The Highs and Lows of the 1928 Firemen’s Baseball League
Footprints Of Fayette
Fayette County is one of the most historic counties in Texas. In this weekly feature from the County Historical Commission, a rotating group of writers looks back at local history.
On March 29, 1928, the La Grange Journal excitedly announced the imminent beginning of the season for the Firemen’s Baseball League. From April 1 until August 19, teams from La Grange, Ellinger, Columbus, Flatonia, Moulton, Schulenburg, Weimar, and Hallettsville would all play each other in weekly games of baseball. Foy English, a baseball fanatic, had put money towards the La Grange team, as well as advocating for help from the Chamber of Commerce and pushing for improvements to the local baseball diamond. La Grange’s baseball team, the Demons, traveled to Ellinger for their first game of the season. It was noted that Ellinger only joined the league after Waelder failed to put a team together. Though it’s impossible to guess how Waelder may have fared, La Grange was surely glad to face Ellinger first, as they won 14-0 and held Ellinger to merely four hits. This matchup also marked the beginning of the Journal publishing full box scores for games, which gives us much more insight into the players and the relative skills of every team. We don’t have full names available to us, but the article does note that G. Rosenberg hit a single, double, and triple, almost completing a cycle. Other surnames on the team are Klein, January, Pape, Prause, Ling, Etzel, Albers, and Van Horn. Going with the eternal trend of baseball nicknames, the writeups sometimes mention players such as “Skinny” Rosenberg and “Big Boy” Albers.
The Demons’s domination would continue, with 5-2 victories over Columbus and Flatonia, a 17-2 blowout against Moulton, a 9-0 shutout against Weimar, and an 11-3 stomping of Ellinger. As of May 24, La Grange led the league with a perfect 6-0 record. On May 27, Hallettsville gave La Grange their first defeat, which would mark the beginning of the end of La Grange’s participation in the league, but perhaps not for the expected reason.
In the June 28 issue, there was a writeup of the Demons playing a tense game in Weimar. The paper speculates if the warm weather contributed, but at one point a call in favor of La Grange “did not set well with the Weimar aggregation, and a wrangle was the result.” Eventually play resumed, until another incident in the ninth inning caused La Grange to forfeit the game, despite being in the lead.
By July 19, La Grange was third in the league, but had forfeited their most recent game against Hallettsville. The paper does nothing to elucidate the cause of their withdrawal, but one week later all was made clear. An article from July 26 explains that the LG Demons had unanimously voted to withdraw from the league, due to continual violation of the bylaws by other teams, especially the proliferation of paying pitchers under the table. Given that the league was a fully amateur affair, paying players was thus one of the worst offenses a team can commit. Going forward, the Demons planned to play semi-pro teams from throughout central Texas, and it seems as though the other Firemen’s League teams kept on playing as normal.
However, this saga would continue into 1929, with enough uncertainty and doubt surrounding the Firemen’s League that member teams began looking for other leagues to join, such as the South Central Texas League, while the Firemen’s League did end up reforming as the Tri-County League. An article from May 2, 1929 noted that the Tri-County League kept most of the previous bylaws, except “that teams be allowed to hire two players, at not exceeding the cost of $10 per player per game.” If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!