Paterson enjoys a rich baseball history

BY ERIC MODEL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

JOURNEYS INTO NEW JERSEY

Baseball and New Jersey have been associated with one another for a long time.

Some believe that the game was invented in Hoboken. Many fondly recall the Newark Bears and Jersey City. And, there was a time that the Dodgers called Jersey City their home (even if only for a few games) just before they left Brooklyn for California.

Less celebrated, but as important is the role of the game in Paterson.

Baseball historians say that the history of the game in town is a long one -- dating back to the golden age of industry.

In fact, baseball great Honus Wagner is said to have started his pro baseball career in Paterson before reaching big leagues. Proof can be found in a place no less significant than the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, where a Honus Wagner “Paterson” uniform is on display.

The history of the game in town goes far deeper, though.

There were semi-pro factory teams playing a top brand of ball locally. A recent online inquiry came from an illustrator doing a piece featuring a player in a Paterson Silk Sox uniform who was seeking more info on what the club’s cap and jersey looked like. This illustrator was aware of the fact that the Silk Sox were also known as the Doherty Silk Sox after the factory that sponsored them.

“They were a top-notch semi-pro team that often had major leagues playing for them and were around from 1916-1936 approximately,” he wrote.

Paterson is host of one of the few still standing ballparks that once played host to Negro League baseball during the Jim Crow era.

In 1932, Paterson opened Hinchliffe Stadium, a 10,000-seat stadium named in honor of John V. Hinchliffe, the mayor at the time. It is a large oval, and was inspired by the “stadium movement” of the 1920s.

The stadium at first hosted the Negro leagues and barnstorming tours. From 1933–1937, 1939–1945, Hinchliffe was the home of the New York Black Yankees and from 1935-36 the home of the New York Cubans of the Negro National League.

Hinchliffe originally served as the site for high school sports. The historic ballpark was also a venue for many professional football games, track and field events, boxing matches and auto and motorcycle racing.

Hinchliffe is one of only three Negro league stadiums left standing in the United States, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1963, Paterson Public Schools acquired the stadium and used it for public school events until 1997, but it is currently in a state of disrepair, while the schools have faced numerous challenges.

Those of a certain age still associate Paterson the longtime as the home of Larry Doby, a Hall of Famer who broke the color barrier in the American League as the second black player to play in the modern major leagues.

Born in Camden, S.C., Doby was a centerfielder who appeared in seven All-Star games and finished second in the 1954 American League MVP voting. Appointed manager of the Chicago White Sox in 1978, Doby was the second African-American to lead a Major League club. The Hall’s Veterans Committee selected him to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998.

A local star athlete in Paterson, Doby joined the Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues at the age of 17, in 1942, starring as a second baseman. Doby tried out for the Newark Eagles at historic Hinchliffe Stadium. At his Hall of Fame induction press conference in 1998, Doby said his most memorable moment at Hinchliffe Stadium was trying out for the Eagles, this after having a stellar career as a football and baseball player at Eastside High School.

At that time he played under the name Larry Walker to protect his amateur status. His career in Newark was interrupted for two years for service in the Navy. He then rejoined the Eagles in 1946. Along with his partner, fellow Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, Doby led the team to the Negro League Championship.

Doby was signed by the Cleveland Indians by their owner Bill Veeck in 1947, eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League. In his rookie season, Doby went 5-for-32 in 29 games.

Doby died on June 18, 2003, in Montclair, at age 79. To the end, he always spoke fondly of his connection to Paterson.

By the way, others from Paterson who have made it to the majors have included: Glenn Borgmann, Johnny Briggs (Phillies-1960’s), Chuck Jamison (18 years with Cleveland), and James McCormick, a 19th century ballplayer.

Finally, Paterson is still fondly remembered as the home of Lou Costello. Best known as half of the comedy team of Abbott Costello, Costello was famous for his bumbling, chubby, clean-cut image that has appealed to many Americans over the decades, and for his shouted line of "HEEEEYYY ABBOTT!!"

“Who's on First?” is a vaudeville comedy routine made most famous by Abbott and Costello. In their version, the premise of the routine is that Abbott is identifying the players on a ball team to Costello, but their names and nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers to Costello's questions. In this context, the first baseman is named "Who"; thus, the utterance "Who's on first" is ambiguous between the question ("which person is the first baseman?") and the answer ("The name of the first baseman is 'Who'").

Locally, Lou Costello was born Louis Francis Cristillo in Paterson to an Italian father from Calabria, and a mother of French and Irish ancestry. He attended School 15 in town, and was considered a gifted athlete. He excelled in basketball and reportedly was once the New Jersey state free throw champion.

Abbott and Costello performed at Hinchliffe prior to boxing matches there.

One of Jersey's many cultural statesman is honored by his hometown.

For example, the centennial of Costello's birth was celebrated in Paterson on the first weekend in March 2006.

A more lasting remembrance was created in 1992, when the city of Paterson in conjunction with the Lou Costello Memorial Association erected a statue of Costello in the newly named Lou Costello Memorial Park in the city's historic downtown section.

The statue has had brief appearances in two episodes of The Sopranos.

Titled "Lou's On First," a life-size bronze of the comedy genius carries a bat and wears his trademark derby, now splattered with bird excrement. It shares a little grassy square along with a gazebo and a couple of horseshoe pits.

The Lou Costello statue can be found at Cianci Park, at the corner of Cianci and Ellison streets, a couple of blocks away from the Great Falls.

Eric Model explores the "offbeat, off the beaten path overlooked and forgotten," on Sirius XM-Radio and at journeysinto.com.

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