Solve a mystery while I'm at work

[z28jd]

Today, while writing about Dutch Meier from the 1906 Pirates, I started searching for more on him since his bio was pretty short. I found the newspaper article from the day he signed with the Pirates(Pittsburgh Press 11/22/1905) along with this note on that page "Meier played a few games for the Pirates last Summer, under an assumed name."

So I checked the 1904-05 Pirates, not sure what year "last Summer" was referring to and I couldn't find any unknown players. I checked out Bull Smith and his story fits, found the paper from his debut, but now I have to go to work so if someone could just find out when Dutch Meier played for the Pirates prior to 1906 and what name he used, that would be great. They may just have been exhibition games played on the team's off-days, the story doesn't get any more specific than what I wrote above.

If you don't feel like doing that, well there is five links here for George Van Haltren(and the 1893 Pirates outfield), who celebrates a birthday today and a story on Tom Burns, who is in the OJ set

http://blogs.piratesprospects.com/hi...tory-march-30/

[Mark]

He may mean that he assumed the name of someone else on the roster when one of the regulars got sick or had to miss a couple of games. Maybe, for example, Honus Wagner got sick in St. Louis, so "Dutch" Meier played under his name for a game or two.
Beat em Bucs
Mark

Dutch Meier may have played under an assumed name if he was attending college at the time. College athletes were not supposed to play professional sports, but did. Like former Cincinnati Red Larry Kopf who played under the name "Fred Brady" for this reason.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...kopfla01.shtml

[Mark]

Originally Posted by pariah1107

Dutch Meier may have played under an assumed name if he was attending college at the time. College athletes were not supposed to play professional sports, but did. Like former Cincinnati Red Larry Kopf who played under the name "Fred Brady" for this reason.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...kopfla01.shtml

I suppose that must have been an unwritten rule for a while. Was that an actual rule of the nascent IAAUS (later NCAA), which came into being in March of 1906?

Interesting story, plenty of research to be done here. Looks like Dutch and Homer Hillebrand were teammates at Princeton, before being teammates for the Pirates. Seems as though Hillebrands' older brother Arthur "refused to play in the majors" at some point. Not sure why. Could be Meier and Hillebrand had similar philosophies regarding "the majors". Homer Hillebrand joined the club in April 1905, but Meier joined in 1906 (or under an assumed name earlier) only played a year and went back to Princeton to coach baseball. Wow, plenty of questions, no answers for you.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/bu...mer_Hillebrand

[prewarsports]

I dont know if this means anything to your research but I thought I would post it for you anyways. From the estate of a Princeton classmate and a very rare autograph.

Rhys

[baseballart]

Originally Posted by pariah1107

Interesting story, plenty of research to be done here. Looks like Dutch and Homer Hillebrand were teammates at Princeton, before being teammates for the Pirates. Seems as though Hillebrands' older brother Arthur "refused to play in the majors" at some point. Not sure why. Could be Meier and Hillebrand had similar philosophies regarding "the majors". Homer Hillebrand joined the club in April 1905, but Meier joined in 1906 (or under an assumed name earlier) only played a year and went back to Princeton to coach baseball. Wow, plenty of questions, no answers for you.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/bu...mer_Hillebrand

Can't add anything on Dutch, but rarely do I get a good reason to post a photo of Homer

[steve B]

It was a fairly big deal for other sports, but affected baseball a bit less.

There was an attitude that sports were gentlemens games and playing for money sullied the purity of sport. Obviously a very big deal for stuff like track or any other olympic sport, a remnant of which remained with us into the 1980's and was still strongly held into the 1960's. It was fairly strong in football with a few articles decrying the rise of professionalism in the game and expressing dissappointment in those who played professionally.

One could say we still have a bit of it in the current NCAA rules.

Baseball didn't seem to have that taken so seriously, probably partly because it was more of sport for the masses, and partly because it had been played professionally for a few decades already.

Steve B

Originally Posted by Mark

I suppose that must have been an unwritten rule for a while. Was that an actual rule of the nascent IAAUS (later NCAA), which came into being in March of 1906?

[packs]

Didn't Thorpe lose his Olympic medals because he played for the Giants? Always seemed stupid to me. If a guy is a professional baseball player how does he have any advantages over amateur track and field athletes? I could see if he won his medals in baseball or football.