Talk:Joe Harris (harrijo03)

From BR Bullpen

I have a fairly detailed questionnaire filled out by his great nephew who has done quite a bit of research on him. Would it be worthwhile to post it here? --Ron 15:42, 14 Jun 2006 (EDT)

Yes. It might be best to use exerpts from it in the article and then post the whole thing here in the talk session so that everyone else can see the raw information. --Roger 17:14, 14 Jun 2006 (EDT)

BASEBALL PERSONAGE QUESTIONNAIRE

(information provided by Bob Harris, grandson of Dave Harris mentioned below)

LAST NAME: Harris GIVEN NAME(S): Joseph NICKNAME(S) Joe, Moon A/K/A(aliases, real name, etc.) BIRTHDATE May/20/1891 BIRTHPLACE (City, State, Country) Coulters, PA (Allegheny County). The name of the town is variously Coulter, Couters and Coulterville. Today the locals call it Coulter. Further, there is also another town of this name in PA, in a different county.

Died Dec/10/1959, in Plum Borough, PA Cause of death: Emphysema

IRREGULARITIES(handicaps) Suffered a fractured skull in a truck accident in France during WWI

High School Unknown where, or even if, he attended high school. A Coulter(s) local history publication says that the children of his father (whose name was also Joseph) worked in the local coal mine at age 12. If he did attend high school it would have been in Coulter(s) or in Meyersdale, PA. He and at least two of his siblings were playing baseball in Meyersdale when he was 17, and almost certainly were working in the mines there.

COLLEGE: Doubtful

HAIR color I have no info on these categories other than what is in, e.g., Daguerreotypes EYE color Batted (right, left or both) Threw (right, left or both) Height Weight

Position(s) played 1b, of NATIONALITY(ancestry) English, Scottish FATHER Joseph Harris Born Apr/14/1845 Staffordshire England (from death certificate) Emigrated to U.S. circa 1860 Married circa 1870 Died Jan/12/1927 in Coulter, PA (Allegheny county; S. Versailles township) A contemporary note in The Sporting News says he died in Franklin but that is incorrect. OCCUPATION Coal Miner MOTHER Anna (Cherry) Harris born circa 1923 in Scotland died May/10/1923 Coulter PA

BROTHERS & SISTERS:

(All born in Coulter, PA)

Enoch Harris born June 9, 1871..died March 15, 1931 Mary Harris born June 25, 1873...died March 15, 1947 John (Jack) Harris Born Oct 3, 1875..died April 5, 1957 Alexander Harris born May 25, 1878...died January 7, 1961 Elizabeth Harris born August 7, 1880...died Dec 7, 1880 Margaret Harris born Dec 3, 1881...died April 9, 1960 David Harris born Dec 21, 1884...died April 18, 1951 William Harris born Feb 1, 1887...died January 25, 1955 James Harris born April 14, 1889...died July 15, 1965 Joseph Harris, Jr. born May 20, 1891...died Dec 10, 1959 Thomas Harris born Feb 16, 1894...died Feb 4, 1966

RELATIVES IN BASEBALL: Brothers Dave and Tom played in O.B., albeit briefly. Jack is said to have played in the Texas league but this has not been verified. Great Nephew Hal Reniff pitched in the majors in the late 1960s. Related by marriage to minor league pitchers Ed Rodebaugh and Dick Clark.

Dave played for the 1912 Elmira team for the first month or so of the season, pitching in three games. During the season his contract was transferred to Traverse City. This is according to the contract card sent to me by the HoF. I have yet to verify that he played there. He may have given up, or the Harris listed on the contract card might me Merle Harris, and infielder (Merle was with Elmira preseason and was sent to Traverse City “on a string” according to the Elmira papers). I will be IN Traverse City at the end of this month, so I’ll clear this up once and for all. Dave almost certainly played for some independent league teams in Western PA, but I have not been able to verify this. My father says he played for Vandergrift (PA) but no O.B. team in Vandergrift any time close to correct. Possibly an independent team or maybe just an amateur or semi-pro team.

Tom played on the 1912 McKeesport team for a few weeks in the middle of the season. Joe was also on that team (his first in O.B.). I don’t think he had any other pro baseball experience. I think he was just filling in when the team was shorthanded, or maybe the mine in Coulter(s) was closed for a few weeks (Coulters is about 10 miles from McKeesport).

Jack was supposedly a catcher in the Texas League, according to my father. I haven’t had much success following up on that. Jack was born in 1875 so likely time frame is 1895-1910. The HoF has some records for J. Harris pitching for some teams in Texas in that time frame. A possibility. But I can’t see any way to verify this is Joe’s brother unless there’s some article during Joe’s career mentioning a brother having pitched in Texas. Further complicating this is the HoF contract cards are pretty sketchy for that era. In fact, the J. Harris contract card appears to be at least three different people, possibly more (it even includes Joe Harris’ 1912 year in McKeesport!)

I’ve not researched Hal Reniff’s career. Hal (Harold) was the grandson of Margaret Harris and Henry Drescher. Henry was also from Coulter(s). By the 1930s Henry and Maggie had settled in western Ohio. Their daughter Grace was Hal’s mother. He is my second cousin but I never met him.

Ed Rodebaugh and Dave Harris married sisters. Ed pitched for several O.B. teams in the first decade of the 1900s. Ed was a native of Meyersdale, PA.

Dave Harris’ son married the sister of Dick Clark. Dick pitched for Newport (TN) in 1948 and briefly for Harrisburg in 1950.

SPOUSE1 Pearl (Hepner) Harris Pearl’s family was from Franklin, PA and I presume she was born there. Marriage was during the 1920/21 winter.

PROGENY(children,grandchildren,etc.) No children

SIBLINGS: FAMILY COMMENTS(narrative about family – moves, attitudes, etc.)

Joe’s father emigrated from England and settled in Coulter(s) by 1870. His maternal grandparents (Cummings Cherry and Mary Hodge Cherry) emigrated from Scotland and were in the same general area by 1850 and were in Coulter(s) by 1870. His mother was born in Elizabeth township which is within 10 miles of Coulter(s). Parents and maternal grandparents lived the rest of their lives in Coulter(s) and are buried in neighboring plots there.

Coulter(s) is a very small town in a horseshoe bend of the Youghiogheny river about ten miles upstream (east) of where the river flows into the Monongehela at McKeesport. The town today consists of two streets paralleling the river and perhaps ten crossing streets. In the late 1800s nearly everyone in the town worked in the local coal mine.

Joe and at least a couple of the brothers were living in Meyersdale by 1908. Newspaper archives report Harris and Harris as the battery for the Meyersdale team, and a picture exists of Joe, Jack, and Dave on that team.

Joe and many of the brothers settled in the general vicinity of Renton, PA around the 1930s. It seems a couple of them went there to work in a mine, and others followed later and bought farms in the area.

Joe’s maternal grandfather was a first cousin of Cummings Cherry the prominent mining engineer of the Great Lakes region in the late 1800s. He appears to have been quite wealthy and prominent in Chicago Social circles in the 1890s. More info on that can be gleaned from his obit in the NYT around 1900.

MILITARY SERVICE: WWI (I think you already have more info about this than I)

OTHER SPORTS: HOBBIES: ACTIVITY BEFORE BASEBALL: OFFSEASON WORK: END OF PLAYING CAREER(Year,cause) ACTIVITY AFTER BASEBALL In his later years he had a farm, but am not sure if there was a period between baseball and farming.

ANY BOOKS AND/OR ARTICLES ABOUT (OR BY) HIM:

ANY QUOTATIONS BY OR ABOUT HIM:

BIOGRAPHY(if any) LAST KNOWN RESIDENCE: DEATHDATE DEATH PLACE(city,state,country) CAUSE OF DEATH OBITUARY(if posted on the web or send me a copy and I will post it) GRAVESITE (city/state/country) CEMETERY: EMAIL ADDRESS: WEB SITES OR LINKS:

COMMENTS:

baseball-reference.com (as well as every other published reference) is missing Joe’s brief 1912 stint in Louisville. This was something I discovered in 2003 in the 1912 McKeesport paper and someone (I forget who, someone else in SABR) verified it on the Louisville end. As near as I could tell, the Louisville team was shorthanded due to an injury and borrowed Joe on a 10 day contract. Comments in the McKeesport paper suggest this was a common occurrence, editorializing that it was unfair to the lending team. I assume the McKeesport team must have gotten some money out of this, but the team lost nearly every game while he was gone which I’m sure is what spurred the commentary. It would be quite interesting to know exactly how those deals worked.

Joe’s 1914 stint with the Yankees seems similar to me. Sort of like a tryout during a weekend series in Chicago. I should check the NY and Chi papers to see if the Yankees had some short term injury problem at 1B. Amazingly, Joe’s picture appeared on the front page of TSN as a result of that stint, the first of (at least) 3.