One of my favorite baseball stories comes out of Baseball's World Tour 1913-14.
After the 1913 season came to a close, portions of the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox baseball clubs, plus other invited players, set out across the US, playing each other in games that began in Cincinnati, Ohio and ended in Portland, Oregon (the games scheduled in Tacoma and Seattle were rained out...) before departing from Victoria, British Columbia for points east.
But my story does not take place in some exotic overseas locale, it happens in Oxnard, California...
Giants outfielder, Fred Snodgrass, resident of Ventura, invited his teammates to stop, en-route from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and play one game in the ballpark on the corner of Wooley Road and E Street, in the neighboring town of Oxnard. It is not clear how the residents discovered that Philadelphia Phillie third baseman, Hans Lobert, a player noted for his speed on the base-paths, would be a part of the New York Giant team for this tour. But once they did find out—a plan was hatched that would not only add money to their coffers, while providing extra entertainment for the crowd, but it also might assure that a large passel of cowboys, who loved a gamble more than the game, would come and watch baseball.
Thanks to Lawrence Ritter's THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES (audio book) you now have an opportunity to spend this 100th Anniversary listening to my favorite story from the lips of Hans--John B. Lobert ("Little" Honus)—himself... Just click below:
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After the 1913 season came to a close, portions of the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox baseball clubs, plus other invited players, set out across the US, playing each other in games that began in Cincinnati, Ohio and ended in Portland, Oregon (the games scheduled in Tacoma and Seattle were rained out...) before departing from Victoria, British Columbia for points east.
But my story does not take place in some exotic overseas locale, it happens in Oxnard, California...
Giants outfielder, Fred Snodgrass, resident of Ventura, invited his teammates to stop, en-route from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and play one game in the ballpark on the corner of Wooley Road and E Street, in the neighboring town of Oxnard. It is not clear how the residents discovered that Philadelphia Phillie third baseman, Hans Lobert, a player noted for his speed on the base-paths, would be a part of the New York Giant team for this tour. But once they did find out—a plan was hatched that would not only add money to their coffers, while providing extra entertainment for the crowd, but it also might assure that a large passel of cowboys, who loved a gamble more than the game, would come and watch baseball.
Thanks to Lawrence Ritter's THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES (audio book) you now have an opportunity to spend this 100th Anniversary listening to my favorite story from the lips of Hans--John B. Lobert ("Little" Honus)—himself... Just click below:
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