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Outlaw Carolina Baseball League 1936 - 1938

The 1936 Valdese Textiles

The 1936 Valdese Textiles, Carolina League  Playoff Champions 
Front row, sitting, left to right:  Selby Keller (CF), Tolar Ransome (3B), Julius Parise (batboy), Chuck Nalbock (2B), Cline Lee (2B). Second row, kneeling:  Louis “Babe” Viau (SS), Bob Hall (P), Coyt “Red” Murray (C), Woodrow “Woody” Rich (P). Back row, standing:  “Buzz” Phillips (P),Ory Brannon (OF), “Pick” Biggerstaff (OF, MGR), Claude Crapps (1B), Mack Arnette (3B),  Ernest “Red” Evans (P), Jim Lyle (P).

A. M. “Mitch” Church (1865 – 1948)

  “Mitch” Church was  a Valdese businessman and a member of the Valdese Textile Baseball team's Board of Directors.  Church also owned a recreation parlor in Valdese that offered bowling, pool, and a sandwich shop.

The Visionary: Aubrey Hoover (1882 - 1936)

 
 
Aubrey Hoover was the owner of Hoover Hosiery Mills, and President of the Concord Weavers in 1935. In the summer of 1935, Hoover realized the monetary potential behind leaving the Textile League and creating and independent league. Famous for his role in the "kidnapping" of young pitcher Carl Doyle in 1935, while he was on his way to report with the Philadelphia Athletics. Sadly, Hoover died before seeing his dream of come to fruition.

The Men Behind the Scenes: Owners and Managers

Some were textile owners,some lawyers, and others who had made their money in  furniture, but all were men of influence in their community. They were united in their love for baseball as long as it was profitable.   

Combining their business skills with their desire for a winning team, the owners managed to attract some of the most interesting and talented men in baseball to come south and become an “outlaw.”  The owners wisely hired managers with long experience in baseball. Some of the managers played alongside the men they hired.

Bibliography

Ballew, Bill. Baseball in Asheville. Charleston, SC : Arcadia, 2004.

Carolina 1994 Baseball [microform]. (Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press), 1994.       

Browning, Wilt. The Rocks: the True Story of the Worst Team in Baseball History. (Asheboro, N.C. : Down Home Press), 1992.       

Gaunt, Robert H. We Would Have Played Forever: The History of the Coastal Baseball League. (Durham: Baseball America), 1997.       

Mock Funeral

A mock funeral for the Towelers, the Kannapolis franchise, held in 1938 by Concord Weavers pitchers Ken Chitwood, Bud Voight and Witt Guise. Chitwood and Guise jumped organized baseball contracts to play in the "Outlaw League."  The tombstone reads “Here lies Kannapolis - Died of growing pains.”