by Jack Coll
The Franklin nine posted 14 runs in the third inning and another 22 runs in the eighth inning and went on to win the contest 47–10, but that was not the embarrassing part. It seems as though the Washies’ uniforms were clearly a sight to see, or as the Chester newspaper stated, “The suits of the visitors which were new and novel, were the most stunning ever seen on a ball field.”
Jumbo Wagner, who covered first base for the Washies, wore a gray shirt that covered a bay window so large that he was unable to see whether his foot was resting on the canvas bag. One pant leg was of light blue chintz and the other of red calico, while his stockings were of a damask tint. He spliced together two belts to go all the way around him. Moconachy covered second base with patent leather pumps and himself with dust and glory. Earl, in right field, wore blue socks, with one leg of his knee breeches a navy blue and the other a Bismarck brown; he also wore a calico cap. The man behind the batter looked like a Bridgeport butterfly on dress parade, and it was believed at first that he was the missing Joseph of the coat of many colors.
While each and every player was described from head to foot, many funny incidents were played out during the game, including a foul ball off the bat that the catcher missed and the ball continued to travel, hitting the umpire in the vest pocket and setting fire to a box of matches. Of course, the Washies firefighters weren’t so funny then, as they sprang into action to douse the flames and dust off the umpire before going back to taking a pounding on the field.
While Conshohocken had some great fun with the sport of baseball, it should never overshadow the fact that the borough has produced dozens of championship teams and hundreds of great baseball players.
FOOTBALL, TOUGH AS STEEL
The state of Pennsylvania is the home of professional football, and Conshohocken was certainly at the forefront of professional football in its infancy. In the fall of 1893, Conshohocken formed its first football team, sponsored by the Young Men’s Athlete Association (YMAA), and was called Ironmen. Conshohocken’s first organized team played two years before the first all-professional game was played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Latrobe beat neighboring Jeannette 12–0. Each player was paid ten dollars for his services.
The Conshohocken Ironmen consisted of thirteen players, most of whom worked in the town’s steel and iron mills—hence the name the Ironmen. The Ironmen played their games on the east side of Fayette Pike between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Part of the property was later occupied by the O’Brien family and is currently the site of the Mason’s Lodge.
Members of the first team included Sam Wright, Ben Cressman, Charles Herron, Fred and Arthur Clark (sons of Charles Heber Clark, nationally known author under the pen name of Max Adler), Eugene and Bud Beaver (sons of Dr. David Beaver, a Civil War surgeon with his home and office at the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Fayette Street, currently the Bank of America), Alan Caine, George Lukens (later Dr. Lukens) and Louis and Max Vielhaber.
Conshohocken joined the professional ranks of the sport in 1914 under the management of Robert J. Crawford, a cigar store owner and former Conshohocken athlete. The Conshohocken football teams from 1914 to 1922 became known as the “Golden Age of Football” in the borough. Conshohocken’s 1919 team went undefeated and was recognized as the United States Eastern Seaboard Champions. The National Football Hall of Fame, located in Canton, Ohio, acknowledged Conshohocken’s achievement and accepted the team photograph. It hangs on display on a rotating basis with other great teams of the era.
One side note to Conshohocken’s professional era: in 1917, Jack Kelly was a running back and receiver for the Conshohocken pros. Kelly went on to become one of the most accomplished oarsmen in the history of the sport of rowing. He was later the father of Grace Kelly, actress and princess of Monaco.
Johnny “Jack” McBride, a Conshohocken native, went on to play with the very first New York Giants team in 1925. McBride—a Syracuse University All-American football player in 1924—played for the Giants for ten years. In 1925, he ran out of the backfield with the great Jim Thorpe, the former Canton Bulldogs standout. McBride was a shining star in the newly developed professional football league, and in 1927, he was named the league’s Most Valuable Player over Harrold “Red” Grange. McBride never played a down of football at Conshohocken High School, where he attended, graduating in 1918. Conshohocken High School didn’t have a football team until 1923.
Conshohocken enjoyed many great seasons on the football field during the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, featuring many of the town’s great athletes. Names like Bonkoski, Mellor, Webster, O’Donnell, Fox, Marine, Borzelleca, Cannon, Snear, Potteiger, Wood, Lawler, Campbell and Pettine would light up the newspaper headlines week after week. But of the hundreds of football teams fielded over more than one hundred years in the borough, no rivalry was greater than the twenty-three games played between St. Matthew’s High School and Conshohocken High School.
It started in 1925, when Conshohocken High School beat St. Matthew’s 40–6. Conshy High bested the Catholics again in 1926, 7–0. But St. Matthew’s gained revenge in 1927 when, with three minutes remaining in the game, Lou Devaney found an opening from the five-yard line for the game’s only score and a 7–0 victory for St. Matthew’s. The two teams would not meet again until 1944, and a twenty-year Thanksgiving Day rivalry began.
Today’s young residents could never understand the meaning of these games, when six to eight thousand residents would pack the Conshohocken A Field on Thanksgiving morning. Teams would report to the field at 8:00 a.m. for pregame drills. Parades from each school would form and march up Fayette Street, where every merchant posted signs in their windows rooting for one team or the other or, in some cases, for both schools. The parades would turn on Eleventh Avenue and on to the field with the school’s marching band, followed by the cheerleaders and fans into the stadium. Ten of the twenty games played from 1944 to 1964 were decided by seven points or less.
Starting in 1944, St. Matthew’s won five of the first six games played. The game they didn’t win was a 0–0 tie in 1947. When the final game was played in 1964, St. Matthew’s won 25–18, winning the series 10–7 with three ties. Never again will Conshohocken experience the rivalry of the Catholics versus the Publics, as both schools are no longer part of the borough.
BASKETBALL, IT’S ABOUT THE HALL OF FAME
Even the biggest Conshohocken basketball fans won’t remember seeing or hearing of some of the great basketball games being played by the Knights of Columbus. The Knights played their home games at the former Grand Army of the Republic Hall, located on the corner of West Third Avenue and Forrest Street, later a furniture warehouse and St. Coptic Church and currently an office building. Nor would those same fans recall any games being played at the old Presbyterian church once located on the corner of Elm and Maple Streets. Other early locations for the wire cage-playing field included the former Steen Livery Stable, later converted for Moser Glass Works on Hector Street near Poplar Street.
Many a basketball game was played at the original Washita Hall, part of William Little’s opera house once located on the corner of First Avenue and Fayette Street, currently Light Parker Furniture Store. When the new Washita Hall opened on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Harry Street, the Church Basketball League played for years on the second floor. Many basketball games were also played on the second floor of the Knights of Columbus Hall when it was built in 1925. Nowadays, the building is the Great American Pub Restaurant and Bar. Since 1953, more basketball has been played in the borough at the Conshohocken Fellowship House than any other location in the history of the borough.
In 1895, Conshohocken formed a basketball team sponsored by the Pioneer Club of Conshohocken. The sport of basketball was still in its infancy, having been pioneered in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1892. The rules were different and the court was different: nine players from each team were on the playing field, but only two players from each team were permitted to score.
High school basketball
in the borough was very popular, with St. Matthew’s and Conshohocken High Schools both fielding teams going back to the early part of the last century. The great players of both schools number in the hundreds, but for Conshohocken High School, a 63–48 victory on a snowy March night in the spring of 1964 over Coudersport gave Conshohocken its only high school state championship in the borough’s history.
Head Coach Joe Kirby led his squad of players to the Class C State Championship. The list of players on that team included Joe Lewandowski, Francis Omar, John Reuben, Adam Ciccotti, Michael Ethridge, Michael DePalma, Robert Graham, Thomas “Buddy” White, Michael Howell, Joseph McFadden, Harry Kitt and Ernest Mathis.
It should also be noted that in 1996, Plymouth Whitemarsh High School (now Conshohocken’s district) won a state championship in basketball under Head Coach Al Angelos and another state championship in 2010 under Head Coach Jim Donofrio.
Perhaps Conshohocken’s greatest moment in basketball came back in 1904–5, with a team known as the Giants. They posted a 32-8 record, beating teams in four different states (a great distance to travel back then). With no other teams remaining to beat, Conshohocken was declared world champion of professional basketball. Years later, officials at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, upon reviewing records, also declared Conshohocken to be professional basketball’s first world champions. A photograph of the team is prominently displayed in the national Basketball Hall of Fame.
Members of the 1904–5 team included Steve White, Bill Keenan, Charles Bossert, Allan Glassey, Bill Herron, Billy Bennet and George Huzzard. Billy Neville was the team coach, and Johnny O’Keefe was the team mascot. The team led the league in scoring with 1,548 points on the season, an average of 38.7 points per game. In an era when final scores were typically 16–10 and 12–8, Conshohocken’s 38.7 points per game was more than most teams could handle.
In 1927, the Conshohocken Church League was formed. It was discontinued for a few years during World War II and then resumed until 1964. Six churches participated in the decades-long league: St. Mark’s Lutheran, Calvary Episcopal, St. Matthew’s Catholic, United Presbyterian, First Baptist and Balligomingo Baptist of West Conshohocken. Names remembered from the Church League include Whitey Mellor, Chot Wood, George Snear, the Irwin brothers (Bob,Jack, Charlie and Ed), Harry “Tinker” Rowan, Art Freas, Bob Carroll, Lou Devaney, Ernie Pettine, Truman Drayer, Dave Johnstone, Gordon Atkins, Frank Milon, Ted O’Brien, Jim Kriebel, Ted Speaker, Dan O’Donnell, Knute Lawler, Sammy Webster, Jack Graham and Joe Bate, just to name a few.
Conshohocken today hosts what could be the oldest high school basketball tournament of its kind in the country. Every March for the past fifty years, the Fellowship House has hosted this tournament that has players participating from four different states. In 1961, the former executive director of the Fellowship House, Albert C. Donofrio, founded the tournament with four teams. In 2010, Executive Director Darlene Hildebrand reported a thirty-two-team tournament. Since the tournament’s founding, more than two hundred players who have passed through the Fellowship House as part of the Albert C. Donofrio Tournament have been drafted into the National Basketball Association.
AND ALL THE REST
As we turn back the yellowed pages of the Conshohocken sports history, we find a lot to read about. Conshohocken’s tug of war team grabbed a lot of headlines in the early part of last century, when it was Montgomery County champion from 1907 to 1910. John J. Fitzgerald managed the tug team, which was successful thanks in part to “Big Phil,” who anchored the team. Other tug members included John “Ace” Reilly, James McDade and Joseph Kelly. Keep in mind that tug of war was a very popular sport back then, as it was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1920.
For nearly sixty years, the Conshohocken Fellowship House has been a great outlet for the borough’s children. Basketball is one of many activities provided at the youth center; other activities include computer rooms, weight room, a game room and dozens of group activities.
The Conshohocken Bocce Club was formed in 1929 and brought many bocce championships to this fine borough over the years, not to mention many shuffleboard league titles. The Bocce Club located on West Third Avenue has revived the sport in recent years, making the outdoor courts a beehive of activity on hot summer nights.
Tennis became a major sport in Conshohocken in the early 1920s, when some of the greatest tennis players of the day would play before a gallery of hundreds of spectators at the Santa Maria Country Club. Bill Tilden played the club; at the time, Tilden was regarded as the greatest tennis player in the world. Vinnie Richards, Carl Fischer, Wallace Johnson, Bill Johnson and many other great players of the day would often use one of the three courts at the club. The Santa Maria Country Club is now part of the Spring Mill Fire Company.
The Conshohocken Tennis Club played on the five courts at the Conshohocken A Field throughout the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, with players including George Rafferty, Alan Moore, Lloyd Montgomery, John Harrison and Betty Davis.
Conshohocken had two pigeon-flying teams—the Conshohocken East End Club and the Conshohocken Homing Club—in the Montgomery County division of a league that involved several states. Pigeons would often be shipped to other states for release with several other teams and fly a distance of one hundred miles. Charles Mosakowski of Conshohocken was a leader in the sport for many years throughout the 1930s and ’40s.
The Conshohocken Soccer Team was all the rage back in the 1920s, according to the Conshohocken Recorder’s yellowed clippings. Hundreds of townsfolk would board trains on the weekends to view with pleasure the away games. Guys like Thompson, Wood, McGuire, Armour, Sutcliffe, Marland and Winterbottom would often stand out for the locals.
Conshohocken had a number of gun clubs dating back as early as the 1890s. The Washington Gun Club of 1898 would often host shoots with other clubs from Norristown, Radnor and Philadelphia. Many of these shoots would be held at the Ninth Avenue site. In the 1930s, Johnny Rigg, Charlie Todd, Vic Carnem, Bob Lampkin, Walter Beaver and E.J. Morgan were outstanding marksmen. Rigg, Todd and Beaver for many years played on the national stage, capturing national titles. In the early 1960s, Conshohocken was still represented by the Winters Junior Rifle Club, which would often travel to destinations like Harrisburg for competition. A few of the members of the 1960 team included Ronald Montemayor, Paul Borusiewicz, Billy Ciavarelli, Dave Zadroga, George Risell and John and Doug Holland.
Pool, anyone? That’s right, and lots of it. In the 1920s and ’30s, Conshohocken had more taverns and bars than Lee had tires, and most of those drinking establishments had pool tables, which led to the establishment of dozens of pool leagues throughout the borough. Statistics and league standings were printed in the brittle pages of the Recorder among the high school standings and results of the midget leagues. Lifelong Conshohocken resident Bob Pfanders is currently a nationally ranked pool player.
Professional wrestling staged at the Conshohocken Center Stadium drew large crowds for more than a decade in the 1950s with top-notch wrestlers like Antonio Rocca (the South America champion), Kid Fox and the Graham Brothers, along with the female wrestlers, father and son teams and all the big-name tag teams. Outdoor wrestling at the stadium became a great family event every summer, and crowds of more than one thousand spectators would enjoy the events.
The late Johnny Hannon carried the torch for Conshohocken when it came to dirt track racing. Hannon worked out of Galie’s garage, once located in Connaughtown. Following a successful 1934 season, Johnny was invited to the 1935 Indianapolis 500. On his first qualifying round, Hannon skidded across the track, through a concrete retaining wall and was killed instantly. Hannon was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2006 at the seventeenth annual induction ceremonies.
Perhaps one of Conshohocken’s greatest sports for more than forty years was boxing, going back to the 1890s. John A. Harrold, Conshohocken’s first policeman and a pretty good boxer himself, set up a gym at his West Elm Street home
and gave boxing lessons to borough children. Many of those students went on to be pretty good boxers, while several of them entered the pro ranks. Another Conshohocken resident who also set a gym up in his house in the early days was Tom Lanihan, who later conducted a boxing school. Some of Conshohocken’s best-known professional fighters included Francis “Bunny” Blake, Jack Cavanaugh, John Kelly, Joey Blake, Anthony Rossi, “Midget Fox,” Joey Hadfield, Johnny Craven, Wally Novak and Big John Casinelli.
Golf, “the rich man’s sport” as it was once known, was very much a part of Conshohocken’s landscape for many years. John Elwood Lee, who built his mansion at Eighth Avenue and Fayette Street in 1893, also built an eighteen-hole golf course behind his house. The course extended from West Sixth Avenue to Twelfth Avenue and from Forrest Street to Wood Street. In later years, the lower part of the course was used as a playing field for St. Matthew’s football club. In the 1920s, Spencer Jones and Jack Davison represented the borough during golf tournaments, and throughout the 1940s and ’50s, John Kelly was a very well-known golf pro.
When talking about bowling, the one and only name that rises to the top is Johnny Paul. Johnny was a well-known local professional who would travel to different parts of the country taking on some of the best bowlers. Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, Paul would bowl in exhibitions with some of the top professionals in the business and beat them. Johnny sharpened his skills at Charlie Lutter’s bowling lanes located in the basement of the Knights of Columbus Building at Second Avenue and Fayette Street. John Elwood Lee had his own bowling alleys above his carriage house, and for many years his team bowled in the Philadelphia Wholesale Drug League (try using that name today). Lee and his teammates, including Charles Herron, Sam Wright, Maurice Hallowell and James Wells, would travel the country to match up with other top-notch teams of the era.