Youngstown Ohio Works

US baseball team
the steel works at Youngstown

The Youngstown Ohio Works baseball team was a minor league club that was known for winning the premier championship of the Ohio–Pennsylvania League in 1905, and for launching the professional career of pitcher Roy Castleton a year later. A training ground for several players and officials who later established careers in Major League Baseball, the team proved a formidable regional competitor and also won the 1906 league championship. During its brief span of activity, the Ohio Works team faced challenges that reflected common difficulties within the Ohio–Pennsylvania League, including weak financial support for teams. Following a dispute over funding, the team's owners sold the club to outside investors, just a few months before the opening of the 1907 season. The club's strong record and regional visibility spurred the growth of amateur and minor league baseball in the Youngstown area, and the community's minor league teams produced notable players throughout the first half of the 20th century. In the late 1990s, this tradition was rekindled, with the establishment of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a minor league team based in neighboring Niles, Ohio.

The Ohio Works team was organized in Youngstown, in 1902, under the sponsorship of Joseph A. McDonald, superintendent of the Ohio Works of the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1905, the club joined the Class C Division, Ohio–Pennsylvania League, which was founded that year in Akron, Ohio, by veteran ballplayer Charlie Morton. The league's Ohio members included clubs from Akron, Barberton, Bucyrus, Canton, Kent, Lima, Massillon, Mount Vernon, Newark, Niles, Steubenville, Washington, Wooster, Youngstown, and Zanesville, while Pennsylvania was initially represented by teams from Braddock, Butler, Homestead, and Sharon. Within the first two weeks of the season, clubs from Lancaster and McKeesport also joined the league. Only eight of the original 21 participating clubs finished the 1905 season. These included clubs from Akron, Homestead, Lancaster, Newark, Niles, Sharon, Youngstown, and Zanesville. From the outset, the Youngstown ball club was managed by ex major leaguer Marty Hogan, a former outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Browns. The Ohio Works club gained steam and began to win games. On May 11, 1905, the Youngstown team garnered controversy when The Akron Times Democrat reported that the Ohio Works' sponsors provided player salaries that nearly doubled those offered by other clubs in the Ohio–Pennsylvania League. In a report on the outcry in Akron, The Youngstown Daily Vindicator warned that, "if the Youngstown backers keep adding and force the other clubs to add to the salaries, it is a question of only a short time until independent baseball will be an impossibility". In September 1905, the Youngstown Ohio Works won the first league championship, though sources disagree on the club's final record. This confusion may be due to the disorganized nature of the new league, with its sprawling roster of teams. This moniker, however, was not officially connected to a Youngstown based ball club until 1907, when it became the legal name of the Ohio Works' local successors. The team's lineup included William J. Maloney of Bradford, Kentucky; Will M. Thomas of Morristown, Pennsylvania; Tommy Thomas of Piqua, Ohio; Lee Fohl of Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Louis Schettler of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; "Dotty" Freck of Columbus, Ohio; A. C. McClintock of Columbus; Roy Castleton of Salt Lake City, Utah; Lewis Groh of Rochester, New York; John Kennedy of Youngstown, Charles Crouse of Detroit, Michigan; Roy Chase of Andover, Ohio; Forrester J. Dressner of Garrettsville, Pennsylvania; Harry Schwartz of Cleveland, Ohio; and Roy Gould of Middlesex, Pennsylvania. Curley Blount, and Charles McCloskey. Nevertheless, as Hogan predicted, the team defeated the Moguls, with a final score of 11–8. The game's highlights included the pitching of "Long John" Kennedy, who kept the Moguls to seven hits, and the batting of Edward Hilley, who "unloosened a drive to middle field that permitted him to go all the way around". The star of the Ohio Works team was a gangling, left handed pitcher named Roy Castleton, a Utah native who went on to pitch for the New York Highlanders and Cincinnati Reds.

In the wake of the Ohio Works' second league championship, steps were taken to incorporate the club. Sporting Life noted in December 1906 that the team's backers, Joseph and Thomas McDonald (superintendent and assistant superintendent, respectively, of the Ohio Works of the Carnegie Steel Company) were compelled to invite additional investors because of planned (and costly) improvements at the steel plant. The following day, Hogan was quoted as saying, "Youngstown couldn't or didn't raise enough money to cover a sparrow's blanket". The ball club manager's evident frustration during this period was reflected in comments published in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator almost a week after the team's sale. When questioned on his widely publicized decision to resign as manager of the Youngstown club before the opening of the 1907 season, Hogan reportedly said that he had received "the short end of the deal". A feature story, that appeared in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator in 1920, stated that McDonald took deliberate steps in 1907 to replace the Ohio Works team with a more seasoned club from Homestead, Pennsylvania. "This was only a formality to make legal the actions taken by Magnate [Joseph] McDonald when they turned over the old franchise to the newly organized company in Youngstown", the paper reported. By the close of the 1907 season, the club had seized the championship of the eight team P O M league. In 1908, Hogan's final season as manager, the team was christened as the Zanesville Infants and joined the Central League. Further research is needed to determine the Zanesville Infants' league ranking at the close of the 1908 season, but available information shows that the team neither won the championship nor placed as a runner up. Fohl later served as manager of the St. Louis Browns and Boston Red Sox. Although Fohl was often criticized as a manager, sports journalist John J. Ward (writing in August 1924) credited him, to a large extent, for the early successes of the Red Sox, an underdog that briefly challenged the New York Yankees and Washington Senators before slipping to seventh place in the eight team American League. went on to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1906. A fourth ex team member, Louis Schettler, played for the Philadelphia Phillies during the 1910 season. Schettler (a Pittsburgh native) eventually settled in Youngstown, where he died in 1960. seizing the championship of the Tri State League. As Spalding's Baseball Guide (1910) reported: "Lancaster, under manager Marty Hogan, won its first pennant in the league, and the top rung of the ladder was only gained by the hardest kind of fighting". In 1913, during a stint in Zanesville, the manager signed pitcher Sam Jones to his first professional contract.

The Youngstown Ohio Works team gave several members a "shot" at the major leagues, and played an indirect role in launching the career of Hall of Fame umpire Billy Evans. On September 1, 1903, Evans, a reporter at The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, was assigned to cover a game between the Ohio Works and the Homestead Library Athletic Club that was held in Youngstown. Evans took his first step toward a legendary career when club manager Hogan offered him $15 to fill an umpire vacancy. (In 1905, Evans received a major career boost from Youngstown native Jimmy McAleer, who recommended Evans to the American League.) During the first half of the 20th century, Youngstown based teams provided experience and exposure to future major league players such as Everett Scott, Floyd Baker, and Johnny Kucab. Today, the Youngstown–Warren area is home base to the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a minor league team that competes in the Class A New York–Penn League.