Baseball in Greenville and Spartanburg

By Bob A. Nestor

Baseball, an important institution in every American town, takes centerfield in the histories of Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina. These two cities have hosted some of the most well-known players of all time, from Tommy Lasorda and Chipper Jones to "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, the man who will forever link Greenville and Spartanburg with America's game. Baseball in Greenville and Spartanburg chronicles the diamond game as it has been played in the Carolina Upstate. More than a century of games from the Minor League, Textile League, and Big League clubs, along with high school and collegiate teams, are showcased. An older Joe Jackson still plays ball, a patriotic Joe Anders impresses crowds in the 1940s, and the Greenville Spinners, Greenville Braves, and the Spartanburg Phillies bring the crowds to their feet. The greats teach the game to tomorrow's stars, while tomorrow's stars perfect their talent, all with the Blue Ridge Foothills rising in the distance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Feb 19, 2004
• ISBN: 9781439612491

Bob A. Nestor

Bob A. Nestor, a Society of American Baseball Research member and author of the Van Lingle Mungo biography, Pride of Pageland: The Story of One of Baseball's Greatest Pitchers, is a Greenville resident and writing professor. He combines his love of baseball with his singular writing style to promote and preserve the national pastime in the Palmetto State.

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INTRODUCTION

Contrary to much that has been written, Alexander Cartwright, not Abner Doubleday, deserves the credit for inventing the game of baseball in 1845. A year later, on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, Cartwright’s New York Knickerbockers dropped a fourinning game to the Brooklyn Excelsiors by the lopsided 23-1 score in the first game ever played between two organized teams. Brooklyn, showing little respect for the baseball inventor’s team, won in spite of the fact that Cartwright himself was the game’s umpire. And with that maiden effort, America entered the era of baseball, although the game has continually evolved over the century and a half since then.

During Reconstruction, federal troops stationed in the Greenville and Spartanburg area brought Cartwright’s game south. Wofford College fielded the first area team and played in the Upstate’s first recorded baseball game in the 1869–1870 school year, a tilt against a team called the Athletics. Wofford notched its first baseball triumph by a 55-51 score, only after stifling an Athletics’ rally in the bottom of the eighth inning, in which they scored more than 30 runs but were unable to overtake the Wofford nine. Since that first game more than 133 years ago, Wofford has consistently fielded competitive diamond squads. The Furman University Paladins—initially known as the Furman Hornets—became involved with baseball as long ago as the mid-1890s. Since then, baseball has become an important sport at Spartanburg Methodist College, North Greenville College, and, more recently, the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg.

Youth baseball in the Greenville-Spartanburg region goes back more than three-quarters of a century. That it has succeeded in the state and nation is evidenced by the Spartanburg American Legion’s World Series championship in 1936, Riverside High School’s four state championships since 1980 and its No. 4 ranking in the nation in 2003, the Spartanburg American Legion’s 2003 state championship, and the Upstate District One’s world championship in the 2003 Big League Series played in Easley. Attesting to the area’s interest in developing youth skills in America’s Pastime, the Spartanburg County Recreation District in 2003 had approximately 5,500 players involved on approximately 450 teams, whereas the Greenville Recreation District in 2003 had 1,785 youngsters playing on 119 teams, not counting youths playing in the numerous Little League organizations in the area.

The era of textile league baseball, extending from the late 1800s through the 1950s, provided wonderful relief to the hard-working families in the many mill villages. More than 80 players from that time period participated in major league baseball: players such as Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of baseball’s all-time greatest stars; Tommy Lasorda, Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame manager; Earl Wooten, an amazingly talented textile league baseball and basketball player who had a stint with the Washington Senators in 1947 and 1948; and Lou Brissie, who joined the Philadelphia Athletics after experiencing a near-mortal wound in World War II and enduring more than 20 surgeries on his left leg, and who was named to the American League All-Star team in 1949.

Professional baseball has made its mark in Greenville from the Edistoes in 1907 through the Greenville Braves in 2003. Minor league baseball in Spartanburg dates back to 1902 with the Peaches and extends through the Phillies, who had a 32-year run in Duncan Park until the franchise was moved to Kannapolis, North Carolina, after the 1994 season. Area fans have been privileged to watch the development of scores of the major leagues’ brightest stars, including such players as Nolan Ryan, Chipper Jones, Tom Glavine, and Ryne Sandburg.

Baseball is very much alive and important to players and fans in Greenville and Spartanburg. The author desires that the old and new images in this book will evoke pleasant memories in young and old fans alike.

The above map shows the area in Upstate South Carolina that this book focuses on: an area that extends from Easley and Piedmont to Inman and Spartanburg along the Interstate 85 corridor. (Courtesy of World Sites Atlas Stock Maps.)

ONE

Shoeless Joe Jackson

THE UPSTATE’S JEWEL OF THE DIAMOND

Shoeless Joe Jackson (fourth from left) played on this 1907 Brandon Mill team at the age of 19, just a year before signing a major league contract with the Philadelphia Athletics. He joined the Brandon team at the age of 13. Sitting are manager Sam Auston and bat boy Floyd Major. Other team members are, from left to right, Ben Turner, Marchant Christopher, Robert McGill, Walter Stub Turner, Leonard Christopher, Alex Matt Rollins, Mack Cashion, George Young, Jess Christopher, Will Brown, Gee Turner, and Prep Friar. (Courtesy of Jerry Compton.)

One of baseball’s greatest players, Joe Jackson began working as a floor sweeper in this Brandon Mill in Greenville at the age of 6. By the age of 13 he excelled on the men’s team as a fielder, base runner, and hitter. According to Thomas K. Perry, author of Textile League Baseball, Joe’s line drives were known as blue darters that spectators and fielders alike swore crackled and smoked. Young Joe was seldom out of spending money; his brothers would "pass the