A day off with Sam Crawford and Small town baseball in Nebraska

[Golfcollector]

I took Friday off of work with the intention of doing a little digging into history and a little background searching on Sam Crawford.

Lincoln, Nebraska is currently where I call home. Ceresco, Nebraska - which was where I grew up in the 1970's and 80's - is a small town about 15 minutes north of Lincoln. It is an agricultural community that is pretty small even today (about population 900) it is located roughly half way between Lincoln and Wahoo, Nebraska.

Wahoo is the County seat of Saunders county, and the original home of Hall of Famer Sam Crawford. To be honest, I never had much of an interest in Crawford in my younger days of collecting baseball cards. I knew a little about him, and that he was a great baseball player.Mainly I knew his name from having the chance to play many baseball games in my youth at a field in Wahoo named after him.


Like many small Nebraska towns Ceresco had their baseball team. My dad is somewhat of a historian about all things Ceresco, and he has a number of photos of the early days of the Ceresco town team. My great great uncle - Walt Rudeen played for the town team club for many years. He was born in 1885 and served in World War I. Here is a picture of the team circa 1910.



The story goes that Ceresco did not allow baseball to be played inside the city limits of the town at the time. This was likely the closest place to town (about 1/2 mile south) that had a flat enough piece of real estate and no meandering stream in order to be able to play baseball.

My dad thought they played just south of Ceresco about a half of a mile. But he wasn't born until 1944 and by then they were playing at the city park in town.

Here is the 1915 ball club out on the diamond. Note the old cars in the background. The angle I think this was taken was a little North of the road I am on, but it is a very flat piece of property that is currently near and intersection of two roads (which may not have existed in 1915)



You can see a hill in the distance in the photo. Below is a photo from as close as I could get without trespassing into a soybean field. A 4 lane highway now runs along the top of that hill where the cell phone tower is located. but I am pretty sure this is the same hill after 104 years. I think I have located where games used to be played. Not sure there were ever stands or anything, appears people likely just came out and watched, weather that meant sitting in their Model T's, or maybe just standing somewhere to take in the baseball action.



After finishing up the trip at my parents, I headed to Wahoo, I have never visited the Saunders County Museum in all of my life, although I have driven by it literally hundreds of times. They do have a small section devoted to Sam Crawford with some photos, a Sam Crawford model bat, an old Tigers cap a few cards.

I have reached out and left my contact info with a lady at the museum to see if they would want to do a short term display of some of the various cards I have collected of Crawford. If nothing else I may just make front and back scans of the stuff and put it in a booklet form that everyone can enjoy and not just for a short period of time.

The museum does have some articles from a local newspaper of his days playing for Killian Brothers which was one of the town teams in Wahoo. Crawford played for this group prior to leaving town and eventually making his way to professional baseball. Here is a early Pennant for the Killian Wahoo team as well as an advertising card for the business.






Here were two articles from the "Wahoo Wasp" one is dated from 1897 the smaller one I believe is from 1896. Both talk of games where Crawford factored into the outcome and have some exploits. Got to love the caricature of him hitting the home run!




This is likely the earliest known photo of Crawford in a baseball uniform showing him playing for the Killian's Club, I also have zoomed in a bit to get a better photo of him in the team shot.




Here is an excerpt from an SABR article talking a little more about Sam's early days in Wahoo playing baseball.

Although Sam was widely regarded as articulate, well-read and eloquent during and particularly after his playing days, he forsook his formal education after the fifth grade to work as an apprentice barber.

Crawford's trade would make for a great story in later years. National columnist Charles Dryden, in a mock interview with Crawford, had the slugger talk of building his renowned natural strength by "whacking the wind-whipped whiskers of Wahoo." It became apparent early, though, that Crawford's attention wasn't fully trained on the razor's edge. He began playing baseball at a young age, and quickly showed a talent for the game. Honing his skills playing one old cat with North Ward schoolmates, he joined a team formed by "Snakes" Crawford (likely no relation) which toured eastern Nebraska, challenging town teams for the purse on a daily basis.

The Wahoo contingent "made Cedar Bluffs, Fremont, West Point, Dodge... Schuyler... wherever there was a ball team we challenged them for a game," Crawford recalled years later. Wahoo won most of those, traveling on a lumber wagon behind a team of horses with a tent and cook stove for subsistence. "We were ballplayers on a trip and loved it."

Crawford eventually landed with Killian Bros., a local team "who had big league uniforms. We all wanted to play for Killian Brothers and get one of those uniforms," he wrote. One local crank recalled years later that Crawford earned a suit of clothes from Killian's mercantile for promising not to smoke.

Crawford moved to West Point, Nebraska, in 1898, his first gig drawing a salary to play ball, and then landed jobs barbering and playing baseball in the small Nebraska towns of Wymore and Superior. In the spring of 1899 a pitcher named John McElvaine recommended Crawford to a Chatham, Ontario, club in the Canadian League. The young outfielder tripled in his first game with Chatham, his only safety in four tries, and registered six putouts in left field. He hit .370 in 43 games, moving to Columbus and later Grand Rapids in the Western League after Chatham folded.

And lastly here is a photo in a Chicago Uniform. This would have been when Crawford was on the 1913 -14 World Tour. Can someone enlighten me as to who the other player would be? No one at the museum was aware. I figured someone here could give me the answer and then I could pass it along.




Thanks for reading my post!
Would love to see any Crawford items that you have in your collection.

Dave