But he wanted to get in. He wanted to be urbane and careless. He wanted to wear well-cut clothes. He wanted to be a gentleman.-- Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel Part 1Who Was W.M. Matthews? Mississippi State University – then Mississippi A&M College – entered...

Here’s what I want. I notice you changed your name. I want you to keep your new name. I guess you made up someplace you came from – well, that’s where you came from… You figure you died and now you’re somebody else and we’ll get along fine. -- John Steinbeck, East of...

 He was surrounded by a world that was both beautiful and terrifying, a land of secrets and shadows, where the line between civilization and savagery was thin and easily crossed--Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim Part 3Guy Town Miss Blanche Dumont became a sex worker in Austin,...

On Friday, September 2, the Beaumont Millionaires of the Class C South Texas League closed out their 1904 season with an 8-5 win over the Houston Wanderers, known as the Mud Cats, a team that had gone belly-up nearly a decade before. Thirteen fans witnessed the game....

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...