Phil Dixon's American Baseball Chronicles Great Teams: The 1905 Philadelphia Giants, Volume III

By Phil S. Dixon

Philadelphia's 1905 African-American Giants were the first team of the last century to score 1,000 runs. Organized in 1902 by Harry A. Smith and H. Walter Schlichter, the Giants were managed by veteran player/manager Solomon 'Sol' White. In 1904 the Giants defeated the Cuban X Giants to claim their first Worlds Championship, a title that they held for many years.
The White led 1905 Philadelphia Giants featured among others; outfielder Pete Hill, third baseman Bill Monroe, first baseman Mike Moore, second baseman Charlie Grant and pitchers Emmett Bowman and Dan McClellan. White, Hill and Foster are currently enshrined in Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame. Paced by Grant “Home Run” Johnson, the most powerful home run hitter in baseball, along with Andrew “Rube” Foster, one of baseball’s best pitcher, White’s 1905 Philadelphia Giants finished the season with a magnificent 134-23-2 record.
This is their story, uniquely told here for the first time, in a day-to-day account of every exciting hit and every legendary strike out. In honor of the 1905 Philadelphia Giants' contribution to our American pastime, Dixon's American Baseball chronicles has compiled statistics and game notes from the entire championship season. Included within the book are written accounts for every game from the Philadelphia Giants’ entire 1905 schedule of nearly 158 contest, with scores, attendance figures and other seldom revealed information. The work includes additional information on more than 300 additional games played by the Cuban X Giants, Chicago Leland Giants, Brooklyn Royal Giants and other African-American teams in operation during that same 1905 season.
The comparative scores and related histories are a resourceful and entertaining aid for further analysis, and assessment, on the participation of African-American athletes in baseball as best represented by one legendary team in a single championship season.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781984585967

Phil S. Dixon

Author Phil S. Dixon is a pioneer in the study of Negro League baseball history. For the past thirty years he has recorded the African-American baseball experience with a vast array of skill and accuracy. Creative, innovative and detailed, Dixon has researched baseball history and documented the careers of Negro Baseball’s greatest players. Widely regarded for his expertise on baseball, Dixon has authored seven previous books. He has won the prestigious Casey Award for the Best Baseball Book of 1992, and a SABR MacMillan Award for his excellence in baseball research. Formerly an Assistant Director in the Public Relations Department of the Kansas City Royals American League baseball team, he currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, an organization which he co-founded in 1990, and actively lectures on baseball topics. Phil S. Dixon was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and currently resides in Belton, Missouri, with wife Kerry and their three children, Joseph, Erika and Phillip. Dixon can be reached at www.Americanbaseballchronicles.com

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Copyright © 2010 by Phil S. Dixon.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 07/13/2020

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Dedicated

To

Joseph Dixon

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Newspaper Sources

A Champion For Philadelphia

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

1905 Philadelphia Giants Roster

Philadelphia Giants 1905 Pitching Breakdown

1905 Philadelphia Giants Schedule

Philadelphia Giants’ multi-hit games, 1905

What is new in this red

cover edition

This red cover edition is the second edition of Phil Dixon’s American Baseball Chronicles, Great teams, 1905 Philadelphia Giants, Volume III. Some will ask, why have a second edition ready for 2010? My reply is simple.

Among the many difficulties in researching Negro Baseball teams is the reality that the research never seems finished. In creating this series, I had hopped to do something that would get us very close to knowing actual team totals and personal player achievements—a finished product. Thus, my updates—a second edition with new information, information located since the last edition was printed. Not to confuse anyone with edition one printed in 2006, edition two has a red cover. Edition one, the publication’s green cover edition, also has a totally different image on its front cover.

What is in the new red cover edition? Five additional Philadelphia Giants’ games were located since 2006’s edition. Each of these games had complete box scores with at-bats. In other cases, we found better box scores for games that may not have had game summaries in 2006’s edition of this publication. These new box scores, along with the better box scores, increased seasonal totals for each member of Philadelphia’s 1905 Giants. Prominent among these ever increasing numbers were more wins for Andrew Rube Foster and more home runs for Grant Home Run Johnson.

New vital statistic information was also located on William Bill Monroe, Andrew Payne, Pete Hill, Charles Lee Thomas, John Osborne Jr. and Charlie Grant. Even the book’s size increased from 182 pages in the green cover edition to over 300 pages in the red cover edition.

Additionally, you will find new games and scores for the Cuban X Giants, Brooklyn’s Royal Giants, the Chicago Leland Giants and other African-American teams participating during 1905’s illustrious season. It is my desire to give you the most accurate research possible on the legendary 1905 Philadelphia Giants. It is also my hope that you will enjoy this edition as you did its predecessor.

Yours in Sports,

Phil S. Dixon

January 2010

Acknowledgements

This project was a creative undertaking that involved many years of research along with an army of researchers. Without the help of these dedicated individuals the Philadelphia Giants’ historic season of 1905 would have remained an inconclusive part of American baseball history forever. Over 100 years after the facts, the day-to-day activities of the 1905 Philadelphia Giants have remained just that—unrecorded. By combining our resources we gingerly brought the Philadelphia Giants’ 1905 season out of folklore and entered it into the genuine realm of American sports history. This written acknowledgement is my feeble attempt to recognize many well deserving individuals for their participation in the development of this momentous work.

My wife Kerry, as well as my children, have endured my ongoing research efforts for many years. In surpassing more than thirty years of dedicated exploration into the history of African-Americans in baseball, our lives have changed tremendously. Without their support and uncompromising cooperation very little of what you will read in this publication would have been written.

In addition I must tip my hat to the early pioneers of baseball. Moreover, their commitment and organizing efforts to promote baseball, during its developing years, is virtually unrivaled. The writers in their zeal to publish box scores, and other information, as it was occurring in 1905, created an irreplaceable source of documentation. Armed with little more than an unadulterated love for our national pastime, they preserved in newspaper print a history that generations of book and magazine publishers deemed unworthy. Of this group of writers two men hovered above all others.

Walter Schlichter, a sports editor for the Philadelphia Evening Item, a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the Philadelphia Giants, contributed mightily to this project as did Harry A. Smith, the Giants’ traveling secretary. Schlichter’s newspaper, Philadelphia’s Evening Item, carried numerous box scores along with other related stories about African-American teams that were apparently omitted in many mainstreamed publications. Smith, a former player, who paraded as an outfielder and first base man for the Philadelphia Giants in 1902, assured that an account of each game was fully written and issued to the various press outlets of that region. Smith’s retiring from the role of active play to become the teams’ full-time traveling secretary—and what a brilliant secretary he became—aided tremendously in the reconstituting of the 1905 season.

Sol White aided tremendously to this work with the publication of his monumental Baseball Guide, of 1907. White’s baseball guide prophetically told of events past and present that might have been lost forever. Schlichter, doing what came naturally, served as the editor of White’s legendary resource.

This project also benefited from numerous Spalding Base Ball Guides that appear on the Library of Congress web site.

A hearty thank you must also be extended to the modern day scavengers of sports history. Thank you John Holway a researcher that directed me back to the box score from a Philadelphia Giants/Brooklyn Royal Giants’ series that I had been unable to locate, as well as your investigative help at the national archives in Washington D.C.. Jim Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues was similarly as helpful. I would also like to thank Calobe Jackson for an untiring excavation at the state library in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Your assistance has been unrivaled in many ways. Jay Sokol of Ohio helped solve the puzzle of Giants’ infielder Charles Lee Thomas with some exhaustive research on the African-American player so well-noted in Branch Rickey’s life-time chronicles.

There were other unsung heroes that breathe real life into the project. They are the people that make careers out of doing work at libraries and historical societies that many researchers cannot. This is just a partial list of the many individuals and institutions that assisted in the development of this work: Caroline Ford of Peekskill, New York’s Field Library, Elizabeth Gardner, Volunteer Researcher at Fitchburg’s Historical Society, Fred Bomberger of the Allentown Public Library, John Lehman and Sharon Gothard of the Marx Room at Easton Area Public Library and District Center, Janice L. Pearce and Jeffery Granahan at the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Robert B. Hitchings at the City of Norfolk Department of Libraries, Jessica Myers in the Special Collections office of the Plainfield Public Library, Doris Murphy at the New Jersey State Library, Dale Lonkark at the Atlantic County Historical Society, Gail Kostinks at the desk of the Heston Collection on Atlantic City history, the Reading Public Library, the Bridgeport Public Library, the Delaware County Historical Society, Betty D. Goldman at the Manchester Public Library, Diane Norman at the Otis Library (Norwich), Clara Hoss at Pottstown’s Historical Society and Library, Renee Gimski at the Wilmington Public Library, Judith Wells at Lynn’s Public Library, Stephen J. Wiencus at the Brockton Public Library, Donna Humphrey at the Bucks County Historical Society (Doylestown), the Amherst College Library, Catherine S. Medich at the New Jersey State Archives and Dr. Raymond Doswell and Bob Kendrick, employees of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

Brenda Hunnicutt, at the Kansas City, Missouri Public Library, has shown years of real and dedicated professionalism by filling over a decade of interlibrary loan requests. It’s good to know a professional like Brenda when you need research materials. Professionally she deserves recognition for her laying of hands on numerous publications that assured this project of crossing the finish line.

In acquiring the photographs for this work, there were several people who went far beyond what is considered normal to assist this project. Paulette J. Weiser of the Hancock Historical Museum provided a wonderful photographic image of the Findlay Ohio Sluggers. A special thank you is also extended to Aimee Marshall of the Chicago Historical Society for photographs that belonged to that great historical institution. A special heartfelt thank you is extended to Bill Chamberlin at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts, for the use of the William Clarence Matthews photographs. We must also thank the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York for the use of several photographs.

In addition the following web sites were tremendously helpful in the completion of this work. Mapquest.com, www.nlbpa.com/the_teams.html, www.Americanbaseballchronicles, www.answers.com/topic/negro-league-baseball, www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/6925/black.html, www.mrbaseball.com/rubefoster_spot.php, www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers and www.honorees/hofer bios/foster_rube.htm.

In conclusion I would like to thank the former Negro League players, my many friends, supporters and family for keeping me motivated for over twenty-five years. I truly feel that my best is yet to come and I pray that my work will continue for many wonderful seasons of life.

Above all I thank God for putting inside me the, inspiration, strength, creativity and longevity to start and complete this important slice of American sports history.

Surely if I have forgotten anyone—it seems that this always happens—please forgive me. Again, I thank you all for your shear assistance in preserving for generations yet born the history of the 1905 Philadelphia Giants.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Enjoy

Phil S. Dixon

January 2010

Preface

The Philadelphia Giants were organized in 1902 by Harry A. Smith and H. Walter Schlichter. Smith, a former baseball player and writer for the Philadelphia Tribune, had conceived the idea of organizing a team and approached Schlichter, the sports editor of the Philadelphia Evening Item, for financial backing. Schlichter, everyone called him Slick, was 36-years-old in 1902 when the team first began play. Veteran player/manager Solomon Sol White, age 33, was hired as captain of the newly organized Philadelphia Giants and immediately placed in charge of player recruitment.

By continually fazing out the old ballplayers and introducing new ones, Smith, Schlichter and White built the Philadelphia Giants into one of the country’s strongest baseball teams. Functioning without the foundation of a league, and without the support of a home-town fan base, they barnstormed almost exclusively. Ultimately, their record of games played, and games won, was unparalleled. In 1904 the Philadelphia Giants defeated the Cuban X Giants to claim their first ever Worlds Championship a beloved identity that the Philadelphia Giants held for many years.

Slick continually advertised the Philadelphia Giants and never abridged the season, which increased annually in games scheduled and new teams challenged. Their reputation for games captured eventually elevated them to into a prominent feature in 1905’s Reach Baseball Guide. With rosters that included such well-known men as Frank Grant, Andrew Rube Foster, Charlie Grant, William Horn, John W. Pat Patterson, Harry E. Buckner, Andrew Jap Payne, Bill Monroe, Home Run Johnson, Jess Binga, Sol White and many others, the Philadelphia Giants defeated all of the obtainable eastern competition. Their greatest feats, though restricted in exposure by Caucasian sports purists, semi-professional managers, major league scouts and sports writers, were reached in spite of the discriminating prejudices of that period.

The Philadelphia Giants operated with utmost integrity and sportsmanship from 1902-1910. As it is with all great teams, the dynasty ended when key changes occurred in the roster and management of the organization. White managed the club from it’s inception to the end of 1908, after which time Ray Wilson replaced White and guided them from 1909-1910. Traveling Secretary Harry A. Smith relinquished his duties in 1908 and relocated to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1909, to start a new team, the Pittsburgh Giants. Schlichter, although he failed miserably in his 1908 bid to start the Union League, a rival major league, remained with the Philadelphia Giants until the very end.

In honor of the 1905 Philadelphia Giants’ contribution to our American pastime, Phil Dixon’s American Baseball Chronicles salutes this team as one of baseball’s all time supreme.

Newspaper Sources

Considering there were no radios or televisions in 1905, it is easy to understand why our research efforts were so totally dependent on newspapers. References about African-American baseball teams appeared regularly in newspapers during this period and teams like the Philadelphia Giants, Cuban X Giants, Brooklyn’s Royal Giants, the Genuine Cuban Giants, Chicago’s Union Giants and the Chicago Leland Giants fairly dominated the African-American baseball coverage.

While feature articles about these teams and their players are rare, the obvious omissions and misrepresentations of African-American athletes within these same periodicals were rather common. One omission was the general lack of rarely printing first names of African-American athletes in newspaper articles. Most always referred to by their race, African-American athletes were seldom allowed to blend in as simply great ball players. It was equally unusual for newspapers to proclaim African-American athletes the equal of their contemporary Caucasian counterparts. Photographs were equally as scarce, and yet, demeaning caricatures of these same individuals were commonplace. Ultimately each of these features were intended to demonstrate inferiority—and it worked.

Inconsistencies in the city-to-city newspaper coverage were often mystifying by their very nature. While one city would list a box score with glowing details, another city (with an even greater population) would omit writing about the game altogether. On other occasions, writers would cover games with great emotion, while another would simply list a line score and nothing more. Some cities advertised games with the vim and vigor that usually accompanied teams from the National and American Leagues. Others, it seemed, appeared to have forgotten that the Philadelphia Giants ever came to town. If a capacity crowds greeted the Giants in one town, it was very common for the next city’s park to be as vacant as a haunted house. The reasons for such inconsistencies are many.

In an aggressive attempt to marginalize African-American talent, many games against rival minority teams, that were not deemed championship encounters, were as a general rule ignored. For instance, the New York American exclusively covered the so-called championship games but made no mention of any other games featuring African-American players. The best coverage was undoubtedly reserved for events that pitted African-Americans teams against Caucasians. Although articles were consistently slanted towards the white teams, there was no denying that African-American teams were winning far more than they were losing in such rivalries.

The outright prejudice that prevailed in many newspapers, flung the label of inferiority into the midst of anything associated with African-Americans in professional sports. Heavyweight boxing champion, John L. Sullivan, was one of the nations most notorious when taking pot-shots at African-Americans. The Negro is inferior and we shouldn’t expect as much from him as from a white man, stated Sullivan’s article in the Camden Daily Courier, The Negro is a first rate fellow in his place, but his place is not in the ring with a white man. Baseball had developed its own way of branding the inferior label on athletes of color.

Though there was much written about the Philadelphia Giants’ remarkable season of 1905, it is equally evident that the complete story may never be known. Much of what was taken from newspapers yielded a variety of intriguing misperceptions.

The media’s habitual mention of Bill Monroe’s comic relief, which was consistently used to lure the public into supporting Philadelphia Giant ball games, was evident throughout the season of 1905. Seldom, if ever, did these same writers encourage fans to view African-American baseball players—or teams like the Philadelphia Giants—as serious contenders for the Worlds Championship. When writers did make statements to the affirmative they were often couched by such hackneyed phrases as, If only he were white.

While a few newspapers looked to affirm the African-American teams, most were contented to portray teams like the Philadelphia Giants as haphazardly barnstorming the countryside. Mistakenly, fans were lured into believing there was little need to follow the barnstorming activities of African-American competitors. Thus, little emphasis was placed on compiling the statistics or developing a player’s biographies.

Photographical images of African-American athletes were even rarer. The few that were published generally appeared in Philadelphia’s Inquirer or Philadelphia’s Evening Item newspapers. No more than four photographs appeared in these two publications during the entire season of 1905. Instead of illustrating