Why Is The Fourth of July?
Clare Briggs
Clare Briggs is a famous cartoonist who lived from 1875 to 1930. Poems by Wilbur Nesbitt.
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on Open Mic for the week of 12/23/2024
The “Little Alexander” mystery increases! In July 1908, Dutch Zwilling was two years away from joining the White Sox, so he couldn’t be “Little Alexander”. A part-owner named Alexander J. MacLean has been proposed, but the Internet returns no mention of him, nor does the Chicago Tribune historical archive.
The world waits and wonders.Report
After more digging, my current belief is that “Little Alexander” was a name that at least one sportswriter had given to the Chicago White Sox around 1908 for reasons unknown (that kind of thing happened a lot in those days). Somehow that name was also given as a nickname to a specific White Sox player in 1910, but the name had been used for a persona representing the team as a whole in 1909, before that player joined the club.Report
The White Sox did in fact play a doubleheader on July 4, 1908, winning the first game and losing the second versus the St. Louis Browns. Ed Walsh pitched both games, I presume after walking to school 10 miles uphill both ways.
The first-place Cubs also played a doubleheader that day, sweeping both ends of it against the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates. That doubleheader would make the difference at the end of the season, as the Cubs won the National League pennant by one game over the Pirates (and the New York Giants).
A fun book about the 1908 season: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/crazy-08-cait-n-murphy?variant=32206142177314Report
“Some will stand around the fight ticker” – century ago version of ‘some people need to log off and touch grass’Report
When I was a lad, my Grandfather Cain would complain that none of the then-current radio baseball announcers could hold a candle to “Dutch” Reagan. Reagan, of course, did play-by-play for Cubs games in the 1930s for WHO radio in Des Moines, Iowa from a studio there using the game ticker.Report