Black History Month
The Comics Baseball Team
according to the Library of Congress, February’s Black History Month “deepens our understanding of our nation’s history” and “celebrates the contributions african americans have made to american history in their struggles for freedom and equality.” In commemoration, for the next four weeks we will be sharing some stories from the Marshall County community of Culver.
The Comics Baseball Team
The Comics were a traveling baseball team in the 1910s. The players mostly included Culver Military academy employees. Charles Dickerson, headwaiter at Culver Military academy, 1909 – 1953, said in the Culver alumnus Magazine in 1968, “The waiters had a good baseball team. It was out of the books. E.R.
Culver used to follow us to our games in his big red Packard. Somebody got the suits for us. The name of the club was the Culver Comics. Coleman Jackson, a catcher, looked like Roy Campanella. (Roy ‘Sheep’ Scott) was an excellent first baseman, and I played third base. I wasn’t too bad. I was on that hot corner. The fun we had kept the boys together.” Records show that the Comics played in Burr Oak, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Delong, North Judson, Knox, Bourbon and, most likely, a string of other places too. The February 18th, 2010, Culver Citizen newspaper notes that the Comics “apparently played against white teams, one assumes an unusual situation even in Northern Indiana in the early decades of the 20th century.”
Possibly one of the most talked about games the Comics played was against the Bourbon Athletic Club in 1912. Bourbon won 9-6 and it is said that the game drew thousands of people. Robert Kyle wrote about it in the August 19, 1964, edition of the Culver Citizen newspaper (Kyle was the official scorekeeper of the game in 1912). An excerpt of Kyle’s article is reprinted below, parts edited for brevity:
“Both teams (The Comics and Bourbon Athletic Club) had exceptional baseball players who played just for the fun of it. The all-negro Comics were outfitted by J.P. Walters, who owned and operated the Palmer House on Lake Maxinkuckee. These superb players, of whom three still live in Culver are Charles Dickerson, former head waiter at the Culver Military Academy dining hall, Roy ‘Sheep’ Scott, still active as a baseball expert and former widely known umpire and employee of the Academy, and Luther Whitted, many years an employee of the Claypool Hotel in Indianapolis. He was a pitcher whom Sheep Scott thinks would, if he were pitching today, be in the Big Leagues. He had a pitch in those days known as a ‘fadeaway’ made famous by the great Christy Mathewson, but now known as the ‘slider’ by current baseball announcers.
The game was played in William Reed’s former pasture field at the north edge of town where a grandstand had been erected that year.
The lineup of the teams were: Bourbon – Furel “Corky” Burns, cf; Boots Shaw, c; Dick Blue, 3b; Dicky Miller, 1b; “Curly” Rhodes, ss; Fred Hunter, 2b; “Snowball” Morrical, rf; Curr, lf; Jones 2b; and Mike Eby, p. Culver – Sheep Scott, 3b; Lyons, ss; Coleman Jackson, c; Charles Dickerson, p and 3b; Dave Whitted, p and 3b; Luther Whitted, 1b and rf; Wade, 2b; Moore, lf; Fentress, cf. The game was played Sept. 5, 1912. Vern Snyder of Bourbon was the sole umpire, and Sheep still claims that “we was robbed.”
Anyway the record doesn’t exactly bear this out because Eby, the Bourbon pitcher, struck out seven while Dickerson issued six bases on balls before relieved in the 5th inning by Dave Whitted, who evidently did even worse and was replaced by Wade. Hunter and Rhodes got two hits apiece for Bourbon.
Coleman Jackson, the Comic catcher, was the center of attraction. He was stocky, fearless, quick as lightning, and reminded this writer of Roy Campanella, the wonderful Brooklyn Dodgers catcher of a later era. His great sense of humor helped a lot when it came to ‘jockeying’ the batters.”