'America's Pastime' comes to Allegheny
Less than one generation after historians say "organized base ball" was first played on American soil, Allegheny College students were enjoying the sport on their hill-top campus in tiny Meadville, Pa.
It was the start of a terrific history for the sport at this college - eventually leading to the school's first assembly of a varsity team in any sport - and it began a legacy that would go on to include intriguing ties to "the big leagues," as Major League Baseball is often called. What's more, Allegheny has ties to a couple of the big league's most historic events.
1800s - The first pitch
In 1867, the first Meadville newspaper story of any Allegheny sports team reported a victory of the Meadville Mutuals over an Allegheny College baseball contingent by a score of 51 to 47. This was just 20-some years after the first rules for the game were published in New York City in 1845, according to Wikipedia.
At Allegheny, the sport's introduction led to a rapid growth in the game's popularity here, occasionally to the distress of the school's academic leaders in those earliest years. In college records, the college's first varsity baseball game was in 1881, with games to follow during most of the 1880s, but these teams were independently organized and records of those contests do not exist.
In 1885, an on-campus field was leveled and cleared of stones so that annual "field days" could be held. These reportedly included occasional baseball games with visiting teams from Washington and Jefferson College, Westminster College and Western University of Pennsylvania, now the University of Pittsburgh. Also, class rivalries among the Allegheny students accelerated from the 1880s into the early 1890s.
However, along with the popularity of the sport of baseball and the movement into intercollegiate games came a strong will by college leaders to manage the mix between academics and extracurricular activities, and historical accounts from the late 1800s demonstrate that this debate was not taken lightly, according to the college's "Through the Years: A History of Allegheny College," by retired professor Jonathan Helmreich, published in 2005. In the "discipline of producing good fruit," for instance, in 1879 there was to be "no ball playing on the grounds (of the campus) before noon or from 2 to 5 in the afternoon."
Still, the game prevailed here, and in 1881 Allegheny had its first "official" squad. Though without a designated coach, that first year saw a fine beginning, a 3-0 season. Opponents in the early years, in addition to those high-scoring Meadville Mutuals, were community or regional squads sporting names such as Keystone, Meadville, Stars and Meadville Grays. Though details are sketchy, the games presumably were contested around Meadville and on campus.
Just a few years after its first team took the field, the school's inter-collegiate baseball schedule revved up, and in 1897 the college boasted its second undefeated season, four wins against no losses.
The game had caught on, both on campus and in the Meadville community. Baseball's first inclusion in the school yearbook, The Caldron, introduced the 1888 squad, with even more printed materials being churned out in the subsequent years. And the first team photo shows off a prideful 1894 squad. Wearing full-dress uniforms sporting the name "Meadville A C" on their chests, the 10 players (and two fellows dressed in suits) look menacingly into the camera. Some have their arms folded, others have hands on hips; in the the front rows, the young athletes are seated on a set of on-campus steps, probably at the doorway to Montgomery Gym, and other players are standing behind. This historic photo is a classic portrayal of an early American baseball team.
Before the turn of the century, the schedule had steadily expanded to colleges and communities across northwest Pennsylvania, and then through much of western Pennsylvania and on some eastern Ohio campuses.
Early 1900s - A canceled season
Difficulties with money proved hard to solve in the early going. The school was tasked with furnishing equipment and coaches' salaries (and perhaps payment to players); and the visiting teams requested a financial guarantee that could not be met from ticket sales, Helmreich points out in his book. This difficult formula became unsolvable in 1906, and the baseball team was disbanded, but it did resume play just one year later, in 1907.
The lost baseball season coincided with the departure of Coach Branch Rickey, who, some years later, would go on to great fame in Major League Baseball. But in 1907, he was a victim of these tougher times. The young but respected mentor was denied a raise in pay. Moreover, he was caught between the need to recruit players and a responsibility set forth by the school not to pay them. (Other colleges saw no problem with enticing talented athletes with financial aid.) There was a serious lack of material and money to sustain an intercollegiate baseball program.
Not long after the team was reinstated in 1907, Allegheny's "longest established sport" met a most difficult crossroads. In 1915, baseball was dropped from Allegheny's athletic programs, a "death penalty" that lasted more than three decades.
That year of 1915 was indeed significant, as it was the college's centennial. In a college assembly in December of that year, Helmreich records, it was voted "to discontinue the sport. Shortage of dollars, difficulties of a short and often rainy season, and a greater popularity of track were the culprits." The break was intended to be for just one year but continued to 1947.
1905 - A 'great' encounter
Still, it would eventually become realized, Allegheny already had experienced its first brush with baseball fame. In 1905, Coach Rickey was at the helm for his one Allegheny baseball season, producing a record of 3-7-1. He also served as the school's football coach for two seasons in that time, but soon moved on to play baseball professionally and then to coach at Ohio Wesleyan University before working his way into professional baseball's executive offices.
Guided by strong Christian principles and innovative business acumen, the reach of this baseball genius seemed to have no bounds. He went on to great fame as the Brooklyn Dodgers general manager who, in 1947, introduced Major League Baseball's first African-American player, Jackie Robinson. Decades earlier, Rickey also became known as the creator of baseball's farm system, when he established solid minor league "feeder clubs" for the St. Louis Cardinals, an organization that thereafter went on to become one of the most consistently successful franchises in baseball history. Working in executive positions for four Major League teams in his career, he also drafted the first Afro-Hispanic superstar, Roberto Clemente; and Rickey also is credited with introducing the batting helmet to the sport.
The young Branch Rickey who had guided an early Allegheny College baseball team earned his way to baseball's pinnacle, and he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1967.
1947 - Garbark and baseball return
The college's 1915 break from baseball endured for decades. As a result, perhaps the most significant historical marker for the almost 100 seasons in which Allegheny has fielded a baseball team was the return of Bob Garbark in 1946. Bob was an All-American football player at Allegheny, though the school did not have a baseball team when he attended here in the late 1920s and early 1930s. After graduating with a mathematics degree in 1932, he was off to a professional baseball career after being "spotted by Cleveland Indians scout Buzz Wetzel," according to a biography compiled by Society for American Baseball Research. (See
http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bc7e7719 for the full text.)
Between 1934 and 1945, Garbark played in seven major league seasons, for the Indians, Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Red Sox. A reserve player, including years on the bench behind Hall of Fame catcher Gabby Hartnett, Bob appeared in 145 Major League games for legendary managers that included Hartnett, Walter Johnson and Connie Mack.
After his pro career, "Garbie" came back home to his beloved Allegheny, and in the spring of 1947, baseball was back in business here. He quickly established himself as a community icon as well, coaching youth baseball and refereeing basketball and football games throughout Crawford County. Garbark was well-known as one of the finest boys baseball coaches in the Meadville area. Working with youth for decades, he is fondly remembered for his warm yet direct and knowledgeable mentoring style, developing the baseball skills of virtually thousands of local youth.
As Allegheny's coach, Garbark would go on to 282 victories, making his name well-known to college baseball followers. It was a slow-go to bring the sport to winning ways, however, and Bob's teams had losing records in 10 of his first 12 seasons. But the tide turned in the late 1950s, and 18 of the next 20 seasons had winning marks and numerous league championships.
In his first two years, 1947 and '48, Garbark and his Gators played their home games at Meadville's Athletic Park, those historic grounds at the Water/Terrace Street intersection, just west of where C&J Industries sits today. The stadium, with a roofed grandstand that could seat hundreds of fans on its wooden bleachers, had been home to recreational and semi-professional baseball games for decades. It was also the site of barnstorming games that occasionally featured noted professional players from the big leagues and particularly from the Negro Leagues of the 1930s and '40s. On that Athletic Park field on Sept. 2, 1942, the Negro League's Cleveland Buckeyes played a regular season game against the Jacksonville Red Caps.
1949 - A new ballpark
Then, on May 9, 1949, the Allegheny squad moved into new facilities on upper Park Avenue, on the field that is still its home turf today. An impressive layout featuring the school's baseball diamond and football stadium, early on it simply was called College Field, according to reports in The Meadville Tribune. It now goes by the name of Andrew Wells Robertson Athletic and Recreation Complex, in honor of 1906 graduate Robertson who had played here under Coach Rickey. Today the sprawling facility is home to eight Allegheny varsity sports teams.
In that first season, The Meadville Tribune flashed large headlines and a detailed news story to publicize Allegheny baseball's "first home game since 1915" and described the "three-hour marathon on Saturday afternoon" in the Gators' 13-7 loss to the University of Rochester. Just over a week later, Allegheny won on its new home field for the first time, scoring seven runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to beat St. Vincent College, 8-7.
At least two of the games in that inaugural 1949 season drew more than 300 fans, according to newspaper reports.
It's worth considering that although Garbark's squads had a losing record almost each year in his first decade with the reborn AC baseball team, he had chosen to take on some of the better college teams from western Pennsylvania, northeast Ohio and western New York. Crowds of 300 or even 400 fans were not uncommon at the College Field games, newspaper reports confirm.
For example, the University of Pittsburgh was on the schedule most seasons, bringing teams that featured future major leaguers in its impressive lineups. In fact, two legends from another sport also played baseball for Pitt at that time, as football stars Joe Walton (1955) and Mike Ditka (1958) made their college baseball debuts and were members of squads that played the Gators. Pitt won 116 games in the decade of the 1950s, but from 1956 through 1962 the steadily improving Allegheny squad would turn the tables, winning three of five meetings with the Panthers.
Allegheny lost its 1958 home opener, 3-0, to Pitt, but neither Walton nor Ditka was in the lineup. Jim Dunlap, who later played four years in the Baltimore Orioles minor leagues, blasted a towering home run and drove in two more with a single in the eighth inning off Jack Keppel, who allowed the Panthers just seven hits that day, The Tribune reported. The previous year it was Walton tagging a long ball off Keppel in a 7-0 Pitt win in Pittsburgh.
Two years earlier, in the school's first win over Pitt, 9-7 in 1956, it was also Keppel on the hill for the Gators, holding Dunlap and Walton to one hit apiece.
In 1960, the two teams did not play, and in 1961, the Gators produced a 5-4 victory before a large crowd on Allegheny's commencement day.
In 1955, the game against Pitt was snowed out - perhaps fortunately for the Panthers. The Gators ran off an 11-2 record that year, thanks in large part to the 7-0 pitching record of AC basketball/baseball Hall of Famer Bill Bishop, a towering 6-foot-8 pitcher who played for Garbark from 1952 to 1955. He was inducted into Allegheny's first Hall of Fame class. Bishop's father was known to remark that "the majors made a mistake not drafting (his son)," a note in Allegheny's baseball archives says.
Pitt was not the only formidable foe in those early Garbark years. Duquesne University was another regular, winners of 126 games in the 1960s; Westminster College, under legendary Coach Buzz Ridl, was a common opponent, a team that won 175 games with only two losing seasons from 1950 through 1970; and Washington & Jefferson College topped the Gators at a steady clip until, in 1955, Allegheny was victorious, the first of many wins that would follow against the Presidents. There was also a potent Slippery Rock College lineup, and Youngstown (presumably today's Youngstown State University) taking the field against the Gators on occasion.
With that level of opposition, local sports fans were excited about the program, and Allegheny game results were reported in extensive detail, including statistical box scores, in The Tribune.
So, though there were some lean years, this high level of early-on competition is perhaps the main reason that, starting with its very first league season in 1959, talented Allegheny squads went on to dominate Presidents Athletic Conference baseball for almost all of the next 20 years.
1960 - Win, win, win
Two eras were especially remarkable for Garbie's Gators. From 1960 through 1964 the team had 45 wins against only 10 defeats. Two of those seasons featured the hard hitting and sure-handed fielding of Glenn Beckert, who would go on to play 11 Major League seasons, mostly with the Chicago Cubs.
Beckert, one of Allegheny's most celebrated athletes, was wooed by the New York Yankees, but before graduation in 1962 he signed with the Boston Red Sox, thus requiring him to skip his senior season of college ball. When he later was picked up by the Chicago Cubs, he became one of the premier infielders in the National League. He retired in 1975 from the San Diego Padres. In his 11 seasons, Beckert had made four All-Star appearances, batted .342 in 1971, led the National League in runs scored in 1968, chalked up a record for the least number of strikeouts per time at bat, won a Gold Glove for fielding excellence and received Most Valuable Player votes in three seasons.
In the college's Beckert era and shortly after, from the final weeks of the 1960 season and going through part of the 1963 campaign, Garbark's teams were nearly unbeatable, winning 39 of 44 games. This included an all-time Gator record of 18 consecutive victories spanning parts of 1962 and '63.
Garbark's second tough-to-beat streak came between 1969 and 1978, his last 10 years, when his teams were 132-68 and claimed eight Presidents Athletic Conference crowns in those 10 campaigns. In his 19 PAC seasons through 1978, the Gators brought home first-place honors an astonishing 14 times.
The 1970s - Stars shining
In the 1970s, the most reliable starting pitcher for several years was a crafty lefty, Bob Bedrosian, a PAC first-team all-star three times. Personable and popular off the field, while under the watch of visiting big-league scouts, Bob often chatted with them after the games they came to witness, saying, "If you think I'm good, you should see my little brother, and he's only 15 years old." His brother, Steve Bedrosian, went on to win a National League Cy Young trophy while pitching with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1987, and Steve's son, Cam, presently plays as a top prospect in the California Angels farm system.
Also in the '70s, hard-hitting third baseman Steve Lanier signed with the Kansas City Royals in 1973; and infielder Pete Maropis, who passed away in 2012, a base-running speedster and slashing batsman, signed with the Chicago White Sox in 1975. Neither made it to the majors but both played minor league ball.
As a big-league catcher who came back home to coach, it may not surprise many observers that Garbark was quite a mentor for his players who set up shop behind home plate. Starting with the Gators' first season of PAC baseball in 1959, when the team's catcher was Jim Dronsfield, Allegheny catchers were conference all-stars at that position all but two seasons over the next 20 years.
And there were the names of many other PAC stars on Garbark's lineup cards. In 1975 a record number of six Gators were named first-team conference all-stars, representing nearly all of the accolades; and five were first-teamers in the years of 1962, 1963, 1976 and 1978. One of the PAC's elite performers, Garbark's hand-picked successor and former star outfielder Mark Matlak, now Allegheny's head football coach, took over Garbie's seat on the Gator bench in 1979.
Springtime in western Pennsylvania does not always bode well for baseball games, which brought an unusual distinction to Garbark's 282 victories - he was one of the "up north" region's all-time winningest college baseball coaches. Clearly, unfavorable weather did not rain (or snow) on Allegheny's baseball fortunes.
1985 - Creehan Dominates
When sports fans walk through the front doors of the college's Wise Sport and Fitness Center, baseball jersey No. 33 is in full, eye-catching display. It's the uniform of Allegheny Head Coach Rick Creehan.
Another legendary figure on the Robertson Field diamond for more than a decade, Creehan also doubled as the school's athletic director for several years before departing to administrative heights at other colleges.
Taking over the program in 1985, Creehan was joined by his more-than-capable assistant Jeff Groff, a longtime Gator coach and sports administrator, and an Academic All-American outfielder in his playing days at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. Allegheny baseball ascended to new heights, with the regular-season schedule expanding to 20 and even 30 or more games. Some championship teams in this new era played almost 50 games before their playoff runs ended.
In all, Creehan came away with 377 victories against only 177 defeats in his 13 seasons through 1997. In his rookie campaign, Creehan's diamondmen tied for the regular season championship of the North Coast Athletic Conference, in that league's inaugural year.
Creehan's teams of 1993 and 1997 both won NCAC regular season and tournament championships and earned berths in NCAA post-season play, and the 1996 squad also entered NCAA post-season action. Those squads were stellar, and a look at the Allegheny record books shows many players from those squads with impressive statistics for single seasons as well as for their careers.
In fact, Creehan's teams, particularly from the 1990s, virtually rewrote the entire record book of Allegheny baseball statistics, both for individual and team accomplishments, and almost 20 years later the top spots in all statistical categories remain in the grip of players from those Creehan years.
Teams coached by Creehan and his successor, Mike Ferris, saw no less than 16 players enter the pro ranks of minor league baseball, including Josh Sharpless, who went on to pitch in 20 Pittsburgh Pirates games in 2006 and 2007. Beginning with pitching ace Tim Bruzdewicz, who also helped coach the Gators for a few years after graduation, Gator teams from that era produced four league championships in a talent-heavy North Coast Athletic Conference. There were also three trips to the NCAA post-season tournament, and the 2000 squad made it to the Division III College World Series, winning two of four games in the ultimate championship tourney before coming home.
The Creehan-then-Ferris teams boasted 11 All-America selections (including two double winners) and dozens of all-region and all-NCAC players. Bruzdewicz was All-America twice, including a first-team selection in 1988, and record-smashing slugger Joe Musgrove authored back-to-back first-team All-America seasons in 1996 and '97.
Into the 2000s - Ferris and Swiney eras
A former Allegheny player and assistant coach, Ferris filled out numerous winning lineup cards as head coach, notching 261 victories in his 11 years at the helm from 1998 through 2008. Three of his teams journeyed into NCAA post-season action, and one made it to the Division III World Series opening rounds in 2000. A pitcher on that team, Sharpless is second in AC career strikeouts with 204.
The Gators of Ferris wheeled off a sizzling 64-12 run beginning with the fifth game of 1999 through most of the 2000 season, entering the NCAA post-season playoffs both of those years.
Coach Kelly Swiney, a stellar Gator fielder and hitter in the late-1990s, amassed 200 victories during his nine-year tenure at the helm, , including several visits to post-season conference tournaments and numerous all-conference player selections. In 2016, the Gators swept the North Coast Athletic Conference major awards, as third baseman Joe Killian was named NCAC Player of the Year, and Chase Boyer Pitcher of the Year. Killian, who also went on to be named All-America by D3Baseball.com, batted .438 (63-for-144) with 16 doubles, six home runs, and 42 RBIs, while Boyer finished 6-1 in 12 appearances, posting 73 strikeouts and just 14 walks in 63 innings of work.
Following Swiney's departure after the 2017 season, Crawford County native and former Allegheny assistant Coach Brandon Crum was named head coach in August 2017. In addition to his five-year stint as Swiney's assistant at Allegheny, Crum, a four-year starting catcher at Gannon University in the early 2000's, served as head coach of the perennial powerhouse French Creek Valley American Legion program for over a decade, while he also served as head coach from 2016-17 at Mercyhurst University-Northeast, guiding the Saints to a regional championship in 2017.
(Sources from this report include Allegheny College archived records, the book "Through the Years: A History of Allegheny College" by Jonatha Helmreich; numerous Meadville Tribune newspaper reports, documentation from The Meadville Tribune-Republican historical publication "Meadville Sesqui-Centennial Edition 1788-1938, reports from The Meadville Tribune's "Meadville: Yesterday and Today 1938-1976," Allegheny Sports Information media guides, historical references from the websites of other colleges, references from major, minor and Negro League websites; and conversations with two longtime Allegheny employees, sports administrator Jeff Groff and head trainer Jamie Plunkett.)
History of Robertson Complex baseball field
Late 1940s - Work begins on 203-acre plot of land on upper Park Avenue to begin construction of a baseball field and football field complex. The baseball field would also be used for football practice and for soccer practice and games.
1949 - Called College Field, according to reports in The Meadville Tribune, the facility hosts its first home baseball game, vs. University of Rochester, on May 9, a 13-7 loss.
1949 - Allegheny wins its first game at the new College Field, 8-7 vs. St. Vincent College, on May 17.
1956 - Allegheny defeats University of Pittsburgh, 9-7, before more than 300 fans at College Field.
1962 - College Field is renamed Andrew Wells Robertson Athletic and Recreation Complex. Former Allegheny baseball and football coach (and Major League Baseball hall of famer) Branch Rickey attends official ceremony.
1961 - Allegheny defeats Pitt, 5-4, before some 400 fans on commencement weekend.
Late 1980s - College approves plan to clear Robertson complex sites for two soccer fields and a football practice field, giving the baseball team a permanent baseball-only facility.
1988 - Matching bullpen and batting tunnel facilities are constructed.
1989 - Cinder-block dugouts, 30-foot-high backstop and new bleachers are added.
1990 - Digital scoreboard, press box and sound system are added.
1991 - A 9-foot-high home run fence is constructed around the outfield.
1992 - Infield tarp is purchased to allow an all-dirt infield cutout.
Allegheny Baseball Timeline
1881 - Allegheny baseball is the oldest school-sanctioned sport, fielding its first varsity team.
1947 - After the sport was dropped in 1915, a hiatus lasting more than 30 years, Coach Bob Garbark, a former Major League baseball player, brings varsity baseball back to "the hill."
1949 - College Field on upper Park Avenue, now known as the Andrew Wells Robertson Athletic and Recreation Complex, sees its first baseball action in May. Home games through the mid-1960s often attract crowds of 300 or more fans.
1959-78 - Garbark's teams often played talented intercollegiate rivals in his first 15 years, prior to entering the Presidents Athletic Conference in 1959. In league play, Garby guides that Gators to titles in 14 seasons before retiring in 1978.
1960 - Glenn Beckert, who played in the late 1950s and early '60s for Allegheny, goes on to a stellar Major League career, mostly with the Chicago Cubs. Lauded by Hall of Famer Ernie Banks as one of the greatest second basemen he ever saw play, Beckert wins a Gold Glove for fielding excellence in 1968, bats .342 for the Cubs in 1971, and is named to the National League All-Star Team four times.
1985-97 - The Allegheny squad of 1997 wins a school record 40 games. In the five seasons from 1993 through 1997, the Gators amass a stunning record of 175-48, including two North Coast Athletic Conference championships and three trips to the NCAA post-season playoffs. In 1993, the Gators win 33 of their first 34 games. Since 1985 the Gators have produced a 795-436 record, a winning pace of more than 64 percent, under three head coaches, Rick Creehan, Mike Ferris and Kelly Swiney. Coach Swiney also was a star Gator player in that era.
1990 - A few months after quarterbacking the Allegheny football team to an NCAA Division III national championship in December 1990, senior Jeff Filkovski slugs 11 home runs, giving him 26 for his career, both Allegheny records at the time.
2000 - Allegheny makes it to the NCAA Division III College World Series in 2000, winning two of four games before being eliminated from the spring classic in Grand Chute, Wis,
- Allegheny has produced 11 All-Americans, including six first-teamers. Honorees Tim Bruzdewicz and Joe Musgrove each earn A-A status two times. Musgrove, a career .458 hitter, is First Team All-America in both 1996 and 1997. In 1996, Musgrove batted .503.
- Jeff Mountain, North Coast Athletic Conference pitcher of the year in 1999 and 2000, and a second team All-American in 2000, is now head coach at Washington and Jefferson College, where he has been named PAC Coach of the Year five times since 2004.
- Allegheny players are named first team all-conference in the PAC 85 times from 1959 through 1984, and 51 times in the NCAC from 1985 through the present.
- When the college's hall of fame is inaugurated in 1980, the first class of 16 inductees includes four baseball players or coaches. With 27 inductees, including the entire 1962 championship team, baseball ranks behind only football and basketball as the most populated sport in the Allegheny College Athletic Hall of Fame.
- A total of 21 Allegheny athletes have played professional baseball. Besides Glenn Beckert making it to the majors is Josh Sharpless, a star pitcher for the Gators from 2000 through 2003, who pitched in two seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
