The 1920's have been referred to a s The Golden Age of Sports. Major
league baseball was booming and the economy was good. Babe Ruth was
becoming a legend and Yankee Stadium, dubbed "The House that Ruth
Built", was opened in 1923 at the staggering cost of 2.5 million
dollars. Ruth's offensive prowess at hitting homeruns would change the
way the game of baseball was played in the major leagues. The Yankees
became a dominant team. The news media covered the world of sports to a
greater extent and sports figures were often portrayed as glamorous
individuals performing heroic acts. Many of the famous baseball players
of this era would later become enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Lou Gehrig, Walter Johnson, Pie Traynor, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Tris
Speaker and Grover Cleveland Alexander performed in the 1920's. It was
an era that produced other great sports figures. Boxers Jack Dempsey
and Gene Tunney were champions of this era. Tennis and golf were
dominated by Bill Tilden and Bobby Jones respectively. In football
Knute Rockne and Red Grange were achieving greatness. Athletes became
larger than life to an admiring public, and reporters would often look
the other way if these star athletes behaved in an unsavory manner out
of the public arenas.
In Evansville, however, sports and baseball were not such a big
glory-filled business. No great fortunes were made by the Evansville
baseball owners, nor did the local teams dominate the Three-I League.
Homeruns did not fly out of spacious Bosse Field with the same
regularity as they did in Yankee Stadium with its short right field
fence. The 1919-1931 era, which included the 1920's, was for Evansville
baseball one of highs and lows, but mostly just getting by.
IN 1919 professional baseball returned to Evansville after a one-year
absence. The Evansville Black Sox were owned and financed by the
Evansville Baseball Fans Association. Stock was sold at ten dollars a
share. The team was once again a member of the Three-I League, and all
six teams were operated by fan associations. William Asplan was the
club president and Johnny Nee was the playing manager. The team
finished in third place with a winning record. Attendance went "over
30,000, and though no fortunes were made . . . a sufficient surplus
remains to get a start in 1920".
The Evansville team dropped the Black Sox name in 1920 after the
Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series; which featured Cincinnati
outfielder, Edd Roush. The league expanded to eight teams and the Evas
finished in second place. Near the end of the 1921 season it was
rumored that the league would fold, as attendance in the western cities
of Cedar Rapids, Rock Island, and Peoria was poor. The Evansville and
Terre Haute teams complained of not making expenses on the western
trips. A season ticket at Bosse Field cost twenty-seven dollars and
fifty cents.
In 1924 the Evansville Baseball Fans Association had a new president,
G. A. Beard, and the team a new name, The Evansville Pocketeers. The
Evansville entry finished a strong second place in the standings and led
the league in attendance with 81,000. The league was down to six teams
yet league attendance was close to 300,000.
The following year, 1925, saw the Three-I League adopt the practice
of assigning numbers to the players' jerseys to enable the fans to more
easily identify the players. Though the club finished in third place
with a winning record, the attendance fell dangerously low. Even though
attendance was good the previous year, the Fans Association lost six
thousand dollars the last four years of operation and was in financial
trouble.
A tragic event occurred that same year at Bosse Field. A
twenty-three year old pitcher for the opposing Decatur, Illinois team,
Louis Chedo, was hit in the head by a pitched ball thrown by the
Evansville hurler, Elmer Gray. Chedo walked off the field and was
examined at a local doctor's office and sent to his room at the Vendome
Hotel. Although "he had lost his power of speech, Chedo seemed to be
suffering little ill effects from the blow". Later that night, he was
taken to St. Mary's Hospital where he died of a ruptured artery in the
brain. Witnesses said Chedo appeared to duck into the pitch, and the
Evansville pitcher, Gray, was not accused of throwing at the unfortunate
player.
Starting in 1926 the Evansville team was known as the Hubs. The
manager position changed again and the team finished in fifth place.
The attendance was one of the best in club history, over 71,000. In
1927 the Hubs finished in last place and lost $20,000 on the year.
In 1928 the Hubs were purchased by Bob Coleman, acting as an agent of
the Detroit Tigers. Coleman was president and manager of the Hubs.
Major league ownership was heralded as the solution for the minor
leagues. By 1929, of the eight teams in the Three-I League, only three
were locally owned, those being Bloomington, Ill., Decatur, Ill., and
Springfield, Ill. Still, the Hubs lost $12,000 in 1928 in a
split-season caused by poor attendance due to weather and the large
early lead in the standings of the Terre Haute team.
The first night game at Bosse Field took place on August 12, 1931.
The Hubs lost 7-6 before a crowd of 3,041. The field was reportedly
well-lit except that left and center fields were somewhat hazy. There
were fourteen night games that year and they drew 21,500 fans for those
fourteen night games, an average crowd of 1,535 per game. Altogether
the Hubs drew about 50,000 fans in 1931.
Coleman could not get the Evansville franchise to show a profit,
despite leading the league in attendance in 1929. The early 1930's
depression years were lean ones for the minor leagues. After the 1929
season there were twenty-five minor leagues in operation; by 1931 the
number had fallen to sixteen. The Board of Education had spend $50,000
on improvements to Bosse Field in 1930 and raised the rent three hundred
dollars for the year. Coleman threatened to move the franchise to
another city that year, but came back in 1931. After the 1931 season,
Coleman resigned his position as president and manager and the team was
put up for sale by Detroit for $5,000. A group made up of G. A. Beard,
Punch Knoll and Hub's business manager, Gil Ellis, showed interest in
buying the team, but the transaction was never completed. The following
year, 1932, the team was playing in Decatur, Illinois, still owned by
Detroit and managed by Bob Coleman. The Decatur team folded during the
1932 season and the league suspended operations shortly afterward.
Under Detroit and Coleman the emphasis was put on developing good
young talent, instead of aging veterans employed by the previous owners.
Whitlow Wyatt was the strikeout leader of the league in 1928. He led
the league in strikeouts and games won in 1929 with twenty-two wins
before moving to Detroit. Tommy Bridges led the league in strikeouts in
1930 and once recorded twenty strikeouts in one game before joining
Detroit. Others who played in Evansville before promotion to the major
leagues include Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg and Chuck Klein, John
Stone, the Walker brothers, Hum and Gerald, Pete Fox and pitchers L. D.
Hamlin and Chief Hogsett.
