Looking Back: Poole Clouts 50 Homers For Vols

Jim Poole was born on May 12, 1895 in Taylorsville, N.C. He began a professional baseball career with Newnan in the Georgia-Alabama League in 1914. Poole only appeared in five games that brief season batting .235 (4-for-17). In 1917 Poole hooked up with Charleston (SC) in the South Atlantic League. For Charleston, he played in 66 games batting .283 with one home run.

In 1921-24, Poole was with Portland of the Pacific Coast League. As the starting first baseman, the left-handed slugger batted in four seasons .330, .299, .339 and .353. His home run totals in that span were 20, 22, 27 and 38. These numbers gained the attention of Connie Mack manager of the Philadelphia A's.

Poole played in 133 games for Mack in 1925 batting .298 with five home runs and 67 RBIs. The following year Poole played in 112 games hitting .294 with 63 runs batted in and eight home runs. In 1927, he was sent to the minors after playing in 38 games with a .222 average. Poole finished the season in Baltimore and Minneapolis. Atlanta picked him up in 1928 playing the entire season with the Southern Association club. He appeared in 144 games batting a decent .301, but with only three homers and 73 RBIs.

In the book, The Southern Association in Baseball, 1885-1961, Poole's transition to Nashville is written:

"After starting 2-for-15 in 1929, Atlanta released him in late April. Four weeks later, Nashville scooped him up and Poole exploded for one of his best seasons. Playing in hitter friendly Sulphur Dell, he flirted with the batting lead, while establishing himself as a legitimate power threat. On August 28, he bashed his 26th homer, breaking the team mark.

"Poole ended up a close third in the batting race (.340), pushing the league's home run record to 33. In addition, Poole knocked in a league high 127 runs. Conversely, Maurice Burrus, who became the Crackers' first baseman following the departure of Poole, hit exactly no home runs in 96 games.

"Poole went on to set a new home run record the following season, earning him a promotion to the International League in 1931. He began a managing career two years later, but still continued as an active player through 1946, finally hanging up his spikes at age 51."

In 1930, Poole's new Southern Association home run record reached 50. In 1953 games he batted .364 (215-for-590) in 153 games. His 167 RBIs led the league. In the International League, Poole did bat .306 with 24 home runs in Reading (PA). But at age 36 he was no longer considered a major league talent. He passed through many minor league cities mostly as a player/manager until 1946 where he retired as a player at age 51.

This newspaper clipping reports on Poole's home run exhibition during his time in Nashville midway into the 1930 season:

"There's a saying about a big fish in a little pond that doesn't exactly apply in this case, but today there's a player who's a big player in a big pond of the minor leagues. The player happens to be Jim Poole and he's created quite a puddle in the Southern League. And with the season a little more than half finished he already has set a home run record. In fact, Jim threatens to register such a high mark for busting the ball over the fences of the South's principal ball parks before the schedule is completed that even the great Babe Ruth might find it difficult to equal his mark for circuit clouts, although of course, made in leagues of entirely different classification.

"Poole has been a big drawing card in Nashville where he plays first base and clouts homers. He cracked his own record July 26, when he slammed his thirty-fourth circuit drive, for last season Jim had established a mark of 33, which at the time was considered a true Ruthian feat in the Southern, where pitchers long have dominated the scene and where the counterparts of the bambino have usually had to take a back seat.

"At one time, Jim Poole was first basing for Connie Mack's Athletics, having been called in from Portland of the Coast when Joe Hauser broke a kneecap in 1921. In 1925-26 Poole was a big gun for the A's in their sensational drives for pennants, which happened to fall short of the desired accomplishment in both years. He passed out of the picture when Jimmie Foxx took up the first basing task in 1927, and was sent to Minneapolis, then to Atlanta. He remained at Atlanta until the spring of '29, when Clarence Roland, manager of Nashville, grasped the chance to land Jim. Celebrating his thirty-second birthday last May 18, Poole probably is past the age where he would be considered for another whirl with the majors, but nevertheless he is very much in the swim in the Southern League, and is making a big splash with his home run drives."

Poole did manage until 1960. He has been associated with as many as 30 minor leagues as a player. These are some of those teams he played: Newnan, Charleston, Richmond, San Antonio, Portland, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Nashville, Reading, Harrisburg, Albany, Buffalo, Winston-Salem, Mooresville, Reidsville, Landis, Martinsville, Fulton, Thomasville, Fort Pierce, Statesville, Erwin and Moultrie.

This is Poole's obituary following his death on January 2, 1975:

"James Ralph Poole, Sr. who may have played professional baseball longer than any other person died in Hickory, N.C., January 3. He was 79. Poole was an active player for 34 years, starting in 1912 and ending in 1946 when he was 51 years old. With exception of three seasons with the Athletics, first baseman Poole spent his entire career in the minors, much of the time as a playing manager.

"The left-handed slugger, who once hit 50 home runs in Nashville, lasted 17 years past the day he was condemned to the bone yard by the owner of the Atlanta club. L.W. Robert, the Crackers' president, called Poole into his office in 1929 and told him, 'Jim, you're 34 years old and I'm afraid your playing days are over. I'm releasing you.'

"Not quite. Poole promptly signed by Nashville and didn't hang his glove up for good until 1946 when he was with Moultrie. 'I just sorta wore out,' said Poole, who didn't retire from baseball for good until he was fired as manager of Forest City in 1960.

"Poole wallowed in the minors for more than a decade before he was brought up by the Athletics from Portland of the Pacific Coast League in 1925. He was with the A's until the 1928 season, but lost his first baseman's job to Jimmie Foxx during the 1927 campaign. Poole had a respectable .288 major league average.

"Poole was with 30 teams, most of them in the lower minors, and managed more than a dozen of them. At Fort Pierce in the Florida East Coast League in 1941, he had a unique experience. Poole was the manager and first baseman, his son Jim, Jr., was the shortstop and his son, Phil was a pitcher.

"'Young Jim never cared much for baseball,' the senior Poole recalled, 'and Phil never had a fast ball.'

"But old dad had something most other players didn't have-endurance."

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