Flashback Friday: Begin at the Beginning (1958)

Welcome back to Flashback Friday. This is the weekly look at the history of Appleton Professional Baseball. We will take a look back at the teams, players, games, and personalities that have laid the foundation for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.

That foundation begins all the way back in 1891 and has carried forward to now. That's not to say there weren't some bumps and detours and controversy along the way to what we have today.

The first Flashback Friday of this offseason is an article from the May 1, 1958 edition of the Appleton Post-Crescent. The article by Jim Newcombe gives fans a history lesson on pro baseball in Appleton just two days before the home opener of the Foxes, the first professional game at Goodland Field since the Papermakers and the Wisconsin State League folded after the 1953 season.

It reads more like an oral history courtesy of George Hogreiver, who played with Appleton's team in 1891 and played and managed the Papermakers in the 1910-1912. The interview with him was done when Hogreiver was 89 years old. You should check out Hogreiver's BR Bullpen page, too.

And don't let the spelling at those websites throw you off with the spelling of Hogriever. Everything I've seen in in the in Appleton records, including his obituary from 1961, spell it Hogreiver.

Rhubarb Over Bribes Ended First Pro Era
1891 Club, in First Season, Dropped 12 Straight to Lose Seemingly Cinched Pennant

A last-day rhubarb in which charges of bribes flew fast ended Appleton's first professional baseball era.

The time was 1891. The place Marinette. The principals the Marinette and Green Bay entries which were fighting the Appleton club for the Wisconsin State League pennant.

Marinette combatants accused the Green Bay club of offering a $100 bribe to one of their stalwarts.

Green Bay partisans retorted with similar charges against Marinette. Seems about mid-season a Green Bay first baseman was sent packing for developing sticky fingers at the site of Marinette money.

The loud talk, together with some suspicions a few Appleton players aroused among their own club officials, generally was blamed for Appleton's withdrawl from the league. The team had played exactly one year. Its record was 48 won, 41 lost.

George "Stormy" Hogreiver, right fielder with the club and later one of Appleton's most popular players and managers, says there were reasons enough for suspecting some of the Appleton players.

The club had the pennant all but cinched, going into the final three weeks of play, he explains, when suddenly it dropped 12 straight.

The catcher began dropping balls when he had runners out at the plate by several feet. The third baseman began overthrowing not only the first baseman, but the ball park as well.

Hogreiver, later a major leaguer with Cincinnati and Indianapolis, rates Joe Wright, centerfielder of the 1891 club as the best ballplayer fielded by an Appleton pro team in the pre-1940 years.

Wright a couple of years later stuck with Pittsburgh in the National league where he hit .300 a few seasons and then disappeared from baseball. Wright, says Hogreiver, not only could hit, but he had a good arm and could "run like hell".

Jacob "Calamity Jake" Case was another standout upon which manager and Captain Charley Faatz could call in that 1891 season, Hogreiver says. Case, from Chittenago, N.Y., won 29, lost 5.

Case quit baseball to take a job with Singer Sewing Machine Company, a move which Hogreiver urged him to take.

Shumway Good

Hogreiver maintains "Doc" Shumway, the shortstop of the 1891 club, also was a top-rate prospect who quit the game for other pursuits. He became a doctor of medicine at Buffalo, N.Y.

Others of the 1891 team who made a lasting impression on Hogreiver are Fred "Crazy" Schmidt, an outfielder, and Will Rogers, a pitcher.

Hogreiver by his own estimate of his travels reached the big leagues by fighting his way up. He started with Hamilton, Ohio, of the Tri-State League in 1888, went to Ottumwa, Ia, of the Three-I League in 1890, Kansas City in the Western (now American) in 1890, came to Appleton in 1891, played the 1892 season with St. Paul, the 1893 season with Birmingham, Ala, the 1894 season with Sioux City, and 1885 with Cincinnati.

A couple of seasons later, Hogreiver, a hometown product, had the Cincy fans on his back, and went to Indianapolis where he stayed until 1903 when the Western league became the American league. When the league was dispersed he refused to report to Boston and turned down offers from John McGraw of the New York Giants.

Hogreiver stayed with Indianapolis of the American Association two years, then shifted to Des Moines where he was a playing manager. Three seasons later, he was on the go again, this time to Pueblo, Colo.

Then, he came back to Appleton - but that's slightly ahead of the story.

Back in 1909, John Conway, Joseph Koffend, J.D. Piank, and other interested Appleton people got up enough cash to buy out the Wausau franchise in the Wisconsin-Illinois League and Appleton was back in organized baseball.

The 1909 team finished third. The 1910 edition won the pennant, the only Appleton pro club to ever win a pennant.

"Red" Murphy, a pitcher who later had a trial with the St. Louis Cardinals, was the star of the league in 1910. And Hogreiver, back in Appleton to "retire" was pressed into outfield duty by Pat Ryan, a friend and incidentally, one of Appleton's best all-time amateur players.

Brautigam, Sylvester

Ed Lavey was manager of the 1909 and 1910 clubs. On the team, a Brooklyn farm club, were Pat Brady, Bo Miller, George Brautigam another all-time Appleton great. Cosgrove and Harry Sylvester, still another all-time, all-star performer.

Miller made it to Louisville and lives in Akron, Ohio now. Sylvester got a trial with the White Sox before they found out about his trick football knee and Brautigam was just too small, but only in height, not ability, Hogreiver reports.

Typical of the success of the 1910 team is the fact that it drew 22,243 fans to the fairgrounds at the west end of College avenue, site of the city ball park after a field near the present city park was scrapped.

Van Patter Standout

Hogreiver was manager of the 1911 and 1912 teams. Both finished third. The 1912 season was the last Hogreiver played. He injured a shoulder in the fall of that year.

Standout on both clubs was Jimmy Van Patter, a Lawrence student, like Sylvester, who gave up pitching to take over his family farm near Hayward. Sylvester, Brautigam, Miller, Cosgrove, O'Brien, Hett, Loos, Zabel, Ulrich, and Scanlon were other team members.

Hogreiver gave up the manager's reins to Cristall in 1913. The team finished last, losing 112 while winning 40. Sylvester was on the squad. So was Cosgrove, but the rest of the lineup was changed from the preceding two seasons.

Sylvester went to the White Sox after the season and was sent down to New Orleans of the Southern Association where he was called "a sensation".

Brautigam became manager in 1914, the last season the Appleton club was in the W-I league. He hit .303. Tiffany, a giant first baseman, hit .311. It was about all the club showed. Attendance down to 15,043 the club officials threw in the sponge. Pro baseball wwas out until the Class D Papermakers debuted in 1940.

State Title

The period between the 1891 and 1909 clubs is interesting only from the standpoint that the independent semi-pro Appleton team, led by Clarence Currie, copped the mythical state championship in 1901. Currie, a pitcher later with Cincinnati, won 27 and lost 4.

The 1940 Papermakers started dismally, finished the same way.

They lost their first exhibition game to the Menasha Falcons 7-3, and finished in the league cellar. The Falcons, it should be pointed out, used Connie Mack Berry, former pro football and basketball star and a standout hurler, on the mound.

Bob LaGrow twirled a 12-hitter in the 1940 opener, but won anyway, with Green Bay Bluejays hurler "Deacon" Delmore, now a National league umpire, the loser.

Van Cuyk

Benny Peck, Menasha catcher, and Eric Kitzman, later the Menasha High School coach, were on the 1940 roster briefly. Johnny Van Cuyk, first of two successful pitching brothers from Kimberly, also was on hand.

Whole Appleton fans subsequently got a look at about two dozen future big leaguers who cavorted in the league in their next ten seasons (time out for the war), they saw no pennant winners.

With Cleveland, St. Louis Browns, the Braves, and the Phillies furnishing player talent, Appleton teams finished last in 1940, third in 1941, fourth in 1942, fifth in 1946 and 1947, seventh in 1948, sixth in 1949, seventh in 1950, eighth (overall) in the split season of 1951, fourth in 1952, and seventh in 1953.