Youngstown Ohio Works
[5] In the late 1990s, this tradition was rekindled, with the establishment of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a minor league team based in neighboring Niles, Ohio.
[8] The league's Ohio members included clubs from Akron, Barberton, Bucyrus, Canton, Kent, Lima, Massillon, Mount Vernon, Newark, Niles, Steubenville, Washington, Wooster, Youngstown, and Zanesville, while Pennsylvania was initially represented by teams from Braddock, Butler, Homestead, and Sharon.
On May 11, 1905, the Youngstown team garnered controversy when The Akron Times-Democrat reported that the Ohio Works' sponsors provided player salaries that nearly doubled those offered by other clubs in the Ohio–Pennsylvania League.
[12] The newspaper article concluded that the large salaries provided by the Ohio Works's sponsors placed a special burden on teams based in "smaller cities".
Departing teams included franchises from Barberton, Braddock, Bucyrus, Butler, Canton, Homestead, Kent, Lima, Massillon, McKeesport, Mount Vernon, Niles, Steubenville, Washington, and Wooster.
[17] "Up till the closing minutes it looked like the visiting team, the Cleveland Leaders, would stow the contest away in their bat-bags and leave the field on top", the Vindicator reported.
[17] According to the Vindicator, Ohio Works player Curley Blount "stepped in front of a slow pitched ball and was sent to third", while A. C. McClintock "stole second with all hands asleep".
The game's highlights included the pitching of "Long John" Kennedy, who kept the Moguls to seven hits, and the batting of Edward Hilley, who "unloosened a drive to middle field that permitted him to go all the way around".
[19] The star of the Ohio Works team was a gangling, left-handed pitcher named Roy Castleton, a Utah native who went on to pitch for the New York Highlanders and Cincinnati Reds.
[23] The ball club manager's evident frustration during this period was reflected in comments published in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator almost a week after the team's sale.
When questioned on his widely publicized decision to resign as manager of the Youngstown club before the opening of the 1907 season, Hogan reportedly said that he had received "the short end of the deal".
[24] A feature story, that appeared in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator in 1920, stated that McDonald took deliberate steps in 1907 to replace the Ohio Works team with a more seasoned club from Homestead, Pennsylvania.
According to Sporting Life, the Youngstown franchise had been "declared forfeit" in early 1907, on the recommendation of the Akron club; it was subsequently "awarded" to a recently established baseball company.
[25] "This was only a formality to make legal the actions taken by Magnate [Joseph] McDonald when they turned over the old franchise to the newly organized company in Youngstown", the paper reported.
[28] Further research is needed to determine the Zanesville Infants' league ranking at the close of the 1908 season, but available information shows that the team neither won the championship nor placed as a runner-up.
Ward (writing in August 1924) credited him, to a large extent, for the early successes of the Red Sox, an underdog that briefly challenged the New York Yankees and Washington Senators before slipping to seventh place in the eight-team American League.
In 1909, Marty Hogan moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he signed future Hall of Fame pitcher Stan Coveleski to his first professional contract.
[35] As Spalding's Baseball Guide (1910) reported: "Lancaster, under manager Marty Hogan, won its first pennant in the league, and the top rung of the ladder was only gained by the hardest kind of fighting".
[37] The Youngstown Ohio Works team gave several members a "shot" at the major leagues, and played an indirect role in launching the career of Hall of Fame umpire Billy Evans.
)[38] The story of the Ohio Works team proved to be an early chapter in Youngstown's long history of amateur and minor league baseball.
[39] During the first half of the 20th century, Youngstown-based teams provided experience and exposure to future major league players such as Everett Scott,[40] Floyd Baker, and Johnny Kucab.
