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Outlaw Carolina Baseball League 1936 - 1938

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.”

The 1938 Kannapolis Towelers

In 1992, Marvin Watts explained that the reason behind the small number of players appearing in this photograph was that the Outlaw League was beginning to collapse, and the professionals did not want their picture taken for fear of being banned from the major leagues. 

Front row, left to right:  Mickey O’Neil, Wilbur McGill, Davis (bat boy), “Buck” Redfern (3B, MGR), "Chick" Suggs (OF), “Ginger” Watts (C). 

Back row:  Jake Daniel, Chief  Daney, Jim White (P), Marvin Watts and Terry Terhune.

Outlaw Carolina Baseball League 1936 - 1938

At one time, baseball ruled as America’s pastime. In 1936, a number of textile owners combined their passion for the sport with their desire to make money and formed the North Carolina Independent League. In the pursuit of winning, the owners began hiring professional baseball players, thus incurring the wrath of the major baseball teams, and the President of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, Judge William G. Braham, who identified each of the teams in the newly formed ICBL as an outlaw league.