The Page Fence Giants: A History of Black Baseball's Pioneering Champions by Mitch Lutzke

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Page Fence Giants: A History of Black Baseball's Pioneering Champions by Mitch Lutzke Jim Overmyer Mitch Lutzke. The Page Fence Giants: A History of Black Baseball's Pioneering Champions. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018. 264 pp. Paper, $39.95. Almost fifty years after Robert Peterson's Only the Ball Was White laid the foundation for black baseball history, writers and researchers are still adding missing pieces. Mitch Lutzke has filled an important niche with his book about the Page Fence Giants who, while only in existence for four seasons, rank among the handful of best trailblazing black teams of the late nineteenth century. While it's good to have light focused on the Giants, Lutzke's decision to tell the day-by-day story over four years, while always full of newly unearthed facts, bogs down along the way. The on-field ethos of black ball is one of fast, daring baserunning. This narrative proceeds more on a station-to-station basis, without a powerful cleanup slugger to clear the sacks. The team was based in Adrian, Michigan, a city of about nine thousand people in the mid-1890s. The man who provided the initial spark to bring the team into existence was the well-known black ballplayer and promoter Bud Fowler, who came to Adrian for a game in 1894. In addition to his batting eye, he brought along "masterful marketing ability" (27). He thought Adrian had promise and was back the following spring with an all-black squad. The Page Fence Giants were named after a local firm founded by J. Wallace Page, who also did a great deal to bankroll the squad. Page was an Adrian area farmer who had been convinced for years that there should be a better alternative for keeping livestock than barbed wire, the sharp points on which made it hard to string and potentially injurious to the animals. Significant experimentation produced a fence that looked a lot like the wire farm fences of today. His Page Woven Wire Fence Company supplied just what the farmers of a growing America needed, and made the little Michigan city "the fence capital of the world" (32). [End Page 241] Page Fence supplied its namesake team with a possibly unique feature, its own railroad car, complete with a cook and porter. Black teams in the pre-Negro Leagues era played most of their games on the road, "barnstorming" from town to town. This sort of schedule was rough on players, who constantly forced to hit the road after a game. It was additionally onerous for black teams, where segregation, practiced actively or subtly, could limit options for lodging and meals. If adequate accommodations couldn't be found, "The Giants would simply hitch their fancy car to the rear of a passenger or freight train, arrive in town, uncouple, and sit on a side track to await their daily parade and ball game" (37). The parade referred to was another special Giants feature—the players donned colorful coats and rode bicycles through town to the ballpark, further inciting interest and attendance. The bikes were provided by a cycle manufacturer in return for publicity. J. Walter Page provided the railroad car and his other aid on the same terms—he sent a salesman and fence samples on the road with the Giants, and a display of woven wire fence appeared outside many ballparks where the Giants were competing. Due to no one's fault the Giants' run from 1895 to 1898 was a short one. They were launched just as the US economy went into depression beginning in 1893. Before the team folded, though, it claimed bragging rights to the national black baseball championship of 1896 by winning a long series against the Cuban X Giants from the East. Lutzke is a hardworking researcher; for example, he pursued the Giants' schedule through ninety-four period newspapers. But, having assembled a truckload of information, he falls into the trap of unloading it all for us. The Page Fence Giants chronological structure soon adopts a repetitive "they played here, then they played there, and then they played there" rhythm. Not much is known about many of the...