Tag Archives: Cincinnati Reds

Reports of His Death Were Greatly Exaggerated

18 Sep

Harry “Rube Allemang’s career was on the upswing at the close of the 1902 season; after a disappointing 4-15 record in his first season in pro ball with the Youngstown/Marion franchise in the Interstate League, Allemang had turned it around at Little Rock in the Southern League posting 20-4 and 19-11 season in 1901 and ’02.  (Contemporaneous newspaper accounts say he also played for Fort Wayne in the Interstate League in 1899, but there are not available records)

The Cincinnati Reds had just purchased Allemang’s contract and he was out celebrating with friends on the Evening on November 8.  Walking home at around 3 am, Allemang stumbled upon the lookout for a robbery in progress in the Mason City, West Virginia post office.  The lookout told Allemang to stop; when the pitcher kept walking he was shot, robbed and left for dead.

News of the shooting appeared in papers the following day:

Chicago Tribune: “Ball Player in Murdered”

New York Times: “Harry Allemang, Ballplayer, is Dying”

Fort Wayne Gazette: “Harry Allemang Mortally Wounded”

Arizona Republican: “Shot and Mortally Wounded”

The reports were premature.

Despite being shot just above the heart, with the bullet passing through his right lung, Allemang was out of the hospital in less than a month.  The Associated Press said “His case puzzles leading physicians.”

While still in the hospital he sent a letter to Reds owner August Herrmann to “Let you know I am still alive and expect to report in the spring.”

Allemang, with the bullet still lodged in his upper back, got ready for the 1903 season by doing ten mile runs while being pursued by blood hounds borrowed from the Mason County Sheriff.  But Allemang was never the same pitcher after the shooting.

He struggled that spring with the Reds and was sent to St.Paul in the American Association.   He was 12-11 in St. Paul in ’03 and 10-23 with Indianapolis in the same league in 1904.  After just two games with Sioux City in Western League in 1905, Allemang signed with the Niles Crowites in the Ohio-Pennsylvania League in May, and then jumped to an outlaw league team in Coatsville, Pennsylvania in July.  He came back to Southern League with Nashville in 1906, but lasted just six games, posting a 2-4 record.

Allemang passed away in Linton, Indiana in March of 1938—more than 35 years after the newspapers pronounced him dead.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Who is the Real Jack Rowan?

10 Sep

John Albert Rowan was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1886. After compiling an 18-10 record for Leavenworth in the Western Association, the twenty-year-old earned a one-game audition with the 1906 Detroit Tigers. Rowan gave up eleven earned runs on fifteen hits and five walks in a 13-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox. He made it back to the big leagues with Cincinnati in 1908 and pitched parts of 7 seasons in the Major Leagues with the Reds, Phillies, and Cubs.

Rowan was more or less forgotten by July of 1958 when a small Associated Press item announcing his death in his room at a Detroit hotel appeared in newspapers.

Jack Rowan

For the previous 20 years Rowan had spent his summer days at Briggs Stadium, the site of his Tiger debut in 1906 (Bennett Park, the Tigers’ stadium from 1895 to 1911 was on the same site. Replaced by Navin Field in 1912, renamed Briggs after the 1935 expansion). The Tigers were planning on honoring the former pitcher at an upcoming game.

One problem:

The day after the announcement of Rowan’s death a man in Dayton, Ohio told reporters he was the real Jack Rowan.

The Detroit Rowan had his supporters. One of his pallbearers swore he saw him pitch that game for the Tigers, although he remembered it as “1907 or 8.” Bishop John Donovan of the Detroit Catholic Diocese was certain the man whose funeral he presided over was Rowan; the bishop had interceded on the Detroit Rowan’s behalf years earlier to help him get a baseball pension.

Win Clark, secretary-treasurer of the Association of Professional Ball Players of America, was also sure the Detroit Rowan was the real Rowan; after all, they had been sending him pension checks for years.

But many said his stories were inconsistent and that he gave his age at 85 years old, 13 years older than Rowan’s listed age.

The Dayton Rowan insisted he was the real Rowan and had his own supporters. Dayton sports writers were sure the local man was the former pitcher, who had finished his career in Dayton in 1917—but the Dayton Rowan gave his age as 68, four years younger than Rowan should have been.

Neither man had any living family to back up their claim.

Ultimately, the living Rowan, the one in Dayton, prevailed. It was generally determined that he was the former Major League pitcher, the Detroit Rowan deemed an imposter.

The Dayton Rowan showing reporters a photo of the 1910 Cincinnati Reds

The Dayton Rowan died in 1966 and is buried there—interesting given that one of his arguments for his legitimacy after the Detroit Rowan’s death in 1958 was, “If he is the real man why isn’t he being buried in New Castle along with the rest of his family?”

Tags: , , ,

More “Chief” Johnson

30 Aug

Last week I told you about George “Chief” Johnson’s release from the Chicago White Sox in the spring of 1913, allegedly because of his affiliation with the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) Native-American Tribe.

Cincinnati Reds owner August Garry Herrmann and manager Joe Tinker were apparently more concerned with a good arm than the so-called “Winnebago ban,” and signed Johnson.

George “Chief” Johnson

Through the first month of the season, Johnson was the only effective Reds pitcher, winning three games (including two shutouts) for a team with a record of 5-16.

The New York Times took notice in an article, the racist tone of which was typical of the era:

“Big Chief Johnson of the Winnebagos [sic] is copper-colored and fat. At bat he displays as much activity as the wooden Redmen who hold forth at the doors of countless cigar stands. But on the mound this latest Indian to edge his way into the select circles of major leaguedom can deal out ciphers with as much success as the more illustrious Johnson of Washington.”

Johnson ended the season 14-16, with a 3.00 ERA for a team that finished 25 games under .500.

In 1914, the Federal League came calling.  Otto Knabe, Manager of the Baltimore Terrapins sent a telegram to Johnson asking for his terms.  According to Knabe, Johnson replied with a telegram sent collect saying “Will sign for $10,000 bonus and reasonable salary.” Knabe telegrammed Johnson collect “Asked for your terms, not Walter Johnson’s”

Otto Knabe

Johnson signed the following month with the Federal League Kansas City Packers for a more modest $3000 advance and $5000 salary; the only problem was that Johnson had already signed a contract with the Reds for 1914.

Johnson’s 1914 season was highlighted by a series of injunctions and court rulings that kept him sidelined for much of the season while organized baseball battled the upstart Federal League.  (The saga of the Federal League has been rehashed in numerous books and blogs, no need to reinvent the wheel here—I recommend this book)

Johnson played for Kansas City in 1914 and 1915 posting records of 9-10 and 17-17.  Throughout his tenure in Kansas City Johnson had numerous run-ins with the law over his drinking and was cited for desertion and non-support of his wife. Additionally, his weight ballooned to well over two hundred pounds.

Johnson’s major league career was over after 1915, but he pitched three more seasons in the Pacific Coast League.  Pitching for the Vernon Tigers near the end of the 1916 season Johnson was so out of shape that it was reported in the Los Angeles Times that the Portland Beavers chased him from a game in the third inning by having several hitters in a row lay down bunts that the overweight pitcher was unable to field.

Johnson reportedly returned in better shape in 1917 and was 25-23 pitching for Vernon and the San Francisco Seals.  Johnson returned  in 1918, posting a 2-6 record, and was joined in San Francisco for a short time by his brother John who appeared in one game for the Seals.

After his release by San Francisco Johnson barnstormed with a variety of teams throughout the Midwest and West and sold “snake-oil” in a traveling tent show.  On June 11, 1922, Johnson was in Des Moines, Iowa with his tent show when he was killed in a dispute over money during either a dice or poker game (news accounts varied).  Johnson’s killer, an African-American gambler named Ed Gillespie, was originally charged with first-degree murder, but the charges were reduced to manslaughter based on eye-witness accounts that claimed Johnson was “drunk and belligerent.”  He was buried at the Winnebago Cemetery in Winnebago, Nebraska.

A postscript.

A few days after Johnson’s death a small item appeared in Iowa newspapers; it was about a druggist in Des Moines who had agreed to put a display in his store window to promote Johnson’s tent show. The story said:

“Anyone anxious to own a nice horned rattlesnake may have one by taking the one left in his show window by the late Mr. Johnson.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Newer Entries →