Marty Hogan

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Marty Hogan
Born October 25, 1869
Wednesbury, England
Died August 15, 1923
Youngstown, Ohio

Martin Francis Hogan (October 25, 1869 - August 15, 1923) was an Anglo-American right fielder in major league baseball who played for the Cincinnati Reds (1894) and St. Louis Browns (1894-1895). He participated in 40 games over two seasons as an outfielder,[1] and his obituary states that he once held a record for stolen bases.[2] Hogan later served as a minor league baseball manager in Ohio and Pennsylvania. An outstanding judge of talent, he was responsible for signing Stan Coveleski and Sam Jones to their first professional contracts.[3]

Contents

[edit] Early years

Hogan was born in the West Midlands industrial town of Wednesbury, Staffordshire. When he was still a child, his parents, both natives of Ireland, relocated the family from England to Youngstown, Ohio, a steel-production center near the Pennsylvania border.[4]

There, his father, Patrick J. Hogan, became a steelworker,[5] while his older brother, Patrick J. Hogan, Jr., worked his way up to the position of "roller" at the Union Steel Company (later consolidated with U.S. Steel).[6] Martin Hogan, on the other hand, moved steadily in the direction of an athletic career and gained early recognition as a "foot racer".[7]

During the next few decades, Hogan went on to establish a reputation not only as an athlete, but also as a handler and trainer of major league players.[8]

[edit] Major league career

The 1894 St. Louis Browns (Hogan in second row, second from left).
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The 1894 St. Louis Browns (Hogan in second row, second from left).

He began his career as a professional player with the Cincinnati Reds, on August 4, 1894, but played only six games before switching to the St. Louis Browns. By this time, St. Louis had already been frozen out of the league championship. (The team had been tied with Cleveland and Boston for first place in April of that year.)[9]

Hogan participated in 29 games with St. Louis in the 1894 season. According to the 1895 edition of Spalding's Official Baseball Guide, he ranked tenth among league outfielders with a percentage of .941 for put-outs, assists, and errors.[10] Among his teammates, Hogan held the second highest percentage of stolen bases for games played.[11] His obituary indicates that at some point, he held a league record for baserunning.[12]

For reasons that remain unclear, Hogan left the Browns at the close of the 1895 season and apparently ended his career as a major league player. He reportedly spent several years as a major league trainer before commencing upon his later career as a minor league manager.[13]

[edit] Minor league career

The Lancaster Red Roses (1909), with manager Hogan (standing fourth from right) and future HOF pitcher Stan Coveleski (standing left of Hogan).
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The Lancaster Red Roses (1909), with manager Hogan (standing fourth from right) and future HOF pitcher Stan Coveleski (standing left of Hogan).

In 1903, Hogan was hired as manager of the Youngstown Ohio Works, a ball club sponsored by Joseph McDonald, a prominent local industrialist. In May 1905, the club was one of eleven teams to join the Protective Association of Independent Clubs, which formed the basis of the Class C Division Ohio-Pennsylvania League. That September, the Youngstown Ohio Works won the league championship, though sources disagree on the team's final record. As baseball researcher John Zajc writes: "The Reach Guide (1906) credits Youngstown with an 84-32 won-lost record where the Spalding Guide of the same year lists a 90-35 record. The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (1993) tells a third story, giving Youngstown an 88-35 mark".[14]

A sports writer for The Youngstown Daily Vindicator predicted, in the autumn of 1906, that the "popular" Hogan would serve a fourth season as manager of the club.[15] The same article indicated that the young manager had already led the club to three state pennants. Hogan, however, seemed unwilling to negotiate the terms of a new contract without leverage and publicly mulled an offer presented by a team in Nashville, where "the southerners used all their persuasive powers in an effort to induce him to do so, even following him to the railway station".[16] A newspaper report indicates that Hogan, upon his return to Youngstown, reached a verbal agreement with Ohio Works co-owners Joseph McDonald and his brother, announcing afterwards that he would remain with the local ball club.[17]

By February 1907, however, the Zanesville Signal reported that Hogan had received permission from "the Messrs. McDonald" to negotiate a $3,000 deal for the sale of the Youngstown club (including its players) to a group of investors in Zanesville, Ohio.[18] The Zanesville investors had raised an additional $15,000 to enter the team into the Ohio-Pennsylvania League.[19] (They were refused and settled for the less prestigious Pennsylvania-Ohio-Maryland League.) In a front-page story in the Zanesville Signal, Hogan was quoted as saying that he was "glad to be in Zanesville", though he reportedly added, "Youngstown couldn't or didn't raise enough money to cover a sparrow's blanket".[20] This comment suggests that the McDonald brothers had failed to live up to their earlier agreement.

Hogan managed the Zanesville ball club for two seasons. In 1908, his final season, the team was christened as the Zanesville Infants and joined the Central League. During his years in Zanesville, Hogan maintained his reputation as an agressive recruiter of talent. In 1908, he secured an agreement from the management of the Chicago Cubs to turn over Curt Elston, an outfielder in the Ohio-Pennsylvania League, if the Cubs found no place for him. This particular bid proved unsuccessful.[21]

The following year, Hogan relocated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he replaced local ball club manager Clarence "Pop" Foster, who had managed the Red Roses since 1907.[22] In 1909, under Hogan's leadership, the Lancaster Red Roses secured 75 wins and sustained 39 losses,[23] winning their first pennant in the Tri-State League.[24] As the March 1910 edition of Spalding's Baseball Guide reported: "Lancaster, under manager Marty Hogan, won its first pennant in the league, and the top rung of the ladder was only gained by the hardest kind of fighting."[25] That summer, an evidently enthusiastic Hogan mailed a postcard to a Youngstown relative, P.E. Cullinan, which indicated that the Red Roses were "in the lead but fighting hard".[26] One of the team's standouts was a young Polish-American pitcher named Stan Coveleski. The following year, however, the Red Roses' performance fell short of the previous season, with 63 wins and 47 losses. And, in 1911, Hogan's last year as manager of the Lancaster team, the club "broke even", with 54 wins and losses, respectively.[27]

[edit] Final years

Marty Hogan (center), with nephews Edward (right) and Raymond (left), about 1912.
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Marty Hogan (center), with nephews Edward (right) and Raymond (left), about 1912.

The record of Hogan's career as a manager and trainer may be incomplete. In November of 1912, The Youngstown Daily Vindicator reported that Hogan was likely to once again manage the local minor league ball club. The article added that he was also considering an offer from Zanesville.[28]

Records indicate that, by the mid-1910s, Hogan had permanently resettled in Youngstown, where he helped to organize the Youngstown Gun Club and became athletic director of Thomas Field, a ballpark owned by the local Brier Hill Industrial Works.[29] (The Brier Hill park featured both baseball and trap shooting.) Meanwhile, Hogan gave his younger relatives the benefit of his celebrated training skills. One nephew, Edward J. Hogan, became a standout in track and field at the University of Notre Dame.[30]

Martin Francis Hogan was just 54 years old when he died at his North Side home from injuries sustained in an auto accident months earlier. Several blood transfusions failed to revive him, and a bout with pneumonia proved fatal. Funeral services for Hogan were held at St. Columba's Church, and he was buried at Youngstown's Calvary Cemetery. His wife, Agnes, survived him along with brother P.J. Hogan. A sister, Mrs. John Dillon, had died several years earlier. Hogan's obituary in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator highlighted his contributions to the community and observed that many young athletes he trained went on to careers in major league baseball.[31]

[edit] References

  1. ^ John Thorn et al, Total Baseball (New York: Warner Books, 1989), p. 1187.
  2. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.
  3. ^ http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=2264&bid=1194
  4. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.
  5. ^ The Youngstown Telegram, Youngstown, Ohio, July 16, 1909.
  6. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, Jan. 14, 1938.
  7. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.
  8. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.
  9. ^ Spalding's Official Athletic Library Baseball Guide (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1895), p. 14.
  10. ^ Spalding's Official Athletic Library Baseball Guide (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1895), p. 99.
  11. ^ Spalding's Official Athletic Library Baseball Guide (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1895), p. 114.
  12. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.
  13. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.
  14. ^ http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,412,5,0
  15. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, October 14, 1906.
  16. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, October 10, 1906.
  17. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, October 10, 1906.
  18. ^ The Zanesville Signal, Zanesville, Ohio, February 19, 1907.
  19. ^ Norris F. Schneider, Y Bridge City: The Story of Zanesville and Muskingham County, Ohio (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1950), p. 307.
  20. ^ The Zanesville Signal, Zanesville, Ohio, February 19, 1907.
  21. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, March 26, 1908.
  22. ^ http://www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/exhibitions/Baseball/baseball5.htm
  23. ^ http://www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/exhibitions/Baseball/baseball5.htm
  24. ^ Spalding's Official Athletic Library Baseball Guide (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1910), p. 181.
  25. ^ Spalding's Official Athletic Library Baseball Guide (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1910), p. 181.
  26. ^ The Hogan-Cullinan Family Collection, The Mahoning Valley Historical Society, Youngstown, Ohio.
  27. ^ http://www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/exhibitions/Baseball/baseball5.htm
  28. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, November 6, 1912.
  29. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.
  30. ^ The Hogan-Cullinan Family Collection, The Mahoning Valley Historical Society, Youngstown, Ohio.
  31. ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, August 17, 1923.

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