A colorized newspaper photograph of the 1939 Tremont Miners, Tremont, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.
Pictured in the photo:
Front Row: Russ Hand; Whitey Bowman, Betty Jones, bat girl; Luther “Lolly” Koch; Martin Miller.
Second Row: William Strockbine; Robert Miller; Fred Stiely; Albert Miller; Charles “Chick” Fullis, manager.
Back Row: Les Harner; Joe Buzas; William Patton; Wade Shutt; Chappy Wolfgang.
The article accompanying the photo, from the Pottsville Republican, September 25, 1981:
TREMONT BASEBALL HAD ITS “HEY DAYS”
By Tony Mileshosky, Staff Sports Writer
The post-strike major league baseball races are heading into the homestretch and eight teams are gearing up for postseason play, but baseball under the auspices of an organized league in Schuylkill County has been over since August 19 [1981].
However, that was not always the case in the county prior to World War II when baseball was king from early spring through the final flaming of fall.
The team that seemed to always make the local semi-pro playoffs through the mid-1930s to the early 1940s hailed from Tremont.
At the turn of the century there is evidence that Tremont fielded representative baseball teams which competed, generally in the Schuylkill-Dauphin County area.
Extravagance During the Glory Years
However, the “Glory days” of baseball in the community did not arrive until the mid-1930s when the Tremont Athletic Association was formed by the town’s businessmen. That excursion into town sponsored ball became overly extravagant what with the fact that the town ballpark was catered to by two fulltime grounds keepers and was even equipped with permanent lights, especially during the early years of World War II.
The Tremont roster at the time included a number of ex-major league and minor league players, some of whom were paid, and dictated that the ballclub search for a circuit in which the competition was on the same level of play. The search saw the team compete in five different leagues over a nine-year period. In that period, the Tremont contingent appeared in post-season play seven times.
However, the appearance did not always turn out well for the Tremont ballclubs since post season pennants were won only twice.
The competition, generally local in nature due to league affiliation, also included a varied mix of barnstorming semi-professional ball clubs. Tremont was not the only local team to meet barnstorming nines, but the Miners did entertain more than most other local teams.
Up and Down Times
As with all the community teams in the county, Tremont’s baseball participation ebbed and flowed year by year for various reasons. The start of the “Glory Days” might well be traced back to 1934 when the town was represented in the Twin County League under the managerial direction of Arthur “Knots” Ossman.
That 1934 season was also an example of the instability of the leagues that dotted the area since the Twin County League unexpectedly split its season into two halves and created controversy of sorts with the move. Williamstown was the ultimate beneficiary of the split season in 1934 by being declared the first half champion.
That move brought protests from the Tower City nine since the original league schedule had each team playing a 42 game card. However, when the split season was declared there were only 14 games played and Tower City, trailing the Bill-towners [Williamstown] by two and a half games, felt that the season should have been split at the halfway mark.
Nevertheless the season was split into two halves and Tremont also benefitted from the move because of a slow start, but the second half was a different story as the West End nine came on strong to knot Williamstown for the second half title. Tremont won that second half in a special one-game playoff by a 5-2 score which set up a best-of-five championship series between the two teams.
Harner took the hill for Tremont in the opener and scattered eight hits in a 4-0 victory. It was the lone bright spot for Tremont though when Williamstown came back to sweep three straight games to capture the title.
Ossman again managed the team in 1935 when the ball club switched to the South Anthracite League which had a strong six-team field that included: Palmyra, Minersville, Pine Grove Lebanon and Williamstown. The league was so strong in fact that virtually the same team which had finished so well in the Twin County League placed fourth overall, 112 games behind regular season and post-season champion Palmyra.
Adams Assumes Reigns
The 1936 season saw a change in the managers when Earl “Sparky” Adams, a native of Newton who had adopted Tremont as his home, came back from the major leagues and took over the on-field operation. Again the league which Tremont competed in was the South Anthracite, but with the addition of Adams along with other players, the Miners went on to win the regular season by 5 1/2 games over second place Pine Grove.
The two teams tangled in a best-of-five post-season playoff, and the Miners got off to a flying start behind the one-hit shutout pitching of Frank McCaffrey. That lone hit came off the bat of Pete Gray, the one-armed outfielder who eventually played for the Saint Louis Browns during the war years.
Pine Grove came right back with a superb pitching performance of its own when John “Ducky” Kline hurled a one-hit shutout in a 6-0 triumph to even the series at a game apiece.
The third series game went to Tremont behind McCaffrey by a 7-1 count, but the odd thing about the victory was a repetition of the number 13 in regards to McCaffrey. First, McCaffrey sported the so-called jinx number on his uniform, the game was played on the 13th day of the month, was his 13th victory and he picked up his 13th hit during the contest.
Tremont then dropped back-to-back games to Pine Grove by 3-1 and 9-2 scores to end the season on a 2-3 deficit in playoff games.
In 1937 the Miners switched to the Central Pennsylvania League, again under the management of Adams, which operated under a split season format. Mifflinburg captured the first half crown, but Tremont staged a late second half spurt to capture the second leg of the regular season which entitled them to enter a best of five game championship series.
Mifflinburg used the three-hit pitching of Les Hinckie to capture the first game, 3-0, but the Miners staged a two run ninth inning rally in the second game to even the count at 1-1- with a 908 verdict.
The third game went to Mifflinburg behind another sterling pitching performance, 4-0, but Fred “Lefty” Stiely, who had pitched for a number of big league teams, earned a 7-5 victory in the fourth game to send the series to a crucial fifth contest.
The Miners had the home field advantage in that fifth game, but the advantage went for naught when the home team committed four errors and decisively beaten 11-2 to mark the third time in four years that the team had failed in post-season play.
Travel considerations were taken into account for the 1938 season and the team switched from the central Penn League to the Lebanon Valley League (LVL). The management of the team also changed when Adams left and Charley Miller took over the reigns, plus the roster was beefed up with the addition of former big leaguer Charles “Chick” Fullis.
Again Tremont showed its talent over the long haul when it won the regular season title, however, the post season blues settled in quickly when Manheim, which finished third in the regular season, bounced Tremont out of a best of three semi-final series by a 2-1 count.
Virtually the same team returned in 1939 and was to be the year that was when the ballclub won the LVL’s regular season title for he second consecutive year. The title was a a bit easier in that the Miners finished three games in front of the Doc Walters‘ Pine Grove team under the direction of Fullis, who replaced Miller as manager.
It also was the year that the Miners began to play baseball almost every day of the week by not only entertaining league members, but also meeting a wide variety of barnstorming clubs.
Among the more interesting attractions at the Tremont ballpark were five members of the national Colored League. Those ballclubs were the Brooklyn Royal Giants, Newark Eagles, Philadelphia Stars, New York Black Yankees, and the storied Homestead Grays. However, those contingents proved too strong for the Miners in that of the six games played. Tremont did not win even once. The Homestead club was especially hard on the Miners with a pair of wins in which the Grays outscored Tremont by a combined score of 29-2.
Miners Cop LVI Playoffs
However, the Lebanon Valley League playoffs did not escape the Miners this go-round when they polished off Newmanstown in a best of three-game semifinal set by a 2-1 count before meeting Pine Grove in a five game championship series.
The Miners won the post-season title series in the most decisive of manners with a three-game sweep. In the first contest, Stiely shut out the Walter men on two hits, 5-0. The second contest saw Emil Roy scatter 10 hits in a 6-0 white-washing; the third game did not witness any mound vacillation when Stiely fired a three-hit shutout at the Grovers, 5-0 for the double title.
Beginning of the End
The 1940 season witnessed the beginning of the end when the miners embarked on an independent schedule. The team did finish on the plus side of the won-lost ledger for the season and there was a high water mark when the Miners defeated the National Colored League Brooklyn Royal Giant entry, 6-1, but the majority of the players did not return for the 1941 season.
In 1941, the Miners entered the Schuylkill County League (SCL), and continued the history of strong regular season showings by capturing the league title. However, after a two-game sweep of Salem Hill in the semi-finals, the Miners dropped a best of five game series to the Minersville United team by a 3-2 count in games.
Tremont once again competed in the SCI, in 1942, however, restrictions on gasoline and other war-related problems, forced the Pine Grove and Saint Clair entrants to fold a quarter of the way through the league season. With that development the league heads decided to hold a playoff series among the four remaining teams.
The Miners opened with a two-game sweep of Irving in the semi-finals and, after dropping the opener in a best of three game championship series against Minersville, came back to win two straight for the title.
Thereafter Tremont did field teams in a number of leagues through the remainder of the 1940s, but World War II had a negative impact on small town baseball throughout the country and interest rapidly waned.
____________________________________________________________
Article & photo from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.
[African American]