Moerlein Saengerfest Maibock

The beer is pretty light and smooth, and it comes with an interesting history lesson about the Cincinnati Music Hall.  Prosit.

Joe Nuxhall's Major League Debut

June 10, 1944, from Baseball-Reference:

"Probably two weeks prior to that, I was pitching against seventh, eighth and ninth graders, kids 13 and 14 years old. All of a sudden, I look up and there's Stan Musial . . ." - Joe Nuxhall, about his first game as a 15-year-old major leaguer

Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds was the youngest player to make his major league debut in the 20th Century at 15 years, 10 months, and 11 days old. He is probably also the youngest player of all time. The player once thought to hold that distinction, Fred Chapman, was recently discovered to have been Frank Chapman, a pitcher whose age was not remarkable in any way, while there are serious doubts about the true birth date of the other contender for the title, Billy Geer.
Nuxhall was actually discovered while the Reds were scouting his 34 year old father, Orville, to fill their World War II depleted roster. Instead, they liked what they saw of the younger Nuxhall, and the club signed him to a $175 per month contract after the school year ended. He spent most of his time sitting on the bench, but on June 10th, 1944, with the Reds trailing the St. Louis Cardinals 13-0, Reds skipper Bill McKechnie put Nuxhall into a game. He walked one and retired two batters before seeing future Hall of Famer Stan Musial on deck. Nuxhall then unraveled, allowing five earned runs and failing to retire another batter.
Afterwards, Nuxhall was sent to the minors and did not pitch another major league game until 1952. He spent most of his major league career with the Reds at the time when they were known as the "Redlegs". However, he missed the club's single World Series appearance of that era, as he was pitching for the Kansas City Athletics in 1961. His best year was in 1955 when he went 17-12 and played in the All-Star Game. In the 1960s, about twenty years after his big league debut, he had another pair of fine seasons, going 15-8 in 1963 and 11-4 in 1965.

Here is the boxscore from June 10, 1944.

Here is a video interview of Nuxhall reflecting on his first game, and his life in baseball.

Here is the Enquirer's obituary from November 16, 2007.

Marty and Joe began broadcasting together prior to my birth.  Joe's broadcasts were the sound of summer.  Nobody meant Cincinnati baseball more than Joe.

Wooden Shoe Beer and Samuel Adams

According to this quiz, Samuel Adams founder Jim Koch's father was the final beer master at Wooden Shoe Beer, in 1953.  Here is a history of Wooden Shoe at the website of the revived Wooden Shoe Brewing Company.  I didn't know that about the Koch family.  I assumed the answer to the question was a Cincinnati brewery, since his dad had worked there for a while.  I did get 15 out of 25 on the quiz, which I didn't think was too hateful.  I'm a pretty good guesser.

Land Ordinance of 1785

Today marks a significant date in U.S.and in surveying history:

The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation of the inhabitants of the United States. Therefore, the immediate goal of the ordinance was to raise money through the sale of land in the largely unmapped territory west of the original states acquired at the 1783 (Treaty of Paris) after the end of the Revolutionary War. Over three-fourths of the area of the continental United States ultimately came under the rectangular survey. This was important because it provided easily recognized land descriptions, which in turn contributed enormously to the orderly and largely peaceful occupation of the land. The rectangular survey also provided the units within which economic, political, and social development took place.
The Ordinance of 1784 was a resolution written by Thomas Jefferson (delegate from Virginia) calling for Congress to take action. The land west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River was to be divided into ten separate states. However, the 1784 resolution did not define the mechanism by which the land would become states, or how the territories would be governed or settled before they became states. The Ordinance of 1785 put the 1784 resolution in operation by providing a mechanism for selling and settling the land, while the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 addressed political needs.
The 1785 ordinance laid the foundations of land policy until passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. The Land Ordinance established the basis for the Public Land Survey System. The initial surveying was performed by Thomas Hutchins. After he died in 1789, responsibility for surveying was transferred to the Surveyor General. Land was to be systematically surveyed into square townships, six miles (9.656 km) on a side. Each of these townships were sub-divided into thirty-six sections of one square mile (2.59 km²) or 640 acres. These sections could then be further subdivided for re-sale by settlers and land speculators.
The ordinance was also significant for establishing a mechanism for funding public education. Section 16 in each township was reserved for the maintenance of public schools. Many schools today are still located in section sixteen of their respective townships, although a great many of the school sections were sold to raise money for public education. In later States, section 36 of each township was also designated as a "school section".
Knepper notes: “Sections number 8, 11, 26, and 29 in every township were reserved for future sale by the federal government when, it was hoped, they would bring higher prices because of developed land around them. Congress also reserved one third part of all gold, silver, lead, and copper mines to its own use, a bit of wishful thinking as regards Ohio lands.” The ordinance also said “That three townships adjacent to Lake Erie be reserved, to be hereafter disposed of by Congress, for the use of the officers, men, and others, refugees from Canada, and the refugees from Nova Scotia, who are or may be entitled to grants of land under resolutions of Congress now existing.“ This was not possible, as the area next to Lake Erie was property of Connecticut, so the Canadians had to wait until the establishment of the Refugee Tract in 1798.
The Point of Beginning for the 1785 survey was where Ohio (as the easternmost part of the Northwest Territory), Pennsylvania and Virginia (now West Virginia) met, on the north shore of the Ohio River near East Liverpool, Ohio. There is a historical marker just north of the site, at the state line where Ohio State Route 39 becomes Pennsylvania Route 68.

Thanks to this Act, plane passengers can look down at the nearly perfect one mile squares which cover the nation's landscape.  It set up the 6 mile by 6 mile survey township. It also gave us the Section, Township, Range system of identifying every parcel of property in the Public Land Survey System.  It also greatly simplified the complex and nearly indefinable system of metes and bounds descriptions, which allowed surveyors to separate out the best land for themselves and their favored clients.  Later, the Act of May 18, 1796 altered the numbering system for sections in townships, and only two surveys in Ohio were conducted under the numbering system of 1785:

The Land Ordinance of May 20, 1785, allowed for the subdivision of government lands, and the subsequent sale of those lands which brought about the largest number of freeholders of property in the history of the world.  It is one of the greatest legacies of the United States.

Jimmie Wilson, Unlikely Hero of 1940 World Series



Jimmie Wilson, coach and 1940 World Series Hero


In a post script to last week's featured article recounting the death of Willard Hershberger, I wanted to highlight what little good came followed Hershberger's passing:

In his suite that night, McKechnie gathered his players together. He told them what Hershberger had said to him the night before—how his father had killed himself, how Hershberger had wanted to kill himself, too, and how he felt he had let down the team. McKechnie also said Hershberger had talked about other personal problems that the manager felt honor-bound not to reveal. McKechnie mentioned that Hershberger had several un-cashed paychecks in his pocket. Lombardi, Riggs and a few others were weeping. "I thought I had talked him completely out of it," McKechnie said. "I thought everything was put back together again. I couldn't keep a bodyguard on him."
The meeting lasted about half an hour. McKechnie made one plea. "The thing for us to do now is win the pennant and vote Hershie's mother a full share of the World Series money," he said. "And I know we'll win it." They did indeed win the Series, beating Detroit four games to three, and Maude Hershberger got a full share, $5,803.62.
Ironically, Hershberger's death led to the best of all 1940 World Series stories. In mid-September, Lombardi sprained his ankle, and without Hershberger, McKechnie turned to the only man in the organization he thought could handle the job—coach Jimmy Wilson, 40, a former catcher who had caught but two games in nearly three seasons. Wilson caught in six of the seven Series games, and Thompson can still see him hobbling in pain, his thigh muscles knotted up from so much squatting. Between innings, Wilson would teeter to the runway behind the dugout, drop his pants and sit down so that Rohde could massage a scalding salve into his thighs. "Oh, mercy, it was hot," Thompson says. "And his catching hand was so swollen from catching fastballs that he could barely get it in and out of the glove. He was great."
Wilson also hit .353—six singles in 17 trips. It was a rare farewell, a final performance by an old man who rose one more time to honor himself and the game.

The story of Jimmie (or Jimmy) Wilson has always amazed me.  How a 40 year-old could catch 6 out of 7 games in the World Series and hit .353, after catching in 2 games over 3 seasons, is stupefying.  He also appeared in 16 games during the regular season.  He'll always have a place in my personal Little-known Accomplishment Hall of Fame.

Tragedy in a Season of Triumph

1940 World Series Champion Cincinnati Reds

This story, of Willard Hershberger and his suicide in the middle of the Reds pursuit of their second World Series championship, is from the SI archives:

A lone at last in his room at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, far from his worried manager and teammates on the Cincinnati Reds, Willard Hershberger locked the door and turned on his black portable radio to listen to the game. It was nearly time to go; he had made his irreducible choice. For Hershberger, 29 the years of anger and torment were almost over.
It was 1:10 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 3, 1940, a wilting afternoon on which the Reds, leading the second-place Brooklyn Dodgers by six games in the race for the National League pennant, were about to begin a doubleheader at National League Field against the last-place Boston Bees. Hershberger was the Reds' second-string catcher, behind future Hall of Famer Ernie Lombardi, but he was far more than a backup player. In pursuit of their second straight pennant, and their first World Series championship since their tainted victory over the Chicago Black Sox in 1919 the Reds were counting on Hershberger not only to spell Lom in the second game of doubleheaders—Hershberger was mongoose-quick behind the plate and a far rangier fielder than the ponderous Lombardi—but also to hit, particularly in the pinch with men on base.
"As good a hitter as I ever saw at getting a man in from third with less than two outs," says Gabe Paul, then the Reds' publicist and traveling secretary and later the general manager of various teams. "[Hershberger] would find a way to get a man home. A hell of a ballplayer."
In 1939, in 174 at bats over 63 games, Hershberger had hit .345. It was only his second year in the majors. He struck out only four times, for a remarkable ratio of once every 43.5 times at bat. "A real good contact hitter," recalls Gene Thompson, a pitcher for the '40 Reds and now a San Francisco Giants scout. "In my business, that's the kindest thing we can say about a hitter: He gets the bat on the ball."
At 5'10½" and only 167 pounds, Hershberger was, next to Lombardi, a runt who never hit for power. But before the Reds-Bees series started in Boston that August, Casey Stengel, the manager of the Bees, had wailed to reporters about the damage that Hershberger had done to the Boston team in its last set-to at Cincinnati's Crosley Field. "It might seem good to play the Reds in the second game of a doubleheader knowing that Lombardi wouldn't be trudging up to the dish with that big bat of his, but that's an illusion," said Stengel. "Actually, that Hershberger is about as hard to get out as Big Lom."

City Council Befuddled By Request to Rename Street for Negro

First off, my use of Negro is in no way intended to be insulting or offensive to African-Americans.  It is expressly intended to be insulting to the members of the Troy, Ohio City Council.  Council rejected adding a secondary name to a street in Troy to honor early Troy civil rights activist Lucille Wheat.  Here is the story:

A city council committee on Thursday unanimously declined to recommend council authorize adding a secondary name for Elm Street. The action effectively rejects a request by Wheat's son, Sidney Wheat, to rename the 2-1/2 block section of South Elm Street between West Main Street and McKaig Road for his mother.

Lucille Wheat is recognized as a key civil rights figure in Troy during the 1950s through the early 1980s. She founded and chaired the Troy Community Action Committee, headed the Troy NAACP in 1966 and co-authored with Lois Davies a seminal book on race relations Troy title, "Some Self-Evident Truths."

Sidney Wheat made the request in January to Troy mayor Michael L. Beamish, saying it was a way to recognize Lucille Wheat for her efforts. The Wheat's family home was located on South Elm Street, near the corner of West Main Street.

In early February, Beamish made an alternate suggestion: adding an secondary name in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the entire stretch of Elm Street from McKaig Road to the northern city limits. The Buildings, Streets and Sidewalks Committee agreed and made a positive recommendation on Beamish's alternate suggestion.

But in the face of questions from Wheat and others, the item was pulled from the Feb. 7 council agenda and sent back to committee, where it has languished until Thursday. Committee chairman Jarrod Harrah blamed scheduling conflicts for the three-month delay in bringing the item back to committee.

Thursday, Harrah and fellow committee members Bobby Phillips and Tom Kendall said they could not back naming South Elm Street for either King or Wheat.

Harrah said streets are usually reserved for persons of note and also said developers of residential areas name the streets. He also suggested renaming a street was insufficient to honor Wheat and that a plaque, perhaps on the commercial building that now occupies the site of the former Wheat home, should be added instead.

"I just don't think a street does her justice," Harrah said.

Phillips noted that Wheat has already been enshrined in the Troy Hall of Fame (in 1984). "I question how many awards a person should have," he said.

Kendall said he has "never been a big proponent of renaming streets," at least partly because it could potentially open the city up to receiving a flood of similar requests.

"At this point, I think we should leave it as it is," Kendall said.

Wheat, 73, a life-long Troy resident, appeared at the meeting with his wife and expressed disappointment in the committee's position.

I have to agree with Mr. Wheat's quote at the end of the story:

"I had hoped for a better outcome, and more sincerity, than I'm hearing," Wheat said

I was not familiar with Ms. Wheat's work in Troy prior to this newspaper article.  I will look for her book at the library when I get a chance.  Apparently, she rubbed some people in Troy the wrong way.  I find it entertaining that instead of honoring a local person, the mayor suggested naming a street after Martin Luther King.  It is also entertaining that they took two months to review and rewrite the city's street naming policy, but they failed to come up with any worthwhile excuses for why they would reject the street renaming request.  This wasn't a case where the street name would change and force people to change their address, it was for adding a secondary sign with Ms. Wheat's name on it.  In neighboring Tipp City, they added a secondary sign to honor George W. Bush because his bus went down the street on the way to giving a political speech at an invitation-only event at the high school.

The changes in the street renaming policy:

After a line-by-line review of the new policy, which included several new sections, the committee made several minor changes.

New to the policy is a section saying that consideration for renaming will not be given to anyone who has already been recognized with an honor or award. Another addition to the policy states that individuals or groups requesting the renaming "shall bear all renaming costs."

Both of those issues were cited by committee members Thursday as factors in rejecting Wheat's request.

I tell you what, if the city is concerned about the cost of the signs, I will pay for them.

It is notable that the portion of street for which the secondary name was requested is in the historically black portion of Troy.  South Elm Street and North Elm Street were referred to as Slabtown and Hollywood.  I don't remember which portion was which, I only remember being told those were the names by my grandparents.  Anyway, I thought a city council in a city which has historical markers seemingly every 20 feet in honor of Clayton Bruckner and the WACO Aircraft Company would be interested in honoring a local civil rights activist.  I would assume that Clayton Bruckner didn't make certain white folks uncomfortable about their latent racism when he was alive.

In a side note, WACO went out of business in 1947, but the city is proud of their association with the company.  The company made some very neat aircraft in the 20's and 30's prior to making the "flying coffin" gliders used in airborne operations in WWII in Sicily, in Normandy and in Operation Market Garden.  As a veteran of the Airborne in World War II told me, "We lost a lot of good boys in those gliders."  He had no fond memories of the gliders.

Update:  I would also like to propose renaming Dye Mill Road in the vicinity of the city wastewater treatment plant after the Mayor and Council.  That area generally smells the same as this Council decision.  I will also pay for those signs.

KKK Day at the Ballpark?

Deadspin (h/t Cubs dad):

These four letters procured by Deadspin's house MLB archivist, Pete Nash, show that the Ku Klux Klan wrote polite letters and were extremely generous about their flower boquets. At least that was the case in 1924.

I like that they point out that the Knights of Columbus didn't provide as many bouquets as the Klan would provide.  I can hear the Klansman saying that it was because those foreigners were too poor and were always drunk.  I can't imagine that would have gone well in a town as Catholic as Cincinnati.

The German Triangle and U.S. Beer History

The German Triangle, between the cities of Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati, was the destination of a large percentage of German immigrants in the middle and late 19th century.  When they came, they brought with them their love for beer, especially lager beer. 

Map of German Population in 1900

 So it is not an accident that two of the three cities would become home to the largest breweries in the United States.  All three have a rich brewing history.  Besides being the home of Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis was also home to William J. Lemp Brewery, which brewed Falstaff.  At one time, there were 40 breweries in St. Louis.  Also, Belleville, Illinois, outside of St. Louis was home to Stag Brewery.

Milwaukee was home to Miller, Schlitz, Pabst and Blatz.  At one time they were four of the largest ten breweries in the world.  Over the years, more than 40 breweries operated in Milwaukee. 

Cincinnati was home to Christian Moerlein, Hudepohl, Red Top, Schoenling, Burger and Wiedemann, among dozens of breweries over the years. In 1860, Cincinnati had 36 breweries.Cincinnati also had a prodigious saloon culture:

Taverns-Bars-Saloons-Beer Gardens-Cafes, call them what you will Cincinnati and beer were synonymous with each other in the 1800's and early 1900's. In 1840 Cincinnati had 8 breweries to satisfy a population of 46,000 people. By 1860 there were 36 breweries for 200,000 people. Beer production in 1870 was 354,000 barrels. Ten years later it rose to 656,000 barrels and in another ten years it had soared to 1,115,000 barrels. This equates to a staggering total of  35,700,000 gallons of beer of which a little less than 1/2 was exported. The rest was consumed locally. The per capita consumption of beer nationally in 1893 was 16 gallons. In Cincinnati an incredible 40 Gallons for every man woman and child was consumed. In 1887 there were an amazing 1,837 saloons for a population of 225,000. In 1890 it dropped to only 1,810 for a population of 297,000. This meant since only adult males used saloons there were, in 1890, ONE SALOON FOR EVERY 37 MEN. In 1890 there were 34 saloons on Court St., 41 on Liberty St., 55 on both Walnut and Main Sts. Central Ave. had 100 saloons, but the all time high was Vine St. with 136. On Fifth St. between Main & Sycamore Sts. (1 block) 20 saloons flourished. A corner location was preferred because it gave the bar the most exposure to potential costumers, and if it were illegally selling beer on Sunday, it was easier to spot the police.
  Carrie Nation arrived in Cincinnati in 1901 with her famous hatchet to wage battle with demon alcohol. Most tavern owners knowing Carrie's propensity for taking her ax to glass windows, ordered new glass ahead of her visit. Carrie was asked later why she had not broken any windows was heard to say: "My goodness, child, if I had undertaken to break all the windows of all the saloons on your Vine Street I would have dropped from exhaustion before I had gone a block". Before leaving the Atlantic Garden, a woman lush laid her head on Carrie's shoulder and cried. She then left promising  the temperance leader she would mend her ways and lead a better life. Ten minutes later Carrie noticed that her earrings were missing. Carrie forgave the woman for lifting them.

Unfortunately, today Anheuser-Busch is merged with InBev. Miller is owned by SAB. Hudepohl, Schoenling, Burger and Christian Moerlein are trying to carve out a regional niche, and Pabst, Schlitz and Blatz are shadows of their former glory in a combined Pabst Brewing Company amongst a large number of formerly well-known brands, including Falstaff and Stag.

Mmmmmmmm....ctd.

I've noticed that since baseball season has started, several people have searched for "It's a hot dog....No, it's a smoked sausage," and have come across my post on the subject of my favorite old Riverfront Stadium graphic, which is here.  I also found out that there is a Flickr photo of the scoreboard here.

Now I'm just wainting for somebody to post a Youtube video which I can embed, because nothing beats watching the Atari system graphics combined with the silent movie sound track building to the climactic "Mmmmmmmmm".