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.

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       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.