Carl Lundgren, Red Grange, Joe Gum & 1924 University of Illinois Baseball

[Jobu]

The 1924 University of Illinois baseball roster featured a few big names – former Major Leaguer Carl Lundgren of T206 fame and NFL Hall of Famer Red Grange, who went out for baseball for one year on something of a lark. According to his autobiography:

“After the football season I decided to rest up for a few months and concentrate more on my studies. But when spring rolled around I couldn't resist the urge to go out for baseball. Although my hitting left much to be desired, I became Illinois' regular center fielder.

My main assets as a ballplayer were speed, a strong arm and the ability to field well. In my junior year, baseball coach Carl Lundgren had me alternating between the pitching mound and the outfield, and I earned a 1-1 record as a pitcher. At the end of my second season of college baseball I was offered a big- league tryout with the Boston Braves, but I turned it down because I didn't feel in my own heart I was good enough to make the grade as a big-leaguer. I certainly had no ambition to make a career in the minor leagues. Besides, there was still another year of college football competition left for me and I didn't want to pass that up.”

Grange is also listed on only a single Illinois baseball roster, 1924, so I think he only played for one year:

http://fightingillini.com/sports/201...924.aspx?#1924

I have a booklet from a 1924 University of Illinois banquet dinner hosted by local businessmen. I believe the booklet was owned by one of the players, Harry Harper. The cover of the booklet has a team photo featuring both Grange and Lundgren. I also have a few single photos of Harry Harper (2 photos), T.C. Ponting, and two that appear to have the photographer’s name, one of which might be Harper.

1 Cover sm.jpg

Player Pic 3 sm.jpg

Player Pics 1-2 sm.jpg

Player Pics 4 sm -1.jpg

Player Pics 4 sm-2.jpg

The booklet has a lot of information on the team, the meal, and a list of the players and businessmen that were to attend the banquet:

2 Title Page sm.jpg

3 Menu sm.jpg

4 Guests sm.jpg

5 Game Log sm.jpg

6 Hosts sm.jpg


Where this gets really exciting is that almost everyone who attended signed the final pages of the booklet:

7 Autos sm.jpg

8 Autos sm.jpg

9 Autos sm.jpg

I managed to match up most of the signatures with the players and businessmen listed. The signatures include Carl Lundgren, a sought after signature that is really tough to obtain, especially on something other than University of Illinois athletic department agreements, because he passed away in 1934.

Lundgren.jpg

I went through the lists and matched up the printed guest list with the signatures and things aligned pretty well. There are a few signatures from people who were not in the printed list: Frank D. Garland, Louis Burch(?), Walt Wessman(?), and Joe Gum. There are also several people in the printed list that did not sign their name: Guests (i.e., players): D.M. Bullock, Ken Buchanan, H.R. Grange, G. Binger, J. Jordan, E.D. Morrison, R.C.P. Johnson, and Hosts: B.E. Spalding, H.I. Gelvin, Frank Mead, H.F. Duncan, F.V. Morgan, G.N. Cunningham, and P. Yortzes. Vic Krannert signed twice.

At first I was disappointed to see that Grange was one of the handful of people listed in the booklet that didn’t sign it. There were also a few signatures that were not listed among the printed attendees, one of whom signed as Joe Gum:

Joe Gum.jpg

The hand writing on this signature looks a lot to me like Red Grange’s writing:

Grange writing sample.jpg

I started searching to see what I could find about Joe Gum and Red Grange as the Joe Gum name really seemed like a nickname. I emailed several people who wrote Grange biographies, the University of Illinois, and the Baseball Hall of Fame and nobody had heard of Grange using this nickname. I then moved my search to try to learn about the name Joe Gum and I think there is a compelling case to be made that Grange signed the booklet as Joe Gum.
Apparently Joe Gum was a popular nickname in the teens and twenties. Popular enough that there was a fiction story called Joe Gum published in the 1917 Saturday Evening Post:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...iew=1up;seq=53

The author later wrote an editorial where he added additional details to the Joe Gum nickname:

https://books.google.com/books?id=pl...uckman&f=false

These stories make it clear that Joe Gum describes someone who is a natural athlete, sure of himself (to put it kindly), and prone to running red hot and ice cold. Grange, like Joe Gum in the story, appeared somewhat out of nowhere to make the 1924 baseball team. He was clearly a gifted multi-sport athlete who wrote about having spent much of his youth playing baseball.
Here is a photo of Grange, which looks a lot like it was taken at the same time as the photos that I have, with a quote from coach Lundgren that makes it sound like Grange might be a Joe Gum type:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/ne...re-id540458374

“'Red' Grange, the famous football star from Wheaton, Illinois, is trying out for the University of Illinois Baseball team. Coach Lundgren states that Grange has natural pitching ability, but that only actual playing will determine just how good he is.”

Looking back at the fictional Joe Gum from the Saturday Evening Post piece, Mr. Gum starts out hot and then can’t hit anything. Another quote from Grange’s autobiography suggest that he went through exactly the same situation:

“Throwing and batting right-handed, I played all the positions including pitcher and catcher although my ambition was to be a first baseman. I wanted to be like Vic Saier, the great first sacker of the Chicago Cubs. I had a strong throwing arm and could hit pretty well, too. However, when I played baseball down at Illinois, I couldn't bat worth a lick when the coach changed my batting stance.”

I wanted to share this with all of you because I think it is pretty fun on a number of levels. If anyone has anything to add to this please post or send me a PM as I would love to add some more details about Grange’s time on the Illinois baseball team and any references to Joe Gum. Also, for all of you handwriting guys out there, please let me know if I am crazy thinking that it looks like Grange is the one that signed Joe Gum.