BASEBALL TAB COVER STORY: Shag Thompson - Orphan, Odd Fellow takes pro baseball world by storm

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on March 10, 2017 10:01 AM

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Detroit was under siege. The heat arrived with little advisory, oppressive and unrelenting, loitering in the city's industrial maze and spit-roasting an immigrant population in pursuit of two things -- fair wages and a life beyond Lady Liberty's table scraps.

From Highland Park to Southwest, from Midtown to Jefferson Corridor, its brooding sear was exacerbating and prominent.

On Monday, June 8, 1914 -- the day Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics sauntered into Navin Park for a series with the city's beloved Tigers -- two died, victims of daytime temperatures that peaked in excess of 100 degrees.

But as was chronicled ahead of the tilt by Detroit Free Press scribe E.A. Batchelor, nothing -- not even the hint of death -- would give the Tigers pause to consider anything other than spilling the defending World's Champions.

In fact, one of the Jungaleers particularly relished the opportunity.

"It is unlikely that Cobb will be able to play Friday but he is going to make a strenuous effort to get in the first game against the Athletics on Saturday," Batchelor wrote on June 5. "The Mackmen grabbed a couple of victories that they weren't entitled to because the Peach was not in the line-up down in Philadelphia last month... Ty is always at his best against the champions, and his return to the game at this time should be means of enabling Detroit to take the series from them."

Alas, the Peach played -- and as he was often wont to do, shined, hitting .313 against Mack's fireball staff and recording nine putouts to boot.

But in game three of the series -- one that featured eight Hall-of-Fame players and one all-century manager -- Cobb and his exploits were properly outdone, trumped in spades by an orphan from Goldsboro, North Carolina.

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He arrived here in 1906, courtesy of a languid Southern Railway, with an eight-year old brother in tow and a mother back home, awaiting God's grace.

Goldsboro, four generations removed from Sherman's torch-lit wrath, had quickly become a vibrant city, whistling in perfect time with the latest, most opulent trimmings of high-end fashion.

Along Centre Street, Babcock buggies labored past retail facades, where a thriving merchant association shined everything from Brahma pullets to swanky Willow rockers. At Bizzell Bros., a pair of Duttenhefer shoes -- in addition to the latest lines of Romeos and Juliets -- were being shopped as "fast friend-makers."

Interest at Goldsboro Savings and Loan was being anted at four cents per annum, and if so inclined, one could tap a phone cable at his residence, as not to miss any gossip amongst a growing bourgeoisie rank-and-file.

None of this likely mattered, however, to James Alfred Thompson and his younger brother, Bryant.

Their rightful provenance -- or what remained of it, rather -- was over 100 miles northwest, folded away in the tiny mill haven of Haw River.

It was there they were born, and until their father's passing on New Year's Eve 1903, where they enjoyed a comfortable upbringing. The pace of life was slow, still at times except for the churning of the mill, and guided spiritually by the light of traditional Quaker hymnals.

It was also where the family's middle child, a sister named Bertha, remained as their mother's health rapidly declined -- a struggle that finally ended in late February.

By the time of her arrival in March, the boys had become acclimated to their new surroundings -- a sprawling, 20-acre farm on the corner of Herman and Ash streets that exuded any and all manner of wonderment for its guests.

In addition to a baseball diamond, the Odd Fellows Home for orphaned children featured a cow lot, a swimming hole, a tennis court, two orchards and a chicken yard -- all of which qualified as proper elements of diversity for the mind of a growing child.

For the Thompson brood, it was home sweet home.

•

The boo-birds caroled Thompson early, as temperatures neared the century mark and while the Mackmen rambled through pre-game warm-ups. Their barbs explored the gamut, but poked primarily at his stature, which -- at five-foot seven and 165 pounds -- was neither remarkable nor likely to shiver the spine of Detroit starter Pug Cavet.

So, they promptly jeered, asking him repeatedly which kindergarten class he'd left to attend matters that afternoon in center field.

Even Batchelor, who covered all aspects of the Detroit franchise with balance and grace, seemingly couldn't resist a dig on the diminutive replacement.

"Thompson comes from the University of North Carolina," he wrote. "And before joining the Macks was serving a sentence in one of those little class G leagues where the players wear their uniforms all day and the extra pitcher doubles in the outfield."

But after Detroit retired the A's in order to start the affair, the chubby fill-in for rotation regular Amos Strunk turned a few heads -- and created a buzz around his name -- when challenged by the Peach.

Leading 1-0 and with Cobb on first base, Detroit right-fielder Sam Crawford eased into the box. Four times an AL Most Valuable Player recipient, the quick-twitching slugger found a Weldon Wyckoff mistake to his liking and made his patented, trunk-snapping turn toward the baseball.

In a blink, Crawford's shell was glancing through the heat above Navin Park -- and running underneath it, gauging its flight and space by the pitch of his peanut gallery was Thompson, a fleet-footed 21-year old who had already lived a lifetime.

•

Goldsboro, 1910.

Now a junior at Goldsboro High School, Thompson spent the majority of his summer nights, along with Odd Fellows chum Preston Thomas, in a place most boys their age only dreamt of entering -- the girls' dormitory.

The Jacobi Memorial Building, a state-of-the-times structure complete with swanky parlors and indoor facilities, was finished earlier in the year and prompted many a gaze from curious onlookers.

Including, it seems, look-ins from a Peeping Tom.

After several reports surfaced of a face appearing in some of the first-floor windows at night, the duo formed their own security outfit -- going so far as to persuade Jacobi's attending matron to allow them use of an unloaded shotgun on their nightly detail.

"We took one room in which there was a bed and we took turns of watching and sleeping," Thomas wrote in 1972. "After we had been on duty a night or so, some time after midnight, Shag (Thompson) was sprawled across the bed asleep while the writer (Thomas) kept his eyes on the window. Suddenly, there appeared a face..."

Under a bright moon, the two gave chase, looking first in a hedgerow before rifling the nearby chicken pen and grape arbor. With no results and frustration quickly settling in, the boys spotted the perp near what is now east Ash Street -- where they hastily put their prop-gun to the ultimate test.

"After detaining him a few minutes and giving him the 3rd-degree in questioning," Thomas reported, "we let him pass on toward town with the dire warning that if his face appeared again at night at a window, we should fire right through it... after another night or so we returned to our rooms in the main building, and there were no more reports of a face seen at a window."

This account, written from memory by Thomas six decades later and bolstered by Odd Fellows records which have since gone missing, stands alone in Wayne County as one of the few bits of first-person insight as to life on the property during Thompson's stay.   

What is not available for dispute, however, is the village-to-raise-them-all spirit that was necessary to care for the children's needs -- something Thompson, it seems, wholeheartedly embraced.

•

The orphan played Crawford's blast with fundamental precision.

After slowing his torrent of speed, Thompson gathered his physical wits in ready position -- as if he knew.

Leaning all the while on first base was Cobb -- a man blessed with Model-T quickness and all the base-running graces of a knife fight -- eager to tag, test and tumble the scab from down south who looked more rube than ready.

His ambition, however, was a mistake.  

Thompson's haul was in letter-perfect form, and the four-seam zip-line he gassed to Eddie Collins at second base bested the Peach by a handful of labored footsteps.

Greetings from Dixie, Thompson thought.

"It was a long drive and I went back and got it," Shag recalled in a 1984 card collector's interview, "I knew what Cobb was up to, and the minute I caught it he tagged up and tried to take second... I threw him out by four or five feet."

But what happened next -- a tete-a-tete with Cobb as the teams exchanged fields -- he could have never in his life anticipated.

"As he came out to center field," Thompson noted, "he patted me on the shoulder and said, 'that's the way to keep your head up, youngster...'  that made me feel good, there."

And likely inspired, as evidenced by his at-bats in the top half of the second and eighth innings -- both of which proved crucial to the game's outcome.

Facing Cavet with no outs just minutes after peeling the Peach, the fill-in 6-holer roped a blast to right field, scoring John "Stuffy" McInnis and giving the Mackmen a 2-1 advantage.

But he was far from done.

Following a colossal shot by Philadelphia's Home Run Baker in the fourth and a glancing, two-RBI single by Cobb in the sixth, matters were deadlocked at four apiece as the innings and heat dwindled.

And Thompson delivered again, this time piercing a two-out loner that plated Collins and finished Detroit.

The performance impressed even Batchelor.

"With all due respect to Home Run Baker," Batchlelor opined on June 9, "the real honors of this game go to one Thompson... this youth, who is so small that he is almost completely extinguished by one of those Gyp the Blood caps Connie makes his men wear, hit in two of the five runs, including the one that decided the issue... as a debutante, he made as big a hit as anybody who has been seen here in a long time."

And the outing -- a start-to-finish, both sides-of-the-circus display of raw talent -- perhaps qualified as Thompson's finest hour in professional baseball, which included stints with nearly a dozen minor league outfits and one forgettable appearance at that year's World's Series.

•

Eddie Murphy, the part-time outfielder, was drunk.

So too was the power-hitting Baker and utility knife Rube Oldring, in addition to many on the Philadelphia roster.

Favored by many parties in-the-know to collect another World's Series title in 1914, the A's had just been summarily dusted by the Boston Braves, 4-0, ending Thompson's first stay in the bigs and turning his team of invincibles into a running national punchline.

"You should have seen them," Thompson said of the post-series debacle. "We went back to the hotel (after the final game of the series) and then we all went out to some cocktail bars and everybody got drunk -- I had never seen Eddie Murphy with a drink in his hand until that night, and he came into Back Bay Station about 12 o'clock and could hardly get on the train."

The debauchery was quite a change for Thompson, who just four years earlier was pondering college choices and walking children to school in east Goldsboro. It was also a crushing blow for Mack, who was so enraged by his team's behavior -- before, during and after the series -- that he refused to ride in the same train car with them back to Philadelphia.

"Connie told (Chief) Bender to go to New York and look over the Boston Braves," Thompson recalled of the series run-up. "They were a miracle club, came in and won the pennant on the last day and they were keyed up coming in."

But Bender neglected his manager's directive.

By his estimation, the Braves -- who barn-stormed the New York Giants from 15 games back on July 4 to win the National League -- were nothing more than a caucus of class D-Leaguers who didn't justify due diligence.

"Before the series, we had a meeting and went over the different players and Connie asked Bender to give us some insight on some of the hitters," Thompson recalled. "Bender said, 'Well, I just think they're a bunch of misfits, we won't have any trouble with them.'"

He couldn't have been more wrong and, post-trouncing, the club's reception back home was icy.

Few fans and media awaited their return, and the players walked in silence from North Philadelphia Station to Shibe Park to collect their series stipend of $2,216.34 -- loser's wages.

One player, however, made out slightly ahead of his good-timing, saturated peers.

It was Thompson, the Odd Fellow from Goldsboro, who shrewdly turned his comped set of tickets into a $24 dollar bounty by selling them to an old buddy -- one Tyrus Raymond Cobb of the Detroit Tigers.    

•

April, 1982.

He arrived one night at McCormick Field, home of the Asheville Tourists, much like he did that afternoon in Detroit seven decades earlier -- without warning.

And like his first trip to the show, when he hadn't two nickels to rub clean, he carried with him only the bare essentials -- which, in retrospect, shouldn't have surprised Miles Wolff.

Authenticity, after all, is the man's baseball niche.

Over a celebrated 46-year stay in the game, Wolff has drafted high-school phenoms, hired Class A jokesters, breathed life back into tired left-handers and facilitated professional leagues across North America.  

Presently, he serves as commissioner of the Can-Am League.

But he was wearing brass cuff links in 1982, as owner of both the Durham Bulls and Asheville Tourists  -- when he likely met the most unique figure of his young career.

James Alfred "Shag" Thompson.  

"Here's this old man coming up," Wolff recalled of their initial meeting in the stands that day. "He had on an overcoat, and I wasn't sure what he was there for, and he pulls out this picture -- and points, there I am -- and it was, whoa... I'd like to talk a little more to you. "

And talk they did.

Over several hours that evening and again the following day, the two baseball heads leered through a scrapbook of the orphan's career, glossing its span from Goldsboro to Chapel Hill to Durham to Moline to Omaha to Greensboro, where Thompson finally called it a day in 1925.

Time to get on with real life, he figured.

From there, he told Wolff, life bounced him around a bit, leading to a series of jobs in the long shadow of Asheville proper. For a time, Thompson worked as the golf shop manager at Beaver Lake Golf Course, only to leave after a few years and pursue a track in sales.   

United States census records indicate Thompson worked for a building supply company when its data was collected in 1940 -- a job that provided 40 hours a week and a salary of approximately $30,000 per year. The report also listed his brother, Bryant, as a member of the household, where he would remain until his passing on February 23, 1941, following a battle with lung cancer.  

Thompson's sister, Bertha, married Goldsboro druggist George Waters in February of 1914 and remained in Wayne County through the early 1930's, raising two daughters, Esther and Grace.

Her life turned, however, following a divorce in the late 1920's. She became somewhat of a mystery through her middle years, with very little known  about her professional life, personal relationships or domestic travels.

She passed on May 23, 1965 in San Francisco, California.

•

James Alfred "Shag" Thompson -- Odd Fellow turned peach-canner turned minor-league lifer -- never discussed his challenged upbringing on the record. In fact, he conducted just two known interviews about his career prior to his passing on January 7, 1990.

In August of 1988, renowned columnist Jim Baker profiled him for a special section in the Asheville Citizen-Times, one in which Thompson spoke of many things baseball -- from Cobb to Ruth to the larger-than-life Walter Johnson -- but nothing at all personal.   

Some time earlier, he conducted a broad-based session with Norman Macht, noted baseball historian and author of what is widely considered to be the definitive work on the life of the man who drafted him in 1913 -- Connie Mack. The tapes, housed in the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, offer perspective on most of his playing days and peers, but ultimately, no significant details of his formative years in Goldsboro.

And that is what makes it difficult to draw any hard-and-fast, definitive conclusions about his early life -- one that tasked him with a grave challenge, but also the strength to manage it.

When asked recently just how he would elect to recall "Shag," Wolff wasted not a stitched breath before delivering his appraisal.

"A gentleman," Wolff said.