Youngstown Ohio Works
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The Youngstown Ohio Works baseball team was one of scores of minor league clubs that appeared in Ohio and Pennsylvania in the early 20th century. The Ohio Works team, which served as a training ground for players and officials who later established themselves in major league baseball, won the premiere championship of the Ohio-Pennsylvania League.[1]
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[edit] Formation and league championship
The Ohio Works team was organized in Youngstown, Ohio, as early as 1903, under the sponsorship of local industrialist Joseph McDonald. In 1905, the club joined the Class C Division Ohio-Pennsylvania League. Records suggest that the name, "Youngstown Ohio Works", became officially associated with the club at that time.[2] From the outset, the Youngstown-based ball club was managed by ex-major leaguer Marty Hogan, a former outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Browns.[3]
In September 1905, Hogan led the Youngstown Ohio Works to the league championship, though sources disagree on the club'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 list a 90-35 record. The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (1993) tells a third story, giving Youngstown an 88-35 mark".[4] In the wake of this achievement, the team became popularly known as "the Champs",[5] though this name would not be officially associated with a Youngstown-based ball club until 1907.[6]
Early in the 1906 season, as the Youngstown club prepared to meet the rival Zanesville (Ohio) Moguls, manager Hogan expressed confidence about his team's prospects of winning the league pennant. "If the boys go through the season as they are playing now, we will have no trouble winning out", he said to a reporter with The Youngstown Daily Vindicator. "Our pitchers are in good condition and are holding the opposing batsmen to few hits. It is the pitching staff that has saved many a game for us. We have no .350 batters on the club, but any man on it is liable to step in and break up a game".[7] The manager's confidence was evidently well placed. According to an article that appeared in the Youngstown Daily Vindicator in October 1906, the Ohio Works team won three "state pennants" under Hogan's leadership.[8]
[edit] Dissolution
Disagreements over funding, however, culminated in the club's sale and relocation in early 1907. An article published in the Zanesville Signal on February 19, 1907, reported that Hogan received permission from "the Messrs. McDonald" to negotiate a $3,000 deal for the sale of the team (including its players) to a group of Zanesville investors. In the same article, Hogan was quoted as saying, "Youngstown couldn't or didn't raise enough money to cover a sparrow's blanket".[9]
Hogan's anger arose from the fact that he had turned down an offer to manage a ball club in Nashville, Tennessee, in the wake of a verbal agreement with Joseph McDonald and his brother.[10] It appears that the McDonald brothers presented final terms that fell short of that earlier agreement. This interpretation is supported by comments published in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator almost a week later. When Hogan was asked why he did not plan to manage the Youngstown ball club in the 1907 season, he reportedly replied, "I'm the man who got the short end of the deal and I do not intend to stand for it".[11] (The story must have been published some time after the interview, because no reference was made to the club's sale.)
The former Ohio Works manager wasn't alone in suggesting that Joseph McDonald employed "unsportsmanlike tactics".[12] According to a later newspaper account, McDonald had taken deliberate steps to replace the "amateur" Ohio Works team with a more seasoned club from Homestead, Pennsylvania,[13] which became officially known as the "Youngstown Champs".[14] It seems unlikely that Hogan would have considered cooperating in such a scheme. While newspaper reports paint him as a taskmaster who "handled his men without gloves when the occasion required", they also suggest he was loyal to his players.[15] McDonald's reported strategy, which may have been a factor in his rift with Hogan, also angered Youngstown baseball fans. The local media highlighted the Champs' unexpected loss to the amateur Rayen Athletics in 1907.[16]
On November 6, 1912, The Youngstown Daily Vindicator reported that Hogan (fresh from stints as a manager in Zanesville and Lancaster, Pennsylvania) was likely to once again manage a local ball club.[17] Further research will be required to confirm the outcome of this development.
[edit] Legacy
The Youngstown Ohio Works is often remembered for its role in launching the career of Hall of Fame umpire Billy Evans. On September 1, 1903, Evans, a reporter at The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, was assigned to cover a game between the Ohio Works and the Homestead (Pennsylvania) Library Athletic Club in Youngstown. Club manager Hogan offered Evans $15 to fill an umpire vacancy. (In 1905, Evans received another career boost from Youngstown native Jimmy McAleer, who recommended Evans to the American League.)[18]
Overall, the Ohio Works team would prove to be just one chapter in Youngstown's rich history of amateur and minor league baseball. For decades, the community hosted the National Amateur Baseball Federation championship. Significantly, NABF officials praised Youngstown's sports establishment in 1946 for the pristine condition of the community's sandlot baseball diamonds, which were regarded as among the best in the country.[19]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,412,5,0
- ^ Peter Filchia, Professional Baseball Franchises: From the Abbeville Athletics to the Zanesville Indians (New York: Facts on File, 1993), p. 258.
- ^ The Hogan-Cullinan Family Collection, Mahoning Valley Historical Society, Youngstown, Ohio.
- ^ http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,412,5,0
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, June 19, 1906
- ^ Peter Filchia, Professional Baseball Franchises: From the Abbeville Athletics to the Zanesville Indians (New York: Facts on File, 1993), p. 258.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, June 19, 1906.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, Oct. 14, 1906.
- ^ The Zanesville Signal, Zanesville, Ohio, February 19, 1907.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, October 10, 1906.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, Feb. 24, 1907.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, May 2, 1920.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, May 2, 1920.
- ^ Peter Filchia, Professional Baseball Franchises: From the Abbeville Athletics to the Zanesville Indians (New York: Facts on File, 1993), p. 258.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, Oct. 14, 1906.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, May 2, 1920.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, Nov. 6, 1912.
- ^ The Valley Voice, Youngstown, Ohio, July 1-7, 2005.
- ^ The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, Sept. 16, 1946.
