Coming Home: Community Baseball in Cache Valley, Utah

Coming Home: Community Baseball in Cache Valley, Utah

By JESSIE L EMBRY and ADAM SETH DAROWSKI

I've read A. Bartlett Giamatti's analysis that baseball is a reflection of life in America. Our whole lives are about coming home. I'm not sure...we understood that. We knew baseball was a sport, but we took it very seriously or we were looked down on in the community. At least one day a week most people who were really good at baseball were considered the hierarchy of the community."1

Ernst L. Thayer's late nineteenth-century poem "Casey at the Bat" tells the story of proud Casey, who causes his team to lose a baseball game In the poem Casey arrogantly refuses to swing at two good pitches. He then swings at and misses the third. With Casey striking out, the ball game is over. The poem closes with the famous lines, "There was no joy in Mudville / Mighty Casey had struck out."2

"Casey at the Bat" refers to a time when baseball was the major recreational and social activity in many towns and cities across the United States At least once a week, usually on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, townsfolk gathered at the ball field to root for the home team These games bound communities together, crossing generational, religious, social, and economic barriers in remarkable ways Baseball helped build communities The story of the Cache Valley Baseball League provides a case study of how the game strengthened communities throughout the United States This paper -will discuss the development of that league, the value of the sport to the rural towns, and the reasons why, later, local baseball nearly vanished in the valley3 Community is a catchword in American society today From Hillary Rodham Clinton's catch-phrase "It takes a village to raise a child" to evolutionary psychologists' concerns that technology has made Americans too isolated and has caused depression and anxiety, Americans look back with nostalgia to rural villages where everyone knew each other While there are many definitions of community, sociologist Larry Lyon's three elements fit well: "people living together within a specific area, sharing common ties, and interacting with one another." Former major league baseball commissioner A Bartlett Giamatti explains how even one baseball game fits this definition: "Very soon the crowd is no crowd at all but a community, a small town of people sharing neither work nor pain nor deprivation nor anger but the common experience of being released to enjoy the moment."4

Many fear that this type of community has disappeared in American society People often do not share experiences or activities with their neighbors When did this shift take place? Historian Robert H. Wiebe's The Search for Order outlines a transfer bet-ween 1877 and 1920, arguing that while the Populist movement of the 1890s attempted to preserve community, the Progressives in the early 1900s represented a new middle class and a transfer of the "core" values to the national focus In a technological age where the focus is on the larger society, the local community vanishes Sports historians describe a similar transfer in the shift from town baseball to the major leagues Foster Rhea Dulles argues, "The small town -was the backbone of the nation in the closing decades of the past century," and sports played an important role "Everyone gathered at the ball park on a Saturday afternoon to watch the local team in action." But by the 1920s amateur playing was over, and Americans had become "a nation of onlookers. "Historian Benjamin G Rader agrees, referring to a transfer of baseball first from an informal game to a club (or town) sport and then to "a commercial, spectator-centered sport The formation of the National League in 1876 signaled the arrival of baseball as a business enterprise."5

Yet even with the creation of business baseball, local town teams continued, because baseball was a popular sport Long after 1876, Cache Valley men, women, and children gathered every Saturday or Sunday to play baseball or cheer for the home team. Cache Valley remained isolated; television as a form of entertainment came slowly to the area. So "weekly baseball games were important until the 1960s.Then a shift took place, with more focus on the national scene and professional sports But until then, baseball was one of the elements that held the small communities in northern Utah and southern Idaho together.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, agriculture was the most important industry in Cache Valley. Farming required a great deal of manual labor Rey Naegle, who was born in Cornish in 1937, recalled that the town had "approximately a hundred residents...and pretty nearly everybody there -were dairy farmers" who also raised hay, grain, sugar beets, and tomatoes, doing all the work by hand or with horses. "It was a lot of hard -work When we thought the work was done out in the field, then we would come in and milk the cows."6

But even earlier generations had found time to play Holidays in the last quarter of the nineteenth century included parades, speeches, games, and food "climaxed by a baseball game." Historian F. Ross Peterson explains that both baseball and softball had "a consistent history in the valley." By the 1890s Cache Valley towns had baseball teams Baseball rather than cricket came to be preferred in Utah and throughout the United States because "participants only needed a fairly level field upon which to play and minimal equipment—a stick and a ball." As a result, according to Peterson, "During the World War I years and the 1920s, Cache Valley seemed preoccupied with baseball."7 That tradition continued. According to Wallace Kohler, "who played in North Logan during the 1950s and 1960s, "Playing ball was about the only entertainment" because "we could go play ball for free if we had a ball Buying a glove was a big investment, but that was only once."8

Saturday or Sunday afternoons were set aside to play ball. Since most town residents were Mormons, some frowned on Sunday baseball, preferring a half-day holiday on Saturday.9 According to Naegle, "The farmers...would go work like dogs on Saturday up until noon Everything came to a halt. The ones that played baseball would go play. The others that didn't -would go -watch. Saturday afternoon -was the recreation part of the day." As a result, according to Marcell Pitcher, a Cornish baseball player, "Baseball was king" there Farmers would start work at "four o'clock in the morning on game day so as to have all the work done by noon." Cornish resident Verl M. Buxton added that this was an established pattern that even outsiders understood. Threshing crews who came to Cornish to harvest knew that everything stopped on Saturday afternoons.10

This pattern was true throughout northern Cache Valley Anthony Hall, from Lewiston, explained that even if his father had "hay out in the field, Saturday afternoon he went and played baseball." Farres Nyman of North Logan described some jobs like topping beets and irrigating that did not stop for baseball But in Cornish, according to Verl Buxton, even the irrigating stopped.11

While there had been earlier leagues, the Cache Valley Baseball League started in 1919 when the Commercial Club met "for the purpose of forming a county baseball league." Lewiston, Richmond, Logan, and Preston (Idaho) were the founding members "organized on the principles of clean sportsmanship [and] good baseball." Usually there was only one league, but in the 1930s and late 1940s and 1950s, the league was split because more towns fielded teams. The increased involvement in the 1930s matched a growing interest in town baseball throughout the United States. Sports historian Richard O. Davies explains," In the 1930s baseball took on a greater degree of importance because people were looking for inexpensive entertainment and diversion. "Times were hard, and baseball "provided a means of forgetting the sorry economic predicament for a few hours." Marcell Pitcher agreed: "We played ball [during the depression because] that didn't cost anything."12

Play stopped during World War II. There were games during the summer of 1941,the year of Pearl Harbor. In 1942,the Logan newspaper advertised softball, but it did not mention the Cache Valley Baseball League Vaughn Richardson of Smithfield, who received a farm deferment during the war, remembered there -were not enough men left to play baseball. By 1946, after the servicemen had returned home, they were eager to play and the league started up again Marcell Pitcher explained, "I don't remember just how it all came about I know as soon as we got home, -we couldn't wait until the snow "wasgone. We'd be out on the store corner. I can remember throwing balls back and forth just waiting for it to start.We then had the Cache Valley League organized." The newspaper reported in April 1948 that "play ball" was happening not only in the major leagues "Cache Valley baseball loop...-will knock the lid from its barrel of activity on Saturday afternoon when the 12 teams square off in the initial round of a prolonged 1 3 season.

The makeup of the Cache Valley League varied; twenty-six towns or companies fielded teams at some time between 1919 and 1966 Smithfield usually had a team in the league and also played in other leagues, often drawing players from other town teams. Logan sometimes had two teams in the league, but usually it had none, focusing instead on the Logan Collegians, who played in the Utah-Idaho League. Except during the years when the league was split in half, between eight and ten teams north of Logan in Utah and in southern Idaho played in the Cache Valley League. Towns that usually fielded baseball teams were Cornish, Clarkston, Hyde Park, Lewiston (sometimes two or three teams, the second team referred to as Southwest Lewiston and the third team as Lewiston Third, so named in reference to the LDS ward, although it was not a church-sponsored team), Trenton, Smithfield, and Richmond Towns that occasionally had teams were Logan, North Logan, and Newton in Utah and Preston, Franklin, Weston, and Fairview in Idaho. Teams usually got their start when a group of men who wanted to play baseball gathered together. Sometimes the town provided support; at other times the players financed their own teams Less often, businesses gave assistance.14

Each season was unique In May 1932 the Logan Herald Journal announced that the Lewiston team was "organized and ready for business They are anxious to play -with any team in Cache Valley."The first games reported that year did not seem to be league play, however, but by June the South Cache, North Cache, and Independent leagues were operating.15

The journal reported many games, but not all of them. As Richard V Hansen, a player on and then manager of the Smithfield Blue Sox team, explained, "The -winning team had to report the stuff in [to the paper] because the loser -will never do it."16 Some of the reports were quite flowery. When Cornish won an upset in 1936, the newspaper explained, "With their star hurler Kendall silencing the heavy guns of the Southwest Lewiston sluggers, Cornish eked out a 3 to 2 victory in one of the best Cache Valley league games of the season The Cornish hurler's work in the pinches was brilliant...cutting off the Lewiston hitters with only one run in the first and one in the fifth." Three years later, when Hyde Park beat North Logan 6—5 in ten innings, the paper reported, "When the dust of the battle had cleared away and the grim players walked off the diamond after the tell tale last frame. .Cache Valley baseball fans agreed that they had just seen about the best display of Valley circuit this season for tight playing and expert tactics."17

Baseball provided opportunities for players and fans to -work together, promoting the sense of community Just organizing a team was an act of community Vaughn Richardson and some friends went to the Smithfield City Council in 1937 and asked for money to start a baseball team. When the city council said that it had no money, the twelve players pooled their funds and purchased some balls, bats, and catcher equipment. After World War II the team members decided they wanted lights so they could play night games.They again went to the city council members, who again explained that they had no money. The players worked together, using money from the gate receipts to install lights in 1948.18

A Cache Valley League rule specified that players had to live in the town for which they played. In 1948 a dispute arose when North Logan beat Hyde Park 21-5 using a player who had moved The North Logan team argued that their player still -worked in town, but Hyde Park protested and was awarded the game. Later, the rule was changed, so in a few cases when a player moved out of town the team paid for his gas to come back and play For example, in the 1950sVerl Buxton went to carpentry school in Pocatello, Idaho, and came back to his hometown of Cornish for the Saturday games. Players who traveled for their jobs, such as Hyde Park's Wade Howell, who -worked for a highway construction company, usually came home for the baseball games. 19

The teams included boys in their early teens to men in their mid-forties As Rey Naegle explained, the teams were "made up of the farmers' boys, the farmers themselves, -whatever they could scrape up, whoever could throw a ball, use a bat, or field a ball." Stan Richardson from Smithfield remembered he started playing in 1937 -when he was eighteen; he continued to play until almost 1950. Even when he could no longer play, he managed the Smithfield team. Wade Howell was injured in World War II, and although he could still hit, he could not run, so he became the manager of Hyde Park's team But occasionally he would put himself in the game—and one time he hit a home run so he did not have to run the bases. Boys started playing as soon as they were good enough; age was not a factor. Ken Godfrey remembered that some boys started playing before he did; he himself started in his mid-teens because the Cornish team needed someone in the outfield.20

Anthony Hall's father played for the Lewiston team, and the whole family usually went to the games Anthony explained, "I was raised in a family that really liked baseball in the summer because that -was the only thing to do. I grew up with my dad telling me that he had taken me every Saturday as a little boy to watch him play." Hall did not remember seeing his dad play, but "that's the environment I grew up in It was baseball-oriented every Saturday afternoon in the community of Lewiston." Hall continued to go to games with his brother. In the early 1960s,when he was twelve, he and his fourteen-year-old brother -walked down to a game because the rest of the family could not go. The boys took their mitts in hopes of playing catch with a ball when it -was not in use That -week Lewiston did not have enough players to field a team, so the manager asked the Hall boys to play. Both boys did well, making some outstanding plays, and so they became part of the team.21

Baseball created a community because it involved not only the players but also the entire town. Whole families came to the games. Nancy Karren Bingham, whose father played for the Smithfield team, drove with her mother and siblings to the game. Her mother put a mattress in the back of their 1956 Chevy The family and many neighborhood children -watched from the car, and when Nancy got tired she would crawl in the back and fall asleep. She also sat under the scoreboard with other children and helped update the score. Eventually she started to watch the games. "I was very proud of my dad and loved to watch him play," she recalled.22

Farres Nyman remembered that his uncle Orvin Nyman managed the North Logan team, and when Farres was six years old Orvin asked him to be the team's official scorekeeper. Farres continued in that role and -was the team mascot until he was occasionally allowed to play after he turned fourteen. Wallace Kohler watched his father play on the North Logan team until he was old enough to play He loved going to the games not only for the entertainment but also for the gum that Orvin always had in his pocket for the children. Joyce Howell of Hyde Park remembered that everyone in town went to the games, but she was not as fond of baseball as the rest of the family was Her first memory is of the time she was three years old and ran home from the ballpark, worrying her family23

Many players later remembered that almost the whole town turned out for the games Ivan Christensen, who lived in Providence but played baseball for several towns during the 1950s, said, "Saturday afternoon -was baseball. Everybody came. The town would close down. They'd close the stores, and we'd have all the good townspeople there, cheering for their home team—They rolled up the side-walks until the game was over about six Then they'd go back to living again."24

Stan Richardson recalled," There would be a double or triple line of cars parked around the field. The grandstand would be full." In the 1950s an announcer, M. T. Van Orden, drove around Smithfield announcing, "Baseball tonight." Almost everyone could afford to come; in 1958 a family pass for the entire season in Smithfield cost $3.50.25

Anthony Hall remembered "a lot of people came to -watch" in Lewiston, and his father told him the fans -who "yelled the loudest and did the most cussing...were some of the ladies They really got into watching their men play baseball." Nancy Karren Bingham especially noticed "when the fans would cheer for the other team. It seemed to me that the crowds were much more vocal then and really mean-spirited." Vaughn Richardson remembered playing in a tournament where he "hit a home run with two men on base and won that one." As he was walking to the bench, "a lady friend I had been seeing jumped out of the bleachers, came running right out on the field, and gave me a big kiss. "When asked how that had happened, Richardson proudly explained, "You've got to be a hero to get along with beautiful girls."26

The game went on almost regardless of what happened Alvin Hamson, a newcomer to North Logan in the 1950s,joked that baseball was so important that the players would wait until the game was over to put out a fire. Several Cornish residents recalled Gib Baker, a prominent farmer and president of the Cornish team, who was such a devoted fan that he followed the team to all the games and sat on the bench with the players In the middle of one game, Baker had a heart attack and died. However, the game continued, since the players felt that was what he would have wanted. Besides, the men commented, such a death was the "way to go."27

The town residents followed their team around the valley For those in the smaller towns, road games were special trips into neighboring towns The fans cheered loudly for their teams at home or away. Once, Jean Nyman took her young son David to watch her husband Carl play in Preston David shouted, "Daddy, hit a home run!" and Carl did After that, everyone in the stands from North Logan yelled, "Daddy, hit a home run!" whenever Carl Nyman came up to bat.28

Players and fans had a sense of community pride; baseball created a sense of self-respect for many of the small towns. There were rivalries with the town up the road or the large communities North Logan got equally "keyed up" for most games, but its special rival was Hyde Park, the community just to the north. According to Farres Nyman, "The majority of the North Logan team were Nymans, and a majority of the Hyde Park were [relatives] of my mother." Hyde Park's Wade Howell said that, for his team, North Logan was the team to beat. "If we'd get them in North Logan, they'd beat us, and if we could get in Hyde Park, we'd beat them."

Cornish had an excellent team and often won the league championship. Its rivals were nearby small towns such as Trenton and Clarkston. The rivalry with Trenton was so intense that Marcell Pitcher said that some people came to see a fight and not the game. But the greatest rivalry was with Smithfield, which as a larger town had more players to draw from. It was always exciting to defeat the big town, and Cornish often did. In fact, when Vaughn Richardson from Smithfield was asked who his town's biggest rival was, he said, "Cornish was the hardest team to beat."29 Everyone wanted to beat the bigger towns. When Clarkston beat Logan and Smithfield lost to West Side (a team combining Weston and Dayton, Idaho) in the season-end tournament in August 1958, the newspaper explained, "Two little communities walked around to several of the farmhouses, gathered up a baseball team, trekked on down to Hyde Park and proceeded to dump the Goliaths of Cache Valley baseball."30

However, baseball was more than one town pitted against another It could also build a sense of community bet-ween the towns For special occasions such as holidays or the Labor Day tournament, teams borrowed players from towns that were not competing. There "wasmutual respect and assistance. Anthony Hall remembered that his cousin Stephen Hinckley, a native of Fairview who had played on a professional farm team, gave him pointers when Hinckley was playing on the Lewiston team with Hall. But even the older players on other teams would give him valuable advice. He remembered that Farrell Karren, a catcher and an excellent hitter for the Smithfield team, told him once, "Anthony, you keep working, and you're going to be a good baseball player." Hall continued, "That meant a lot to a young boy to have somebody that he kind of looked up to say [that]."31

The players participated for the love of the game. For many of the boys and men it was their only recreation and a break from the long, hot summers of farm work. So the league and the players were disappointed whenever a town could not field a team. Games were sometimes forfeited, but rather than not play, the team who had enough players would loan some to the other team. Marcell Pitcher remembered that one time the Cornish team loaned Bryon Hansen, one of its older players, to North Logan and then complained the player had no loyalty. He "won the game for North Logan.32

Sometimes, winning or no-hit games were not the only goals. Stan Richardson was pitching for Smithfield during one game, and his brother Con was catching. Stan asked Con if he wanted to see how far Carl Nyman could hit and Con said, "Sure." So Stan pitched a ball he knew Nyman could hit, and it soared out of the field. Winning was important, but after the game was over, the losers had the attitude, "We will get you next year" rather than the feeling that they had to win "at all cost."33

The game was the talk of the town all week Every little town had a store where farmers gathered to chat and gossip, and the baseball game was usually the main subject The Cornish store had the post office inside, and there "the farmers would kill a little bit of time and have baseball talk about who Cornish was going to play and how well they were doing. The big talk was always when we would play Smithfield." Richard V Hansen, who made deliveries throughout the valley, stopped at the Cornish store as -well as at the ones in Trenton, Clarkston, and Newton. "No matter where you went, baseball was the talk of their town," he noted. Ken Godfrey explained that the game was also the main discussion on Sundays "Even some of our priesthood leaders encroached upon the time to rehash the ball games."34

According to Rey Naegle, the main reason for baseball had been recreation, an opportunity for people to take time off from their work But town baseball was more than just a pastime. Like in Mudville, the town players and fans cheered together and mourned together. As Wade Howell explained, baseball "was a lifeline If you beat one another it was wonderful. If you lost to one another it -was terrible."35

Baseball was so important that at times it superseded other community values. Cornish played a championship game one Sunday at the Sunday School hour. The Mormon bishopric debated "what to do and decided to postpone the church meeting since everyone would be at the game anyway Sunday School was held after dark that day36 Some ball players, including Mormons, celebrated their wins by gathering together for a beer. According to Helen Buxton, "We didn't talk about that. I think there was a lot more of that going on It was what people did to be happy." Ken Godfrey remembered walking by the pool hall after Cornish -won the 1947 championship. "The team was in the pool hall drinking beer, including a couple of members of the bishopric. I think they rationalized their behavior by the fact that winning the championship, coming from the smallest community in the valley, was so important that the Word of Wisdom was at that moment secondary"37

According to Anthony Hall, in the early days baseball "gave Lewiston and other communities like that a little identity." Whenever Lewiston residents went to church meetings in Richmond, they could feel pride if the Lewiston team had beat Richmond the year before. In Cornish, according to Rey Naegle,"it gave everybody...some pride because they did win their share of the championships." Or as Marcell Pitcher put it, "Baseball put Cornish on the map We didn't have anything else to brag about We were outcasts clear on the other side of the river." Helen Buxton agreed: "It was the heart of Cornish." Everyone put on their "second best clothes...[and] -watched our townspeople take on new roles," according to Ken Godfrey. "They became our heroes I can remember that we tended to admire those men who could hit home runs and could make fabulous plays much more than we did our ecclesiastical leaders." In these largely Mormon communities, baseball "united the churchgoers and the non-churchgoers." According to Farres Nyman, "I don't remember when we didn't have baseball. That was the big thing on Saturdays in North Logan."38

Eventually, however, the Cache Valley League stopped operating because towns no longer had teams. According to Richard V Hansen, the last year was 1966, and only five or six teams played that year.That year Hyde Park left the league. Henry Hodges, who had been president of the league, told Hansen, "When those guys [Hyde Park] go,we're dead."39

Why did baseball die out in most of the small towns in Cache Valley? F Ross Peterson suggests that the LDS church's focus on fast-pitch softball during the 1930s might have been one reason for a declining interest in baseball While that might have played a role, there were other factors After all, some, like Wallace Kohler, played American Legion baseball, church softball, commercial softball, and town baseball all at the same time The LDS church's shift in the 1970s from fast pitch to slow pitch, which gave more people a chance to participate and focused less on a good pitcher, possibly contributed to further decline Anthony Hall said that most of the boys from Lewiston that were his age played softball "because there was more participation and you didn't have to have as good a pitcher." Ivan Christensen felt that young people of a later generation did not want to practice much, and baseball and fast-pitch softball were "skilled games" that "took time to learn."40

According to Richard O Davies, the baseball team in his hometown of Canton, Ohio, "died...without a whimper" in 1953 after it "had carried the hopes and pride of the community on its shoulders" for years Better access to professional games through radio, television, and travel made a difference in Canton because it was so close to Cincinnati The same was true throughout America Not every town was close to a major league team, but the expansion of minor leagues also detracted from local baseball.

However, Cache Valley residents did not discuss in their reminiscences traveling to Pioneer League games in Ogden, Salt Lake City, or Pocatello. According to the men who played baseball in Cache Valley, it was radio, and even more so television, that moved the focus from the town to the professional sports. When fans could listen to—and even more important, watch—professional games, they had another choice of entertainment. Many Americans became "couch potatoes," and television "contributed to the growing nationalization" of sports. For fans, it was easier to "sit home and watch a ball game in their front room," Hansen noted, even though "every kid in [earlier] days wanted to play baseball." But with television they just watched.41

Television was just one factor that changed the focus on baseball The people who lived in the towns also changed. While for some time Cache Valley had remained isolated, new people began moving in. As Hansen explained, "The players all left town The little farms all disappeared The little guys who were working on the family farm...had gone to town, college, or got other jobs." Ken Godfrey, for example, -went to college; others went to the cities. New people moved in, and "baseball was not in their blood." North Logan, for example, began growing after World War II, bringing university professors and professionals who were "totally different as far as lifestyle." Farres Nyman said World War II helped end baseball in North Logan, and the sport did die there earlier than it did in communities located farther from Logan.42

There was a unique Cache Valley twist to baseball's demise One team, the Smithfield Blue Sox, survived. According to Farrell Karren, Smithfield could not have continued without Richard V Hansen, who organized the leagues, scheduled the games, and found the players. When other Cache Valley towns did not have teams, Hansen made arrangements for Smithfield to play in Ogden, Brigham City, and Salt Lake City. Everyone—including Hansen—agreed that Hansen himself was not a very good player. But he loved baseball. When he had made the Smithfield team, he never missed a game for fear of being cut And "when the ball team needed management, he took over a number of those responsibilities.43

But the town's strong team was "a double-edged sword," according to Anthony Hall Smithfield kept baseball alive, but Hansen also "borrowed" the best players from around the valley, leaving other towns unable to compete. "Maybe the [uneven levels of] skill was a factor also," said Godfrey. "After the town league folded, some of the best players still got together But they were the best of the best. "Wallace Kohler explained, "I think the thing that probably was the biggest demise to the league was when one of the teams decided that they wanted to import players and not use just people who lived in their community Of course, they got a better team than the rest. That put a few dampers on a lot of the small communities that were fielding teams from just inside their city boundaries."44

In recent years baseball has again increased in popularity in Cache Valley. The Smithfield Blue Sox continue to play under the direction of Richard V Hansen But now, instead of having to travel beyond the valley for games, the team can compete against teams from Preston, Providence, and Hyrum Baseball is popular from Little League to high school. American Legion team rosters often match those of the high school teams during summer play The Blue Sox team plays the American Legion Smithfield Aztecs every Memorial Day to open the season and raise funds for the American Legion team. Attendance is spotty, however; these games draw only those who love the sport.45 Small towns no longer sponsor teams. The glory days of town baseball have disappeared from Cache Valley, taking -with them some of the sense of community that once united town residents But unlike the fans in Mudville, where no joy remained, the players and fans of these northern Utah teams recall their experiences -with smiles, nostalgia, and a sense of special meaning.

NOTES

Jessie L Embry is assistant director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University

Adam Seth Darowski graduated from BYU in August -with a degree in history He is currently a law student at Duke University

1 Kenneth Godfrey Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Logan, Utah, 2002 Cache Valley Baseball Oral History Project, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, L.Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (Unless otherwise indicated, all oral histories cited are part of this collection.)

2 Benjamin G Rader, American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports, 2d ed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), 78-79

3 This paper is based on articles in the Logan HeraldJournal and interviews with players and fans. The authors have not found contemporary sources other than newspapers that include information on town baseball While there were other leagues, and colleges and high schools played baseball on and off during this time period, these are beyond the scope of this paper

4 Hillary Rodham Clinton, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996); Robert Wright, "The Evolution of Despair," Time, August 28, 1995, 50-57; Larry Lyon, The Community in Urban Society (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1987), 5; A Bartlett Giamatti, Take Time for Paradise (NewYork: Summit Books, 1989), 32.

5 Robert H.Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 12, 84-85, 111—13, 121, 133, 139, 164; Foster Rhea Dulles, A History of Recreation: America Learns to Play, 2d ed (New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1940), 248, 190-91, 345; Rader, American Sports, 64

6 Rey Naegle Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Preston, Idaho, 2000, 3

7 F Ross Peterson, A History of Cache County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Cache County Commission, 1997), 265 This paper focuses on the Cache Valley Baseball League in the northern part of the county Peterson explains, "While baseball seemed more popular and enduring in the north end of the valley, softball became dominant in the communities of the southern part of the county" (267) Although for a short time in the 1950s Wellsville, Mendon, and Hyrum had baseball teams and occasionally Logan did also, Logan and the towns on the south end mostly played softball. Ivan Christensen, a Providence native born in 1934, played on other baseball teams in the valley because Providence never had a baseball team but had a softball team instead When asked why, Christensen replied, "I guess one thing was we never had a baseball field." RichardV Hansen, who has managed the Smithfield Blue Sox team for more than fifty years, was not sure why either but confirmed, "That was the -way it was [in the south] They were fast pitch [softball], and baseball was in the north end of the valley." Logan, the largest city in the valley and the county seat, occasionally had a baseball team, but according to Hansen, "They were the poorest-supported baseball of any Even the little towns [could] outdraw the city of Logan." However, Logan did have several commercial softball leagues, and in 1948 the newspaper described softball as "Logan's number one summer-time sport." See Ivan Christensen Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Providence, Utah, 2000, 4; Richard V Hansen Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Amalga, Utah, 2000,3; Logan HeraldJournal, May 25,1948

8 Wallace Kohler Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, North Logan, Utah, 2000, 4.

9 Based on our reading of the HeraldJournal, the Cache Valley Baseball League usually played games on Saturday. The Utah-Idaho League, a more professional group, played on Sunday, sometimes drawing players from towns that had played on Saturday Reed Woodland of Richmond noted, "When we played on Sunday, there were more fans." Mercell Pitcher of Cornish talked about how he worked to eliminate Sunday baseball in the Cache Valley Baseball League See Reed Woodland Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Richmond, Utah, 2000, 8; Mercell Pitcher Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Preston, Idaho, 2000, 7 LDS apostle Heber J Grant spoke out against Sunday baseball in 1913: "I am opposed to Sunday baseball, and have been so from my boyhood days When a young man, I was passionately fond of the game Today I am happy in contemplating the fact that, as much as I loved to play it, I never played a game on Sunday"; see G Homer Durham, Gospel Standards: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of HeberJ. Grant (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1941), 249. "LDS" and "Mormon" refer to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

10 Eugene E. Campbell, "Social, Cultural, and Recreational Life," in Joel E. Ricks, ed., History of a Valley (Logan, UT: Cache Valley Centennial Commission, 1956), 420; Naegle Oral History, 5; Pitcher Oral History, 2, 3;Verl M and Helen Buxton Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Cornish, Utah, 2000, 4

11 Anthony Hall Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Lewiston, Utah, 2000, 6; Farres Nyman Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Smithfield, Utah, 2000, 5-6; Buxton Oral History, 4

12 Logan Journal, April 22, 1919; Richard O Davies, Main Street Blues:The Decline of Small-Town America (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1998), 113; Pitcher Oral History, 11

13 Herald Journal, May 2, 4, 24, 1942; Richardson Oral History, 12; Pitcher Oral History, 12; Herald Journal, April 10,1948

14 The list of towns with teams was determined from reading the Herald Journal. For two years the North Logan team was sponsored by a local service station. Some interviewees discussed getting financial aid from their cities. But there are no clear records of who paid and how the league was organized.

15 HeraldJournal, May 16,June 6,June 30, 1932; August 23, 1932

16 Hansen Oral History, 16

17 Herald Journal, June 25, 1936June 12, 1939

18 Vaughn Richardson Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Smithfield, Utah, 2000, 5, 7; Stan Richardson Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Beaver Creek, Utah, 2000, 4—5

19 Herald Journal, June 17, 1948; Buxton Oral History, 2; Wade Howell Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Hyde Park, 2000, 3

20 Naegle Oral History, 10; Stan Richardson Oral History, 1, 7, 12; Howell Oral History, 7; Godfrey Oral History, 4

21 Hall Oral History, 1,4

22 Farrell Karren and Nancy Karren Bingham Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, Smithfield, Utah, 2000, 1-4

23 Nyman Oral History, 1-2; Kohler Oral History, 1; Joyce Howell, conversation with author, July 15, 2000

24 Christensen Oral History, 11

25 Stan Richardson Oral History, 4; HeraldJournal, April 24,1958

26 Hall Oral History, 6; Karren/Bingham Oral History, 4; Vaughn Richardson Oral History, 6

27 Alvin Hamson Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, North Logan, 1998, North Logan Oral History Project, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, L Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B Lee Library, BrighamYoung University, 22; Godfrey Oral History, 7; Buxton Oral History, 4

28 Jean Nyman, conversation with author, August 20, 2000

29 Nyman Oral History, 1; Howell Oral History, 7; Pitcher Oral History, 8; Vaughn Richardson Oral History, 9

30 HeraldJournal, August 31, 1958

31 Hall Oral History, 2 Besides Stephen Hinckley, who played some professional ball, Jerry Nyman, Farres Nyman's son, pitched for several professional teams; and several interviewees, including Hall, remembered a pitching duel between Hinckley and Nyman at the Labor Day tournament in Hyde Park Professional scouts also looked at Stan Richardson and Rey Naegle, both pitchers. World War II prevented Richardson from trying out. The Utah State University coach convinced Naegle to play college ball, but too much throwing destroyed his pitching arm

32 Pitcher Oral History, 10

33 Hall Oral History, 4; Stan Richardson, conversation with author, June 2, 2000

34 Naegle Oral History, 4; Hansen Oral History, 21; Godfrey Oral History, 1

35 Naegle Oral History, 14-15; Howell Oral History, 8.

36 Pitcher Oral History, 7, 16

37 Buxton Oral History, 13—14; Godfrey Oral History, 9. The Word of Wisdom is an LDS health code prohibiting the use of alcoholic beverages

38 Hall Oral History, 8; Naegle Oral History, 14; Pitcher Oral History, 17; Buxton Oral History, 13; Godfrey Oral History, 1, 8; Nyman Oral History, 1

39 Hansen Oral History, 2

40 Peterson, History of Cache County, 266; Kohler Oral History, 3; Hall Oral History, 13; Christensen Oral History, 11

41 Davies, Main Street Blues, 154; Rader, American Sports, 244—45; Hansen Oral History, 20

42 Hansen Oral History, 20, 22; Godfrey Oral History, 10; Nyman Oral History, 13

43 Karren/Bingham Oral History, 7; Hansen Oral History, 18 F Ross Peterson also credits Hansen with being the inspiration of the Smithfield team; see Peterson, History of Cache County, 267 The town has named its local ballpark after Hansen

44 Hall Oral History, 3; Godfrey Oral History, 10; Kohler Oral History, 2.

45 In 2000 the Smithfield Blue Sox team played in the Beehive State and Northern Utah leagues Several years before, Providence, Preston, and Hyrum in Cache Valley had become part of the Northern Utah League along with Bear River (Tremonton) and Weber. Providence was also a member of the Beehive League along with the Tara Wildcats, the Salt Lake Anchors, and the Utah Braves. In addition, Hansen made arrangements to play teams out of the area In 2000 the Blue Sox went to Sun Valley See Hansen Oral History