In honor of the soon to be named Joplin baseball team, here’s one more photograph of Joplin’s longest lasting professional team, the Miners from some time in the 1910s to 1920s.
Unfortunately, this is a private photograph with no labeled names or dates, so the scowling fellow will have to go down nameless into posterity. We will never know what irritated him approximately 100 years ago. For a large version of the image, just click on the photograph.
In celebration of the return of professional baseball to Joplin, here are team photographs from Joplin’s baseball past. Below are photographs of the Joplin Miners, the first from 1928 and the second from 1930. As usual, for a larger version, just click on the photo.
Here are the names of players as numbered: 1) Red Becker, 2) Bill Diester, 3) Ted Willis, 4) Connelly, 5) Martin, 6) Frank Sidle, 7) Poirier, 8) Mitchell, 9) Delabetta, 10) Reilly, 11) House, 12) Manager Marty Purtell, 13) Brauchle, 14) Jack Hinson, 15) Robinson, 16) Jack Crouch
The names of the players as numbered: 1) Mallett, 2) Grant, 3) Novak, 4) Harry Kimberlin, 5) David Cheeves, 6) Bob Boken, 7) Ellison, 8) Byron Humphrey, 9) Bill Diester, 10) Ed Kallina, 11) Griffith, 12) Business Manager Wilson, 13) James Bray, 14) Emery Osborn, 15) Cato, 16) Manager Cotton Tierney, 17) Edward Halbert, 18) Luke Corbus, 19) Scofield
Baseball was an ever present pastime in Joplin, be it amateur or professional. Of the latter, the Miners held Joplin’s attention. In addition to our current series from the portfolio of Alfred W. Rea, we are going to present a short series of four team photographs of the Joplin Miners. Our first is the team from 1907:
1907 Joplin Miners
The 1907 Joplin Miners: 1) Owens, 2) Sylvester Oleson, 3) Charles Flemming, 4) Roy Gill, 5) Dick Rohn, 6) Jack Fillman, 7) Tony Vanderhill, 8 ) Manager Louis Armstrong, 9) Guy Harrington, 10) Abner Persch, 11) Conrad Welsch, 12) William George, 13) John Root, 14) Cecil Bankhead.
The 1907 Joplin Miners played at Cox Baseball Park in the Western Association League. Both Vanderhill and Fillman were “veteran” players who had played on previous Miners teams.
A photo of the Miners from some time around 1910, possibly at Cox Field.
Long an institution of Joplin, the Miners baseball team entertained Joplin crowds for more than half a century. Among one of their greatest, if not greatest, players to wear the name Joplin emblazoned across the chest, was Mickey Mantle. For the low price of nearly $200 (okay, not that low), you can own a replica of the 1950 jersey that the Mick wore courtesy of Ebbets.com. It’s a bit of flannel history.
While we’ve discovered the baseball in Joplin played by men who were paid, and by those who weren’t, the sport wasn’t limited to adults. In the below photograph, we’ve a team of boys, perhaps a high school team, who had banded together to form a formidable looking team. Who knows, perhaps one of them eventually found himself donning a Miners’ uniform.
Perhaps a high school baseball team from Joplin's earlier days.
Source: Historic Joplin Collection
Before the Miners, baseball in Joplin took the form of amateur teams that emerged from a variety of places, such as the Joplin Bankers. Another such team was “The O’Hickeys.”
The O’Hickeys, which existed for several years in the 1890s, claimed an undefeated streak. Their practice ground was none other than the Kansas City Bottoms. The team was composed of an eclectic group of men of varying backgrounds, united only by the fact that all the men lived at the O’Hickey boarding house. Among them was the owner of the boarding house, third baseman “Cap” O’Hickey (seated fourth from the left – presumably in the white shirt). The gentleman in the center foreground with the baseball bat across his lap was the manager of the Keystone Laundry, Joe. W. Walker, and behind him, the Keystone Laundry bookkeeper, Charley Ryus.
A mine operator and O’Hickey catcher, Bill Borey, is the fellow seated to the right of Ryus and in his hands is an unnamed team mascot. To the right of the team mascot and Borey, dressed in a “natty white outfit” is Ralph Moore. Reportedly, Moore began as a jeweler’s assistant but ended up a successful Vaudeville actor. Robert Norris, a coal dealer, is seated to the right of Moore. Finally, the team was rounded out in the photograph by John Mathes, a dry candy manufacturer, who is standing next to o’Hickey and Ryus. Not pictured, but a member of the team was Joe Tucker, a former Southern Association pitcher.
For today’s post, we thought we’d toss in something new with a couple things previously seen just for the fun of having a comparison. That comparison is the Joplin Miners, from 1902 to 1904, in team photographs. In chronological order, three years worth of the Joplin Miners baseball team.
A March 21, 1902 article, accompanied by a not very flattering sketch of pitcher Arthur Ragan, reported of some of the men pictured below:
“The local management received contracts yesterday from Andrew Brophy, one of last year’s most popular players and who will again be behind the bat for Joplin, from C.W. Wickizer, a heavy hitter with Nevada last year, and who is considered one of the best utility men in the southwest, from Arthur Ragan of Cherokee, Kas., a pitcher whose work will interest the fans for, while his engagement with Joplin will be his first professional ball, competent judges who have seen the young man work, declare that he is a comer. “
The Joplin Miners of 1902
Top Row — Wright Wickizer, catcher; an unnamed pitcher; Bert Dunn, pitcher; Claud Marcum, manager; Arthur “Rip” Reagan, pitcher; Peck Harrington, catcher and outfielder; and Lefty Greer, pitcher. Middle Row — Earl Taylor, pitcher, Don Stewart, secretary of the club; Arthur “Art” Cox, treasurer of the club; and William “Dolly” Gray, first baseman. Bottom Row — Bert “Monk” Senter, shortstop; Jimmie Underwood, outfielder; Fred Tullar, third base; and Dick Bayless, outfielder.
The 1903 Joplin Miners
The 1903 Miners: 1. Morton; 2. Lowell; 3. Adam; 4. Stoner; 5. Wickheiser; 6. Woliver; 7. McCullough; 8. Evans; 9. Allen, Captain; 10. Weldy; 11. Jones; 12. Fillman; 13. Driscoll; 14. Herrington; 15. Roedell.
1904 Joplin Miners
Sources: Historic Joplin Collection, Joplin Daily Globe
Recently, Joplin Museum Director Brad Belk chose to write briefly about Harry Francis Craft for the Joplin Globe. Craft was not the first nor last baseball manager to pass through Joplin either on the way to the Major Leagues or on their way after. Perhaps one of the earliest baseball managers was “Honest John” McCloskey.
McCloskey rolled into Joplin in 1887. 1887 was the year that the News Herald declared that Joplin finally decided to become serious about baseball. This resolve was put into effort by the construction of a baseball field at the end of a mule drawn trolley line on west 9th Street. The city advertised for players, apparently finding none at home who met their own criteria, and ended up hiring a number of players from the “Kerry Patch” area of St. Louis. At the same time, the paper noted, a boom in some eastern Kansas towns had led John McCloskey to managing in Arkansas City.
Successfully defeating the Kansas towns, McCloskey brought his team to Joplin and thrashed the hometown heroes. Henry Sapp, who had made money mining lead and later zinc, and had been a driving force behind the St. Louis hiring, quickly fired the team and promptly bought out McCloskey and his Arkansas City team. Victory followed for Joplin until summer came to an end and fall grew closer to winter. Eager to keep playing, McCloskey raised enough support among Joplin businessmen to fund a tour of Texas. Purportedly, the Joplin players may have been among the first to assume the title of “Joplin Miners” with the team name stitched on the front of their uniforms. In the process, the Joplin team defeated two national league teams traveling through the state, one from New York and the other from Cincinnati, and may have also contributed to the establishment of a Texas baseball league.
In the late 1890’s, McCloskey returned several times to Joplin to field a team. One team, the Giants, competed against the Bloomer Girls in 1898. A few years later, McCloskey found himself the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1906 to 1908. By his later years, the manager found himself without the success that had brought him a job in Joplin. Friends helped out McCloskey by contributing money to purchase the on and off again Joplin manager a home in Louisville, Kentucky.
Perhaps Joplin’s most successful baseball manager was Charles “Gabby” Street. Street was a son of Alabama and had a baseball career cut short by what Joplin newspaper man, Robert Hutchison called, “overindulgence in the bottled stuff.” Hutchison counted Street a friend and met with him and others every weekday morning during the off season to share their passion for the sport. One of the other regulars was Joe Becker, namesake of Joplin’s Joe Becker Stadium. Hutchison noted that Street earned the most fame as a player for catching a ball “thrown” from the top of the Washington Monument and as the catcher for Walter Johnson, a fellow teammate on the Washington Senators.
Street managed the Joplin Miners from 1922 to 1923, the former season being the one where the Miners won the Western Association championship. The success in Joplin lead him away from the city, but he later returned to make a home and to invest in real estate. He kept this home, according to Hutchison, before his major league appointment as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. At the Cards, Street managed from 1929 to 1933, taking the team to the World Series twice. Hutchison aptly described the two trips, “His Redbirds lost the 1930 World Series to Sly Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics, four games to two. They met again the next year and the famed Gas House Gang ripped up the basepaths for a victory in seven hard fought contests.”
The World Series pennant was the highlight of Street’s career. Soon after he was let go from the Cardinals and only returned to the show one last time to manage a losing St. Louis Browns. As Hutchison then recalls, “Gabby came home to stay.” Later on, Street did return to St. Louis, but to provide color commentary for the Cardinals instead of coaching. At this time, a future radio commentator worked with him, Harry Caray. When Street passed away, he was buried in Mount Hope cemetery along with many of the other notable names in Joplin’s past. West 26th Street is named after the baseball coach, who likely will be remembered as the most successful of the baseball managers to find their way to Joplin.
Sources: Joplin News Herald, Robert L. Hutchison’s “Deadlines, Doxies & Demagogues,” and Baseball-reference.com.
We previously discussed the emergence of Joplin’s first professional baseball team, the Colts who soon after became the Miners. After some research, we uncovered what appears to be the schedule for the team that season in the Missouri Valley League.
For a larger version click on the photograph
In the earlier post, we offered a team photo from that year. To keep things fresh, we’ve added a photograph of the 1904 team. A glance between the supplied rosters for the teams reveals some old faces and some new.
1904 Joplin Miners
Sources: Joplin News Herald, Historic Joplin Collection
Previously, Historic Joplin has mentioned one African-American baseball team in Joplin’s past, the Joplin Shadies of the 1890’s. This was not the only organized black baseball team, and perhaps it was the successor to a team that played for about half a century.
The Joplin Night Owls of 1910 were considered a championship team of Southwest Missouri. The year before the team had won twenty-six of twenty-eight games, losing only two. Not supported as the Joplin Miners, the Night Owls were forced to practice at the cemetery grounds of South Joplin. Though, an article that year reported an expectation that at some point the team would be able to practice in the “old” Miners Park. The same article announced the manager as Lindley. One of the first games of the season was to be in St. Louis against the Grays, likely the Murdock Grays, who later became the Homestead Grays (a noted Negro League team).
Sources: Joplin News Herald and Negro League Baseball Players Association.
