HISTORY OF BASEBALL Wes Davis Dr. Dixon November 11, 1994 Jim Lokaiser has been involved in loca1 baseball for years. His first job was equipment manager for the Yankee organization in 1946-47. A year later he became office boy for the Detroit Tigers. Mr. Lokaiser started covering the Pirate organizat ion in 1 960. He covered major league baseball and especially the Pirates untiL 1975. After ITorld T{ar II, American Legion Baseball became big. Mr. Lokaiser played in this league and has now been a commissioner for the Legion for over thirty years. He moonlights as a sportscaster on the radio. He was asked to recount some of interesting elements of the history of more than forty-five lYestern Pennsylvania baseball . Thatrs probably the primary thing wer11 want to talk about here was that Pullman Park was on the west side of Butler is sti11 in use. Itrs a major league proportioned ba1lpark, dead center field 424,1eft field line 352, and right field about 350. It rs still being used by legion, sandlot , and high school basebal I . Pullman Park was constructed in 1933. It then opened officially in 1934. Thatrs when minor league baseball started in Butler. lThen the CIeveland Indians rvere the first franchise in the oId Penn State League. Then the Yankeers took over the following year and had it right up through ITorld lfar II. During IYorld 'lYar II, organized baseball was shut down at the minor league 1evel. It was reinstated back in 1946. Pullman Park was built by the people who owned Pullman Standard Rail manufacturing company back then. It was built on top of an old cinder pile. They level1ed off the cinder pile and they just put dirt on top of that. The ironic part about that is the field is probably the best drained field in the whole lTestern Pennsylvania area. It can rain in the morning and you can play ball in the afternoon. It drains quite wel1. I do want to back up and bring one other thing up about the 1oca1 level and I think it is something that we failed to mention here about sandlot baseball versus professionaL basebal1. I forgot to mention and I talked to you before about this. In the Twenties and Thirties, especially in areas like Petrolia Ya11ey of Butler County, where you had a lot of industry going up there, baseball was the big thing. The companies back then used to hire their employees based They would actually recruit on their athletic abilities. workers and ball players out of maybe lYest Yirginia or Ohio and move them in, move their family in, because they could play basebal 1 . The teams were very competitive back then. They would travel all over the eastern seaboard as far west as Detroit and Chicago to compete on a national 1eve1. Petrolia Ya11ey \{as a hot bed for baseball. A 1ot of the o1d timers who are now retired, owe their jobs to their athletic That's true in places like Weirton l{est abilities. irginia, in the Weirton Steel lTorks, and up in Petrol ia Va11ey. T{ho was interview? lTe11 , a doubt is. the most colorful person you ever got to The most fun to talk to? most colorful good and bad. Steye Vlass without Steve does color for Pi t tsburgh right now. He is absolutely one of the funniest guys. He's rrery co1orful, the locker room clown. Conversely, there where guys like EI1is. Players like this where just the opposite. Doc Ellis was a trouble maker, a dope user. He threw a no hit ball game when he was high on dope. One thing I do want to add that would be a note of interest. Back whenever the Yankees were here at PulLman Park and playing in the Middle Atlantic league, one of the taboos was swimming. Ball players were not allowed to swim. Back then, they thought that swimming was harmful, it softened the muscles. It was no good for ball players, especially pitchers. Back then, if you played night games at Pullman Park for the Yankees, your days were free. The players used to sneak away and go to what then was caIled Stoaton's Beach which was then later known as Rock Falls Park which is just below Slippery Rock. That was a big recreation area with that big swimming pool and then of course people used to lay on the rocks in the creek area. But thatrs where the ball players used to sneak to and hang out quite a bit. Up at that time it was cal1ed Stoaton's Bob Roberts and Doc each. If they got caught, they were fined. And of course you realize a ball player back then was making one hundred fifty or two hundred dollars a month. Plus a couple dollars a day meal money. So that wasnrt an awful amount of money. If they were fined ten or fifteen dollars, that ryas a lot of money. As for the history in the county is eoncerned, O1d Stoatonrs Beach as it was called then was a sort of hangout for the ball players then during the daylight hours, then they would come home and play ball at night.