1920 - Little Rock Arkansas Travelers Manager
June 13, 1920 - The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) - Elberfeld Suspended
September 16, 1920 - Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) - Little Rock, Ark., Sept. 15 - As a result of Little Rock cinching the Southern Association pennant today Manager Norman Elberfeld declared himself the happiest man in the world. During his 28 years in professional baseball it is the first time he ever has been with a pennant-winning club, although he was in his day one of the greatest shortstops in the major league. It is the first pennant ever won by Little Rock in the eleven years the city has had a club in the Southern Association and the first time the Southern Associ8ation pennenat ever has been won by a city west of the Mississippi River.
September 27, 1920 - The Time Tribune, Altoona, PA - Three Indians, Cuban, and "Bing" Help Give "The Tobasco Kid" his First Pennant
White County’s John Henry “Rube” Robinson
In the professional baseball culture of today, minor league teams exist to provide experience for prospects hoping for a major league career. When players on those teams are no longer considered candidates for eventual major league promotion, their career is basically over. In the first half of the 20th century, minor league teams gladly accepted both young players with major league potential and experienced men who had made a career in baseball but no longer had major league ability. Occasionally the melding of these categories produced a team for the ages. Such was the 1920 Little Rock Travelers.
Robinson won 26 games for the league champion Travelers in 1920. The Southern Association Champions of that historic season drew 165,000 fans to Kavanaugh Field, setting an attendance mark that would stand for more than thirty years. Little Rock and the nation were ready for good times after a demoralizing war effort and the shadow of the Spanish Flu Pandemic, and the 1920 Little Rock Travelers supplied those times.
The 1920 Travelers were a collection of colorful characters and talented baseball players in the various career stages common to minor league baseball in those turbulent times. Some had been major leaguers, some were youngsters with big league dreams, and others were discovered on the Native American reservations of Oklahoma. Despite the flux of minor league transitions, one thing in Little Rock baseball remained constant. Rube Robinson, a young man with major league talent and a rural heart, gave the Travs the best pitcher in the Southern Association.
In the professional baseball culture of today, minor league teams exist to provide experience for prospects hoping for a major league career. When players on those teams are no longer considered candidates for eventual major league promotion, their career is basically over. In the first half of the 20th century, minor league teams gladly accepted both young players with major league potential and experienced men who had made a career in baseball but no longer had major league ability. Occasionally the melding of these categories produced a team for the ages. Such was the 1920 Little Rock Travelers.
Robinson won 26 games for the league champion Travelers in 1920. The Southern Association Champions of that historic season drew 165,000 fans to Kavanaugh Field, setting an attendance mark that would stand for more than thirty years. Little Rock and the nation were ready for good times after a demoralizing war effort and the shadow of the Spanish Flu Pandemic, and the 1920 Little Rock Travelers supplied those times.
The 1920 Travelers were a collection of colorful characters and talented baseball players in the various career stages common to minor league baseball in those turbulent times. Some had been major leaguers, some were youngsters with big league dreams, and others were discovered on the Native American reservations of Oklahoma. Despite the flux of minor league transitions, one thing in Little Rock baseball remained constant. Rube Robinson, a young man with major league talent and a rural heart, gave the Travs the best pitcher in the Southern Association.
