Solve a mystery while I'm at work

[prewarsports]

Even one of United States Presidents played Professional Baseball under an assumed name.

In 1911 Dwight Eisenhower is reported to have played for the Minor League Junction City, Kansas team under the assumed name of "Wilson" to protect his "amatuer" status as a Football player for West Point. He seems to have been a pretty good hitter!

Rhys

[FrankWakefield]

Meier is listed as right handed in both hitting and throwing. The 1905 Pirate roster has known players; then among the 'maybes' who played a few games, none of those guys are right/right. So I don't think Meier played with the Pirates in regular season games in 1905. Maybe he was sitting on the bench with them and never got into a game, maybe he was with the team during spring training...

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

Meier is listed as right handed in both hitting and throwing. The 1905 Pirate roster has known players; then among the 'maybes' who played a few games, none of those guys are right/right. So I don't think Meier played with the Pirates in regular season games in 1905. Maybe he was sitting on the bench with them and never got into a game, maybe he was with the team during spring training...

I'm going to look tomorrow through some old boxscores for a name that doesn't match up in either 1904 or 1905. They used to print the scores from exhibition games in the Pittsburgh Press so maybe I'll find one on an off-day for the team. Don't think he was there during Spring Training though because it says "last Summer" so for now I won't check then. Luckily tomorrow I have absolutely nothing better to do except write an article in the afternoon so I will have plenty of time to check. At the very least, I'll find some interesting things to use at a later date

[imacgreg]

Thorpe competed in the Olympics in 1912, before he joined the Giants in 1913. He lost his medals for games played in the Eastern Carolina league in 1909 and 1910.

[z28jd]

On an unrelated note to Meier, I've noticed a lot of talk in July 1905 about turning the American and National League into one 12 team league. Barney Dreyfuss had some harsh words about the teams from St Louis but he also said no city would be able to support two major league teams in the future

[z28jd]

Jackpot. September 14,1905 Pirates play an exhibition game against the Springfield Senators. Batting third for the Pirates that day, playing left field was "Koch". The newspaper covering the game says:

"Koch, a recruit coming from nobody-knows-where, played left field for Pittsburgh yesterday"

So I followed that lead and found this on September 19

"It is rumored that "Koch" who has been tried by Pittsburgh is really Dutch Meier, an old Princeton player"

[Mark]

Good. Now the world is slightly less mysterious.