Pro baseball has long, rich history in Richmond - Bill Lohmann
Times Dispatch - Richmond, VA
Pro baseball has long, rich history in Richmond - Bill Lohmann | Updated Jan 29, 2013'''
Before he became a loyal, paying customer of Richmond's professional baseball teams, Walter Dunn Tucker was a young fan who could climb a tree. "You could usually get into the game (for free) in the seventh inning, so we'd go out there and watch the first six innings from a tree just beyond the outfield fence," Tucker recalled of attending games as a teen in the 1940s at Mooers Field. "The trees weren't all that tall, but they were strong enough you could climb up and sit on a limb and watch a ballgame." The object of Tucker's affection was the Richmond Colts, one in a fairly long line of professional baseball teams in Richmond. "Pro baseball has meant a lot to me since I was 8 years old," said Tucker, 80, whose father first took him to Colts games at Tate Field on Mayo Island in 1940 when the team won the Piedmont League pennant.
In 1942, the Colts moved to Mooers Field at Roseneath and Norfolk streets in Scott's Addition, where Tucker occasionally climbed a tree for an unobstructed and inexpensive view. However, he said his "fondest memories of pro baseball in Richmond come from attending games with several generations of family members." In Tucker's case, that covers four teams — the Colts, Virginians, Braves and Flying Squirrels — and four generations. Baseball in Richmond runs deep and personal, though it's hardly been an uninterrupted ride as teams and ballparks have come and gone. As a game, baseball was introduced to Richmond in the years after the Civil War and became popular so quickly that the local newspapers giddily reported that "baseball fever spread more rapidly than cholera." The peculiar analogy was at least topical, as Richmond experienced a cholera outbreak in 1866, according to a 2003 book, "Baseball and Richmond: A History of the Professional Game, 1884-2000" by W. Harrison Daniel and Scott P. Mayer. Pro baseball began to flourish in the 1880s, and the city's parade of teams began: an early version of the Virginians, the Reds, the Legislators, the Crows, the Bluebirds, the Johnny Rebs, the Giants, the Grays, the Lawmakers, the Rebels and the Climbers.
All have been minor league teams except for the last 1½ months of the 1884 season when Richmond competed in the majors. In August of that year, the Richmond club, known as the Virginians, was invited to replace the disbanded Washington team in the American Association, then the big-league rival of the National League. Games were played at Richmond's ballpark of the day, situated on the site where the Robert E. Lee Monument now stands on Monument Avenue. Alas, that winter the American Association chose not to retain the Richmond club for future seasons, and back to the minors we went. Despite that, plenty of big-name players have come through Richmond, either on their way up to or way down from the majors, or in preseason exhibitions or postseason barnstorming tours. Local fans also have seen their share of colorful characters from the very beginning.
There was Edward "Pop" Tate, one of the city's first pro ballplayers in the 1880s (until he was sold to the Boston Beaneaters) who later returned to town and had the ballpark on Mayo Island named for him, and Norman "Kid" Elberfeld, a combative little turn-of-the-20th-century player who spent a short time in Richmond on his path to the big leagues and who was described in a Society for American Baseball Research biography as "the dirtiest, scrappiest … most rambunctious ball player that ever stood on spikes." Local baseball historian and collector Ron Pomfrey said the fearless Elberfeld, primarily an infielder, liked to challenge opposing players who came sliding in high and hard with their metal cleats. When blood was drawn from time to time, Pomfrey said, "he'd sit out on second base and pour whiskey on the wounds to cauterize them." Baseball players can be a charming bunch.
Prior to television and the Internet and before other sports and countless forms of entertainment competed for our attention, baseball was king. The game itself was a pleasant diversion, but it was considered significant, even validating for a city to have a professional team. "Particularly in the earlier days, having a minor league team was a big part of the city's identity," said Mayer, associate director of college counseling at St. Christopher's School, noting that in those early days the teams received front-page coverage in the Richmond newspapers. "In some ways, Richmond was an early adopter of the professional game in the South." Over the years, pro teams played all around the city: at a ballfield at what is now Monroe Park, at a couple of parks on Broad Street, at several locations in the Fan District, and even City Stadium. "A lot of people don't realize there was a ballpark there" at City Stadium, said Russell Rowe, 89, a standout semipro infielder who enjoyed a long association with the game. "It was probably the best ballpark in town. It was excellent. It had a grass infield. Never got a bad hop." Rowe grew up on Oregon Hill and as a kid used to walk with his brothers to Colts games at Tate Field on Mayo Island, an intriguing little park that was used for nearly 50 years but, as you might expect from its location in the James River, had a recurring problem with flooding. But water wasn't the problem on one of Rowe's most memorable visits to Tate Field; fire was, consuming the grandstands, concession areas and dugouts. When word spread of the fire, Rowe rode to the park with his girlfriend and her father to watch it burn. Tate Field is gone, but Rowe's girlfriend, Audrey, is still his wife. They've been married more than 65 years. The fire pushed Colts owner Eddie Mooers over the edge. The former player and manager, who made his money running a car dealership, decided to leave Mayo Island and build his own park, Mooers Field. It was a business move, as so many of them are in the world of professional sports. Mayer said fans often pine for the days of yesterday when baseball "was only a game," but in pro ball, those days never really existed. He recalled a legal battle in the late 1890s between two Richmond trolley companies, each wanting a stake in the local team. The reason? A new Broad Street ballpark was on one trolley line, but the old ballpark, on Main Street, was on the other company's line. Baseball meant more riders, so each wanted to dictate which ballpark was used. "People say baseball is too much about business now," Mayer said. "It's always been about business." No trolley companies are left to fight over what to do about the current ballpark issue, but Pomfrey has a simple message to those in positions of authority. "They need to do something ," said Pomfrey, author of "Baseball in Richmond," which was published in 2008. "Someone needs to take the reins and make something happen. Talk is cheap. I know times are tight, but these localities need to be able to talk in a reasonable manner and get something accomplished. "I really don't care where they have the ballpark, but have the ballpark. It's important for the community to have some place like that to go." Baseball on a warm summer evening can be entertaining — and even educational from the vantage point of a tree limb above and behind the left-field fence, said Walter Dunn Tucker. "From the tree, I yelled to Colts left-handed pitcher Raul Diaz, 'Dame la pelota !' " said Tucker. "Translated that means, 'Give me the ball!' Raul looked around to make sure tight-fisted Eddie Mooers didn't see him, and threw me a ball." Said Tucker, "It was my first practical use of Spanish."
Before he became a loyal, paying customer of Richmond's professional baseball teams, Walter Dunn Tucker was a young fan who could climb a tree. "You could usually get into the game (for free) in the seventh inning, so we'd go out there and watch the first six innings from a tree just beyond the outfield fence," Tucker recalled of attending games as a teen in the 1940s at Mooers Field. "The trees weren't all that tall, but they were strong enough you could climb up and sit on a limb and watch a ballgame." The object of Tucker's affection was the Richmond Colts, one in a fairly long line of professional baseball teams in Richmond. "Pro baseball has meant a lot to me since I was 8 years old," said Tucker, 80, whose father first took him to Colts games at Tate Field on Mayo Island in 1940 when the team won the Piedmont League pennant.
In 1942, the Colts moved to Mooers Field at Roseneath and Norfolk streets in Scott's Addition, where Tucker occasionally climbed a tree for an unobstructed and inexpensive view. However, he said his "fondest memories of pro baseball in Richmond come from attending games with several generations of family members." In Tucker's case, that covers four teams — the Colts, Virginians, Braves and Flying Squirrels — and four generations. Baseball in Richmond runs deep and personal, though it's hardly been an uninterrupted ride as teams and ballparks have come and gone. As a game, baseball was introduced to Richmond in the years after the Civil War and became popular so quickly that the local newspapers giddily reported that "baseball fever spread more rapidly than cholera." The peculiar analogy was at least topical, as Richmond experienced a cholera outbreak in 1866, according to a 2003 book, "Baseball and Richmond: A History of the Professional Game, 1884-2000" by W. Harrison Daniel and Scott P. Mayer. Pro baseball began to flourish in the 1880s, and the city's parade of teams began: an early version of the Virginians, the Reds, the Legislators, the Crows, the Bluebirds, the Johnny Rebs, the Giants, the Grays, the Lawmakers, the Rebels and the Climbers.
All have been minor league teams except for the last 1½ months of the 1884 season when Richmond competed in the majors. In August of that year, the Richmond club, known as the Virginians, was invited to replace the disbanded Washington team in the American Association, then the big-league rival of the National League. Games were played at Richmond's ballpark of the day, situated on the site where the Robert E. Lee Monument now stands on Monument Avenue. Alas, that winter the American Association chose not to retain the Richmond club for future seasons, and back to the minors we went. Despite that, plenty of big-name players have come through Richmond, either on their way up to or way down from the majors, or in preseason exhibitions or postseason barnstorming tours. Local fans also have seen their share of colorful characters from the very beginning.
There was Edward "Pop" Tate, one of the city's first pro ballplayers in the 1880s (until he was sold to the Boston Beaneaters) who later returned to town and had the ballpark on Mayo Island named for him, and Norman "Kid" Elberfeld, a combative little turn-of-the-20th-century player who spent a short time in Richmond on his path to the big leagues and who was described in a Society for American Baseball Research biography as "the dirtiest, scrappiest … most rambunctious ball player that ever stood on spikes." Local baseball historian and collector Ron Pomfrey said the fearless Elberfeld, primarily an infielder, liked to challenge opposing players who came sliding in high and hard with their metal cleats. When blood was drawn from time to time, Pomfrey said, "he'd sit out on second base and pour whiskey on the wounds to cauterize them." Baseball players can be a charming bunch.
Prior to television and the Internet and before other sports and countless forms of entertainment competed for our attention, baseball was king. The game itself was a pleasant diversion, but it was considered significant, even validating for a city to have a professional team. "Particularly in the earlier days, having a minor league team was a big part of the city's identity," said Mayer, associate director of college counseling at St. Christopher's School, noting that in those early days the teams received front-page coverage in the Richmond newspapers. "In some ways, Richmond was an early adopter of the professional game in the South." Over the years, pro teams played all around the city: at a ballfield at what is now Monroe Park, at a couple of parks on Broad Street, at several locations in the Fan District, and even City Stadium. "A lot of people don't realize there was a ballpark there" at City Stadium, said Russell Rowe, 89, a standout semipro infielder who enjoyed a long association with the game. "It was probably the best ballpark in town. It was excellent. It had a grass infield. Never got a bad hop." Rowe grew up on Oregon Hill and as a kid used to walk with his brothers to Colts games at Tate Field on Mayo Island, an intriguing little park that was used for nearly 50 years but, as you might expect from its location in the James River, had a recurring problem with flooding. But water wasn't the problem on one of Rowe's most memorable visits to Tate Field; fire was, consuming the grandstands, concession areas and dugouts. When word spread of the fire, Rowe rode to the park with his girlfriend and her father to watch it burn. Tate Field is gone, but Rowe's girlfriend, Audrey, is still his wife. They've been married more than 65 years. The fire pushed Colts owner Eddie Mooers over the edge. The former player and manager, who made his money running a car dealership, decided to leave Mayo Island and build his own park, Mooers Field. It was a business move, as so many of them are in the world of professional sports. Mayer said fans often pine for the days of yesterday when baseball "was only a game," but in pro ball, those days never really existed. He recalled a legal battle in the late 1890s between two Richmond trolley companies, each wanting a stake in the local team. The reason? A new Broad Street ballpark was on one trolley line, but the old ballpark, on Main Street, was on the other company's line. Baseball meant more riders, so each wanted to dictate which ballpark was used. "People say baseball is too much about business now," Mayer said. "It's always been about business." No trolley companies are left to fight over what to do about the current ballpark issue, but Pomfrey has a simple message to those in positions of authority. "They need to do something ," said Pomfrey, author of "Baseball in Richmond," which was published in 2008. "Someone needs to take the reins and make something happen. Talk is cheap. I know times are tight, but these localities need to be able to talk in a reasonable manner and get something accomplished. "I really don't care where they have the ballpark, but have the ballpark. It's important for the community to have some place like that to go." Baseball on a warm summer evening can be entertaining — and even educational from the vantage point of a tree limb above and behind the left-field fence, said Walter Dunn Tucker. "From the tree, I yelled to Colts left-handed pitcher Raul Diaz, 'Dame la pelota !' " said Tucker. "Translated that means, 'Give me the ball!' Raul looked around to make sure tight-fisted Eddie Mooers didn't see him, and threw me a ball." Said Tucker, "It was my first practical use of Spanish."
