Community team<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Alan Wedge, author of \u201cOne Troubled Season,\u201d is pictured at a signing event for a previous book. Submitted photo<\/p>\n
Whitey Ford, Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige were among the legends who played at Pullman Park while Butler was home to minor league baseball from 1935-51.<\/p>\n
But they weren\u2019t the first.<\/p>\n
Scottdale, Pa., resident Alan Wedge, 61, has written a book entitled \u201cOne Troubled Season.\u201d It details the story of the 1907 Western Pennsylvania Baseball League, the only season of the league\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n
The WPBL was a Class D minor league consisting of nine teams. One of those squads was the Butler White Sox, managed and owned by the founder of the league, Alex Lawson.<\/p>\n
The 318-page book was a long-term project for Wedge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was actually a hobby,\u201d he said. \u201cI never intended it to be a book. I\u2019m a baseball buff and living in Scottdale, next to Connellsville, I heard mention of both of those communities once having minor league baseball teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was intrigued and looked into it. I visited libraries, got newspaper clippings from towns that had teams in the league \u2026 After 20 years or so, I had compiled all of these notes. My wife talked me into turning them into a book.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WPBL consisted of the Fairmont Champions, Scottdale Giants, Clarksburg Bees, Greensburg Red Sox, Connellsville Coke Heavers, Beaver Falls Beavers and Kittanning Infants, along with the Butler franchise.<\/p>\n
Another franchise, Latrobe, wound up moving to Cumberland, Md., Piedmont and Somerset during the season. Kittanning dropped out after eight games and Beaver Falls after 78 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe league wasn\u2019t stable at all,\u201d Wedge said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it lasted only one year. The Butler team was one that lasted the entire season and it took the community coming together to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Lawson formed the Butler White Sox, he abruptly left town after amassing a number of bills he couldn\u2019t pay. He became known as \u201cRunaway Alex,\u201d as he had run out on teams before. Lawson was eventually banned from organized baseball.<\/p>\n
Butler businessman Nick Gazetos took over the team for a while to keep it financially solvent and on the field. The White Sox had generated plenty of community interest as calls to the Butler Times newspaper demanded reports on out-of-town games and scoreboards were posted in front of area businesses to keep people updated on games.<\/p>\n
When Gazetos could no longer handle team operations, the Butler Athletic Association took control of the franchise for the remainder of the season \u2014 and its existence.<\/p>\n
The White Sox \u2014 gaining that nickname because the team wore all-white uniforms \u2014 finished second in the league with a 58-44 record, trailing the champion Fairmont team. Only one of the Butler players, Harry Camnitz, ever reached the major leagues. He played part of one season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.<\/p>\n
Harry was the brother of big league pitcher Howie Camnitz, who won 133 games in his career with the Pirates, putting together a 25-6 record and 1.62 earned run average for the Bucs\u2019 1909 World Series championship team.<\/p>\n
Pullman Park had yet to be constructed when the White Sox played in 1907. Their field was located just beyond the right field fence of where Pullman Park sits today.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the fields used by that league are gone now,\u201d Wedge said. \u201cBeaver Falls played on a field now used by Geneva College. That\u2019s about the only playing field from that league that\u2019s still around.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinor leagues in the early 1900s were not affiliated with major league organizations. Major league teams would search around and pluck players from those leagues. (Minor league) teams had to schedule many intriguing games outside of their own leagues to remain solvent.\u201d<\/p>\n
By comparison, when the Butler Yankees played at Pullman Park in the 1940s, they were one of 26 minor league teams in the New York Yankees\u2019 organization.<\/p>\n
The WPBL carried an $800 salary limit and the White Sox drew 1,000 to 2,000 fans per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cButler scheduled games against major league teams to try to make more money,\u201d Wedge said. \u201cGames against the Reds, Tigers and Philadelphia A\u2019s all fell through.\u201d<\/p>\n
One game did not fall through. The 1906 World Series champion Chicago Cubs \u2014 who won a major league record 116 games that season \u2014 came to Butler to play the White Sox on May 24, 1907.<\/p>\n
Admission to the game was 50 cents. The Cubs won the contest, 4-1, before a little more than 1,000 fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a fascinating era,\u201d Wedge said of baseball. \u201cNewspapers developed and fueled rivalries between towns and teams. Everyone was so passionate about the game and their teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fan interest was there. The finances weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
And the league died.<\/p>\n
Wedge\u2019s book has chapters on every team that played in the league. It names every player who played for each franchise.<\/p>\n
The book can be found on Amazon. The price is $20.<\/p>\n
Wedge is planning a book-signing event in the Butler area in coming months.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOne Troubled Season\u201d is a recently released book by Alan Wedge, which covers the story of the 1907 Western Pennsylvania Baseball League. Submitted photo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Community team Alan Wedge, author of \u201cOne Troubled Season,\u201d is pictured at a signing event for a previous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,150208,43557,150200,150215,150221,150222,14018,150204,150202,188,150203,150207,89495,77,150220,150214,150094,150218,150206,150201,150209,3611,790,150212,12,1490,4342,150213,6932,150205,150217,150216,134051,16,15,16833,150211,150210,150219],"class_list":{"0":"post-445167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-bruin","10":"tag-butler","11":"tag-butler-eagle","12":"tag-cabot","13":"tag-callery","14":"tag-cherry-valley","15":"tag-community-news","16":"tag-connoquenessing","17":"tag-cranberry","18":"tag-crime","19":"tag-east-butler","20":"tag-eau-claire","21":"tag-education-news","22":"tag-entertainment","23":"tag-evans-city","24":"tag-fairview","25":"tag-government-news","26":"tag-harmony","27":"tag-harrisville","28":"tag-high-school-sports-news","29":"tag-karns-city","30":"tag-local-news","31":"tag-mars","32":"tag-mount-chesnut","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-obituaries","35":"tag-pennsylvania","36":"tag-petrolia","37":"tag-political-news","38":"tag-portersville","39":"tag-sarver","40":"tag-saxonburg","41":"tag-slippery-rock","42":"tag-uk","43":"tag-united-kingdom","44":"tag-valencia","45":"tag-west-liberty","46":"tag-west-sunbury","47":"tag-zelienople"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}