OSU
Sports History Minute - February 2, 2001
Part
3 of 20: OAC's "Hitless Wonder"
Editor's
note: This story is shared as our way of celebrating
today's (Feb. 2) start of the college baseball season.
Both the men and women (softball) open their 2001
seasons today, with important road trips to southern
California and southern Utah. The women are ranked
No. 16 in the pre-season polls.
Fielder Allison Jones |
When
Dennis Erickson arrived on campus two years
ago, he brought with him some of the best credentials
of any head coach to ever wear the Orange and
Black.
But not as good as Fielder Allison Jones.
In 1910, Fielder Jones accepted the job of head
baseball coach at what was then Oregon Agricultural
College.
|
Around
Corvallis, his reputation had preceded him, because
baseball diehards around town knew him to be the
same man who had both managed and played center
field for the 1906 World Champion Chicago White
Sox, a team baseball historians today refer to as
the "Hitless Wonders," a moniker stuck on them for
their ability to win games in spite of a combined
team batting average of .191.
The 1910 baseball team's group photo. The
team, coached by Fielder Jones, won OAC's first
Northwest Championship banner. Both pictures
on this page are from The Orange, 1912. |
Jones, a native of Pennsylvania, had started his baseball
career in the Pacific Northwest in 1891 as an outfielder
with the Oregon State League (no connection to OSU).
Seven years in the majors followed, In 1904, the tough,
young star was offered the job of player/manager for
the White Sox, leading them to a respectable third-place
finish in the standings.
In 1905, the Sox were second. In 1906, champions!
The victory came at the expense of cross-town rivals
the Chicago Cubs, a team that had won an astonishing
116 games that year (still the major league record)
and had finished 22 games in first place!
Jones brought these same winning ways to Corvallis.
Though he coached at Oregon State only one year, the
1910 season, his OAC nine finished with its best record
ever and its first Northwest Championship banner in
the school's (at that time) short athletic history.
In 1914, Fielder Jones was back managing in the big
leagues with the St. Louis Federals. When the team
joined the American League a year later, the Federals
became the Browns and Jones stayed on as skipper.
But the best they could do was a second-place finish
in 1915.
In 1918, after watching his team blow a 5-1 lead to
the Washington Senators in the ninth, Jones quit baseball
for good, making his 1910 OAC Championship the last
one he would ever earn. He moved back to Portland
where he remained the rest of his life, passing away
from a heart condition on March 14, 1934.
Among the more than 300 who attended his memorial
service was Billy Sullivan, the starting catcher for
the "Hitless Wonders."
Sullivan, who lived most of his retired life on a
30-acre farm west of Newberg (Ore.), was especially
sad to see his old coach pass away. The two were business
partners in filberts. Sullivan would live on until
1964, the last survivor of the "Hitless Wonders,"
one of major league baseball's most unusual champions.
-- George
Edmonston, Jr. |
