to see my daughter running around the field. Of course day dreaming kicked and and for a moment I pictured us as a mill family and  my daughter just another child during the heydays of mill life. How many children picked up a ball for the first time on this field?

The field was named after O'dell "red" Barbary, who was a mill league standout in the 30's and 40's. He lived on the Woodside Mill in Simpsonville,SC. His career was capped in the majors with a single at bat in only one game in 1943 as a Washington Senators.


As I took pictures I was reminded of  how incredible this sport was and how much of a impact it had not only on the people of the mills but the people of the upstate. I am really grasping that my project has turned into so much more than finding about how mills recruited players for competition. It was so much more than that. Of course this happened but lets face it who really wants to document this. This was a livelihood it was everything to this area. The upstate of South Carolina was built on the backs of these ball players. I have really come to grasp that it is not to far fetched that I was put in this position in order to preserve a part of history that is slowly dying off!

I hope to be able to track down a few remaining fields in the next two weeks. It is a shame interm is going to be over so soon this is just to much fun.

Here are a few pics from today...I put in a few of my daughter as well. What can I say I am a proud father.

We built this city!!

  Tonight was my meeting with Mr. Perry and it was amazing.I was invited to his home in Newberry, SC which is about an 1 hr 1/2 from where I live in Greer but it was well worth every minute of the drive. I must first say that he was one of the most passionate and intelligent people I have come across in my life. His knowledge on baseball in the textile mills is endless. He was kind enough to invite me into his office and allow me to speak one on one with him and look at all his amazing baseball memorabilia, I felt like a kid again at Little League night at a Cincinnati Reds game. I had an amazing time while there and gained some fabulous new knowledge as well as leads into where I will go in the future for not only this project but the many more I hope to do about baseball.


Enough romanticizing about baseball I know you are all interested in the information that I received and I am likewise interested in sharing it. Mr. Perry to my delight confirmed my original assumption that mills used recruiting tools to being in players. Although I was already aware that they made makeshift jobs in order to house these players within their mills. What I did not know was that these players could earn up to $100 a week playing baseball. Take a second to think about that in today's terms pretty impressive! What I really found interesting was when he shared how mills also recruited workers to their mills based on how good their baseball teams were.I find this absolutely fascinating that mill baseball was a double edge sword. They were using it to recruit the best players that they could for their teams, not only to win games but also to ensure that they were able to attract the best working force. I am curious, what type of affect that had on mill villages themselves? These were tight knit communities mainly comprised of generations of families that had always been on that particular mill.

As Mr. Perry and I were talking I realized how much of a impact Textile baseball in the upstate had not only on the mill community, the townies but also the sport of baseball.  In major league baseball there is a minor league farm system in which players mature and work their way up to the Majors. I have come to understand that up until 1955 when mill baseball vanished, the upstate served as a unofficial farm system. Mr. Perry explained to me that for a long time the Cincinnati Reds, Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Athletics would come here to get their players. Often times they would also send their players down here but the major league players would complain because the Textile mills teams were to good!!! How bout that! There were over a 100 players that played in both the majors and in mill league ball. As Mr. Perry highlighted there was probably many many more. In his book he references these players because he was able to validate them with documentation of playing in games in both the mill leagues and the majors. It is pretty impressive how dominate mill teams truly were from 1880-1950's, many local colleges and high schools would not play them because they would run the score up.


The experince was amazing and I look forward to the opportunity to get to talk to him again as well as to at some point spend a lot more time on studying this. I realized tonight that Textile baseball was baseball in it's purist form. That it was played and celebrated for the love of what baseball truly was not money, not million dollar contracts not championships. It made the upstate what it was today.  Unfortunately many people over look how important this time period and this sport was to what the upstate is today. That of course is my goal to showcase how important and fascinating textile baseball truly was.


I was able to come to the understanding tonight that I can not get frustrated when things don't work in my favor. On my drive back from Newberry I realized that in order for this month to be a success I need to do what I originally intended to do and that is to showcase the importance of textile baseball in the south. With such a brief period of time I will continue to work to provide all of you with some of the key highlights from textile baseball. Trying not to harp so much on finding all the information i can about how mill bosses tried to recruit other players.But providing you all with a rounded view of this world as I know many are unfamiliar with it. Primarily staying withing 1910-1930, I look forward to continuing this journey.


I must say I was really touched tonight when Mr. Perry told me that he could feel my passion for textile mills and textile mill baseball. This really means a lot to me coming from the world's expert on textile baseball, it reinforces that no matter how childish my passion for baseball and history is I need to run with it. Besides how cool is it that a person who grew up in the mill life and as historian and man from the south could compliment a Yankee on his passion for southern baseball!!!!!!

Second day of nothing turning up

Today I spent a few hours digging through the archives of local newspapers at the Greer Library. It is a very small branch so their services are limited. However I did get some promising information that the Victor Mill Boss was possibly sanctioned for luring in players with fake jobs so that they could play for his team. I saw this on two seperate occasions. That of course does not validaite it but I will continue to search and hope that I can produce more than just hersay over the next few days. It is starting to get a little frustrating that I can not seem to find what I am looking forward. Hopefully my meeting tomorrow night will turn something up. I am starting to wonder if I may have chosen too narrow of a topic.

A minor set back

Today was not as promising as I had hoped it would be. I spent the better part of 4 hours digging around the internet looking for leads into my topic. I am running into a lot of secondary sources and it seems everyone goes back to Mr. Perry's book, which I have already read. Not that I don't love Shoeless Joe of Champ Olsteen but it seems that all roads lead to them. I wanna find out about the average mill players the everyday lint heads. Though I will not let this discourage me I just have to plug harder. Tomorrow I am going to go search the archives at the Greer Library in hopes of finding some information on the Victor Mill team.Which was part of the Victor Mill in Greer, SC. I know what I am looking for is out there. I have scratched the surface on a few readings of how Mill bosses sought players and lured them to their mills with make shift jobs, thus fueling competition between mills. I know it happened and I know the information is out there just need to dig deeper. Thursday night should really be a home run,I am actually meeting with Mr. Perry. I cant wait to get all the information that he has to offer and get my hands on some good primary sources. Happy reading to all.


Congrats to Reds great Barry larking on the Hall of Fame Bid

A interesting day in research:caught by the "history trap"

A ticket for the 1901 meeting between Wofford College and South carolina

Wofford Pioneers

    Today was an excellent day for research. Here is the catch I was caught in the History trap. Let me explain, as a student of History I always risk the chance of wandering in a totally different direction when I uncover something I previously was unaware of. Today I found myself in this position. How did I get there you might ask? In the reading of a book of textile baseball I was made aware that local colleges became major player in mill leagues around 1913. Mills also began making it common practice to play area college teams, (Newberry, Wofford, Furman) and a few other colleges that are no longer in existence.  Mill bosses would create "jobs" for these recent college graduates be it carrying around hammers or walking the mill grounds in order for them to play for the respective mill team. This exciting fact plays heavily into my goal here, trying to see how baseball was used to fuel competition between mills and what methods were taking in order to entice individuals to a particular mill team. So I went to spend the morning in the Wofford archives because in my reading of textile Mill Baseball by Thomas Perry I ran across the name, Arthur Hamilton who was a Wofford student and baseball player who was hand picked to play for Drayton Mill. HE among many other Wofford students were sought after to perform "jobs" within mills.  I was able to uncover a picture of Mr. Hamilton in a scarp book, as well as a few names which i will use to rack down some more in for via yearbooks, letters etc on Friday. However that is where the textile portion really halted for today. Thus I was caught in the trap.

unknown

   
       I was allowed access to the Wofford College scrap book which is chock full of information about our beloved Terriers and their impact on baseball in the  upstate. Although I found no documents evidence within the articles in the book or add ins by historians of Wofford playing local mill teams I did run into some really exciting information. Well aware that my project is not on Wofford baseball I fell it only right to share with you some of the information that I found today. Who doesn't love a little Terrier history.
      

1920 team

Wofford College can lay claim to being the first document organized base ball team in the upstate important to remember it didn't become baseball until about 1920, more on that later. The first Wofford squad formed in 1869 and were games played against Federal soldiers. The Pioneers were a successful bunch. Yes you read that right the first Wofford team was known as the pioneers not the Terriers. The Terrier name would come in the earl 1900's. The Wofford Nine as the teams were affectionately known were a force to be reckoned with. They had great teams in the early 1900's that were known for running up the scores on local colleges, forcing games to be played at neutral sites in order to protect traveling fans. Though I find it a little hard to believe that because the teams were good the Wofford faithful were thus violent or even rowdy for that matter! They were so good in 1920 that they were state champs and only lost one game that year. Pretty neat that we are part of a place with so much history both athelitcly and academically. I do however have something that will blow your mind. I know it did mine.


     The great sometimes violent sometimes bitter Ty Cobb is tied into our deep history. I will paraphrase the story based on the handful of articles I read in the archives along with my own interpretation. Ty Cobb was on the outs with his major league club in Detroit in 1912-1913 over contract issues so he grabbed a bunch mill ball players and started barnstorming the country playing college teams to raise money. In these years he played the Wofford Nine and in true Cobb fashion raised hell on the diamond. One instance we was trading verbal jabs with Rutledge Osborne player and third base coach for the squad. As the story gos a few days later Osborne ran into Cobb in  Greenville hotel and Cobb and three of his friends pulled Osborne into a hotel room and kicked and punched him. Now with any good story there is ten to fifteen others, some recount Osborne pulling a gun, while others say that Cobb handled Osborne on his own. None the less quite a interesting bit of history that we belong to, the great Ty Cobb leaving yet another meaning impact on society this time of the gentleman of Wofford College.

  That is were we stand for today. Tomorrow I going to start digging through local papers to uncover some information hopefully about how in fact mill bosses used competition and early forms of contracts to bring players to there teams. On a side note I would love to at some point continue studying Wofford's basball history, it is pretty well known that we played the first college football game in the upstate against Furman but it would be interesting to uncover more about the baseball teams.

*all pictures came from the Wofford archives baseball scrap book.

Is that glove horsehide????

This weekend I was unable to really get into my research since I had drill. However as I did have a little bit of time to google image textile mill baseball and found some interesting facts about the equipment that was used in the 20's and 30's

Gloves back then were made from horsehide and were considered mitt-gloves based on the way that they fit your hand. Unlike the gloves of today these gloves were in fact like wearing mittens from what I gather from the pictures that I saw. I just sit here and think about the intensity of pain one would feel when they catch a line drive that comes screaming at them off of a 48 oz bat lacquered in the tobacco spit of the batter.OUCH!!! This was in fact the weight of Black Betsy, Shoeless Joes bat and method in which he used to wreak havoc on the Textile League pitchers and later up in the bigs.

Here are a few images one of the glove and on of Ole' Black Betsy the infamous bat of the Brandon Mill golden child Joseph Jefferson Jackson

Day 2 of Independent Research and I have just let myself into a fascinating world

    Today was a great solid day of research. I finished up Thomas K. Perry's book on Textile Mill Leauge baseball and it was fantastic, I also did some preliminary searched on the internet. We are so privileged to live in an area that is an absolute hot bed for history, even more so for the national pastime. I am blown away by the things that I am uncovering it seems with each turn of a page or click  of a mouse.
   
      My goal here is to find out how players,teams and mills were affect by competition. I look at the late 1910's to the late 1920's as the bearth of what we now look at as scholarships, contracts and free agency. Baseball has become a multi million dollar industry in which the team that proposes the better offer gets the best players. I in fact think that the mill leagues and the mill owners operated in the same way. It is no secret that mill bosses would bring in high profile players to help there team win thus attracting more workers to their mills. The catch of course was that the jobs of these players were not really jobs at all they might walk around with a few tools for a few hours and then hit the ball field.  I however am already getting pulled in different directions because there is just so much fascinating information IN JUST ONE DAY!.
   
      Would you believe if I were to tell you that Wofford provide players to the mills once they graduated? They sure did. This really intrigues me that local colleges would funnel their graduates to mills in order to improve the mill teams. So we now have to think, did they create special jobs for college grads? Was a young man in his baseball prime more apt to want to play for the mill's or move to the majors. I can already see this taking me into a whole new direction because it is fascinating how our college along with other area colleges played into what was considered such a tight knit community. Seldom was there cohesion between the lint heads and the townies. College teams even played mill teams our terriers were quite
  

   So I will be taking a  break for probably for the weekend because the military is calling my name, however Monday I am going to dig through Wofford's archives and see what I can find on Wofford's baseball players and how they impact textile league baseball if at all. As it stands today I am almost certain that I will present to you all on that exact topic, only time will tell. I have a very exciting week next week for a historian, I am meeting with Dr. Stone on Monday to begin my journey through the Wofford Archives, Tuesday I will be meeting with a archivist at the South Carolina room at the Greenville Public Library and here is what will have you on the edge of your seat....I have been invited into Mr. Perry's home to talk Textile Mill Baseball with the lead expert on the subject in the United States!!!!!!!

In closing if there ever arises an opportunity for me to do nothing by study textile mill baseball I will jump on it.


Oh yea let Shoeless Joe in the hall!!!

Day 1

Today was the first official day of research, from a actual research standpoint I dug around on the internet for a few hours trying to really narrow the route I take on my project. With that being said,I am going to focus really on the first 25-30 years of the 20th century and highlight textile mill baseball as well as its impact on mill competition in the upstate. As I progress I think I will be able to narrow it down a little more but I can already tell from the little bit of reading I have done and the web browsing today that I am going to want to study this long past interm.

We had a really nice meeting/dinner tonight with all the people doing independent research this interm. There is such a wide range of projects and such a eclectic group of individuals I really look forward to the project at the end.