Professional Baseball In North Carolina

Hundreds of major leaguers—including the Hall of Fame’s Hank Greenburg, Johnny Mize, Rod Carew, Carl Yastrzemski and Joe Morgan—got their starts in North Carolina, where baseball has been a fixture in the state for nearly 100 years—in Charlotte and Durham (whose Bulls were in the 1988 film Bull Durham) as well as Red Springs and Snow Hill. Following an historical statewide overview, year by year summaries and histories are provided for each of the 72 towns, from Albemarle to Zebulon. Notable players and club records are listed for each year, and the causes for the rise and fall of baseball in the different towns are discussed. Biographies of 20 prominent minor leaguers are included, as is an appendix of nearly 2,000 major leaguers who played for a North Carolina team. The state’s Negro League and textile league histories are also related.

Shortly after the independent Carolina League was formed in 1936, officials of the National Association of Professional Baseball—which oversaw what was known as “organized baseball,” including the major leagues—began a campaign to destroy the league. The NAPB declared the Carolina League “outlaw” and blacklisted its players because their teams were pirating professionally-contracted ballplayers with the lure of higher wages, small-town hero worship and a career off-season. Backed into a corner, the Carolina League wore its “outlaw” label with a defiant swagger, challenging the all-powerful monopoly of organized professional baseball and its standard player contract. This complete history of the league reveals how it persevered through three tumultuous seasons, fueled by the tight-knit community spirit of North Carolina Piedmont textile towns. Over its three seasons of existence, the Carolina League attracted professional baseball players from all over the country and it gave the players control over their careers, setting a standard that was resisted until free agency was adopted in 1973.

It is not known exactly when base ball first made its way down to the Carolinas, but it was being played in North and South Carolina at least as early as the Civil War. By the early years of the twentieth century, the game had become a dominant form of entertainment in both states--and has remained a part of many communities across the Carolinas ever since. This work is a collection of 25 nonfiction stories about baseball as it has been played in the Carolinas from its early days to the present. Contributors to this work include Marshall Adesman writing about his love for the Durham Athletic Park, David Beal remembering the last bus trip the Winston-Salem Warthogs made to play the Durham Bulls in 1997 before the Bulls became a Triple A team, Robert Gaunt writing about the All-American Girls Baseball League and its players in South Carolina, Thomas Perry telling the story of Shoeless Joe Jackson's start in baseball in the textile leagues, Parker Chesson relating the 1947 Albemarle League playoff, and Bijan Bayne chronicling black professional baseball in North Carolina from World War I to the Depression, just to name a few.

Professional baseball is full of arcane team names. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for instance, owe their nickname to the trolley tracks that honeycombed Brooklyn in the early 1880s. (Residents were "trolley dodgers.") From the Negro Leagues, there were the Pittsburgh Crawfords (sponsored early by the Crawford Bath House and Recreation Center); from the minors, the Tucson Waddies (slang for cowboy) and, later, the Montgomery Biscuits (for the would-be concessions staple); from overseas, the Adelaide, Australia, Bite (a shark reference but also a pun for bight) and the Bussum, Netherlands, Mr. Cocker HCAW (the sponsoring restaurant chain, followed by the acronym for the official team name, Honkbalclub Allan Weerbaar). This comprehensive reference book explains the nicknames of thousands of major and minor league franchises, Negro League and early independent black clubs, and international teams--from 1869 through 2011.

Bordered by the Appalachian Mountains to the west and the flat coastal plain to the east, North Carolina's foothills region, also called the Piedmont, is home to a remarkable baseball heritage. For well over a century, the game has played a meaningful role in the lives of Piedmont residents. Countless thousands have participated in this national tradition and though some went on to become famous professional players in the big leagues, most never played for more than their local team. All, however, contributed to an important part of regional history. The North Carolina Piedmont has long been famous for its minor league teams, including the Durham Bulls and the Carolina Mudcats, but it's not just the professionals who helped shape the area's baseball tradition. College programs like those at the University of North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, and NC State have all figured prominently on the national scene at one time or another. High school teams from towns including Sanford have ranked among the nation's best, while American Legion teams have even captured the national championship. In the past it was the textile mills that contributed so much to the region's baseball heritage. Many of the mills only exist in memories today, but some of the teams they fielded-with names like McCrary, Wiscassett, Cannon, and Cooleemee-became local legends. With such a rich and colorful history, there is no doubt that North Carolina's Piedmont is truly baseball country.

This work focuses on the Norfolk team (nicknamed the Mary Janes), which played in the Virginia, Eastern and Atlantic leagues. Much attention is given to the players, coaches and teams of the Virginia League and the local news coverage from 1884 through 1928 as well as the business of baseball, the relations between major and minor league teams, and the controversy over hosting professional baseball games on Sundays. Photographs of the players, cartoons, and an appendix of league statistics are included.

In 1993 successful psychologist and journalist Hank Davis undertook an epic journey exploring the atmosphere and culture of both minor league baseball and the small towns that embrace it. Davis shows us the warmth, quirkiness, and desperate energy of minor league ball, from encounters with future stars to those who would never make it to the ?show?; from the kids selling Cracker Jacks outside the park to the aging coaches who persevere out of sheer love for the game. As Davis says, ?the minor leagues are full of stories,? and he tells some of the best of them here. A new afterword by the author dis-cusses where the minor league players are now.

The Tobacco State League played an important role in eastern North Carolina for five summers (1946-1950), giving small-town communities a chance to be a part of professional baseball and offering a return to normalcy after World War II. Years later, the players' names were spoken with reverence, their exploits the subject of impassioned discussion. This book tells the story of the short-lived league and the clubs who entertained fans on dusty ball fields under dim lights, including the Lumberton Auctioneers, Rockingham Eagles, Warsaw Red Sox, Sanford Spinners and Wilmington Pirates.