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    With the opening of the baseball season in Medford by the Nuggets, I am reminded of a team by the same name who represented Jacksonville in the Southern Oregon League of about 50 years ago. The league consisted of Medford, Ashland, Grants Pass and Jacksonville, and the rivalry was intense, especially between Medford and Jacksonville.
    At that time the Barnum railroad [i.e., the Rogue River Valley Railroad] was operating, and the management at Jacksonville and the railroad company secured permission from the S.P. to operate on the main line as far south as Ashland and north to Grants Pass. The Barnum company owned only one coach, so benches were placed on a flatcar and a large banner on which was printed in large letters "Jacksonville Nuggets" draped on each side of the coach, and with the entire population of Jacksonville on board we would travel in our own "special" deluxe to Grants Pass and Ashland. All went well until on one of our trips to Grants Pass engine trouble developed and we were stuck on the main line near Tolo. An S.P. freight came along and pushed us into Medford, and that was the end of our using the main line.
    Each of the towns named had enclosed parks with a high board fence, covered grandstand, etc., and the games which were played on Sundays and holidays were well patronized, as interest in the sport was very keen at that time.
    Medford's park was located in the vicinity of [McLoughlin] junior high school, [in a neighborhood] known then as "pothole addition." Ashland's was located near Helman Baths. Grants Pass field was in the southeast part of town close in, and Jacksonville's diamond was located near the old [B. F.] Dowell house right in the town on the Medford-Jacksonville Highway.
    During the above period the Portland franchise was held in the old Northeast League, and their entry was known as Casey's Colts, under the management of Pearl Casey, who was a star second baseman in his time with Oakland of the Coast League. This team used Medford as their spring training grounds, playing games with all the local teams. Casey later was an umpire in the Coast League for several years.
    Those were the days of Bill Hulen, an ex-big leaguer, the Jacob brothers and Fred Engle of Ashland, Shorty Miles, John Wilkinson, Mose Barkdull, [Frank] Pug Isaacs and Bob Low of Medford, Merrit Brown and Joe Moomaw of Eagle Point, Sandy Sanderson of Central Point, Martin Earle and Henry Pernoll of Grants Pass and the Donegan brothers, Curly Wilson and "Cap" Kubli of Jacksonville. The Donegan brothers played three of the four infield positions. Pat played second base and also did some pitching. Henry Pernoll was a southpaw with a wicked curve and eventually landed with Detroit via Oakland. In the last game he pitched against Jacksonville before he went to Oakland he struck out 21 men in nine innings, so you can see that he was quite a pitcher. His brother John caught him and they made a fine combination. Ashland also had a combination brother battery, Gordon and Tod Jacobs. Gordon is now county commissioner in Siskiyou County, but Tod is deceased.
    Charles Strub, now owner of Santa Anita racetrack near Los Angeles, played one summer with Jacksonville. The New York Giants on a barnstorming tour played in Medford, and a crack colored team, the Colored Giants, played in Grants Pass.
    So you can see that baseball was a very popular sport in Southern Oregon at that time. Court Hall was the manager in Medford and "Bum" Neuber at Jacksonville, and the betting was heavy when these two teams met. The league was getting along fine, and before one of the games between the towns named the betting seemed to be extra heavy. Jacksonville had a pitcher by the name of Lester about 6 ft. 3 inches tall who had won several games easily. The Jacksonville fans thought he was invincible, and they covered all the Medford money in sight. At the start of the game before a large crowd in Jacksonville, Medford ran out a pitcher whom no one had ever seen or heard of, and he proved to be some pitcher, the Jacksonville team being helpless before him. He mowed them down in 1-2-3 order and the fans were cleaned.
    The pitcher turned out to be "Cack" Henley, a ringer from north California, who eventually pitched for San Francisco and I think joined some big league club. There was gloom in Jacksonville that night, and that was the end of the league for that year, and it was several years before interest was again aroused.
    Baseball is a fine healthy sport, and the businessmen in Medford who are lending their moral and financial support to the game are deserving of a lot of credit. From newspaper reports we will have a better team than we had last year, and with increased population and interest aroused, the team should be near the top.
    Good luck, Nuggets.
Medford News, May 6, 1949, page 7




    Medford Tribune: R. L. Wimer of this city has a photograph of the Ashland Greys, a baseball team that flourished 31 years ago. The picture was taken in 1884. Mose Alford, president of the First National Bank, Tom Hurlburt, Gwin Butler of Ashland, Marsh Wagner of Soda Springs, John Norris, George McConnell, Hank Giddings, a veteran stage driver, Al Sears, now dead, and R. L. Wimer. Mr. Wimer found the picture among old possessions. The Ashland Greys was famous as a ball team, and one of the best in the state in its time.
Ashland Tidings, July 12, 1915, page 9


    The match game of baseball played last Friday at Grants Pass between the club of that place and nine Jacksonville and Medford players proved as bitter [as] it was unsatisfactory. Both sides claim the victory, although the umpire decided in favor of the players from abroad, because the home club refused to go to bat after the 8th inning. For the biggest part of the game the Grants Pass boys had a comfortable lead and all went well, but when their opponents tied the score--17 to 17--on the 8th inning, the umpire and everything else was all wrong. From an unprejudiced standpoint, it seems as if the Grants Pass players did wrong in not finishing the game, for they had accepted the decisions of the umpire too long to admit of a protest at the 11th hour. It is conceded by many that the Jacksonville-Medford club would have no trouble in defeating the representatives of Josephine County with practice, for the most of them are more than average players. The Times hopes that those clubs will meet soon again and decide who are the champions of southern Oregon.
Democratic Times, Jacksonville, July 29, 1892, page 3


    The Central Point base ball club met the Eagle Point base ball club last Sunday (yesterday) and had a very pleasant and interesting game on the grounds of the latter. The game was won by the Central Point boys by three tallies, but the Eagle Point boys are said to have played remarkably well for new beginners, as some of them were novices at the business. One of them informed your correspondent that he never struck at a ball before in his life.


    The Medford boys who came down to play the Alerts were Joe Hibbard, Joe Slinger, Tom McCaullay, Emit Bargdale, Jim Howard, Albert Elliott and Messrs. Cook, Biden and Anderson
    The game of baseball between the Medford team and the Alerts of this city on Decoration Day resulted in a victory for the former by a score of 11 to 4. The game was a well-played one and very interesting from start to finish. The Grants Pass boys were doing some excellent playing when they whitewashed the Medford nine five times, but during the later half of the sixth inning they made one or two bad moves which cost them the game. If the Alerts will continue to practice more or less, they will be hard to beat anywhere.
Rogue River Courier, Grants Pass, June 1, 1899, page 3


    The game played at Eagle Point by the local club and a nine from Medford, last Friday, was won by the former by a score of 21 to 10. The victors are now champions of southern Oregon, having beaten every club that has met them.
"Local Notes," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, June 19, 1899, page 3

    The Boston Bloomers, champion lady baseball players of the world, will arrive in the city Saturday, June 29th and give an exhibition at the baseball grounds at 2 p.m. The Bloomer girls do not expect to draw crowds entirely on account of the novelty of being female players, but really put up a creditable exhibition of the national game. They travel in a private palace car and carry a canvas fence for enclosing the grounds, a grandstand with a seating capacity of 2000 and everything necessary to give a first-class exhibition. They have toured all the western states, and have everywhere received good notices from the press, not only for their good baseball playing, but also for their ladylike behavior. Admission 25 and 50 cents.
Medford Mail, June 28, 1901, page 2


    On Wednesday afternoon the Medford ball tossers met the Ashland team on the grounds of the latter in the Granite City, and for the second time within a month went down to overwhelming defeat at the hands of their doughty, up-valley antagonists. The Medford boys entered the game with several new players, or rather old players who had not practiced for a number of years, and to whom the whizzing, curving antics of the horsehide peculiar to the latter-day ball playing were somewhat of a mystery. Besides, Ashland has a very strong team, their pitcher being one of the best on the coast. H. B. Myers and Fred Weeks were both rendered hors de combat during the progress of the game, and both are nursing badly swollen fingers as the result of coming in contact with some decidedly hot balls. The score, 23 to 2, in favor of Ashland, would indicate that our boys were outclassed, but they do not appear to be chagrined, and will be ready to meet the Jacksonville team on the Fourth with full confidence in their ability to win the game--and the $100 purse.
"City Happenings," Medford Mail, June 28, 1901, page 7


    The Boston Bloomers base ball team have come and gone, having fulfilled their engagement here last Saturday afternoon by winning a very poorly played game from the Medford juvenile team. They carry with them canvas with which to enclose the ball ground, and also a grandstand, canvas covered. A fairly good-sized crowd witnessed the game, which, however, did not create any enthusiasm because of the indifferent playing. The score was 17 to 2--for the bloomers. The girls put up a good game--much better than when here a couple of years ago.
"City Happenings," Medford Mail, July 5, 1901, page 7

    That a number of Medford's leading citizens missed their calling some 400 miles when they decided to enter their present avocations instead of tackling professional baseball was demonstrated last Thursday afternoon beyond all peradventure when the business and professional men of that city lined up in a titanic struggle to settle, once and for all, which is the handiest lot of sports in the national game--baseball. The weather was perfect, the grandstand crowded to suffocation and the players all in the pink of condition when Judge Prim, acting as umpire, or referee, called the game and introduced the players in a neat speech, in which he dwelt at some length on the deeds of prowess the different gladiators had been guilty of in the past. When the judge had finished he delivered an upshot curve bow to the grandstand as a prearranged signal that applause was next in order, but to his consternation and alarm there was nothing doing in that line. His audience had not heard a word he said, because everybody had been struck deaf and mute by the sudden flitting of Judge Colvig's Merry Widow, balloon-shaped pantalettes or trouserines, as the case may be. Fearfully and wonderfully made were these chaste coverings for the nether limbs of the stately and refined judge, who had only entered the lists as a speedy means of securing the strenuous training he felt he would need in the prohi charter fight which commenced the following day. Saffrony in hue were they and breezy of build, and in combination with the flesh-pink hose, the azure blue waist [blouse] and the dark blue headpiece, the effect was one never to be forgotten.
    "Time," yelled the umpire, and the game was on. Colvig went in the box, with Judge Kelly behind the bat. Shorty Garnett, warehouseman and prohibition leader, wielded the bat and called for a high ball. Colvig delivered the goods, which struck Kelly square between the ears and splashed all over the backstop. The next high ball, however, made better connection. Shorty met it squarely under the nose with a brandy smash effect, dropped his bat and started for third base instead of first. This mistake was no doubt due to the fact that he had his panties on backward, probably having been dreaming of high balls while in the dressing room. But Shorty got there just the same, as did Kentner, drygoodsman, who also is not built on the greyhound plan. "Toggery Bill" added to the éclat of the occasion in a gorgeous Nash hat with frazzle-edged trimmings, and W. I. Vawter made a decided sensation on the field attired in a brilliant red necktie of decided anarchistical tendencies. Weeks [the undertaker] "undertook" to catch, and he succeeded in stopping every dead one that came his way, and Jess Enyart tried to break the ball as he does at a shooting match. Molony, the shoe man, wore a neat pair of canvas shoes. He also wore trousers, shirt and a determined look, which no doubt helped to win the game. There were something like 100 men engaged in the contest, first and last, and the game was finished in six innings--as were the players to a frazzle. The score was 10-15 in favor of the business men, and the gate receipts were enormous.
Central Point Herald, June 18, 1908, page 1