88 Years Ago Today…….

October 19, 2022

It was easily the craziest game that those who witnessed it first-hand had ever seen.

88 years ago today, the Penetanguishene Rangers tied up their best of three series with the Chatham Coloured All Stars in an improbable, wild affair that saw fisticuffs break out not once but twice, the visiting team leave the field after what they thought was the final out in the bottom of the 9th, and the lead change hands six times before the game was over.

Yesterday, I wrote about some of the tensions between the two teams before the series had even started. But despite that, the first game apparently went off without any of that emotion spilling out onto the playing field. The same could not be said for the second contest.

Chatham got out to an early three run lead - the Windsor Border Cities Star had noted that Penetang ace Phil Marchildon (pronounced ‘Mar-SHIL-dun’) had a “twisting underhand delivery” that he likely went to because his arm was probably killing him. Marchildon had been the Rangers’ primary pitcher all season, and with the workload he was under playing football for St Mike’s in Toronto, and commuting to ball games, his arm had to be killing him. The Barrie Examiner had noted that Marchildon had taken to liberally soaking his arm in horse liniment before every playoff game.

Undaunted, Penetang responded with six runs in the 2nd to knock Chatham ace Flat Chase out of the game.

A note about ball fields in the 1930s - they were incredibly different from today’s diamonds. The only protection for the crowd came from a chicken wire backstop - there was no protective fencing down the baselines to keep fans safe from errant throws. Few parks had dugouts - teams sat on a bench, right in the midst of spectators. Irrigation and drainage were not existent, and most important of all - there were no lights. The Negro Leagues had successfully implemented night baseball in the late 20s, and even the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League had experienced a boost in attendance by playing ten games under the floodlights. But such illumination in amateur parks was still a decade or more away.

Penetang seemed to have a victory in sight when they scored a pair of runs in the top of the 9th to take a 10-8 lead, but the game - and the drama - was far from over.

Things had come to a head early in the last of the 9th when Chatham 2nd Baseman Ross Talbot was called out on a close play trying to steal 2nd. Talbot, likely unleashing a season’s worth of anger over not getting the close calls, came up swinging, and landed a punch that just missed the base umpire, an unfortunate fellow by the name of McFadden. Unbelievably by modern standards, after his teammates intervened, Talbot was not thrown out of the game, but such a case was not unusual for the time.

The next batter, Don Tabron, a Detroit import who had come on to pitch in relief of Chase, singled in a runner from 3rd with two outs, putting the Stars within one. Tabron stole 2nd, and then took off for 3rd, only to be called out.

Chaos ensued.

This time, the fans - no doubt fuelled by the oil drum fires burning to keep fans warm (the high temperature for that day was around 9C - 48F - and temperatures dipped below freezing later that night), as well as possibly by some liquid reinforcement- spilled out onto the field. While the two umpires conferred, a fan connected with a blow to the home plate umpire Collier. In the meantime, in the midst of the on-field melee, the Penetang team headed for their vehicles in the parking lot, preparing to make the long trek back home to the shores of Georgian Bay.

But in the midst of the commotion, the original call was reversed. Tabron was ruled safe at 3rd, and once order was restored and the fans were removed, the game was to continue - amazingly so, once again, but today’s standards. But this was a different era; just as it was for the playing fields, the men in blue in those days took a lot of abuse, and were not all that well trained to begin with. It wasn’t until after WWII that the game began to take the treatment of its officials more seriously - the 1930s were not that far removed from the “kill the umpire!” days.

Once the game resumed, Chatham tried the old suicide squeeze - or maybe it was a hit-and-run - in either case, the batter missed the sign and/or the pitch, and Tabron was a dead duck at home. Penetang catcher Fred DeVillers (say ‘Devil-AIR) took Marchildon’s delivery flawlessly, and easily applied the tag to a sliding Tabron.

This time, there was no argument, no crowd overrunning the field in protest, no umpires harmed. Penetanguishene had in fact tied the series with a 10-9 win, leaving the two teams to debate where and when the deciding game would be played. Controversy, no stranger to this series, had firmly taken hold and would rear its head again in the days to come.

To be continued……..

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