1920 Little Rock Manager and the Memphis Chicks
Top 100 Teams - 48. 1924 Memphis Chicks
Record: 104-49
Southern AssociationBy Bill Weiss & Marshall Wright, Baseball Historians
In 1921, a Southern Association club from Memphis posted an impressive 104-win season, gaining inclusion in the list of the top 100 Minor League teams. Surprisingly, only three years later, another Memphis club accomplished the same feat using an entirely different roster while being spurred by one of the league’s most prolific managers.
When the Southern Association was formed in 1901 out of the remnants of the Southern League, Memphis again was an eager participant. Two years after the league’s formation, a team called the Egyptians won a pair of flags in 1903-04. After a lengthy drought, the 1921 club, now called the Chicks (short for Chickasaws, a local Indian tribe) steamrolled the Southern Association with a 104-49 winner. After a slight dip to second and third the next two years, the Chicks rose like a colossus to club the league once again.
Barbare, a Tennessee product, had played nine seasons (1915-23) for Washington, the Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn, batting .289. He was with the Cubs in the 1918 World Series. Dick Wade, who had played for Washington in 1923, was sold to St. Paul when Carr Smith came down from the Senators. Wade was a lifelong resident of Duluth, MN, and Wade Stadium, present home of the Duluth-Superior Dukes in the Northern League, is named in his honor. Two catchers split behind the plate duties. The distinctively named Everett (Yam) Yaryan hit .337 in 93 games, Frank Kohlbecker batted .277 in 91 games. Yaryan, who hit .260 for the White Sox in 1921-22, played 20 years in the minors, batting .315 and hitting 213 homers.
Kohlbecker’s playing career ran from 1916-1931. He was a playing manager at the age of 23, in 1922 at Meridian in the Cotton States League and was drafted at the end of the season by the Cardinals who sent him to Memphis at the end of spring training. After the 1924 campaign, Brooklyn purchased him, but again he was returned to the Chicks during spring training. He was out of baseball, working as a cotton broker in Meridian when he was appointed traveling secretary of the Cleveland Indians in 1936. He added the title of business manager in 1938 and remained with the Indians until he resigned in July, 1946, because of differences with Bill Veeck, who had purchased the club from Frank’s friend, Alva Bradley. Kohlbecker was an aggressive player as demonstrated by two incidents reported by The Sporting News. In 1920, he was catching for Nashville. In one game, Little Rock manager Kid Elberfield was razzing Kohlbecker so much that Frank couldn’t stand it and, rushing to the dugout, he uncorked a right hand punch to Elberfeld’s jaw, knocking the manager over the back of the bench. A few days later, the Kid purchased Frank, saying that was the kind of player he wanted. While with Memphis, Kohlbecker was catching in an exhibition game against Detroit and saw Ty Cobb taking a long lead off third. He called for a pitchout and threw to third, but Ty turned into the throw and the ball bounced off his shoulder. Cobb headed for the plate as the third baseman made a quick recovery and fired the ball to Kohlbecker, who received it just as Ty went into a hook slide. Kohlbecker rolled on his back over the plate and rammed the ball into Cobb’s stomach for the putout.
Record: 104-49
Southern AssociationBy Bill Weiss & Marshall Wright, Baseball Historians
In 1921, a Southern Association club from Memphis posted an impressive 104-win season, gaining inclusion in the list of the top 100 Minor League teams. Surprisingly, only three years later, another Memphis club accomplished the same feat using an entirely different roster while being spurred by one of the league’s most prolific managers.
When the Southern Association was formed in 1901 out of the remnants of the Southern League, Memphis again was an eager participant. Two years after the league’s formation, a team called the Egyptians won a pair of flags in 1903-04. After a lengthy drought, the 1921 club, now called the Chicks (short for Chickasaws, a local Indian tribe) steamrolled the Southern Association with a 104-49 winner. After a slight dip to second and third the next two years, the Chicks rose like a colossus to club the league once again.
Barbare, a Tennessee product, had played nine seasons (1915-23) for Washington, the Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn, batting .289. He was with the Cubs in the 1918 World Series. Dick Wade, who had played for Washington in 1923, was sold to St. Paul when Carr Smith came down from the Senators. Wade was a lifelong resident of Duluth, MN, and Wade Stadium, present home of the Duluth-Superior Dukes in the Northern League, is named in his honor. Two catchers split behind the plate duties. The distinctively named Everett (Yam) Yaryan hit .337 in 93 games, Frank Kohlbecker batted .277 in 91 games. Yaryan, who hit .260 for the White Sox in 1921-22, played 20 years in the minors, batting .315 and hitting 213 homers.
Kohlbecker’s playing career ran from 1916-1931. He was a playing manager at the age of 23, in 1922 at Meridian in the Cotton States League and was drafted at the end of the season by the Cardinals who sent him to Memphis at the end of spring training. After the 1924 campaign, Brooklyn purchased him, but again he was returned to the Chicks during spring training. He was out of baseball, working as a cotton broker in Meridian when he was appointed traveling secretary of the Cleveland Indians in 1936. He added the title of business manager in 1938 and remained with the Indians until he resigned in July, 1946, because of differences with Bill Veeck, who had purchased the club from Frank’s friend, Alva Bradley. Kohlbecker was an aggressive player as demonstrated by two incidents reported by The Sporting News. In 1920, he was catching for Nashville. In one game, Little Rock manager Kid Elberfield was razzing Kohlbecker so much that Frank couldn’t stand it and, rushing to the dugout, he uncorked a right hand punch to Elberfeld’s jaw, knocking the manager over the back of the bench. A few days later, the Kid purchased Frank, saying that was the kind of player he wanted. While with Memphis, Kohlbecker was catching in an exhibition game against Detroit and saw Ty Cobb taking a long lead off third. He called for a pitchout and threw to third, but Ty turned into the throw and the ball bounced off his shoulder. Cobb headed for the plate as the third baseman made a quick recovery and fired the ball to Kohlbecker, who received it just as Ty went into a hook slide. Kohlbecker rolled on his back over the plate and rammed the ball into Cobb’s stomach for the putout.