Celebrating a grand tradition of baseball and mining

Swing into the Past: Share Your Family’s Globe-Miami Baseball Memories (1900–1950)

Globe Miami Times and the Cobre Valley Arts Center are excited to host a gallery exhibit of local baseball legends in conjunction with the Old Dominion Cup Tournament featuring the Arizona Territorial Baseball League April 26 and 27.

The Exhibit will be hosted in the main gallery of the Arts Center for April.

Featured in the Gallery show will be the Smoke Eaters and the Frank Tippet story. He is perhaps best remembered in Globe as the Deputy Gila County Attorney and later Gila County Attorney in the ‘40s and Globe City Attorney in the ‘80s.

But according to his memoirs dictated to his wife Dorothy late in life, his real passions were always baseball and swimming.

When he arrived in Miami in 1923, he had been on his own for many years making his way from Akron Ohio where he worked in a rubber factory to Miami, Arizona, where he found work as a converter foreman for the International Smelting and Refining Company.

In his own words, he tells about how he talked the mine manager into starting a baseball team:

In 1923, L. O. Howard was General Manager of the International Smelting & Refining Co., where I worked. I was quite a baseball player and had organized a team known as the Smoke Eaters for the smelter. I wanted to get some financial help from the Company, since I had previously worked in the rubber factories in Akron, Ohio, where the factories sponsored all forms of athletics, including baseball, basketball, and boxing. I suggested this to Henry Allen, Chief Clerk at the smelter, and Ben Franklin, Chief Timekeeper. They advised me that L. O. Howard hated baseball players since he had previously employed them and they were all “goldbrickers.” I allowed as to how I had been fired from better jobs than the one I had and was going to tackle the lion in his den.

I got an appointment with Mr. Howard and in conversing with him for about an hour, I sold him on the idea that he would have more contented employees by sponsoring our baseball team to which he agreed, and I left his office with a blank check to purchase uniforms, bats, balls, catchers’ equipment, umpires’ equipment, and all the necessary incidentals. Mr. Allen and Mr. Franklin were very pleasantly surprised, and Mr. Howard became an avid baseball fan and parked his Cadillac in the third base area at all of our games. We won three Twilight League pennants and presented Mr. Howard with the trophies on the mantle in his office.

Call to general public:

Please contact us if you want your family member(s) to be represented in the Gallery exhibit in April. We are looking for photos and stories you might have to share. Call or email Linda Gross at 928-701-3320 or gross@globemiamitimes.com. All materials will be returned to the family after the show, or could become part of the collection at the Gila Historical Museum.

Cobre Valley Center for the Arts Presents:

Main Gallery Exhibit: Our Baseball Heritage 1900 – 1950

The men and women who took to the field and the teams they represented.

Photographs, Memorabilia and Stories about the people behind baseball in Globe-Miami

Exhibit Reception and Lecture Saturday, April 26 5-8pm

Reception for Families & Community 5-6 pm

Featuring a talk by Author John Tenney who wrote the “bible” on Territorial Baseball.

“Territorial Baseball in Arizona 1863-1912”

“The hitherto unexplored early years of baseball in Arizona are brought to life by John Darrin Tenney’s research and an abundance of memorable images. In this detailed study, Tenney explores such key subjects as the origins of baseball in Arizona, the formation of the state’s first town and company teams, the efforts of women and minorities to take part in the national pastime, and the merry adventures of the early barnstorming squads.”―Peter Morris, author of “A Game of Inches” and “Cracking Baseball’s Cold Cases.”