Did you know?
I’ve frequently mentioned the baseball legends who’ve displayed their enormous talents on local ball fields.
Dizzy Dean, Honus Wagner, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, the Homestead Grays, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Giants have all delighted local baseball fans over the years. That was the case nearly 89 years ago today.
“Brooklyn Dodgers defeat Elks 9-4 in real game,” read the headline on the sports page of the Uniontown Morning Herald on June 4, 1925.
The Brooklyn Dodgers, who’d been the National League runners-up the previous season, had battled the Uniontown Elks at Elks Park until late in the game, when it was reported that the “Dodgers Wait Until the Ninth Before Unleashing the Big Attack.”
Before that, the Dodgers had only taken a slim 5-4 lead. Unfortunately, though, for the locals, the Dodgers scored four runs in their half of the ninth inning.
That year, the Dodgers (Robins, Trolley Dodgers or, alternatively, the Brooklyn Base Ball Club) was managed by future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, Wilbert Robinson.
Another Uniontown baseball team suffered another loss, 125 years and two days ago, that could have made it part of national headlines. The Uniontown Evening Standard reported on its front page on May 31, 1889, that, “Only seven innings of the second game with the Johnstowns were played. The Boys had to leave on the 5:26 train and concluded that they had got enough. It was the worst drubbing they have yet received.”
The Uniontown baseball team was trailing Johnstown 7-1, when they decided to pack it in and head back to Uniontown.
That loss may have saved every team member’s life. That was the day of “The Great Flood of 1889.” The South Fork Dam gave way upstream from Johnstown, which resulted in 2,209 people losing their lives.
The Uniontown ballplayers, according to the report in the Evening Standard, boarded the train at 5:26. According to historical reports, the South Fork Dam had already collapsed at 3:10 p.m. The rushing waters then headed toward Johnstown, where it would eventually destroy the Conemaugh Viaduct and high railroad bridge.
It’s not known just how narrow the Uniontown team’s escape had been, but it seems quite clear that there hadn’t been much time to spare between their hasty departure and almost certain tragedy.
Culling through the reports of one of America’s most devastating tragedies, I’ve learned there were other floods that took place at the same time.
“Floods elsewhere,” read a headline I found as part of a number dispatches that were sent from cities across the northeast — just three days after the Johnstown Flood.
In Elmira, New York, 13 people had died as the result of flooding; 25 people had died at Sunbury, Pa.; while Bradford, Pa., Andover, N.Y., Wellsville, N.Y., Hornellsville, N.Y., and Canaseraga, N.Y., were all in danger of facing disaster because of heavy rains and rising waters.
Back in Johnstown, with the death toll estimates ranging from 3,000 (somewhat accurate), and 10,000 (wildly inaccurate), there were other serious concerns.
“Fiends in human form,” read one June 3 headline.
There were increasing reports that some “Hungarian Wretches” were caught “Plundering and Mutilating the Dead.”
“The robberies were simply frightful. Last night Hungarians patrolled the railroad, holding up many who passed. All day yesterday they were robbing bodies, cut fingers off to get rings and taking everything of value from the bodies. Ex-Mayor Dick is reported to have shot two Hungarians while at the work; two more were hanged by the infuriated people,” according to one item.
It’s obvious that retribution for such ghoulish behavior, in those days, was immediate and final.
On the front page of the June 3, 1889, edition of the Evening Standard, under the headline “Swift justice,” there was a dispatch from Pittsburgh that said, “Fifteen Ghouls Lynched or Driven Into the River — The Situation Grows Worse — Gov. Beaver Orders out the 14th Regt. (Regiment).”
The chief law enforcement officer in Kernville, Sheriff Dick, had called out a posse, which led to seven Hungarians who were caught robbing bodies to be thrown into the river. He also gave orders to “shoot or hang or drown all persons robbing the dead.”
It was also reported that the total number of people who’d been lynched, to date, had been 16.
Meanwhile, in Uniontown, it was reported that, “The citizens of our city are not behind those of other places in coming forward with substantial aid for ruined Johnstown.”
A committee had been formed at the courthouse, and already hundreds of dollars had been raised to help those people who had been caught in the snares of the deadly flood. There were also “goods of every description,” that were already on the way to help those people who had been left homeless.