| An Interstate-71 World
Series in October 2000? Could happen, hoped one Ohio sports columnist as he
contemplated last month the likes of Cleveland slugger Manny Ramirez and Cincinnati’s
Junior Griffey. Anything is possible and if an interstate highway had connected
Sidney with Cincinnati a hundred years ago, we could have had an I-75 series here in
Shelby County, Ohio.
That’s right. The
National League’s Cincinnati team came to Sidney to play ball on August 3, 1900, and
up to the fifth inning it was anybody’s ballgame. The local newspaper hit the
streets on July 26 announcing that the "Cincinnati National League base ball team may
be secured here for an exhibition game August 3." Arrangements had been completed
with Cincinnati’s manager Bancroft, the paper announced the next day, noting that the
"Cincinnati and Boston teams will change cars (railcars) here on that day on their
way from Boston to Cincinnati."
The hype and "special" team
arrangements for the Sidney "Reds" began immediately, with daily updates in the
newspapers. "Be sure and obtain grand stand seats before they are all sold. Only 350
tickets will be sold. 10 cents, at Steinle's," read the advertising. Another ad:
"Tickets now on sale at Taylor’s hardware store, Henne’s shoe store, Jas.
Ovenden’s, Fred Conner’s. General admission 50 cents. Grand stand 10
cents." Sidney’s Charles Taylor traveled to Piqua, Troy, and Tippecanoe to
advertise the Cincinnati-Sidney game.
And the special team arrangements? Bringing in
the ringers, of course. "Harry Erckler, of Wapakoneta, who has been
playing with Youngstown and Mansfield, will play second base for the Sidney team in the
game with the Cincinnati Reds next week," the paper advised.
New Ballpark on
South Miami
Sidney was ready. The local baseball club was proud of its brand new field and
grandstand enclosed by a high board fence on the Reynold’s property on south Miami
Avenue, now Berger Park. On June 7, they had won a 5 to 4 hard fought 10 inning game with
the Wapakoneta team, which had "the reputation of being one of the strongest teams in
Western Ohio."
Latham, the "coacher" (the term current then for
coach) for Cincinnati, still in Boston, released this letter he had received from Sidney:
"A big crowd will be out to see us. Sam Skinner, the village fiddler, will give a
concert before the game, and the management has promised to give away ginger snaps with
pictures of the home players on ‘em. Cider will be for sale in Lum Baker’s jolt
wagon just out side the park. The flour mill and blacksmith shops will be closed, and
we’re goin’ to have a gosh ding good time."
Sidney’s new baseball rivals arrived via the Big Four railroad, now Conrail, at 8
o’clock Friday morning and – bad news for Sidney – the National League team
may have been smarting from the defeat handed them the day before by a Painesville team in
another exhibition game. Many of the factories closed down to let their employees attend,
but R.W. Anderson’s woodworking factory stayed open for a Reds’ tour of the
bat-making operation. Cincinnati had been using some of Anderson’s bats, making the
stop-over in Sidney a commercial courtesy call as well as a baseball promotional stop and
forced railroad layover.
Lunch at the Wagner House
After lunch at the Wagner House, the Reds
met the Reds for a 2 o’clock show at the South Miami ballpark just built in May. And
we might have beat them too if it hadn’t been for the fifth inning when the future
"Big Red Machine" hammered in five runs. Sidney retaliated in the seventh with
two runs, but was ultimately overwhelmed 14 to 2 in a game in which Sidney’s
hospitality outpaced its ball skill. The Cincinnati team left for home that afternoon on
the C.H. &D. railroad, now the CSX. "The crowd was the largest ever seen on
the grounds," reported the newspaper. Modern teams could wish for as much.
Sources: April through August,
1900, editions of the Sidney Daily News and the Sidney Journal; June 2000
edition of Ohio Magazine.
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