Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

KU baseball game at McCook Field, 1900-1901. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 66/12 1900/1901 Prints: Athletic Department: Baseball (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Information on the back of the photograph states that the picture was taken during a tournament on May 10, 1901. Note North College, KU’s first building, prominently in the background. It was located approximately where Corbin Hall now stands.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

We don’t have several inches of snow on Mount Oread, but during the first full week of their season KU baseball players are dealing with winter weather and ice.

A KU baseball player in the snow, 1950s. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 66/12 1950s Negatives: Athletic Department: Baseball (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

This week’s photograph was selected in honor of the KU baseball team‘s 2017 season, which started last week.

Members of the KU baseball team, 1894. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 66/12 1894 Prints: Athletic Department: Baseball (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

Entrance gate at the Israelite House of David headquarters, undated.
T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

The Israelite House of David is a religious society with headquarters in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Founded by Benjamin and Mary Purnell in 1903, the society is still in operation today. Throughout its existence it has not only been a religious order, but has also undertaken numerous business ventures, such as an amusement park, dairy, amphitheater, zoo and aviary, bowling alley, restaurant, hotel, logging operation, and bottled water plant.

Perhaps the society’s most successful business enterprise was owning and managing its own baseball teams, known simply as the “House of David.” The teams existed in varying forms from 1913 through the 1940s. As with all of their businesses, the teams were a way to both provide income for the society and to evangelize.

Israelite House of David ballpark, undated. T. Y. Baird Papers.
Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

A House of David baseball team, undated. Call Number: RH PH P1637.
Click image to enlarge.

The teams were originally comprised entirely of House of David members, but by the 1920s they began to hire professional athletes in order to remain competitive and provide better entertainment. Two of the most famous professional athletes to play for House of David teams were future Hall of Famers Grover Cleveland Alexander and Satchel Paige. The society hired women players, too. For example, Babe Didrikson Zaharias – a successful female athlete in golf, basketball, and track and field – and Jackie Mitchell, a professional female baseball pitcher in the minor leagues, were signed to play. Growing long hair and beards were part of the society’s religious beliefs, and, although it was not required, some of the hired players grew out their hair and beards as a way of showing respect for the society.

Grover Cleveland Alexander, undated. T. Y. Baird Papers.
Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

Babe Didrickson, undated. T. Y. Baird Papers.
Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

House of David baseball player George Anderson, undated.
T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

Because the House of David operated outside of the framework of major league baseball, the teams barnstormed to find other teams to play. Barnstorming involved independent teams traveling to various towns around the country to play in exhibition games against hometown teams. The House of David also played teams from the Negro Leagues, which also barnstormed during and after their regular season.

Thomas Younger (T. Y.) Baird owned the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro League baseball team, from 1947 to 1956. For a brief period during that time he was also the booking agent for the House of David teams. The photographs in this post are from the papers and photographs of T. Y. Baird held in the Kansas Collection at Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

T. Y. Baird, in the back row wearing a suit and tie, with a House of David team, undated.
Also shown are the the Kansas City Monarchs light boys, who set up stadium lights for night games.
T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

Advertisement, House of David vs. Kansas City Monarchs Travelers,
May 28, 1950. T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS Q209.
Click image to enlarge.

Kathy Lafferty
Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 5,300 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game is next Tuesday, so this week we’re sharing a fun picture of an early KU baseball game. A horse and buggy along the outfield wall is something you certainly don’t see today!

KU baseball game at McCook Field, late 1890s. McCook was located
approximately where Memorial Stadium is today. This photo looks south/southeast
from the field; Spooner Hall and Old Fraser Hall can be seen in the background,
on top of Mount Oread. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/12 1890s Prints:
Athletic Department: Baseball (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Robert Taft writes in Across the Years on Mount Oread (1941) that baseball has been played at KU since 1866, “almost from the first day of University history.” Games were sporadic until April 18, 1880, the date of KU’s first intercollegiate game of which there is a definite record. Washburn College emerged victorious, winning 29-23. This was a decade before the first intercollegiate football game at Kansas.

Taft also writes that “the baseball team in the earlier years was handicapped by the lack of a suitable playing ground.”

During the late eighties [1880s] a field was used on South Massachusetts street (the site of the present Liberty Memorial High Central Middle School) but its use, however, had to be divided in time with the town team. As the field was also some distance from the University, regular practice was seldom attempted (40).

The construction of McCook Field – also used by the football and tennis teams – in 1892 established “baseball as a permanent sport on campus” (40).

McCook Field, 1890s. This view was taken from Mount Oread and looks north.
Note the Old Dutch Windmill in the background, at what is now the corner of
Emery Road and 9th Street. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/22/47 1890s: Campus: Buildings: McCook Field (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt, Megan Sims, and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants