Baseball in Kalamazoo (Since 1920)

“The Live-ball Era”

Several rule changes were instituted in 1920, which brought an end to organized baseball’s dead-ball era. Balls were swapped out more frequently so they stayed cleaner and more responsive (not “dead”), and pitchers were no longer allowed to scratch, spit on, or otherwise deface the ball. Overall scores were higher and there were more home runs, which made the games more exciting to watch.

Central League (1920-1922)

Buoyed by success of the 1919 Stationery Independents, local businessman E.M. Sergeant spearheaded an effort in the early months of 1920 to organize a new team called the Celery Pickers, which would ultimately join Michigan’s newly reorganized Class B Central League, along with teams from Grand Rapids, Ludington and Muskegon. In February, Sergeant signed a contract with “one of the best known baseball men in America” (Gazette), Harry T. “Rube” Vickers, to manage the new Kalamazoo team.

Vickers was immediately dispatched to Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York to recruit the best available players he could find. With the aid of professional baseball mogul Connie Mack and chief scout Henry L. Turner (a former Battle Creek pitcher), Vickers returned to Kalamazoo with the contracts in hand; W.G. Collier, Ben Egan, Tommy Caesar, Roy Heidelbach, George Tomer, W. B. Stevens, Alex Schaufele, and others. “Without fear of contradiction,” Vickers stated, “I am prepared to say it is the best minor league club that ever represented any city in Michigan and will be prepared to show Kalamazoo a class of baseball it has never seen before” (Gazette).

After a slow and contentious start to the season, Vickers was released in late June and first baseman George Tomer took over as manager. Tomer, who had a long history in the minor leagues, and was especially popular among the locals, guided the Celery Pickers to a 64-60 record for the season.

The following year, the Central League added Jackson/Ionia and Lansing. Kalamazoo finished the 1921 season with a respectable 69-58 record, placing second in the league. A year later, manager Grover Prough led the team through much of the regular 1922 season, resulting in a fourth place finish for Kalamazoo.

Michigan-Ontario League (1923-1924)

Come fall, Martin H. “Marty” Becker, “a player with a long and glorious career in the minors” (Springfield (MA) Republican), signed on to play third base and manage the Kalamazoo team during the remainder of the 1922 postseason. To cap off the year, Becker organized an exhibition game in September against the National League Chicago Cubs, the first time that a major league team had played in Kalamazoo since 1886 when the Chicago White Stockings were in town. Some 2,500 fans “jammed their way into Stationery Park” (Gazette) to watch the Kalamazoo team take on the Cubs. Although Chicago beat the Kazoos 2-0, it was a hard fought battle and an exciting game. “All in all,” said the Gazette, “the day was a big success.”

The following spring, Kalamazoo joined the Michigan-Ontario League, competing against the Bay City Wolves, the Flint Vehicles, the Grand Rapids Billbobs, the Hamilton Tigers, the London (Ontario) Techumsehs, the Muskegon Anglers, and the Saginaw Aces. Kalamazoo remained in the league through the 1924 season.

Michigan State League (1926)

After a year out of league play, the Kalamazoo Kazoos returned in 1926 as a member of the Michigan State League, once again taking on teams from Saginaw, Bay City, Port Huron, Charlotte/Flint, Grand Rapids, Ludington and Muskegon. The league itself was created in mid-June out of a merger between the (Class C) Central League and the (Class B) Michigan-Ontario League, but the season was disappointing all the way around. Managed by Fred Hutton and Boss Schmidt, the Kazoos finished second from the bottom of the league with a 39-59 record, while the league itself only lasted the one season. This would be the end of professional men’s league play in Kalamazoo for some seventy years.

Kalamazoo City League III (1924-1989)

Despite the extended break from professional state league play, Kalamazoo fans were still wild about the sport of baseball. Even the mayhem of two World Wars and the challenges of the Great Depression did little to stop Kalamazooans from pursuing their favorite warm weather sport. In 1924, baseball supporter Pete Moser rekindled a third run of the Kalamazoo City League, which would span an unprecedented 66 seasons. At its peak during the 1950s, the Kalamazoo City League boasted 40 to 50 teams in several divisions each season. With the inclusion of fast pitch and slow pitch softball for both men and women, the 1976 season saw nearly 300 teams playing recreational baseball in Kalamazoo.

Sutherland Paper Company: 1946 State Champions

One of the leading teams during the postwar period was sponsored by the Sutherland Paper Company. Team manager Ivan Forster, who was working his way up the administrative ladder at Sutherland, built the company’s championship baseball team with support from company president (and avid sports fan) Louis W. Sutherland. The Sutherland company began sponsoring teams during the late 1930s and ultimately laid claim to 18 Kalamazoo City League championships, seven state amateur championships (six consecutive), and two national titles.

Sutherland began to reach its peak during the late 1940s when the team landed its first state title in 1946. “It was not an easy job,” explained former player Ivan Forster in a 1999 Gazette article, “all the city league players at that time had to work at the place they represented in the league… It was a year-round process, lining up college players for summer jobs and getting others who were not in college on our payroll.” During postseason tournament play, however, teams were allowed to add a few “extras” to the roster, often in the form of seasoned players, even professionals. In July 1948, a massive crowd was on hand to see the Sutherlands take on the Chicago White Sox in an exhibition game at the Western Michigan College of Education (WMU) Hyames Field (Robert J. Bobb Stadium).

“The sort of talent that existed on these company teams, Sutherland and others — from the 1930s into the mid-50s, when Louis Sutherland stopped sponsoring a team — was nothing you’ll find in the rare baseball city league of today.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, September 30, 2011

Amateur National Baseball Championships: 1949 & 1951

During the late 40s, Lacosta “Punk” Smathers replaced Ivan Forster as field manager, and ultimately led the Sutherland team to a pair of Amateur Baseball Congress Stan Musial World Championships. The summer of 1949 was “an amazing season” (Gazette) for the Sutherland team. The Papermakers won 46 games in a row during the regular season, and finished with a 53-5 overall record. Sutherland then went on to win 16 of the 18 games played during the postseason playoffs, including the national championship ABBC Little World Series. Not to be outdone, Sutherland repeated the feat two years later, winning a second national amateur title in 1951. The Sutherland company (later KVP Sutherland, the Brown Company, and then James River) sponsored teams in the Kalamazoo City League through the 1955 season.

Kalamazoo Amateur Baseball Association

By the 1980s, however, city league baseball in Kalamazoo was in trouble. From its peak of popularity during the 1950s and a strong resurgence of participation during the 1970s, the league barely managed to survive the 1981 season with just three teams. Renewed efforts and the incorporation of the Kalamazoo Amateur Baseball Association (KABA) kept amateur baseball afloat for a few more seasons, but after 1989, the Kalamazoo City League was no more.

The Kalamazoo Lassies (1950-1954)

Men’s teams weren’t the only ones making news in the local sports pages during the postwar years. During the late 1940s, the Kalamazoo Lassies were one of the more popular teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AGBL), and they enjoyed a five-season run in Kalamazoo. But the AGBL had already peaked by the time the Lassies came to town, and by 1954 the league was in its final season. In September of that year, the Kalamazoo Lassies defeated the Fort Wayne Daisies by a score of 8-5 to win the league championship in what would be the final game of the AGBL. The 1992 film, A League of Their Own, was a fictionalized account based on the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Read the full story: The Kalamazoo Lassies »

Frontier League (1996-1998)

Kalamazoo Kodiaks

Another forty years had come to pass when in 1996 the Frontier League’s Mid-Missouri Mavericks moved to Michigan to become the Kalamazoo Kodiaks, marking the local community’s much anticipated return to professional baseball. Despite a lackluster 25-49 opening season and a fourth place finish in the Western Division, the Kodiaks still managed to draw more than 62,000 fans, a strong testament indeed to the popularity of baseball in Kalamazoo.

After two more tough seasons for the Kodiaks at the very bottom of the league standings, the team moved again and became the London (Ontario) Werewolves. Still, attendance had remained strong, and the overall popularity of the Kalamazoo Kodiaks was enough to inspire local investors to make significant improvements to the team’s home field at Sutherland Park (later named Mayors’ Riverfront Park).

Frontier League (2001-2010)

Kalamazoo Kings

In 2001, Kalamazoo returned to the Frontier League with a new team, the Kalamazoo Kings. The Kings were part of the league’s Eastern Division, and unlike many others, they were not affiliated with a major league team.

The opening season got off to a rough start for the Kings with a 25-50 record, but things slowly began to improve. Despite its lackluster scoring record, the Kings were named Frontier League Organization of the Year for being the third Frontier League franchise to exceed 100,000 fans in a single season. In fact, the Kings topped 100,000 in attendance every year they were in the league, one of only a handful of teams to do so. With more than 135,000 fans in attendance during the 2004 season, the Kings shared the league’s Organization of the Year award, then went on to take the Frontier League Championship Series in 2005 and the Division Series in 2008.

After a ten-season run with two division titles, three playoff appearances, and one league championship, the Kings closed up shop at the end of the 2010 season.

Northwoods League (2014-current)

The Kalamazoo Growlers

2014 marked the exciting return of professional baseball to Kalamazoo with the arrival of the Northwoods League and the Kalamazoo Growlers. The Growlers are 2nd year members of the Northwoods League, the country’s premier summer collegiate baseball league. The league has expanded to 18-teams in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, and Canada, giving collegiate players the opportunity to experience what life as a minor or major league player is like. The team plays an extensive 70+ game schedule each season, with the opportunity to play with some of the best collegiate players from all across the country.

Since the days long ago when Kalamazoo was but a small frontier village, local fans have enthusiastically supported their local teams. In Kalamazoo, not only is baseball still very much America’s game, as Walt Whitman said, “it’s our game.” Play ball!

Continuing Research

Like many of our Local History essays, this article is by no means a definitive study; rather it may be viewed as a work-in-progress. If you have new information, corrections, or items to share, please contact the author or the Local History Room.

Portions of this article were published on the official Kalamazoo Growlers website in 2013.

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library Staff, 2014.