native american - Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League

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Major League debut: April 22, 1897
Position: Right Fielder
Bats: Left
Throws: Right
Born: October 24, 1871 in Indian Island, Maine
Died: December 24, 1913 in Burlington, Maine
Education: University of Notre Dame (South Bend, Indiana) & College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, Massachusetts)

Louis Sockalexis, Outfielder, Holy Cross, 1894.

In 1899, the Hartford Base Ball Club of the Class-A Eastern League signed outfielder, Louis Francis Sockalexis. He was the first Native American to play professional baseball and the first person of color to play for Hartford. When he arrived in Hartford, Sockalexis was noticeably overweight and battling an alcohol addiction. Also called “Sock” or “Sox,” he was once a five-tool outfielder who experienced a meteoric rise and fall during the Deadball Era.

Louis Sockalexis, Outfielder, Holy Cross, 1899.

Sockalexis hailed from Indian Island, Maine and was a member of the Penobscot tribe. His athletic gifts earned him acceptance to College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he excelled in baseball, football and track. He then followed his Holy Cross baseball coach and transferred to University of Norte Dame. He played both outfield and pitcher while at Holy Cross and Notre Dame. In a sign of things to come, Sockalexis was expelled from Notre Dame in his first semester for consuming alcohol.

L to R: Louis Sockalexis, Dr. M.R. Powers and Walter Curley, Holy Cross, 1895.

Fortunately for Sockalexis, Cy Young‘s Cleveland Spiders signed him to a major league contract on March 9, 1897. Sockalexis was so popular in Cleveland that fans and reporters later claimed him to be the source of the controversial “Indians” nickname. In his first big league season, Sockalexis appeared in 66 games, had a .338 batting average with three home runs, 42 RBI and 16 stolen bases. On July 1, 1897, he had five base hits in a game against St. Louis. Yet, a few days later, he got drunk, jumped from the second-story of a brothel and severely injured his ankle, which would affect his play and reputation.

Louis Sockalexis, Outfielder, Cleveland, 1897.

Sockalexis struggled to regain his old form amid two more seasons in Cleveland. After being arrested for public drunkenness at a theatre, Cleveland released him in late May of 1899. A week later, Sockalexis landed with Hartford. Burdened by alcoholism, he slumped in the Charter Oak City. He hit for a .198 batting average in 91 at bats. His brief time in Hartford lasted about a month before manager Billy Barnie traded him to Bristol of the Connecticut State League.

Bristol eventually unloaded Sockalexis to Waterbury that same year. He ended the season with a .320 batting average. The Waterbury club wanted him back for the following season, but Sockalexis returned to Maine. A series of news reports detailed his arrests for public drunkenness, and the former baseball star was reduced to homelessness and vagrancy. He served intermittent time in jail but made a comeback in 1902 with Lowell of the New England League. At 30 years old, Sockalexis hit for a .288 average in his lone season with Lowell.

Louis Sockalexis, Outfielder, Lowell, 1902.

In 1907, Sockalexis signed his last baseball contract. He appeared with the Bangor club of the Maine State League. Sockalexis then found work as a lumberjack and lived at Penobscot Indian Island Reservation. He also piloted a ferryboat on which he enjoyed reading The Sporting News and newspapers left behind by passengers. Sockalexis continued to show interest in baseball, playing on amateur teams, coaching and umpiring.

Louis Sockalexis (bottom, left) on the Bangor Baseball Club, Maine League, 1907.

He eventually stopped drinking to excess, but was not in the best of health. Sockalexis suffered from attacks of rheumatism and looked older than his age. In the fall of 1913, he joined a logging crew harvesting the northern woods of Maine. While felling a pine tree on Christmas Eve, he suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 42. Louis Sockalexis was buried in St. Anne Church Cemetery on Indian Island, Maine.

Burial Site of Louis Sockalexis, Indian Island, Maine.

Today, Sockalexis is remembered as a pioneering figure. As the first Native American in the major leagues, he blazed a trail amidst widespread prejudice. Fans in various cities hollered racist epithets and made ignorant gestures towards Sockalexis throughout his career. Like Charles Bender, Jim Thorpe and Jackie Robinson, Sockalexis endured cruel discrimination while playing the game he loved. Though alcoholism did him in, Louis Sockalexis prevailed over racial attitudes of the time and momentarily achieved, baseball greatness.

Sources:

Statistics: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/sockach01.shtml
SABR Bio: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2b1aea0a
Louis Sockalexis – Remembering Now and Forever: http://sockalexis.net/

James Francis Thorpe was the greatest all-around athlete of The Deadball Era. In addition to playing five Major League seasons, he was a superstar football player as well as an Olympic gold medalist. Battling bigotry and discrimination, Jim Thorpe rose to stardom with perseverance and defiance. Unknown to many locals today, the 6’1” 185 lbs sportsman brought his talents to Hartford, Connecticut, on several occasions.

Born on May 28, 1887, Thorpe was a member of the Sauk and Fox Nation of the Oklahoma Territory. His Native American name was Wa-Tho-Huck (Bright Path or Path Lit by Lightning). As a youngster, he attended Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas, and then Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. He played halfback on the Carlisle football team under coach Pop Warner and was selected by Walter Camp to the 1911 and 1912 All-American teams.

1913 New York Giants with Jim Thorpe (3rd row, middle).

At the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games, Thorpe won the decathlon and pentathlon by wide margins. Sweden’s King Gustav told him, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.” However in 1913 an investigation by the Amateur Athletic Union claimed Thorpe to be ineligible because he played professional baseball in 1909 and 1910. During those years, Thorpe did earn $2 per game in the Eastern Carolina League as an outfielder and pitcher. He was subsequently stripped of his gold medals.

Jack Meyers and Jim Thorpe (right), 1915.

Thereafter, Thorpe signed a three-year contract for $6,000 per season to play with John McGraw’s New York Giants. As a rookie, Thorpe recorded 19 games, a home run and two stolen bases as the club captured the 1913 National League pennant. He was a bench player for the Giants. They loaned him to the Cincinnati Reds in April of 1917. Thorpe was recalled to New York in August, and the Giants won another league title. Manager McGraw gave Thorpe a larger role in 1918 when he hit .248 in 58 games.

1915 New York Giants with Jim Thorpe (3rd from right).

After complaining about playing time and refusing to be mistreatment, Thorpe was traded to the Boston Braves in 1919. The 32 year old began to hit his stride, batting .327 with 25 RBI and 7 stolen bases for the Braves. After Boston, Thorpe continued his career with five different minor league clubs including Hartford. All the while, Thorpe played professional football in the offseason. From 1920 to 1921, Thorpe was nominally appointed as first President of the American Professional Football Association, later becoming the National Football League.

Jim Thorpe, Outfielder, Cincinnati Reds, 1917.

Then, Thorpe was released from the Portland, Oregon, baseball club of the Pacific Coast League. So in June of 1922, he was picked up by James H. Clarkin, owner of the Hartford Senators. Thorpe immediately traveled to across the country with his family who settled at 34 Lancaster Road, West Hartford. As a Senator, Thorpe crushed Eastern League pitching, however his stint in Hartford would only last about six weeks.

Thorpe’s Hartford Senators debut, June 15, 1922.

On July 12, 1922, Thorpe played center field in a doubleheader at New Haven’s Weiss Park. He had a bad day. “Thorpe was plain awful. He had dropped a fly ball, muffed a grounder and failed to hustle after a ball hit in the gap. New Haven’s fans were all over him, abusing him mercilessly with racist taunts. News accounts were equally childish and bigoted in context. One report cited Thorpe’s performance as ‘an imitation of a wooden Indian chasing flies.”

Seething with anger, “Thorpe promptly changed out of his baseball uniform into his street clothes. He emerged from the clubhouse and charged into the grandstand to confront the New Haven hecklers, saying he wasn’t ‘going to stand for the impertinence of the fans.‘ Thorpe never threw a punch. Teammates persuaded him to return to the clubhouse before any fighting broke out. Police were called to the scene, though no arrests were made.”1

Thorpe was fined $50 by the Eastern League and $50 by the Hartford club. In early August, he was released by owner Clarkin. Thorpe finished the year with the Fitchburg-Worcester club, and his .344 batting average was second in the Eastern League. He also hit 9 home runs in 96 total games played, but the year 1922 marked Thorpe’s final season in professional baseball.

Unfortunately for Thorpe, his athletic fame did not result in a lasting fortune. He drifted from one public relations exploit to the next and wrestled with alcoholism. The famous athlete worked part-time as a painter, bouncer and ditch digger. His football career kept him solvent. Thorpe often came back to Connecticut to face professional football squads such as the short-lived Hartford Blues. He retired from football in 1928, but continued to make baseball cameos throughout the country.

Jim Thorpe in football uniform, c. 1925.

In 1933, Thorpe came back to Hartford as a player-manager of the Oklahoma Indians, a barnstorming team also dubbed Harjo’s Indians. At the time, many athletes of color embellished their racial characteristics and adopted stereotypes in order to maximize profits. During the month of August, thousands of fans witnessed a five game series at Hartford’s Bulkeley Stadium between the Oklahoma Indians and the Savitt Gems, a local independent team.

Jim Thorpe, Manager, Harjo’s Indians, 1933.

Thorpe began the first of five games as third base coach. He then manned right field midway through the game. On a fly ball by Jackie Cronin of the Gems, Thorpe made contact with the ball near the foul line. Umpire John Muldoon called the hit fair but Thorpe vehemently disagreed. He pulled his team off the field and demanded the umpires to be dismissed before resuming play. The umpires were replaced by players from each team and the game continued.

The Savitt Gems eventually won the series 3 games to 2, and Hartford baseball fans saw a good show. Later, Savitt Gems owner Bill Savitt would question whether or not Thorpe’s antics were intentional. Perhaps he overreacted to rile up the crowd, thereby attracting more fans to Bulkeley Stadium. After all, the crowd did double in size from about 3,000 to about 6,000 at their next matchup. Thorpe, ever the showman, led the Indians in staged war dances between games.

In 1950, Jim Thorpe was named America’s top athlete of the half century by the Associated Press, beating out Babe Ruth. By then Thorpe had appeared in more than 70 Hollywood films. A biographical film entitled Jim Thorpe – All-American produced by Warner Bros. and starring Burt Lancaster was released in 1951. On March 28, 1953, Jim Thorpe died of a heart attack in Lomita, California at the age of 65.

In 1982, the International Olympic Committee restored Thorpe’s two gold medals and they were presented to surviving family members. Then in a bizarre twist, Thorpe’s widow, (his third wife) Patricia, sold his remains to the cities of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. The two towns combined to create Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, where he is now laid to rest, though he never visited the place during his lifetime. Thorpe’s children led an effort to return their father to the Sauk and Fox Nation in Oklahoma but lost a lawsuit in 2014.