1917 Drug & Chemical League Baseball

Discussion in 'Metalware' started by mdlock, May 15, 2019.

  1. mdlock

    mdlock Well-Known Member

    Think this is in right place. 20190515_130216 (2).jpg
    Drug and Chemical.jpg
     
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  2. Debora

    Debora Well-Known Member

  3. mdlock

    mdlock Well-Known Member

    Unfortunately that is only info out there that I can find been looking for about 15 years. Like to find out some of the players names.
     
  4. Debora

    Debora Well-Known Member

    As it was an inter-company league, unlikely much more information exists. And I suspect 1917 wasn't a great year for baseball, amateur or professional, given it was smack in the middle of World War I.

    That said, did you find this? The search terms "drug and chemical league baseball 1917" brings up an article from The National Druggist that lists the companies in the League.

    https://books.google.com/books?id=b...g and chemical league" baseball 1917&f=false

    Debora
     
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  5. mdlock

    mdlock Well-Known Member

    I don't think I have not came upon this. I hadn't looked in a while. Thank you for pointing it out.
     
  6. mdlock

    mdlock Well-Known Member

    something funny. I never clicked on books on google site. Thanks
     
  7. Debora

    Debora Well-Known Member

    If you're searching for the names of individual players, I suspect the best source of information is The American Druggist archive.

    Debora
     
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  8. BaseballGames

    BaseballGames Well-Known Member

    Debora's on the right track -- the roster of the 1916 D&CL champion Fougera & Co team, for starters, can be found here, in this November 1916 (vo 23 no 5) edition of the NARD (National Association of Retail Druggists) Journal:
    https://books.google.com/books?id=FBgzAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA196&dq="national+lead"+baseball++1916&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjugZm5-57iAhXsct8KHfTXBRsQ6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q="national%20lead"%20baseball%20%201916&f=false

    Debora, thanks by the way for sending us back to the "ballparks of Brooklyn" site, which we'd visited while researching another project a year or two ago. You've got us digging now, as we spotted a reference there to what might maybe possibly be a grand-uncle or cousin-twice-removed...
     
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  9. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

    The first problem, as I see it, is sorting out which team is the "3rd" team. It's not difficult to check old newspapers for player names, but without narrowing down the field, not sure what is to be gained from a list of names that may (or not) have played on the third team.

    EDIT: Or is that third place?

    NARD Journal, Volume 23 (1916)
    The National Drug and Chemical League comprises the following teams: E Fougera & Co, ER Squibb & Son, Liggett-Riker-Hegeman Company, Roessler & Hasslacher Company, National Aniline and Chemical Company, Bristol-Myers Company, Leh & Fink, and Corn Products Company. Colgate & Co. and the National Lead Company will enter teams next year.
     
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  10. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

  11. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

    I think Thompson & Norris took third place in 1917, but it's possible I'm wrong... the game for second place happened after first place was already claimed and while I suspect the loser of the "second place" game (which was Thompson & Norris) got third place, I don't know that for certain.

    I do know that third was either Thompson & Norris or E.R. Squibb.

    Maybe @BaseballGames better understands how these things were determined, lol.
     
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  12. BaseballGames

    BaseballGames Well-Known Member

    Jivvy, the fob or medallion and its inscription are kind of an oddball items even by the standards of 1910s sports memorabilia and sports jargon. The (now) immensely obscure D&CL was evidently (obviously) an amateur league, and expensive doodads would very probably not have been handed out to every player, but likely only to team "owners" (the company CEO, or possibly whichever corporate wonk was in charge of organizing and managing the company team).

    We're sure, though, that the inscription at centre is meant to be read as "Member Team" -- commemorating the team's participation in the league -- with the incised "3RD" added in a different style, later, after the season's conclusion, to indicate the team's finish in the standings ("3rd place").

    What was your source for the Thompson & Norris item? (Not challenging you, just curious, as we don't see them mentioned anywhere so far in any context.)

    It's remotely possible, but we think highly unlikely, that the rosters of any of the league's teams (nor any results, let alone write-ups, of any of of the games played by those teams) would have merited mention in any newspaper of the day -- perhaps literally just a sentence or two noting the result of a game that decided the league championship, if that status wasn't determined merely by the final standings. A painstaking search of Brooklyn newspapers of the day might, maybe, perhaps, possibly turn up some little citation in a round-up of local sports.

    Where such details -- rosters and results -- would most likely be found would be in company newsletter kinds of things, and that of course would be a real needle-in-a-haystack search nowadays, even assuming any copies of such ephemera still exist. Trade periodicals, like American Druggist or the NARD Journal, fall somewhere in between newspapers and newsletters in terms of their likelihood as possible sources of information, but it'd be a grind to tease out any specific details, again assuming that there's even anything to be found in there...
     
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  13. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

    Right there with ya in theory, but we're both wrong. There are a number of articles in just 1917. In real papers (mostly Brooklyn specific, but not all).

    SIDEBAR: Now the Drug & Chemical Bowling League, they have the coverage you'd expect. Well, except for the fact that I now know they existed -- which suggests that they have more coverage than I expected. :hilarious:

    I have temporarily lost the article that said Liggett had snagged first place and the Foguera and Thompson&Norris would be playing for second, but here's a Brooklyn Daily Eagle clipping that's pretty typical of the coverage.

    temp01.jpg
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2019
  14. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

  15. BaseballGames

    BaseballGames Well-Known Member

    Outstanding research, Jivvy! We admit to being quite surprised that a "real" newspaper provided anything more than the most cursory coverage of play in an industrial league, while three major league teams were playing in the Eagle's back yard -- although it wasn't all that long ago that the sports section of our large-city newspaper(s -- used to be two here) afforded a fair number of inches to local amateur ball, so maybe D&CL reportage a hundred years ago really isn't astonishing... Did you find any details on the National Lead team? We sifted through Google Books using quite a variety of search terms but found nothing relevant to their ball club...
     
  16. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

    I found one article from 1916 (see below) where National Lead played against the D&CL and then articles about them supposedly joining the D&CL in 1917. But nothing in 1917.

    I also haven't found any evidence of the league post-1917. (fwiw, the bowling league was still around in 1977!)

    FYI, fultonhistory.com is an excellent free source for New York newspapers (has other states now, but I'm not sure what their full catalogue includes)

    temp03.jpg
     
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  17. BaseballGames

    BaseballGames Well-Known Member

    Last edited: May 16, 2019
  18. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

    It was up earlier today, but it is down right now. Don't know why, but they've had problems before (hit by cryptoware last year). It's a "labor of love" site, dependent on donations and the work of very few people.

    It will be back. ;)
     
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  19. Jivvy

    Jivvy the research is my favorite

    It's back up. ;)
     
  20. Figtree3

    Figtree3 What would you do if you weren't afraid?

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Metalware Coffee grinder lamp stamped pat. Dec.4, 1917 Mar 28, 2018

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