Joel Leonard Dennis was the brother of my great grandfather, John Joshua Dennis, who also died in a fall a few years before Joel's. Joel's wife was Susan Addie Shults, and the couple had seven children.

Newport Plain Talk, 3 February 1931, page 1:

Fall Saturday Afternoon is Fatal to Joel Dennis

Floor on which several men were working at Chilhowie plant gives way with serious results

Jim Douglas also suffers injuries while others have narrow escapes from accident

Joel Dennis of Knoxville, fifty-one years of age, was almost instantly killed, and Jim Douglas of Newport was seriously injured about three o’clock Saturday afternoon when a floor on which they were working at the plant of the Chilhowie Co. gave way. The men fell about 20 feet to a concrete foundation below. Cecil and Charles Ailey and Homer Sweeten, all of Newport, were on the floor at the time of the accident. Sweeten saved himself by catching the rafters. The part of the floor where the Ailey brothers were at work did not fall.

The two injured men were rushed to the Northcutt Hospital where Dennis expired in a few minutes. Douglas had his injuries dressed and was sent to his home. Both men had fractures of the skull, they haven fallen upon their heads. A new leach house is being built at the plant and the old one town away as the new one progresses.

Dennis until about seven years ago resided in Newport. A brother, Joshua Dennis, lost his life about three years ago when he fell from a tree in Northport while climbing after a squirrel.

Relatives of the dead man who reside in Knoxville were notified of his death and they made arrangements for the funeral to be conducted here. Services were held at the First Baptist Church Sunday afternoon at two o’clock, being in charge of Rev. Mark Harris. The interment was in Union cemetery. Mr. Dennis was a member of the Junior Order and Grace Council, D. of A, both of Knoxville. Members of these two organizations were in Newport for the funeral Sunday afternoon, having charge of the services at the grave. A number of years ago Mr. Dennis joining with the Baptist Church at Jones Chapel in Sevier county, and his church membership has been their since. Surviving Mr. Dennis of his immediate family are the widow, Mrs. Susie Dennis, one son, Carey Dennis, and four daughters, Mrs. Frank Teague, Misses Bertha, Evelyn and Mary Dennis, all of Knoxville. The following brothers and sisters also survive. Thomas Dennis of Alabama; Mrs. Malinda Henry, Newport; Mrs. Margaret Smith, Orlando, Fla.; Mrs. Bettie Mahaffey and Mrs. Sarah Shults, Knoxville; Mrs. Millie Justus of Boyd’s Creek.

John Joshua Dennis (12 October 1872-20 September 1927) was my great grandfather. Although he was building a house for Dan Harper, the tree mentioned below was at Jesse Stokely's house next door, with a current address of 180 Smith Street in Newport near the city park. A very large, old tree currently stands in the front yard that may very well have been the tree in question, but the exact tree is unknown if still standing at all.

Joshua's death left his second wife, Rhoda Elizabeth (Ponder) Dennis, a widow with a mortgage and five children at home as well as two recently-married stepchildren. The couple lived, at the time of Joshua's death, on what is now Upper Rinehart Road just over the Cocke County border in Jefferson County, Tennessee.

Joshua, Rhoda, and his first wife, Laura A. Howard, are buried side-by-side in the family plot on lane 2 in Union Cemetery in Newport. His brother, Joel Leonard Dennis, buried not too far way, died at Dr. Northcutt's hospital just four years later in a work-related fall.

From the Newport Plain Talk, 20 September 1927, page 1:

Joshua Dennis is Killed By Falling From Tree

Joshua Dennis, resident of Jefferson county, was fatally injured about noon yesterday when he fell from a tree at the home of Jesse Stokely in Northport. Dennis had climbed the tree in an effort to capture a squirrel, and when about 50 feet above the ground the limb upon which he was standing broke and he fell to the ground. One leg was broken in two places, his farm injured and face and body bruised in several places. He was rushed to Northcutt hospital in Holder’s ambulance, where his injuries were attended to. He lingered until 10:30 this morning when he died as a result of the fall. Hospital physicians were unwilling to give up hope for his recovery after he reached the hospital, his injuries being of a very serious nature. Dennis was working on a house in the neighborhood when some boys gave chase to a squirrel. The animal was of a peculiar color, almost white, and this attracted the man’s attention. The accident created a good deal of excitement in the neighborhood. As stated, Dennis resides just over the Jefferson county line, but is known to many people in the city. He is a brother to Joel Dennis of Knoxville, who at one time was a well known carpenter of Newport. Funeral services will be conducted at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon at the First Baptist, conducted by Rev. Bishop, assisted by Rev. A.L. Crawley. Burial will be in Union cemetery.

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Jim Bagby, Jr.

I wrote a long article for the Newport Plain Talk that was published in three parts shortly before the 2007 World Series; this is the third of the three parts to be published. For my latest research and full details, see James Charles Jacob Bagby Jr. in my Family File.

James Charles Jacob Bagby, Jr., was the son of Jim Bagby and his wife Mabel Margaret Smith, the latter being a native of Newport, Tennessee. He was born 8 September 1916 in Cleveland, Ohio, while his father was playing for the Cleveland Indians.

Jim Bagby, Jr.

From a young age, Jim was coached by his father to be a pitcher. Even in 1934, his father said, “I’m sure he’s headed for the majors. He’s a great prospect. He has control and confidence, his curve ball is as good as mine was, and he’d rather play baseball than eat.”¹

Jim Jr. played with the Dixie Amateur League in the summer of 1934, winning ten and losing five for Montgomery, and he would soon be playing in the minor leagues, first for Charlotte in 1935, Rocky Mount in 1936, and then Hazelton in 1937. For Hazelton, he won twenty-one games and lost eight, with a 2.71 ERA in the New York-Penn League .²

His performance did lead him to the majors, playing first for the Boston Red Sox in 1938. Expectations were high given his famous father, and some writers suggested that expectations might be too high given his famous father, as many sons had not been able to live up to their fathers’ legends.³

In fact, though, Jim performed quite admirably in that first year, winning more than his well-known teammate Lefty Grove. As a rookie, he was the starting pitcher for the Red Sox opening game, a rare honor not given again to another rookie by the Red Sox until 1998.⁴ Jim was a sensation in the first season but was used primarily as a relief pitcher in the next two seasons, 1939 and 1940.

In 1940, he was still playing for the Red Sox and was a part of an event that still inspires baseball trivia questions: the one game in which Ted Williams pitched.⁵ During the first game of a double header that the Red Sox were losing badly to Detroit, Red Sox manager Joe Cronin wanted to rest his pitching staff, calling Williams in from left field to pitch and sending the pitcher out to left field; that pitcher was Jim Bagby, Jr. Also that year, he became the first of only three pitchers to date to be credited with three put-outs in an single inning.

Before the next season, as part of a major trade involving several players among three teams, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians, joining the team for which both his father and uncle had played.⁶ He would play for Cleveland for several years, and he was picked as an all-star in 1942 and 1943, leading the American League in starts both years.

In 1941, his first year for the Indians, Jim once again was an integral part of a legendary game. Joe DiMaggio had managed a hit in fifty-six consecutive games, still a record today. One of those hits, his twenty-eighth, had been off Jim Bagby. But, more importantly, Jim Bagby was on the mound when the streak ended. Starting pitcher Al Smith and finishing pitcher Jim Bagby, with some help from the infield, held DiMaggio hitless on July 18, 1941.

World War II posed many problems for baseball, with many players serving in the armed forces and many others working in war industries during the off season; Jim, for instance, was a tool designer for Bell Aircraft in Marietta.⁷ Some biographers note that Jim served as a Merchant Marine in 1944 and, as a result, missed most of the season. Press coverage at the time, though, presents a more complicated picture.

Lou Boudreau was a premier shortstop for the Indians, having made his major league debut with them in 1938. In fact, it was he who fielded the last ground ball that DiMaggio hit, in his last at-bat, in the game where the streak was broken. He was named player/manager of the Indians in 1942, causing considerable friction as some other players who had applied for the position quit the team, and some of the remaining players were not particularly happy with the decision.

Jim also had a feud with Boudreau, although that feud appears to be for completely different reasons and began in September 1943. In Jim’s version,⁸ the feud began when Boudreau fined him $100 for not taking a warm-up run before a night game in Washington. Jim had already done his warm-up run before Boudreau showed up at the park. Jim wrote to a sportswriter that “he never took that fine off, and from then on I said what I thought.” Boudreau responded that Jim was out of shape and that “Jim and I don’t see eye-to-eye on some things.” However, Boudreau also said, “I’d rather have a disgruntled winner than a happy loser.”⁹

Despite Boudreau’s comment, he did shop Jim to other teams, coming closed to trading him to the Detroit Tigers in December 1943, but Boudreau called off the negotiations immediately when Al Smith, another strong Indians pitcher, was reclassified as 1-A, being immediately eligible to serve in the military.¹⁰

After the failed trade, Jim went public again, expressing his dislike of Boudreau and desire to be traded.¹¹ He then demanded more money from the Indians and became the last holdout in the American League two months later. Instead of signing, he requested “voluntary retirement for the duration”¹² in March 1944. At the same time, he applied to become a Merchant Marine, with the service indicating that he would have to wait three weeks for examination and probably another week after that to enroll if accepted.

A month later, Jim announced that the Maritime Commission had accepted him and had ordered him to report in early May.¹³ In the meantime, he had been working out with the minor-league Atlanta team. He reported to the Commission, but he resigned in July, and immediately reported to his local draft board for induction into the Army.¹⁴

The next day, the press reported that, while Jim would not state explicitly that he was rejoining the Indians, he did say, “I’m through being bull-headed. From now on I’m going to do all the listening. I’m sorry I had all that trouble with Manager Lou Boudreau last year, but it won’t happen again because I have learned to keep my mouth shut.”¹⁵

And the next day, the press reported that Jim had reported for his preinduction physical at Fort McPherson in Georgia. The head of the local draft board indicated that Bagby himself requested the examination, but also noted that recent quotas for the draft board had not been high, with enough registrants in the twenty-six and below age group to fill the quotas; Jim was twenty-seven.¹⁶ A week later, Jim was rejected from the Army and rejoined the Indians, with catcher Jim McDonnell being optioned to a minor league team to make room for Jim on the roster.¹⁷

After rejoining the Indians, Jim continued to perform well but never again reached the heights of his previous seasons. After the 1944 season, the Jim was traded to the Boston Red Sox for Vic Johnson, who was another pitcher, and an undisclosed sum of cash.¹⁸

He was a starting pitcher for the Red Sox but pitched fewer innings than the other starting pitchers that year. However, the Red Sox won the pennant that year and went to the World Series against the Saint Louis Cardinals. The Red Sox would lose the series four games to three, but, in game four on October 10, Jim was called to pitch in the third inning, marking the first time in history that both a father and a son had pitched in a World Series game.

Following that season, Jim was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a fee reported to be in excess of the standard $10,000 waiver fee under which he had been offered. The season with Pittsburgh would be his tenth and last in the major league, surpassing his father’s tenure, but the United Press article at the time of the trade felt the need to describe him as having “never fulfilled the hope that he might become as great a pitcher as his father.”¹⁹

Oddly, his father had ended his career with Pittsburgh as well, and, in the end, both father and son played on exactly the same three major league teams, although in a different order.

After Jim left baseball, he became a golf pro. In 1982, his cancerous larynx was removed, and he was unable to talk again, but his wife could read lips and talked for him,²⁰ especially when reporters would inevitably call in the Julys to follow in order to discuss the end of DiMaggio’s streak. Jim said he threw “just fastballs” and that “Joe hit one of them hard, but he just hit it at somebody.”

Jim died 2 September 1988 in Marietta, Georgia. In 1992, Jim Bagby, Jr., was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.

Footnotes (omitted when article was published):
¹ The Washington Post, “Jim Bagby Heads Jim Jr., 18, to the Majors”, 5 November 1934, page 17.
² The Washington Post, “This Morning... With Shirley Povich”, 13 January 1938, page X17.
³ The Washington Post, “Jim Jr. Due to Stick”, Dillon Graham, Associated Press, 4 April 1938, page X17.
⁴ The Houston Chronicle, “Around the AL”, 11 April 1998, page 6.
⁵ The New York Times, “Question Box”, 13 August 1984, page C4.
⁶ The Washington Post, “Walker Goes to Cleveland in 3-Ply Deal”, Shirley Povich, 13 December 1940, page 24.
⁷ The Washington Post, “Pitcher Says Their Dislike Is Mutual”, Associated Press, 20 January 1944, page 18.
⁸ The Washington Post, “Pitcher Says Their Dislike is Mutual”, Associated Press, 20 January 1944, page 18.
⁹ The Washington Post, “This Morning... With Shirley Povich”, 1 December 1943, page 18.
¹⁰ The Washington Post, “Tribe Deal for Bagby Collapses”, 3 December 1943, page 14.
¹¹ The Washington Post, “Pitcher Says Their Dislike is Mutual”, Associated Press, 20 January 1944, page 18.
¹² The Washington Post, “Indian Pitching Ace, J. Bagby, Requests Retirement for Duration”, 9 March 1944, page 8.
¹³ The Washington Post, “Bagby To Be Called By Merchant Marine”, Associated Press, 12 April 1944, page 10.
¹⁴ The Washington Post, “Jim Bagby Resigns Maritime Service; To Take Army Exa[m]”, Associated Press, 12 July 1944, page 8.
¹⁵ The Washington Post, “’I’m Through Being Bull-Headed,’ Says Jim Bagby”, United Press, 13 July 1944, page 8.
¹⁶ The Washington Post, “Bagby Reports for Army Physical Test”, 14 July 1944, page 10.
¹⁷ The Washington Post, “Indians Make Room for Bagby”, Associated Press, 21 July 1944, page 10.
¹⁸ The Washington Post, “Bosox Get Bagby From Cleveland”, United Press, 13 December 1945, page 12.
¹⁹ The Washington Post, “Bosox Sell Bagby to Pittsburgh Club”, United Press, 12 February 1947, page 13.
²⁰ The New York Times, “Views On Sport; A Mystery Man in the End to DiMaggio’s Streak”, John B. Holway, 15 July 1990, A7.

Sarge Bagby (James Charles Jacob Bagby)

I wrote a long article for the Newport Plain Talk that was published in three parts shortly before the 2007 World Series; this is the second of the three parts to be published. For my latest research and full details, see James Charles Jacob Bagby in my Family File.

James Charles Jacob Bagby (1899-1954) was not from Newport; instead, he married a Newport native, Mabel Margaret Smith, who had moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and was a sister to Clarence Ossie Smith. Jim would have a successful career in the majors, and the couple would have a son who did as well.

Jim Bagby in 1921¹

Jim was born 5 October 1899 in Barnett, Georgia,² the son of William H. Bagby and Minerva Rocker. He started playing professionally a year before Clarence Smith, in 1910, for the Augusta Tourists in the old South Atlantic League, but the same season was transferred to the Hattiesburg Lumberjacks in the Cotton States League. Under manager Link Stickney, he won five games and lost eleven. In 1911, though, for the renamed Hattiesburg Woodpeckers, he led the league with wins, twenty-two, while losing sixteen under managers George Moore and Carlos Smith.

After that performance, he was called to the majors, playing in 1912 for the Cincinnati Reds under manager Joe Tinker and owner August Herman. He played his first game on April 22nd and pitched reasonably well that season but pitched only 17.3 innings and failed to impress the Reds management. He was sold for $750 to the minor league team in Montgomery, Alabama, on August 17th that year.³

Presumably sometime while playing for Montgomery, he met Clarence Ossie Smith who was playing for Birmingham, and he would marry Clarence’s sister, Mabel Margaret, a native of Newport, Tennessee, on February 10, 1913,⁴ about two months before Clarence got his first chance in the majors with the Chicago White Sox.

By 1913, Jim was playing for the New Orleans Pelicans. In his first season with New Orleans on August 19th, he was trying to catch a fly ball and crashed into his own second baseman, breaking Jim’s left arm;⁵ thankfully, he was a right-handed pitcher, but he missed part of the season due to his injury.

He signed again with New Orleans the next season⁶ at a time when his brother-in-law was abandoned in California. In 1914, he achieved twenty wins and nine losses, and, in 1915 when Clarence Smith joined him in New Orleans, he won another nineteen games, with Clarence winning twenty for the Pelicans that year.

His performance got him called up to the Cleveland Indians on July 22, 1915,⁷ with him reporting to the Indians after the end of the Southern League season. His brother-in-law Clarence Smith would join him on the Indians in the middle of Jim’s first season there.

By the time that Clarence arrived, Jim had already established himself as a strong starting pitcher, pitching in forty-eight games, winning sixteen and losing sixteen, with an ERA of 2.61, and three shutouts. By the end of the season, Jim was fifth in the American League in terms of the number of games pitched, fourth in the number of saves, and second in the number of games finished. He was a very controlled pitcher; he rarely struck out batters, but he very rarely walked them.

While 1917 finished his brother-in-law’s major-league career, it proved to be a very good year for Jim. He won twenty-three games, including eight shutouts, with thirteen losses and seven saves and an ERA of only 1.96; he even managed to bat .231. He ranked in the top five in the American League that year for the number of wins, games played, inning pitched, games completed, and batters faced. His ERA was fourth best in the league even though he was first in the number of hits allowed and was second for the number of home runs allowed.

In 1918 and 1919, he continued with very solid performances. In 1918, he pitched in a league-leading forty-five games, winning seventeen and losing sixteen with six saves, two shutouts, an ERA of 2.69, and a batting average of .212. In 1919, he pitched thirty-five games, winning seventeen and losing eleven with three saves and no shutouts, an ERA of 2.80, and a batting average of .258, including the first of his two home runs in the majors.

About this time, he picked up the nickname “Sarge”, not because of any military experience but because of a character, Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, in the Old Judge Priest stories by humorist Irvin S. Cobb. Some of the players had seen a show on Broadway, which quite possibly was Boys Will Be Boys, which ran in October and November of 1919 at the Belmont Theater on West 48th Street.

1920 would be the high point of his career. He led the league in innings pitched and games played; in fact, he won 31 games; since 1920, two other pitchers, Lefty Grove (1931) and Denny McClain (1968) have tied that total, but no one has beaten it. He lost only twelve and pitched thirty complete games with three shutouts and an ERA of 2.89; he batted .252.

In 1920, the Indians were on track for their first pennant win ever in one of the oddest races ever. On August 16th, with the Indians in first place and playing the third-place Yankees, the Indian’s shortstop, Ray Chapman, was hit in the head by a pitch by Carl Mays; he died the next morning and remains the only major league player killed during a game. The Indians suffered a slump after the game but were able to recover.

1920 Cleveland Indians; Jim Bagby is seventh from left.⁸

Then in September, Chicago White Sox were challenging the Indians in the pennant race when the Black Sox scandal of 1919 was exposed, revealing that a number of the White Sox players had participated in a scheme to throw the 1919 World Series. Despite the pennant race, Sox owner Charles Comiskey immediately suspended the players who were later banned from baseball for life, ending the White Sox challenge.

The same day that the Black Sox players were suspended, September 28th, Jim got his 30th win, against the Saint Louis Browns; on October 2nd, Jim won his 31st and last regular season game, clinching the pennant for the Indians.

The next week, the Indians were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. The first three games were played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Stan Coveleski was credited with the Indians win in the first game, but the Dodgers took the next two games, including game two, when Jim was credited with a loss against opposing pitcher Burleigh Grimes, a legal spitball pitcher who was, in fact, the last person allowed to throw spitballs when he retired in 1937.

Moving to Cleveland for game four, Coveleski again delivered a win for the Indians, and game five was a rematch between Jim and Grimes. The game became legendary. In the bottom of the first inning, Jim’s teammates Charlie Jamieson, Bill Wambsganss, and Tris Speaker, were on base when Elmer Smith hit the first grand slam home run in the history of the World Series.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Jim himself was at bat with Doc Johnston and Steve O'Neill on base. Jim knocked a home run into center field, becoming the first pitcher to hit a home run in a World series game.

And, in the top of the next inning, Bill Wambsganss, the Indian’s second baseman, made an unassisted triple play; not only was it the first triple play in World Series history, he made all three outs himself.

Jim pitched the entire game while Grimes was relieved in the fifth inning. Jim actually gave up thirteen hits but only allowed one score, when, with one out remaining in the ninth, Dodgers player Ed Konetchy got that thirteenth hit and drove in a run. Cleveland had also managed one more run in the fifth and won the game 8-1 in front of a hometown crowd. With Duster Mails and Stan Coveleski throwing shutouts in the next two games, the Indians won the World Series five games to two.

Jim’s career never again achieved the same heights. In 1921, though, he did have another brush with fame that was barely recognized at the time⁹ . At this writing (2007), Barry Bonds is rapidly closing in on Hank Aaron’s record 755 career home runs. In 1974, Aaron had beaten with much fanfare the previous record set by Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth himself took the title in a nearly-forgotten game in 1921 – with Jim Bagby on the mound.

The record prior to Ruth is somewhat in dispute; to many, including the New York Times in 1921, the relevant record was held by Gaavy Cravath, who had achieved 119 home runs in his career in the modern, post-1900 era. Historically, three other men had higher numbers, but the ball parks, the balls, and other aspects of the game were very different before 1900.

In any case, at Yankee Stadium on June 10th, 1921, Jim Bagby threw to Ruth when Ruth hit his 120th home run, breaking Cravath’s record. The New York Times mentioned the record only as a small blurb.¹⁰ In total, Jim would be pitching for three of Ruth’s 714 home runs.

Overall in 1921, Jim performed reasonably well but gave up considerably more runs than in prior years; he won fourteen games and lost twelve with an ERA of 4.70. In 1922, his ERA leaped to 6.32, and he won four games and lost five in a season that was cut short for him by appendicitis in August.¹¹

In December 1922, the Indians sold him for an unannounced price¹² to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He pitched only occasionally, winning three games and losing two with an ERA of 5.24. In September of the next year, he was released as a free agent and signed first with the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League.¹³ He continued to play in the minors for Atlanta, Rochester, Jersey City, Newark, Monroe, and York. He retired after the 1930 season as manager of the Monroe (Louisiana) Drillers in the Cotton States League.

For the most part, he spent the next several years managing his cleaning and pressing company in Atlanta, and he also owned a gas station. In 1941, though, he returned to baseball – as an umpire in the Coastal Plains League.¹⁴ He suffered a stroke in 1942 and suffered bad health for the rest of his life,¹⁵ although he recovered enough to work in a couple of department stores in Atlanta.

Jim had another stroke and died July 28, 1954, at Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Georgia; he is buried in Westview Cemetery in Atlanta.

A year after Jim’s death, his widow, Mabel, had an association with one of the most controversial television game shows in history. “Strike It Rich”, hosted at the time by Warren Hull, invited destitute people on to answer a few questions and win some money. If they failed to win, they could appeal directly to the home audience, who could call in with donations. The show received substantial condemnation but lasted for a number of years. In 1955, Mabel, a diabetic, had lost both of her legs, and Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch agreed to play in her stead so that she could afford a better wheelchair and a sewing machine. He won her $300, and the Indians donated $100 and an Atlanta clothing company, $200; another Atlanta company donated a portable sewing machine.

Jim Bagby, Sr., was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1982. In August of 2007, he will be inducted into the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame.

Footnotes (omitted when this article was published):
¹ Library of Congress
² World War 1 Draft Registration Card, James Charles Bagby, Augusta, Georgia.
³ The Atlanta Constitution, “Bailey and Waldorf Are Now Property of Crackers; List of Optional Players”, 18 August 1912.
⁴ Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball, Revised and Expanded Edition, A-F, David F. Porter, editor, 2000: Greenwood Press, West Port, Connecticut
⁵ The Atlanta Constitution, “Thompson Wins Fourth Straight By Trimming Birds In Saturday’s Game”, 20 July 1913.
⁶ The Atlanta Constitution, “Catcher Yantz Sold to Toledo Ball Club”, 28 January 1914, page 7.
⁷ The Atlanta Constitution, “Jim Bagby Sold to Cleveland Team”, 23 July 1915, page 8.
⁸ Library of Congress.
⁹The Virginian Pilot, “A Record Homer from a Long-Ago Era That Hardly Anyone Noticed.”
¹⁰ The New York Times, “Curves and Bingles”, 11 July 1921, page 10.
¹¹ Danville [Virginia] Bee, “Bagby Has Appendicitis”, 23 August 1922, page 7.
¹² The New York Times, “Landis is Firm on Meeting Date”, 6 December 1922, page 25.
¹³ The Washington Post, “Indians Release Bagby”, 12 September 1923, page 14.
¹⁴ The Washington Post, “Old Sarge Becomes one of the Boys in Blue”, 1 June 1941, page SP2.
¹⁵ Atchison (Kansas) Daily Globe, “Sports in Brief”, 29 July 1954, page 7.

Pop Boy Smith (Clarence Ossie Smith)

I wrote a long article for the Newport Plain Talk that was published in three parts shortly before the 2007 World Series; this is the first of the three parts to be published. For my latest research and full details, see Clarence Ossie Smith in my family file.

Clarence was born 23 May 1892 in Newport¹ to William Bruce Smith and Margaret C. Dennis. Both of his parents were born in and married in Sevier County, but they lived in Cocke County for decades; Margaret’s parents, John Edward Dennis and Miranda Hartsell, were both born in Cocke County as well and descended from early Cocke County families.

Clarence was the third of the eight children who lived and the only boy in the family. He was first cousin to, among many others, the late Newportians Vella Allen and Ed and Royce Dennis. His father, Bruce Smith, was a carpenter in Newport as were Bruce’s brothers-in-law, John Joshua Dennis and Joel Leonard Dennis. When Clarence was about 10, the family relocated permanently to Birmingham, Alabama, where Bruce was a contractor, eventually working for himself.

The family’s new city had a baseball team, the Barons, which was a member of the Southern Association, a now-defunct league that was among the higher-level leagues of the era. The 8-team league included Birmingham, the Atlanta Crackers, the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Little Rock Travelers, the Memphis Chicks, the Nashville Vols, and the New Orleans Pelicans; typically, the eighth team was either the Knoxville Smokies, the Mobile Bears, or the Shreveport Sports.

In 1908, Carlton Molesworth became the player-manager of the Barons, and he would manage the team until 1922. Although he had pitched briefly in the National League for the Washington Senators, he played outfield for the Barons in addition to being the manager. Over the years, he built what is considered one of the strongest organizations in minor league history.

In 1909, A.H. “Rick” Woodward purchased the Barons and quickly built a new stadium, Rickwood Field, which was the first concrete and steel stadium in the minor leagues and is today the oldest professional baseball stadium still standing. The stadium was finished in time for the opening of the 1910 season.

Bruce & Margaret Smith family about 1908; Clarence is the one son, sitting with the dog. His sister Mabel is presumably in the photo, but her appearance at this time is not known.²

Clarence Smith got a job in that brand-new stadium in 1910 – selling drinks in the stands as what was then called a “pop boy”. A huge baseball fan, he took the job to be able to attend all the games. During practices, he would sometimes pitch to the players, and Molesworth, the player-manager, quickly noticed him. Molesworth signed Clarence in the spring of 1911 for $90 per month, farming him out to the Anniston (Alabama) Models of the now-defunct Southeastern League. From then on, Clarence would be known as “Pop Boy” Smith.³

In Clarence’s year with the Models, the team won the pennant, and Molesworth credited that win largely to Clarence’s pitching. They beat out the other teams in the league, which consisted of the Models, the Bessemer Pipemakers, the Gadsden Steel Makers, the Huntsville Mountaineers, the Rome (Georgia) Romans, the Selma Centralites, and the Talladega Highlanders.

After his year with the Models, Clarence in 1912 reported to the Birmingham Barons and began pitching for the team. Molesworth said of Clarence that year, “My opinion is he’s going to develop into a wonder and there’s nothing to keep him from getting into the big league. He’s only nineteen years old.”⁴ That season, for the first time under Molesworth, the Barons won the pennant. A letter from booster William Millikan to Clark Griffith, the legendary long-time manager of the Washington Senators, gave much of the credit to Clarence and outfielder Jimmy Johnston.⁵ Griffith expressed an interest in getting both for his team, but expressed little confidence in being able to sign either player.

Clarence Smith as a White Sox player in 1913

Instead, after just two years in the minor leagues and shortly before his twenty-first birthday, Clarence made it to the majors with another team, the Chicago White Sox (also known as the Americans during the era) as a pitcher; he was their youngest pitcher that year.

Nixey Callahan at the time was the manager of the White Sox, then as now an American League team. Charles Comiskey, who built the first Comiskey Park in Chicago, was the notoriously frugal owner who forced the players to, among other things, pay for laundering their own uniforms.

The White Sox had a pitching staff of thirteen that year, lead by the talented Eddie Cicotte who six years later would go down in infamy in the Black Sox scandal. Pitchers at the time threw in far more games than in the modern era and with often far more damage done to their arms. As the youngest, Clarence himself got very little playing time, playing in just fifteen games and pitching a total of thirty-two innings throughout the season.

Clarence’s performance for the White Sox was quite respectable, but Comiskey was apparently not very happy with his entire relief pitching staff. He was looking to create a powerhouse team, which would win the 1917 World Series and then famously throw the 1919 World Series. By midseason, Comiskey apparently was already trying to pare down the number of pitchers, and the White Sox roster by the next season was reduced from thirteen pitchers to nine. In fact, Comiskey ended up keeping just his five starters and one relief pitcher, pulling three new pitchers from the minor leagues.

The Atlanta Constitution reported on July 3rd that year⁶ and again the next day⁷ that Comiskey offered Clarence to the Atlanta Crackers, a minor-league team in search of an exceptional pitcher, for $2,000, a high sum at the time. The offer was sent the night of July 2nd and accepted by the Crackers on the 3rd. However, in a game on the 3rd against the Detroit Tigers, Clarence performed exceptionally well, and Comiskey reneged on the deal. While Atlanta probably had legal claim, they were not about to anger Comiskey.

Chicago Americans/White Sox, 1913, team photo; Clarence Smith is sitting third from left.⁸

Later that month, Clarence created a minor stir by playing with the Coulon Athletics, a semi-pro team, violating American League rules. But the president of the American League, Byron Bancroft “Ban” Johnson decided that, although several players had been fined the previous year for the same offense, Clarence was “just a youngster” and did not know he was violating the rules, so he was forgiven without consequence.⁹

That December, a rumor was floated again that Clarence would be sold, this time to the Chattanooga Lookouts,¹⁰ with the Crackers still being quite interested in him. However, Comiskey kept Clarence on the White Sox through spring training in California in 1914. Allegedly, during a game in California, the San Francisco fans taunted Clarence to the point that he retorted, “I should worry; we'll be back in the United States next week.”¹¹ Unbeknownst to Clarence, Comiskey decided on March 30th to leave him in California after spring training.¹²

Clarence was sold at that time to the Venice Tigers, owned by Edward Maier and managed at the time by Hap Hogan. The team more commonly was known as the Vernon Tigers but played in Venice in 1913 and 1914 in the Pacific League. The Pacific League apparently was the closest to becoming another major league without becoming one, and it could often offer salaries high enough to keep players from going to the majors.

Clarence was not happy in California. Billy Fritz, the baseball writer for the Oakland Tribune, called him “fractious”¹³ and taunted him in the press over his “United States” remark,¹⁴ and Clarence would also chafe from his lack of playing time.¹⁵ While Hap Hogan made it clear that he was not trying to sell or trade Clarence, he also indicated that he would not object if Clarence found a better deal. Apparently, Clarence did, and sometime around late 1914, he ended up with the pennant-winning Portland Beavers in the same league under Walter Henry McCredie. Rather soon, Portland sold Clarence to the New Orleans Pelicans, with the sale completed in March 1915.¹⁶

Clarence apparently welcomed the move to New Orleans, where his brother-in-law, Jim Bagby, had gone after his year with the Reds. Jim had been a sensation in New Orleans, winning twenty and losing nine in 1914 for the Pelicans, and Clarence then followed up with the incredible feat of winning more than twenty games in two consecutive seasons; he won twenty and lost twelve in 1915 and won twenty-three and lost thirteen in 1916.

In the midst of his hot streak in 1916, Clarence found himself late in the season being called to the majors again, when he was sold on August 19th to the Cleveland Indians.¹⁷ His brother-in-law, Jim Bagby, had also gone to the Indians earlier that season. Being called up so late in the season, Clarence had little opportunity to pitch, especially since the Indians had seventeen pitchers on the roster. He pitched only five games, with one win, two losses, and one save; he started three games and finished two, pitching a total of 25.7 innings.

In Cleveland both years, Clarence played under manager Lee Fohl and owner Jim Dunn. Early in the 1917 season, despite his incredible record in the minors, Clarence apparently began to lose his arm. Fohl placed him on probation in late March because of his inability to “hold the mound”¹⁸ that year. Clarence played a few more games, but played his last major league game on May 2, 1917, oddly enough against his first team, the White Sox, and was sent back to the New Orleans Pelicans.

How long he played for the Pelicans the second time is not currently known. In 1921 and 1922, he was a manager in the West Texas League, a short-lived Class D league that functioned from 1920-1922 and 1928-1929. He and Roy Brashear were managers of the Ballinger Bearcats in 1921 with the team moving from Mineral Wells to Balinger on May 19th that year. The team won 57 and lost 72, finishing fourth of six teams at 15.5 games behind. In 1921, Clarence was manager for the Sweetwater Swatters, who had led the league the prior year; they won 62 and lost 73, finishing fifth out of eight teams at 24 games behind.¹⁹

On February 16, 1924, Clarence died suddenly at his home in Sweetwater, Texas. His body was brought back to Birmingham for burial at Elmwood Cemetery. Details about his personal life, including whether he married or had children, are not currently known.

Footnotes (omitted when this article was published):
¹ World War 1 Draft Registration Card, Clarence Ossie Smith, New Orleans, Louisiana.
² Photo courtesy Janice (Dennis) Hance who inherited it from her father, Ed Dennis.
³ The Atlanta Constitution, “Clarence Smith, Baron Hurler, Got Starts While Selling Drinks at the Birmingham Ball Park”, 27 June 1912, page 13.
⁴ The Atlanta Constitution, “Clarence Smith, Baron Hurler, Got Starts While Selling Drinks at the Birmingham Ball Park”, 27 June 1912, page 13.
⁵ The Washington Post, “Johnson is to Twirl Against Virginia Nine”, 15 March 1913, page 8.
⁶ The Atlanta Constitution, “’Pop Boy’ Smith Bought by Locals”, 3 July 1913, page 10.
⁷ The Atlanta Constitution, “Comiskey Backs Down on Locals”, 4 July 1913.
⁸ Library of Congress.
⁹ The Atlanta Constitution, “’Pop Boy’ Smith Will Not Feel Iron Hand”, 7 July 1913.
¹⁰ The Atlanta Constitution, “’Pop Boy’ Smith May Go To The Lookouts”, 17 December 1913, page 10.
¹¹ The Daily Review [Decatur, Illinois], “Late Stories of the White Sox”, 1 April 1914, page 5.
¹² The Atlanta Constitution, “Clarence Smith Sold”, 31 March 1914, page 9.
¹³ The Oakland [California] Tribune, “Billy Fitz Says, Says He”, 31 March 1914.
¹⁴ The Oakland [California] Tribune, “Diamond Flashes”, 10 September 1914, page 12.
¹⁵ The Oakland [California] Tribune, “Baseball by Billy Fritz”, 31 July 1914, page 18.
¹⁶ The Atlanta Constitution, “Farrell’s Decisions”, 14 March 1915, page 5b.
¹⁷ The Washington Post, “Indians Buy Players”, 21 August 1916, page 6.
¹⁸ The Fort Wayne Daily News, “Rookies and Regulars”, 28 March 1917, page 14.
¹⁹ Baseball-Reference.com, http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/West_Texas_League

Newport and Major League Baseball: Pop Boy Smith, Sarge Bagby, & Jim Bagby Jr.

I wrote a long article for the Newport Plain Talk that was published in three parts shortly before the 2007 World Series. The prologue is here, and the three parts will follow as separate postings.

Apparently little known in the city’s history, Clarence Ossie Smith (1892-1924) is the only known Major League Baseball player born in Newport, Tennessee. Discovered while selling drinks at his local stadium, he proved to be a pitching sensation in the minor leagues but had a somewhat fitful experience in the majors. Still, he played in the majors for three years, and just reaching the majors was an incredible achievement.

His sister, Mabel Margaret Smith, also born in Newport, married a fellow pitcher, James Charles Jacob Bagby. Jim Bagby became the first pitcher to hit a home run in one of the most fascinating World Series games ever and was pitching when Babe Ruth passed a major milestone. In addition, Jim and Margaret had a son Jim Jr. who would also pitch in the World Series, making the two Jims the first father and son combination ever to pitch in the championship.