1909 St. Paul Gophers

A Calendar, Including Newspaper Clippings, of the 1909 St. Paul Gophers

1909 St. Paul Colored Gophers

Stories are placed in order of the date they appeared.

March 13, 1909

St. Paul, MN
"ST. PAUL GOPHERS. - Daddy Reed’s team this season bids to far outshine last season, if the talent they are figuring on getting is landed. Germany Schaefer will be the catcher, and they are trying hard to land another star if they can get one. Lytle, Johnny Davis and Gatewood will perform in the middle of the diamond. Should they not land Rat Johnson, they will get an Eastern crack. Wallace, McMurray and Bunch Davis will play the other parts of the infield, providing Jenning Smith doesn't get back on the job and lead Daddy's stars. And the out held will more than likely be composed of Barton, Jones and one of the pitchers."

March 20, 1909

St. Paul, MN
"It seems as though Jimmy Smith, who formerly lead the St. Paul Gophers and Leland Giants, will be back on the job this season, leading Daddy Reed's team. The 'old three figures' looks pretty good. - Chappie Rat Johnson has got the bugs stirred up over his location this season. But few know that Chappie carries a contract calling for three figures."

July 26, 1909

St. Paul, MN
"St. Paul Gophers Win Championship Series - Leland Giants Bested for Three Games out of Five - Steel Arm Johnny Wins Deciding Game. - St. Paul, Minnesota. - Picture two colored ball teams, such as the Leland Giants of Chicago, which played a five-game series last week beginning on Monday, farfamed as the best in the land, and the St. Paul Gophers, the record-breaking of the Northwest, handing a ball game back and forth, one to the other, for eleven innings in the presense of a thousand or more colored fans and a goodly sprinkling of white ones, and then make your own book on just how much excitement, noise, and fun there must have been on tap. Then add to this the winning of the game in the eleventh by a two-bagger, closely followed by a home run drive. In the first inning the Gophers scored one, in the fourth the Lelands made four, then in the fifth the Gophers tied the score with three, then the Lelands came back in the sixth with one, and the Gophers got two again and tied, and then the Lelands got one and back came the Gophers with two more to give them a lead of one, and then in the ninth the Lelands got one to tie the score. Nothing turned up in the tenth, but in the eleventh the Lelands got one. Things looked bad for the Gophers when Milliner, the first man up, was out on a grounder to Harris, but in rapid succession Binga singled. Johnson followed with a double and Bob Marshall nailed the first ball pitched over the cigar sign just to the left of the home run pole and dropped the ball over in the lots on the other side of the street."

July 27, 1909

St. Paul, MN
"St. Paul Colored Gophers on Annual Tour. - Have Won Nineteen Games and Lost but Three - Booked Solid to August 13. - Special to the Freeman. - St. Paul, Minnesota - The Famous Colored Gophers are now in the 4th week of their present tour of the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. Twenty-two games since leaving St. Paul on June 13 have been played with 19 wins and 3 lost. The remaining schedule calls for games at Hibbing, Eveleth, Duluth, in Minnesota, Bessemer, Michigan and Ashland, Rhinelander, Hayward, Barron and Cumberland, in Wisconsin. Their season began on May 16 at Kenyon, Minnesota, and at present writing are booked solid to August 12 and 13, when they meet Jimmy Callahan's Famous Logan Squares of Chicago, at Fennimore, Wisconsin, for a purse offered by the Big Day Committee of the latter city. Unusual interest is being manifested in the coming of Rube Foster and his crack Leland Giants who play the Colored Gophers here July 26-27-28-29-30. During the Grand Lodge of the W.B.F. The Gophers are prime favorites througout the northwest, having beaten everything in this section in the past three seasons and the twin city public and surrounding country are eager to see them against a team the caliber of the crack Leland Giants. - Notes from the Colored Gophers. - The two Taylor Brothers James and Steel Arm John, recently secured from the Birmingham Giants, are a distinct hit with the fans in this section. - Artie McDougal, our crack little shortstop, leads the team in batting, his hitting, fielding, and throwing being the cause for much praise and comment everywhere. - Captain Felix Wallace, the Owensboro, Kentucky boy, is playing the game of his life this year and is considered by many the equal of any of the big league stars as a second baseman. - Our Southern tour will begin about September 12, out of Chicago, and managers desiring games can address Irving Williams, 40 E. 3rd Street, St. Paul, Minnesota."

St. Paul, MN
"Tuesday's Game. - Dougherty, the Leland Giants' crack southpaw, tied the Gophers in such a hard knot Tuesday afternoon that it took the Gophers nine innings to untie it, only doing so just in time to avoid a shutout by the narrowest margin. This new recruit whom the visitors picked up a short time ago at West Baden, Indiana, held the locals down to four hits and struck out nine of them. It was as fine an exhibition of twirling as is seen, even in the big leagues. Davis, who twirled for the Gophers, managed to keep the fair hits off his delivery scattered until the seventh inning, when the Lelands fell on him hard and with the aid of two errors, one by Davis and another by Marshall, came across with the first three runs of the game. After that the visitors had no difficulty in finding the local man, and before the game was over were able to count up thirteen hits and eight runs, three more of the runs coming in the eighth and two in the ninth."

July 28, 1909

St. Paul, MN
"Wednesday's Game. - Johnny Taylor, former habitat Alabama, present abode St. Paul, star twirler of the Gophers, stood in the box Wednesday afternoon and wound and unwound himself to such good effect during all of that period that only four scattered hits were gathered by the Lelands, Taylor would throw arms and legs about in bewildering fashion, suddenly knot up like a porcupine, and then just as suddenly his left foot would dangle and shake in the air at the astonished batter as the ball flew past him. Six strike outs were the accomplishment of the toe stunt and had he stuck to it, according to the sad philosophy of the chagrined Gopher, that ninth inning slaughter would never have come. But in the ninth the toe tired and disgisted Taylor went down to defeat and disaster in a shower of five hits - one of them a home run - that came so fast and in such rapid succession that the bewildered Taylor just stood in the box and blinked his eyes as if he was waiting for the rain to blow over. The game was one of the intensely interesting kind that the Gophers and Lelands usually put up and abounded with clever plays and skillful box work up to the last fatal inning. In the fifth Milliner went back up against the left field fence for a hard drive and nabbed the ball within a foot of the little hillock. In the sixth, Jimmy Taylor, brother of the agile Johnny, made a great catch of a hot drive at short, nabbing the ball with one hand within a foot from the ground while going at full speed. It was one of the most remarkable catches ever seen at the park."

July 29, 1909

St. Paul, MN
"Thursday's Game. - The Gophers Thursday took the fourth game of the series with the Leland Giants of Chicago, heralded as the best colored team in the country. This gave the Gophers an even break with the visitors. The feature of the game was the pitching of Gatewood for the Lelands and London for the locals. The former allowed but three hits. Unfortunately these were all bunched in the first inning. London was only hit for four, but these were well scattered. In the seventh, when it looked as if the visitors were finding him, Davis took his place, and, with fair support, held out. The Lelands scored one in the fourth on a base on balls, a single and an error, another in the sixth on a base on balls, a steal and a double, and one more in the eighth on a hit, an error and an outfield fly. In the ninth it looked as if the visitors were going to repeat their rally of the day before. Talbert flied out, Moore got first when Milliner dropped his long gly. Wright followed him when Taylor fumbled his grounder, but Green, the next up, fanned and Gatewood went out on a grounder to short."

July 30, 1909

St. Paul, MN
"Friday's Game. - The Gophers, by defeating the Giants Friday, won the undisputed title of the World's Champion colored baseball team. The Gophers are the first colored team that ever won a series from the Lelands. Dougherty, the big Chicago southpaw, had the Gophers at his mercy at all times during the game up to the eighth inning. Not a single hit was made off him in that time. Then three singles and a triple came in rapid succession, good for three runs and the game. Johnny Taylor pitched a good game, giving but eight hits."

"The Gophers won three of five games. - Hard hitting by both teams featured the first game. - Twenty-five hundred people saw the first two games. - Errors were numerous with the Apostles in Tuesday's game. - Hill and Payne played the game and did good stickwork. - Steel Arm Johnny tossed some good ball. He won the deciding game. - Marshall's good eye and timely swings won the opener for the Saints. - Dougherty is making good with the Leland Giants He is an Indiana pitcher. - Mista John Taylor is of the well-known baseball family of four brothers. - The Gophers hit Gatewood and Ball heavily, making twenty-two hits. The four pitchers used in this game gave ten bases on balls."