Lou Gehrig in Asbury Park

Lou Gehrig, 1927, Asbury Park, N.J. (Personal collection)

A couple of years ago, I came across this photo on eBay. It's small -- maybe about 2x3 inches -- pasted to a blank postcard. On the back, in pencil, it says, "Lou Gehrig and [illegible] 1927 Ashbury Pk." The illegible name looks like Janu, but it could be anything. I suspect it might be the man in the dark suit directly behind Lou.

It was taken outside the Berkeley-Carteret Hotel the day Lou and Babe Ruth came through with their barnstorming tour in October 1927.

The game was delayed an hour because William Truby, the promoter, failed to produce the $2,500 cashier's check that he had promised. Walsh always demanded money up-front, with paydays ranging from $1,000 to $2,500, depending on the size of the town and the expected crowd. If receipts from ticket sales went beyond a predetermined level, he and his players would also receive a percentage of the gate. When a local politician offered to write a personal check for the $2,500 so that the game might begin, Walsh rejected it, saying only a cashier's check would do. He and Gehrig and Ruth went to the Berkeley-Carteret Hotel to wait. When the cashier's check finally arrived, Gehrig pulled a cardigan sweater over his baseball jersey, tucked his mitt under his left arm, and walked out of the hotel into the afternoon sun. Outside, cars were waiting to drive the men to the ballpark.

-- Jonathan Eig, Luckiest Man, p. 110

It's quite the record of one day in a legend's life, when he came to New Jersey.

The 2013 HOF Pre-Integration ballot

The Hall of Fame unveiled the 2013 Pre-Integration Era ballot over the weekend, and it includes a New Jersey connection: Jacob Ruppert -- known as the Yankees owner who acquired Babe Ruth -- is also the man for whom Newark's Ruppert Stadium was named.

The Yankees owned the Newark Bears from 1931-47 (when they moved the franchise to Springfield, Mass.), and Ruppert's name was put on the stadium in 1934. It previously had been Davids Stadium and Bears Stadium. Should Ruppert be elected, the glory days of Newark baseball will be well-represented in Cooperstown (beyond the star players who suited up for the Bears and other teams), after the election of former Newark Eagles owner Effa Manley in 2006.

As for the annual player ballot -- you may have heard of it, what with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, Curt Schilling and Craig Biggio eligible for the first time -- an announcement is expected at the end of the month, and any candidates selected for enshrinement will be revealed in early January.

Coming soon: The Ballad of Rupert Mills

This is Rupert Mills, New Jersey born and Notre Dame educated. A four-sport letterman -- hence the basketball uniform -- and the last man to play in the short-lived Federal League (1914-15), he was the only Garden Stater on the Newark Peps. Mills made news in 1916 when, after the league had folded, he refused to be reassigned and, putting his Notre Dame law degree to work, insisted on being paid his $3,000 salary. It made for an interesting scenario in which he was the last -- and only -- player in the Federal League in 1916.

I post this because on this day 83 years ago, Mills passed away at 36, a hero for saving a friend's life, but losing his in the process. I had intended to prepare a full story about him to post today, but I've hit a snag in my research (involving unreturned phone calls), so it's not ready yet. I didn't want this anniversary to pass, so consider this a placeholder and a preview.

Larry Doby gets a stamp!

This came out a week ago, but I've been quite busy and never got around to writing anything. And now that a hurricane is bearing down on us and I don't know when I'll have power and internet again after Sunday, I figured I don't have the luxury of composing a more elaborate post.

So here it is, the Larry Doby stamp that will be put into circulation next summer, along with three or four other prominent ballplayers (Joe DiMaggio and Willie Stargell have also been announced). I'm definitely getting these, and keeping one sheet for myself. They're quite sharp, I must say.

Finding Frank Grant

Every week I seem to come across another connection between New Jersey and baseball's past, sometimes a significant part of it or something that should be more well known than it is. The most recent find goes back to a Hall of Famer from the 19th Century -- and the game's segregated practices.

This spring, the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project installed a stone on the previously unmarked resting place of Ulysses Franklin Grant, better known as Frank Grant -- perhaps the greatest black player of the 1800s. Born in Massachusetts, Grant died in New York City in 1937, but when pallbearers Sol White, Smokey Joe Williams and Nux James laid him to rest, it was at East Ridgelawn Cemetery in Clifton, N.J. The cemetery is not even 10 minutes from my house, so I took a drive over there.

Why Grant was buried in New Jersey is a mystery. He was poor, and so there was no headstone, but despite the lack of a marker, the location was preserved in cemetery records: Section 14, Block B, Row E, Number 6. And though articles written about Grant in 2006, when he was part of the Hall of Fame's largest induction class to date, said his grave would never be marked, that changed this year when Jeremy Krock and his group delivered the headstone. I don't know if it was a change of heart or a change in policy, but it's a welcome change. A player of Grant's historical signifigance should be honored and remembered with a headstone, at the very least.

From 1886-91, Grant played in integrated professional leagues in the Northeast. From Meriden, Ct., to Buffalo to Trenton to Harrisburg to Ansonia, Ct., Grant played (occassionally with Sol White as a teammate) in the Eastern League, International League (and later International Association), Middle States League, Eastern Interstate League, Atlantic Association and Connecticut State League. He was one of a handful of black players suiting up for white teams before segregation was more strictly practiced. In researching Grant's life, I found it interesting that once the International League forced Buffalo to cut ties with Grant, segregation became the norm, and when Jackie Robinson re-integrated what is referred to as Organized Baseball in 1946, he did so in the International League. In fact there may be a direct connection between Grant and Robinson from 1890, when Grant's Harrisburg Ponies may have come to Newark and Jersey City in Atlantic Association play, to 1946, when Robinson's Montreal Royals opened the season at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. During the intervening 56 years, it may be that no black player suited up for an otherwise "white" team in a "white" or "Organized Baseball" league in New Jersey. (Grant, for one, did play in New Jersey often over the next two decades on all-black teams, either against other black clubs or in exhibition games against white teams.)

But that's just speculation. The full, detailed, day-by-day history of "outsider baseball," as writer and historian Scott Simkus refers to the players who weren't part of the Organized Baseball structure, may never be known because of the lack of records and contemporary coverage remaining today. But that doesn't mean we can't try, and Simkus and Gary Ashwell are among those doing noble work in digging up newspaper archives and other sources to put the pieces together. For a very detailed look at Grant's life, check out Brian McKenna's profile at SABR's Baseball Biography Project. Official MLB historian John Thorn also has two informative posts about Grant, one from 2006 and another from earlier this year. Each one goes into much more detail than I could hope to, at least not without several weeks of research or citing every sentence with a link back to their posts. (And for more on the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project, here is a recent Chicago Tribune story and a New York Times article from last year that take a closer look at what Krock and his colleagues have done.)

Grant now rests in a quiet corner at East Ridgelawn, an 80-acre cemetery bordered by busy roads and divided by lanes allowing visitors to drive through the grounds. A large oak tree towers over the east end of Section 14, not far from a fence running along Fenlon Blvd. I wondered if the neighbors across the street knew of the famous ballplayer here beneath the lawn. Based on the photo accompanying a local story, I set out looking for a flat marker decorated with American flags. It didn't take me long to spot them across the undulating grounds, waving in the breeze. Dried, yellow grass from a recent mowing covered half of the inscription, but otherwise the stone looked new, but not fresh -- like it had been there for a few years, not a few months. I brushed the crusty blades of grass from the surface and took some pictures.

Other plots in the vicinity have headstones, but nothing within a few feet of Grant's grave. Though he must have "next-door neighbors" there, they lie in still-unmarked graves. I stood there a while wondering what the area looked like in 1937 and how it came to be Grant's final resting place. What did Sol White -- who died in 1955 and is buried on Staten Island -- and Smokey Joe Williams think of bringing their former teammate (in White's case) and friend to the Garden State?

As I walked back to my car, I figured I'll check in on Grant every so often, just to make sure he's not forgotten anymore and that Krock's efforts to have Grant's gravesite recognized are appreciated.

He could throw that speedball by you

Photo is mine; funky effects with the help of Piknik

Yesterday's New York Times had a splendid article about the old friend -- that "speedball" pitcher -- who appears in the opening of Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days." It's exactly as it sounds -- Bruce was walking into a bar -- the Headliner in Neptune -- as the old teammate, Joe DePugh, was walking out. They recognized one another and headed inside to catch up over drinks. That the lyrics are so true to the story, that the old creed, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend," doesn't even apply; the legend is fact, no embellishment needed.

It's a great story dug up by Kevin Coyne, himself from Freehold at the same time as Springsteen -- and those connections and relationships are what allowed him to put the pieces together and talk to those who knew, particularly DePugh himself. I've always enjoyed Coyne's writing and ability to tell a story, but I'm a little biased -- he "embedded" himself in the student body at Notre Dame shortly before I went there, and the resulting book came out during my sophomore year. He's also written about black baseball in New Jersey in general and Atlantic City in particular, the still-in-limbo Bergen CliffHawks, veteran baseball reporter Ed Lucas, the lack of space for baseball in Jersey City and a brief essay on summer among his baseball -- and my favorite -- pieces. Add this one to the list.

I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was


Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days

-- BruceSpringsteen.net

Helping the Yogi Berra Museum (and myself)

While flipping through Google Reader last night, I came across a post mentioning a rummage sale of sorts at the Yogi Berra Museum at Montclair State. My first thought was, Cool! Glad I checked this post. The second thought was surprise that I hadn't heard about it sooner. (A third, momentary thought was disappointment that I'd not seen it in time to stop by yesterday, but more on that in a moment.)

Were it not for my news alert for the museum on Google, I would've missed it altogether. Our local weekly newspaper, which often has announcements of appearances and programs at the museum, had no mention of it. The only outlets that had it were the previously linked Montclair blog Baristanet and the hyper-local community site Patch.com.

Curious to see what the museum would be selling off, I stopped by this afternoon. On tables set up in the new atrium were photos from former museum displays, a few posters and banners and boxes of assorted Yankees baseball cards (sold in plastic cases of 25, most had  a recent Mariano Rivera showing on one side and an older card -- as old as a 1976 Catfish Hunter and as recent as a 2003 Jason Giambi -- on the other side, though many of the older cards were recent Topps Heritage reprints). Most of what was left was priced from $10-20, and I overheard a teenage employee or volunteer say that they had a lot of good stuff out yesterday. But not wanting to spend too much money, I was happy to have missed yesterday's expanded -- and likely more tempting -- selection.

There were only six of us there when I stopped in: two middle-aged men browsing as I was; the teenaged boy and another employee/volunteer, a middle-aged woman who stood talking with the sixth person, a woman older than she who I quickly recognized as Carmen Berra, Yogi's wife. With Yogi down in Spring Training, I guess she figured she'd stop by to see how the sale was going.

After eyeing the tables of museum-mounted photos -- many showing Yogi in various stages of his life and career, from young St. Louis sandlot player to Yankee rookie to veteran to Mets coach -- I settled on two items and passed on two others. I left behind a black-and-white photo of Paterson-raised Larry Doby in his Newark Eagles uniform ($20; similar to this photo, if not actually that photo -- unsigned, of course) because it was really heavy. Many of the photos from displays were on thick, metal slabs with wide mounting braces on the back, meaning the whole setup weighed several pounds. And because I want to display these things in my basement, with its thin paneled walls, I didn't want to have to deal with hanging too many of them. Next to Doby's photo was the famous one of Bill Mazeroski reaching the plate after his 1960 World Series-winning home run (also $20). Had I seen an image of Yogi in his Newark Bears uniform, I probably would've extended my budget.

The two purchases I did make, each for $10, were of players with New Jersey roots. The first is this 13 5/8-by-9 1/2-inch printout of Doby's 1958 Topps card. Born in South Carolina, Doby grew up in Paterson, played for the Eagles (after a tryout at Paterson's Hinchliffe Stadium) and became the first black player in the American League when he debuted with the Indians three months after Jackie Robinson did with the Dodgers. The image is a paper printout on a foam mount. There's a minor blemish -- it looks like there may have once been a description or something else taped to it -- on his cap, but that doesn't bother me.

For my second item, I did choose one of those heavy, metal-mounted and braced museum display photos. It depicts King Kelly, a Hall of Famer from the 19th Century who played for the Cincinnati Reds, Chicago White Stockings (later the Cubs), Boston Beaneaters (later the Braves) and New York Giants. He was a teammate of Cap Anson on those Chicago clubs and last August was inducted into the Irish-American Baseball Hall of Fame at Foley's NY Bar and Restaurant in New York.

The text reads: "One of four boys from Paterson, NJ to reach the major leagues together, Hall of Fame catcher/outfielder 'King Kelly' was the nation's No. 1 baseball idol in the 1880s." Measuring 13 5/8 inches by 9 inches, it is a heavy item, so I'll probably display it on one of the shelves set in the walls rather than try to hang it. Kelly was born in Troy, N.Y., but grew up in Paterson, playing for some of the semi-pro teams in the city before becoming a full-fledged professional. I bought the photo because of Kelly's New Jersey connection -- and his fabulous mustache. It's a familiar photo, found often, including on his Baseball-Reference page.

So there we go: Building my New Jersey baseball archive piece-by-piece, never knowing where the next thing will come from.

Those pesky Skeeters are back

It was considered a stretch when the South Atlantic League expanded northward into Lakewood, N.J. Then the Sally League went westward, adding Bowling Green, Ky., and Eastlake, Ohio, to the circut. Those clubs have since shifted to the Midwest League, a better fit for sure.

But now, with some upheaval among the independent league ranks, comes word of a new Atlantic League franchise in ... Sugar Land, Texas. I'm not going to get into the geography now, though.

Brought to my attention by the aptly named Paul from Paul's Random Stuff, the new club announced its nickname yesterday: the Skeeters. And now I'm torn. I love when teams come up with unique names, rather than recycling or sharing names. And it's even better when it's not something awkward or forced, like IronPigs or RailCats.

My hesitation comes from the fact that it's not the first time a team has been called the Skeeters. The original three incarnations played in Jersey City from 1887 to 1933. The 1903 club was one of the best ever. Check out this great old photo from shortly after that season. In 1920, the Skeeters lost to an Akron team that featured Jim Thorpe.

The Jersey City Skeeters actually still exist, though not as a professional minor league team. Be sure to read this great story about David Kerans' effort to keep vintage baseball alive in the Garden State. (I really should get in touch with that guy.)

It would have been nice to see the Skeeters reincarnated as a professional team in New Jersey, to keep such a great nickname here. It appears that today's Gwinnett Braves are the descendants of the Jersey City Skeeters (this entry on the International League's Miami Marlins, 1956-60, shows the lineage the best, but as a rule I don't trust Wikipedia as a primary source). Pending further research to confirm, we'll operate under the assumption that the Skeeters left Jersey City after the '33 season (when the Great Depression caused many teams and leagues to fold) for Syracuse, where they became the original Chiefs. In 1955, the club moved to Miami; then on to San Juan (for a month); Charleston, W.V.; and Atlanta, where they were the Crackers. When the Braves arrived in 1966, the Crackers decamped to Richmond and played as the R-Braves through the 2008 season, after which they moved back to Georgia, to Gwinnett County.

But it's highly unlikely that the Gwinnett club holds any rights to the Skeeters nickname, so it was there for Sugar Land to adopt. On a trademark-related note, back in January 2006, when the Sussex Skyhawks were holding a name-the-team contest, I posted some suggestions on my short-lived NJ.com minor league blog. One of them was the Sussex (or Augusta) Highlanders, a name that would fit the Skylands region, would touch on the history of the New York Highlanders and would be theirs for the taking so long as the Yankees didn't have the trademark on the name. Two months later, a college friend who works in copyright law did a little research and discovered that the Yankees had in fact trademarked the Highlanders name -- after I'd written that post.

So the Skeeters name was likely out there to be had, and Sugar Land got it. Congratulations, Texas. Wear it well.

The Giants' Jersey roots

Something occurred to me on Monday night as I watched the Giants celebrate their first World Series championship since moving to San Francisco. I looked over at my blue Jersey City Giants cap, the white "JC" outlined in red, and thought about the two minor league affiliates that used to play in Trenton and Jersey City. (The photo at right shows Hall of Famer Gabby Hartnett and his son in 1944. Hartnett managed the Jersey City Giants from 1943-45.) I then realized that the last five World Series winners all have or had minor-league ties to the Garden State:

• The Yankees' double-A affiliate is currently the Trenton Thunder.
• The Phillies' low-Class A affiliate is currently the Lakewood BlueClaws.
• The Red Sox' double-A affiliate used to be the Trenton Thunder.
• The Cardinals' short-season affiliate used to be the New Jersey Cardinals.

The Giants' connection isn't solely from the '40s, however, because their starting second baseman, Freddy Sanchez, played for the Thunder back when he was a shortstop in Boston's system. In fact, each of these past five champions have had significant contributions from someone who spent a season in New Jersey on his way to a World Series ring: Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano (2003-04 with Trenton); Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz (2001 with Lakewood), first baseman Ryan Howard (2002 with Lakewood) and World Series MVP Cole Hamels (2003 with Lakewood); Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis (44 games with Trenton in 2002) and Cardinals shortstop and World Series MVP David Eckstein (1999 with Trenton).

But the Giants may have the earliest New Jersey connection of any World Series champion (aside from the fact that the entire game itself was born in Hoboken): they held spring training in Lakewood back in 1897. I had known that they trained on John D. Rockefeller's Lakewood estate from 1943-45, when teams were restricted in their travel during World War II. But in searching for some articles on that, I came across a few in the New York Times archive describing the club's 1897 preseason preparations. I've included one here as an example.

New Jersey may not have a Major League team of its own, but it continues to make significant contributions to the game 164 years after its birth on the bluffs overlooking the Hudson.

When the Yankees flirted with New Jersey

In a weird coincidence on Tuesday, I found myself reading early in No Minor Accomplishment, Bob Golon's account of baseball's revival in New Jersey beginning in 1994, about the Yankees' flirtation with moving to the Meadowlands. On the day George Steinbrenner died, it was interesting that I'd reach this passage:

... Meanwhile, the once-mighty Yankees fell upon some hard times at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Questionable player deals and numerous managerial changes taxed the patience of even the most dedicated Yankees fans, and empty seats became a common sight at Yankee Stadium. The front office attributed the lack of attendance to the Bronx neighborhood itself. People didn't feel safe coming to the Bronx, claimed Yankees executives, and even those who did were being turned off by the constant traffic delays due to the outdated highways leading to and from Yankee Stadium. The Yankees told anyone who would listen that they were in need of a new ballpark and would consider alternative locations in the New York City area if a deal could be struck.

New Jersey governor Kean, with the backing of the Sports and Exposition Authority and state business and labor leaders, placed a $185 million stadium bond issue on the ballot in 1987. If the bond issue passed, the state would have the funding to build a 45,000-seat baseball stadium in Lyndhurst, adjacent to the Meadowlands complex. A commitment for a team to relocate to the new stadium had to be in place prior to construction, and many thought that the Yankees would be that team. The bond issue's supporters claimed that major-league baseball would create thousands of jobs in Bergen County and be a positive stimulus to the New Jersey economy. The opponents of the bond issue thought it was a risky proposition. Attendance at games could not be guaranteed, and a realistic cost assessment of a new ballpark was in the neighborhood of $400 million. A "north-south" theme also developed within New Jersey, with many residents in the southern part of the state complaining that all of the major Sports and Exposition Authority projects benefited only northern New Jersey. Opposition to the plan increased, and despite the political backing, the voters defeated the bond issue by a two-to-one margin. The Yankees never officially committed to New Jersey, and whether they would have moved or not is simply conjecture. One New Jersey official very close to the negotiations with the Yankees was Robert Mulcahy, currently the athletic director of Rutgers University who was the longtime president and CEO of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. Mulcahy recalled that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had genuine interest in the Meadowlands site. "We had very serious conversations that included layouts of what the stadium might be. George made some helicopter flights over the sites that we had either adjacent to or on the Meadowlands, frankly his attraction was to the Meadowlands because he felt it was the symbol of success. So, how close it ever got? You know, it's hard to know when people would pull a trigger on something like that, but I can say that we had some very serious discussions about it." Unfortunately, Mulcahy and New Jersey never got the opportunity to present a firm plan of financing to the Yankees once the bond issue was defeated. The idea of building a major-league baseball stadium in New Jersey died along with the referendum.

Though, I'm sure they would've still been called the New York Yankees. But even then, when I thought that having a Major League team in New Jersey was probably the coolest thing that could happen, I wasn't sure I wanted it to be the Yankees, and not because I'm a Mets fan. I just couldn't see that team leaving its historic site in the Bronx, abandoning the House That Ruth Built and George Renovated.

Plus, I knew most Yankee fans -- pretty much all of those not living in New Jersey -- would be angry. And while some might blame the team and take it out on the organization by no longer attending games, I had the feeling that most of them would blame New Jersey for stealing the Yankees.