Cramton Bowl

By Tim Gayle

When Cramton Bowl was completed in 1922, no one had any idea of the unique place it would occupy in sports history. It was originally conceived as a multi-purpose facility that would focus on baseball and served as the spring training home for the Philadelphia A's for two seasons, with many professional teams stopping in for exhibition games, including a rematch of the 1926 World Series between the Yankees and the Cardinals in 1927. As the largest established stadium in the state during those early years, Alabama and Auburn played more than 70 football games in the facility, treating fans to the likes of Paul "Bear" Bryant and Don Hudson. It was home to the first HBCU Classic, the Turkey Day Classic between Alabama State and Tuskegee, and the site of the first night football game in the South (as well as the first night college football game and the second pro baseball game under the lights in the South). For more than 60 years it was home to the Blue-Gray All Star Football Classic where stars such as Y.A. Tittle, Len Dawson, Fran Tarkenton, Howie Long and Jerry Rice roamed the sidelines of Cramton Bowl, but there were plenty of other activities in the stadium during that time, including 'Lucky' Teter's traveling daredevil show in 1934, the Negro League World Series, games involving the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and Billy Graham's Greater Montgomery Crusade in 1965.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781645449126

Book preview

One

Cramton’s Bowl

The idea of an athletic facility had been a topic of discussion around the capital city for quite some time. Alabama and Auburn had staged football games before in this fair city, playing in an area north of town (near the current Northern Boulevard) and in a park off Highland Avenue (in an area that now includes the current elementary school).

The town deserved more, city leaders and athletic-minded businessmen believed.

C. Leon Ruth, a local businessman, recalled the first step toward creating an athletic facility came in 1921 when he was seated in a dentist’s chair in the office of Dr. Ed Perry. Ruth and Perry were lamenting the fact that some good college games were being played in Birmingham, but no one was stopping in Montgomery.

Fred J. Cramton, sitting in the adjacent waiting room, overheard the conversation.

I’ve got the very thing for you boys, he said. There’s a big hole in the ground on Madison Avenue that the city is using for a garbage dump.

That hole was perfectly situated between the city and its newest subdivision, Capitol Heights. And Cramton, who owned the land and loved sports, was in a perfect position to pitch the idea to city leaders.

On February 9, 1921, at the weekly meeting of the city commission, the first steps were taken for the beginning of work on the new athletic field which is to be constructed on Madison avenue to be used as a baseball diamond for Montgomery’s Cotton States league team, football games and other sports, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

The site was offered to the city at this meeting by Cramton. A resolution thanking Mr. Cramton for this valuable gift was offered by the commissioners, the paper reported, and at the suggestion of Haygood Paterson the field was named ‘Cramton’s Bowl.’

By the next month the city’s sports enthusiasts were back in front of the city commission. It seems there were as many plans for a new facility as there were ideas. Mayor William A. Gunter put Paterson in charge of a seven-man committee who would survey the city both for the best plan for a stadium and the best way to finance that plan.

Gunter suggested a fund-raising drive be started among the citizens to raise the money. After his brief presentation, City Engineer H.A. Washington presented his estimates on the work that would be necessary to construct a new facility—approximately fifty thousand cubic yards of material would have to be moved at a cost of approximately twenty cents per cubic yard; drainage of the field would cost approximately $5,000–6,000; and bleachers and stands would be constructed at an approximate cost of $10,000.

That touched off a new wave of discussion, during which the mayor was asked whether $25,000 could be raised among the citizens or if it was even advisable. The opinion, after much discussion, was that $25,000 could be raised in the community, provided the city commission members were willing to make up the difference.

Give Gunter credit. He patiently explained, with the help of City Commissioner W. J. Orum, that the economics of the day would not allow the city fathers to promise any definite amount, but that as soon as times would permit, they would be glad to do their share toward the construction of the new field.

Out of that conversation came what would prove to be the financial genius behind the construction of Cramton Bowl, the selling of bonds whose interest would be paid off by the revenue generated from sporting events. Ultimately, $30,000 was raised by selling notes to sports-loving citizens who could pay off the one, two, and three-year notes at the Exchange National Bank. Cramton undertook the grading and installation of sewerage at the facility, leaving the city’s citizens to fund the layout of the field and the construction of the grandstands.

In early December a board of trustees for the stadium was named (along with a committee for raising funds, another for promoting the stadium, etc.) that included Fred J. Cramton, the chairman of the board; Haygood Paterson, the owner of Rosemont Gardens and the vice president of the board; W. F. Black, the director of the YMCA, who would serve as the secretary; and Clayton C. Tullis, an owner in Tullis-Gamble Hardware Company, who would serve as the treasurer.

At that December 3 meeting, the group announced that $33,215 had been raised in voluntary contributions to the bowl campaign.

While the modern-day look of Cramton Bowl focuses on football, the construction of a stadium in the 1920s would primarily feature baseball. Professional baseball was popular, while professional football was still in its infancy. And while college football was just starting to hit its stride, the idea of building a stadium to host such events was still a novel concept.

So it was on January 9, 1922, that a collection of what the Advertiser reported was Montgomery’s heaviest amateur hitters descended on Cramton Bowl after a postponement of two days because of rain.

It is the purpose of the baseball committee of the bowl to test out distance on the field from various sections of the bowl, the paper reported.

The idea of setting the guidelines for the field based on a home-run derby was a brilliant move as it turned out. Some of the greatest names in professional baseball stopped at Cramton Bowl over a twenty-five-year period, and home runs were infrequent, if not rare.

The day before the home-run hitting contest, famed Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack stopped in Montgomery to look at the construction work on the new facility. Mack, who had brought his 1906 team to Montgomery for spring training, was considering a return in 1923 after looking over the planned facility and its proximity to the business district.

That’s doing things big, he said, "and I want to tell you Montgomery has already secured a great deal of advertising out of this venture. I heard of what you were doing before I reached the city, and your start puts you in direct line for a Southern League franchise.

I will always have a soft spot for Montgomery, coming in such close contact with your people while we were training here, and I know of no place in the south where I would rather bring the Athletics for spring training.

Two

Getting Ready for Baseball

As March turned to April, there was some pressure to get Cramton Bowl ready for the 1922 baseball season.

The May 1 game between Auburn and Vanderbilt was slated for the grand opening, but there was a lot of work left to be completed as game day approached.

With less than two weeks remaining, the Montgomery Advertiser theorized that one or two exhibition games will be arranged next week to thoroughly pack the diamond before the college game.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, but it’s easy to see how the modern technology used to complete the playing surface could mislead the writer.

The tile drainage system is completed almost at its beginning, the paper pointed out. Rapid work on this feature being made possible by the 10-feet-a-minute ditching machine put into operation on the field by the Jenkins Brick Company. The big circle of drainage work about the outside of the field was completed (on April 20) and the cross drainage work stretching over the field like the markers on a gridiron will begin today (April 21).

While one group was working on the drainage system, three groups were dedicated to the completion of the concrete grandstands that would seat five thousand, and another was set to arrive to work on installing the entrance gates and the exterior work surrounding the field.

A week later giant rolling machines were brought in to pack the field after it had been watered by the Montgomery Fire Department, and Jenkins Brick assigned an extra force to construct the exterior wall of the stadium separating the facility from Madison Avenue.

Auburn coach Mike Donahue was on hand Wednesday to watch the progress in advance of Monday’s game, the first of a two-game series that will be completed in Auburn on Tuesday.

By Friday it was announced that a special West Point train would bring several hundred Auburn students and the Auburn band to Montgomery for what could determine the Southern Conference baseball title. Auburn’s students in masse will arrive in Montgomery on a special West Point train at 11 o’clock and, headed by the Auburn band, will stage a parade with all the pep and snap of the college student body soon after reaching the city of the battle, the Advertiser noted.

Vanderbilt players arrived in Auburn on Sunday morning from Athens, Georgia, and would venture to Montgomery on the same train.

Daylight will find a redoubled force under the personal supervision of Fred Cramton hastening forward the cleaning up of details on the park and the trustees were assured Sunday that everything will be ready for the umpire’s ‘Play ball’ call ushering in sports in Cramton Bowl.

Three

The First Game

While the stadium still needed a few tweaks, it opened on Monday afternoon for the big game between Auburn and Vanderbilt. Appropriately, Fred Cramton threw out the game’s first pitch to Auburn catcher Charlie Gibson, just before the start of the game at 3:00 p.m.

Both squads were considered talented, although Vanderbilt certainly would have been viewed as the favorite entering the game.

The Commodores had won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship the year before, and their football team was coming off an undefeated season as well.

The captain of the 1922 football team was centerfielder Jess Neely, a multisport star who was popular with the ladies, but would achieve even greater stardom after his playing days. Neely would later become the head baseball coach at Alabama in 1929–30 (and at Clemson and Rice) before becoming the head football coach at Clemson in 1931–39 and at Rice in 1940–66.

If his name sounds familiar, he was the head coach of the Owls in 1953, when Rice played Alabama in the Cotton Bowl. His star running back, Dicky Moegle, was awarded a touchdown by the officials after Tommy Lewis came off the bench to make the tackle.

Neely was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1971.

The Commodores also had second baseman Andy Reese, a career .281 hitter in the Major Leagues after playing four seasons for the New York Giants beginning in 1927.

And there was starting pitcher Slim Embrey, who also would reach the Major Leagues, but would play just one game for the 1923 Chicago White Sox.

On the other side of the field was an up-and-coming Auburn team that felt ready to challenge the Commodores for the conference championship. They were led by all-conference catcher Charlie Gibson, a senior in 1922 who went on to coach Auburn High’s football team to an undefeated season in 1923 before earning a spot on the Philadelphia Athletics’ roster in 1924.

Had he participated in spring training, he would have been back at Cramton Bowl, but Gibson broke into the Majors on May 30 and lasted just twelve games, going 2 for 15 at the plate in his professional career.

He was on the receiving end of pitches from Auburn star George Grant, an East Tallassee native who made his Major League debut with the St. Louis Browns on September 17, 1923. He pitched three seasons for the Browns, three with the Indians (returning to Montgomery during that span for an exhibition game at Cramton Bowl), and one with the Pirates. Although his lowest ERA in that dead-ball era was only 4.46, a seven-year career in the Majors was quite an accomplishment.

Another future Major League player on the field that day was right fielder Ed Shirling, who was twenty-four years old when he played for the Tigers that day at Cramton Bowl and made the Philadelphia A’s roster for four games in 1924.

A crowd of approximately 4,500 turned out for the opening of the stadium, which saw Auburn take command of the game in the first three innings, surrender the lead in the fourth, and rally for six runs in the eighth to grab a 10–7 victory.

The Tigers went wild with the willow in the eighth inning overcoming a three run lead secured by Vandy when the pupils of Donahue blew in the fourth, Advertiser reporter Thomas Hall noted. Grant, a youngster added another star to his crown by his stellar pitching and while the Tigers’ bats hit for runs the Verbena product was plainly the hero on the defensive. He showed himself made of real stuff in the fourth inning with his teammates floating he was like Grandfather’s old clock.

Grant went 2 for 4 at the plate with a double and scored a run as well. It is worth noting that the story listed Grant as a Verbena product, although later reports would list him from Marbury (which probably means he lived in the countryside between the two small towns in north Autauga and south Chilton counties), and many Major League-oriented reports list his hometown as East Tallassee, across the river from Tallassee in Tallapoosa County.

The Advertiser reporter did a good job of putting the game in perspective by noting Auburn’s team appeared fast but displayed signs of unsteadiness at times while the Commodores played with the seasoning of veterans but failed with the stick.

Gibson singled in a run in the first, and the Tigers added another before Vandy cut the lead in half in the third. Neely reached base on a two-out error and scored on a triple to make it 2–1, but Hixon drove in two runs for the Tigers to extend the lead to 4–1.

It all fell apart in the top of the fourth as the Auburn defense committed five errors sandwiched around three singles that allowed six runs to score and give the Commodores a 7–4 lead.

It unraveled for Embry and the Commodores in the bottom of the eighth. Arnall was hit by a pitch and Griffin walked before Hixon popped up for the first out. Grant followed with an RBI double, Richardson walked to load the bases, and Scott grounded to Kuhn at shortstop, but Reese dropped the relay at second as Griffin scored.

Knowles followed with a two-run single to center to give Auburn an 8–7 lead and Scott continued home as the Commodores had trouble getting the ball back to the infield. Shirling followed with an RBI single to center to complete the rally and put the Tigers in the driver’s seat for the SIAC championship.

Ed Shirling brought back memories of the Uniontown-Andalusia series when he made two certain three-base hits look sick, the Advertiser reported. The big rightfielder scampered into deep centerfield and by his pretty running catches cut off scores for the Tennesseans.

A story in Wednesday’s paper reported that the trustees of bowl are enthusiastic over the grand opening and during their luncheon at the Exchange Hotel. It was noted the board received with gratitude the offer of the Capital City Ad Co. to erect an electrical scoreboard on the field and the building committee was instructed to cooperate with the company in making arrangements for the placing of the board.

That day, a deal was struck between Auburn and Georgia to play the second game of a two-game series on Saturday at Cramton Bowl. That series would go a long way toward determining the conference championship for 1922.

While no positive announcement has been made of the pitchers to be used in the game in Montgomery, the Advertiser reported, "it is strongly hinted that George Pantone, pride of Georgia, will face George Grant just about the sweetest young college pitcher in the South.

These two boys are anxious to get together and it is probable that the coaches will give them their chance in Montgomery’s big athletic stadium.

Work continued on the field to get it in playing shape (Monday’s game revealed several soft spots that needed packing) and on the grandstands to complete any unfinished work.

Announcement was made yesterday that the bleachers for colored patrons of the game had been completed, the Advertiser reported. The colored bleachers will seat approximately 500 persons and are located to the left of the concrete stands on the third base side.

The Georgia media guide doesn’t list 1922 as a Southern Conference championship team, but the Bulldogs won the game in Auburn and the game at Cramton Bowl, part of a 7–2 finish to a 24–6–1 season.

The Advertiser’s lead to the 3–2 victory at Cramton stated that Georgia, aided materially by two very questionable decisions of the umpires, defeated Auburn at Cramton Bowl yesterday afternoon by a score of 3 to 2 in a ball game which was a nip and tuck struggle from start to finish.

Four

Changing Over to Football

Aheadline in the September 9 edition of the paper pointed out that Bowl Closed for King of Sports Until Next Year.

This announcement was made by the baseball booking committee of the bowl yesterday with the announcement that the committee had turned the booking duties over to the football booking committee.

Under the supervision of Will Paterson, the entire field, which will be used as the gridiron, is being sprigged with green and Mr. Paterson declares that in two or three weeks the athletic field will be a sea of green. Mr. Paterson and his assistants are daily working on the field to get it into good condition for the opening football game of the season, which will probably be the Auburn-Springhill game booked for October 7.

The article went on to describe the seating arrangements for the upcoming football season. While the baseball diamond was abolished in the late 1940s with the creation of Paterson Field across the street and the track was abolished with the construction of the new East side grandstands, most people forget Cramton Bowl was originally built as a multipurpose stadium that favored baseball. Football wasn’t the main sport as it is today.

The board of trustees have authorized the (football) committee to mark off all the seats in the grandstand and side line bleacher seats, the article noted.

These seats will be reserved, the tickets carrying a reserved seat coupon. Arrangements have been made for an additional seating capacity of two thousand. Collapsible wooden seats have been ordered and will be placed on the left side of the field. Under the present plan of the booking committee these seats will also be reserved.

Blue prints of the bowl showing the reserved seats, which are being divided into sections, are being drawn and as soon as they are completed the tickets