Hi Everybody, I want to preface this by saying this write-up should be read when you have a few minutes and can view everything in detail. There will be a few news articles ill be referencing, that wont be the easiest things to read (scans of papers this old are very inconsistent). Dates and sources will be posted above each photo.
Its been a while since my last deep dive/investigation post. But I've gotten a new piece recently and have spent roughly 10 hours researching about it.
What I'm going to show and tell today is this March 29th, 1916 Broadside from the Chicago White Sox spring training In Mineral Wells Texas.
Condition is not perfect as the vast majority of broadsides this old are rough. Some random articles are attached to the back at a later date etc, there is also an attached billhead shown (more on that later)
1916 White Sox Vs Chicagos Broadside front and back.jpg
The story starts off with my own confusion and questions. Who are the Chicagos? I researched them for a while and could not find anything about them. So I moved to the smaller details, Obviously the team was from Chicago so the game would take place at the "Weatherford"? Fair Grounds in Chicago right? How else would the White Sox play the "Chicagos"? Every name named on the broadside was a member of the White Sox, no names led me to this elusive Chicagos team. So my assumption is the sox were heading back from spring training to play in Chicago at these grounds I have never heard of. Ok no problem, there are tons of ball grounds lost to time in the United States. However while researching, The Sox played a game the night before, March 28th. so unless the team was covering over 1000 miles in a single night there was no way that was correct. Especially seeing the boys drove down and didn't take a train. If you have caught on by now (I hadn't) Weatherford was a town in Texas.
South Bend news-times., March 29, 1916
South Bend news-times., March 29, 1916.jpg
I was concerned by the vocabulary used in the above article "were booked to". However this Clipping quickly disproved my doubts, it did happen. In hindsight this is just older english, "were" would just be "are" today. Further confirmed later after I found some key plays from the game.
NOTE: I actually found the second article shown before the first. I am posting this (mostly) In order so it makes more sense and eliminates the confusion I had when researching. So it will give some hindsight I did not have that you will have when reading.
South Bend news-times., March 30, 1916
South Bend news-times., March 30, 1916.jpg
Ok that is one mystery solved now onto the bigger one, who the heck are the Chicagos? Well if you had a hunch that it was just more White Sox players that were Billed as a different team on the broadside you are the winner! The Sox used terminology calling the main team the "Regulars" think Jackson. And the "volunteers" or the hopefuls of making the team. Though I would like to note, many of the Volunteers were really Regulars just playing for the volunteers (bench players etc). Essentially the team brought their full starting squad and split into two teams, the A (white sox) and the B team (chicagos). This seems to have been the attraction of the trip, not only did they create a broadside for the inter team game but they expected 10,000 people to show!
THE CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE MARCH 31 1916. Usage of Regulars and Volunteers terminology. This article is longer and mentions more but I didn't want to have a full page scroll in this writeup lol.
THE CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE MARCH 31 1916.2.jpg
Next step naturally is the game itself. Well unfortunately the game has almost zero surviving Coverage of what happened aside from a few key hits. The first would be both Eddie Collins and Shano Collins hit a homer. As well as Fred McMullen. Jack Lapp hit a triple, George Moriarity and Wally Mayer both Doubled (note how a few names were not starters, Mayer didn't even make the 1916 team) so both the Regulars and Volunteers got some coverage at least. Oh yea I almost forgot, SHOELESS JOE JACKSON hit 2 homers himself! Joe never hit 2 in one game during his whole career and most of them were inside the park. So two "Pole" shots vs fellow Sox players is pretty damn cool in my opinion.
The day book. March 30, 1916 Chicago Ill.
The day book. March 30, 1916 Chicago Ill.jpg
Some cool facts i wanted to add.
If you look at the back of the broadside, there is the fragment of a billhead attached to the bottom right. It is very hard to read, but half cut off at the very bottom it says Mineral Wells Tex. This billhead is from the "Crazy Well" Hotel. The Hotel is Still there today! It was renamed sometime later to the "Crazy Water" and seems like a very nice Hotel today. I wonder if this billhead might have belonged to a sox player, or players family member that stayed in the hotel during their time there. A fun thing to think about.
Another interesting thing I found while researching, was the prior day on the 28th it seems like several players had their Gloves and Shoes Stolen. I am thinking the players might have left everything sitting out. "Club House" probably just meant a pavilion or something lol. I did not look into Rowlands Goat, but I assume it was some kind of lucky goat they brought, as many teams were superstitious.
The West Virginian March 28th 1916
The West Virginian March 28th 1916.jpg
Hope you all enjoyed this pieced together story, I tried
. This is my 3rd or 4th one of these deep dive style posts. I am thinking about maybe making some sort of identification/research service available to people who have mysterious items that they would like to know more about. I wonder if that is something people would be interested in? A bonus if you have read this far, I currently have a completely unique never before seen playing days card of a very famous Yankee that I am currently researching and am confident I will have it graded. It isn't babe or anything but it is a very significant top Yankee hofer. So keep a lookout for my next in depth research post!