History Snoopin': The Girls of Summer

The Girls of Summer

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by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, June 8th 2020

It simply couldn’t be true. The Girls weren’t coming. They had turned around.

The male population was justifiably heartbroken. What would have been a “fine exhibition of lower limbs,” was now just a pipedream. Something had to be done!

Early the next morning, on the southbound train to Redding, two of Medford’s best talkers prepared to negotiate. Their wives had laughed at them and called their “mission” ridiculous, but male friends had not so jokingly warned them, “Don’t come home without the Girls!”

The Girls were the Boston Bloomer Girls, a barnstorming bunch of baseball exhibitionists who claimed to be “World Champions of the National Pastime.” Since women of the Victorian Era seldom played baseball in public, the scandalous thought of females in uniforms challenging the men of America was incredibly exotic.

The uniform was much like a baggy softball suit of today. There were no bloomers, but the calf-high trousers they wore were just as controversial. To see a woman’s ankle in 1897, even covered by stockings, was unheard of.

Newspapers, anxious to see the women perform, assured readers there was nothing to fear. “The Girls not only play exceptional baseball,” they said, but were also “blessed with ladylike behavior.”

Perhaps not all of the Girls were women. Losing teams often said some of the Girls were actually men in disguise.

Medford was desperate for a major attraction, and sending their frantic negotiators to meet the Girls in person seemed to be their last chance for success. When the men returned with contract in hand, the male population of the valley went bonkers.

Every evening for the next two months, on the town’s dusty ball field, balding businessmen slid in the dirt, perfecting their baseball technique. 

With temperatures in the 90s, everyone from middle-aged bankers to youthful laborers struggled to make the team. Overweight husbands ran themselves to exhaustion, fragrant cigars still clutched in their teeth.

Amused wives shook their heads in disbelief, but secretly enjoyed watching their “old fools” pretend to be 16 again. Inevitably, it was the town’s younger men and boys who would challenge the Girls.

The Girls arrived in style aboard their personal and private Pullman “Palace” car, a symbol of prosperity. They brought with them everything necessary for a first-class and profitable exhibition — a portable 2,000-seat grandstand and a seven-foot-high canvas wall that surrounded the game and kept freeloaders out.

In October 1897, the Girls stepped off the train, elegantly dressed in long skirts and double-breasted blazers. With simple hats on their heads and soft scarves tied at their necks, no one would have believed that they were talented athletes.

The crowd gladly paid 25¢ to see Medford’s “Boys” beat the “Girls” in a slow game, 17-16.

The next day, the Bloomer Girls traveled to Ashland to face the town’s semipro team. It was a closely contested game until the second inning, when the local boys “chivalrously fell all to pieces,” allowing the “cultivated ladies to take the game 11-8.”

While Medford’s citizens loved every minute of their rival’s pain, the humiliated Ashlanders were furious with their team.

The Bloomer Girls could care less. Winning was the last thing on their mind. They hopped aboard their “Palace” car and headed to California — world championship intact — and nearly $200 richer.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of five books, including“History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

1920 Rose Bowl Football -- Oregon-Harvard-- Lemon Yellows in Leather Hats

Lemon Yellows in leather hats

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune - Monday, December 30th 2019

As the Lemon Yellows worked through their secret maneuvers, sentries took positions on top of the grandstand and near the wooden walls, guarding against spying eyes.

Anyone who dared come near the football field was carefully watched, making sure no eye or ear could press against a knothole or crack and steal valuable information for the enemy.

Tournament Park, Pasadena, California- Game Day January 1 1920

Lemon Yellows was an early nickname for the University of Oregon football team, because they often competed in yellow jerseys. Occasionally, they were known as Webfoots, and many years later, fans knew them as Ducks.

In late December 1919, with temperatures over 80 degrees in the shade, the 32-man squad from Eugene began practicing for the Jan. 1, 1920, East-West Championship game in Pasadena, California. The game was part of the city’s annual Tournament of Roses. Two years later, the game would take on the name of a newly built stadium — the Rose Bowl.

The undefeated Harvard Crimson, powerhouse players from Massachusetts, came by train 3,000 miles to compete. Although Oregon had lost one game that year, everyone expected a tough and close contest. They wouldn’t be disappointed.

On its way to Southern California, the Oregon team, along with their coaches and trainers, rode in a private railroad car. The rest of the train was loaded down with professors and undergraduates

1920 University of Oregon Football Team

from the university, and supporters from around the entire state.

Hoping to gain an advantage, the Oregon Yellows had brought along a large tank of Eugene’s municipal water. Coach “Shy” Huntington said he wasn’t about to take any chances that “his boys” would be out of condition just because of inferior drinking water.

When the team stopped briefly in Medford, Dec. 19, a small group of supporters met the team at the depot and wished them luck. The group included a few of the wealthy Harvard graduates who had come to Jackson County during the orchard boom that had begun just before 1910.

Southern Oregon still didn’t have a radio station, and local fans who wanted to follow the game had only two choices.

Medford’s Rialto Theater (later the Joseph Winans furniture store) had a telegraph line installed in the theater. While the matinee film played, an on-stage

ca. 1938 Rialto Theater, Medford, Oregon

Western Union operator continually read a play-by-play description of the action.

Other interested fans stopped by the Mail Tribune office, where the news crew used the company’s newswires to post game bulletins in the lobby.

Old Mail Tribune Newsapaper Building, Medford, Oregon

In Pasadena, the searing temperatures of mid December gave way by game day to a “balmy” 70 degrees that locals said was “just a trifle warm” for football, while eastern visitors said it was “definitely too hot.”

The betting was nearly even — the Harvard boys were heavier, but Oregon was faster.

It was a titanic struggle in leather helmets with both teams fumbling and missing field goal attempts in the first quarter.

1920 Rose Bowl Game - Oregon vs. Harvard for National Championship

The Lemon Yellows from Oregon finally broke through on the second play of the second quarter with a 23-yard dropkick field goal, making the score 3-0. After two long passes downfield, Harvard answered with an 18–yard touchdown run and a successful extra point to lead 7-3. Oregon ended the first half scoring with a last second field goal — the final score of the game. Harvard took home the 7-6 victory and the championship.

Returning home with a disappointed Oregon team, coach Huntington said he was proud of his “men.”

“We go back knowing that they played as hard and as clean a game as they could. It was a good showing.”

It would be 1958 before the Lemon Yellows returned to the Rose Bowl, this time as the Ducks. They lost to Ohio State 10-7.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/lemon-yellows-in-leather-hats

History Snoopin': Once There Was a Ballpark

There used to be a ballpark

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by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, October 28th 2019

 

“There used to be a ballpark where the field was warm and green

And the people played their crazy game with a joy I’d never seen.”

Frank Sinatra recorded those lyrics in the summer of 1973. Written by Joe Raposo, famous for giving the Muppets happy songs to sing, this plaintive tune seems to mourn the passing of a baseball park; yet, Sinatra’s style somehow gives the song a wistful sense of a love affair gone astray.

 

Mile Field, Medford, Oregon - Abandoned 2003

Baseball fans in our valley once had their own love affair with a now-vanished ballpark. The 2004 leveling of Miles Field in south Medford to make way for a new Walmart saddened local baseball fans. Lifetimes had smelled its grass and tasted hotdogs in the stands, but few remembered the beginning.

Claude Miles was born in 1887 and spent most of his life in Medford. There he found his passion for sports, especially baseball, a game played in the valley since at least the 1860s. Most of the serious games were played on a dusty diamond in Fordyce Grove, not far from today’s Central Medford High School.

In the spring of 1904, wealthy investors set up the Rogue River Baseball League with teams in Medford, Ashland, Gold Hill and Jacksonville. They signed quality out-of-town players, but also signed local talent. Claude Miles, youngest player in the league, got a contract to play second base with the Medford Grays.

 

Medford Grays - Baseball 1904 - Shorty Miles bottom right

They built a new ballpark north of town and built a covered grandstand and laid out a field surrounded by a wooden fence.

Because he was the shortest player on the town’s baseball team, Claude Miles earned his lifelong nickname, Shorty. He pitched a few games, but usually he played infield.

When the old ballpark was sold and the field covered over by today’s McLoughlin Middle School, Medford’s ballclub needed a place to play.

In March 1926, what would become Miles Field opened at the new county fairgrounds just south of town. Home plate sat 45 feet from the grandstands in the middle of a half-mile auto racetrack.

Local schools didn’t play baseball there; so various semi-pro leagues came and went as Medford struggled to keep a team on the field. When the Depression hit, the ballpark began to fall apart and soon the city’s only baseball field was called “the worst in Southern Oregon.”

Hope returned after WWII when the field was modernized. Baseball fans discovered a refreshment stand, modern restrooms, repainted fences and an electric scoreboard.

 

Miles Field, Medford, Oregon

Medford’s joy lasted until the summer of 1951 when a midnight fire of suspicious origin leaped through the wooden grandstands. Flames, fed by team uniforms and equipment, ate through the clubhouse and ignited the fence. The scoreboard, the hotdog stands — everything vanished in a soggy pile of charcoal.

Claude Miles believed that baseball kept young boys out of trouble. “Youth baseball needs a decent place to play,” he said. He badgered everyone for donations, including himself, and a new and better ballpark rose on the same site.

When he died, Oct. 22, 1968, Claude “Shorty” Miles was Medford’s “Mr. Baseball.” A year later, it just made sense to call “his” ballpark Miles Field.

The new Walmart opened in 2012. A memorial plaque out front of the store is dedicated to Shorty and his ballpark.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

History Snoopin': Barney Riggs, inspiring generations

Barney Riggs, inspiring generations

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by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, May 6th 2019

When you think of sport coaching legends, you probably think of a favorite pro, college, or high school coach.

Around here, a lot of athletic fans remember just one coach — a coach who meant more in their own lifetime than just about anyone outside of their family.

Barney Leland Riggs liked nothing better than playing ball and being a coach — or as some would call him, an athletic mentor. Just when he finally picked up that first ball isn’t known, but it couldn’t have been much later than when he took his first baby steps.

Born in California, May 3, 1926, his family brought him and his two sisters to Talent before Barney was 6. One can only assume that Barney quickly took to competitive baseball and football games with his neighborhood friends, but it wasn’t until he was 13 that he finally broke into the newspaper. It was 1940, and he was graduating from the ninth grade at Ashland’s junior high school and headed on to the Ashland High Grizzlies.

Barney had played guard on the school’s football team, and his coach, Al Simpson, was lamenting the fact that 19 of his starters, including Barney, were graduating and leaving. Ironically, in a few more years, Simpson would be Barney’s football coach all over again.

In Barney’s three years of high school, he played baseball and lettered in both football and basketball. He also played the sousaphone, one of those tubas that wrap around your shoulders, but he didn’t get very much newspaper ink for that.

His claim to fame in baseball came in May 1942, when he ruined a Jacksonville pitcher’s no-hitter by singling in the first inning.

Most of his high school headlines came from football — a simpler game in the 1940s — the offense most often in a T-formation. Barney was the team captain and starting 170-pound left halfback.

Barney had a field day in November 1943, taking down the Black Tornado with 130 yards rushing and two touchdowns. “He was literally unstoppable,” said a reporter.

As a 17-year-old hoopster, he helped lead the Grizzlies to the state basketball championship in 1944, and, a month later, April 12, as if to celebrate, he joined the Navy. He served two years, and when discharged he celebrated again by getting married and signing up for classes at Southern Oregon Teachers College, today’s Southern Oregon University. Again, Barney was reunited with Coach Simpson and taking the football team to an undefeated season.

 After graduation, he began 26 years of teaching, always finding time for sports. 

 

Hedrick Middle School Football

From Talent Elementary to Medford at Lincoln, then Central Point, and finally, in 1955, Medford’s Hedrick Junior High, he mentored his way through the classroom and onto the field. Hedrick was a brand-new school, and Barney helped choose the cardinal and gold school colors. And, of course, he coached the football team.

Barney Riggs died Feb. 24, 2008. Gone is his positive, smiling, inspiring personality that left its mark on generations of students and student athletes — and for them, Barney will be missed.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or WilliamMMiller.com.