Page 62 - SOM Summer 2017

neck of the woods | history

arrive with blankets and picnic baskets
in tow. There was a carnival atmosphere
on Sunday afternoons in the Sawdust
Circuit, tying the game into a regional
way of life more than just a sport.

The faces and postures of those early players
are emblematic of the era. Rough and tumble
types, some older guys and a few younger. In
most cases, their names are not memorial-
ized on the backs of their jerseys or even the
post card; all we know is how the sending
writer described them, the hometown nine.
They wear thick wool uniforms emblazoned
with the name of the town they were from,
Marshfield or Bandon, where it was said that
a fresh baked pie was given to any player who
hit a home run. They had a regular team down
in Norway, Oregon. The settlements of Elkton
and Oakland in Douglas County were bitter
on-field rivals, playing tooth and nail games
on a regular basis. The Fandango Lumber
Company in Drain sponsored a team for dec-
ades. There was a team in Kerby, Josephine
County a few miles north of Cave Junction, Old A’s Schedule (photo - theworldlink.com)
an area that today appears in tourist guides on
a list of Oregon ghost towns.

One of the key differences between yester-
year and today is the integration of minorities.
The game is largely the same today. Who plays
the game is what stands as the biggest differ-
ence. Baseball has transformed into a global
game. Team pictures from the Sawdust Circuit
era are filled with players who are conspicu-
ously white, middle age, and working class.
The era of integration to the sport of baseball
arrived almost a hundred years after its birth,
an unfortunate reality that scars the sport to
this very day.

In 1895, Ashland held its Third Annual
Chatauqua meeting. The popular event drew
people from miles around and featured a host
of entertaining promotions described as dis-
plays of “moral as well as intellectual culture.”
Baseball was a part of that. True to form for
the region, a handful of local teams barn-
stormed into the meeting, drawing some of
the largest crowds of the weekend to watch.

A curious gallery of professional players made Babe Ruth on October 22, 1924 in Dunsmuir CA (photo -Pinterest)
it to the major leagues out of the Sawdust
Circuit towns. While most of the names
hardly stand as luminary in the sport’s overall
history, they were local heroes nonetheless.

60 www.southernoregonmagazine.com | summer 2017