'SAME OLD SMOKIES'
A BRIEF HISTORY OF BASEBALL
IN KNOXVILLE TENNESSEE
1865 - 1954
by
Ronald R. Allen
The older generation of followers of baseball in Knoxville remember the original Smokies teams that played at Caswell Park's Smithson Stadium. They probably have heard about such earlier Knoxville teams as the Appalachians and the Pioneers, and if they've read articles about earlier Knoxville teams they perhaps have seen references to original teams such as the Knoxville's, the Holstons, and the Reds. It's less likely they've ever heard of such Knoxville baseball teams as the Condons, the Liebers, the Indians, the Chilhowees, the Independents, the Moonshiners, or the Orphans. Certainly, this writer had never heard of those congregations, until digging through old Knoxville newspaper records and completing the research for this compilation.
Over the years, articles have periodically appeared in Knoxville newspapers concerning the early history of baseball in the city. Generally, those writings were brief accounts, and did not (nor were they intended to) provide year-by-year information concerning the sport in Knoxville. In 1999, the Knoxville News-Sentinel published a series of articles about baseball in Knoxville, but those reports concerned only the teams that have existed since the Municipal Stadium was completed in 1954, and essentially ignored earlier Knoxville teams. In fact, those articles may have left some younger readers with the impression that the period since that stadium was constructed represent the only years baseball teams have represented Knoxville. In this work, I have chosen to include the time period from 1865 to 1954, not only to correct any such assumptions, but also because other than in newspaper accounts, little has been written about baseball in Knoxville during those years.
This is intended only to be a preliminary record of "Base Ball" in Knoxville from 1865 through 1954, and not a detailed history. Just as presented here, it has taken a considerable amount of time to wade through newspaper accounts for the years from 1865 to 1954, in the available microfilm reproductions of those publications, attempting to uncover this information for those ninety years or so. But the need for such research soon became evident, since shortly after beginning this project a few years ago I determined that it would be necessary to review at least portions of every year from those original sources, particularly for the earlier periods. The reason became clear when I soon discovered that the rather scant information regarding those years, contained in twentieth century newspaper articles, both old and modern -- and even information on some Internet sites today -- sometimes provide inaccurate information.
Knoxville's nineteenth century baseball teams did not play in organized leagues, thus no official "League" records are available for those years. For the most part, I have managed to determine the existence (and occasionally, the non-existence) of many of the baseball teams that have represented Knoxville during the years included here, both early amateur teams and later professional organizations. As already mentioned, it was not unusual to find that newspaper accounts, published years after the fact, sometimes include conflicting information. Even some relatively modern writings provide inaccurate information about Knoxville's baseball teams that were in existence as recently as the 1950's. Seemingly, some writers simply accept information in such articles as being accurate, and tend to sometimes repeat misinformation found in those earlier accounts, thus perpetuating such mistakes.
While the earliest teams were obviously amateur organizations, it is sometimes confusing as to whether some of the nineteenth century teams were considered to "professionals". Some of Knoxville's nineteenth century teams employed paid athletes, and admission was usually charged to the public to attend games. Teams that came to Knoxville to play the local team included those from such Tennessee cities including Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Greeneville, as well as teams from other states, including Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky. If nothing else, the travel expenses for those teams were often paid by the Knoxville baseball organizations, and sometimes a percentage of the gate, or a prearranged specified remuneration, was provided. Some of the early teams -- even when players were paid to play for Knoxville -- were nonetheless often referred to in local newspaper accounts as amateur teams.
For some of the years included here, I have mentioned other amateur baseball teams, including those that played in local baseball leagues. That information was not found through diligent searching, but often it was when the details happened to be staring me in the face when I was searching for information concerning the teams that represented Knoxville when playing against teams from other cities and states. Thus, serendipity has admittedly played a part in the periodic inclusion of that information here, and I have chosen sometimes to include that information, when the information was readily at hand. However, no detailed accounts of those teams and leagues is, nor was intended, to be included in this compilation.
During the years covered here, the following Knoxville teams won championships :
1867. State champions. Knoxville Holstons.
1879. Southern champions. Knoxville Reds.
1910. Southeastern League champions. Knoxville Appalachians.
1923. Appalachian League champions, Knoxville Pioneers.
1924. Appalachian League champions. Knoxville Pioneers.
1929. South Atlantic champions. Knoxville Smokies.
1950. Tri State League regular season champions. Knoxville Smokies.
Some sources record that the Knoxville Reds won the Appalachian League championship in 1913. Original newspaper accounts confirm that Knoxville won the second half of that year's season, and was scheduled to play a series of playoff games against the first half champion, Johnson City, for the title. However, the Knoxville team refused to go to Johnson City to complete the playoff series, and forfeited the championship to Johnson City. Also, the Knoxville Moonshiners were once leading the Tennessee Alabama League in 1904, but I have been unable to locate the final standings in that league.
The only time Knoxville was a member of a league but never won a championship was when they played in the Southern Association, when the Smokies franchise existed from mid-season 1931 to mid-season 1944. In that league, they had more opportunities, having played in that league longer a Knoxville team ever played in any other league, but never came close to winning the championship. African American baseball teams known to have represented Knoxville over the years have included the Lamar House Lightfoots, the Knoxville Lone Stars, the Whites, the Knoxville Giants, and the Knoxville Grays.
Information will be found here about the city's earliest teams, the multitude of places where Knoxville teams played their games, the changing of the location of playing fields from place to place (sometimes in relatively short time periods), and evidence of the lack of fan support for a number of those teams over the years, sometimes causing the abandonment of teams, and occasionally resulting in the removal of Knoxville teams to other cities.
This then is the story, albeit brief, of baseball in Knoxville, from 1865 until the completion of the new Municipal Stadium at Caswell Park. While complete accounts for each year are not always included, this provides what perhaps is the first look at much information that has not previously been recorded -- other than in original Knoxville newspaper accounts.
Ron Allen
CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter One The Dawn of baseball in Knoxville
Chapter Two The 1870's
Chapter Three The 1880's
Chapter Four The 1890's
Chapter Five 1900 - 1910
Chapter Six 1911-1919
Chapter Seven The 1920's
Chapter Eight The 1930's
Chapter Nine The 1940's
Chapter Ten The Final Years
Chapter Eleven Sites of Baseball Games in Knoxville
Final Notes
Chapter One
The Dawn of Baseball in Knoxville
The only available microfilm records for a Knoxville newspaper published in 1865 are those for Brownlow's Whig and Rebel Ventillator. Unfortunately, many of the reproductions of those newspapers were copied from extant originals that are worn and soiled, often being quite dark and difficult to read. From what I can decipher in those files, the majority of the content in 1865 consisted of political reports, advertising, and similar matters. Likely, publisher William G. "Parson" Brownlow had little interest in reporting news about such trivial matters as local baseball games in 1865. The Civil War had just ended, Brownlow began his term as Governor of Tennessee that year, and he was probably more concerned with the turmoil that existed in the state during early reconstruction days, and understandably had more important things on his plate. In any event, no reports of baseball games in Knoxville have been found in that publication for 1865. Articles that appeared in local newspapers many years later seem to provide the only available accounts of the sport that year, and are the basis for the information included here concerning baseball in Knoxville that year. Those accounts, recalled by those who participated in those early baseball games, were reminiscences that were reported more than fifty-five years later, and provide information that today can only be assumed to have been entirely accurate. That cautionary statement is made because of some questions that arise when reading the statements of those original participants, many years later, in one of those accounts of Knoxville's earliest teams and games, "Early Baseball in Knoxville" in the Knoxville Sentinel, on November 24, 1921 (hereafter referred to as "Baseball, 1921".) Comparing some of those statements with the contemporary newspaper accounts for the immediately following years, in the late 1860's, those later recollections are sometimes contrary to the actual events that occurred more than a half century earlier, as verified in original published newspaper articles.
One of Knoxville's earliest baseball fields (and probably its first such field) was located in the downtown area. It was in the section north of Union Avenue, between State and Gay streets. The field was located east of Gay street, with the left field line parallel to that street, and a high embankment rose along that section between the field and Gay Street, serving as natural bleachers for spectators. There were apparently no buildings along the east side of the block of Gay between Union and Asylum (Wall) in 1865, and the baseball field was located east of such later buildings as the Sanford, Chamberlain & Albers Drug Store, Kimball's Jewelers, and Woodruffs. Describing the original leveling and establishment of that field in the aforementioned Sentinel article (Baseball, 1921) was S. B. Dow, a local insurance man in 1921, who had been a Union soldier in the Civil War, and was selected as the captain of the first baseball team organized in Knoxville in 1865. The field extended northward along the section where in later years busses arrived and departed at the Union Bus Terminal. Today, much of the site is a public parking lot. Modern accounts of location of the field usually repeat Dow's statement in the Sentinel article, that home plate had been located "about where Woodruff's now stands". However, another of Dow's recollections published in that same article was that when the Sanford, Chamberlain and Albers Drug Store was built at the corner of Union and Gay, that building was located "directly in the diamond". According to Dow, the left field line ran north from Union, and parallel with Gay Street, which suggests that the infield was originally located to the south, somewhat nearer Union. When the Woodruff's building was later built, it was actually a couple of doors north of the site of the original corner drug store. Certainly it does not seem likely that home plate would have been located at the rear of the Woodruff site, if the drug store building itself, extending east from the corner of Gay and Union, was built directly on the baseball diamond.
The Sentinel article relates Dow's recollections of early games played at the original Base Ball Grounds. The team was called the Knoxvilles, and consisted of men who had been Union soldiers during the Civil War. At the same time, a team consisting of men who had been Confederate soldiers was also formed in Knoxville. Those men had been invited to the organizational meeting of the new Knoxvilles team, but many still apparently harbored distrust and animosity against those who had been their enemies in the recently ended conflict, and those men refused to consider becoming members of a team that included former Union soldiers.
The former Confederate soldiers formed their own baseball team, and called themselves the Holstons. According to Dow, their team practiced at another site in Knoxville, near the downtown area, where team members had cleared a site on Jackson Avenue for their own field. The exact site of that field is not known today. Possibly it was somewhere in the flat section of land west of Crozier (Central), because Jackson terminated at that street in 1865, and the extension of Jackson east of Crozier was then called Hardee Street, not Jackson. On the other hand, in the 1921 newspaper account, Dow may have been referring to what was Jackson Avenue at that time, so it is of course possible that the field he referred to was located somewhere east of Central, in the Cripple Creek section of what was known as the Bowery.
Dow identifies the players on the original Knoxvilles team as follows : Thomas Rogers, catcher ; Dow, pitcher ; Tobe Squires, first base ; Charles Seymour, second base ; Will Richards, short stop ; E. C. Camp, third base ; and outfielders Spencer Munson, Charley Smith and Bill Chamberlain. Players identified by Dow as having been members of the original Holstons team include Bob Armstrong, captain, S. B. Luttrell, Frank Armstrong, and William Caswell.
The earliest baseball games in Knoxville were played between those teams, the Holstons and the Knoxvilles. Reporting games played at the field during 1867 and 1868, local newspapers referred to the site by various names, including the Gay Street Base Ball Grounds, the Union Grounds, and sometimes merely as the Base Ball Grounds. Incidentally, virtually all original references to the American game during the early years refer to the sport "Base Ball", instead of the single work, "Baseball".
According to Dow, the Knoxvilles won that initial contest in Knoxville at the old Union Street grounds in 1865, by a margin of seventeen runs. Dow also reported that the Knoxvilles played against teams from Atlanta and Greeneville, apparently also in 1865, but possibly in 1866. The 1921 article does not mention the specific dates of those games, and no original newspaper accounts of baseball games in Knoxville in 1865 or 1866 have been found.
1866
As is the case for 1865, William G. Brownlow's Knoxville newspaper -- the name then having been changed from the Whig and Rebel Ventillator to the Knoxville Whig -- seems to be the only available 1866 Knoxville newspaper, other than a handful of scattered issues of other local newspapers. Even for the Whig, miscellaneous issues and not a complete run of the newspaper are available on microfilms for 1866. Those copies of the Whig are much easier to read than are many of the copies for 1865, but no articles about baseball teams in Knoxville have been located in the available issues of that newspaper.
1867
By 1867, baseball had caught on in the south, and teams had been formed in other Tennessee cities and southern states. In early November, 1867, a two day baseball tournament was held at the Base Ball Grounds in Knoxville, billed as the Tennessee championship. Accounts of that tournament were reported in local newspapers, and represent the earliest published contemporary records of baseball games in the city that I have located. Teams competing in that tournament included the two Knoxville clubs -- the Knoxvilles and the Holstons-- the Cumberland Club, the National Union Club, and the College Hill Club of Greeneville. The results of the games in that tournament were reported in the Daily Herald on November 6 and 7, 1867. In the 1921 article (Baseball, 1921), J. B. Dow stated that his team, the Knoxvilles, had defeated the Holstons by seventeen runs in 1865. He also conceded that "sometimes" the Holstons won contests between the two teams, although in that article he made no mention that when the two teams had played in the 1867 Knoxville tournament, the Holstons not only won what then was considered to be the state championship, but they demolished the Knoxvilles along the way, by the whopping score of 90 to 25.
According to information in the earliest available newspaper reports, it appears, at least by 1867, that during the early years when those first Knoxville baseball teams were in existence, the Holstons were usually the better of the two teams.
The Holstons also competed against teams from other states. For example, later that same month, on Thanksgiving day in November, 1867, the Holstons played a home game at the Union Street Grounds against the Gate City Base Ball Club of Atlanta, Georgia. The Holstons lost that game by the score of 22-18.
An interesting historical note concerning Knoxville's early baseball is found in local newspapers in 1867. Just a few days after the Holstons played the Gate City team from Atlanta, another baseball game was played at the Base Ball Grounds. That game was a contest between two African American baseball teams. The Knoxville team was known as the Lamar House Lightfoots, and their opponents were a team from Greeneville, Tennessee, called the Independents. As far as I have been able to determine, the Lamar House Lightfoots - assumed to have been a team consisting of African American men who worked at the Lamar House hotel, at the southwest corner of Gay and Cumberland -- was Knoxville's first black baseball team.
The Base Ball Grounds were also the site of other outdoor entertainments and events in those times, an example being the John Robinson Circus, which exhibited at the site on October 28, 1867.
1868
The Holstons had claimed the Tennessee state championship in 1867 by virtue of winning the tournament in Knoxville. Brownlow's Whig reported on September 23, 1868 that the Holstons had played the Cumberland Club the previous day, winning by the score of 23-14. In late September, 1868, the Holstons again played for the state championship, in a series of games against the Phoenix Club of Nashville. The first game was played in Nashville and was won by the Phoenix Club, when the newspaper reported that some of the best Holston players had remained in Knoxville rather than making the trip to Nashville. The second game was played at the Base Ball Grounds in Knoxville. Players on the starting nine for the Holston team were J. Williams, T. Lane, A. Hubbard, H. L. Terrell, W. Dobson, J. Lowery, A. Hazen, O. F. Putnam, and F. Armstrong. The game was delayed for one and a half hours due to a heavy rainstorm during the seventh inning. The Nashville team, although leading by a score of 27-21, insisted on finishing the game. The field was a quagmire of mud, but the game continued through eight innings, when the game was called due to darkness, and the Holstons had rallied to take the lead and win the game, 30-29. The contest was witnessed by a large crowd, according to the report in Brownlow's Whig. Knoxville accepted the challenge by the Phoenix Club to play a third and deciding final game in Chattanooga, and that game was played on October 9, 1868, in that city. The Holstons lost the championship game to Nashville in a close contest, by the score of 21 - 18, as reported in the Press and Herald on October 10, 1868, and Knoxville turned over the state championship for 1868 to the Phoenix Club of Nashville.
A small article appeared in the Press and Herald on October 6, 1868, requesting that members who were indebted to the Holston Base Ball Club should pay their dues, else their names would be published in local papers. The article ends with the plea, "Pay up gentlemen, and give the boys a lift".
The John Robinson Circus returned to Knoxville in 1868 and again set up its tent at the Base Ball Grounds.
1869
The article in the Sentinel in November, 1921, relates the story of a baseball game played in Knoxville in 1869 between the Knoxvilles and Greeneville. According to H. W. Hall, a downtown businessman who had been a member of the Knoxville team, the team from Greeneville was the biggest rival of the Knoxville team in the early years. That seems something of an odd statement, since when reviewing original contemporary newspaper accounts, one would assume that the in those early years the other local Knoxville team, the Holstons, was the primary rival of the Knoxvilles. Hall relates the story of a game against the Greeneville team that was played in Knoxville in 1869, at the original Gay Street, or Union Street Grounds, where he said the Knoxvilles won that game in the final inning, by the score of 8 to 7. No original newspaper account of that game had been found (although it's possible I've missed such a report when searching through old newspaper files.)
An article in the Press and Herald on October 19, 1869, reported a game between the Pastime Club and the Cumberland Club, that game won by the Cumberland team, 40-24. No mention is made in that newspaper where that game was played, but probably it was not at the original baseball field. That year, the Sanford, Chamberlain and Albers Drug Company had at least begun the construction on their new building at the northeast corner of Gay and Union, extending east to cover a portion of the site of the diamond at the original baseball field, and the site was no longer available. Robinson's Circus returned to Knoxville in early July, 1869, but it exhibited at a site known as Milliken's Old Farm, the location of which is unknown today, rather than at the original baseball grounds site, as in the immediately preceding years, since that site was probably no longer available.
Chapter Two
The 1870's
1870 - 1871
There are very few microfilm copies of Knoxville newspapers for the years 1870 and 1871. Most have been lost, with only a few scattered issues available today. No reports of baseball teams or games played in Knoxville in those years have been found in those limited sources.
1872
No mention of any baseball games or teams in Knoxville have been located in the available issues of Knoxville newspapers for the year 1872. All issues of the Chronicle are available for that year, but not any mention of local baseball has been found in those newspapers.
1873
As is true for the previous year, no information is found in Knoxville newspapers in 1873 to indicate that the city had a team that year. In fact, no mention of baseball games has been found in any of those issues. It may well be that the rampant cholera epidemic that year precluded such activities. The Chronicle published daily updates concerning the disease in Tennessee, reporting in July that there had been 27 deaths in Chattanooga, and nine in Nashville. The same newspaper reported that only thirteen white families remained in Greeneville, Tennessee on July 2, 1873, By July 4, 1873, thirty-five deaths had been reported in Knoxville due to the epidemic.
1874
Continuing the trend from 1872 and 1873, baseball apparently was still dormant in Knoxville in 1874, with no reports of any teams or games found in local newspapers for that year. The Independence Day celebration was held at Inskip Station in 1874, with General Burnside the guest.
An interesting report is found in the Press and Herald that year, reporting that on the night of July 4, 1874, a fireworks display was held at "the old base ball grounds". At the time, the only place that would have been still known by that name was the original site that bordered Union Avenue to the north, between Gay and State streets. As mentioned earlier, later twentieth century writings mention that the diamond of those grounds had been covered when the Sanford, Chamberlain and Chambers drug store building was built at the corner of Gay and Union, around 1869. This reference to the site in 1874 seems to suggest that no other buildings had yet been constructed on the east side of Gay, north of the drug store -- or at least none had been built along the west side of State Street, north of Union -- else what was at least a portion of the original baseball field may not still have been in existence that year.
1875
No reports of baseball teams or games in Knoxville have been found for the year 1875.
1876
For the first time since 1869 (including 1870-1871, when virtually no original newspaper records are available today), records of baseball games in Knoxville are found. Those games were amateur contests between local teams. One such report was as game between teams called the "Evening Stars" and "Mountain Leafs", on June 6, 1876, won by the former by the score of 58-17. That game was played at an unidentified location, called Branner's Flat, according to the report of the game in the Chronicle. The property of the Branner family was in the East Knoxville section, east of First Creek, including the area where Park Avenue (later Magnolia) was located, and perhaps that field was located in that area of town.
A team called the Independents defeated the Rolling Mill (Knoxville Iron Company) team, 11-10, on June 10, 1876, in a game likely played at the Rolling Mills Grounds.
The Chronicle reported on June 16 that a baseball team from Morristown, called the Centennials, had changed their name to the King Club. The article mentions that the Morristown team was a strong aggregation, and had not yet lost a game in 1876. That article continues by mentioning that the team had not yet played the "Riversides" of Knoxville. That statement obviously suggests that Knoxville fielded a team by that name in 1876, although if that team ever played the Morristown team, or any other team that year, no reports of such games have been found in 1876 newspapers.
The mention of two other local games have been located in 1876, both contests between the O'Conner Zouaves and the City Club. The Zouaves won those contests, both played in August, 1876, at the Rolling Mills grounds.
1877
Knoxville apparently continued without a baseball team in 1876. In fact, the only report I've found of any baseball game played in Knoxville in 1877 appears in the Daily Chronicle on July 14, 1877, mentioning an 8:30 am contest, played at the College Grounds, between two rather oddly named teams, the "Biscuit Eaters" and the "Ginger Cakes". The newspaper apparently chose not to waste any additional space reporting the outcome of that contest the following day.
1878
In 1878, the East Tennessee University (now University of Tennessee) fielded a baseball team, called the Reds. On May 11, 1878, they played a game against a local team called the Mechanics. A mention of that game appeared in the Chronicle some days later, and while that account does not give the result of that game, the article compliments the Mechanics for the game that team had played.
The E. T. U. Reds again played the Mechanics in late May and early June, 1878, in a three game series. The Reds won the first game, 8-4, the Mechanics won the second game, 17-13, and the Reds won the final game of the series by defeating the Mechanics by the score of 39-10, on June 2, 1878. Local newspapers reported that all of those games were played "at the College grounds", but no mention of the precise location of those grounds had been found, and the location of that site is uncertain. The site may have been at the parade grounds, later to become the location of Wait field in the early twentieth century -- although that is merely unverified conjecture.
A new Knoxville baseball team was formed in early June, 1878. The new team assumed the previous name as the University's team, the Reds. Some of the players chosen for the "new" Reds had played for the college team and others had played earlier for the Mechanics. The Knoxville Reds original line-up was as follows : catcher Bill Hunt, pitcher Jack Sneed, first base John Houk, second base Charley Roth, third base Martin Condon, shortstop Alex. McMillan, left field Bill Walker, center field Cas Compton, and right field Jim Rule. According to the Chronicle on July 27, 1878, the Reds players averaged five feet six inches in height, with an average weight of 138 pounds. An article published in the Journal and Tribune in August, 1922, reported that the average weight of members of the team had been 165 pounds, and their average height had been five feet, ten inches. Obviously, by that year, someone obviously thought those original team members were taller and heavier, but I tend to believe the original 1878 newspaper account, rather than the one that was apparently based on memories and recollections so many years later. A month later, on July 2, 1878, newspapers reported that the Knoxville Reds had practiced in uniform at the College Grounds. Opponents were hard to come by, and the team advised the public that the Reds "would play any team in the city, and give them four outs" each inning.
The following day, on July 3, the Reds boarded a train to play in a tournament at Chattanooga. The other teams participating in the tournament were the Nashville Lincks, the Chattanooga Roanes, the Huntsville, Alabama Reds, and the Cleveland Plugs (in some accounts called the Plug Uglies.) Knoxville defeated the Huntsville, Alabama Reds team by the score of 13-1 in that tournament. Chattanooga then defeated Cleveland, and played Knoxville for the championship. Chattanooga won the game by the score of 12-4. The Knoxville Chronicle maintained that Knoxville lost because "Sneed was disabled, the grounds new, the crown hostile", and Knoxville was given "seven unfair decisions." Later, on July 5, the same newspaper complimented the Reds on their play in Chattanooga, stating that the conditions been "unequal and unfavorable", and claiming the Reds could defeat any team that had played in Chattanooga under favorable conditions, and could "wear the championship of the state". The statement that the winner was the Tennessee champion seems a bit strange, since a team from Alabama played in that tournament. In any case, the tournament site itself did not sound like a place for those with a weak heart, since the Chronicle reported that the "usual" fights and accidents had occurred, a spectator was seriously injured when a platform collapsed on the grounds, and another man was shot in a nearby "house of ill repute".
On July 4, 1878, a game was played at the Rolling Mills grounds, between two African American teams -- "Jo. Mabry's Choice" and the "Bright Eagle" club. The same teams played another game at the same site on July 15, 1878. The Rolling Mills grounds were on the original site of the Knoxville Iron Company, west of downtown, near the railroad tracks.
On July 13, 1878, the Reds again played the Huntsville, Alabama team, this time in Alabama.
On July 27, 1878, Later, in a game delayed for more than an hour by a heavy rain shower, the Reds won a long-anticipated rematch against the Chattanooga Roanes , by the score of 6-5. The game was played on the race track portion of the old Fair Grounds in East Knoxville. That site was just east and slightly south of the East Knoxville area that today is called Five Points.
On August 17, 1878, the Reds played the Cleveland, Tennessee Plugs. The game was also played at the Old Fair Grounds site, and the Reds won the game, 18-16.
On September 13, 1878, a benefit game was played between the Reds and the Nashville Lincks for the relief of yellow fever sufferers. The Reds won the game, played at the Old Fair Grounds, by the score of 7-2. Newspaper reports in 1878 do not provide estimates of the size of the crowds, only mentioning a "large" or "small" crowd was in attendance. Most accounts do mention that the price of admission to games was twenty-five cents.
A baseball game between two Knoxville teams, the Olympics and Flyaways, was played on September 26, 1878 at "the Rolling Mill Grounds".
On October 6, 1878, a baseball game was played in Knoxville between a team called the Knoxville Banners and one called the Rising Stars, the game won by the Banners, 30-28.
1879
The name of a local baseball team called the Knoxvilles, originally the name one of the two earliest Knoxville teams in the post Civil War years, again appears in local newspapers in 1879. The Knoxvilles played a three game series against the Reds in early June, 1879. I've not located the score of the first game, but the Reds won that game. They then lost the second game, on June 7, 1879, by the score of 25 - 6. The newspaper reported that the Reds made fifty-six errors in that game, described in the Press and Chronicle on June 8 as follows ; "of all the scrubby games ever played in Knoxville, the Reds game of yesterday was the worst." The games were played at the "North Knoxville Grounds". The Reds won the final game of the series by the score of 20-1. The line-ups were as follows : Reds ; Fuller, Lloyd, Snead, Beach, Condon, Hunt, Walker, Rule, and Houk. Knoxvilles ; Compton, Douglass, Hixon, Waters, Reeder, Cooper, Waldrop, Bozeman and McKeehan.
The Reds again played the Knoxvilles, on July 4, 1879, winning a closely contested game by the score of 17 to 15. That game apparently was at the same field where the earlier games between the two teams had been played, referred to as the North Knoxville Grounds, although the newspaper refers to the site of the Independence day game as having been at "the grounds near the northern terminus of the street railway." While I have not verified the actual location of that field, there is enough evidence to made a reasonable assumption as to the location of those grounds. At that time, the route of the horse-drawn Knoxville Street Railroad was from the corner of Crozier (Central) and Broad (Broadway), south along Broad, crossing he bridge over the railroad, and along Gay Street, ending at Main Avenue. The "northern terminus" of the railway was where the office and stable of that street railway was located, at the corner of Broadway and Central, thus the site of that baseball field probably was somewhere in that general vicinity.
The Chronicle reported on July 8, 1879 that the Riverside's, from Memphis, had quietly left Knoxville following only one game of a scheduled three game series, after being defeated soundly by the Reds. The score of the game is not reported in the newspaper account, but it is mentioned that Memphis pitcher "the famous Jimmy Carr", for years the terror of baseball in the south, had been unmercifully pounded by Reds hitters. The Memphis team had previously agreed to a series of games in Knoxville, and their departure from town left the Knoxville team with lost revenue, since they had paid the round-trip train fare from Chattanooga to Knoxville for the Memphis team.
Inexplicably, that same July 8th article in the Chronicle mentions that the Reds had never been defeated in Knoxville, although in June, 1879, the Reds had lost a game to the Knoxvilles team, by the score of 25-6, and the account of that game had earlier been reported in the same newspaper. In fact, there seems to be little rational explanation as to how the same Reds' team -- mentioned in later twentieth century newspaper articles as one of the best baseball teams in the nation that year -- could have suffered such a humiliating defeat in June, 1879, yet less than two months later won the Southern Championship, played in Atlanta.
Beginning on July 25, 1879, the Reds played in a tournament in Atlanta, Georgia. Other teams competing were the Atlanta Alerts, the Greensboro Dixies, and teams called the Varieties and the McPhersons. The games were played at Oglethorpe Park. Knoxville's manager was H. B. Branner. The Reds won the first game against the Atlanta team, 16-0. The following day they defeated the Varieties, then defeated Greensboro, 16-4, to claim the championship. The Knoxville Chronicle headline hailed the Reds as "Champions of the South" the following day..
On June 14, 1879, the Knoxville Lone Stars lost a game played at Maryville to the Maryville Athletics, by the score of 14 - 7. Both were African American teams. The Lone Stars team is known to have still been in existence as late as 1891.
The Sentinel article (Baseball, 1921) mentions what a local resident called "the most thrilling game ever played by the local aggregation", played at the Old Fair Grounds on August 15, 1879, between the Reds and the Chattanooga "Roarers", a game that was won by the Reds by the score of 6-5. That game was played, and the Reds won by the reported margin. However, the details of the game as they appeared in the article published in 1921 again provide evidence that when events were recalled many years later, sometimes the details were not entirely accurate, probably due to faded memories. The game was actually played the previous year (already recorded in this compilation -- see 1878). The date of that game was not August 15, 1879, but July 26, 1878, and the Chattanooga team was called the "Roanes", not the "Roarers".
Chapter Three
The 1880's
1880
According to an article published in the Journal and Tribune on August 27, 1922, "Ah, them were the Good Ole Days", the Knoxville's Reds baseball teams during the years 1878 to 1880 claimed to be as good as a team in the nation. That article mentions that the only other team that could challenge the Knoxville team was the 1880 baseball team from Worcester, Massachusetts, which claimed the national championship that year. An illustration accompanies that article, a reproduction of a photograph of the original Reds baseball team. The article does not identify the year that photograph was taken. However, the team pictured obviously was neither the 1878 or 1879 team, likely being the 1879 team that had won the Southern Championship (although the players on the teams were the same both years). In any event, that photograph apparently could not have been the Reds' team from 1880, because although the 1922 article mentions that the team played during the three year period from 1878 through 1880, I locate nothing in local newspapers in 1880 to indicate that the Knoxville Reds fielded a team in 1880.
The Chronicle does report that the Knoxville Blues, a West Knoxville baseball team, had been organized on June, 30, 1880. That article mentions that the same team had played several exciting games in Knoxville during the previous season in 1879, although reports of those games that year have not been found. Some of the Blues' games in 1880 were to be played at the Old Fair Grounds, and others at the College grounds. Players on the Blues team, who had played the previous year for a local team called the "Little Jokers" included R. Hickey, S. Lethgo, and D. Thomas.
Additional evidence that there was no Reds team in 1880 is found in that same article in the Chronicle in June, 1880, where it is mentioned "we may expect some fine games between them (the Blues) and the "Martin J. Condons", after the game with the S. M. Prothro's, of Chattanooga." Martin Condon had played for the Reds in 1878 and 1879, and is pictured in the aforementioned team photograph of that team in the 1922 article in the Journal and Tribune. Condon later was Mayor of Knoxville in 1888-1889. According to the 1922 Journal article, that year Martin Condon was living in Memphis and was part-owner of the "Condon - Bruton Snuff Company." If that was the organization that became the Bruton Snuff Company, it would seem that Condon was then a well-to-do West Tennessean.
The Condons and the Knoxvilles played a game at the College Grounds on July 24th, 1880. The Chronicle announced on August 3rd, 1880 that the Condons would play a game that week against a "picked" team, that game also played at the University Grounds.
The final game of the 1880 season, according to the Chronicle, was played on September 18th, 1880, between the Condons and a local "picked team". That contest was also played on the College Grounds. Again, no reports of games by a Reds' team in 1880 have been found.
1881
Apparently, there was no Reds team in 1881. Martin Condon's team continued to represent Knoxville that year. On August 13, the Condons played a picked team, at the college grounds.
On August 18, 1881, the Chronicle reported that a scheduled game between the Condons and the "Blevins" team of Rogersville would be played in Rogersville. A rail excursion was planned for fans to attend the game, advertised at the price of $2.20 for the round trip to Rogersville.
I find no report of the result of the game in Rogersville, but the Chronicle reported on September 7, 1881, that a second game against Rogersville would be played in Knoxville on September 17. The game was played at the Old Fair Grounds field, and admission to the game was twenty-five cents. The line-up for the Condons was as follows :
Houk pitcher
Rodgers catcher
Staub short stop
McAffry first base
Newman second base
McNabb third base
McClung left field
Waters center field
Williams right field
As is the case for the first game against Rogersville, I find no newspaper report of the result of the second game played in Knoxville. However, on Tuesday, September 10, 1881, the Chronicle reported that Manager Martin Condon and his team had been treated to a feast at the Schubert Hotel the previous Saturday night, following that game.
Perhaps national news sometimes precluded sports reports at the time, since the death of President Garfield, who had lingered from the result of a bullet wound by an assassination attempt since early July, 1881, was reported in local newspapers on Tuesday, September 21, 1881.
1882
For the third consecutive year, the Martin Condons seem to have been the city's only representative baseball team. The Chronicle reported that the Condons played a baseball game against a "strong picked team" on July 4, 1882. The game was played at the College grounds (i. e., the University of Tennessee field.)
On August 3, the Chronicle reported that Will Howry had been selected as the new manager of the Condon's baseball team. That same day, the same newspaper mentioned that plans had been announced for the Condon's to play games at the Fair the following year.
1883
I find no information in local newspapers to indicate that either the Reds or the Condons fielded a baseball team in 1883.
On July 4, 1883, the Republican Chronicle mentions Independence Day celebrations in Chattanooga and Cleveland, but little about the holiday in Knoxville that year, and nothing about any baseball games played in Knoxville on that date.
A Fair was held at the new fair grounds, south of the river, in the fall of 1883. However, the plans announced the previous year, in August, 1882, mentioning that baseball games would be held in conjunction with that Fair, apparently did no materialize, as no reports of any baseball games played in connection with that event have been found in local newspapers.
The Chronicle reported on August 24, 1883, that the Lone Stars and the Clippers baseball teams had played a game at the College Grounds the previous day, the Lone Stars winning the game by the score of 40-17. The Lone Stars were Knoxville's African American team.
1884
The Reds again fielded a team in 1884. The Reds played a local team called the Alexanders on June 7, winning by the score of 14-4.The game was played at the College grounds. They also played in a baseball tournament at Cleveland, Tennessee, on July 4, 1884, in connection with the Independence day celebration in that city. Other teams playing in that tournament were the Chattanooga Browns, the Athens Reds, and the McClary Rangers of Benton. In preliminary games, Knoxville defeated the McClary Rangers, and Chattanooga handily beat the Athens team, 27-4. The Reds defeated the Browns that afternoon to claim the championship.
Little else has been found about baseball in Knoxville in 1884. The Daily Chronicle mentions a few earlier games between local teams. An example was on May 31, 1884, when a team called the Athletics defeated the Deaf and Dumb School. 25-28. Unfortunately, copies of the Chronicle for several months in 1884 are unavailable today. The Republican Chronicle, a local weekly newspaper, is available for that year, but it was essentially a political publication, seldom including any sports information, or other local news, other than political matters.
1885
On May 2, 1885, the Chronicle reported that a baseball game would be played on Decoration Day, between the Reds and the 'Hensels ', "at the College Grounds". (The game was rained out and played the following day).
The Reds again played the Hensels, on May 30 1885.
The 1885 Reds team was obviously a newly formed assemblage of younger players. A game between the Old Reds vs the New Reds was played on June 26, 1885, at the Asylum Street Grounds, "at the terminus of the Asylum Street Railway." Names of all members of the original Reds team members not found, but among those playing for the oldsters in that game were J. Houk and Martin Condon, who had established his own baseball team in Knoxville during the 1880, 1881, and 1882 seasons. For that game, Condon brought in a school boy named Donovan to play for the Old Reds, but the New Reds team balked and refused to permit the "ringer" to play in the game. The New Reds won the game, 8 - 6. Following the game, a player for the Old Reds team offered his opinion that if the entire original nine had been present, the New Reds would have been shut out, "for they can't play ball". The Chronicle reported that a crowd of one thousand watched the game. The lineup for the "new" Reds team was as follows : McCaffry, 1b ; Waters, J., c ; Wilson, 2b ; McClung, c ; Staub, 3b ; Roth, ss ; Waters, lf ; Houk, Link, p ; and Fisk, rf.
The Reds played a three game series against Chattanooga, in July 1885. Chattanooga was a professional team. Chattanooga won all of those games, drubbing the Reds by the score of 17-5 in the final contest. The Chronicle reported that the games had been played at the Clarendon Place, or Asylum Street Grounds.
I have yet to determine the precise location of that baseball field, but it was in the Mechanicsville area, near the intersection of University and Western. The Chronicle earlier reported on June 27, 1885, that Mayor Luttrell and the Aldermen had taken a midnight ride into Mechanicsville, via the Market Square Street Railroad line, " to take in one of Knoxville's future centres, the Clarendon Place, or Nine Points." The newspaper description states that the trip took the group to Condon's Store, on McGhee Street, and from the end of that street the return trip was to and along Asylum Street, at "Nine Points." McGhee Street was then the main street in Mechanicsville, four blocks north of Asylum (now Western Avenue), and Condon's store was located at the corner of McGhee and Atkin streets. The Clarendon Place apparently was located on University Avenue, and the baseball grounds were obviously the same field that local newspapers also referred to as the Asylum Street Grounds when reporting other games that same year.
As mentioned above, apparently that original baseball field was located somewhere around the intersection of Western and University. That assumption is also based on an article that appeared in the Journal and Tribune on July 15, 1894. Referring to the discovery of a grave containing what were described as the bones of a Confederate Surgeon, while grading was being done in that area, the article mentions that the grave was unearthed "on a lot on University Avenue, near the old baseball grounds." The fences and grandstand at those baseball grounds were later moved in1890 from their original location to the site near the railroad tracks, renamed Central Park, but a site that also continued to be known as the Asylum Street grounds. Thus, the Clarendon Place grounds were obviously a different location from the baseball park that later was known as Central Park, (then still later called Baldwin Park).
The Reds defeated Bristol, 26 - 3, in a game played at the Asylum Street Grounds. The Reds also played the team from Athens in 1885.
The John R. McLean Base Ball Club was organized in Knoxville in 1885. Another team was organized that year, called the Knoxville Base Ball Club.
In July, 1885, three Reds players -- Ples McClung, Alex O'Donnell, and Link Houk -- were invited and went to Taledaga, Alabama, to play in a game for that city's team.
On July 4, 1885, the Knoxville Lone Stars played the Chattanooga Massengills, for the East Tennessee championship. As previously mentioned, although not mentioned in that newspaper, the Lone Stars were Knoxville's African American baseball team.
1886
Apparently the Reds did not field a baseball team in 1886. A baseball game was played on July 4, 1886, at Isabella Park, between a Chattanooga team and the Knoxville 'Liebers'. The Knoxville team was managed by local business man E. Lieber (thus the name). The Chronicle reported that the game would likely be the only chance to witness a baseball game in Knoxville played by professionals that year. The Chattanooga team had become a member of the newly formed Southern League the previous year. Whether the Liebers team was also considered to have been a professional team I have been unable to determine, but apparently it was an amateur assemblage. I've also been unsuccessful in determining the precise location of Isabella Park, but the field was obviously located somewhere in East Knoxville, where a street in the Mabry Addition was called Isabella Circle, which in turn was located in the residential section known as Mount Isabella.
1887
Little information about local baseball games has been found in 1887. The Journal reported that a game was to be played on September 4, 1887, between the Deep Rocks and the Robinson Blues. The same newspaper reported on October 8, 1887, that a game was the be played that day between a team from Bristol and the Knoxville club, "on the Tazewell Pike". At that time, Tazewell Pike was what today is Broadway, but I have not found information as to the specific location of this field. I likewise have not determined whether that Knoxville team was the Reds, the Knoxvilles, or possibly even another local team.
1888
The Reds fielded a team this year. On July 4, 1888, they played a game against the Knoxville Blues on July 4, 1888, at Elmwood Park. Elmwood Park was the name of the southern section of what later became Chilhowee Park, between what later was Magnolia and McCalla. The Reds won the game, 4-3.
The Reds played a three game series against the Bristol team on Sept 6, 7 and 8, 1888. The games were played at the Asylum street grounds.
The Reds played a team from Knoxville (referred to in the newspaper ad only as "Knoxville") on September 16, 1888, in a game to benefit Yellow Fever sufferers. The Reds opponent in that game may have been the team previously organized in 1885, called the Knoxville Baseball Club.
1889
On August 23, 1889, an article appeared in the Journal, reporting that Knoxville would not represented by a team in the professional baseball league that included Atlanta, Chattanooga, Memphis, Birmingham and Nashville. That article referred to the Southern League that had originally been established in 1885. The Journal writer was obviously miffed that a team from Chattanooga was in a league that didn't want the team from Knoxville, offering the opinion that "we have positive proof of one thing, and that is that the Chattanooga ball team will have to improve wonderfully before it can give Knoxville any points on the game."
On August 30, 1889, the Reds played a game against the baseball team from Bristol. The Reds won the game, 12-4, but the Journal reporter wrote that the 500 spectators had witnessed a "terrible exhibition of the national game", the Bristol team had provided little competition, and that the Reds had " paid little attention to their business".
On Labor Day September 2, 1889, the S. B. Newman team played a game against a team from the Journal.
The Reds played a three game series in Knoxville against the Greeneville, Tennessee team, on September 4, 5 and 6, 1891.
An advertisement appeared in the Journal on October 23, 1889, promoting a benefit baseball game for Pleas McClung that was to be played that Saturday at the Asylum Street Park. McClung played for the Reds team for a number of years, but I don't find in local newspapers the specific reason that game -- although obviously played to assist the Reds's team member -- was scheduled
On November 7, 1889, the Journal reported a baseball game that had been played the previous afternoon at the Asylum Street Grounds, near Mechanicsville. It may have been Knoxville's first baseball game featuring female players. The game was between a girl's team and a "picked" team of male players. According to that article, the girls "could not play ball at all", but "did some fair running". That apparently was of little consequence to what was described as a large crowd that was composed "nearly all of the male persuasion". The girls wore black stockings "which were visible above their knees", red caps and black and yellow stripped shirts. According to the newspaper account, the game lasted five innings before it was called, and ended in favor of the girls, although the writer offers no explanation as to how that came to be the final result of the game. While the crowd for this game that featured female players was reported to have been almost exclusively males, it is interesting the notice that for many of the Reds games in the 1880's and 1890's newspapers reported that a considerable percentage of the crowd consisted of female spectators.
Chapter Four
The 1890's
1890
The Reds played a series with the Louisville Deppens in late May, 1890, then followed with a three game series in Knoxville against the Atlanta team, winning the final game of the series.
On July 3rd, 1890, the Reds won the first of a series of games against the Louisville, Kentucky Deppens, then split a doubleheader against the same team on July 4th, 1890. On July 1, they lost to the Cincinnati Shamrocks, 4-2, in Knoxville. The Reds line-up was :
Catcher Ples McClung
First Base McAffry
Second Base C. Spence
Short Stop Hayes
Third Base Kirby
Left Field Crawley
Center Field Weakley
Right Field S. Spence
Pitcher Deaderick McClung
For the second game against the Shamrocks, the same players were in the line-up, but several of them were playing different positions.
On July 17 the Reds defeated the Cincinnati Lookouts, in Knoxville, with 500 fans in attendance. Two days later, 600 spectators saw the Reds lose to the Lookouts on July 19, by the score of 2-1, the Reds garnering only four hits off diminutive Lookouts pitcher Keenan, who struck out ten Reds during the game.
On July 24, 25 and 26, the Reds played a series of games in Knoxville against Billy Taylor's team, from Nashville. The Reds won all of those games. Taylor, Nashville's pitcher, who had a far-reaching reputation, but apparently was long past his prime, was described by the Journal reporter as "his royal fatness", and as a player whose "golden hours must have left him many moons ago".
The Reds were shut out for the first time in 1890, losing to the Cincinnati Shamrocks, on August 7, but the following day they blanked the Shamrocks, 4-0. On August 15 the Reds beat the Roanoke Sluggers, in Knoxville, 6-1, then shut out the same team,
5-0, on the following day.
On August 22, 1890, Knoxville's African American baseball team, the Lone Stars, suffered their first defeat of the season, losing to a team from Chattanooga by the score of 23 - 18. The game was played at Beaman's Lake, according to the newspaper report in the Journal. That report verifies that what later was called Lake Ottosee (today Chilhowee Park) was still being called Beaman's Lake as late as August, 1890. The baseball field was located in what then was called Elmwood Park, in the section of the park south of what now is Magnolia avenue.
In late August, 1890, the Reds played a four game series at Central Park against the Cincinnati Lookouts. Following the second game, the Journal reported that it had been an "unexciting game, filled with errors", and one in which the Reds came out on the short end of a 15 - 1 score.
In September, 1890, the Labor Day celebration at Elmwood Park featured a baseball game between the S. B. Newman team and the Journal's nine.
The Reds played an unusual series against the Riverside Reds in early September, 1890. On September 5, the teams played to a 1-1 tie through eleven innings, when darkness canceled the game. The following, day, the same teams played to a 2-2 tie, that game lasting twelve innings before being called.
On September 10, Huntington defeated the Reds, 3-1. They followed with another loss to Huntington, 3-2, then the Reds lost games to the Louisville Deppens to continue their losing streak, before finally beating Chattanooga, 15-0, on September 26. The Journal reported that only 75 fanes saw that game, played at Central Park. The Reds followed with a 13-1 victory over the same team. The Journal reported on September 21 that the Reds team was being reorganized, with Reeder to become the captain, and new players being brought in to play for the team.
The Louisville Deppens returned to Knoxville to face the Reds for the final baseball games played in 1890 in Knoxville, in early October. The first game was rained out, then played on October 7, the Deppens winning by the score of 3-1. The Reds took the second game, 13-4, when the Deppens made a whopping eleven errors. Six hundred fans witnessed the second game, reported by the Journal as being the largest crowd to see a game in Knoxville that year since the July 4 double header against the same team. The final game ended abruptly with the Reds leading 3-1, when an umpire's call was disputed and the Louisville team walked off the field, disappointing a crowd estimated to have been five hundred spectators, and an act referred to in the next day's Journal as a "Childish Act" by the visitors from Louisville.
On October 16, 1890, an article in the Journal reported that members of the Knoxville baseball club would meet that week, for the purpose of settling a dispute arising from the move to the new baseball park. The fence and grandstand had been transferred from the old Asylum Street park to the new site in 1890, the new site bordering the railroad tracks west of Asylum Street. The new park was called Central park, but also sometimes continued to be known as the Asylum Street grounds. The 1889 club was seeking reimbursement for the cost of that lumber, which was said to have been the club's property. The article also states that the 1889 players had made three times the amount of money they received for the 1890 season. Again, that statement is obvious evidence that the players for the Reds received payment for playing for the Knoxville team. Why they were not considered to be a "professional" baseball team -- most sources suggesting they were amateur congregations -- remains a mystery.
Later, in 1894, the site of the baseball park was again moved, this time to Smithwood, in the Fountain City area. As detailed later, that lasted only one season, and team returned to the Asylum street location, when the park was renamed Baldwin Park.
1891
The Tribune reported that the Reds opened the 1891 baseball season with a three game series against the Cincinnati Shamrocks, on May 7, 8 and 9. Knoxville's manager was Drischell. The games were played at the Asylum street, or Central Park, baseball grounds. On May 16, Knoxville was defeated by the Bristol team, then played to a 17-17 tie against that same team the following day.
On May 21, 1891, the Reds took both games of a two game series in Knoxville against the Ohios of Cincinnati, 4-3 and 6-3. The Reds lineup for that game was : Drischel, ss ; Burke, 1b ; Ford, lf ; Schable, c ; Smith, 2b ; Crawley, rf ; Alexander, cf ; Gagen, pitcher ; and Taylor, 3b.
However, the team soon disbanded, and on July 6, 1891, the Journal suggested that Knoxville was "too much of a village" to support a paid baseball team. Here again is evidence that Knoxville's teams in those times employed paid baseball players for the Reds, verifying that "professional" baseball in Knoxville began before, as is reported on one Internet site today. The Journal reported the results of baseball games played between local amateur teams at the North Ward Commons, in August, 1891. The Ninth Ward included the Mechanicsville area. This seems to be the only reference I've found to a baseball field called the North Ward Commons, and if that was not just another reference to Central Park location, I have been unable to determine the location of that field.
Knoxville's African American team, the Lone Stars, continued to play baseball this year. They defeated the Bristol team, 18-2, in a game played at the baseball park on July 2, 1891. The teams again played on July 6.
South Knoxville fielded a baseball team in 1891. The Journal reported on October 18th, 1891, that the University of Tennessee team was to have played a game the previous day against the "South Americas", but the team from the south did not show up and the game had been postponed. South Knoxville was often called "South America" in the nineteenth century, before a permanent bridge crossed from the to the south side of the river, since earlier -- aside from earlier bridges that had existed only for brief periods -- the only way to or from that place to the city was via boats or ferries. On the same day the Journal reported that the University of Tennessee team had changed its name from the Kents to the University team. The name the "Volunteers" came later. Had that change never been made, one supposes that today we might hear the majority of the more than 100,000 football fans screaming "Let's go, Kents!"
The Journal suggested on July 6 that a local commercial baseball league be formed, such teams being "all for fun". Obviously, that suggestion was prompted by the earlier report in the same newspaper that year, that Knoxville would not support a professional baseball team.
On September 7, the Journal reported that a Knoxville baseball team, "made up just for the purpose", had played four games in Atlanta, Georgia the previous week. They lost the games by progressively worse scores, losing the final game by the score of 20-2, although the newspaper reported that "attendance had been good at all contests, and the boys came home with their pocket loaded with shekels". That report naturally suggests that the players from Knoxville had not ventured south to Atlanta merely for fun and games, but had been paid for their services, something they had been unable to achieve in Knoxville.
1892
On July 23, 1892, the Knoxville DeHarts won a game against Harriman at Central Park by the score of 5 to 2. An estimated three hundred spectators watched the game, played at the Asylum street grounds. Newspaper accounts referred to the Harriman team as the "Dry Town Boys", a reference to the fact that it was mandatory in that relatively new Tennessee town that residents could not drink, or have in their possession, intoxicating beverages of any type, at any time or any place.
The suggestion the previous year that Knoxville would not support a paid baseball team apparently proved prophetic in 1892. The only reference I find for a Reds baseball team that year was a benefit game, for the orphans of the late Bushrod T. Gibbons, played between the Reds and the DeHarts on August 27, 1892, at Central Park (the Asylum Street Grounds). The DeHarts won the game, 5-4. The Journal mentions this was the first game played by the DeHarts "since their reorganization." Probably that 1892 Reds team was made up of players who had previously played for the team before it was disbanded in 1891, re-organized for the purpose of playing the benefit game.
This year, the University of Tennessee football team played some of their games at Central Park, or the Asylum Street Park. Their home games against Sewanee and Vanderbilt were both played at the field in November, 1892.
1893
A baseball team, again called the Reds, was in existence in 1893, although seemingly there was no planned schedule, and the few games recorded were probably scheduled on short notice. In fact, the first game of the season was played on July 8, 1893, between the Reds and a local "Picked team", at Central Park. No result of the game has been found in local newspapers. The newspaper article in the Journal mentioning that game in July, 1893 states that Knoxville had not fielded a team during the previous two years, "and nearly all the old timers have retired from the arena, Carey Spence, who covers center for the Reds, being the only one left". That article in the Journal illustrates why it sometimes has been frustrating attempting to find accurate contemporary information concerning baseball in Knoxville, particularly during the nineteenth century. In 1891, the Journal in fact had reported that the opening of the baseball season in Knoxville that year, and published the results of at least seven games played by Knoxville Reds team in May, 1891. Thus, the Reds obviously fielded a team that year, although the lack of fan support soon resulted in the abandonment of the team. The benefit game played by the Reds in 1892 had apparently been a hastily arranged, one-time assemblage of players, calling themselves the Reds, and there had been no team that year.
The Reds defeated Rogersville, 11-9, in a game played in Rogersville on August 30, 1893.
No baseball games were reported by local newspapers at the Labor Day celebrations in Knoxville in 1893.
On November 8, the Journal reported that the two local baseball men, Frank Moffett and a Mr. Jobe, had proposed that an East Tennessee baseball league be formed. A meeting had been planned for the March 15, 1894, between representatives from Knoxville, Chattanooga, Cleveland, Bristol, Athens, Greeneville, Asheville, and Johnson City. Chattanooga had just dropped out of the Southern League, and it was anticipated that city's representatives would join in the formation of the new league. Based on the teams that Knoxville's played in the immediately following years, apparently the proposed new league never got off the ground.
Frank Moffett's name is prominent in the history of baseball in Knoxville, from this first mention in 1893 and for many years afterwards. His name will be found often in this compilation. When Moffett died in 1935, articles concerning his long time association with baseball in Knoxville appeared in local newspapers. Those articles did not make mention of the fact that Moffett had originally been a member of the city's first football team in 1890, nor that he later had formed his own local football team in 1891. Moffett's unsuccessful attempt to form a new baseball league that included the Knoxville team in 1894 was not his only such venture. In 1916, following the absence of a team in Knoxville in the 1915 season, after the Appalachian League had folded, he and others attempted to form a Class C baseball league that included Knoxville and other teams from Tennessee and Virginia. That proposal likewise fell through.
1894
1894 was an active baseball year in Knoxville. The Asylum Street Grounds were closed in the spring of 1894. The final games played at the park were to be a three game series between the Reds and the Cleveland Tennessee Grays, on May 11, 12 and 13, 1894, although the first game was washed out due to a heavy thunderstorm. Although whatever problems existed at the time concerning the Central Park, or Asylum Street, site have not been determined, obviously there was a move to relocate the baseball park. Both Fountain City and Lake Ottosee were actively competing in 1894 to become the site of a new baseball field for the Reds. Earlier, on May 4, 1894, the Journal had reported that the fences and grandstand would be removed from Central Park and reassembled at the Lake Ottosee field (later Chilhowee Park), where owner Beaman had prepared "magnificent grounds". That site was also known as the Elmwood Park field. Again, as was not unusual in newspaper reports in those days, the announcement of the move to Lake Ottosee was premature. On May 11, when the baseball association met to select the site for the new baseball park, contrary to the earlier report, they instead selected Fountain City as the site for the new baseball stadium. That decision was apparently influenced by the fact that Fountain City had already been selected as the site of the annual Drummer's Picnic, to be held in June, 1894. Despite the free offer of the entire grounds at the Lake Ottosee site, including the pavilion, the bicycle track, the dining hall, the lake, the bath house, the boats and the tin pin alley, that site was rejected in favor of Fountain City Park. Thus, when the fences and the grandstand were removed from the Central Park / Asylum Street Grounds location, they were taken to the new location in Fountain City and reassembled at that site.
In the meantime, other baseball games were being played by local teams, as local papers reported that the East Knoxville Reds played a game against the DeHarts, at the Lake Ottosee, field, on May 15, 1894.
The removal of the materials from Central Park began on May 21, 1894. The crew obviously made quick work of the project, since except for the roof of the grandstand, local newspapers reported that the work at the new park was completed by June 1, 1894. The first games played by the Reds at the new Fountain City Baseball Park were on June 14, 1894, which was the first game of a three game series against Chattanooga. An estimated 600 to 800 fans attended the first game of the series.
Local newspapers reported that the trip on the Fountain City Dummy Line to the new baseball park took about fifteen to twenty minutes, and that the field was "within a few feet of the Dummy Line". While the site was called the Fountain City Baseball Park, the field was actually located in Smithwood, and it was reported that those attending the Drummer's Picnic at Fountain City Park would not be charged an additional fee to ride from the picnic grounds to the new baseball park. Neither the Tribune nor the Journal describes the precise location of the baseball park. Unfortunately, nobody I have talked with who lives in the Fountain City area today, including some whose ancestors lived in the area, seems to recall having heard of that baseball park, and guesswork seems to be the only alternative in attempting to determine where it was located. My guess is that it probably was located in the triangle between Broadway and Tazewell Pike, although that is pure conjecture. However, probably it was the same field where Central High School's early twentieth century home football games were played. The Fountain City school's yearbooks, the "Sequoyah", reported that Central's home football games in those years were played at a field located "at Smithwood. "
Although local newspapers reported that the series of games between the Reds and Chattanooga were the first games played at the Fountain City Baseball Park, a small article buried in the Journal a few days earlier reveals that a baseball game between the Fair and Day team and the Holbrooks team, from Holbrook College, had already been played at the site, on June 9, 1894. When the new stadium at Fountain City was completed, the Reds had been out of town, playing at Jellico, on June 6, then played a three game series at Asheville on June 7, 8 and 9, 1894, before returning to Knoxville on June 14, to officially christen the new facility.
A baseball game between teams from East Knoxville and Macedonia, was played in Knoxville at the "Lake Ottosee grounds", as reported in the Tribune on June 1, 1894. The Tribune reported on the same date that a baseball game between a team from North Knoxville and the 'Holbrooks' would be played that day at the "Holbrook grounds", i.e. the grounds at the Holbrook Normal School, (later the site of Central High School.) The East Knoxville Reds defeated the DeHarts, 15-14, in a game played at the Lake Ottosee field on June 15, 1894.
1895
The Fountain City Baseball Park was the site of games by the Knoxville Reds team only during the 1894 season. However, in the spring of 1895, an early exhibition game was played at the Smithwood field on April 10, 1895, between two professional baseball teams from Pittsburgh, the Pirates and the Colts. The obvious lack of local fan support at the Fountain City facility was clear in the game report in the Journal, which revealed that "Knoxville people showed their appreciation of the leagures by being out en masse to the extent of 136 people."
A movement had obviously been afoot to bring baseball back to the old Asylum Street Grounds. No reason for the move back to the Mechanicsville area has been found in newspaper accounts, but apparently local fans felt that the new baseball park in Smithwood was located at a site too distant from the city. Certainly, the small attendance for the first local game of the season in 1895, played at the Fountain City Park -- the above mentioned exhibition game between professional teams from Pittsburgh -- tends to support that circumstance. Some modern writings, suggesting that Knoxville's baseball teams in the 1890's drew crowds upwards of three thousand fans, are, to be charitable, both generous and historically inaccurate. Original newspaper accounts often did not report the actual number of spectators attending those contests, but among verifiable accounts in those times are found the reports that while the Reds first game at the Fountain City Park in 1894 drew 1,000 fans, two thousand free tickets had been distributed for that contest, and the third game of that three game series against Chattanooga attracted only three hundred spectators. Later games played by the Indians included one in 1895 against Atlanta, at Baldwin Park, that attracted only three hundred fans, and later, on July 10, 1897, the writer for the Journal reported that "sixteen to thirty people" had watched the Louisville Cherries defeat the Indians, 10-6, in a game played at Baldwin Park.
On April 6, 1895, the Journal reported " the Asylum Street ball park affairs are shaping up". The Southern Railway, which then owned the property, had agreed to the use of the grounds again for a baseball park, their vice president Baldwin had signed an agreement, and three business men had agreed to back team manager Frank Moffett. Newspapers reported that a contract had been signed and the construction of the grandstand and fence was to begin at once. The construction was obviously quickly completed, since the Knoxville team was again soon playing games at the Asylum Street Grounds. The new park was named Baldwin Park, a name that I assume was chosen to recognize the Southern Railway official who had been instrumental in reestablishing the park (although, while that seems logical, I have not verified the assumption.)
Thus, Knoxville's baseball team again played at Asylum street grounds, where the new stadium was now called Baldwin Park, beginning in 1895. That year, and for the following two years, they were known as Indians instead of the Reds. However, in some later years occasionally the name Reds creeps into game accounts, and perhaps those names were somewhat interchangeable, although original accounts in the early years at Baldwin Park refer to the team as the Indians. An early series that year was played at Baldwin Park in late May, 1895, when the Indians played a four game series against Atlanta. A crowd of three hundred watched the first game of the series. Other games that year included a four game series against the Nicelys, of Louisvllle, Kentucky, on July 3, 4, 5 and 6, 1895. Knoxville won their final game of the season against Nashville, at Baldwin Park, by the score of 7- 1, on October 5. Following that game, the Journal reported that the team had disbanded and players left town for their respective homes. That statement verifies that the roster of the Knoxville baseball team consisted of players from various cities who were paid for their services.
1896
That baseball was alive and well in Knoxville had been evident months earlier, when manager Frank Moffett traveled to Cincinnati immediately following the 1895 season, seeking players for the 1896 roster. The Journal had reported on October 20, 1895, that Moffett had signed three outstanding players for the 1896 team while he was in that city.
One Internet site today reports that 1896 was the first year Knoxville fielded a professional baseball team. The Knoxville Indians actually first played in 1895 instead of 1896. Also, as is obvious from the information in this compilation, the Knoxville Reds existed in earlier years, and it is known that in those years the players were payed to play for the Knoxville team. Of course, those early teams did not play in professional baseball leagues, but then the same was true for the 1895 and 1896 Knoxville Indians teams.
In 1896, with the Knoxville baseball team having returned to the Asylum street grounds, now renamed Baldwin Park, the Fountain City Baseball Park became one of two sites where baseball games were played in a newly established amateur City Baseball League. The other site for those games was at Elmwood Park, the name of the field at Lake Ottosee, soon to be known as Chilhowee Park. Teams in the league were C. C. Howell, the Snappers, John W. Connors, the Centennial Club, West Knoxville and North Knoxville. The Knoxville Indians split a doubleheader against the Maysville, Kentucky team, in games played at Baldwin Park on July 14, 1896. The Maysville team remained in Knoxville for two more games. The Indians played a team from Paris, Kentucky on July 20, 1896, then played a game against the Hamilton, Ohio Browns, on July 22, 1896. The teams again played at Baldwin Park on July 29, 1896. At season's end, the Indians split their season ending games that year at Baldwin Park, defeating the team from Maysville, Kentucky, 9-7, on October 7, and losing, 6-5, on October 10, 1896, the final games of the 1896 season.
Following the final game with Maysville, the Journal reported on October 11, 1896, that the Indians had played a total of ninety-five games during the 1896 season, winning 62 and losing 31, with two ties. All but four of those games were played in Knoxville, and Maysville was the opponent in thirty-nine games (of which Knoxville won 18 and Maysville 19). The Journal reported that manager Moffett would have made a decent salary for the year but lost the entire year's profits on the final two series, with Maysville and Richmond. Apparently, that was an indication that there had been small attendance, thus few gate receipts, for the final two series of the season, played in Knoxville. It is interesting to read in the same article that both Knoxville and Maysville had "finished their amateur seasons". The players on Knoxville's team lived in other cities, and reportedly had departed for their homes after the final game. Since they were obviously paid members of the Indians team, it appears that the definition of "professionals" in those days was different than it is today.
1897
The Knoxville baseball team continued to be known as the Indians in 1897. Examples of games that year were a 10-6 loss to the Louisville, Kentucky Cherries, on July 11, and a victory against Maysville, Kentucky, 5-4, on July 22, 1897. The Journal reporter who covered the Louisville game was obviously unimpressed, mentioning that the game was "not in the least exciting", adding that the game had been witnessed by only "sixteen to thirty people". It's not known whether there was any family connection with the Indians captain, first baseman named Davy Crockett, and the original "Davy".
On July 4, 1897, the Journal reported that the Whites, a colored baseball team from Knoxville, defeated a Morristown team, the Greggs", by the score of 23-7, in a game played at Morristown.
1898
Knoxville did not field a baseball team in 1898. The only reports of Knoxville baseball activities in local newspapers that year involved games played by local amateur teams, and games played by teams composed of soldiers who were stationed at military camps established in Knoxville that year, during the Spanish American War. One such example was a game between the First Georgia team and the Thirty-First Michigan Officers team, played on Labor Day, Sept. 3, 1898, at Baldwin Park.
1899
Newspapers for the dates when baseball games were usually played in the 1890's, including the Independence Day celebration on July 4, and the Labor Day celebration, make no mention of baseball games that were played at the sites of those annual celebrations, held at the Fountain City Park and at Chilhowee Park. Knoxville apparently fielded no team in 1889. However, the Journal and Tribune did report that a game between two local teams was played at Baldwin Park on October 12, 1899. The opponents were a Knoxville amateur team and an "All Professional team", the professional team being former Reds players, men who had once been, according to the newspaper account, "Knoxville favorites, when baseball was in its palmest days in this city."
Chapter Five
1900 - 1910
1900
Knoxville apparently continued without a baseball games in 1900. In the reports of the annual the 4th celebration and the Labor Day events, held that year both at Chilhowee Park and Fountain City Park, only one mention of a baseball games associated with those events is found. On July 4, the Journal reported that a baseball game would be played at the park on that day, but no mention of the teams, nor the result of such a game, are found in the newspapers on the following days, reporting the holiday activities.
1901
Knoxville again had no professional baseball team in 1901. That year, the manager of Knoxville's teams of the 1890's was still involved in baseball, but elsewhere. A report in the Journal and Tribune the following year, in July, 1902, reveals that Frank Moffett had been the manager of the Anderson, South Carolina baseball team during the 1901 baseball season.
A benefit baseball game for striking machinists was played at Baldwin Park on July 3, 1901, between teams called the Rounders and the Machinists. The Journal suggested that the game was not as well attended as had been anticipated for the one-sided game, won by the Rounders, 22-6.
1902
A Knoxville baseball team was again organized in 1902, with Frank Moffett returning as the team manager. Today, the Internet site for the Tennessee Smokies indicates that Knoxville played in the Appalachian League in 1902, However, all records consulted verify that the Appalachian League did not exist until 1911, and I find no original newspaper accounts mentioning that Knoxville played in any baseball league in 1902.
On July 3, 1902, Knoxville -- still known as the Indians, the same name the local team was called in the late nineteenth century -- played the Cincinnati Mountain Tourists at Baldwin Park. Pitcher Regan pitched a shut-out as Knoxville won 2-0. A doubleheader was played on July 4, 1902 vs the Cincinnati team, also at Baldwin Park. Knoxville won both games of the doubleheader. The Knoxville lineup for the Independence day games was : Downing, catcher ; Ragan, pitcher ; Hoffmann, first base ; Yeager, second base ; Bohanan, B., third base ; Leahy, short stop ; Bohanan, P., left field ; Moffett (manager), centerfield ; Fox, right field.
In late July, 1902, Knoxville played games in Augusta, Georgia, against that city''s team, made up of former college players. The Indians split that series. The Indians played a game against the Memphis Chickasaws, described as a semi-professional team, at Baldwin Park on August 25, 1902.
Knoxville played a double header in Knoxville against the Louisville All Professionals on Labor Day, September 1, 1902, winning the first game and losing the second. Knoxville won another game at Baldwin Park against the same team on September 4, 1902.
1903
The season for Knoxville's Indians in 1903 was shaky from the start. Local attendance was poor, and on June 20, 1903, an article in the Journal mentioned that Bristol, Tennessee was attempting to sway team manager Frank Moffett to move the team to that city. Knoxville played a series of games against Lexington, Kentucky in late June, and Moffett advised the news media that he planned thereafter to make every Tuesday "Ladies Day", since a decent number of fans of the feminine persuasion were showing up regularly at games.
On June 25, Knoxville won the first of what had been scheduled as a series of games in Knoxville against the Louisville Stars. The first game attracted what the local newspaper described as "about $10.00 worth" of gate receipts, and Moffett arranged for the Louisville team to go to Bristol and play that city's team, rather than lose money continuing the planned series in Knoxville. A couple of days later, Moffett reported that he expected to divide the team and fill positions with members of the University of Tennessee team and local players.
When the Cincinnati Tourists came to town the following week to play a series, Knoxville won the first game, 5-1. Four hundred fans were in attendance, but one hundred were ladies, who were admitted free, and Moffett avowed that if crowds did not improve he would quit Knoxville and remove the team. He had already been contacted by cities including Spartanburg, S.. C. and Columbus, Georgia, anticipating that move. Knoxville won another game against Cincinnati on July, 3, then the two teams played a double header at Baldwin Park on Independence Day, July 4, 1903. Unfortunately, attendance got worse instead of better, and true to his word Moffett promptly removed the baseball team to Columbus, Georgia, to compete for that city. Newspaper reports on the following days verify that the former Knoxville team was playing for the city of Columbus, with crowds averaging around seven hundred spectators.
I have not determined how long Moffett played the game of musical chairs on the baseball diamond that year, but by September the team was back in town, representing Knoxville. In a game at Baldwin Park on September 1, 1903, Knoxville defeated at team from Portsmouth, Ohio, by the score of 7-0. Knoxville's lineup for that game was Hoffman, short stop ; Moffett, centerfield ; Rhoten, second base ; White, first base ; McElveen, third base ; Akers, pitcher ; Brunner, left field ; Payne, catcher ; and Newman, catcher. Reporting the game, the Journal and Tribune mentioned that Rhoten, who had four hits in the game, was called "Harvey Logan" by team mates, for his part in the capture of that notorious bandit in Knoxville. (The same Harvey Logan who later escaped the local jail.) Knoxville again defeated Portsmouth the following day, before losing the final game of the series to Portsmouth, 5-1. Following that game the Journal and Tribune bemoaned the fact that "the bottom has dropped out of the sport evidently, and no matter how high class ball is played, it is a miracle when more than two hundred people are present to enjoy the game."
On September 7, the Journal and Tribune reported that manager Moffett had brought the team back from Columbus, Georgia, anticipating several weeks of play, but the small crowds at the Portsmouth games again convinced him to close operations for the year rather than lose more money. On Labor Day, September 3, what was announced in the newspaper as the season's final game was played at Baldwin Park, against a team called the All Stars. Knoxville won that game, 5-2.
Even back in 1903, much that appeared in local newspapers could be taken with a grain of salt -- the same way it's been ever since -- so it's not unusual to discover that despite earlier statements, the Indians continued playing games during 1903, manager Moffett taking the team to Jellico for a series of games, and then announcing that he was bringing the Avondale team from Cincinnati to play a series of games in Knoxville, at the Chilhowee Park field, during Fair Week. The preliminary report of the Cincinnati series in the Journal mentions that Moffett had arranged for several hacks to run from Clinch and Gay to the park, since the electric car service had been so poor on Labor Day. Those games were played during Fair Week, which is an interesting historical footnote concerning that activity in Knoxville. Some references to Fairs in Knoxville suggest that the Appalachian Expositions were the city's first twentieth century Fairs. However, an earlier twentieth century Fair was held in Knoxville in 1903, at Chilhowee Park. It was called the Knox County Industrial Fair, and was held during the week of September 21, 1903, when that series of baseball games were played.
On September 8, 1903, the Journal and Tribune mentioned that if in fact a team represented Knoxville the following year in 1904, their home games probably would be played at Chilhowee Park field. Among other things, the dust that plagued games at Baldwin Park would no longer be an issue, and Chilhowee Park field adjoined the recreational park, where better crowds could perhaps be expected.
1904
If persistence were a virtue, by 1904 Frank Moffett must have a gold star in the local baseball arena. Once again, he organized a baseball team in Knoxville that year. Knoxville played in a league called the Tennessee Alabama League. Their home games were played at Chilhowee Park.
You won't find details of the league anywhere among the numerous Internet listings of old minor league teams -- at least I have found no reference to the league on the Web -- or usually anywhere else, other than in the original 1904 newspaper accounts. In the few game accounts in local newspapers when a name other than simply the "Knoxville team" have been located, Knoxville's team that year was known as the Moonshiners.
Eight teams originally played in the Tennessee - Alabama League ; Knoxville, Decatur, Huntsville, Chattanooga, Columbia, Anniston, Bessemer, and Sheffeld. By early July, 1904, Knoxville was sitting atop the league, with twenty-nine wins and eleven losses. Sheffeld was at the bottom of the league, with ten wins and twenty-eight losses.
Knoxville's lineup in a game played against Columbia at Chilhowee Park on July 3, 1904 was as follows : Gaines, rf ; Moffett, cf ; Rhoton, 2b ; McCleueen, ss ; White, 1b ; Kyle, lf ; McArdell, 3b ; Lanhan, c ; and Akers, pitcher.
The league was soon on shaky ground, and on July 12 the Journal and Tribune reported Bessemer had dropped out of the league, due to lack of fan support. At a meeting, the league's directors then dropped Sheffeld from the league, reducing it to a six team league. Newspapers do not appear to show the league standings thereafter.
On July 25, manager Moffett announced that he had again scheduled a series of games in Knoxville with the Avondale team from Cincinnati, after the close of the Tennessee - Alabama League season.
On August 2, the Journal and Tribune reported that the Decatur team had been courting Moffett to become manager of that team. The following day, Moffett left town, taking five players with him, but instead of Decatur he went to Brevard, North Carolina, to manage a team in that city. As he had done the previous year, Moffett left Knoxville due to the lack of fan support. But the Knoxville team continued to play following Moffett's departure, as they split two games against Chattanooga at Chilhowee Park, on August 4 and 5, then reportedly were taking a road trip.
On August 19, 2004, local newspapers reported that Chattanooga had announced it would not be in the Tennessee - Alabama League the following year. The league had hardly been a successful one, and Knoxville likewise did not anticipate the league would continue. No record of the final standings have been found, and the Tennessee - Alabama League season either had been completed, or perhaps had folded.
Knoxville played a three game series at Chilhowee Park on August 25, 26 and 27, 1905, against the newly organized Brevard, North Carolina team that was managed by former Knoxville manager Frank Moffett. Knoxville lost the first two games, then won the final contest.
On August 29, the Knoxville team disbanded, after playing games for a couple of weeks after the end of the Tennessee Alabama League season. It becomes a bit complicated thereafter, since newspapers reported that Frank Moffett had reorganized the Brevard team under the name of the Knoxville Independents. That team promptly went to Johnson City for a three game series against that city's team. Moffett's Independents then returned to Knoxville and played a five game series against the Portsmouth, Ohio team. Those games were played at Chilhowee Park. Knoxville won three and lost two in that series.
Following the series against Portsmouth, Moffett announced that the 1904 baseball season was finished. He reported that in both the season just completed and the previous 1903 season he had lost money when bringing teams to Knoxville for late season series. He suggested it was unlikely that a league including the Knoxville team would exist the following season.
Among local amateur baseball teams that were playing in 1904 were the Knoxville Winners, Knoxville Iron Company, and the Summer School of the South team. Games were played by those teams at sites including Chilhowee Park, Brookside field, and a field in South Knoxville.
1905
Some modern writings mention that in 1905 Knoxville had a baseball team that played in a league called the Tennessee Alabama and Georgia, or TAG League. I could find no record of that league among references listing Minor League baseball leagues, and when checking accounts in local newspapers for the period beginning in July, 1905, I likewise find no mention of such a league. It was obviously necessary to check newspaper accounts earlier that year in order to solve the mystery.
It turns out that the "TAG" League was another of the proposed baseball leagues Frank Moffett was involved with, in the Spring of 1905, but that league barely got off the ground. On May 30, 1905, Moffett's Knoxville team was scheduled to play a game against a team from Dayton, Ohio, but that team was unable to come to Knoxville and the Knoxville team instead played the University of Tennessee baseball team on that date, at Chilhowee Park. Less that a week later, on June 5, 1905, Knoxville won what was reported to be the first game in the TAG league, defeating Chattanooga, 6-4, in that city. That same day, the Journal identifies other teams in the league as Huntsville, Sheffield, Rome, and Dalton. Then, a few days later, the Journal reported On June 12 that Knoxville had dropped out the league, and Moffett had relocated the team, now being called the Redskins and playing in Chattanooga. I have made no attempt to determine whether the league itself actually continued in existence, but if so Knoxville was no longer a member. In modern times, it has been recorded elsewhere that Knoxville played in the TAG League in 1905, but in truth Knoxville's venture into that new league was just a short-time venture that year.
Information in the Journal article on June 12, 1905, provides insight on the state of baseball in Knoxville in the early twentieth century, deserves repeating, and portions of that article are reproduced here : " about this time every summer Moffett almost invariably folds his tent, packs up his bats, and steals away where he can make expenses for the team ... This sort of thing has happened almost as long as the oldest inhabitant can remember ... Moffett's annual move is caused by the lukewarm support accorded the good teams which he always makes up for his home town. The attendance runs anywhere from fifty to two hundred persons, a probable average of one hundred and fifty. Baseball teams can't be paid and managers can't make money on such propositions as this. "
By July, Moffett had taken his baseball team to Asheville, North Carolina, where the team was described in newspapers as the "Knoxville-Asheville" team. Six hundred fans were in attendance at Riverside Park as they defeated the Indianapolis reserves in a game in Asheville on July 17, 1905. By July 20, 1905, they are referred to only as Knoxville in local newspapers, when they lost to Indianapolis, 6-1. Knoxville won the final game of the series, 6-1. A series of six games was scheduled to be played in Knoxville the following week against the same team.
By August, 1905, the Knoxville team again was being referred to as the Indians, and had played eleven games against the Indianapolis Hoosier reserves. In early August, they won two of three games played in Chattanooga against that city's team, then played a return series against the same team at Chilhowee Park in Knoxville.
The Indians defeated at team called the "Selects" on September 2, 1905. They then defeated the Roanoke, Virginia team, on September 3, in a double header at Chilhowee Park, 18-1 and 5-2.
The Indians played the local YMCA team on September 8, 1905, at Chilhowee Park. The report in the Journal and Tribune reveals that it was a disputed contest. The YMCA apparently had won the game, 1-0, in the ninth inning, and most fans had left the park. But the umpire disallowed the score, and Knoxville eventually won the game in the eleventh inning, 4-0.
As already mentioned, Chilhowee Park had become the site of baseball games by the Knoxville team in 1904. Baldwin Park had been acquired for the use of the Baker Himel School (University School), apparently sometime 1905. The name had been changed to the Baker Himel Park by that year. On July 17, 1905, a baseball game was played at the Baker Himel field between the Knoxville Giants, an African American team, and a team called the Rabbit Foot Company. In 1905, baseball games in the amateur City Baseball League were also played at the Baker Himel Park.
1906
Frank Moffett was still the manager of the Knoxville Indians in 1906. The team played a six game series against the Memphis Collegians in early July, 1906, at the Chilhowee Park field. Attendance was obviously much better at Chilhowee Park, as one game drew 600 fans and reportedly twelve hundred witnessed another game in the series. In one game, the Journal and Tribune refers to the local team as the Redskins, and apparently names including the Reds, Indians, and Redskins were often interchangeable when describing those early twentieth century Knoxville teams.
The Indians then traveled to Asheville, North Carolina, for a six game series at Riverside Park. They then returned to Knoxville to play a series against the Johnson City team. The street car service was criticized by the Journal and Tribune, mentioning that fans leaving the game had a long wait for the first available car back to town, mentioning that such delays were keeping attendance down at games. Knoxville lost a series of games at Chilhowee Park against the Cincinnati Mountain Tourists in late July, 1906. Knoxville defeated Chattanooga 8-2, in a game at Chilhowee Park on July 30, 1906. For that game, the Knoxville line up was as follows : Cupp, left field ; Payne, short stop ; Whitaker, first base ; DePue, second base ; Shea, catcher ; McDonald, center field ; Womack, right field, Snyder, pitcher ; and Revaus, third base.
The City League continued play at the Baker Himel field in 1906. Teams were the Baker Himel School, Y.M.C.A., the McClungs and the Imperials. The Baker Himel team won that year's pennant.
Knoxville's Indians played a series of games against an All Star team of players from the City League, in mid August, 1906. Knoxville won all of those games. The Indians then took on the Imperials, one of the City League teams. Knoxville won that contest, 6-0.
In a game against Dayton on August 23, at Chilhowee Park, the Indians prevailed, 11-2. The Cincinnati Shamrocks then came to town for a series against the Indians in late August, 1906.
1907
Although the few available references mention the Knoxville had no baseball team in 1907, a team was fielded that year. Knoxville's team in 1908 was called the Chilhowees. The manager was Am. Gaines. Perennial Knoxville manager Frank Moffett had left Knoxville and established a team in Chattanooga that year. However, although Chattanooga won seventeen of eighteen games played as of June 23, 1907, according to the report in the Journal and Tribune the crowds in that city had started small and become smaller, so Moffett sold the team to Darlington, in the South Atlantic League, where he accompanied the team and continued as manager.
The Knoxville Chilhowees played their home games at Chilhowee Park. Their early season games in 1907 included three series against Moffett's Chattanooga team, and games against the Lexington All Collegians team. Knoxville's line up against the Kentucky team on June 24, 1907, won by the Chilhowees, 3-1, was as follows : Barnett, left field ; Summers, third base ; Gaines, short stop ; Saxton, centerfield ; Brown, first base ; McPherson, catcher ; Rankin, pitcher ; Smith, right field ; and McNatt, second base. On June 29, the Kentucky team got revenge, 3-2, in a game at Chilhowee Park. Rankin again was Knoxville's pitcher.
The Chilhowees played a double header at Chilhowee Park on July 4, 1907, against the Huntington, Virginia team. Knoxville won both games, the first 10-2, and the second by the score of 10-3. That same Independence Day, a double header was played at the Baker Himel Park between teams in the amateur City League.
The Y.M.C.A. won the City League pennant in 1907. The other teams that year were the McClungs, the Kecos, and Woodruffs.
I find no other records of later games played in 1908 by the Knoxville baseball team, although, again, it is quite possible I've missed such reports in the local newspapers. In any event, Knoxville did field a baseball team called the Chilhowees that year.
The University of Tennessee baseball team played a game at the University, or Baker Himel field, against the Rolla School of Mines, on April 19, 1907. The city's amateur baseball league also played their games at the Baker Himel field. Later that year, the U. T. football team played to a scoreless tie against Kentucky State, in a game at the Chilhowee Park field, on November 19, 1907.
1908
Frank Moffett returned to Knoxville as manager of the local baseball team in 1908. That year, they were called the Independents. For an early season game against Nebraska, Knoxville's lineup was as follows : Saxton, centerfield ; Yoe, second base ; Dohahue, left field ; Gaines, shortstop ; Womble, third base ; Baker, catcher ; McNabb, first base ; Silvers, right field ; Schean, pitcher.
Knoxville's home games again were played at the Chilhowee Park field. Some of the results of games played by the Knoxville Independents in 1908 were the following :
June 22, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Nebraska Indians 8, Knoxville 6.
June, 1908. At Harriman, Tennessee. (Game result not found)
June 25, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Knoxville 4, Lexington, Kentucky 1.
June 26, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Knoxville 8, Lexington, Kentucky 2.
July 2, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Chattanooga 4, Knoxville 2.
July 4, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Knoxville 6, Chattanooga 4 (thirteen innings.)
July 17, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Knoxville 4, Chattanooga 3.
July 25, 1908. At Athens, Tennessee. Athens 7, Knoxville 1.
July 29, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Knoxville 9, Chattanooga 5.
July 30, 1908, Chilhowee Park. Knoxville 22, Chattanooga 5
August 6, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Tuscaloosa, Alabama 9, Knoxville 1
August 11, 1908. Chilhowee Park. Knoxville 4, Sevierville 3.
On August 6, 1908, the Journal and Tribune reported that the Chattanooga Lookouts had secured a franchise in the South Atlantic League for the 1909 season, and that either Knoxville or Charlotte would secure the other franchise. Chattanooga did enter that league, but only for that one season, and Knoxville also became a member of the league the following year in 1909, when they replaced the Charleston Sea Gulls. Likewise, Knoxville was only in the league for that one year.
In 1908, a league of local amateur baseball teams continued to play in the City League. Those games were played at the Baker Himel field, and at Brewer's Park, a baseball field located in East Knoxville, east of the Five Points area, in the western section of what had been Knoxville's original Old Fair Grounds in the middle nineteenth century. Teams in the league were Halls on the Square (which won that year's championship). Southern Railway, South Knoxville, and the Baker Himel School. Another local amateur league played in 1908, called the Manufacturers League, teams being Sanford Day, Knoxville Woolen Mills, West Knoxville, and the Knoxville Iron Company. The Journal and Tribune reported that games in that league were played at the "new West Knoxville Park" -- the location of which I have not identified.
The U. T. baseball team played a baseball game at Wait field against the Tennessee School for the Deaf in March, 1908.
1909
The following is found in original local newspaper accounts, and perhaps clears up a few conflicting reports in other sources concerning the 1909 baseball season in Knoxville.
Frank Moffett again managed a baseball team in Knoxville in 1909, known as the Independents. The following games were reported in local newspapers. Two games were played in Asheville, North Carolina in early June (Knoxville losing both games, 6-5 and 6-2), and a game on June 19, at Chilhowee Park, against a team from Concord. Following that game, the Journal and Tribune mentioned that Moffett was to hold try-outs for the team, and selected those who made the team, for the baseball season which was to begin on July 1, 1909. Moffett's team played Morristown on July 2, winning in twelve innings, 3-2. (A second game scheduled that day was rained out.)
On June 8, 1909, a double header was played at Chilhowee Park, between the Cherokee Indians and a team made up entirely of college players. The first game was an afternoon game, and the second was a night game, the first such game played in Knoxville. However, it was a one event occasion, not one that involved the installation of lights at a local field in Knoxville. Instead, that night game was possible because the Indians brought their own lighting equipment with them. For whatever reason, I have been unable to locate any information in local newspapers as to the results of those games. However, the names of the Indians' players were published on the day before the game, as follows : Narago ; White Cloud ; Spotted Tail ; Scar Face ; Black Eagle ; Red Horse ; Three Rivers ; Sitting Bull ; and Big Beaver.
In the meantime, reports in late June appeared in Knoxville newspapers indicating that the city was to have a team in the South Atlantic (Sally) League. The first report indicated that Knoxville would replace the Macon, Georgia team in the league. Eventually, on July 3, 1909, the Journal and Tribune confirmed that Knoxville was indeed now in the Sally League, replacing the Charleston Sea Gulls.
Knoxville's new team in the South Atlantic League opened play on July 5, 1909, playing a double header against Columbia. The games were played at Chilhowee Park, and despite the fact that Knoxville lost both games -- 1-0 and 8-3 -- large crowds were in attendance, with 1800 fans at the first game and 2500 at the second contest. That first game was hardly an auspicious beginning for Knoxville in the league. Columbia pitcher Dutch Wagner tossed a no hitter against the Knoxville team.
The manager of the new Knoxville team was Steve Griffin. Although some references mention that the 1909 Knoxville team was called the Appalachians, local newspaper reports of games that season refer to the team as the Orphans. (Knoxville's team was called the Appalachians when they played in the Southeastern League the following year, and also when they later played in the Appalachian League.)
On August 6, a double header in Knoxville against Columbia was obviously exciting, both on and off the field. The Journal and Tribune headline described the affair as one with fights, riots, wrestling, encounters, and similar activity. Columbia forfeited the first game, but with a protest, and won the second. After some preliminary altercations, Columbia right fielder had slugged umpire Van Syckle in the jaw, and the stands quickly emptied, with ensuing chaos and a delay of some time before police finally restored order.
Apparently, visiting teams were inspired when large crowds came to Chilhowee Park to cheer for the Orphans. Chattanooga came to town on September 1, and what the Journal and Tribune described then as the largest crowd ever to see a baseball game in Knoxville, 2800 fans, was in attendance. Alas, in a mirror image of what had occurred when Knoxville had played its first game in the league back in July, Chattanooga pitcher "Ginger" Clark repeated the feat, but in an even more convincing manner, not only pitching a no hitter against the Orphans, but allowing only one Knoxville player to reach first base in the process.
Knoxville finished the season in fifth place, with a record of 24 wins and 29 losses. Some sources indicate their record was 52 wins and 60 losses, but that includes the games played by the Charleston team Knoxville had replaced in mid-season. The record I've shown here was the actual record of the team when games were played as the Knoxville Orphans in 1909.
Frank Moffett's Knoxville Independents team was still playing in 1909, although after the Knoxville Orphans were organized and joined the South Atlantic League his team apparently was competing only against local amateur teams. On September 11, 1909, Moffett's team defeated the YMCA, a team that actually was made up of all star players from the local amateur league.
1910
In 1910, Knoxville's baseball team became a member of the Class D Southeastern League, consisting of teams from Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.
The manager of the 1910 Knoxville team once again was Frank Moffett. In that league, they were called the Appalachians. Other teams in the league were the Gadsden Steelmakers, Rome Romans, Asheville Moonshiners, Johnson City Soldiers, and Morristown Jobbers. Knoxville won the league championship in 1910, with a season's record of fifty wins and thirty-nine losses. Cullop pitched the final game, a 3-0 victory against Morristown. Knoxville's home games in 1910 were played at the Chilhowee Park field. The rest of the Appalachians' line-up for the pennant deciding final game was as follows : Donahue, left field ; Clevenger, , second base ; Baker, right field ; Martin, shortstop ; Crockett, first base ; Myers, catcher ; Wombie, third base ; and Slivers, center field.
Chapter Six
1911 - 1919
1911
Knoxville became a member of the Class D Appalachian League in 1911. They continued to be known as the Appalachians. As late as September, 1911, the Journal was sometimes still calling Knoxville as the Champs, referring to the fact that they had won the Southeastern League championship the previous year. Determining what the team was actually called in those days is sometimes confusing, since following their victory over Asheville on September 8, 1911, the same newspaper refers to Knoxville as the Redlegs, similar to the team's earlier long-time name, the Reds. Teams in the Appalachian League that had been in the Southeastern League the previous year included the Asheville Moonshiners, the Johnson City Soldiers, and the Morristown Jobbers. Joining those teams in the Appalachian were the Cleveland Counts, and the Bristol Boosters.
Following a slump when the team went through a losing streak, towards the end of the season the site of Knoxville's home games was changed from Chilhowee Park to Brewer's Park, a field located in the East Knoxville section originally known as the Old Fair Grounds. Thereafter, Knoxville's play improved dramatically when they won sixteen of their final nineteen games, and at season's end they had nearly caught the eventual league champions, Johnson City, finishing the season with a 59-38 record, compared to the Soldiers 61-38 record. The outcome was not determined until the final game of the season, when Johnson City won the title by defeating Bristol., 5-1.
1912
By 1912, Knoxville's team had again assumed their earlier name as the Reds (although, as previously mentioned, apparently sometimes the team had already been so known in 1911), and continued play in the Appalachian League. The same teams continued in the league in 1912. That year, the Reds again finished the season in second place in a close race, with 56 wins and 46 losses, just behind league champion Bristol, which finished with 57 wins and 43 losses. Knoxville won the final game that year, played against Cleveland in that city, by the score of 12-8, but could not quite catch the Bristol team. In that last game of the 1912 season, the Reds lineup was as follows : Knox, right field ; Wynne, first base ; Rhoton, second base ; Cochran, centerfield ; Burke, left field ; Watson, third base ; Meyer, catcher ; Morley, shortstop
Nelsen and Baker, pitchers. The Reds' catcher, who delivered two hits during that final game of the 1912 season, was Billy Meyer, for whom Knoxville's new Municipal Stadium was renamed in 1957.
The use of Brewer's Park as the site for Knoxville's home games during the latter part of the previous season was only a short-lived experiment, and the Red's returned to Chilhowee Park for their home games in 1912.
1913
Morristown and Asheville dropped out of the Appalachian League, and the Rome Romans and Middlesboro Colonels replaced those teams for the 1913 season. In mid season, the Cleveland Counts dropped out of league and were replaced by the Morristown Jobbers. For the first time, the season was split into two halves in 1913, with Johnson City winning the first half and Knoxville winning the second.
A post-season playoff series of games to determine the championship between Knoxville and Johnson City was scheduled in early September. The first three games were played at Chilhowee Park in Knoxville, and the Reds won two of the three games. The Knoxville team then refused to go to Johnson City to play the remaining games of the series. The Journal and Tribune then reported "the pennant will go to Johnson City via the forfeit route." Thus, although some sources credit Knoxville's Reds as being league champions in 1913, Johnson City actually won the Appalachian League title that year. According to that article in the Journal and Tribune, some of Knoxville's players had already left for their homes in various other cities, and others would be leaving town soon. Players for the Reds that year lived in such diverse places as Mississippi, Nashville. Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Ohio. The only Knoxvillian on the team was catcher W. D. Knox, who had lived in the city for several years.
Either the Reds players didn't leave town as the Journal had mentioned, they later returned to town, or other players were acquired to play for the team, because in September, 1913, Knoxville played a post-season three game series against Atlanta, the Southern League champions. The games were played in Knoxville, at the Chilhowee Park field. That fall, the National Conservation Exposition was held at Chilhowee Park, and the baseball park was called Exposition Stadium. The baseball series between Knoxville and Atlanta was an added attraction at that Exposition, as were local high school football games that year, also played at the same field. Knoxville won the first game, 4-3, then dropped the other two contests by the scores of 3-2 and 4-1. For that post season series of games, local newspaper advertised Knoxville as the Appalachian League Champions, despite the fact that they had forfeited the title to Johnson City by refusing to continue the playoff series. Knoxville as the Appalachian League Champions, despite the fact that they actually forfeited the title to Johnson City.
In 1913, the Caswell Park property, consisting of twenty acres, was donated to the city of Knoxville. Later, three different stadiums were built at the site and it would be the home of Knoxville's baseball team, the site of baseball games by local amateur teams, and -- during the early years of those stadiums -- a place where football games were played by local high school teams.
The City Amateur League played this year. Eight teams were in the league, and the games were played at Chilhowee Park and Brewer's Park. An example of other amateur games played in Knoxville in 1913 was reported in the Journal reported on September 7, 1913, a baseball game was played between Beaumont and the Mountain View Independents, played " on the latter's diamond". It is believed, but not verified, that "Mountain View" team was not from the East Knoxville community with the same name, but a community in North Knoxville that was also called Mountain View at that time, located in the area from Woodland Avenue to Anderson Avenue, between McMillan Street and Glenwood.
1914
The Reds continued to play in the Appalachian League in 1914, the final year of the league's existence. That year, the league had been reduced from six to four teams, with the Reds, the Middlesboro Colonels, and the Morristown Jobbers being joined by the Harriman Boosters, which replaced the Bristol team in 1914. Johnson City and Rome had dropped out of the league.
The Reds final season in the Appalachian League in 1914 was an abbreviated one. On June 1, Knoxville was in last place in the league, with a record of 5 wins and 9 losses. Crowds at local games had dwindled considerably, with only 200 spectators attending the June 9 game in Knoxville, a loss to Harriman.
Frank Moffett resigned as manager of the Reds, and went to Bristol in an attempt to reorganize the Knoxville team in that city. The attempt was futile, the league folded, and the season ended abruptly in mid-June, 1914. Knoxville's final game was on June 16, a 3-3 tie against Harriman after thirteen innings, played in that city. The Reds finished the brief season in the cellar, with 11 wins and 16 losses.
On June 19, the Reds played a benefit game for its own team members at Chilhowee Park, against an all star team of players from the local city amateur league. The game was billed as " the passing of the Appalachian League in this city". The Reds won the game, 7-1. It's unlikely that the Reds' players -- who, according to contemporary newspaper reports, had not been paid since June 1, 1914 -- realized much revenue from that final game, which drew only 250 spectators.
1915
Knoxville did not field a professional baseball team in 1915. There was an amateur baseball league in the city that this year. Teams in the league were the YMCA, Fulton Sylphons, K. R. and L. Company, and the L & N Railway. The YMCA won the title. A suburban league also played in 1915, the teams being West Knoxville, West View, Marble City. Lincoln Park, Deaderick Avenue, Vestal and Caswell. Marble City won that league title in 1915. On September 4, 1915, the Central YMCA played Marble City for the city championship. The YMCA won the game, played at Chilhowee Park, by the score of 2-1, claiming the championship. Later that month, the Knoxville YMCA team played a seven game series against the team from Athens, for the East Tennessee Championship. The games were played at different sites, including Athens, Knoxville and Etowah. Athens won the championship by defeating the YMCA, 2-1, in the tenth inning of the seventh and deciding game of the series.
1916
Knoxville had no professional baseball team in 1916. That fall, an article in the Journal and Tribune On October 15 mentions that Frank Moffett and others were attempting to form a Class C League for the 1917 season, consisting of teams from East Tennessee and Virginia. Although the article mentions that representatives from Bristol and Johnson City were favorable to the project, it failed to materialize, and Knoxville did not have a team in 1917.
City and Suburban baseball leagues played in Knoxville in 1916. Games in those leagues were played at Chilhowee Park, Marble City, Oakwood, Vestal, and at a field on Virginia Avenue in Lonsdale. The City League teams were L & N Railway, Knoxville Knitting Mill, McClung's and the Fulton Sylphons. The Suburban League teams were Marble City, Sanford Day, Mountain View, Southern Railway, Vestal, Tennessee Producers, Draughons Business College, and West Knoxville.
1917
The attempt in late 1916 to establish a Class C league consisting of teams from East Tennessee and Virginia was unsuccessful, and Knoxville did not field a baseball team in 1917.
It seems likely that World War One resulted in the cessation of a number of minor leagues during the period between 1915 and 1920. A review of minor league records reveals that the following leagues were among those that were not in operation for at least some of those years, but reestablished following the end of that conflict : Appalachian League ; Blue Ridge League ; Central League ; Cotton States League ; Georgia Alabama League ; Georgia State League ; Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee League ; Texas Oklahoma League ; and the Western Association. Whether it was that situation, or possibly that interest in baseball in Knoxville had again waned during those years, is not known, but Frank Moffett, who had managed Knoxville's baseball teams in the 1890's and earlier twentieth century, became the coach of the University of Tennessee baseball team in 1917, where he continued in that position through the 1919 season.
1918
A few local amateur teams, and the University of Tennessee, fielded baseball teams in 1918. That year, Knoxville had no professional baseball tea. Many able bodied men throughout the country were serving in World War One, and baseball took a back seat in many place that year. For example, for July 4, 1918, the War Department had that Independence Day celebrations be kept to a minimum, and in Knoxville no excursions, baseball games, or even fireworks took place. In fact, the usual "Calendar of Events" for that date in the Journal and Tribune listed a War Savings Campaign, a Flag Raising, and a patriotic program at U. T.'s Jefferson Hall, as the only July 4 activities, other than a reported ice cream supper.
1919
World War One continued, and 1919 was fairly similar to 1918 as far as baseball in Knoxville was concerned, with local amateur teams and the University of Tennessee fielding teams. Frank Moffett continued to coach the U. T. team.
The local African American team, the Knoxville Giants, did play in 1919. They played a series of games against the Atlanta Cubs at Brewer's Park in May, 1919.
A baseball game between a Knoxville team and Chattanooga was played on September 19, 1919. The game was played at what the
Journal and Tribune described as the Exposition Grounds, the name then still being used for the Chilhowee Park field, although the
last Exposition at the park had been the National Conservation Exposition, held at the park six years earlier, in 1913. No result of that
game is found in local newspapers on the following day, and the Knoxville baseball team is not further identified in the original
article. Perhaps it was a team assembled just for that game. The report did give the lineup for the Knoxville team, as follows : Love,
Glenn, Reeder, Richards, Hawkins, England, Depue, Toms, and pitchers Love and Shanton.
Chapter Seven
The 1920's
1920
Baseball in Knoxville in 1920 was played by amateur teams. Frank Moffett, no longer coaching the University of Tennessee team, was the coach of a team in Alcoa team that year. In late June, Moffett's team played a series of games at Chilhowee Park against a team from Memphis, called the Stancola Polarines.
An amateur baseball league was formed in 1920, playing games at Chilhowee Park. Teams in the league were from Knoxville and elsewhere, including Moffett's Alcoa team, Clinton, Southern Railway, National Defenders, R. L. Johnson, and the American Legion. Moffett's team was quickly winning and soon running away with the league, and at a meeting on July 2, the league was nearly disbanded because of some of his activities, including the practice of signing his players to semi professional contracts with teams in other states. The league continued, although the league did vote to divide the season into two halve. Alcoa won the first half with only one loss.
I have not determined if that amateur league continued in 1920, but no professional baseball team represented Knoxville that year.
1921
A new stadium at Caswell Park had been completed, and the new facility was dedicated with an exhibition game between the Boston Red Sox and the Maryville College team, on April 2, 1921. What was described as one of the largest crowds ever to see a game in Knoxville, and the Rex Sox pound Maryville, 14-1.
In the spring of 1921, baseball promoter Frank Moffett was at work trying to secure a birth for Knoxville in the Southern Association for the 1922 season. Instead, for the first time since the 1914 season, Knoxville fielded a professional baseball team in the Class D Appalachian League in 1921. In that league they were known as the Pioneers. Other teams in the league were the Bristol State Liners, Greeneville Burley Cubs, Kingsport Indians, Cleveland Manufacturers, and the Johnson City Soldiers. The Pioneer's home games were played at the new Caswell Park stadium. Knoxville's manager was named Clunk, and occasionally local sports writers referred to the team as the "Clunkites."
The 1921 season was divided into two halves. Greeneville won the first half and Johnson City won the second half. Johnson City won the 1921 pennant by defeating Greeneville in the playoff. On July 5, late in the first half of the season, the Pioneers were in fourth place in the six team league, with a record of 22 wins and 25 losses. In the second half of the season, they also finished in fourth place, with 23 wins and 25 losses. The Knoxville line up for the final series of the season, played in Knoxville against Cleveland, was the following : Moore, second base ; Dubbs, second base ; Sells, right field ; Callaway, short stop ; Seaborn, center field ; Clunk, third base ; Ford, first base ; Byrd, left field ; Siner, catcher ; and Malone, pitcher.
The City League champion in 1921 was the American Legion, defeating Brookside Mills for the championship. Other teams in the league were the B.B. C. Company and the Southern Railway. Games in the league were played at Caswell Park.
1922
Knoxville's Pioneers continued play in the Appalachian League in 1922. Once again, Frank Moffett became manager of a Knoxville team. Bristol won the league championship, with 67 wins and 53 losses. Knoxville finished fifth in the six team league, with 57 wins and 60 losses. Knoxville's lineup for the final game of the season was : Fowler, ss ; Allen, 2b ; Hall, 3b ; Seaborn, rf ; Crouch, 1b ; Kopshaw, c ; Inman, ss ; Austin, rf ; and Joyner, pitcher.
In an interesting development, the Greeneville Cubs were permitted to play their last three home games of the season at Knoxville's Caswell Park instead of in Greeneville. Crowds were small, Greeneville was at the bottom of the league, and the gesture was an attempt to keep the Cub's backers from going further in debt, assuming that Knoxville fans, who had supported the Pioneers in decent numbers, may likewise attend those games.
Following the regular season, the Pioneers played a three day exhibition series against Chattanooga, of the Southern League, on September 18th through 20th, 1922. Admission was sixty cents for grandstand seats and thirty-five cents for bleacher seats.
1923
Knoxville continued in the Appalachian League in 1923. That year, Frank Moffett returned as manager, and the Pioneers won the league championship, with a record of sixty-six wins and thirty-eight losses. Other teams in the league finished in the following order that year : Bristol, Kingsport, Greeneville, Johnson City, and Morristown.
The Pioneers' roster in 1923 was the following : Johnny Bates, Johnny Johnson, Dewey Ford, Dick Douglas, Red Stoner, Gink Fowler, Frank Calloway, Lefty Loach, Trim Moore, Teeney Brandon, Lefty Bishop, Hoyt Williams, Dodo Lane, and Hobe Brummitt.
1
1924
The Pioneers were still in the Appalachian League in 1924, their final season in that league. Frank Moffett continued as manager. Knoxville won the first half and the Bristol State Liners won the second half. The two teams met in a playoff for the championship, beginning on September 4, 1924, at the Caswell Park stadium. Knoxville won three of the first four games, then won a fourth game to claim the championship, in Bristol. Knoxville's lineup in the final game was the following : Works, 2b ; Ford, 1b ; Rube, lf ; Johnson, cf ; Biggerstaff, rf ; Haile, 3b ; Doyle, ss ; Williams, c ; and Jennings, pitcher.
1925
Following the 1924 season, Knoxville dropped out of the Appalachian League. In 1925, they joined the South Atlantic League, and changed their name from the Pioneers to the Smokies, the name by which the team would thereafter be known for the remaining years the team played at the Caswell Park / Smithson Stadiums, through 1954. The South Atlantic was a Class C League. Other teams in that league were the Asheville Tourists, Augusta Tygers, Charlotte Hornets, Columbia Comers, Greenville Spinners, Macon Peaches, and the Spartanburg Spartans. Spartanburg won the league title by defeating Greenville in the final game of the playoffs.
Eddie McDonald was the Smokies' manager in 1925. The 1925 Smokies team is pictured in the Journal on May 24, 1925. Knoxville went from first place in the Appalachian League in 1924 to last place in the South Atlantic League in 1925, finishing at the bottom with a record of 44 wins and 85 losses. The Smokies lineup for the final game that season was : Tangerman, lf ; Miller, cf ; Brummitt, 3b ; Gill, 1b ; Marshall, c ; Holden, rf ; Henderson, ss ; Byrd, 2b ; and walker, pitcher.
1926
The Smokies finished the 1926 season in seventh place in the eight team South Atlantic League, with 68 wins and 79 losses. Only Columbia, with 40 wins and a staggering 106 losses, had a worse record that year. Knoxville's starting lineup for the final game that year - a 7-0 loss to Asheville - was as follows : Rutherford, ss ; Werber, 2b ; Hoit, 3b ; Burke, 1b ; Jones, lf ; Tangeman, cf ; Crouch, c ; Miller, rf ; and Brown, pitcher.
Frank Moffett continued as the Smokies manager in 1926. Following that season, local newspapers reported that seven, and possibly all eight, of the teams in the league were likely to have new managers for the 1927 season. Frank Moffett had announced months earlier that he would no longer be Knoxville's manager, due to a new league rule that prohibited managers from also participating as players. It was a somewhat odd excuse, considering the fact that Moffett was then 53 years old.
1927
For the first time since entering the South Atlantic League in 1921, the Smokies finished the 1927 season in the first division. They finished in third place, with 78 wins and 69 losses. Greenville handily won the league title that year. Knoxville's manager was Bob Coleman.
The season's final game, played at Caswell Park, was observed as "Elmer Myers Day", in honor of the popular Knoxville pitcher,
whose won twenty-three games in 1927, and the previous year had a record of 26 wins and 11 losses for the Smokies.
The Smokies lineup for the final game against Asheville was : Hurt, 3b ; Hamilton, 2b ; Cross, 1b ; Byrd, cf ; Osborne, 3b ; Corley, c
; Cussen, ss ; Curtin, rf ; and Myers, pitcher.
1928
Knoxville's manager in 1928 was Charles "Gabby" Street. Manager Street and the team at the beginning of the 1928 season are pictured in the Journal on April 15, 1928.
The Smokies finished in fifth place in 1928, with a record of 73 wins and 75 losses. Asheville won the league title with 97 wins and 49 losses.
At season's end, Knoxville's lineup was as follows : Gallagher, 1b ; Hamilton, 2b ; M. Smith, lf ; Felber, cf ; Osborne, 3b ; Williams, ss ; Cousins, rf ; McRae, c ; Bates / Brillheart, pitchers. Smokies center fielder Felber won the league batting championship for 1928, with a .366 average. Fowlkes had the best pitching record for the Smokies in 1928, winning 18 games while losing 10.
1929
Frank Moffett again assumed the position of manager for the 1929 team. It was the fourth decade that Moffett had been the manager of a Knoxville professional baseball team, beginning in the 1890's, including the Reds, the Indians, the Chilhowees, the Independents, the Appalachians, the Pioneers and the Smokies.
The 1929 season was split into two halves, Asheville winning the first half and Knoxville winning the second. In the five game playoff, Asheville won the first game, then the Smokies won three games in a row to claim the 1929 championship. Keyes of Asheville won the league batting championship, with an average of .377 in 110 at bats. Knoxville's McNair posted a .391 batting average, but he only played in ninety-one games, and apparently only players were considered for the batting championship if they had played 100 or more games.
Chapter Eight
The 1930's
1930
The Smokies dropped out of South Atlantic League after the 1929 season and did not field a team in 1930. That year, a local amateur Industrial baseball league was established and played night games under the floods lights at Caswell Park. Teams included Standard Knitting Mills, Knoxville Knitting Mills, Jefferson Woolen Mills, Security Mills, Standard Knitting Mills, Regal Manufacturing Company, Resolute Shirt Factory, Appalachian Mills, Knoxville Glove Factory, Brookside Mills, Cherokee Spinning Mills, Ashe Hosiery Mills, and J. Allen Smith Company.
1931
A new stadium was built at Caswell Park in 1931. City Council named the new facility Smithson Stadium, to honor Councilman W. N. Smithson, who instigated the idea of the new stadium and headed the movement to bring a Southern League franchise to Knoxville. At the beginning of the season, Knoxville did not have a professional baseball team, and the dedication game at the new stadium was played between two amateur teams, the Knoxville Fire Department and the Morristown Junior Order.
On July 14, local newspapers reported that Mobiles' franchise in the Southern Association would be transferred, and Knoxville's possibility of securing that place in the league was likely. W. N. Smithson made a trip to Memphis to meet with league officials, and on July 21 it was announced that Knoxville was in the league. Their first game was against the Chattanooga Lookouts, at Smithson Stadium. Other teams in the league were the Atlanta Crackers, Birmingham Barons, New Orleans Pelicans, Memphis Chickasaws, Nashville Volunteers, and Little Rock Travelers.
Knoxville's Smithson Stadium had the smallest seating capacity of all teams in the Southern Association, with 5,000 seats. Seating capacities at other Tennessee stadiums were : Memphis, 11,500 ; Chattanooga, 10,000 ; and Nashville, 8,500. All other league stadiums also had considerably larger seating capacities than Knoxville, the largest being Atlanta's Ponce De Leon Park, with 15,200 seats.
Knoxville finished in seventh place in the eight team league. Birmingham won the league title hands down, with a 10 ½ game cushion over second place Little Rock.
The local African American team, the Knoxville Giants, played a three game series against the Nashville Elite Giants, on June 14, 15, and 16, 1931. The games were played in Knoxville, at the Leslie Street park, in the McAnally Flats section. Earlier, on May 1, the Chattanooga Black Lookouts had defeated the Knoxville team, 5-3, in a game played in Chattanooga.
1932
In 1932, the Smokies finished the season dead last in the eight team Southern Association, with a record of sixty wins and ninety-three losses. Apparently there was a large overflow crowd on hand to see the Smokies drop the final game of the season to Chattanooga, 5-0, since the Journal and Tribune reported that seven thousand fans, the largest crowd of the season, were in attendance for the final game at Caswell Park (that estimate may have been something of a stretch, since the stadium had only five thousand seats.) Knoxville's lineup for the final game was as follows : M. Harris, shortstop; Sheehan, 2b ; Waddey, lf ; Bigelow, rf ; Head, c ; Madsen, cf ; Cotter, 1b ; Mayo, 3b ; and G. Bolton, pitcher.
Chattanooga won the 1932 pennant, barely nosing out Memphis for the title by two percentage points, although Memphis won three more games (101) than the Lookouts that year. It was Chattanooga's first Southern Association pennant after thirty years in the league.
1933
The Smokies continued to play in the Southern Association. At mid-season in 1933, a vote was taken by the directors of the teams in the league was taken, to determine whether to split that year's season into two halves. Teams obviously interested in making the change were the Knoxville Smokies and the Little Rock Travelers, both teams being at the bottom of the league at the time. The decision was made to split the season in two halves for 1933. Memphis won the first half with a record of 50 wins and 27 losses and New Orleans won the second half, with 47 wins and 31 losses. New Orleans won the playoff for the championship.
After the mid- season break, the Smokies managed to improve their first half record of 30 wins and 44 losses, only Little Rock having posted a worse first half record, by finishing in fourth place, with a .500 record of 38 wins and 38 losses. Knoxville complete season record for 1933 was 68 wins and 82 losses. One consolation was that Knoxville outfielder Frank Waddey captured the 1933 league batting championship with an average of .361. Hulvey had the best pitching record for the Smokies in 1933, with 18 wins and 14 losses.
1934
Knoxville finished in sixth place in both halves of the 1934 season in the Southern Association. The New Orleans Pelicans won both halves and thus the championship, without the necessity of a play off. The Smokies record for the complete 1934 season was 72 wins and 79 losses. Knoxville's lineup at season's end was : West, rf ; Pintarell, 2b ; Kunz, lf ' Hodapp, 1b ; Head, c ; Maxwell, cf ; Horne, ss ; Shelton, 3b ; Couzens, pitcher.
On November 16, 1934, the Shrine Luncheon Club issued a resolution to retain professional baseball in Knoxville, for presentation to City Council.
1935
Frank Moffett died in 1935. Articles in local newspapers credited the long-time manager and promoter with having established professional baseball in Knoxville, when he originally was a player - manager of the Knoxville clubs in the 1890's. As already mentioned, the question of whether some of the city's earlier teams might be regarded as "professional" teams remains in question. However, there is little doubt that Moffett's name probably was associated with promoting baseball in Knoxville for more years than any other individual. However, as is readily evident in this compilation, it was often a rocky road to travel, and poor fan support plagued Moffett's endeavors probably more often then success in Knoxville.
Knoxville finished in the cellar of the league in 1935, with a record of 57 wins and 95 losses. Marvin Hopson, sports columnist for the Journal, mentioned following the end of the season that Edgar Allen, owner of the Knoxville team, probably still would finish in the black for the season, since they netted tidy sums for the year playing before large crowds in Atlanta, and the Smokies players' payroll was reportedly the lowest in the league.
1936
The classification of the Southern Association was changed from Class A to A-1 in 1936. The Smokies continued to field a team in the league, as they would through the 1944 season. Knoxville finished in sixth place in the eight team Southern Association in 1936, with 63 wins and 87 losses. Neil Caldwell took over from Petty as manager of the Smokies in mid-season 1936.
Smokies center fielder Marshall Mauldin barely lost out on the league batting championship that year, finishing the season with an .378 mark, nosed out by Joe Dwyer of the Nashville Vols, who hit .384 for the season.
Knoxville's 1936 roster at season's end was : Mauldin, cf ; Webb, rf ; Bandy, c ; Caldwell, 1b ; Tyler, lf ; Fiarito, ss ; Blair, 2b ; Synder, utility ; Davis, c ; Skaff, 3b ; and pitchers Wasco, Moon, Beckman, Garcia, Moss, Mooney, and West.
1937
Back in the early twentieth century, the lack of fan support had often been a problem in Knoxville, causing baseball teams to either disband, or move to another city. But by the 1930's, apparently local baseball fans -- even after supporting teams that had suffered through mediocre since the Smokies had first joined the Southern Association back in 1931 -- were obviously loyal to their team. Otherwise, it seems difficult to explain why it was that when Knoxville made their final appearance at Smithson Stadium at the conclusion of the 1937 season, local newspapers reported that two thousand fans had watched the Smokies split a doubleheader against Birmingham. The presence of that many fans at those games seems even more astounding in view of the fact that Knoxville not only finished in last place in 1937, their record that year was probably the worst of any team ever to represent the city in any league ... forty-two wins and one hundred and eleven losses.
Neil Caldwell was still the Manager (and player) in 1937. The Smokies line-up for the final game that season was : Russell, ss ; Schleicher, lf ; Asbell, cf ; Caldwell, 1b ; Meyer, 2b ; Warren, c ; Dwyer, rf ; Calvey, 3b ; and McClure, pitcher. Little Rock won the league title in 1937, then also won the rather meaningless playoff series, four games to three, against Atlanta.
1938
Neal Caldwell continued as the team player - manager in 1938. Atlanta won the 1938 championship, with a record of ninety-one wins and sixty-two losses. The Smokies once again finished the season in the cellar, with a dismal record of fifty-nine wins and ninety-one losses.
The only individual league honor by a Knoxville player in 1938 was won by Maurice Van Robaysm, who led the league in runs batted in with 110. Manager Caldwell, hitting for an average of .308 for the season, was the only Smoky batter to average over .300 in 1938. No pitcher on the Knoxville staff posted a winning record that year.
1939
Neal Caldwell was still the manager of the Smokies in 1939. That year, Knoxville finished the season in fifth place, with 79 wins and 73 losses.
At season's end, the Smokies roster was as follows : manager Neil Caldwell, Herbert Shelley, Bertram, Charles Glock, Odis Swigert, Babe Young, Pep Rambert, Woodley Abernathy, Mike Goda, Hal Reitz, Frank Lamanski, Kola Sharp, Joe Kohlman, Norman Kies, Pete Mallory, Glenn Chapman, Rip Schroder, Jimmy McLeaod, and Sandy McDougal.
Chapter Nine
The 1940's
1940
Neil Caldwell was still the team manager at the beginning of the 1940 season. At season's end, the Smokies were back at their old tricks, firmly ensconced at the bottom of the eight team Southern League, with a winning percentage of .386 -- 57 wins and 96 losses. That was five more losses than they had suffered in the 1938 season when they also finished in last place. Before the 1940 season began, the Journal ran several stories promoting that year's team, including the report of an exhibition game they had played against Valdosta.
The rapid turn-over in the Smokies' personnel that year is evident when reviewing the team rosters at the beginning and the end of the 1940 season. Of the seventeen players who were on the team for the opening game, only three were still around at season's end. By then, even the manager had changed, Freddie Lindstrom having taken over that duty.
1941
Knoxville's manager in 1941 was Bert Niehoff. In keeping with their all too familiar custom, for the first dozen games in 1941, the Smokies posted a dismal record of three wins and nine losses, placing them at the bottom of the league. At the beginning of the season, the starting lineup, excluding pitchers, was Maudin, Stewart, Lukon, Hooks, Jackson, Epps, Gillespie, and Chatam.
At season's end, the Smokies had managed to retain their position in the cellar, with a final record of 62 wins and 91 losses.
1942
The Smokies fielded a team in 1942, and continued in existence through the middle of the 1944 season. Then, with so many able-bodied men called into World War Two service; the quality of play in professional baseball, from the major leagues down to the lowest classification of minor league teams, suffered. Rosters of professional baseball teams primarily consisted of men who were either too old for the military or were exempt from military service for various reasons.
Bert Niehoff continued as manager of the Smokies in 1942. At season's end, they continued their time honored position, firmly entrenched at the bottom of the league, with a record of 61 wins and 88 losses.
Journal sports writer Tom Anderson expressed his obvious dislike of the Southern Association's annual playoff system in his column, as follows : "There is a tremendous lack of interest in the Southern League's Shaughnessy rake-off, that meaningless and mercenary post-season series in which the four top teams annually engage. A 154 game schedule was played to determine the champions and the next best three clubs in the circuit. Now this brief series will be foisted on the people to confirm or repudiate the results of the marathon race and, incidentally, add a few bucks to the club's coffers."
1943
Night baseball was inaugurated in Knoxville when the Smokies played a doubleheader against the Atlanta Crackers at Smithson Stadium on August 12, 1943. An overflow crowd of 5,070 watched the Smokies split the two games. Many years earlier, in 1909, a local made-up team of college players had played a night game against a Cherokee Indian team, but that hardly could have been called the "beginning" of night baseball in Knoxville, since the Indians brought their own lights for that game, and of course took the lights with them when they left town. Knoxville was the last team in the Southern Association to have a lighted stadium. Local newspapers reported that for the first five night games played at Smithson Stadium that year, the total attendance had been 18,400 spectators.
In 1943, Knoxville managed to escape the cellar, finishing in fifth place in the league, with 65 wins and 71 losses. Players for the 1943 Smokies included : Seminick, catcher ; Dunn, first base ; Benning, second base ; Piat, third base ; Urban, shortstop ; Bowers, left field ; McBryde, centerfield ' and Veverka, right field. Knoxville's Cy Roberts also played for the 1943 team.
1944
World War Two was still raging in Europe and the Pacific in 1944, and the number of minor leagues in the United States had dwindled to less than ten. That year, the Southern Association was one of the handful of leagues in existence, and at the beginning of the season the Smokies continued in the league.
The Smokies franchise was transferred to Mobile in early July, 1944. While some modern writings suggest that the Smokies were whisked out of town during the night, with virtually nobody's knowledge, contemporary newspaper reports reveal that most people around here had seen it coming. The Smokies split a double-header with Chattanooga at Smithson Stadium in Knoxville on July 1, 1944, and the Journal report of those games called the team "Knoxville - Mobile", although also reporting that owner Edgar Allen said he had not yet made a decision whether to move the club to Mobile. Probably that statement was what caused the resentment, as the team remained in Knoxville to compete the series against Chattanooga, then promptly left the city and officially changed their name to Mobile, effective July 5, 1944. It was a rather ironic twist, since in 1931, when the Smokies originally secured a franchise in the Southern Association, they had replaced the same Mobile team, also in mid-season. On the other hand, losing the baseball team in mid-season was not a unique situation in Knoxville. In the early twentieth century, manager Frank Moffett had removed the team from Knoxville to other cities several times. during the early twentieth century, because of poor fan support at home games.
1945
Knoxville had no professional baseball team in 1945. That year, a local African American team, the Knoxville Grays, was playing in the Southern Negro League. They played a two game exhibition against defending national champions at Smithson Stadium in early April, 1945.
1946
In 1946, the Smokies again fielded a professional baseball team. That year they became a member of the Class B Tri-State League, then a six team league. Besides the Smokies, teams originally in the league were the Asheville Tourists, the Charlotte Hornets, the Spartanburg Peaches, the Anderson A's / Rebels, and the Shelby Cubs. Knoxville was the only Tennessee team in the league. The manager was Dale Alexander. At season's end, the Smokies 1946 line-up (excluding pitchers) was : Bernel, cf ; Koller, 1b ; Marsh, lf, Davis, rf ; Justice, 2b ; Alexander, 3b ; Valle, ss ; and Rocek, c
A promotion called the Knot Hole Gang allowed youngsters to watch the Smokies' games from the bleachers, for a small pittance, or maybe even free (I've now forgotten which.) However, the normal cost for a seat in the bleachers for youngsters was only thirty cents, an amount that back then would get you into the movie theater three different times, or buy you a half dozen ice cream cones.
That first year in the league, the Smokies finished in third place in the Tri State League, qualifying for a birth in the Shaughnessy playoff series. Knoxville defeated Asheville in the first series, then lost the final playoff series against league champions, the Charlotte Hornets, four games to three.
Smokies' center fielder Chino Bernel and left fielder Fred (Houchie) Marsh, both popular among fans that year, were selected to play in the league's All Star game in 1946. In that year's team photograph, Bernel was pictured in the second row on the far left and Marsh was on the far right in the same row. Their separation in that photo makes me wonder if it was intentional, although that's pure speculation. Whether an altercation at a game that season was simply an isolated instance, or an indication that those two sometimes didn't get along, I can't say. But the author vividly remembers a particular game, when Marsh and Bernel were shouting at each other as they returned to the outfield one inning. The curse words were clearly audible from the left field bleachers. and as the argument became more heated they began walking, then running, directly towards each other. They threw their gloves to the ground, each took a couple of swings, and they were quickly in a fierce wrestling and fighting battle, rolling on the outfield grass. Team players and manager Dale Alexander rushed to the outfield and separated the pair, who continued to shout epitaphs at each other. Ah, the excitement at those old Smokies baseball games at Caswell Park!
1947
The Smokies continued in the Tri State League in 1947, with Dale Alexander as the manager. Their home schedule that year included a dozen Sunday games but no Saturday contests. The Reidsville Luckies and Rock Hill Chiefs joined the league, bringing the number of teams to eight. That year the Shelby Cubs became the Fayetteville Cubs . The Knoxville lineup, excluding pitchers, was Gribble, ss ; Davis, cf ; Kollar, 1b ; Moody, rf ; Mincy, lf ; Moore, 2b ; Cross, Rocek, c ; and Oliver, 3b. The only remaining Smokies' players who had been on the 1946 roster were first baseman Al Kollar and catcher Johnny Rocek. Some who had played on the 1946 Knoxville team were playing for other teams in the Tri State League in 1947, including Chino Bernel.
Concerning unusual episodes at the old Smithson Stadium, I remember one game when first baseman Al Kollar, a popular and talented player on that team, went back into foul territory behind first base for a long, lazy pop up. After a couple of seconds, apparently confirming in his mind that the ball was headed well into the bleachers, Koller trotted back to first base. The problem was that just about the time he returned to his position at the bag, the ball dropped out of the night sky directly on the spot where he had just been standing. Koller stared at the ball in disbelief, and from the stands came both the ringing of boos, and the familiar chant, "Same Old Smokies".
The Smokies again made the Tri State League playoffs in 1947, but after winning their first two games in Knoxville against Anderson, they lost the seven game playoff, four games to three. Anderson met Charlotte for the playoff series championship that year.
It was at Smithson Stadium in 1947 when the author saw two players on the Smokies team -- third baseman Leonard Cross, and pitcher Roy Peeler -- each hit two home runs in the same inning. At the time it set a minor league record, that for all I know might still be on the record books. A while back I talked with an old school classmate who also had been at that game and witnessed that unusual event.
1948
In 1948, the Florence Steelers replaced the Reidsville Luckies in the Tri State League. That year, the Smokies manager was Dave Garcia. The Smokies finished the season in sixth place in the eight team league, with 69 wins and 77 losses.
The season's final games were played in Knoxville, when the Smokies completed a four game sweep of that year's league leaders, the Asheville Tourists, with a 12-7 victory. In that game, Knoxville's Don Brennan started on the mound, then played at every position during the game.
Center fielder Bob Churchfield went three for three at the plate in the final game and won the league batting championship that year, becoming the first Smoky ever to hit over .400 for the season, with a .401 average.
A pitcher on the Smokies staff in 1948 was knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm, who went on to play for several different teams in the major leagues, and still holds the major league record for victories by a relief pitcher, with 124 wins.
1949
In 1949, the Smokies continued to play in the Tri State League. That year, the Sumpter Chicks replaced the Fayetteville Cubs. At season's end, Knoxville had a record of 72 wins and 73 losses, finishing in fifth place, just behind fourth place Rock Hill, and out of the playoffs.
Exclusive of pitchers, the Smokies' line up at the conclusion of the 1949 season was Drakos, 3b ; Jasinski, ss ; Tamlinson, c ; Owen, 1b ; Hackett, rf ; Neizgoda, cf ; Maupin, lf ; and Metral, 2b. Hal Swanson was among those on the pitching staff.
With regard to the possible construction of new facilities of virtually any type in Knoxville, in a statement reminiscent of more times than old residents can recall, News Sentinel Sports writer Bob Wilson mentioned on September 1, 1949, that he had won all of his imaginary bets when City Council declined to authorize a new baseball stadium unless Knoxville could secure at least a Class AA or higher minor league franchise. But it turned out a few years later the city did actually build a new baseball stadium, although a Class AA franchise had not been secured when that place, called the Municipal Stadium. Ironically, years earlier, when the new Smithson Stadium was completed at Caswell Park in 1931, Knoxville likewise did not have a franchise in any league at that time. Many years later, the city would again ignore the need for another new stadium, and permit professional baseball to depart from Knoxville -- probably forever.
Chapter Ten
The Final Years at Smithson Stadium
1950
In 1950, the Smokies were the Tri State League regular season champions, with a record of 89 wins and 58 losses. Jack Aragon was the manager that year. It was the only year Knoxville ever won the Tri State League regular season championship, although in their final year in the league in 1954 they did win the playoff series.
The league also continued the post season Shaughnessy playoffs, between the four teams with the best record at season's end. That year, Knoxville played Rock Hill and Spartanburg played Asheville in that series. the Smokies lost all three of their games against Rock Hill in the playoffs and were quickly eliminated.
At season's end, the Smokies lineup was the following : Caldwell, 3b ; Samford, 3b ; Gentry, cf ; Neil, lf ; Olson, 3b ; Davidson, rf ; Castleman, ss ; Matthews, c ; Acker, Owens, pitchers.
The Smokies' Al Neil led the league in home runs in 1950, hitting 33 round trippers.
1951
The Greenwood Spinners replaced the Florence Steelers in the Tri State League in 1951. Jack Aragon again was Knoxville's manager. Knoxville finished the 1951 season in fifth place, with 60 wins and 79 losses. No Knoxville player was named to the league All Star team.
Al Neil, who had led the Tri State League in home runs the previous year while playing for the Smokies, played for the Spartanburg Peaches in 1951. He again won the league home run title in 1951, hitting a league record 43 home runs that year. Three year's later, Neil again played with the Smokies, in their final season in the Tri State league.
1952
The Smokies continued to play at Smithson Stadium through the 1952 season as a member of Tri State League. After only one year in the league, the Greenwood Spinners were replaced by the Gastonia Rockets.
Knoxville finished the 1952 season in seventh place in the eight team league, with 52 wins and 88 losses. Frank Aragon continued as the Smokies' manager.
The Smokies won the season's final game, 15-2, played in Knoxville against Asheville, in a game described in the Journal as one of "comical play", when statisticians couldn't tell the difference between deliberate misplays and actual errors. That final game in 1952 was billed as "Build a New Stadium Night", with City Council Members and Mayor George Dempster in attendance. The prospects for a new stadium were promising, since earlier there had been a referendum, with a vote in favor of a $500,000 expenditure for the construction of a new stadium, obviously then being considered a mandate by the Mayor and City Council. Mayor Dempster took a microphone at the final game and told the 1200 fans that he planned soon to announce that a new baseball stadium would be constructed at the Caswell Park site, replacing the creaky old Smithson Stadium.
The lineup for the Smokies for that final game at Smithson Stadium was as follows : Hilyer, ss ; Rivenbark, rf ; Gerken, lf ; Knight, cf ; Radsavage, 1b ; Chadwick, 2b ; Sokol, c ; Beagles, 3b ; and Beholder, p.
1953
The Smokies dropped out of the Tri State League after the 1952 season. The demolition of Smithson Stadium was completed in June, 1953, for the construction of a new stadium at the same site. A team called the "Chapman Park" team, playing at a field in Sevier County on Chapman Highway, entered the Class D Mountain States League in 1953. Another area team, Alcoa-Maryville, played in that same league. The early league standings identify the local team as Chapman Park, but the team name was later changed and the team assumed the name of the Knoxville Smokies. Many in town didn't consider the team to be Knoxville's baseball team that year, and the team received minimal sports coverage in the Journal, although reports in the Sentinel were often more extensive. Evidence of the lack of local interest in the 1953 team was the fact that it not well supported by local fans, and attendance at home games was usually somewhere between 250 to 400 spectators. At that time, the more popular team around Knoxville was the Maryville Alcoa team, and when Knoxville played games against that team attendance at games usually doubled. The Knoxville team experienced financial trouble early during the season, but was salvaged when Dr Edgar Grubb took over the team on June 1. The star player for Knoxville was a African American, "Big" Jim Tugerson. One home game during the season was played in his honor, when African Americans were admitted free, and 500 people attended that game. The team played at least one home game in 1953 at the Leslie Street park, an old field for African Americans in Knoxville, off University avenue. In some quarters there is still a lingering suspicion that one of the reasons for the lack of fan support was because the team featured Tugerson, who was playing in what was then still essentially a lilly-white sports community. In late July, league officials decided, actually several weeks after the mid-point of the season, to divide the season in two halves, probably to secure potential additional funds from ticket sales for financially strapped clubs. Alcoa - Maryville won the league's overall regular season championship, with Knoxville finishing 7 ½ games behind in second place. Knoxville won the playoff title, defeating Alcoa - Maryville in the finals. Pitcher Tugerson won 29 regular season games, the best ever record for a Knoxville pitcher. Sandwiched between the Knoxville teams of 1952 and 1954 that played in the Tri State League, some still debate whether the 1953 "Smokies" that played in a Class D league were in reality a Knoxville baseball team. It likely didn't help matters when local newspapers reported once during that season that the "Smokies" had to forfeit one of their games because they ran out of baseballs.
1954
The Knoxville Smokies (not the pseudo-Smokies team that had played in the Class D league under that name during the 1953 season) rejoined the Tri-State League in 1954, playing their home games at the newly constructed Municipal Stadium. That year, Charlotte and Gastonia had dropped out of the league, and the Smokies and Greeneville Spinners joined Asheville, Rock Hill, Spartanburg and Anderson in the league that had already been reduced from eight to six teams the previous year. Knoxville's Pat McGlothlin was manager and also a pitcher on the team. The Smokies finished the season in second place in the league, with a record of 74 wins and 63 loses. Asheville won the regular season championship. In the somewhat meaningless playoffs, the Smokies defeated Asheville in the finals to capture the playoff title.
It was the final Knoxville team to play in the Tri State League, as the Smokies again dropped out of the league after the 1954 season. By the following year, the Tri State League had been reduced to four teams, and the league folded after the 1955 season. For the final playoff game 1954, the lineup of the final Smokies team in the Tri State League was as follows :
catcher Worley
first base Bradshaw
second base Smith
third base Sabulsky
short stop Pack
left field Neil
center field Finn
right field Davidson
pitcher Maurielio
Chapter Eleven
Some Early Sites of Baseball Games in Knoxville
Following is a list of many of the early baseball fields that have been located in Knoxville. I have included not only the fields where professional teams that represented Knoxville played games, but also earlier sites where games in local amateur baseball leagues were located. However, not all later sites, such as neighborhood playing fields and sandlot fields, are included here. These are listed here more or less in chronological order.
Base Ball Grounds / Union Grounds. 1860's Located on the east side of Union, between Gay and State streets. The field ran northward from Union towards Reservoir (Commerce). The left field line was parallel with Gay street, and the field was then below a high embankment. The Chamberlain and Albers Drug Store was later built at the corner of Gay and Union around 1870, and the field went out of existence as other buildings soon followed in that block. That drug store had earlier been located in to the south, on Gay Street between Main and Cumberland Of the twenty-eight businesses listed in 1869 as being located in the block of Gay Street north of Union, only three are identified as having been on the east side. The fact that apparently few buildings were then located in that area north of Union makes it a bit easier today to visualize the existence of that field at that time. The left field line was apparently located along the area where years later buses arrived and departed from the rear of the old Union Bus Terminal.
Jackson Avenue Field. One of Knoxville's two earliest baseball teams, the Holstons (the other being the Knoxvilles), originally practiced at a field the players had cleared on Jackson Avenue. The site of that field is not known today, and no record has been found to verify that the field was the site of any early games, apparently being only the team's early practice field. The only reference I've found to this field appeared in an article in the Sentinel in 1921, being among the recollection of S. B. Dow, who had played for the original Knoxvilles team in 1865. While Dow mentions that the field had been located on Jackson Avenue, it may have been that it was actually on what was called Hardee Street back in 1865, then the name of the section of that street east of Central.
College Grounds / University Grounds. The East Tennessee University (University of Tennessee) baseball teams played games at this site in the 1870's. The location is unknown today, and could have been at any one of several sites on or near the university campus. The school played games at the site in the late 1870's, and it was the also site of early games played by the Knoxville Reds baseball team. (The University team was originally called the Reds, and when an early Knoxville team was organized it assumed that same name.) Games continued to be played at the University Grounds well into the 1880's.
Branner's Flats. A baseball game was played between the "Evening Stars" and the "Mountain Leafs", on June 6, 1876, at Branner's Flats, won by the former by the ridiculously high score of 58-17. The location is unknown, but perhaps it was somewhere in the vicinity of what once was Branner's farm, located in East Knoxville, east of the railroad tracks. Magnolia Avenue was named for Branner's daughter, Magnolia Branner.
Rolling Mills Grounds. Baseball games were played in the late 1870's at the Rolling Mills Grounds, on the Knoxville Iron Company property, west of the railroad tracks.
Old Fair Grounds. A baseball field was in the East Knoxville area where the original Old Fair Grounds were located. This field was located south of McCalla and east of the section known later as Five Points. The Knoxville Reds played games at the site in the fall of 1878, the first year of the team's existence. Local newspapers reported that the field was located in what had been the original race track portion of the Fair Grounds.
North Knoxville Grounds. The Knoxville Reds played a three game series at the North Knoxville Grounds against the Knoxvilles team in 1879, as reported in the Press and Chronicle. The location is not known, but evidence seemingly places this field somewhere in the general area around the intersection of Central and Broadway.
Isabella Park. A baseball game, between Chattanooga and the Knoxville Liebers, was played at Isabella Park, in 1886. The field was located somewhere in the East Knoxville section known as Mount Isabella, in the Mabry Addition.
Asylum Street Grounds / Park. The Reds were playing baseball games at this site in the mid-1880's, perhaps earlier. A few accounts of games played at this field referred to the site at the Clarenden Place Grounds. The exact site of the field is unknown today, but it was located in the original Mechanicsville community, and most evidence seems to place the site near what today is the intersection of Western Avenue and University Avenue. In 1889, The grandstand and fences were removed to a new site called Central Park (which see)
Clarenden Place Grounds. See Asylum Street Park (above)
Tazewell Pike Field. Another instance where the location of a baseball field in the nineteenth century is unknown today. Two Knoxville teams, the Deep Rocks and the Robinson Blues, played a baseball game at this site in 1886.. Originally, Tazewell Pike was the name of what today is Broadway, north the junction of Central and Broadway.
Beaman's Lake / Park / Field. (See Elmwood Park)
Lake Ottosee Field. (See Elmwood Park)
Elmwood Park. By the late 1880's, the Knoxville's Reds baseball team was also playing at Elmwood Park. The baseball field was located at what originally was known as Beaman's Park, and Beaman's Lake, (now Chilhowee Park. ) The field was in the southern section of the park, now on the south side of Magnolia Avenue. Sometimes in the late nineteenth century, reports of baseball games at this site in local newspapers referred to the field located at Beaman's Lake, and occasionally as Lake Ottosee.
Central Park / Asylum Street Grounds. In 1889, the fence and grandstand of the Asylum Street Park were moved to another location. The new field was just west of the railroad tracks, south of Asylum Street (now Western), bordering York Avenue on the east and Dale Avenue on the west. The field became known as Central Park, although newspaper reports continued to also refer to the site as the Asylum Street Grounds. The name later became Baldwin Park (which see.)
Ninth Ward Commons. Amateur baseball games were played in 1891 at a site in Mechanicsville called the North Ward Commons in local newspaper accounts. Whether that field was just another name used by the newspaper reporter for the Asylum street Park, or Central Park, or was an entirely different field, is unknown.
Holbrook College field. A baseball field was located at or near the Holbrook Normal College, in Fountain City. A local newspaper reported a baseball game in 1894, played by the Holbroks and a North Knoxville team, a the "Holbrook Grounds".
Fountain City Baseball Park. For the 1894 baseball season, this new park located in Smithwood became the site of home games of the Knoxville Reds. Following that season, the home field was again moved back to the original Central Park site (below.)
Baldwin Park. In 1895, The Knoxville professional team moved back to the Asylum Street Grounds, previously called Central Park, for their home field. The field was renamed Baldwin Park, and the Reds changed their name to the Indians.
Chilhowee Park. This is the same field as the one earlier known by various names, including Lake Ottosee field, Beaman's Park field, and Elmwood Park. By 1905, Knoxville's Reds were playing their games at this field. The Reds continued to play at Chilhowee Park when they were in the South Atlantic League, then later in the Appalachian League. Later, for many years, teams continued to play games at the field, including amateur league teams and local high school baseball teams. (This compilation concerns only the history of baseball in Knoxville, but it should be mentioned that not only Chilhowee Park, but a number of these early playing fields, were also the sites of early football games, played not only by local high school teams, but even the University of Tennessee elevens.
Baker Himel Field / University Field. This was the same field previously called Baldwin Park. It was acquired around 1905 by the Baker Himel Field and became known as the University, or Baker Himel Field. Besides baseball games played at that field by the school itself and other local high school teams, the U. T. baseball team and a local amateur baseball league played games at the site.
Brookside field. This field was obviously in existence as early as 1904, as the Journal and Tribune reported game played at the site by the Summer School of the South team on July 23 of that year.
South Knoxville field. The location of this field is not known, but a baseball game between the Riverside Mill and McKinley Council Junior Order teams was played at this site, according to a report in the Journal and Tribune on July 31, 1904.
West Knoxville Park. This was one of the fields where teams in a local amateur baseball league called the Manufacturers League played games in 1908. Location not known.
Brewer's Park. This field was located in the eastern section of what had originally been Knoxville's Old Fair Grounds, in East Knoxville, south of McCalla, between Harrison and Cherry streets. Together with Chilhowee Park, it was the site of games played by teams in the city's amateur baseball league. In mid-season of 1911, Knoxville's Reds moved the site of their games from Chilhowee Park to Brewer's Park for the final part of the 1911 season. By around 1915, Brewer's Park had become primarily a playing field for African American baseball teams.
Mountain View field. An unidentified site, probably located in North Knoxville, where a neighborhood called Mountain View was located in 1913, and where local amateur games were played. (A different place from the East Knoxville community of the same name.)
Leslie Street Park. The Knoxville Giants, a black Knoxville baseball team, played their games at the Leslie Street Park. The field was located on Leslie Street, south of Western Avenue and north of University Avenue. The field was long a playing field for local African American teams, and also by neighborhood youngsters.
West View Field. One of the fields where local teams played baseball games in a suburban league in 1915. Location unknown, but obviously in the West View community.
Marble City Field. One of the fields where local teams played baseball games in a suburban league in 1915. Location unknown, and although it would seem logical, it is uncertain whether this field was actually located in the Marble City community. In the early twentieth century, the Marble City School was located in the Sixth Avenue section, not in Marble City, and Knoxville itself was then often referred to as the "Marble City."
Oakwood Field. One of the fields where local teams played baseball games in a suburban league in 1915. Location unknown, but apparently in the Oakwood community.
Vestal Field. One of the fields where local teams played baseball games in a suburban league in 1915. Location unknown, but obviously in the Vestal community.
Virginia Avenue Field. One of the fields where local teams played baseball games in a suburban league in 1915. Obviously located somewhere on Virginia Avenue, near Lonsdale.
Caswell Park. In 1913, the Caswell Park property, consisting of twenty acres, was donated to the city of Knoxville. Three different baseball stadiums -- the original Caswell Park Stadium In 1921, Smithson Stadium in 1931, and the Municipal Stadium in 1953 -- ( the latter facility later renamed Billy Meyer Stadium.)
Knoxville Iron Company field. Located in Lonsdale. Amateur leagues played at this field in the 30's and 40's and later. It was long the home field of the Rule High School baseball team. The Knoxville Iron Company obviously supported baseball in Knoxville, since games had been played at their original site years earlier, just west of downtown, that field known as the Rolling Mills Grounds.
Alexander Park. A recreational park, with a playing field. The park was purchased by the city for a playground in 1916. Apparently only amateur games between local neighborhood teams (Happy Holler, McAnally Flats, Beaumont, Lonsdale, etc.) were played at the site, from the 1930's until the early 1950's. In those days there were few if any organized leagues for young boys, and those neighborhood teams had no uniforms. The field was located south of West Fifth Avenue, at Arthur and adjoining streets. It was also sometimes known as the Fifth Avenue Park.
Winona Park. A multi-field facility, located along the east side of Winona Street, between that street and the Evans Collins football stadium. The facility was more commonly the site of softball games played by local leagues, but the middle field, with a longer left field line that extended to the fence adjoining the football stadium, was sometimes the site of high school baseball games in Knoxville.
Smithson Stadium. A new baseball stadium was completed at Caswell Park in 1931. Knoxville's Smokies joined the Southern Association at mid-season that year, and the stadium became the site of their home games in that league, then later in the Tri State League, beginning in 1946. Smithson Stadium was also the site of baseball games played by teams in local amateur leagues, and baseball games played by local high school teams. Earlier, until the construction of the Evans Collins Stadium in 1939, it also was the site of football games by local high school teams.
Seivers and Hunt Field. Located on Chapman Highway, in South Knoxville. The Alcoa - Maryville team played their home games at this field in 1953, in the Class D Mountain States League.
Municipal Stadium. Construction on the new stadium at Caswell Park began in 1953, and the Smokies played at the new stadium in their last year in the Tri State League in 1954. Later renamed the Billy Meyer Stadium.
Final Notes
The three baseball stadiums that existed at Caswell Park in Knoxville in the twentieth century were the original Caswell Park stadium, opened in 1921 ; Smithson Stadium, completed in 1931 ; and the new stadium, called the Municipal Stadium. The name of Municipal Stadium was changed to Billy Meyer Stadium, following the March 31, 1957 death of the Knoxville native baseball player. Those stadiums were all located at the same Caswell Park site. In the early years, certainly at least until the Municipal Stadium was built, local baseball fans as often as not simply referred to the site as Caswell Park, as did newspaper accounts of games played at the stadiums. I've talked with a number of long-time Knoxville residents who attended games at the old Smithson Stadium, to confirm that as an accurate statement, and those fans have been generally consistent in their memories of the name of the city's baseball stadium in those days, one of many such examples being a note I received from a long-ago fan of the old Smokies ... "I don't even remember the Smithson name for the stadium -- we just called it the Caswell Park baseball stadium." As did the majority of other local folks back then, as well as local newspapers, where advertisements often indicated merely that baseball games were being played at Caswell Park.
After 1954, Knoxville teams were known by several different names, including the Smokies, the Blue Jays and the Sox. The Billy Meyer stadium continued to be Knoxville's home field. Knoxville's last professional baseball team played its final season, in the Southern League, in 1999. There were rumors and proposals concerning the possibility of the construction of a new baseball stadium in Knoxville, but as often has been true concerning speculations about possible new structures in Knoxville over the years, that possibility turned out to be only a pipe dream, and no new stadium was forthcoming. For one, I still wonder if perhaps some of the many millions of dollars local taxpayers have been asked to spend in recent years for such things as yet another "renovation" of Market Square, and our expensive convention center, might have been better spent on a new baseball stadium in Knoxville.
The Billy Meyer stadium stood empty until it was demolished in August, 2003. In the meantime, outside Knox County to the east, in Sevier County, a fine new baseball stadium was built, and a team now plays its home games at that site. There in no longer a professional baseball team in Knoxville.
The team that plays today at the Sevier County facility is called "Tennessee". Although it's not a Knoxville team, nor is it located in Knoxville, it continues to use the name of Knoxville's once beloved and sometimes bungling baseball team, calling itself the Smokies.
I drove up there to watch a game one evening a while back. It is a beautiful facility, but it's considerably longer distance to reach than was the old Caswell Park stadium, and somehow it just didn't seem the same. Of course, lots of things aren't the same anymore.
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