THE GREAT GALLIA: A STORY OF EARLY BASEBALL
by Stephen D. Chicoine
THE GREAT GALLIA: through the end of the 1921 season - Gallia's time in the big leagues
Very few liked the man at the plate. He was arrogant, mean and extremely prejudiced. He was also perhaps the greatest hitter that ever played the game of baseball. Ty Cobb was twenty-three years old in the spring of 1910. He had won the American League’s Triple Crown in hitting in 1909, leading the Detroit Tigers to their second consecutive American League pennant. The Tigers held their annual spring training camp in San Antonio. St. Louis College, on the west end of town, had fielded a baseball team for fifteen years. In the spring of 1910, the Rattlers were undefeated going into an exhibition game against the visiting major leaguers.
A lean country boy with forearms like Popeye’s took the mound for St. Louis College. Melvin Gallia was an electrical engineering major from the small South Texas town of Woodsboro in Refugio County. The eighteen-year-old found himself facing Ty Cobb at the plate. Cobb let Gallia’s first two pitches go by for strikes, sizing up the young pitcher. He dug in expecting the third pitch to be a fastball. Instead, Gallia threw a spitball that Cobb reportedly missed by a foot[i]. The crowd cheered wildly. The kid from Woodsboro had struck out the best hitter in baseball!
Cobb was a fierce competitor. The next time he came to bat, he had fire in his eyes. He hit a Gallia pitch far into the mesquite brush for a home run[ii] and the Tigers won the game. Ty Cobb went on to have the best season of his legendary career that year. Melvin Gallia went home to Woodsboro at the end of the school year, having set a collegiate record by striking out one hundred and fifty batters in fifteen games[iii].
Yankee soldiers are credited with introducing the game of baseball to Texas. The bluecoats arrived in force to occupy the Lone Star State at the end of the War Between the States. The first games in San Antonio were played in Military Plaza and at San Pedro Springs[iv]. Baseball became not only a means of recreation for the soldiers, but also a way to interact with the locals. By the end of the occupation in 1870, baseball was on its way to becoming established. In the early 20th century, nearly every small town in Texas, as nearly everywhere else in America, had its own baseball team. Baseball was not just the national pastime, but the national passion. It was about the hometown nine beating the team from the neighboring city. As the intensity of competition rose, teams supplemented local talent with outside players they managed to attract, sometimes for a few dollars a game. Yet, for the most part, the game remained pure and pastoral. Baseball was about green grass and the bright sunshine of a hot summer afternoon. Townspeople congregated around the local ball field, shared picnics and courted. The pop of the hardball in the leather mitt and the crack of the bat connecting with a ball punctuated conversations.
In the spring of 1910, even as St. Louis College was losing its unbeaten record to the Detroit Tigers, a group of prominent Texas along the central coast organized a local baseball league. The owners obtained Class D status from the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues[v]. Beeville, Victoria, Corpus Christi, Laredo, Brownsville and Bay City fielded teams. The Southwest Texas League was “composed of the smallest cities comprising any professional baseball league in the United States”[vi]. The Beeville Bees signed Melvin Gallia, his reputation having spread after he struck out Ty Cobb that spring[vii].
Victoria, the largest city in the central coastal region, had had a powerhouse baseball team for years. The town’s 1909 “amateur” team boasted a 51-14 win-loss record and featured players from Houston, Galveston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and one from Vera Cruz, Mexico[i]. When the Southwest Texas League was formed, Victoria’s newspaper publisher organized townspeople to supplement the team’s budget and weekly published the list of contributors[ii]. Hundreds of players from around the country reportedly responded to an ad in Sporting News, which announced tryouts for the Victoria team in the spring of 1910[iii]. Among the players signed by Victoria was former major leaguer Howard Wakefield[iv], who led the Texas League in hitting while playing for San Antonio.
Melvin Gallia made his pitching debut for Beeville against the Victoria club. He had the Rosebuds stymied for seven innings. But in the eighth with Beeville leading 1-0, Gallia gave up a three-run homer. Later that same inning, a hit to the outfield was lost in the high grass and another run scored[v]. His professional debut ended with a loss. Gallia saw only limited action that season, appearing in six games, winning three and losing one, while posting twenty-one strikeouts[vi]. The highlight of his season was a two-hitter against Laredo[vii]. The season ended with Brownsville upsetting Victoria in the post-season championship playoff[viii].
Melvin Gallia graduated from St. Louis College the following spring of 1911 and returned home to Woodsboro. He spent a few days with family and friends before heading for Beeville for the Southwest Texas League’s second season. The Gallia family had moved from Beeville to Woodsboro in 1907 when Melvin’s father, A. C., was hired as land agent for the new town to recruit other Czech families from the Texas Hill Country.
The Skidmore baseball team came to Woodsboro for a game and Gallia agreed to pitch for the hometown team. Skidmore featured a big catcher named Gourley, who hit a home run that the Woodsboro sportswriter speculated would have been traveling yet, had it not been for the railroad track. But Gourley’s swat came with no men on. Gallia scattered seven other hits, striking out fifteen and going the distance, leading Woodsboro to a win[ix].
Beeville had a new player-manager that second season of league play. Billy Disch had just assumed the position of head baseball coach at the University of Texas, where he would compile a remarkable collegiate record through the 1930’s. Disch released Gallia[x], who managed to get on with the league’s Laredo Bermudas.
When the league had formed, there was some question about allowing the Laredo team to play after Manager Alfred Pogenphol signed some “Mexican” players. The Victoria Advocate noted that “The success of the Laredo nines has for many years past been largely dependent on their foreign players” and speculated on the “probable ineligibility of chocolate colored players.”[xi] Pogenphol insisted that his players were “ … as much American in respect to citizenship and maybe more so than some of the other players signed by other clubs, and some of them speak as good English.”[xii] Laredo’s lineup also included some Cubans, whom Pogenphol reported were “as gentlemanly and manly young men as I have ever had dealings with …”[xiii]. The decision as to whether Hispanic Texans, Mexicans and Cubans would be allowed to play in the league was not even broached at the meeting of league owners and the matter ultimately was “ … left optional with the various clubs to play whomsoever they please.”[xiv] It went without saying that the option did not include Blacks, who would not be allowed to integrate baseball until the end of the 1940’s.
Melvin Gallia, having grown up in South Texas, spoke Tex-Mex with ease and fit in well with the Laredo ball club. In fact, Melvin, until he began school as a young boy in Beeville, spoke only Czech, which he learned in the home, and Tex-Mex, which he picked up in and around town from the fieldworkers. Cotton, the major cash crop on the Texas Coast, was picked by hand for many years and thousands would move up the Texas Coast from Laredo and Mexico as early as July and work through August. English was the third language young Melvin Gallia learned[i].
On July 15, 1911, Melvin Gallia took the mound in his first game for Laredo. The opponent was Beeville. However badly he wanted to prove to “Uncle Billy” Disch that he made a mistake, Melvin Gallia was rocked by the Beeville batters and lost the game by a score of 10-to-1. One reporter called it “one of the poorest and most one-sided games ever played in Laredo.”[ii] But Gallia was determined to prove himself. Ten days later, he pitched both games of a doubleheader and led Laredo to a pair of victories over Corpus Christi. A week later, he was “in excellent form”[iii], beating Brownsville. Three days later, Laredo’s victory over Corpus Christi was heralded as “a case of too much Gallia”[iv]. When Gallia pitched Laredo to victory over Victoria on August 9, the Victoria paper declared “Gallia pitched one of the finest games witnessed here this season and had the Buds at his mercy, allowing but three hits.”[v]
In Laredo’s final series of the season, Gallia pitched Laredo to two victories over Beeville. Gallia finished the season with nine wins. His teammate, a hard-throwing Cuban named Hernandez, won twenty games. Laredo, which had finished in the cellar at the end of the first half of the season, ended the second half in fourth place[vi]. Billy Disch’s Bees, despite the humbling by Gallia at season’s end, won the second half of league play and subsequently claimed the league title by forfeit. Bay City, citing financial problems, declined to playoff. The Southwest Texas League, while popular, struggled with the expense of transportation by rail and the league disbanded after the 1911 season.
The league’s better players moved up to the next level of play[vii]. Among these was Melvin Gallia, whom Beeville catcher Harry Brammel predicted “would develop into a second Joe Wood”[viii]. Others would make the same comparison as Gallia pitched with his elbow and wrist in the style of the legendary Boston Red Sox pitcher[ix]. Particularly noteworthy was Gallia’s “ …fast one that wobbles when he shoots it over the plate”[x].
Gallia signed with the Kansas City Blues of the Class A American Association League[xi]. The KC manager took one look at the kid and sent him down to Okmulgee in the Oklahoma State League for seasoning. Gallia pitched in three games and struck out a total of fifty-four batters[xii]. In the third game, he had a no-hitter until the ninth inning, striking out 17 along the way. The Blues promptly recalled Gallia for American Association play. The Kansas City Starheadlined the return of “Chief” Gallia, no doubt influenced by his prominent high cheekbones and swarthy complexion. Later, the Star sports staff determined that Gallia was “Mexican”[xiii], perhaps because he was also a South Texan and spoke Tex-Mex. It was one of the unexplainable aspects of the institutionalized racism of early baseball that Native Americans and Latin Americans were considered unique and perhaps “foreign”, and thus allowed to play professional baseball, despite their darker skin, while African-Americans were excluded. Czech-Texan Melvin Gallia provided ethnic flavor for the otherwise-Anglo 1912 American Association League.
On the day that Gallia arrived in Kansas City, Blues Manager Charlie Carr put him on the mound against Indianapolis. Gallia responded by pitching a five-hit shutout. The Kansas City paper declared “Melvin Albert Gallia, Texan, broke into the league with a splendid splash.”[xiv] Gallia won his next two games and became a mainstay of the Blues’ pitching staff with a promising future. Carr told a reporter “I believe this boy is a second Walter Johnson. I never saw an inexperienced youngster like him show so much speed …”[xv].
Blues teammate Nick Altrock was a thirty-five year old veteran, whose accomplishments included winning twenty games for the 1906 World Champion Chicago White Sox “Hitless Wonders”[i]. Altrock took an interest in Gallia and worked with him on his delivery. Gallia ever after gave Altrock credit for teaching him the finer points of the game[ii]. Altrock was also one of the game’s renowned comedians and Melvin Gallia’s own fine sense of humor likely cemented what became a lifelong friendship. When Altrock was called up later in that same season to help coach the major league Washington Nationals, he told manager Clark Griffiths about Gallia[iii]. Griffith sent scout Mike Kahoe to see the kid pitch at Toledo in the first week of August. Kahoe was impressed with Gallia’s “quick breaking curve and terrific speed”[iv] and the Nationals gave Kansas City two players and cash for Gallia. Melvin Gallia made his major league debut on September 4, 1912, not quite twenty-one years old. He pitched two innings, allowing no hits or runs[v]. Gallia saw no further action that season.
When the Nationals’ spring training camp opened in Charlottesville, Virginia in the spring of 1913, an anxious Gallia was among the last to report. Woodsboro, Texas was under quarantine for meningitis[vi]. After an agonizing three weeks, Gallia could wait no longer. He slipped out of town, riding forty-five miles in the bottom of a farmer’s wagon to Placedo, Texas near Victoria where he boarded a train on the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad for San Antonio[vii].
When Gallia finally arrived at Charlottesville, the Washington paper reported: “Tex Gallia … probably in better shape than any pitcher in the camp, due to working out in his home in the far South …”.[viii] The Post declared Gallia almost sure of a position on the team, noting that Griffiths “ … bubbled over with enthusiasm in discussing the work of Gallia, the big Texas ranchman”[ix] and compared his blazing speed to that of teammate Walter Johnson[x]. The press began referring to Gallia as “Bert”, apparently deriving that from his supposed middle name of Albert - in fact, it was Allys. The name stuck. Melvin Gallia of Woodsboro became Bert Gallia of major league baseball.
The Washington Nationals finished the 1913 season in second place in the league standings, the highest finish up to that time for the franchise - and this in just the second year under manager Clark Griffith. Griffith previously had broken the color barrier in baseball in 1911 when, as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, he signed two Cubans. The Reds managed to ease tensions and ultimately cast off racial objections by arguing convincingly that the two were “Castilian Spanish”, rather than “African” in origin[xi]. It has been suggested that both men were “light-skinned enough to find brief acceptance …”[xii]. Griffith pushed the door open further in 1913 when he signed two Cubans to play for Washington. The fact that both men later played in the professional Negro Leagues attests to their darker skin[xiii]. But there was no hint of racism in the feature articles in the Washington Post that highlighted these two during the pre-season, referring to Jacinto Calvo as “ … a perfect specimen of budding manhood” and to sixteen-year-old Baldomero Acosta as “one of the sensations in the National training camp”[xiv]. Although neither Calvo or Acosta ever broke into a starting lineup in the major leagues, no other major leaguer again played in both the major leagues and the professional Negro leagues until Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Melvin Gallia surely developed a bond with these fellow rookies, as he was the only other player on the Nationals who spoke their language. He was witness to a grand experiment, one that failed in the absence of television to revolutionize the game.
Melvin Gallia saw action in thirty-one games in the 1913 season. He posted but one win against five losses[i]. Most noteworthy was a game against the Yankees, in which Gallia entered the record books upon hitting three of the first four batters to face him[i]. Melvin spent most of the campaign on the National’s bench from which vantage point he witnessed young Walter Johnson’s phenomenal season that earned the American League Most Valuable Player award[ii]. Gallia always remembered Johnson, whom many still regard as the greatest pitcher in the history of the game, as a wonderful person[iii].
Gallia began the 1914 season showing promise in the Nationals’ spring training camp, throwing with “bewildering speed”, excellent control and a curve “as good as any in camp”. Speculation continued that the twenty year old “… may develop into the league’s real wonder in another season.”[iv] But Gallia struggled with control in exhibition play[v] and the Nationals sent him back to Kansas City for experience. By mid-season, the Kansas City Star was declaring “Mexican Hurler Invincible”, praising the speed of “Chief Gallia, bronze-skinned Senor from the land of Madero”[vi]. He had a fine year with Kansas City, leading the American Association League in innings pitched, and winning 26 games and losing 12. Gallia returned to the Nationals at the beginning of the 1915 season, heralded as the “Star A. A. Hurler". The Texan continued to hear himself referred to in an ethnic perspective. He wrote home to Woodsboro that spring, “Do you know they say I look like a real Indian, now do I? Honest tell me.”[vii]
Both Manager Cal Griffith and Coach Nick Altrock considered Gallia to “have more stuff than any other pitcher on the local staff, not even barring Walter Johnson.”[viii]. Gallia started the season strong. He threw the first complete game of his major league career on April 16, 1915, giving up only five hits and not a single walk in a 3-2 win over the Yankees[ix]. The Washington Post described Gallia in the write-up of the game on the next day as “The chief, as he was dubbed last year in the American Association”[x] and later as “the boy from the Rio Grande”[xi]. Gallia completed his second game, without giving up a single walk[xii]. He was on his way.
Gallia pitched against the Detroit Tigers on June 18. Ty Cobb stole home in the first inning, scoring by ripping open the arm of the Washington catcher with his spikes. On July 1 against the Yankees, Gallia “ … had perfect control, and he was unhittable, turning the Yankees back in every inning … It is doubtful if any ball club could have beaten this youngster today, so good was he.”[xiii] On July 11, he halted a Nationals’ losing streak with a big win over the White Sox, pulling himself out of a jam and going the distance for a complete game[xiv]. Gallia established himself as the number two pitcher on the staff, behind Walter Johnson[xv]. One sportswriter suggested “… today he ranks with the best of them in the business.”[xvi]. It soon began apparent that Gallia would become a presence on the Washington pitching staff and the Post essentially dropped reference to the ethnic aspect of the young man. The Czech from South Texas shed his Indian and Mexican labels and became the All-American golden boy, a major league pitcher.
Gallia threw a brilliant one-hitter against Cleveland on July 27, the Post suggesting he “ … will probably never pitch a more brilliant game”[xvii]. In a classic matchup of spitball artists, Bert Gallia beat the Chicago White Sox’s great Eddie Cicotte 3-1, going the full nine innings and giving up only four hits[xviii]. In mid August, Gallia “… turned back the flower of American League sluggers just as fast as they came to the bat”[xix], throwing a brilliant three-hitter against the Detroit Tigers. Ty Cobb went 0-for-4 at the plate and The Post declared the game: “… a Gallia victory in every sense of the word”[xx]. Gallia “twirled one of the finest games in his career”[xxi] less than a week later, allowing only two hits and not a single walk against Smoky Joe Wood and the Boston Red Sox.
By the latter part of the 1915 campaign, “Griffith’s sensational spitballist ... was mowing down his rivals with great regularity.”[i] The front page of the September 12 edition of the Post featured Gallia’s photo along with teammate Nick Altrock under the headline “Two Mighty Valuable Assets to Washington Baseball Club”, referring to Gallia as the “Pitching Sensation”.[i] Gallia finished the season with 17 wins and 11 losses and 130 strikeouts[ii]. This was particularly impressive in that the Nationals were a notoriously poor hitting team[iii]. The Boston Red Sox won the American League pennant and the World Series that year with rookie pitcher Babe Ruth playing a key role.
Gallia started the 1916 season strong. He “pitched a wonderful game of ball” and “had perfect control”[iv] in thrashing the Cleveland Indians on May 20. But the glory was short-lived. On the last day of May, the World Champion Red Sox crushed the Nationals 10-to-1 at Boston. Gallia took the loss, giving up four runs in the fourth inning, the Postsuggesting “Gallia had never been hit harder in his life …”.[v] Gallia worked hard throughout the 1916 campaign. In early July, he went all the way to beat the Yankees 6-4, surviving a blast over the fence by Frank “Home Run” Baker and shutting down a Yankee rally in the ninth[vi]. Two weeks later, Gallia threw a complete game to beat the Cleveland Indians 3-2. The deciding moment was a rare error by the great Tris Speaker on a fly ball hit by Gallia with men on[vii]. Both Gallia and the Nationals slumped in August. In a game against the St. Louis Browns, Gallia had his worst control problems of the year and the Post remarked that the performance “reminded one of this pitcher some years back”[viii]. September was no better and the season closed with the Nationals in seventh place. After a spectacular start, Gallia’s struggles in August and September left him with only a 17-13 season with 120 strikeouts and a 2.76 earned run average[ix].
Gallia’s performance never again attained the level of the 1915 or 1916 seasons. He had his moments in 1917. Gallia came into a game against two-time World Champion Boston on June 25 and closed down the Red Sox with the bases loaded and shut them down for two additional innings[x]. Two days later, Gallia pitched a solid eight innings against the Red Sox before needing relief in the ninth[xi]. But Gallia ended the season with a 9-13 win-loss record and an earned run average of 3.0 per game. Manager Cal Griffith was determined to look for new talent and traded Gallia in the off-season to the St. Louis Browns for two players and $15,000 cash[xii].
Gallia worked hard on the mound for the Browns in 1918, but there was little hitting support other than that of future Hall-of-Famer George Sisler. He won 8 and lost 6 in 1918 with a 3.5 earned run average. In July 1918, Gallia wrote home to his mother in Woodsboro:
“ … everything is so uncertain at the present. We don’t know whether we shall play baseball or not next year, further we don’t know if shall finish this year … for myself I would not mind staying in Woodsboro, because I can’t stand city life … I am used to being out in the country and I can’t get rid of that feeling.”[xiii]
Gallia did finish the 1918 season. He opened the 1919 season for the Browns, beating the eventual American League pennant-winners, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Chicago White Sox[xiv], on opening day. In early June, Gallia beat his old teammates in “A real pitcher’s duel” [xv] with none other than Walter Johnson on the mound for the Nationals. On June 20, Gallia threw against Babe Ruth, who was pitching for the Red Sox. With the Browns leading 1-0 in the seventh inning, Ruth tripled off Gallia and scored to lead the rally and the Red Sox won 3-1[xvi]. Gallia got back at the Red Sox, beating them on August 17 in a 4-3 game during which Gallia hit Ruth with a pitch[xvii]. None of Ruth’s major league record twenty-nine home runs that season were off Gallia. He finished the 1919 season with a 12-14 win-loss record and a 3.6 earned run average[i]. Near the end of the season, Gallia faced Ty Cobb for the last time in his career. Cobb went three-for-four to lead the Tigers to a 12-3 win, giving Gallia the loss[ii].
The 1919 season ended with the infamous “Black Sox” scandal, in which eight Chicago players charged with throwing the World Series were banned from baseball for life. The popularity of major league baseball fell to an all-time low. Baseball officials outlawed the previously legal spitball in the hopes of winning back fans with more home runs by Ruth and others - although pitchers already in the majors using that pitch, including Bert Gallia, were allowed to continue. The Browns traded Gallia to the National League Philadelphia Phillies of the National League for the 1920 season. Outfielder Casey Stengel was among his new teammates. Gallia saw action in only 18 games, finishing with a 2-6 win-loss record[iii] for the last-place Phillies. He left major league ball at the end of the season. He could still throw a baseball and there were plenty of semi-pro teams across America looking for a strong country arm[iv].
[i] “Bert Gallia”, totalbaseball.com.
[ii] “Tigers Hammer Ball; Thrash Browns 12-3”, Washington Post, September 6, 1919.
[iii] “Bert Gallia”, totalbaseball.com.
[iv] Huson, Hobart, Refugio: a comprehensive history (Rooke Foundation, 1953-1956), 338.
[i] “Two Mighty Valuable Assets to Washington Baseball Club”, Washington Post, September 12, 1915.
[ii] “Bert Gallia”, totalbaseball.com.
[iii] “1915 Washington Senators”, baseball-reference.com.
[iv] Washington Post, May 21, 1916.
[v] Washington Post, June 1, 1916.
[vi] Washington Post, July 5, 1916.
[vii] Washington Post, July 19, 1916.
[viii] Washington Post, August 23, 1916.
[ix] “Bert Gallia”, totalbaseball.com.
[x] Washington Post, June 26, 1917.
[xi] Washington Post, June 28, 1917.
[xii] Dick, Floyd, “Bert Gallia, Woodsboro’s Claim to Baseball Fame”, Woodsboro News, October 8, 1937.
[xiii] Letter from Melvin Gallia to his mother, Mrs. A. C. Gallia, Woodsboro, Texas, dated July 10, 1918.
[xiv] “Marines See Browns Win From White Sox”, Washington Post, May 3, 1919.
[xv] “Errors Let Browns Beat Johnson 2-1”, Washington Post, June 9, 1919.
[xvi] “Ruth Helps Win Own Game From Browns”, Washington Post, June 21, 1919.
[xvii] “Brown’s Quick Start Defeats red Sox”, Washington Post, August 19, 1919.
[i] Ibid.
[i] Washington Post, June 21, 1913.
[ii] Povich, Shirley, The Washington Senators (G. P. Putnam’s Suns, 1954), 87.
[iii] Personal communication with Mrs. Michael Larkin, the former Helen Gallia.
[iv] From an old undated clipping from the Washington Post in Gallia scrapbook
[v] Washington Post, April 12, 1915.
[vi] Undated clipping from Kansas City Star from Gallia scrapbook.
[vii] Postcard to Ethel Hargrove, dated April 10, 1915, in the possession of Mrs. Michael Larkin.
[viii] From an old undated clipping from the Washington Post in Gallia scrapbook
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Washington Post, April 17, 1915.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Washington Post, April 21, 1915.
[xiii] Washington Post, July 2, 1915.
[xiv] Washington Post, July 12, 1915.
[xv] Washington Post, July 20, 1915.
[xvi] Washington Post, July 28, 1915.
[xvii] Washington Post, July 28, 1915.
[xviii] Washington Post, August 5, 1915.
[xix] Washington Post, August 12, 1915.
[xx] Ibid.
[xxi] Washington Post, August 17, 1915.
[i] “Bert Gallia”, totalbaseball.com.
[i] “Nick Altrock”, baseball-reference.com.
[ii] Floyd. Also Washington Post, March 8, 1914.
[iii] Washington Post, March 8, 1914.
[iv] From an undated clipping from the Washington Post in the Gallia scrapbook.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Washington Post, March 6, 1913.
[vii] From an old undated clipping from the Washington Post in Gallia scrapbook
[viii] Washington Post, March 19, 1913.
[ix] Washington Post, March 12, 1913.
[x] From an old undated clipping from the Washington Post in Gallia scrapbook
[xi] Bjarkman, Peter, Baseball With A Latin Beat (1994), 119, 198. Cockeroft, James, Latinos in Beisbol (Franklin Watts, 1996), 12-13. Jamail, Milton, Full Count: Inside Cuban Baseball, 20.
[xii] Bjarkman, 199.
[xiii] Bjarkman, 138, 199.
[xiv] “Calvo, Outergarden Recruit, Has Backing of His Family” and “Acosta, Youthful National, Comes From Fighting Stock” in: Washington Post, March 16, 1913.
[i] Personal communication with Mrs. Michael Larkin, the former Helen Gallia.
[ii] Victoria Advocate, July 17, 1911.
[iii] Victoria Advocate, August 2, 1911.
[iv] Victoria Advocate, August 5, 1911.
[v] Victoria Advocate, August 10, 1911.
[vi] “Southwest Texas League”, Spalding’s Official Base Ball Record, 206-210.
[vii] “Southwest Texas League”, Beeville Bee, August 25, 1911.
[viii] San Antonio Light, undated clipping from Gallia scrapbook.
[ix] San Antonio Light, undated clipping from Gallia scrapbook.
[x] San Antonio Light, undated clipping from Gallia scrapbook.
[xi] Washington Post, March 8, 1914.
[xii] Dick, Floyd, “Bert Gallia, Woodsboro’s Claim to Baseball Fame”, Woodsboro News, October 8, 1937.
[xiii] Undated clipping from Kansas City Star from Gallia scrapbook.
[xiv] Undated clipping from Kansas City Star from Gallia scrapbook.
[xv] Undated clipping from Kansas City Star from Gallia scrapbook.
[i] Victoria Advocate, August 9, 1909.
[ii] Victoria Advocate, September 3, 1909.
[iii] Victoria Advocate, September 3, 1909.
[iv] “Howard Wakefield”, baseball-reference.com
[v] Beeville Bee, June 24, 1910.
[vi] The Reach Official American League Guide, 468.
[vii] The Beeville Bee, July 8, 1910.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Beeville Bee-Picayune, June 14, 1971.
[xi] “Baseball Magnates Are in Session Here”, Victoria Advocate, February 19, 1910.
[xii] “Baseball Magnates Are in Session Here”, Victoria Advocate, February 19, 1910.
[xiii] “Baseball Magnates Are in Session Here”, Victoria Advocate, February 19, 1910.
[xiv] Victoria Advocate, February 21, 1910.
[i] Cunningham, Bill, “Rattlers First Ball at A&M”, San Antonio Express, date unknown, from the Gallia family scrapbook.
[ii] Cunningham, also St. Mary’s College athletic department website.
[iii] Beeville Bee, May 27, 1910.
[iv] Mosebach, Fred W., “American National Game Starts in San Antonio with Cotton Batting Ball”, source and date unknown but 1913 or earlier, Baseball file, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
[v] Victoria Advocate, September 3, 1909.
[vi] “Southwest Texas League”, Beeville Bee, August 25, 1911.
[vii] Beeville Bee, May 27, 1910.
THE GREAT GALLIA continued
THE GREAT GALLIA: part two 1922 forward, the minor leagues
Gallia led Mahanoy City to the 1922 league championship of the Hard Coal League of Pennsylvania[i], where his “drop, fast curve and puzzling inshoot … completely buffaloed” opponents[ii]. The setting was far different from the big show, in which Gallia and his family lived in fashionable surroundings, eating in the best of restaurants. He coached the Racine (Wisconsin) Athletics for two years, the local paper describing him as “a rather quiet, unassuming man as baseball managers go”[iii]. In 1926, he played for Lowell in the Boston Twi-Light League. By the end of this season, Bert Gallia decided it was time to return home full-time to South Texas[iv].
Baseball remained in Gallia’s blood and the people of South Texas were thrilled to have the opportunity to again see the lean right-hander throw his stuff at batters. There had been little opportunity for local folks to follow the hometown hero’s major league career as there were no radio broadcasts of major league games until 1921 and newspaper coverage of major league baseball in small town newspapers was non-existent. While Woodsboro remained a small stop along the railroad, times were changing. Prohibition had closed down the town’s saloons and the oil boom was just getting underway on the Central Texas Coast. The Houston Oil Company contracted with Bud Coyle Drilling Company to drill for them in Refugio County. Coyle made the La Rosa Hotel in Woodsboro his headquarters and Gallia obtained employment as a roughneck on one of Coyle’s rigs[v]. Coyle shared Gallia’s passion for baseball and they organized the Gulf Coast Community League. Gallia led tiny Woodsboro to two consecutive pennants in 1927 and 1928[vi]. Just as the discovery of significant oil in Refugio County in July 1928 transformed the county, the return of Gallia brought Woodsboro to athletic prominence.
While Melvin Gallia missed the thrill of the big show, there was plenty of competition. But baseball on the Texas Coast, as across the nation, remained segregated. There were no Blacks nor Latins in the Gulf Coast League in which Woodsboro competed. Baseball great Rube Foster of Calvert, Texas had formed the Negro National Baseball League in Chicago in 1919. The Texas Negro League and other smaller regional leagues for African-Americans formed shortly thereafter. Coastal newspapers like the Victoria Advocate offered good coverage of not only their well-regarded Anglo white team, but also of the Victoria Black Rosebuds[vii] and the Victoria Mexican Eagles[viii]. But interracial competition was non-existent.
In the summer of 1929, ever-powerful Victoria was cruising to another fine season. After the local Victoria nine had crushed Yorktown by a score of 17-6, the Victoria Advocate noted that Port Lavaca had lost at home to Woodsboro. Port Lavaca was the only team offering much competition against Victoria and was almost unbeatable at home, leading the Advocate to conclude “Woodsboro must have an unusually strong club”[ix]. The mainstay of the Woodsboro team was thirty-eight year old Bert Gallia, whom local folks referred to as “Old Bones”, a reference to his 165 pounds spread over his six foot frame. The scrappy Gallia had Woodsboro hustling every minute of the game. The Piehl brothers, Lon at short and Lee at first base, batted first and second in the lineup. Lonnie Piehl, “The Little German Flash” [x], had received offers in the past to play professionally and “could step right up into any Texas League team”.[xi] Amos “PeeWee” Demmer played rightfielder and batted third. Demmer, a big man of 250 pounds, held bragging rights for the longest ball ever hit in Woodsboro[xii]. His size belied his quickness and speed and PeeWee’s sensational catches on the run were his trademark. The Woodsboro Times suggested that the fielding of PeeWee Demmer alone was worth the price of admission[xiii]. Demmer attributed his athletic ability to the many hours he spent following his team of horses led by Old Beck up and down half-mile rows of corn on his farm in Woodsboro[xiv]. Gallia hit cleanup, followed by Rafe Thomas, the center fielder and catcher Pat Autry, who had tried out with the Chicago White Sox[xv]. The Hausmann boys at second and third and Maurice Luker[xvi] in left field rounded out the lineup for Woodsboro.
Victoria and Woodsboro clashed at Victoria’s Rio Vista Park on July 28. Victoria started Art Salziger, their ace pitcher, known for his fast moving curveball off the outside corner[xvii]. On the following morning, the Victoria Advocate declared “Major Leaguer Too Much For Rosebuds”[xviii], citing “The score in the baseball game yesterday was Gallia 3, Rosebuds 1” and “There is no mistaking the fact that Bert Gallia is still a great pitcher”. PeeWee Demmer contributed three hits and tiny Woodsboro established a claim as a regional baseball power.
Woodsboro opened play in 1930 in the South Coast League, defeating Corpus Christi 1-0 on the heroics of PeeWee Demmer at the plate[xix]. In early May, Woodsboro surprised a well-regarded team from Texas Chiropractic College of San Antonio, the Times declaring “Bert Gallia, our noble hurler, had the boys from the Mission City hoodooed practically throughout the session, his fast ones were plenty hot and his curves did everything but say the A B C’s.”[xx] PeeWee Demmer again led the Woodsboro sticks, getting two hits in two at-bats. The San Antonio Hawks returned to Woodsboro and avenged their previous loss with a thrilling 3-2 win when Gallia tired in the eight[xxi]. In the following week against Beeville, Gallia held the Bees to four hits, having struck out seven going into the ninth with the score 1-to-1. But again Gallia tired and the Bees jumped on him for five runs in the ninth[xxii].
The Beeville squad was beginning to reflect the ethnic changes that were taking place on the Texas Coast. Phil Ramirez managed the Beeville nine and Pomerajo was his standout pitcher[xxiii]. In the same month that Beeville faced Gallia’s Woodsboro squad, they traveled to San Antonio for a doubleheader with the Cuban Stars, a Mexican all-star team “generally considered to be one of the fastest aggregations of baseball players in amateur or semi-professional ranks.”[xxiv]
Woodsboro suffered through a three-game losing streak before beating Yoakum. Gallia pitched so well in that game, despite the pain, that the hometown sportswriter wrote, “ … if his arm was sore we would like to see it sore throughout the remainder of the playing season.”[xxv] Gallia began to give up the pitching slot to play the outfield. In a game with Corpus Christi on June 12, “The Mighty Gallia hit a line drive to center and labeled it for two bags, scoring the Piehl boys” and again later “ … socked one for two bases … like he used to hit – hard and rising.”[xxvi] When an all-star team from Beeville, led by former Cotton Leaguer Bill Kring, came to town to play the Woodsboro nine, Gallia returned to the mound. The Woodsboro Times noted, “ … Woodsboro respected no stars or leaguers … Gallia of Woodsboro was invincible in the box….”[xxvii]. He struck out Beeville slugger Wayne Gore with men on second and third and centerfielder Baron Bee with three consecutive curves.
Gallia spent the winter of 1931 re-organizing the team[xxviii]. “Peewee” Demmer retired, his role as team slugger assumed by Rice Institute standout Jack Modisett. The Piehl boys returned, as did Autry, Skeen, Luker and Modlin all returned[xxix]. In March, Gallia drove up U. S. Highway 77 to Victoria for an organizational meeting to form a new league, the Southwest Texas Amateur Baseball League. Port Lavaca, Edna, Yoakum, Goliad and Tivoli joined Woodsboro. League play began April 12 with twenty-one Sunday games to be played[xxx].
The 1931 season began well for Woodsboro. After the Athletics won their third victory in three outings, the Woodsboro Times declared “The home town boys seem to be getting back into their old time stride after a slight slump last year”[xxxi]. Woodsboro’s success attracted attention and the next game was played before a large crowd of enthusiastic fans. Gallia pitched a complete nine innings against Edna in the fourth game, striking out thirteen. The game was a shutout until the top of the sixth when an Edna player made it to first on a dropped third strike and then scored to give Edna a 1-0 lead going into the bottom of the ninth. After Weaver singled for Woodsboro and Skeen walked, Modlin, pinch-hitting for Lee Piehl with two outs, hit a two-strike pitch into left field, scoring both runners and winning the game for Woodsboro. The Times called it “one of the best ball games played on the Woodsboro diamond for many a day.”[i]
The next week against Goliad, anchored by the Angerstein boys, Gallia again pitched nine innings, striking out seven and walking none while Woodsboro shelled the Goliad hurlers for sixteen hits. Woodsboro won 13-6 for their fifth straight victory of the year[ii]. Another victory upped the record to 6-0. But Woodsboro’s dreams of an unbeaten season vanished when a tough Port Lavaca team drove a tired Gallia from the mound in the eighth inning with the score tied 2-2[iii]. Woodsboro avenged the loss by beating Port Lavaca at home the following week. The game was a thriller with Woodsboro coming from behind to score two runs in the ninth to win. Countless errors caused the Times to refer to the contest as “one of the best punk baseball games ever witnessed in this section”[iv]. “Old Bones” Gallia went the distance for Woodsboro, striking out ten. It was the bright spot of an otherwise dismal week, the Piehl’s cotton gin in Woodsboro having burned down on Wednesday morning[v].
Woodsboro and Victoria, tied for first place, faced off the following Sunday. A large number of fans made the trip down U. S. 77 from Victoria for the game at Woodsboro’s Rooke Field. The game was so one-sided in favor of Victoria that no one delivered the score card to the office of the Woodsboro Weekly Times after the game. The editor simply declared a “trouncing”[vi]. Woodsboro had a chance to even the score at Victoria the following Sunday. Another sellout crowd gathered in the grandstands with many more along the foul lines. It was Victoria’s Al Salziger against Woodsboro’s Bert Gallia. The game “ … had the entire section on its toes”[vii]. Kelly Scott, Woodsboro’s leadoff hitter, beat out an infield hit to begin the fourth. Pat Autry then beat out a bunt and moved Scott to second. Jack Modisett advanced both men into scoring position with a sacrifice. Rafe Thomas, Woodsboro’s cleanup hitter, popped out to short. With two outs, Lee Piehl beat out a grounder to third base and both runners scored. The Woodsboro paper attributed the runs to a squeeze play, while the Victoria paper referred to the turning point as a muffed grounder. In the seventh, Victoria’s Dewitte Holleman, who had played Class A ball[viii], hit a booming home run. But that was all the Rosebuds could muster, Gallia giving up only three other hits. Woodsboro won the game 2-1 and took sole possession of first place[ix].
Victoria had one last chance at Woodsboro, the winner to claim the league for the first half of the season. The Times warned fans to show up early if they wanted a seat in the grandstands. A quarter page ad in the newspaper advised “For Real Thrills, Be There Sunday”. Admission was 50 cents. The revival commencing at First Baptist Church that same day had serious competition.
Victoria again put ace pitcher Al Salziger on the mound and Gallia was the man for Woodsboro. Woodsboro led 3-1 when Victoria loaded the bases in the eighth with one out. An easy grounder was thrown wild to home, allowing two runs across the plate to tie the score. Moments later, a wild infield throw allowed the go-ahead run to score for Victoria[x]. Gallia pitched well, striking out eleven and holding Holleman to an 0-for-4 day at the plate. The Timesdeclared “ … a hard luck game for Gallia of Woodsboro, who pitched a cracking game from start to finish”.[xi] Victoria won the first half of the season.
As the second half began, Gallia was forced to acknowledge the limits of his arm. Jack Modisett assumed the pitching chores and led the Athletics to victory[xii]. He pitched again a week later and beat Port Lavaca in a game in which Kelly Scott hit a homerun and Pat Autry hit two. Spirits were high, as Port Lavaca had defeated Victoria on the previous Sunday[xiii]. Later in the month, Woodsboro again won with Modisett on the pitching mound. Gallia played left field, hitting 2-for-3 with a double and a triple and scoring twice in a 5-3 victory[xiv]. All eyes were on the August 2 game against Victoria.
A rested Bert Gallia took the mound against Victoria. He gave up no hits and no runs, falling just two walks short of a perfect game. The Times pronounced “Old Bert Gallia was in rare form, striking out 16 of the Buds, and was in complete control of the game from start to finish.”[xv] The Athletics batters roughed up the Victoria hurlers, scoring twelve runs for a resounding 12-0 kayo of the first half champs[xvi]. There was joy in Woodsboro as the hometown nine moved into a tie for first place with Edna.
Woodsboro and Victoria met again on the following Sunday, both sides primed for the re-match. In the first three innings, Woodsboro shelled Art Salziger, Victoria’s ace pitcher for seven hits, including three triples. Woodsboro with six runs on the scoreboard seemed certain to again defeat Victoria. Victoria manager W. C. Erwin replaced Salziger on the pitching mound with Koch, the Victoria catcher. Koch stopped Woodsboro cold, while Victoria scored two runs and four more with a big inning in the seventh to tie the game. The game went into extra innings with Gallia and Koch locked in a pitching duel. Woodsboro had yet to score on Koch. Woodsboro finally scored and went ahead in the eleventh. Victoria responded in its half of the inning to tie the game. In the bottom of the twelfth with two outs, Weaver singled off a tired Gallia. He advanced on a Texas Leaguer by Riley, bringing up Harrison, who was having the game of his life for Victoria. Harrison, an average hitter, already had four big hits in the game off the Great Gallia. Harrison came through with the big clutch hit, winning the game for Victoria, 8-7 in twelve innings. Koch and Harrison’s unexpected heroics overshadowed Gallia’s performance on the mound, which included fifteen strikeouts[xvii].
Woodsboro played well the remainder of the second half with Jack Modisett leading the league in hitting and Kelly Scott third in that category. At the end of the second half, Woodsboro and Edna were tied for first-place with two rained-out games to be played. For six weeks, Woodsboro refused to play a weekday game or a Sunday doubleheader, perhaps hoping to utilize Gallia pitching in more than one game against the powerful Edna lineup. Ultimately, Edna was awarded the second half and defeated Victoria in the end-of-season playoff championship[xviii].
By the beginning of the 1932 baseball season, Gallia was forty-one years old and had been throwing hard for well over twenty years. The hard-fought campaigns of 1930 and 1931 were particularly wearing. There were no anti-inflammatory drugs to ease pain and discomfort and Gallia’s problems with his arm steadily increased. The Great Depression dominated the national psyche. Major league attendance fell dramatically as people simply could not afford the tickets. Local baseball was what the people needed and wanted.
Woodsboro played the 1932 baseball season in the Gulf Coast Amateur League with Corpus Christi, Refugio, Ingleside, Aransas Pass and Taft. Bert Gallia’s most serious challenge came from a thirty-three year old pitcher named Johnny Lynum. Lynum had been an outstanding collegiate pitcher in 1928, leading Southwestern University to an upset victory over Uncle Billy Disch’s University of Texas squad. Lynum had turned down a contract to play in the Cubs organization[i] and most recently starred with Kingsville in the Missouri-Pacific League. His friend, Hally Crumpton, convinced him to play for Taft. Taft boasted an outstanding infield with Hally at shortstop[ii] and his brother David at second. Hally had played AAA ball and David had turned down a professional contract to stay home to work and play ball with his family[iii].
Woodsboro and Taft both started strong at the beginning of the season. On May 12, days before his first game against Gallia, Lynum wrote a feature for the Taft Tribune:
“Just wondering how it would feel to get beat. We haven’t been beaten in such a long time … You have often read and heard of ‘cocky nines’ but if you will take a look at the Taft Tigers you will really see one. It takes a cocky nine to hustle like the Tigers …”[iv]
That Sunday, Taft and Woodsboro, tied for first place, met at Rooke Field in Woodsboro. Not on earned run had been scored on Lynum and he was leading the league in hitting. Woodsboro’s Modisett was second[v]. A large contingent of Taft fans drove up to Woodsboro for the game. Many others drove in from nearby towns to see the match up. The game was a pitcher’s duel, as anticipated. Taft scored first when speed merchant Lynum singled, stole second and scored on Louie Lawler’s single. Woodsboro evened the score when May singled, was sacrificed to second and scored on a close play at the plate when Clark singled to right. In the seventh inning, Neumann got his second hit of the day and scored when Rafe Thomas doubled. Taft threatened in the ninth when Lynum singled and moved to second on a Lawler single with only one out. But Gallia tightened up and retired the side for a 2-1 win[vi]. A sportswriter wrote: “Bert Gallia pitched a masterful game. He threw the fastest ball Sunday that we have ever seen him throw.”[vii] Lynum and his Tigers felt the sting of defeat.
Woodsboro and Taft shared the league lead as the first half wound down in mid June 1932. They met on June 19 to begin a three-game playoff to determine the winner of the first half. In the first game, Woodsboro jumped on Lynum for a run in the fourth inning when Clark doubled and scored on Modisett’s single. Gallia pitched nearly flawless ball, giving up only two hits, both to Hally Crumpton. In the sixth inning, Hally singled with no outs, went to second on a passed ball and was sacrificed to third by Lynum. With the squeeze play on, Lawler was called out for stepping out of the batter’s box. Gallia struck out Hartt to end the inning and Woodsboro went on to win 1-0. Gallia finished the game with ten strikeouts. Taft sportswriter “Speed” Sanders wrote afterwards:
“We hate to pan a ballplayer for fanning out when he is facing Bert Gallia for that is no disgrace at all. The Woodsboro veteran has found many a good ballplayer during his twenty-five years in baseball – eight of them in the big show. In the previous game with Taft, Gallia came in with his curve ball when he got two strikes on the batter. Sunday the Tigers went to Woodsboro determined to watch for the curve ball on two strikes but Gallia was wise and after he had a 2-0 or 2-1 count he came straight down the middle with a fastball and in most cases the Tigers were off balance and unable to do anything with it. It doesn’t pay to outguess a pitcher – with Gallia in the box one never knows what is coming next.”[viii]
One Taft ballplayer remembered:
“Gallia still had plenty on his pitches … He threw pretty fast when he wanted … threw that leg up pretty high and he’d go way back. It was deceptive. You couldn’t tell where that ball was coming from … He mixed ‘em up …. Threw to the outside corner a lot …“[ix]
Woodsboro and Taft played again on June 26. Gallia rested his arm and Taft won 2-1 in extra innings[x]. Game three of the first-half playoff was played on July 3, 1932. Taft jumped to an early four run lead and seemed certain victors. But Woodsboro climbed back. In the seventh inning, with Woodsboro down by one run, Modisett and Gallia singled and scored on a double by May to win the game and clinch the first half of the season[xi].
Taft took an early lead in the second half of the season. Woodsboro struggled, as Gallia, trying to rest his ailing arm, did not pitch many games. A controversy ensued in mid-season when Taft signed hard-hitting Wayne Gore of the Corpus Christi Internationals. One fan remembers Gore as “a big guy who could hit the hell out of the ball and run like a wild horse on the bases.”[xii] Gallia appealed to the league secretary, who refused to approve Gore’s release. Gallia added fuel to the fire, suggesting the arrangements between Taft and Gore might not have been consistent with the league’s amateur status[xiii]. The Taft Tribune insisted that if the Tigers were able to pay money for services, they would go after someone like Chicago Cubs star Rogers Hornsby[xiv].
Woodsboro and Taft met on August 7. The rivalry had become intense. Gallia was determined to pitch against Taft and started the game on the mound for Woodsboro. Taft scored in the first inning when Lynum got on base on an infield error. The speedy Lynum then scored from first base when Louie Lawler’s drive to rightfield bounced over the outfielder’s head. From that time until the seventh inning, it appeared that Taft would win the game on the freak bounce. In the Woodsboro seventh, Modisett struck out but was safe at first after Lawler missed the third strike. Lawler redeemed himself by picking off Modisett with his rifle arm. Gallia singled and advanced to second on Newman’s single. After Lynum struck out Pat Autry, May singled to center to score Gallia and tie the score at 1-1. In the ninth, Taft’s Pal Maurin doubled and advanced to third but was unable to score. Lynum did not allow Woodsboro a hit from the ninth inning to the fifteenth inning and retired the sides by strikeouts in the thirteenth. Gallia was equally fearsome for Woodsboro. In the fourteenth, Maurin singled and advanced to third with only one out, but again Taft could not push the run across.
In the Woodsboro half of the fifteenth inning, Pat Autry go on base on an infield error. May hit a fly ball to right field. Taft’s Palmyre Maurin, a Frenchman, raced in, so intent on doubling up Autry that he dropped the ball and Woodsboro ended up with men on second and third base. Lynum walked Skeen to load the bases. With two strikes and two balls, Woodsboro’s Lee Piehl, the Athletics’ number eight hitter, singled to left to win the game[xv].
Taft won the second half of the season, setting up the league playoff with first-half winner Woodsboro. The first game of the 1932 Gulf Coast Amateur League Championship was played on September 11. Taft recruited and signed Tommy Jordan of Aransas Pass for the playoffs. The Taft Tribune called Jordan “one of the best fielding first baseman in baseball – bar none”[xvi]. Jordan had played all season for Bartlesville (Oklahoma) in the Western League, hitting twenty-two triples and stealing forty bases as their leadoff hitter. Lynum inserted Jordan in the cleanup spot in the Taft batting order[xvii].
Sixteen-year-old Woodrow Crumpton, younger brother of infield sensations Hally and David, had grown up playing ball with his older brothers and always went along with them to their games. On that particular day, Woodrow got the nod to start in left field for the absent Noel Brittain. Brittain was a big man, affectionately called “Old Lectrolux” by his teammates, making reference to the large gas-powered refrigerator of the time that had no moving parts. Crumpton, in contrast, was a gazelle.
The game was a classic Woodsboro-Taft matchup with Gallia and Lynum pitching masterfully and the fielders making great defensive plays. Woodsboro nearly scored early on when Rafe Thomas tripled with one out and Fred Autry walked. But Lynum got Clark to pop up attempting to squeeze Thomas in and Autry was doubled off first base. The score was zero-to-zero after eight full innings of play. In the Taft half of the ninth inning, the speedy Lynum beat out a bunt down the third base line. He stole second and went to third on Jordan’s fly to centerfield. He scored on a Gallia pitch that got past catcher Pat Autry. Pal Maurin then beat out an infield hit, went to second base on an error and advanced to third when an attempted pickoff throw went wide. David Crumpton then singled to score Maurin and give Taft a big 2-0 lead.
Woodsboro had its big bats up to hit in their half of the ninth. Clark singled with one out. Jack Modisett, Woodsboro’s best hitter, was up next. Modisett hit a sharp line drive. Sixteen-year-old Woodrow Crumpton took off running and made a brilliant one-handed falling shoestring catch. “I come up with it all right”, Woodrow Crumpton recalls, adding “They would have run me off if I had missed it. He’d (Modisett) have gone for two bases maybe three if I had missed it. We didn’t have fences in those days and that ball would have gone a long ways.”[xviii] The kid was Taft’s hero of the day.
But in the aftermath of the loss, Woodsboro protested Taft’s use of Jordan, a man who had not played a single regular season game for Taft. Taft’s first victory was declared no contest and re-played on September 18. Again the game was hard-fought. Former Woodsboro ballplayer Amos “PeeWee” Demmer umpired behind home plate. At one point, Demmer called what even the Taft Tribune referred to as a “bad strike” on a pitch to Woodsboro shortstop Scott Clark. Clark was well known for his “famous grin” and highly thought of by even opposing fans as a player who never “rawhided” umpires. He looked back at Demmer and “did nothing but grin”[xix].
In the second inning of that game, Taft’s Pal Maurin singled to right field. He made his move to steal second and catcher Pat Autry’s throw hit him in the leg and careened off into the outfield. By the time Woodsboro recovered the ball, the speedy Maurin had scored and Taft led 1-0. In the third inning, Woodsboro’s Lee “Spotlight” Piehl led off with a triple. Taft’s Johnny Lynum struck out Fred Autry, got Clark out on a pop up while attempting to bunt Piehl in and struck out Lonnie Piehl. In the eighth inning, Woodsboro’s Pat Autry hit a Texas Leaguer for a double and moved to third base on a passed ball. Autry was injured on the slide and replaced by a Brem to pinch-run. Lynum picked Brem off to end the threat. The game ended 1-0. Lynum struck out eleven Woodsboro hitters, including Modisett three times.
On October 2, Woodsboro and Taft met again at Rooke Park in Woodsboro. The game was tight until the top of the fourth inning. Taft jumped on Gallia for seven runs and the game was essentially over at that point. Gallia was suffering, his arm too tired to do more than just throw the ball across the plate. The headline in the next edition of the Taft Tribune read “Tigers Defeat Galliamen 8-0 to win Gulf Coast Championship”[xx]. Lynum had thrown his third straight shutout of Woodsboro. Taft sportswriter “Speed Sanders wrote “ … very few pitchers are able to beat Bert Gallia and his gang when a championship is at stake”[xxi]. Lynum went on to throw a two-hitter[xxii] to lead Taft to victory over Victoria, champions of the Southwest Texas Amateur League[xxiii].
There was little, if any, interplay between the Anglo teams of the Texas Coast and the Black or Latin teams. Lynum used to take the Taft squad south of the border once a season to play a doubleheader against Monterey. In the late 1930’s, an aging star from San Antonio named Naranjo pitched for Taft[xxiv]. That was nearly the extent of interplay.
The 1932 season was Bert Gallia’s last great year. The Great Gallia was forty-one years old and his arm was worn. He struggled along for a couple of more seasons. By the 1934 season, while newspapers along the coast referred to Gallia as “the old master”[xxv] and “the grand old man”[xxvi], his famed fastball and curves no longer bedazzled. Gallia rarely pitched and Woodsboro did not win a single game. He took the mound in the ninth inning to finish a game in May with his team down 16-5[xxvii]. Gallia umpired the bases in mid-July while Beeville thrashed his Woodsboro club[xxviii]. A week later, he took the mound for Woodsboro, determined to hold the line, only to lose to Beeville by a score of 20-0[xxix]. When Woodsboro dropped out of the Southwest Texas League in August, a sportswriter for Beeville’s Bee-Picayune wrote:
“ … show me a more game or better bunch of sports in this league. There’s not a club in south Texas that could have taken the beatings which the Athletics have suffered in the past two years and yet stick in place and scrap as they have.”[xxx]
There was no glorious finale for former major leaguer Bert Gallia. He slipped out of the limelight, accepting the end of his career with the class that had typified it throughout. A reporter who interviewed him just three years later noted that the unassuming Gallia did not talk much of his pitching highlights, but did recall with amusement his major league record of once hitting three batters in a single inning[xxxi].
The many amateur and semi-professional leagues across rural America disappeared over time as radio and, ultimately, television brought increased coverage of major league play to the nation. The big leagues began to racially integrate in 1947. The major-affiliated leagues, including the Texas League, followed suit in the early 1950’s. One can only imagine the impact that might have been made across rural America, if small-town baseball had still been thriving at the time.
Melvin Gallia worked in the oilfields around Woodsboro as long as he was able. In the 1950’s, he moved to the little town of Natalia outside of San Antonio to be close to his only daughter, Helen. He spent the remaining years of his life there. Gallia worked as an electrical contractor until he retired. He graciously did work for many in Natalia that could not afford to pay him for his services.
Few people in Natalia appreciated that Melvin Gallia had been a major league baseball star in his younger days. Gallia followed major league baseball with great interest, reading the sports section of the newspaper every day. But he was a personal man and rarely discussed baseball with others. He had lost contact with all of his friends from major league baseball from the day he went back home to Texas to stay. Major League Baseball invited Gallia to the All-Star Game every year, but he never did attend one[i]. Yet, the modest Gallia was quietly proud of his athletic accomplishments. A scrapbook of old newspaper clippings was among his most valued possessions. In the early 1960’s, he loaned the scrapbook to a friend, whose house burned down that night. Gallia was devastated.
Melvin Gallia, like many country boys, did not talk much, although he did enjoy a good joke. He did not drink or party, preferring the wild life of the great outdoors as a hunter and fisherman. He loved children and they flocked around him wherever he went in Natalia. He would offer them pennies or pieces of candy from his pocket. He and a partner opened the first movie theater in Natalia. The theater did well for a couple of years until someone opened a drive-in movie theater in the next town. He took out the seats and converted his theater into a roller-skating rink. Lupe Losa grew up in Natalia and knew the old gentleman in town as Grandpa Gallia. She remembers him treating her as one of his own daughters[ii]. She knew that he had been a baseball player, but, like most of the residents of the small town, never appreciated just how successful he had once been in his career. “He was the quiet type. He never bragged about himself.”
Melvin Gallia was a devout Catholic for his entire life, a reflection of his Czech heritage. He was active in the local church community of the parish of St. John Bosco, where he regularly attended Mass alongside Natalia’s many Hispanics. He is remembered by at least one person as “the best parishioner we ever had”[iii]. The church members met for a time in a local home. When the congregation became too large, Gallia allowed the church to hold Mass at his skating rink. Later, he played an important role in raising money to build Natalia a church and he donated his time to run the electrical wiring for the new church.
Melvin Gallia died in 1976. Few who knew him imagined that the old man had once challenged the likes of Ruth and Cobb. Ironically, even after Gallia’s passing, some who did know of the man’s exploits thought of him as an Hispanic ballplayer. One writer, who contacted the family, was disappointed that he would not be able to include Gallia in his study of early Hispanic baseball players of Texas. In fact, as a Czech-Texan, Bert Gallia was the ethnic side of baseball in his day.
The Great Gallia has been long forgotten along the central Texas coast where he once thrilled crowds of cheering fans. Woodsboro no longer fields a baseball team, nor does Washington, the nation’s capital. That was in another time when men played baseball for the love of the game and nearly every town, even towns the size of Woodsboro, fielded a team. Sunday afternoon was about baseball and those who could afford the price of admission paid 25 cents to get out of the hot Texas sun and sit in the covered grandstands. It was a time when baseball truly was the national passion.
THE END
[i] Personal communication with Mrs. Michael Larkin, the former Helen Gallia.
[ii] Personal communication with Mrs. Lupe Losa of Natalia, Texas.
[iii] Ibid.
[i] “Speed’s Sport Sparks”, Taft Tribune, July 28, 1932.
[ii] Victoria Advocate, October 7, 1932.
[iii] Personal communication with Mr. Woodrow Crumpton of Sheridan, Texas.
[iv] Lynum, Johnny, “With Ease”, Taft Tribune, May 12, 1932.
[v] Taft Tribune, June 23, 1932.
[vi] Taft Tribune, May 19, 1932.
[vii] Taft Tribune, May 19, 1932.
[viii] Taft Tribune, June 23, 1932.
[ix] Personal communication with Mr. Woodrow Crumpton of Sheridan, Texas.
[x] Taft Tribune, June 30, 1932.
[xi] Taft Tribune, July 7, 1932.
[xii] Personal communication with Mr. Charles H. Mayo of Taft, Texas.
[xiii] Taft Tribune, August 11, 1932.
[xiv] Taft Tribune, August 11, 1932.
[xv] Taft Tribune, August 11, 1932.
[xvi] “Speeds Sport Sparks”, Taft Tribune, September 15, 1932.
[xvii] Taft Tribune, August 18, 1932.
[xviii] Personal communication with Mr. Woodrow Crumpton of Sheridan, Texas.
[xix] Taft Tribune, September 22, 1932.
[xx] Taft Tribune, October 6, 1932.
[xxi] Taft Tribune, October 6, 1932.
[xxii] Victoria Advocate, October 10, 1932.
[xxiii] Victoria Advocate, October 7, 1932.
[xxiv] Personal communication with Mr. Woodrow Crumpton and Mr. C. H. Mayo.
[xxv] Bee-Picayune, May 24, 1934.
[xxvi] Bee-Picayune, July 26, 1934.
[xxvii] Bee-Picayune, May 24, 1934.
[xxviii] Bee-Picayune, July 19, 1934.
[xxix] Bee-Picayune, July 26, 1934.
[xxx] White, Coy, “Speaking of Sports”, Bee-Picayune, August 9, 1934.
[xxxi] Woodsboro News, October 8, 1937.
[i] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 8, 1931.
[ii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 15, 1931.
[iii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 29, 1931.
[iv] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 5, 1931.
[v] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 5, 1931.
[vi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 12, 1931.
[vii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 19, 1931.
[viii] Victoria Advocate, July 18, 1929.
[ix] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 19, 1931.
[x] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 26, 1931.
[xi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 26, 1931.
[xii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, July 10, 1931.
[xiii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, July 17, 1931.
[xiv] Woodsboro Weekly Times, July 31, 1931.
[xv] Woodsboro Weekly Times, August 7, 1931.
[xvi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, August 7, 1931.
[xvii] Victoria Advocate, August 10, 1931.
[xviii] Victoria Advocate, September 28, 1931.
[i] From undated clipping in Gallia scrapbook.
[ii] From undated clipping in Gallia scrapbook.
[iii] From undated clipping in Gallia scrapbook.
[iv] Floyd.
[v] Refugio County History Book Committee of the Texas Homemakers Council of Refugio County, The History of Refugio County Texas (Curtis Media Corp., 1985), 97.
[vi] Floyd. Huson, 338.
[vii] “Victoria and Yoakum Colored Teams Play 11-Inning Tie Game”, Victoria Advocate, June 14, 1927.
[viii] “Seventh Straight Game is Won by Mexican Eagles”, Victoria Advocate, June 13, 1927.
[ix] Victoria Advocate, July 22, 1929.
[x] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 13, 1930.
[xi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 13, 1930.
[xii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 30, 1930.
[xiii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 13, 1930.
[xiv] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 6, 1930.
[xv] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 30, 1930.
[xvi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, April 25, 1930.
[xvii] Victoria Advocate, September 19, 1932.
[xviii] Victoria Advocate, July 29, 1929.
[xix] Woodsboro Weekly Times, April 25, 1930.
[xx] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 2, 1930.
[xxi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 23, 1930.
[xxii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 30, 1930.
[xxiii] Beeville Bee-Picayune, May 29, 1930.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 6, 1930.
[xxvi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, June 13, 1930.
[xxvii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, July 25, 1930.
[xxviii] Woodsboro Weekly Times, February 27, 1931.
[xxix] Woodsboro Weekly Times, April 24, 1931.
[xxx] Woodsboro Weekly Times, March 13, 1931.
[xxxi] Woodsboro Weekly Times, May 1, 1931.
MORE ON THE GREAT GALLIA
GALLIA AND HIS WOODSBORO SQUAD
GALLIA AND HIS WOODSBORO SQUAD
GALLIA AND HIS WOODSBORO SQUAD
This article is available in its entirety
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on JSTOR
BERT GALLIA IN HIS GLORY DAYS
GALLIA AND HIS WOODSBORO SQUAD
GALLIA AND HIS WOODSBORO SQUAD
GALLIA WITH HIS
WASHINGTON SENATORS TEAMMATES
INCLUDING HALL OF FAME PITCHER
WALTER JOHNSON