The Mad Hatters, Again !
Under the leadership of Billy Hamilton (aka Hulen) (whose playing career ended with an eye injury) Medicine Hat won the Western Canada title for the second straight year topping the circuit with 67 wins, edging Winnipeg Maroons for the championship.
No official individual records were compiled for the 1909 season. However, from box scores and newspaper reports, we've managed to put together the statistics, both hitting and pitching for the 1909 campaign.
Outfielder Lester "Tug" Wilson (right) of Medicine Hat beat out fellow Mad Hatter Lloyd Zimmerman to capture the 1909 batting crown in the Western Canada Baseball League. Wilson compiled a .365 mark in 88 games while Zimmerman finished at .348. Wally Smith of Calgary was third, at .330. Smith, the Broncho third baseman topped the circuit in triples, with 17, and tied Luke Collins of Regina for the lead in home runs, with 5. Si Bennett of Medicine Hat scored the most runs, 87, and led in two-base hits, with 24. Harold O'Hayer of Moose Jaw Robin Hoods stole 53 bases to top the circuit.
Paddy Welsh, who split his mound work between Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw, was the top winner and league workhorse. He finished with 23 wins in 35 games. He led the league in complete games, 30, innings pitched, 275, and strikeouts, 150. John Collins of the Winnipeg Maroons had the top winning percentage, .875, based on his 14-2 won-lost record.
Pitchers Cy Pieh and Pete Standridge (right) were among the 1909 players who advanced to the major leagues. Wally Smith, Calgary third baseman, was the lone position player to do so.
Pitcher Clarence Currie (left) of Moose Jaw Robin Hoods had played in the big leagues in 1902 and 1903 with three teams - Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati and St. Louis Cardinals. He won 15 games, losing 23 but finishing with a career 3.39 earned run average in 53 games.
Western Justice ?
Lloyd Zimmerman (right) was an outfielder for the 1909 and 1910 Medicine Hat Mad Hatters. Many years later he'd rate a mention in a book by Pulitzer Prize winner author J. Anthony Lukas. Big Trouble followed the 1907 trial of Big Bill Hayward a union leader accused of the murder of a former Governor of Idaho. Hayward was defended by acclaimed defense attorney Clarence Darrow.
The trial was held in Caldwell, Idaho, the site of one of the clubs in the Southern Idaho League, an independent circuit. Walter Johnson happened to be a pitcher for another of the teams in the league and Zimmerman and Thomas Grayson were the top players on a third team. In midseason Zimmerman and Grayson were arrested and charged with statutory rape of 15-year-old girls. It seems the pair were so valuable to their team that they had the charges dismissed after they married the girls.