Hammond     Baseball

Early Hammond High School Baseball Team
(circa 1908)

       Baseball was slow to get official recognition in Hammond although many men were active playing on teams. There is no record of HHS having an "official" baseball team in any of the yearbooks of the 1920's. However, this photo documents the fact that an early team did exist as they pose in front of the stone foundation of Hammond's Central High School on Hohman Avenue.  

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Notice that there are only 10 men on the this championship team and baseball requires that you field 9 men per game.
These players played all innings of all games during the season. Quite an accomplishment!

 

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Early Baseball Team for a Hammond Meat Market

 

 

     When advertising was in its infancy, it didn't occur to the owner of a butcher shop that he could have put the name of his business on the front of the player's jerseys.  Instead, he chose to promote his meat market using various cuts of meat to identify his players.

     Boston Butts is John Schneider; Liver is Henry Huber, furniture store owner and undertaker; the Captain whose meat market sponsors the team is John Rusehlie; Liver Sausage is played by Charles Cleveland; Ox Tails is Adam Griesel, undertaker. On the front row, left to right, Spare Ribs is Morton Towle, bat boy for the team later to become a civic leader and having Morton Court named in his honor; Round Steak is Mr. Newell;  Frankforter is Jacob Mueller, hardware store owner which is still in operation today in downtown Hammond; and Pork Sausage is played by Newton Heimre.

    We do not know if this team photo was taken before the actual playing positions were assigned to the men on the ball diamond but there may have been a time when news reporting of a Hammond baseball game would have consisted of...

"There's an infield ground ball picked up by Round Steak,
he throws to Pork Sausage and over to Boston Butts for a double play!

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        Fortunately the 1906 Chicago Cubs perfected the double play with a call
"Tinker to Evers to Chance," which sounds much better.

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  HHS'59 Senior Dave Mahan slides into 3rd and is tagged out by teammate Ken Gust, two HHS Varsity baseball players.

 

 
 

 

 

Some pro baseball players who made it from their start in Hammond, Indiana.