Are you blind? Where do you think you are? In a cow-pasture?-- Thomas Wolfe, A Portrait of Bascom Hawke The cash-poor lower leagues of the South assigned a single umpire to each game. Most worked behind the plate until a runner reached base, then took a position...

Charles Philip Durmeyer, Jr. was born in New Orleans on August 29, 1889. His father, Charles Durmeyer, Sr., was a butcher with a few seasons of minor league ball to his credit. Charles Sr. gave up the professional game when his son was born but continued to play...

And is there anything that can tell more about an American summer than, say, the smell of the wooden bleachers in a small-town baseball park, that resinous, sultry, and exciting smell of old dry wood.– Thomas Wolfe, letter to Arthur Mann, 1938 Captain W.T. Crawford...

Table of Contents (click chapter title to view post) ForewordThe Name on the Base The Jack Corbett Hollywood Base appears today on every Major League Baseball diamond. Does a player ever look down at a base and think, “Jack Corbett? Who the heck was Jack Corbett?”...

Jack Corbett's best friend is Jack Corbett; his ideal, Jack Corbett; his criterion, Jack Corbett; and his hero, Jack Corbett.– Winston-Salem Twin-City Daily Sentinel, March 11, 1916 It has been said that we must judge a man by the enemies he makes. Corbett has plenty...

Once more baseball is here. In every city and hamlet in the land eager “fans” can hardly wait for the results of the day’s games. On every vacant lot in the United States future baseball stars are quarreling over the weighty decisions of a young umpire. With...

What I may conclude to do in the future it is hard to say, and if I return again to my first love, baseball, it will not be as a player, but whatever I may be or whatever I may do I shall still strive to merit the approval and good will of my friends - God bless...

Chicago, when the wind from the West set in, had an unmistakable odor of burning pork.-- Thomas Wolfe, Oktoberfest Between the 1885 and 1886 seasons, Cap Anson starred in a touring play called A Runaway Colt, a farce written by Charles H. Hoyt, who died insane in...

Chicago White Sox of 1906 The American League’s Chicago White Sox, known as the Hitless Wonders, upset the National League’s Chicago Cubs, featuring Tinker to Evers to Chance, in the 1906 World Series. The White Sox celebrated their victory on Tuesday, May 14, 1907,...

Something fishy took place in the Class D Carolina Association in 1912. The Charlotte Hornets were probably throwing games, losing intentionally for reasons unknown. The sports editors of the newspapers that covered the Carolina Association dropped hints of rotten...