The Houston Modern Plummers had a rough day in a baseball game with Sugarland back on July 26, 1915 in the City of Sweetness.. They lost, 10-4.
“Sugarland, Tx., July 26 (1915). – In a one-sided game of baseball, Sugarland defeated the Modern Plummers of Houston by a score of 10-4. The features of the game were a home run by Guenther, with a man on base, and the batting of the home team. Batteries: For Sugarland, Craig and Seager; for (the) Modern Plummers, Sellman, Turley, and Swaine.”
~ Galveston Daily News, July 27, 1915, Page 6.
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Based upon the sparse available information in this brief column item report, we may only assume that Sugarland (it was still a one-word town in 1915) owned the bragging rights to Mr. Guenther for his two-run homer, but it isn’t clearly stated as a fact.
The bigger mystery is that nickname for the Houston club, the Modern Plummers. And poor limited me can see only these three possibilities: (1) The Galveston Daily News failed to pick up that the Houston boys had misspelled the word “plumber” and went to press with that uncorrected errata; (2) Or, like “Sugarland” and “Sugar Land,” the word plumber was simply spelled differently in 1915; or (3) These guys weren’t playing under the plumber’s banner, anyway. They were actually members of a delicate-handed artisan group that once styled feathered plumes for ladies hats – and that’s why they lost to Sugarland. Their hands were too soft to handle a rough and tumble game of baseball.
…of course, that crack of possibility still exists that someone just misspelled the word “plumber” and nobody picked up on it.
Ain’t speculative history awesome?
Tags: Sugarland defeats Houston in 1915 semi-pro or amateur baseball action.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
June 18, 2014 at 9:30 pm |
Perhaps the Houston bunch grew modern plums?