88 Years Ago

This whole 1934 Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship series between the Chatham Coloured All Stars and the Penetanguishene Rangers has been something of an obsession of mine for the past three-plus years.

I’ve studied it, written a book about it, submitted a paper to the Canadian Journal of Baseball History about it (rejected - the committee, apparently, is “All Starred” out - I suspect they didn’t like that my research uncovered some things they didn’t like), and have spent many of my waking hours thinking about that time period, and what may or may not have happened.

These will probably among the last words I write about the subject. Time marches on, and I have other projects to write and edit. A side bar: editing is the toughest part of writing. But once I get going, I tend to really get into it. I love getting immersed back into the story and my characters once again. When you write fiction (in my case, historical), you tend to become very close to your characters - they become imaginary friends.

Anyway, to conclude my series about….this series: after the end of the highly controversial third game, which I wrote about last week, a replay - as was the rule then - was ordered for the next day, with Guelph once again serving as the location.

With Phil Marchildon’s arm all but dead, the Penetang squad was likely hoping for a miracle when they left their hotel for the ballpark that day. He had pitched every inning of every game - almost all high leverage, as Penetang’s largest margin of victory was one run, its largest margin of defeat two - since the end of August, on top of commuting to and from games from the St Michael’s campus in Toronto. There are some who suspect Penetang stalled in the bottom of the 11th the previous day in order to have the game called and force a replay, but the players had to know Phil was all but done. A newspaper account had him liberally dousing his arm in strong liniment before every game over the past two months, and it must have been ready to fall off.

Chatham scored early and often against Marchildon. The visiting team once again, the Stars tallied three runs in the top of the 1st, although Penetang came back with four in the bottom half of the inning. But the hit parade continued, and with the bases loaded and run already in with only one out in the top of the 2nd, a weary Marchildon switched spots with SS Hal Crippin, the team’s back up pitcher, who took to the mound for the first time since an exhibition game in Parry Sound on Labour Day. By the end of the 3rd, Chatham had scored a dozen runs, en route to a 13-7 triumph, giving the Stars the championship.

Chatham’s win helped gain wider acceptance for the black community in the city. Boomer Harding, the team’s star 1st Baseman, who would later break the colour barrier in the International Hockey League, became Chatham’s first postal carrier of colour; his brother became one of the first black policemen in the city.

The enmity between the two teams that was born prior to the series when the OBAA had to step in to decide playing dates and location continued on after the series - truth be told, I came across many references about the Penetang side having trouble making friends and influencing people throughout the season - as this snippet from the Penetang Herald that I recently came into possession of demonstrates:

 A mere handful of spectators turned out to the two games in Guelph and the concluding series was a financial disaster as well as the end of all hope for a championship team this year.

The Herald did tip its hat to the Stars, however:

And so - this is it. My study and writing about the series has come to an end. I humbly submit that I’m a true scholar of that historic season, and I’ve done my best to bring not only the series and that 1934 season to life, but I’ve also tried to give readers of my book a taste of what that era was like. With parents and in-laws who grew up in the Depression, I’ve always had an interest in that difficult time.

If you’ve ordered and read my book - thanks! If not, I think you’ll find it very worth your time. My next book is something of a spin off - during my research, I heard about future Hall of Famer Chick Hafey being sent to Port McNicoll, a railway and shipping village on the other side of Midland, in the 1930s to convalesce from a serious bout of influenza. My sleuthing revealed a great deal about Hafey, baseball contract negotiations of that time period, a character by the name of Dapper Dan Howley, and an Edwardian steamship called the Keewatin. “Severn Sound: A Story About Friendship and Baseball,” will be out next spring - hopefully in time for Howley’s induction to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.