The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-10-31
ON SECOND THOUGHT
By JAY n. HOUSE.
tFroE Phiiadelpaia Psblie LsdeAs.l
Tho Battle of Throckmorton's First

Tho Battle of Throckmorton's First
Addition.
Bill Pepy's tacit threat to whip the
column famed the dying embers OF
the passionate years into a tiny blaze.
1t rekindled old-pemories and
Throckmorton's First Addition, which
was the grandest fight we ever saw
ON felt. The participants were the
| members of the st. Paul and Grigsby
City baseball teams. their imrned ate
partisans and the adjacent and con-
tiguous villagers. 1t was. perhaps the
only battle OF history in which every
| man engaged was a volunteer. Likely
| 1t was the only war this country ever
| fought in which the enlistment was
Ice per cent. In the annals OF kapi-
on1a County il is set down as the bat
| tie of ThrnckInorions First Addition.
| The title' is fitting and appropriate. In
the boom days Abel Throckmortonl
had tied his COW pasture to the cor
| porate limits Of the village of St. Paul
| in the hope that a community would
spring to life upon it. That We're a
vain hope. st. Paul never spread be-
yond its original confines and Throck-
morton's First Addition remained a
| cow pasture. As the years eased by
on rubber feet, the sporting element
| or the town set up baseball park
upon it, And, on the afternoon of
which we write, st. Paul and Grigsby
|
In those halcyon days st. Paul and
! Grigsby City never engaged in COM
| petition for less. The bitterness be-
| tween the two towns ran back to the
| county-seat fight of the seventies. 1t
| stepped continually in memories tinc-s
i tured with wormwood and gall. 1t
/ oripped perennially upon the social
and personal amenities of the two
| communities.
I,, - Il
had been outguessed and outvoted.
The wise men of the village had
deemed it necessary to vote only the
j names in the cemetery and those on
| the old hotel registers in addition to
the freeholders regularly qualified to
participate. Grigsby City did all that
and more. 1t rung in the names of
the members of two regiments that
had fought in the Battle of Shiloh and
won the election by a squeak And
so, the county-seat reposed and re-
manned at Grigsby City, as it does to
this day. But for more than forty
years the incident complicated the
relations of the two towns. Nearly
every occasion on which they came
into social contact was marred or
made. according to the individual
viewpoint. by sporadic fighting. Feel
ing reached its climax at ball games
in which the two competed with each
other. But the feud had it's ethics. 1t
a deadly weapon in upholding the
honor of either town. The feud ran
along for more than forty years with
out fatality.
We got into the battle of Throck-
! morton's First Addition by circum-
stances rather than design. We had
returned to the parental rooftree in
Grigsby City from a long tour of the
J provinces the evening previous. When
IoSo bro lrf 1 cf
the next morning two couriers were
on the front porch. The team, they
said, was going to play st. Paul that
Il afternoon. Young Grover SnoddysB who
!, had g. lot of stuff. but who was wild
and uncertain, was going to pitch. HIS
regular catcher had the misfortune to
be in Jail in an adjoining county. A
tjevel-headed, experienced player was
u needed to handle Snoddy. Would we
accept the assignment? We had played
ball in St. Paul and we knew what it
meant. But we were in excellent con-
dltion, had been playing regularly
and we went. 1t was "Snods' great
year-the only one he ever had. He
was one of lifes most pninteresting
experiments. He failed in every I'M
dertaking he tried TO underwrste-
, school, work, business and marriage.
He wasn't even a good fellow when
he had it. But that year he was a
! curly wolf. He had all the stuff any
pitcher needed. When he warmed up
. that afternoon his fast ball was jump
, ing a foot.
The. score was to in favor of
/ Grigsby City when st. Paul went TO
bat in the last half of the eighth.
"Snod' had yielded three hits, two to
| Peggy" Barnes-a homer in the third
| and double in the s:xth-and one
to Miller to open the Eighth. An
infieid out and an error imposed one
upon the other put runners on second
and third with one out-and Barnes
was up again. He was the best ball
player in that section of the country.
shreSvd and foxy. fine fielder and a
great hitter, unless one knew how to
pitch to him. But he was a sucker
| on a curve outside. '-Snods" curve
was one of his many uncertain guam
titles, and Barnes already had hit
twice because he couldn't get it over.
But we signaled for the curve again