Early Day Legacy...

Baseball Legacy...

A Grandfather's Legacy

South Texas League Baseball - 1906

Sam La Rocque

Is the Champion Bludgeon Wielder of the South Texas League.

Joe Mowry Is Second

Only Three Men in 300 Class - Edmondson and Massing Slumped. Mowry Scored Most Runs - McMurray Leads Base Stealers.

After a stormy and tempestuous career the baseball season of the South Texas league for the season of 1906 has come to an end and most of the ball players have gone to other pastures. But no matter where they are they will want to know what their batting average is. A baseball player's batting average is his capital. It is the dream of every ball player to get into the 300 class and but few of them succeed. If they can't hammer their way into that select circle then they desire to make as good a showing as possible and the scorer who doesn't give them a hit about which there is the slightest doubt is looked on as a "yeggman," and a man who would beat a poor ball player out of a hit is looked on as a very mean individual.

The writer has had ball players argue with him for an hour why a batted ball should be called a hit and not an error. On the other hand if a scorer gives a player one of these "phoney" hits he has the pitcher to reckon with and he is certain to call you down when he thinks somebody's average is being padded. A pitcher can tell after the game just where every ball was batted and by whom; their memory in this line of endeavor is marvelous. The baseball report in the papers is eagerly read by the players, but they seldom read anything else. Playing ball every day as they do it would seem as if they wouldn't care to talk shop when they laid aside their working clothes, but such is not the case. Ball players are the greatest fans on earth. They talk but little of anything else during their waking hours and the dream of baseball when asleep.

The leader of the league is an individual to be envied and the proudest achievement of a ball player's career is to be the champion batter of the league. Sam La Rocque, the veteran second baseman of the Beaumont team, has the distinction of leading the South Texas league with the bludgeon for the season of 1906. La Rocque has been playing ball of more than twenty years and has led other leagues before coming to Texas, and by a more bloated average than he made in 1906. This year his average is 313. He has made 476 trips to the pan and clouted out 139 safe swats, which includes twenty-four two-baggers, five triples and two home runs, and he has scored fifty-four runs. La Rocque's stick work has been very valuable to the Lumbermen for the reason that he shows to his best advantage when men are on the sacks. A player who can't hit in the pinches is of but little value to his club.

Gremillion, a Lake Charles pitcher, who has played but few games, is nominally in the second position. Joe Mowry is the real runner up, having an average of exactly 300. By reason of leading off for Houston and also having played in every game, Joe has been to the bat a greater number of times than any player in the league, and he has likewise made a greater number of bingles. Mowry has toed the scratch 520 times and walloped the leather covered globe for 156 swats. This includes eighteen doubles, four triples and once he pasted the pellet on the trade mark for four sacks.

Runs are the things that count in baseball and in this department he is on top of the scrap pile. Joe has looped the loop eighty-four times, six more than Warren Gill, the Austin mogul, who is his nearest competitor in the tally shop. Edmondson follows Mowry as a swat artist, with a percentage of 289. Bob's work with the bludgeon ball off badly in the last two weeks of the season and he dropped from the first place to fourth. Edmondson is the champion long average hitter of the league. Twenty-eight variables, fourteen three-baggers and four home run swipes show that Bob is a hefty clouter.

McMurray has pilfered thirty-six cushions and leads the league in this department. Pat Newman is second, with thirty-five stolen bases. Clayton has laid down fifty-three sacrifice bunts and in this respect he is in a class by himself. Hutchcroft of Austin is second, with thirty-seven.

Austin leads the league with the hickory by a good margin. The Senators' batting average is 231. Houston is second, with 228, and Galveston is last with the thin average of 202.. Here are the figures:

TEAM BATTING AVERAGES

Individual Averages -- click here to view averages.

© 2008 by WWWPubCo & OkieLegacy.org  All Rights Reserved.  - LK Wagner

Latest Revision - Friday, September 19, 2008 9:29 AM - Webmaster