A “Fatal” Ballgame

A hearty welcome to Alex Biehl to the Howell County News history scribblers’ bunch. I look forward to reading what your research reveals, and I appreciate your willingness to share it with us! 

 

Years ago, I helped organize the Willow Springs Historical and Genealogical Society when the Vokac family donated our museum building. I’ve served on several other historical society boards for over the past forty years, and the common theme is finding the funding and volunteers to keep a museum open, even for minimal hours. 

 

I guess stumbled into all this when a couple of little old ladies invited me to join their historical society board because, “they needed input from a young guy.”  Mind you, I was in my mid-fifties then; now I’m their age, and we still need young folks interested in the past to preserve, identify, and share our history.   

 

Alex, the museum curator, with support from Dean Aye and the Willow Springs Community Foundation, has turned his museum’s photographic resources into an online phenomenon. It is a lot of work, but I believe historical preservation, interpretation, and sharing are valuable to a community. 

 

I’ve been writing this column for fifteen years. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the historical record of Howell County. From a nearly complete set of rural one-room school ledgers and grade books to detailed probate, county personal, and land tax records, we have a set of county records unlike any other in Missouri, with a depth of cultural information dating to 1865. There is much grist for the historical writing mill of the future.

 

In the days before the Internet, I photocopied an article I found amusing and a little informative written by Will Zorn of the West Plains Gazette in July 1901. Baseball was really popular as a local sport then, and I suspect competition, not so friendly, was the source of rivalry between the citizens of West Plains and Willow Springs before football was invented. 

 

Under the headline, “A Fatal Ball Game,” the fatal part perhaps being local pride-no one was killed- Zorn described the game, held on the Fourth of July in Willow Springs, like this,

 

“The West Plains base ball team (Zorn separated the words) went to Willow Springs the Fourth to cross bats with the club of that town. It can be said with a certainty that they won’t go there any more. Heretofore, the West Plains aggregation of ball tossers has met with fair and cordial treatment in every town visited, but at Willow Springs Thursday they were treated like a lot of rebels.”

 

“In the first place, the Willow Springs players had everything their own way-they had the crowd, selected both umpires, and then tried to ‘hog’ the game, but after all, they lost by the score of 13 to 11.”

 

“Thursday’s game might have been a good exhibition of ball playing had Tamp Osborne, the Willow Springs pitcher, been shut up in the ice box to cool off. About the only thing Tamp can do is chew the rag, and he can’t do that with any degree of success. It would be more appropriate to get him a rubber nipple on which to nibble, for he is somewhat of a baby anyhow.”

 

“The game was for a purse of $20, offered by the citizens of Willow Springs. While the score plainly showed that the West Plains team had won the game, Osborne vainly protested that the umpire had given the wrong decision in the last inning and that the game should have been given to Willow Springs. Osborne’s bluff did not work, for Captain Monroe got the purse, which was safely stored in a bat bag and brought to West Plains.”

 

Zorn continued, “It was not a brilliant exhibition of ball playing, by any means. There were very few phenomenal plays and almost every player made a bobble. Mort Morgan pitched a splendid game for West Plains, and had he been given proper support would have won hands down. In the seventh inning, Amiel Noe, second baseman for the West Plains club, had the ankle of his right foot broken. Will Ellis, who was running from first to second, collided with Noe, but the plucky second baseman put the runner out in the mix-up. Noe was carried from the field, Jim Ellis taking his place on the diamond.” 

 

“In another part of the newspaper, editor Zorn described a second accident, “While the doctors were attending to Noe, the other accident also occurred, and it happened in almost the same manner. Roy Coy, the West Plains left fielder, was running from third base to home plate when the ball was thrown to Kilpatric. The latter braced himself as Coy came down the baseline like a shot out of a cannon. In the collision, Kilpatric was knocked senseless, and the doctors were given another job. For a while he was in a precarious condition, but soon (the next day) came out all right. Alva Kilpatric is a son of W.L. Kilpatric, one of the popular clerks at Kilpatric’s store, and is a brakeman on the Current River line.”

     

I couldn't locate a Willow Springs newspaper covering 1901 for a possible response from an editor there, but over the next seventy-five years the two towns often clashed over sports, and often in the papers. I recall my mother relating a dust-up in the 1940s after West Plains lost a basketball game, which resulted in most of the glass five-cent Coke bottles being broken on the floor of the Willow Springs gymnasium. 

 

Zorn did give Willow Springs a little grace in another part of the paper, calling the event “a success.” To give an idea of its scale, Zorn wrote, “There were a number of celebrations of the Fourth of July in this section, but the largest crowd and the biggest doings were at Willow Springs. The early morning passenger trains on the Memphis Route brought hundreds of visitors to that town and a special train of six coaches on the Current River line, all heavily loaded, swelled the big crowd into the thousands.”

 

“The attractions were numerous and of every variety. At the picnic ground, the merry-go-round was, of course, the leading attraction. Bob Martin was there with his spindle wheel and a big stock of rubber return balls, while Dobson Ingold, who never fails to have some attraction at a picnic, was also there with a contrivance used to part the unsophisticated youth from their money.”

 

“About 40 members of Company K (Missouri National Guard) participated in the celebration, giving exhibition drills on Center Street and also at the picnic grounds. The Modern Woodsmen band of Willow Springs furnished music for the occasion.”

 

The article went on to acknowledge Circuit Judge H.D. Green’s patriotic speech and the obligatory fireworks. The event included a greased pig-catching race and a greased pole no one could climb. The event used two locations. The downtown location was in a small park on the right side of the railroad tracks as you come onto Center Street from the Willow Springs depot location. Today, a city water storage tank and parking lot cover that location, but one time was big enough to accommodate a traveling circus. The events requiring more space were held in a field behind where the Bamboo House restaurant is today.

 

Zorn reported, “During the ball game the Mayor ordered an officer to arrest a tough citizen who persisted in crowding through the ropes stretched to keep back the immense throng. The arrested man’s friends attempted to rescue the prisoner and a free-for-all fight ensued in which a number of faces were badly battered.”

 

“The West Plains delegation, numbering almost 400, returned home tired and worn out, but happy in the thought that they had a hot time.”

 

In spite of Zorn’s prognostication of the death of sports between Willow Springs and West Plains the two teams competed the next year, and for many years to come. 

 

Check out the sports photos and memorabilia in the Willow Springs Historical and Genealogical Society Museum and see how the friendly rivalry of teams between towns continued. The Sass House or WSHGS museum is located at 211 North Harris Street, directly across from the Willow Springs Public Library. They are open every Thursday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.