Illinois H.S.toric

Softball is played by boys in Illinois in only one league, the Chicago Public League, which has sponsored the 16-inch game since the fall of 1999. But many decades ago, the boys throughout the state competed in high school softball. Only it was not called “softball,” was not played outdoors, but instead played inside gyms and armories under the name “indoor baseball.”

Indoor Baseball

Indoor baseball was a cramped little game in which the rules were preeminently designed to facilitate play inside armories, gymnasiums, and similar confined venues. It may be hard for the modern sports fan to imagine high schoolers playing baseball in gymnasiums, yet throughout the 1890s and during the first decade of the next century indoor baseball was one of the most popular winter games in the Chicago area, engaging each week thousands of youngsters, young men and women, and adults. Private club teams, college teams, and as well as high school teams flourished and prospered in competition with one another, drawing big and enthusiastic crowds of rooters, and Chicago newspapers each winter were alive with news of league contests. The game was what basketball is today, the preeminent winter sport activity for Illinoisans.

The basic equipment of an indoor baseballer was a huge 17-inch ball and a stick-like bat. No gloves were worn, and the catcher wore no mask. The ball was truly soft—the rules called for it to be made of a "yielding substance"-far from the hardness of the softball of today. The distance between bases was greatly reduced from baseball, being only 27 feet apart. The pitcher was a mere 22 feet from home plate. Sandbags served as bases, and players were allowed to slide into them and push them along in the slide. The game was played by nine men, with two shortstops, left and right, and only two outfielders, left and right.

The game had been invented by George Hancock in 1887 at the Farragut Boat Club on Chicago's South Side. About twenty members were gathered in the gymnasium of the clubhouse on Thanksgiving Day to follow via telegram the progress of the annual Harvard-Yale game. A combination of good spirits and empty time on their hands resulted in one of the young members picking up a stray boxing glove and tossing to another member who with a stick batted at it. Hancock watching what was transpiring was inspired to make a formal game of the hijinks. He then drew up a diamond on the gymnasium floor, a rough set of rules, and for the remainder of the evening the members played "indoor baseball" with the tightly wrapped glove and sticks. It caught on and by the end of the winter the Farragut was playing games with other clubs.

In the next several years the game spread like wildfire throughout the Chicago area, and by the winter of 1891-92 there were flourishing amateur leagues involving more than 100 teams. In a guide on the city, published in 1892, the editor said that indoor baseball attracts "thousands of spectators of the best classes. In fact, indoor ball is particularly the sport of gentlemen, and especially among club members." And in the early 1890s, the gentlemen who had the leisure time to play indoor baseball also were giving their daughters and sons high school educations in the public schools.

West Division, a school centered in an upper and upper-middle class around Ashland Avenue, was apparently the first school to adopt the sport, and in the winter of 1891-92 it played three amateur teams—the Cook County Wheelman (a cycling club), St. Stephen's, and the Cook County Reserves. It also found another high school to compete against, Chicago Manual Training, located on the near South Side. On November 21, 1891, in the first interscholastic game on record, Chicago Manual defeated West Division 20 to 8.

Despite this propitious beginning, indoor baseball failed to catch on immediately among the schools of Cook County. It was not until several years later, in December, 1895, that delegates of ten schools formed a league. But indoor baseball was not the automatic choice. A new winter sport was also growing in the area, basketball. The delegates thus were presented with two options regarding adoption of a winter sport--basketball and indoor baseball--and by a vote of 7 to 2 indoor baseball got the nod. (One representative apparently did not vote). Schools present at that first meeting were Evanston, Lake, Jefferson, North Division, South Chicago, South Division, West Division, English, Austin, and Oak Park. The last four were from the West Side of the city, where indoor baseball seemed particularly well rooted. During the next decade Crane Tech (originally English), Medill, and McKinley (originally West Division) dominated league competition.

The decision to adopt indoor baseball not only helped make the sport prosper but it also helped to retard the growth of basketball in the Chicago area as a sport for high school boys. As a girls sport, basketball spread rapidly through the area. Not until 1900 did the Cook County schools begin playing basketball as a boys game.

DelaSalle, 1908

Crane, 1909

Indoor baseball thrived both as an interscholastic competitive sport and as an intramural sport in the high schools, and was especially strong with the girls as it was considered less acceptable to engage in interscholastic contests. For example, Englewood High in 1909 besides supporting a boys' team for league competition, also supported an intramural “Interdepartmental Indoor Baseball League” of seven teams. The Physics team won the championship in 1909, beating out History, Chemistry, English, Algebra, Arithmetic, and Mechanical Drawing. The 1910 mid-year school yearbook, The Purple, commented, “The main purpose [teacher sponsor] Mr. Percival has for having inter-class sports is to build and obtain material for the teams that are to represent Englewood.” Alas, for Englewood, the school never managed to become competitive in the league, against such West Side powers as Crane Tech and McKinley.

Englewood 2nd Team, 1910

What had caught on in Chicago soon spread to other parts of the country by the turn of the century, but only on the club level. As to what high schools in the rest of the country were doing in indoor baseball, the answer is virtually nothing. Among boys, Harold Seymour in Baseball: The People's Game reported that New York's PSAL conducted a tournament in the grade schools during 1911-12, and that the sport was listed as intramural activity for girls. In San Diego there was a county tournament for high school girls around the time of World War I. In Minnesota there was a high school boys league, but apparently no other states other than Minnesota and Illinois had boy's interscholastic competition.

During the first decade of the century, indoor baseball moved outdoors, but not among the high schools. The game was deemed suitable for city parks and playgrounds, and it became a staple of the playgrounds. As an outdoor sport, it frequently was called "playground ball." The game was first introduced outdoors in 1906 in the parks of Chicago, and the following year there was felt a need for an organization and a code of formal rules.

In December of 1907, in Chicago, an assembly of delegates came together from the city's south park system, the municipal park system, Cook County high schools (namely from Medill), Chicago grammar schools, and the Bible Class Association. They decided to form a permanent national organization, called the National Playground Ball Association, with the purpose "to begin a systematic campaign to make the sport popular in the schools and the public playgrounds." The association named a nationally based advisory board that included the director of the National Playground Association, intending some sort of loose affiliation with that organization.

The organizers worked to adapt the indoor game to the playground with a new set of rules modified from indoor baseball. They lengthened the field, adopting 35 feet as the distance to separate the bases and 30 feet to separate the pitcher's mound from home plate. The ball's circumference itself also was considerably reduced in size, from 17 inches, with the adoption of two sizes, 12 inches and 14 inches, depending on the size of the playing area. Presumably the reduced size would make it easier to handle by the children and women. Despite the association's adoption of formal rules for 12 inch and 14 inch size balls, in Chicago a larger ball continued to be used. Eventually a 16 inch became standard for the outdoor game, reduced by one-inch in circumference from the indoor version.

Indoor baseball went into steep decline in the second decade of the century, most assuredly due to the rapid growth of basketball, a game far better designed for indoor play. By the mid-1920s, indoor baseball was a dead sport. Eventually, softball's origin from indoor baseball was forgotten.

Cook County League

Indoor baseball was conducted annually in the Cook County League from 1896 until its demise in 1913, and lingered on for two to three years afterwards. The delegates got together in December of 1895, drew up a constitution, and formally named the conference the Cook County High School Indoor Base Ball League. The league was clearly student-run at this point in time. According to the leagues minutes: "The management of this league shall be entrusted to an Executive Committee consisting of one delegate from each school. Each school shall elect a delegate to serve one year and no school shall have more than one representative on the Executive Committee...Only undergraduates of the school's sending them shall be members of the Executive Committee..." The stipulation on undergraduates was to ensure that alumni or other outsiders would not be involved in the league, although the other message is that adult school authorities certainly were not a part of the league. Annual dues were set at $2.00 per school, plus a $2.50 entrance fee. Fifteen free admissions were allowed for the visiting team's spectators.

In January, a representative of A. G. Spalding and Bros. came to the meeting to show the delegates sample balls. The league voted to adopt the Spalding ball. Only five schools actually participated the first year--Austin, Lake View, Evanston, Oak Park, and English--because of the difficulty of the schools in obtaining halls. They were not large Halls--Austin's team played at its own Library hall, English High at the Lake Wood Hall, Lake View at the Washington Turner Hall, and Evanston at the Evanston Skating Rink. The restricted confinement of the halls for the game required special rules. For example, if a ball was hit into the crowd two bases were awarded the runner; for a wild throw into the crowd, one base was awarded.

The city's newspapers reported on the activities of the league, providing evidence that the game was being well received. The Tribune report in March of 1896 of game between Lake View and Evanston gives a bit of the flavor: "The spectators of yesterday's game composed for the greater part of pretty high school girls and enthusiastic boys, who gave encouraging 'yells' as their favorite players made good plays. Pollard, the colored man, who pitches for the Lake View boys, is the finest player in the nine." Pollard was a reference to Luther Pollard, an older brother of Fritz Pollard, the famed Hall of Famer football player.

The league played a double round-robin schedule from January to mid-March. The first year Austin won the banner on the basis of an undefeated record in the standings. Beside the tangible award, the school also received the balance of the treasury, $7.00.

The following year, as was typical of the amateur and semi-pro leagues across the country during that time, there was a large turnover of league members. Previous year members Austin, English, and Lake View sent delegates to the opening meeting, and they were joined by delegates from new members Hyde Park, Englewood, and North Division. The teams again played a double-round robin, but a tie in the standings between Austin and Lake View necessitated a playoff, which was won by Lake View.

By the third year of competition, seven teams had joined the league and Evanston resuming its membership took the title. It also won the treasury pot of $15.95. But what looked like growth was only temporary, because for the 1898-99 season, the league's fourth, only four teams participated--Austin (the champion), North Division, Evanston, and Lake View.

The year 1900 was the breakthrough year for the success of the league, when ten schools chose to field teams. Two more West Side schools joined, West Division and Medill, and the title was won by West Division, which since its pioneering days in the sport had been a perennial power. But the school was an also-ran in all the other sports it participated in against other Cook County schools. By the turn of the century, the Ashland area had become a bit less prestigious; its upper class and upper middle class residents were moving to more fashionable neighborhoods as poorer immigrant groups moved in. The school itself had became terribly overcrowded and among the public schools it suffered higher dropout rates than its competitors. Many of its finer athletes were attending nearby Lewis Institute, which had opened in 1898, and English High and Manual Training, both schools in walking distance from West Division.

The 1900 season, the league's most successful up to that time, was capped off by a championship game between West Division and Lake View that was witnessed according to the Tribune by "probably the largest crowd ever at an indoor game." The star of the West Division team was pitcher Marcus Bernstein, who was also the school's billiard champion. West Division repeated it's success the following season, beating Austin.

The 1902 season saw Evanston top Medill for the championship. Evanston, and in the 1903 and 1905 seasons saw North Division beat out Medill each time for the title. Medill may have been frustrated by all their second places, but indoor baseball like with other West Side schools was their one area of success. The Medill newspaper noted, "Medill has always been hampered in the development of her teams by the lack of facilities for practice. The kindly interest of the faculty has done much to overcome this. And last year M. Rosseter turned over the Assembly Hall to the indoor team. This certainly had much to do with their success."

English High and Manual Training team, 1903

In the 1904 season West Division was at the height of its power in indoor baseball, going through the schedule undefeated and winning the Cook County banner with ease. But 1907 saw the emergence of Crane Technical (formerly English) as a new power in indoor baseball. Its team that year featured pitcher Walter Halas, an older brother of George Halas. There was a third Halas brother, Frank, and the three of them helped Crane dominate the indoor baseball league the next seven years. West Division, which by 1907 had changed its name to McKinley, ruled the roost for its last championship and won the banner. But the competition against its nearest West Side rival was most intense. A Chicago Record-Herald report conveys some of the degree of intense feeling between the schools:

"Rivalry between adherents of the McKinley and Crane High School indoor baseball teams culminated yesterday in the arrest of four members of the Crane School. Excluded from the McKinley High School gymnasium where a contest between the opposing teams was in progress, the Crane rooters are declared to have indulged in a demonstration, which was halted abruptly by the arrival of the police."

"Meanwhile the teams fought a dogged battle, McKinley winning by the score of 5 to 3. Only the players, officials, and a few instructors witnessed the game. All other spectators were barred by order of the Principal George M. Clayburg on account of outbursts of enthusiasm at previous games, which were asserted to have verged upon the disorderly."

"The Crane boys who were ordered from the McKinley building by Principal Clayburg, arrayed themselves outside and several of them are said to have climbed to points of vantage from which they could see into the gymnasium and nosily report the progress of the game."

Crane Tech came out on top in 1908, with a Halas brother in the line-up, and in the 1909 championship game when Crane bested North Division, the newspaper reported that "Halas [which brother was not reported] pitched a steady game and received good support." In the 1910 championship game the only Halas listed in the newspaper was George, who played right short. In the 1911 title game against Medill, “before a crowd that overflowed the galleries at Battery B," Halas proved to be the star; and according to the Tribune, "Halas carried away the hitting honors, swinging as single and a ripping three sacker."

George Halas bottom row, second from far left. Photo credit, Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1911

The 1912 season saw an eleven-team league divided into two divisions. Lane Tech ended Crane's string of championships in the title game, in which George Halas pitched. It was held at the University of Chicago's Bartlett Gymnasium. Crane enacted its revenge in Cook County's last year, in 1913, when it defeated Lane Tech, 11 to 4. Halas was again pitcher, and said the Tribune, "Halas breezed fifteen batsmen and was a factor in the attack with two singles."

Medill, 1912

One peculiarity of indoor baseball competition in Chicago was how the high schools on the West Side--West Division (later McKinley), English (later Crane), Medill, and Austin--dominated the league. In the years 1908 to 1914, Crane High--with the Halas brothers--was in every title game and took the championship six of those seven years. The few girls teams involved in the sport were from the West Side as well. This suggests that there might have been something demographically or socially conducive in the West Side to cause that area to do well in indoor baseball. But what that was remains a mystery, although it appears that indoor baseball at least among high schoolers anyway was a blue collar sport and thrived in schools that had a large blue collar element.

After the Cook County League broke up in the summer of 1913, two new leagues were formed in its stead, the Chicago Public League and the Suburban League. The Suburban League opted not to adopt the sport because none of its members were playing it. The Public League played league competition for just one more season, and as usual Crane won the championship. In the 1915 season only one public high school played the game, McKinley, the pioneer who started the game in the high schools and which was now the lone hold out for the merits of indoor baseball. It played Lane College and a few other institutions that were still playing the game. McKinley's attempt to play other secondary schools failed, however, because none could be found. The following year, due no doubt to its failure to find suitable competition, McKinley did not field a team.

By the middle of the 1920s indoor baseball was dead. The tremendous growth in and enthusiasm for basketball at this time undoubtedly was probably the greatest contributor to the killing of interest in indoor baseball.

Cook County League Indoor Baseball Titles

School Year	 School
            
1895-96	     Austin
1896-97	     Lake View                     
1897-98	     Evanston
1898-99	     Austin
1899-00	     West Division                 
1900-01	     West Division
1901-02	     Evanston
1902-03	     North Division           
1903-04	     West Division
1904-05	     North Division                
1905-06	     Lake View
1906-07	     McKinley
1907-08	     Crane Tech
1908-09	     Crane Tech
1909-10	     Crane Tech                    
1910-11	     Crane Tech
1911-12	     Lane Tech
1912-13	     Crane Tech                        
1913-14	     Crane Tech*

*Chicago Public High School League title.

Catholic League Indoor Baseball

High school indoor baseball in the second decade of the century thrived most vigorously in the Catholic League, formed in 1912. Some Catholic schools, notably DelaSalle, had for years been playing an independent schedule of indoor baseball games. The new league adopted indoor baseball and annually conducted a round-robin schedule leading to a championship up to 1919. DelaSalle and Holy Trinity were the league's dominate powers. In the next decade the sport was no longer sponsored by the Catholic League, but some of Catholic schools continued competition for a few more years.

Catholic League Indoor Baseball Titles

School Year	 School
            
1913-14      DelaSalle
1914-15      Holy Trinity
1915-16      DelaSalle
1916-17      Holy Trinity
1917-18      DelaSalle
1918-19      St. Patrick

Catholic League Softball League

In 1943, the Catholic League introduced softball to its spring schedule of sports. At that time the Catholic Youth Organization sponsored a thriving softball league, and the league no doubt noticed that many of its high school-age boys were participating in softball. While the reports did not specify exactly what kind of softball that the Catholic League was sponsoring, a good guess would be that it was 12-inch fastball. Seven of the fourteen member schools participated during a season that lasted from mid-April to the end of May. Schools participating were St. Philip, Mount Carmel, De La Salle, Loyola, St. George, St. Rita, and De Paul Academy.

The league scheduled a double round-robin season, which was inaugurated with a night triple-header at St. Philip's stadium on April 16. The league scheduled triple-headers throughout the season on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday nights. The rainy and inclement spring caused numerous postponements and with little more than half the games played St. George with six victories and one defeat was awarded the title on May 25. The Catholic League did not repeat its softball experiment the following year.

Catholic League Softball League Titles

School Year	 School

1942-43      St. George

Chicago Public League 16-Inch Softball

Beginning around 1907, indoor baseball gradually migrated outdoors, but it gave rise to a large varieties of game, slow pitch, fast pitch, 12-inch, 14-inch, and 16-inch. As late as the mid-1920s, the large size ball was still 17-inches. In 1933, at the Chicago World's Fair the outdoor version of the sport was given a name, “softball,” and rules were codified for specific variations of the game. In most of the country, 12-inch and 14-inch versions of the game predominated, but in Chicago and immediate suburbs the large ball game, now codified at 16 inches, remained highly popular.

Softball was not generally adopted for boys, as they were deemed to have baseball. In the 1978-79 season, there was 120 schools nationwide with boys teams participating slow-pitch softball, but this figure rapidly decreased to 4 schools by the 1998-99 season, as girls in state after state adopted the sport to more than 1,336 schools by the 1998-99 season. In the 1978-79 season, 41 schools with boys teams were playing fast-pitch softball, and this increased to 83 schools with boys teams in the 1998-99 season. The equivalent number of girls schools in the 1998-99 season was 11,452 schools.

When the Chicago Public High School Athletic Association adopted 16-inch softball in the fall of 1999, drawing into the inaugural season 24 schools, it was most daring. The sport was actually in decline in the city. The 16-inch game is a slow-pitch game, as it requires an arc in the pitch from six to twelve feet. Only four other schools in the rest of the country were playing a form of slow-pitch softball. Sport historian Gerald Gems commented to the Chicago Sun-Times, “Historically, it's kind of nice resurrecting something that really is a part of Chicago culture.”

In the first season, beginning in mid-September, the 24 teams, divided into four divisions, played a double-header a week ending the 10-game regular season in mid-October. The playoffs was a single-elimination tournament that culminated in a championship game by the end of the month. Schurz won the league's first championship, and essentially resumed what was ended by the Public League in 1914.

Public League 16-Inch Softball Titles

School Year	 School

1999-00      Schurz
2000-01      Lane Tech
2001-02      Washington
2002-03      Lane Tech
2003-04      Lane Tech
2004-05      Payton
2005-06      Lane Tech