Baseball in an older, closer world
by Bryce Martin

When your small hometown in Kansas has a national baseball hero, and you have relatives who played professionally and who may have crossed baseball paths with this person, you wonder: Did they know each other?

The clues and particulars:
My hometown: Galena, Kansas.
Best Major League baseball player born in my hometown: George Grantham.
Best professional baseball player I am related to: Jess Brice Martin.
Best professional baseball player who is my in-law relative: Yank Davis.
Three teams in 1922 Western League: Des Moines, Tulsa, Omaha.
Three teams in 1923 Western Association: Ardmore, Springfield, Henryetta.

Now, it's just a matter of following the bouncing ball.
George Grantham was one of pro baseball's first 20-20 players. For Omaha in 1922 he batted .359, hit 22 homers stole 33 bases and scored 157 runs. The Chicago Cubs were so impressed they called him up for a September peek. As the season winded down, he debuted with the Cubs September 20, 1922, and played in seven games, which was the start of a stellar 13-year major league career with the Cubs, Pirates, Reds and Giants.
Grantham's manager for the Omaha Buffaloes was Barney Burch, who had replaced Jack Lelivelt in mid-year the year before in 1921. The informal nickname for the team was "Burch Rods." Besides Grantham, the team in 1922 had such future major league greats as Babe Herman and Heinie Manush.
Lelivelt went on in 1922 to manage the Tulsa Oilers, in the same Western League as Omaha. Tulsa won the '22 pennant and pressed on in early October to defeat the Dixie champion Mobile Bears of the Southern Association 4 games to 1 in claiming the Class A overall championship. Tulsa was led during the season and in the post-season series by outfielder Yank Davis and his league-leading 35 home runs, and the bat of player-manager Lelivelt, a Chicago native.
As a member of the Class A Tulsa Oilers in 1922, Davis was just two steps below the major leagues. My cousin, Barry Martin, from Joplin, Mo., and Yank's nephew, has a gem of a picture postcard of Yank in uniform with his Seneca Merchants (Mo.) baseball team brethren from 1908.
Now, to pitcher Jess Martin, born in the Joplin region of Missouri, a state line and scant miles from Galena, Kan., and the birthplace of Grantham. Martin's one-game fling with the Des Moines (Iowa) Boosters in 1923 missed, for him, by just one skinny year the opportunity of competing against Grantham in the same pro league. Grantham (Omaha) and Davis (Tulsa) did, of course, suit up against each other all during the 1922 campaign.
Martin was as busy as a bee in a bonnet during the '23 campaign, his only professional season. In addition to his cuppa at Des Moines, he flung the hosshide for three, count 'em, Western Association teams (not to be confused with Western League): Ardmore, Henryetta and Springfield.
Pro minor league ballplayers in bright, sunny summers during this era earned in the neighborhood of $60 per month. Pitchers commanded the most money. Teams often struggled to make payroll. Leagues imposed monthly salary limits for teams. Teams such as Tulsa and Omaha, for example, in 1925 each had a monthly salary cap of $5,500. Paying players under the table was a common practice.
After all these years, I have to wonder did Martin know Grantham? Did Martin, Grantham, Davis, any or all of them, personally know each other? From family records, I know that Jess Martin had a nephew (Byron) who married a relative of Davis (Catherine).
It is a mystery locked in the past. I am, however, unwaveringly certain I would have liked to have been there in the mix to see all that went on firsthand, and to have played a little baseball.

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