Archive for February, 2012

 

Bud Galvin

Harry Galvin

Henry Francis Galvin

This biography was pieced together after I was contacted by Nora Galvin, the subject’s daughter. She provided a great deal of Galvin family information and proved essential as we exchanged numerous emails. She also provided the picture of Bud Galvin with Glendale Police Team, circa the late 1940s and contributed greatly to the piece on Hooks Galvin, her grandfather.

Henry Francis Galvin was born on August 26, 1914 in Boston. His parents wanted to officially name him Harry but were refused by the registrar because it was supposedly only a nickname, not a proper name. From his youth, he was known as Buddy or Bud, a moniker bestowed on him by his sister.

His parents were Harry Galvin and the former Mary Catherine Trueman. Harry, a former ballplayer, is chronicled here.

Bud attended Dorchester High School. Besides playing baseball, he also boxed.

Teams

• 1934 Lowell (MA), Northeastern League
• 1935 Elmira (NY), New York-Pennsylvania League; Charleston (WV), Middle Atlantic League
• 1936 Charleston; Alexandria (LA), Evangeline League
• 1937 Alexandria; Henderson (TX), East Texas League
• 1938 Portsmouth (VA), Piedmont League
• 1939 Portsmouth; Spartanburg (SC), South Atlantic League

Baseball

Bud Galvin was tall, 6’2” or 6’3”, and weighed 175 to 180 pounds. He threw righthanded and batted left. He joined his first professional club, Lowell, at age 19 in 1934. He played in the outfield with the club but also pitched extensively throughout his minor league career.

Baseball-reference.com statistics:

• Batting: 355 games, .262 average
• Pitching: 78 games, 32-27 win-loss record

He played the entire 1934 with Lowell, May to September, and was admired for his batting as well as his fine outfield play.

Lowell Sun 5/22/1934

Lowell Sun 5/29/1934

He began 1935 with Elmira but landed in Charleston, West Virginia by mid-June. The new recruit was considered “the best outfielder on the home club.” (Charleston Gazette, 21 August 1935)

Charleston Daily Mail 5/6/1936

However, he was released by Charleston in mid-June 1936 as the parent club, the Detroit Tigers, shuffled players within its farm system. He soon joined Alexandria and finished the year there and returned for spring training in 1937. He was then released in mid-June and made his debut with Henderson on the 24^th, a four-hit, 11-0 victory over Texarkana.

Galvin joined Portsmouth in April 1938 for a season-plus before being traded on August 5, 1939 with cash to Spartanburg for Buck Rogers who had a cup of coffee with the Washington Senators in 1935.

He contracted malaria while playing with the southern clubs and this may in part have curtailed his baseball career.

In a personal autobiography, Galvin wrote that he also played for (at some point):

• Fore River, MA (perhaps a Bethlehem Steel company team)
• Thorpe Motors (South Shore League)
• Jackson, MS (Cotton States League)

The Jackson reference had to be in 1936 if it occurred.

Personal

Galvin grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts. As a teenager, he helped his father erect a gas station near their home. He worked there doing various jobs, such a delivery driving – doing so in the winters during his early pro baseball career.

He later secured employment as a laborer and loftsman at the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in nearby Quincy.

On September 7, 1940, Bud married a local girl, Margery Ward. They had six children.

He enlisted in the Marines, serving from June 29, 1944 until being discharged on December 11, 1945. He was a PFC in Company A, 6^th Tank Battalion, 6^th Marine Division. With them, he traveled the Pacific, seeing action in Okinawa.

To ease his malarial symptoms, Galvin moved his family to California after the war. There he worked as a policeman in Glendale in the late 1940s – note the accompanying picture of him with the company team.

The family eventually settled in Canoga Park, Los Angeles – today known as West Hills. There, he became an aerospace design engineer for various local firms and worked on the Apollo projects.

Bud Galvin passed away on March 24, 2003 in Santa Maria, California.

SOURCE LIST

• Ancestry.com
• Augusta Chronicle, Georgia, 1939
• Baseball-reference.com
• Baton Rouge Advocate, Louisiana, 1936-1937
• Burlington Daily Times-News, North Carolina, 27 April 1939
• Charleston Daily Mail, West Virginia, 6 May 1936, 28 May 1936
• Charleston Gazette, West Virginia, 1935-1936
• Chicago Tribune, 11 April 1938
• Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3 August 1935
• Dallas Morning News, 1 April 1937
• Danville Bee, Virginia, 23 June 1938
• Familysearch.com
• Lowell Sun, Massachusetts, 1934, 13 May 1935
• New Orleans Times-Picayune, 3 September 1936
• San Antonio La Prensa, 12 April 1938
• Spartanburg Herald-Journal, South Carolina, 6 August 1939
• Springfield Republican, Massachusetts, 1934

 

Hooks Galvin

Harry Galvin

Henry Thomas Galvin

This biography was pieced together after I was contacted by Nora Galvin, the subject’s granddaughter. She provided a great deal of Galvin family information and proved essential as we exchanged numerous emails. She also contributed a great deal to the piece on Bud Galvin, her father.

Henry Thomas Galvin was born in Boston on December 11, 1883. He was called Harry his entire life, actually unaware that his given name was Henry until adulthood when he requested a copy of his birth certificate.

He was the oldest son of Francis Galvin and Ann C. Galvin, nee Quinn. Francis, a teamster, was born in Massachusetts to Ireland natives. Ann was born in New Castle, England. The couple had nine children, one dying young.

Harry dropped out of high school to help support his large, struggling family after his father broke a leg and never finished his education. He had big hands and prominent bow legs which held his height to around 5’8”, weighing around 147 pounds during his professional days.

Winston-Salem Journal 3/30/1911

Teams

• 1905 Concord (NH), New England League
• 1906 Lowell, New England League
• 1907 New Bedford (MA), New England League; Burlington (VT), New Hampshire League; Brockton (MA), New England League; Haverhill (MA), New England League
• 1908 Fore River (MA), New England League
• 1909 Norfolk (VA), Virginia League; Fayetteville (NC), Eastern Carolina League
• 1910 Fayetteville
• 1911 Winston-Salem (NC), Carolina Association
• 1912 Winston-Salem; Asheville (NC), Appalachian League
• 1913 Lawrence (MA), New England League
• 1915-1922 St. Ambrose (Dorchester, MA)
• 1925 Dorchester

Baseball

Galvin was primarily a catcher but he did take the mound on occasion. Like many catchers, he had a weak bat, listed with a .193 career batting average in 288 professional games at Baseball-reference.com.

Harry signed with his first professional club in January 1905, Concord of the New England League, at age 21. He played in the league with various clubs through 1908. In 1909, he left the New England area for the first time and joined Norfolk in the Virginia League. It’s unclear what specifically drew him out of his home area.

He played with Norfolk through at least mid-May and then joined the Fayetteville, North Carolina club. With Fayetteville in 1910, he worked the battery with Jim Thorpe. The two kept in touch over the years. The Galvin family treasures a postcard dated 1943 from Thorpe. It’s addressed to “Hooks” which is the only found reference to the nickname. It’s unclear why a catcher was called Hooks.

Richmond Times Dispatch 8/25/1910

Galvin’s manager with Fayetteville was Charles Clancy. In 1911, Clancy took over the Winston-Salem club and took Galvin with him, and several others. Harry was named team captain. On May 18, the catcher was struck on the collar bone in a game, causing it to break. He missed the rest of the season.

Winston-Salem Journal 6/20/1911

He returned with Winston-Salem in 1912, but was released on May 21 and soon joined Asheville. Galvin played with North Carolina clubs until 1913 when he returned home to the New England League. He caught and pitched for Lawrence but missed a good bit of time to injury.

He was reserved by Lawrence for the 1914 season and expected to man the catchers spot, at least part-time, but it seems he never joined the nine.

From 1915 to 1922, Galvin managed and caught for a Dorchester (MA) club, St. Ambrose, representing a local Catholic church. He also caught for Dorchester in 1925, a team managed by Jeff Pfeffer whose 13-year major league career had recently ended.

Personal

Galvin married Mary Catherine Trueman after the 1909 season and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. They had three children, two surviving childhood. Their son Henry “Harry” “Bud” Francis Galvin also played pro ball. He is the subject of a forthcoming bio.

Harry Garvin worked as a printer and labored for the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts (at least from 1918-1920). By 1930, he owned a gas station in Dorchester.

Shipyards like Bethlehem Steel fielded highly-competitive ball clubs during the World War I era. It appears however that Garvin remained loyal to the St. Ambrose club.

Shortly after World War II, the Galvins moved to California. On June 14, 1960, Harry Galvin passed away in Pasadena.

SOURCE LIST

• Ancestry.com
• Baltimore Sun, 5 May 1909
• Baseball-reference.com
• Boston Evening Globe, 1915-1921, 9 May 1922
• Familysearch.com
• Fitchburg Sentinel, Massachusetts, 13 June 1925
• Lewiston Daily Sun, Massachusetts, 1 January 1914
• Lowell Sun, Massachusetts, 1913
• Richmond Times Dispatch, Virginia, 1909
• Sporting Life, 1905-1911, 18 October 1913
• Washington Post, 12 May 1909
• Winston-Salem Journal, North Carolina, 1911-1912

 

Bill Mullins sent me this article, an odd twist to the Despert story.

Philadelphia Inquirer 8/26/1916

 

Young Rube Waddell

George Edward Waddell, called Eddie, was born in October 1876 in Bradford, Pennsylvania near the New York border. As a teenager, he moved with his family to a farm in the town of Prospect, north of Pittsburgh in Butler County.

In his youth, he attended school and worked the fields. Part of his responsibilities included chasing off crows who fed on the harvest. He did so with rocks, becoming proficient in both accuracy and sheer force. Growing to over six feet and weighing around 200 pounds, Eddie would later intimidate batters as he did the scavenger birds.

In 1895 at age 18, Waddell joined the Butler team, a mediocre club which held contests with other local nines. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the state and Organized Baseball started hearing about this impressive lefty who sent more than his share of batters back to the bench. He would soon be known as the first great lefthanded strikeout pitcher.

1896

Around May 13, 1896, Waddell signed with George Tebeau of Fort Wayne (IN) of the Class-C Interstate League.

Fort Wayne Sentinel 5/14/1896

His actions here show the first signs of the erratic behavior which would plaque team officials throughout the big farmer’s travels in semi-pro and professional baseball.

Fort Wayne Sentinel 5/29/1896

Exasperated, Tebeau formally suspended Waddell on June 4, at which time the ballplayer was listed with the Franklin nine.

The above Fort Wayne references strongly suggest that Waddell was playing somewhere, most likely in Pennsylvania, Tebeau would have seen him pitch in mid-May – probably in or around New Castle. The May 14-article suggests that he was playing for an Eau Claire, PA nine, or perhaps for another team that happened to be playing in Eau Claire. As yet, confirmation has not been found.

In early June at the latest, Waddell joined the Franklin squad. Franklin had been in an organized circuit, the Class-C Iron and Oil League, the previous year with fellow Pennsylvania teams in New Castle, Oil City, Sharon, Titusville and Warren (and others outside the state). However, Franklin’s baseball status had diminished since 1895. Even their new, young pitching star couldn’t save the club.

Titusville Herald 7/1/1896

Waddell’s catcher with Franklin was Jack Nelson whom legend has it bestowed the famous nickname “Rube” on his young counterpart for both his country mannerisms and naïveté.

The nine disbanded in early July. Waddell immediately joined Runninger’s Athletes, a team composed mainly of Franklin and Oil City ballplayers under the management of popular local pitcher Honest John Runninger.

Titusville Herald 7/4/1896

Soon enough, Rube was twirling for Oil City, a club which also included his Franklin catcher Jack Nelson.

Titusville Herald 8/13/1896

Waddell returned to the farm for the winter.

1897

Rube may have played for mediocre clubs in 1896 but word got around about his exploits. The new manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Patsy Donovan, invited the big hayseed for a spring tryout in early April, or perhaps late March.

The pitcher headed south and met Donovan for breakfast. This must have occurred in Roanoke, Virginia, the Pirates training site where the manager had been since March 22. The two did not see eye to eye. Donovan cancelled the tryout. The pitcher headed back to Butler without even showing his stuff.

An unlikely suitor then approached the lefty. Volant College, a small private teachers’ college located to the west just outside Butler, offered to pay Rube a $1 per game plus room and board; he didn’t even have to attend classes. In the days before the Amateur Athletic Union stiffened eligibility requirements in the early 20^th century, this practice was more common than might be suspected.

Rube pitched his first game for Volant and its manager Thomas H. George on May 8 in Wampum, PA. He arrived late – in the 7^th inning – and took the mound for the final two frames, striking out 5 of the 7 men he faced.

He pitched for the school through June 23, dominating all opposition. While with Volant, Waddell also pitched a few contests for Greenville. One day while heading to meet George and his college squad, Rube was rerouted at gunpoint to Mercer by a couple of guys he tried to hitch a ride with. Missing his intended contest, Rube merrily decided to pick up a dollar and actually took the mound for the Mercer nine – when in Rome.

Waddell took the mound for Greenville for a few games at the end of June but soon joined Evans City. (He may also have pitched for the Homestead Athletic Club while with Evans City. He seems to have bounced back and forth with Homestead.) In mid-August, he faced the Pirates at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh.

Soon thereafter, Fred Clarke, manager and left fielder, and Harry Pulliam, club executive, of the Louisville Colonels of the National League sent Pittsburgh native Frank Haller to Evans City to check out their star pitcher. Impressed, he signed Rube on the 25^th.

Waddell felt no need to rush to his new club; he remained in western Pennsylvania pitching for Evans City and Mars.

Sporting Life 9/11/1897

Soon after midnight on Wednesday, September 8, Waddell woke Fred Clarke at the Colonels’ Washington, D.C. hotel. He had arrived and was prepared to begin his major league career. Later that day, Rube, still just 20 years old, made his debut in Baltimore, a 5-1 complete-game loss to the Orioles.

Philadelphia Inquirer 9/9/1897

The Sporting Life, dated 18 September 1897, credited Rube’s initial outing as a fine performance, especially noting how well he fielded his position. In the local correspondent’s words, the team made a “good haul in the hayseed.”

Rube’s catcher for the contest was Osee Schrecongost, a New Bethlehem, PA native also making his major league debut.

A week later on the 15^th, Waddell made his only other regular season appearance for the Colonels in 1897. He relieved a struggling Bill Magee in the third inning of the day’s second contest. Louisville lost 8-2 to Pittsburgh but Rube pitched well enough to win the contest, the loss belonging to Magee.

On the 21^st, Waddell finally pitched in Fort Worth, for the Colonels though – a 10-7 victory over the home team. He remained with Louisville into October, pitching in a few exhibition contests but returning home.

When the National League posted its reserved roster on October 7, Waddell was claimed by the Colonels; however, they soon dumped him off. Two weeks later, he was traded to the Detroit Tigers of the Western League with John Richter for Pat Dillard according to reports. First, Tigers owner Frank Vanderbeck had to find Rube’s address; no one seemed to know more than a vague reference that he lived in Butler County.

The deal may not have actually happened that way. For one, Dillard remained in Detroit for 1898. So did Waddell and Richter. Perhaps the exchange was conditional, or perhaps an early form of placing and reserving players – farming – in the minors for seasoning took place.

Fred Clarke and his young pitcher butted heads more than once in 1897. After the pitcher injured his finger while intoxicated, the manager fined him $50. The incident and others impressed on Clarke the need for the young lefty to get more seasoning/maturity. It also impressed on Waddell the need to avoid such a disciplinarian and spoilsport. Their parting was mutually appreciated.

Waddell did not remain idle back home. He played left guard for Butler’s football squad.

Name

Searches of the young Waddell found him listed under more than a handful of names:

• George E.
• George
• E.
• Edward
• Ed
• G.E.
• Rube
• Rubey
• Ruby
• Reuben

Personality

Stories of the eccentric Waddell were told long before he became a national celebrity.

Sporting Life 9/4/1897 (concerning his time in Evans City)

Sporting Life 9/18/1897

New Castle News 4/17/1914 (about his youthful exploits in New Castle)

1898

Waddell headed south to Nashville, the Detroit Tigers’ training site, in late March 1898, reporting in fine shape.

Sporting Life 3/26/1898

When the Western League season opened on April 20, Rube was on the mound for Detroit, a 4-2 loss to Indianapolis. He pitched for the club in nine contests, posting a 4-4 record with 38 strikeouts and 32 walks. His catcher was former major leaguer Art “Old Hoss” Twineham.

His final game with the club took place on May 21, a 12-5 loss to St. Paul. Rube allowed 13 hits and made some crucial miscues, including a glaring mental lapse during a steal of home. The Chicago Tribune lamented, “Detroit’s chump playing made it an easy game for [St. Paul].” The fact that Waddell was seriously hung over only antagonized owner Frank Vanderbeck who had been on the warpath for the last few weeks, firing his manager along the way.

Vanderbeck began to chide his pitcher for his performance. The insults combined with an earlier $25 fine for playing with a local club on May 8 alienated the young Waddell. He took off, jumping the club and landing across Lake St. Clair in Chatham, Ontario, Canada along the Thames River.

Chatham belonged to the Canadian League but wasn’t a signatory of baseball’s National Agreement, leading to the possibility that Rube would be blacklisted by Organized Baseball. As it was, Detroit suspended him.

Waddell was playing with Chatham by the 25^th, making a reported $60 a month. He also occasionally took the mound for nearby teams.

On June 2, Rube faced the Page Fence Giants, one of the top black clubs of the era. He lost 9-1, allowing 9 hits, to Sherman Barton who tossed a 3-hitter. Two of Barton’s allowed hits came off Waddell’s bat. What occurred that day in Chatham in all likelihood wouldn’t have taken place if the contest was played in the States. Rube went through three catchers, one via injury and two who weren’t experienced backstops and couldn’t handle the lefthanded fireballer. To see the game through, one of the Giants’ catchers, Pete Burns, stepped behind the plate for Rube and Chatham – effectively integrating the club, a practice nearly extinct in American minor league baseball.

On the 21^st, Rube struck out 17 Dunnville batters on the way to no-hitting the club, a 1-0 victory. To boot, he scored Chatham’s only run, in the 4^th inning. Miraculously, another 9 outs were handled by Waddell himself; thus, the pitcher almost singlehandedly accounted for 26 of Dunnville’s allotted 27 outs.

Saginaw News 6/23/1898

The next day, he struck out another 20 Dunnville batters.

In mid-July, Waddell met with Tigers’ manager George Stallings and agreed to re-join the club. First, he needed to return to Chatham and pick up some cash they owed him. There, he fell ill, some reports say malaria but that seems severe, and went home to Pennsylvania to recover.

The extent to his illness is questionable though; he was seen reported pitching for the Homestead Athletic Club, by July 31 at the latest.

Greenville Advance Argus 8/11/1898

As suggested above, Waddell’s status in Organized Baseball was under question. It would need to be settled in the off-season. The Brooklyn Dodgers also began expressing interest in the lefty around this time.

The Sporting Life announced that he was traded by Detroit to Columbus of the Western League as compensation for Bert Briggs.

Sporting Life 8/20/1898

In early September, Eddie left Homestead and joined the Butler nine. Rube seemed content, talking about managing the club in 1898. He was also running track for Butler. At some point though, he agreed to join Columbus (OH) and apparently signed with them.

In October the Louisville Colonels drafted Rube Waddell “of Detroit or Columbus,” whomever he belonged to. The transaction was announced by the National League secretary on the 18^th. (Louisville also drafted Ginger Beaumont, Kid Elberfeld and Deacon Phillippe)

Waddell once again kept busy during the off-season. He played left end for Homestead on the gridiron and also played for the club’s water polo and hockey teams.

1899 (briefly)

At the National League meetings on December 17, the circuit’s Board of Arbitration gave Harry Pulliam of Louisville free reign to sign Waddell for the upcoming season. Pulliam deposited the required $500 draft price. It would be up to the Western League to decide if Detroit or Columbus could claim the money.

On March 18, 1899, Waddell left with the Louisville group, headed to their training site in Thomasville, Georgia. On April 22 he was formally farmed out to Columbus, playing with the nine into September. He then joined Louisville for 10 contests.

At the end of the year, Louisville merged with Pittsburgh in a highly questionable syndicate deal which produced the first dynasty of the 20^th century.

As usual, Waddell had no shortage of suitors:

Brooklyn Eagle 8/7/1899

SOURCE LIST

• Baltimore Sun, 9 September 1897
• Baseball-reference.com
• Bay City Times, Michigan, 26 May 1898, 23 June 1898
• Boston Herald, 18 December 1898
• Chicago Tribune, 1897-1899
• Cleveland Leader, 3 January 1898
• Cleveland Plain Dealer, 15 May 1898, 22 May 1898
• Debono, Paul. The Chicago American Giants. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2007.
• Decatur Daily Review, Illinois, 22 May 1898
• Dubuque Daily Herald, Iowa, 31 August 1898, 4 October 1898
• Grand Rapids Herald, 15 February 1898
• Greenville Advance Argus, Pennsylvania, 17 June 1897, 16 June 1898, 11 August 1898, 8 September 1898
• Greenville News, Pennsylvania, 10 September 1898
• Levy, Alan H. Rube Waddell: The Zany, Brilliant Life of a Strikeout Artist. Jefferson,
• Minneapolis Journal, 18 May 1898
• New Castle News, Pennsylvania, 4 November 1897, 1 April 1898, 17 April 1914
• New York Times, 7 October 1897
• Peterson, Todd. Early Black Baseball in Minnesota: The St. Paul Gophers, Minneapolis Keystones and other Barnstorming Teams of the Deadball Era. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2010.
• Philadelphia Inquirer, 9 September 1897
• Retrosheet.org
• Rockford Republic, Illinois, 16 August 1898
• Saginaw News, Michigan, 23 June 1898, 1 August 1898
• Shenango Valley News, Greenville, Pennsylvania, 25 June 1897
• Sporting Life, 1897-1898
• Titusville Herald, Pennsylvania, 1 July 1896, 4 July 1896, 7 August 1896, 13 August 1896

 

The Society for American Baseball Research is introducing a new publishing initiative this spring.  The SABR Digital Library will be publishing new titles as well as reviving historical SABR publications that have gone out of print.

Two books mark the inception of the library: one new release and one revival.  Can He Play? is a new book examining the world of baseball scouting.  Run, Rabbit, Run is the autobiography of Walter “Rabbit” Maranville, published once again for the first time since 1991.  Both titles are available as paperback and digital editions.

Can He Play?, a production from SABR member editors Jim Sandoval and Bill Nowlin, is a collection of accounts of the lives of scouts, containing biographies, interviews, and historical essays.  From the beginning of more informal “ivory hunting” in the early 1900s to today’s intricate network of cross-country scouting, Can He Play? is a collection of stories that shows the development of the business over the last hundred-plus years.

Run, Rabbit, Run is Walter “Rabbit” Maranville’s recollection of years of baseball stories, collected only a year before his death.  From 1912 to 1936, he spent twenty-four years playing ball and getting himself into quite a few interesting situations.  The account also contains rare photographs and an introduction and conclusion from noted baseball scholars.