MEMORIES OF MEMORIES--The day little Toronto, Ohio took on the Pittsburgh Pirates

1911 Toronto Athletic Club, John Petras third from left

        

     I have memories of memories.  They were my grandfather's memories.   Mostly my grandfather, John Edward Petras Sr., talked about baseball, how he played for a semi-pro team--the Toronto Athletic Club--after the turn of the century.

            My grandfather played first base and sometimes second and batted cleanup for the town of 4000 residents.  I just remember bits and little chunks of his stories, but these odds and ends of this patchwork memory stick out like a seam in time.

            My grandfather played during the Dead Ball Era; so home runs were hard to come by, even on some fenceless fields that sometimes resembled more pasture than stadium.  He did tell me he hit a pitch at the old Kaul Field that landed on a fly beyond the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, 400 and some odd feet in all.  Pappap wasn't a big man, standing 5-8 and weighing perhaps 150 pounds, and a pound of that was probably chaw tobacco.    But he had wrists and forearms as sinewy as cable steel, developed from working the sewer pipe factory since he was 12 years old, when he had to support his family of seven because his father, Joseph Petras, had become infected with tuberculosis. 

              I grew up in the 60s, my favorite players being Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski and Mickey Mantle.  My grandfather always complained that the modern ball players were prima donnas, that they never played hurt like the old-timers did.  Maybe he held such sentiments because he took a high hard one that left his nose disfigured for life.  The dead ball was not so dead, after all.  

              My grandfather also played when the spitball was still legal, and besides taking an occasional high hard one to the kisser, a batter also got an occasional shot of Mailpouch squeezins right between the eyes.

            Pappap would tell me about trick plays the semi-pros would pull off once in a while, like one time a pitcher was attempting to pick off a runner on first base and he threw an errant pick-offf attempt down the right field foul line.  Turned out that errant toss was a potato and they nabbed the runner between first and second with the real ball.

            I was in my Biltmore Avenue backyard, pretending I was Whitey Ford, when suddenly out of the visitor's dugout via back porch next door appeared Fred Maple.  "Your grandfather was the greatest ballplayer from Toronto I have ever seen," Mr. Maple said.  I don't know exactly why he told me this, maybe because I was throwing rocks into his backyard.  After he told me this, I never threw rocks into his yard again.

            My grandfather, despite dropping out of school at such an early age, could speak several languages, including Slovak, Polish and German, and occasionally served as an interpreter in the trenches of Belgium and France during World War I.  He told me only the humorous anecdotes about capers he and his chums pulled off upon the officers, never about the horrors of the trenches.  But of all his tales of Army life and sports, the one I remember most is about the time the little town of Toronto, Ohio took on the mighty Pittsburgh Pirates.

            Back in the Dead Ball Era, the major league's regular season ended late September.  The players, by no means, earned the exorbitant salaries today's prima donnas do.  After the regular season, the Dead Ball Era players would supplement their incomes by returning home to farm or factory or by barnstorming against local nines.  The Pirates were one such team that regularly vied against semi-pro teams from Western Pennsylvania, and Ohio teams such as East Liverpool, Steubenville and Toronto.    

            I remember one Sunday afternoon.  My grandfather was sitting upon his threadbare red recliner, his hands clasped behind his neck, a plug of Union Workman bulging from his cheek.  My grandmother's house smelled of rhubarb pie, Neapolitan ice cream, cabbage rolls, Pinesol and Lemon Glade when suddenly I was smelling the coal soot from the kilns and giant smoke stack from the old wooden stadium across the tracks of parent company Kaul Clay.            

             The Pittsburgh Pirates came to town, hopped right off the train behind left field.   The Toronto Athletic Club had beaten their rivals East Liverpool and Steubenville and now had a star player on its squad to make this contest against the major league club more interesting.  Alva "Pick" Nalley was back on the Toronto nine.  Nalley had just returned from a stint on the Toledo Mud Hens and was looking to have a good showing against a Big League club to show he belonged. 

           

Toronto Athletic Club around 1906 or 1907.  John Petras third from the left, Pick Nalley, front row second front the left.  Nalley's presences this photo suggests it was taken during barnstorming season.

            On the visitors' squad was arguably the greatest Pittsburgh Pirate of all time, shortstop Honus Wagner.  He watched with interest my grandfather take batting practice and asked whether he could borrow my grandfather's bat for the game.  It was longer and heavier than most bats of the era and had a handle as thick as most men's wrists. With such a stick of lumber,  a batter needed strong shoulders to start the swing and whiplike wrists to finish it.  My grandfather said that it would be his honor for the Pittsburgh legend to use his bat. 

The legendary Honus Wagner would go on to play for the Toronto Athletic Club  in 1919 under  manager Bill McKechnie, another future Hall of Famer, who took up residency in the Gem City.

      

          I don't remember the details about the game, just those about the bat and that Toronto won.  I suspect my grandfather must have made the bat himself.  He and Honus Wagner rapped out a few hits apiece with this wonder bat that predated the real Hollywood Wonder Bat.  I don't know what happened to this bat, or maybe I was afraid to ask, to know like all things forgotten forever.

            Pick Nalley never did reach the big leagues, but he did play 13 years in the minors.  Throwing right, batting left, Nalley rapped out 1429 hits during his minor league career. After baseball, he worked as a longtime custodian for Toronto City schools.

            My dad once told me my his father was a little too slow a runner to play in the majors during an era when the main strategy relied upon stolen bases, the hit-and-run and bunting--small ball, they still call it.  The Dead Ball Era unofficially ended1919 when Babe Ruth hit a Major League record 29 home runs, the year after the Great War ended.   At 29, my grandfather was too old to be considered a prospect, and, besides, after taking that high hard one to the snoz, my dad also revealed, Pappap was never the same player again.

1913 Toronto Athletic Club.  John Petras standing third to left,  Pick Nalley kneeling in uniform.

            After the Kaul Clay riots of 1935, my grandfather became custodian at St, Francis Church.  My favorite story of his janitor days was when he learned World War II had officially ended and then sprinted from his Loretto Avenue home down the church to St. Francis to ring its massive bell, joining the resounding peels from all the steeples in town.  The bronze peels must have been the most melodious sounds ever heard in the Gem City.  

            The only rocks I throw nowadays are the stones I skip across the ponds of time; they ripple with memories, memories I like to share with five grandchildren, with another grandchild on the way, memories when I, like them, was a child, memories ever green, ever-sweet and wild-eyed, memories of memories.

          

See related stories: "The Kaul Clay Riots of 1935," and "Kaul Field Revisited."

THE BEST THERE NEVER WAS--THE LEGEND OF HAROLD "OINK" COULTER

     When a few old sports veterans get together in the Gem City, the topic of Toronto High School's greatest athlete arises occasionally.  Names such as Chip Coulter, Clark Hinkle, George Deiderich, Don Sutherin and Otis Winston are always mentioned, but one name I always bring up won't be found in any of the record books.
     You see, a classmate of mine, Harold "Oink" Coulter, played basketball only his freshman year.  Had he continued to play--that includes any sport--I am certain he would have been crowned the best.
     Oink possessed the hand-eye coordination of a magician.  He wasn't the tallest, fastest or strongest athlete in our class, although he was gifted in all these attributes.  What he possessed was way above what everybody had and that was coordination.
      Playing Little League for Cattrell's during the early 60s, I had heard all about the legend way before I encountered him  He was rumored to throw the only curve ball in the entire league, and to an 11-year-old batter during those days to face that kind of skill was akin to confronting someone with supernatural powers.
       I recall the fateful day when we were finally going to face Oink on the mound.  We were undefeated, with Oink posing as our last obstacle to remain unblemished for the 20-game season in a league consisting of twelve teams.  Our strategy was to step up in the batter's box when Oink started hurling curves, an approach enabling the hitter a good shot at the slower pitch before it broke.  Oink recognized this plan immediately and reared back and blew his lively fastball by us.  So--we moved back in the box and he curved us simple.  The game was our only loss of the season.
      I recall another time when we were in seventh grade playing pick-up football at S.C. Dennis School.  Oink was passing by on his bicycle and stopped.  I never saw him play football before, or even hold one in his hands for that matter, but he asked for the ball and promptly punted a perfect spiral 45 yards.  "Let's see you do that again," everyone said, knowing football was our rare chance to embarrass Oink.  He duplicated more kicks, all going 40 to 50 yards--all perfect spirals.
      Another time I recall sitting in sixth grade at St. Francis School.  For some reason the public schools were off that day and we weren't.  I was daydreaming out the window when I saw Oink approaching on his bicycle.  At the corner of Grant and Euclid, he popped a wheelie and pedaled right by the sixth grade windows, the seventh grade windows, the eighth grade windows and continued, reared back in the banana seat, hands braced on the handlebars, churning the pedals until  turning the corner on Daniels Street, two blocks away, out of sight.  The first flight by the Wright Brothers could not have covered the same distance.
       Basketball was by far his best game.  He could do anything with a round ball except make it talk.  Oink was the only ball handler I had ever seen being guarded by defenders with their legs crossed.  Nobody wanted embarrassed by having the ball dribbled between their legs by anybody.  And Oink could turn an opponent's face redder than a Red Knights jersey.
      The best way to defend Oink was to stand under the basket and bet him he couldn't make a shot from half court, and maybe his heel would accidentally touch the mid-court line so that you could get him on and over-and-back violation.  Oink was the only kid I knew who practiced shots from half court, and he made a good percentage of them.
      He was the last guy you wanted to challenge in a game of H-O-R-S-E.  Besides being able to rainbow shots from various distances, he could bank a ball off both walls on the northwest corners of the Franklin School building and swish it through the hoop.
      As I mentioned, Oink played only one season at the high school level, most of which was on junior varsity, although everyone in school and in the stands knew Oink was the best player on the varsity.  A few times the coach would put Oink in the varsity game.  I remember one time Oink was dribbling about 20 feet from Toronto's basket, an opponent between him an the hoop, arms raised high, knees bent in defending position.  Oink nonchalantly dribbled behind his own back and then around the defender, a complete 360-degree sweep and then swished the ball through the net.
      This wasn't exactly the type of tactic coaches in those days had in mind regarding fundamental basketball and was probably the main reason Oink spent most of his varsity tenure on the bench.  The coach tried to make Oink play basketball the way the coach thought basketball should be played.  Oink could achieve greatness and lead the Red Knights to the state title someday, only via the way of the head coach.
      But sports was not about titles, the state and the greatest--certainly not about pressure.  If he could not have fun, he wasn't going to play.  He never shot his majestic arching set shot in a Red Knights uniform again.
      Looking back, Oink was right all along.  If anything motivates you in sports other than having fun, you are participating for all the wrong reasons.  Coaches and athletes work themselves to the brink of exhaustion.  Heck, Oink was good at what came natural to him.  He was the best that never was.
 

Harold Coulter, shown on THS 1967 squad, was the only guy who could have wore a name like Oink gracefully

KAUL FIELD REVISITED

HISTORIC SPORTS VENUE OF TORONTO, OHIO

                  Hallowed is the ground where the glinted steel spikes of summer and autumn once trod in the north end of Toronto.

This small piece of earth, Kaul Field, where the bowling alley currently sits parallel to the 1100 block of Fifth Street, served as home field for some of Toronto’s most revered sports heroes, including Pick Nalley, Gabby Kunzler, Clarke and Gordie Hinkle and Hook Comer.

         Soon after the turn of the Twentieth Century baseball became vogue in the Gem City, with a semi-pro team, the Toronto Athletic Club, dominating most local nines.  At Kaul Field, the TAC hosted other semi-pros from the area and sometimes others of higher caliber.

         “The Pittsburgh Pirates came barnstorming into town along with Honus Wagner,” John Petras said.  “I can’t remember who won, but yes they did play in Toronto.”

         Petras, now resides in Royal Oak, Michigan, is the son of John Petras Sr., who was a member of the TAC before World War I and played alongside Pick Nalley, Wenzel Straka and other founding fathers of baseball in the Gem City.

                At the end of the 1918 Pittsburgh Pirates' season, Bill Mekechnie dropped out of baseball and moved his family to little Toronto where he took up a position of sales for Kaul Clay.  He also set up a grocery in the Daniels Building.  The following year, Mekechnie became player-coach for the Toronto Athletic Club and convinced no retired Pittsburgh Pirates legend Honus Wagner to play games for Toronto on weekends.  Both would eventually be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Honus Wagner

         A wooden fence enclosed Kaul Field then, but sometime around the 1920s the only wooden structure remaining was the grandstand framing the home plate area at the site approximately where the cul-de-sac is today on Fifth Street.

         It was this period that Toronto resident Tom McKelvey remembers well.  “Kaul Field was used for baseball in the summer and football in the fall,” McKelvey said.  “We had church leagues five nights a week, Monday through Friday.  Every church had a team.  The best team was always St. Francis, who we called back then the Mickeys”

         McKelvey also has fond memories of the semi-pro football club, the Toronto Tigers, when professional football was at its infancy and germinating in northeastern Ohio.

         “The Toronto Tigers played their games at home in the fall months in front of good crowds,” McKelvey said.  “The train pulled in across the field and the opposing players and fans stepped off; then walked to the field.”

         According to McKelvey, the Toronto Tigers and their opponents played with fierce competition, locals occasionally being replaced by ringers--college athletes playing for dough under aliases.

         “I heard two Ohio State players came in playing for 100 or 200 dollars.  Fats Henry came in from Washington and Jefferson.  Henry would later play for the Canton Bulldogs and become inducted in the Hall of Fame”

         Some of the Toronto standouts included the Ferris brothers and Hook Comer.  Comer had a short stint at fullback with the Canton Bulldogs alongside Henry and the great Jim Thorpe.

         Toronto High School also staged its football games at Kaul Field prior to 1930.  McKelvey’s father, Tom Sr., took young Tom to watch his first game, a match-up between Toronto and Warwood.

         “There were no lights back then,” McKelvey said.  “The games were held in the afternoon.  There were ropes stretched along the sidelines to keep us from coming onto the field.”

         Kaul Field was used for other endeavors beside sports during that era.  McKelvey said a traditional ox roast was held at the grounds around Thanksgiving Day.

         “I remember the kids from the north end ice skated in the winter there,” Vince Exterovich, a 1942 THS graduated said.  “There was a pond, actually a marshy area that froze over during the winter.  Mostly north end kids skated there.”

         Exterovich resided at Sixth Street back then, considering himself a south ender.  Today, the line separating the two ends of the Gem City runs east to west along Main Street, making the southern end larger in area than the older north.  All of Sixth Street today is located what is considered the north end.

         “The south end wasn’t developed in those days,” McKelvey said.  “It was mostly farms and Sloane’s.”

         During the Forties and the Fifties, with the emergence of Little League at newly built Memorial Park and the development of the south end with its new schools, Kaul Field was reduced to a sandlot until it ceased to exist at all with the construction of Toronto Lanes around 1960.

T-formation from the Toronto High School band on Kaul Field.

1913 Toronto Athletic Club

         “The field was very important,” McKelvey said.  “It was our arena.  Kaul Field was the center of ououtdoor sports for Toronto back then.”

Farewell to old Clarke Hinkle Field

Clarke Hinkle

Members of 1970 team, left to right: Joe Chadwick, Bob Petras, Dan Baker, Larry Hughes.

Pre-game gathering

Red Knights Forever

View From South End 

Ron Paris Jr., Ron Paris Sr., Head Coach Ralph Anastasio

Bob Chadwick, THS Class of 1974 and West Point graduate.

Chuck Walker, late 60s guard and linebacker.

Brian Zorbini, running back, early 90s.

Red Knight mascot leading the final charge.

HALL OF FAME CITY

      It's neither Cooperstown, New York nor Canton, Ohio, but few towns the size of the Gem City can claim that five professional hall of fame athletes once called the ball fields of Toronto, Ohio home.
      Receiving his first shot of professional football here at the old Kaul Field was Wilbur "Fats" Henry, an All American lineman from the College of Washington and Jefferson.  "Those were rough and tumble days," the late Tom McKelvey said about the 1920s.  "Doc Kilgus was the owner of the Toronto Tigers and was trying to build up the team with outside players.  One of those was Fats Henry, fresh out of college."
      Henry would go on to play and coach for the Canton Bulldogs, and in 1926, he brought up Toronto native John Comer for one game.  Wearing number 3, Comer carried the ball once for one yard, giving him the distinction of being Toronto's first professional football player.
       Henry is both a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the National League Hall of Fame.
       The Gem City athlete to next join the professional football ranks was Clarke Hinkle, after whom the high school stadium is named.  Carl Snavey, his coach at Bucknell University said of the Lackawanna Express, "Without a doubt, the greatest defensive back I have ever coached."  Hinkle became a three-time All American at Bucknell and then went on to play with the Green Bay Packers from 1932 to 1941, a period this fullback-linebacker became the NFL's all time leading rusher with 3,860 yards.
      In 1964, the NFL enshrined Hinkle in Canton and the NCAA in 1971.
      Two decades later, continuing the proud gridiron traditions of Toronto was Don Sutherin, a 1954 graduate of THS.
       Sutherin, of course, is best remembered for kicking the winning field goal of the 1958 Rose Bowl for Ohio State, but, locally, he and fellow classmate George Deiderich have the distinction of being the only two future professional football players to have paired at THS at the same time, from 1949 to 1953.  During their senior season, the two future Canadian Football League players performed on a squad that produced four wins, four losses and one tie.
      The New York Giants drafted Sutherin as a defensive back in 1959.  He played for the Giants part of that season and then played with the Pittsburgh Steelers the remainder of the year and the 1960 season.  Sutherin then took his talents north to the Hamilton Tiger Cats and played in the CFL for 12 years, participating in eight Grey Cups, his team winning four.
      By the time he retired, Sutherin held 18 CFL records.  He was inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame in 1992.
      Toronto contributed to the Baseball Hall of Fame, as well.  Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop Honus Wagner often brought several teammates to barnstorm against local clubs.  He also played for the Toronto Athletic Club.
      In The Era of Elegance author Walter M. Kestner wrote, "Wagner, in the twilight of his years of his career, played in Toronto where he alternated with Lawrence Hughes on the all star team managed by Doc Kilgus."
      Kilgus also recruited for the all star squad Boston Red Sox outfielder John Bates and Chicago Cub catcher Tom Needham, both from Jefferson County.
      One hall of fame athlete who did get away from the Gem City was Rollie Fingers, whose father George played for Class D Williamstown in the Mountain State League in 1938.
      The Fingers family resided at 601 Clark Street.  Around when Rollie was ten years old, father George, fed up with working at Wheeling Steel in Steubenville, decided to move the family to California.
      Rollie went on to play 18 seasons in the major leagues, pioneering the role of closing pitcher while recording 341 career saves.
      He was inducted into Cooperstown in 1992.

TORONTO'S FIRST PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYER

      Many men would give their souls to play just one game in the National Football League, but it was the heart of Toronto Tiger legend John "Hook" Comer that gave him that single opportunity.
      During the first quarter of the 20th Century, football players participated for the love of a game with crude equipment and often with equally crude treatment.  Those playing for semi-professional teams, such as the Toronto Tigers, supplemented their primary jobs at the local clay works with a few extra bucks against such notable teams as the Akron Silents, Bradley Eagles, Dusquesne Apprentice and various Ohio Valley clubs.
      "Those were rough and tough days the way they dressed and talked," said Tom McKelvey, who watched many semi-pro games during their heyday in the Gem City.  "I remember before one game the Toronto coach had his players diving into a mud puddle by the old home plate to practice recovering fumbles."
      Out of the most physical and punishing era of football emerged one athlete, John S. "Hook" Comer, standing 6'3" and weighing 180 pounds.
      "My father told me Hook Comer could kick the ball almost the length of the football field," John Petras Jr. said.
      "They said he could throw the football 100 yards," McKelvey said.  "Of course, that's probably exaggeration."
      What isn't hyperbole was Comer's athleticism.  Some old timers said he was equally gifted at running, kicking and passing.
      In his "Era of Elegance," author Walter M. Kestner gives this account of Comer: "As I recall the football of that era was much larger in diameter that that used today and consequently was much harder to throw.  However, John Comer or Big Hook as he was called could grasp the ball and throw it with extreme accuracy.   On one play particularly called the Formation A, Dave Ferris would lateral the ball to Hook, who would then throw a pass down field to Goose Mundy or Jim Condrim with a touchdown usually resulting from the play."

      Accounts by both Kestner and McKelvey attest that the early Toronto Tiger teams consisted of local talent, but around 1920 Doc Kilgus, club owner, wanted to increase the talent pool in the Gem City.
      "Doc Kilgus brought in guys from out of town to build up the team," McKelvey said.
      Often these athletes were collegians playing under aliases for money to maintain their amateur status  One such athlete was Pete "Fats" Henry, an All American tackle from Washington & Jefferson who played on the same side of Kaul Field with ringers and the few remaining legitimate locals, such as Hook Comer.
       Henry would go on to play with the Canton Bulldogs in 1920 and, as player-coach in 1926, he brought up fullback John "Hook" Comer, now 36 years of age and well past his prime.  Wearing number 3, Comer played but one NFL game, carrying the ball once for one yard alongside 38-year-old Jim Thorpe.
      The Bulldogs that year finished with one win, nine losses and three ties--the worst record in the fledgling National Football League.
      In 1963, Henry was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, one year before Toronto and Green Bay legend Clarke Hinkle was enshrined, arguably giving the Gem City two members in Canton.
       Comer went on to become a well respected policeman in Toronto, serving with Hinkle's brother Les.  He died in 1950 and is buried in Toronto Union Cemetery, not far from other Gem City legends, such as Clarke Hinkle and Pick Nalley.