Backroads and Ballplayers #54 - Moses Yellow Horse, College Baseball, and the Lost Story of Jack Love
Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from the days when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Always free and always short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.
Only in Arkansas
Each month I write a feature-length story for the online publication Only in Arkansas. Only in Arkansas is a collection of blogs, columns, and human interest stories about our amazing Natural State. I am humbled to be part of this outstanding publication featuring some of the most talented writers in our state.
There is something for everyone in Only in Arkansas. Each month the online publication features dining reviews, travel suggestions, upcoming events, profiles of notable Arkansans, and one baseball history guy. Give it a try. I hope it will become your go-to source for stories found ONLY IN ARKANSAS.
My baseball history contributions for Only in Arkansas give me a chance to go into more detail about interesting individuals from Arkansas baseball Golden Years and the teams and leagues from the days when baseball was “Arkansas Game.”
This weekly Substack post averages more than 400 readers each week. I will share the opening of my Only in Arkansas feature each month with a link to continue reading at OIA.
Feature Story of the Month
The Journey of Moses Yellow Horse
In the winter of 1874–1875, two Pawnee children, Clara and Thomas, began an epic walk from up on the Platte River in Nebraska to a new home in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma. Clara was in her early teens, and Thomas was about six years old. The elders of the Skidi branch of the Pawnee Nation had decided, with little choice, to leave the shrinking Pawnee land in Nebraska for resettlement on a reservation in the Indian Territory. Outnumbered by rival tribes and facing an unrelenting push by white settlers, the Pawnee chose a treacherous journey to an unknown future over possible annihilation. Clara and Thomas survived the journey. Many did not.
Thomas and Clara married sometime in the early 1890s and welcomed their first child, Moses Yellow Horse, in 1898. The couple’s son would not only become part of a new generation of Oklahoma Pawnee but one of the first Native Americans to reach the pinnacle of professional baseball.
College Baseball’s Regular Season
So, the college baseball regular season is over, some may say the real season is about to begin. I am not one of those. Stuck in my ex-coach’s philosophy is the belief that those weeks of going to battle against traditional foes are very much part of a team’s legacy.
While the big prize remains, every team but one will come up short. The accomplishments of March, April, and May are forever part of the story of 2024 college baseball.
Hogwash - Razorbacks Win the West
List 1:
Vanderbilt Ole Miss
LSU Mississippi State
Florida Georgia
South Carolina Texas A&M
Listed above are some of the SEC teams who did not win their division in 2024.
List 2:
…
Listed above are the SEC teams who have better cumulative regular-season records than Arkansas over the last 5 years. (maybe 10?) That list is empty!
In some of those years, the coaching staff built the airplane in the sky, with an almost new roster. This year the Hogs held on to a slippery rope and won the SEC West. Given the way the Saturday/Sunday games have gone the last six weeks, that is more than okay, it is amazing. I know the expectations that accompany Razorback Baseball, but I am proud of this team.
It looks like we would have to lose at home to not make it to Omaha. We don’t do that often! The SEC regular season is excruciating, and the road to Omaha is an unpredictable journey. It will take renewed confidence and a little luck, but I would never bet against Dave Van Horn.
Beginning in 2025, the SEC baseball regular season will continue to have 30 conference games for each team. Teams will play two permanent opponents and eight annually rotating opponents each year in a three-game series. Every team will be kept in a single standing, with no divisions. The regular season title will be even more prestigious and not winning one for a few years will be hard to handle.
What do you think? Will a SEC regular season title every 16 years satisfy Arkansas fans? LSU fans? Ole Miss fans? Vanderbilt fans? Mississippi State fans? Florida fans? Tennessee fans? …
Watching the GAC
Congratulations to the Great American Conference for a fantastic season. It is not over yet. GAC Tournament Champion and Regional Champion University of Arkansas Monticello is headed to a Super Regional.
The 2024 Great America baseball season came down to the last out and ended with the first three-way tie in conference history. Arkansas Tech, UAM, and Harding finished with identical 23-10 records.
I followed a gritty Arkansas Tech team from a cold February afternoon when I counted 27 folks in the stands, to a warm day in May when a packed stadium basked in the spring sunshine and stood in unison on the last out to honor their conference champs. That day at Baswell Field represented all the best things about college baseball. I suspect the same could be said in Division II parks all over America.
The GAC is 13 years old. It is a blend of the venerable old Arkansas conference known as the AIC and a group in Oklahoma that originated in the similarly named OIC. My friend Will Prewitt is the only commissioner the GAC has ever had. You may not know that the league office is located in Dardanelle, Arkansas. I would like to drop by and congratulate Will on a job well done, but it is impossible to get past the staff that guards his office. (sarcasm)
Congratulations to all the coaches, players, and those behind the scenes who make the GAC such an outstanding league. THANKS!
For the Love of the Game…
I loved my afternoons watching Wonder Boys baseball and Golden Suns softball. I hope you were able to catch some of the other successful college teams in action. Great college baseball and softball are right down the street.
UALR Wins the Ohio Valley Regular Season
The UALR Trojans clinched the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season baseball title on the last day of their schedule with a sweep of Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee. Catcher Jake Wright from the Bryant baseball factory a few miles down the road closed out his final regular season game with a three-run home run.
The Trojans finished the regular season with a record of 32-22. The 2024 season is the second 30+ win season for the Trojans. Coach Chris Curry has the UALR program on the move.
Meanwhile, Down in Magnolia, the Stars are Shining Again
This morning in El Dorado, the South Arkansas Community College Stars baseball squad is packing for the NCAA Junior College World Series. The trip to the World Series is the second consecutive appearance for Coach Cannon Lester’s Stars.
Justin Szymanski’s pinch-hit grand slam in the fourth inning was the key hit as the Stars defeated Gateway (Ariz.) Community College 8-7 in Game 3 of the West Regional Championship Sunday at Goodheart Field in Magnolia.
Luke Eaton, the Stars closer from Huntsville, Arkansas, allowed one hit in six innings out of the bullpen to earn the bottom spot in the dog pile. Luke’s family are personal friends of ours. His mom Davina England Eaton was the “Soda Fountain Girl” at Newton’s Pharmacy when we had a baseball card shop next door. Congratulations to the Eatons.
Pack your bags, Davina and Jeff. Have fun!
Town Teams Part II
Excerpt from an earlier post on “Town Teams”
The Arkansas Baseball Encyclopedia gives the designation of the first game between town teams to a well-publicized contest held on Independence Day, 1868. The contest matched a team calling itself the “Rock City Base Ball Club” and a contingent of farmers from Pine Bluff.
The visitors arrived two days early to immerse themselves in the excitement of the upcoming contest. Newspapers carried the story on the front page, and a shaded seating area was hastily constructed to protect the delicate city folks from the mid-summer sun.
The game lived up to expectations. The two teams battled until both daylight and energy were in short supply, with Rock City eking out a 43–36 victory. In a show of goodwill: “Three cheers were made, as well as a ‘tiger’ for the umpire.”
It should not be assumed from this benevolent beginning that sportsmanship and goodwill would be the theme of games between neighboring communities.
No Love Lost on Jack
Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no pink tea, and Mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest. - Ty Cobb
I have lived in Russellville, Arkansas, for almost 50 years. It is indeed a baseball town. This community has produced dozens of outstanding players including college stars, professional players, and a Negro League All-Star. Link
The first Russellville baseball player to receive state-wide attention was a hot-tempered “town team” guy named Jackson Bennett Love. Unfortunately, his publicity was only indirectly related to baseball and more a review of his lack of restraint. The disturbing escapade that earned Love his first newspaper headlines occurred 120 years ago.
Love played in more professional games than any Russellville-born baseball guy in Arkansas history. He was unquestionably the most prominent professional baseball player from the River Valley in the first two decades of the 20th century. Some of that attention came from his baseball accomplishments. Much of his publicity did not.
Love’s name first appeared in a state-wide baseball story at age 22. One hundred and twenty years ago this week the Russellville town team played a game in Conway, but Love’s story in the Arkansas Gazette offered no details of the game. It seems that on the way out of town, Jack thought he spotted a player from the Conway team who had earned his disfavor in the game. Still fuming from some unforgivable offense, the impetuous Love walked up behind the offender at the train station and hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat. Tragically, Love had mistaken an innocent fellow named Charlie Jones for his revenge. Charlie just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time where Jack Love and his bat were settling scores. The Conway Ministerial Association was understandably riled up and demanded that all baseball relations with Russellville cease immediately.
Love must have had a good story. Although Love was charged with “assault with intent to kill,” Arkansas’ Boss Schmidt, manager at Springfield, Missouri, signed the impetuous young assailant to a minor league contract later in the summer. Perhaps Boss, who was known as a tough guy himself, apparently liked Love’s spirit. Somehow, in the summer of 1904, Jack Love had avoided a jail term and was getting his first pro baseball trial.
Love played for Texarkana in the North Texas league in 1905, and was player-manager at Hot Springs in 1906. Over the next 11 seasons, he would play in more than 1400 professional games. In most of those seasons, he played like a future big-league regular, but much of his notoriety came from his volatile nature.
In 1908, while playing in Oklahoma City, he ambushed an umpire with a cue stick in a local pool hall. The incident resulted in a fine and a suspension. Despite his impulsive nature, Love was popular with fans, and promotions came fast.
In 1909 he moved up to the Kansas City Blues, one step below the major leagues. In his four seasons in Kansas City, Love was once again a team leader on the field. On a team with about two dozen future big-leaguers, Love was among the team leaders in most offensive categories, but he continued to make unfortunate headlines.
The most serious of which came in 1911 when Love stalked a reporter who had the nerve to criticize Love’s performance. After coming up unannounced from behind, Love hit the unsuspecting sportswriter in the ear, jumped on him with his spikes, and kicked him in the head.
The $100 fine and jail time may have gotten Love’s attention, but at age 31 his chances of reaching the big leagues were gone. Despite his questionable dispute resolution skills, back home in Russellville where he was a hometown hero Love picked up off-season work in law enforcement. He continued to play a few minor league games each season until poor health ended his career in 1916. Jack Love died of tuberculosis on December 29, 1918. He is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Russellville, Arkansas.
The obscure story of Jackson Bennett Love remains one of the lost stories in Arkansas baseball history.
"Jack Love, who played second base for Kansas City, Memphis, and other cities in the Southern and Texas Leagues, and whose death was noted last week, had a strange experience in starting his baseball career. Love played in the first professional ball game he ever saw. He was a brakeman on the Missouri Pacific railroad when Boss Schmidt, later with Detroit, induced him to come to Springfield in the old Missouri Valley League to fill the hole on its infield. he never went back to railroading."
- Arkansas Baseball Encyclopedia - Caleb Hardwick
Book ordering information: Link
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