Frank Houseman played in 84 National League games in the
1890s.
John Franklin Houseman was born January 10, 1870, in the
Netherlands; his death certificate gave his father’s name as John Van Dyke, so
presumably Frank was born Van Dyke. I don’t know when he came to the US, or to
where, or whether he came alone or with his family, or when he took the name
Houseman. Baseball Reference and other websites show him as having been known
as John Houseman, but that is incorrect, he was always Frank. The only
reference to him as John I found was in a Sporting
News article from three years after his death; even then he was called John
once and Frank twice in the article.
Frank first turns up in the July 1, 1889, edition of the Elkhart (Indiana) Daily Review, in an account of an amateur baseball game between
Elkhart and Goshen; Frank, age 19, played first base and batted eighth for
Goshen. The July 31 Goshen Daily News
reported on a game between Goshen and Wabash in which Frank drove in the
winning run in the bottom of the tenth: “Houseman went to bat and some
enthusiast yelled ‘one dollar for a hit,’ which was accepted by the batsman
driving a grounder which brought him the dollar and got Inks in.” In the August
22 Portland Commercial, Goshen was
referred to as “the champion amateur club of the state.”
Frank started 1890 playing left field for Kokomo of the
Indiana State League, but in late May he signed up with an independent team
forming in Logansport. On May 27 the Logansport
Reporter reported:
The base-ball season will probably be inaugurated on Friday or Saturday next. Negotiations are being made for some good club to play the home team here but as yet none has been definitely selected. Frank Houseman, who will play 1st base or short stop, went to Chicago last Friday to select suits for the team and returned yesterday. The suits are a rich gray with black stockings, belts, and hands around the caps, and the word Logansport in black letters across the breast. Houseman is a good young player formerly of the Goshen team and more recently of the Kokomos.
The same newspaper reported on June 23:
Some thief got into the room of Frank Houseman and “Dad” Bowen, the ball players, at Mrs. Bishop’s place on Third street and stole their money and jewelry but did not take any clothing. Frank lost a silver watch that was an heir loom in the family sixty years, and a diamond ring.
On June 28 the Logansport
Chronicle reported on two games in which Frank played shortstop, batting
third in the lineup in one and second in the other. On July 7 the Logansport Pharos-Tribune reported:
At a meeting of the Logansport base ball association to-day Mr. Alf Anderson tendered his resignation as secretary of the association and manager of the ball club. Through his efforts the club has been placed on a good footing, which is evidence that it has been successfully managed. His excuse for retiring is that it takes too much of his time. Frank Houseman will probably succeed Mr. Anderson.
He did not, though; the new manager was named Sprague. A
week later it was reported that the secretary of the Indiana State League was
trying to get Logansport to replace the Marion team, which had dropped out of
the league, and the next day the deal was made. On July 16 Logansport played
their first league game, at Fort Wayne. Frank was still playing shortstop, and
on the 21st the team lost a game as he made five errors. On the 24th
the Reporter reported:
There was no ball game at the park to-day and will be none tomorrow. The Anderson club, which was to have played here failed to show up, claiming that Logansport had failed to put up the $200 forfeit money and therefore is not entitled to a place in the league…There are grave fears that the league will disband in a few days.
And, indeed, the Pharos-Tribune
reported on the 25th:
BASE BALL BUSTED.
The State League and Logansport Club a Thing of the Past.
At a meeting of the directors of the Indiana state base ball league, held at Muncie yesterday, the league was disbanded. Logansport was not allowed a voice in the meeting. The move to disband was urged by Anderson, Muncie and Kokomo, and opposed by Fort Wayne and Peru. Fort Wayne and Peru were anxious to hold the league together and were perfectly willing that Logansport should hold her place, but as disorganizers had gotten their fill of base ball, they were anxious to make a “divvy” of the $4,000 in the league treasury, in order to square up unpaid bills contracted in an effort to maintain expensive ball teams. Secretary Shroeder telegraphed Mr. Prager last evening of the action taken by the league directors, whereupon the latter called a meeting of the home club, paid the boys off in full and released them. This winds up the base ball question in Logansport, for this season, at least. A good many of the players left the city last night, and it is safe to say that ere the dawn of another day the entire outfit will have disappeared.
On July 29 the Reporter
mentioned that “Frank Houseman, the clever short-stop and captain of the late
Logansport team went to Goshen today to visit friends there.” On August 5, the Logansport Journal—yes, Logansport had
four daily newspapers!—had more on Frank:
Frank Houseman, captain of the late ball club, was in the city again yesterday. He was seen in earnest conversation with Will Burrows, the traveling-salesman-base-ball-fiend-and-side-partner-of-Sprague, and it is possible that something is on the point of turning up for Frank. Houseman is a good ball player, and it will be well if this is so.
It will be well if this is so. In fact, by August 24 Frank
was in Chicago, playing for Garden City in the amateur City League. He played
for them through September, some shortstop and some third base, generally
batting seventh.
In 1891 Frank went to spring training with the Grand Rapids
Shamrocks of the Northwestern League. The Grand
Rapids Herald reported on May 7:
Yesterday the members of the Grand Rapids Northwestern League team were out again for practice. Three balls were kept spinning with streaks of pink flame trailing in the rear all the afternoon in a way to make a crank shriek with delight. In practice they show up well. Houseman, the second baseman, though a larger man [5-10, 160], looks and acts like Frank Day, so well known to Michigan base-ball patrons. He handles the hottest grounders with ease and is lightning on his feet. He throws well and lines out the ball accurately. If he plays as well in games as in practice he will do…
I don’t know what the deal was with the streaks of pink
flame, but apparently Frank did not do, as on May 21 he was released; on the 23rd
the Kalamazoo Gazette reported “The Grand Rapids ball club has released
Pitchers Abbott and Barker and Second Baseman Houseman. They couldn’t hit a
balloon.”
I didn’t find any trace of Frank between then and September
1, when he turned up back in Chicago and the City League, playing third base
for the Whitings, then switching teams to the Brands, for whom he played second
and short until mid-October, batting fourth or fifth.
In the spring of 1892 he found another professional gig,
with the Rock Island-Moline Twins of the Illinois-Iowa league. Partial
statistics show him playing for three teams in the league that season, hitting
about .200 in 49 games, mostly in the outfield.
In 1893 he didn’t find a pro job, and seems to have spent
the year back in the City League in Chicago, playing for the West Ends. In 1894
He played for a few teams, ending up making his major league debut on September
11 for Chicago’s National League team, known alternately as the White Stockings
and the Colts. The Boston Journal
reported on September 12:
MADE SPORT OF THE CHAMPIONS.
Colts Have a Merry Time Dancing Around the Bases.
Chicago, Ill., Sept. 11—President Hart read the riot act to the White Stockings this afternoon. The newspapers had set the ball rolling in the morning and the result was that the Colts played as if they were really alive. Houseman, a city league player, made his debut at short. He cut a big figure in the game. He played in the Johnstown club of the New York State League, and has also played for a time with the Springfields…
Dahlen was still laid up, and Lange had shown such inability at short, that a substitute was necessary, so Frank Houseman, who had played on second for Tom Burns’s Springfield team, was tried, and his work was magnificent in the field and at the bat…
Frank went 2-for-6 with a double and a bases-loaded triple,
batting second in the order, as Chicago won 17-2. He played in three more
games, going 6-for-15 altogether with three doubles, a triple, and five walks.
On September 26, before the season was even over, it was reported that he had
secured his release from Chicago and had signed to play with the National
League’s Washington Senators for 1895.
In the December 22, 1894 issue of Sporting Life, their Chicago correspondent wrote:
INDOOR BASE BALL
Seems dead and laid away. A few short years ago the game enjoyed simply wonderful popularity. It was played in the club houses, amid throngs of aristocratic wealth and beauty; big matches were brought off in the public halls, and the sport was more beloved than dancing, cards or church bazaars. A few professionals were in the front ranks of the indoor game. Fred. Pfeffer, with a rose in his shirt front, played first for the ultra fashionable La Salle Club; Jack Luby and Martie Honan were the battery of a church society nine—the St. James’ team. Herman Long played second for a cycling club; big Jantzen caught for half a dozen teams, and Billy York and Frank Houseman were the crack shortstops of the town. This year none of the professionals are in the game, and the fun is little heard of.
By January Frank was having second thoughts about signing
with Washington. The Washington Evening
Star reported on January 5:
It is now—“Leave the league, become a big toad in a little puddle, and cease to be a small toad in a pond full of other batrachians.” Frank Houseman furnished the latest example of this kind. He is under contract with Washington for next season, and, being a good fielder, a rattling batsman, and a fast runner, should feel reasonably certain of his job. But [Chicago owner] Comiskey wants him to play in St. Paul, and Houseman is anxious to get away from [Washington manager] Schmelz and join Comiskey’s gang. He has written asking for his release, but Whiskers, who knows a good thing when he has one, gave Frank the loud ha ha, and informed him that he would be notified when and where to join the senatorial crew.
Meanwhile Frank was working out in Chicago with Colt
shortstop Bill Dahlen. The Chicago correspondent to Sporting Life wrote in the February 16 issue:
AS TO DAHLEN,
A rotund, circular, almost globular object, known last summer as Bill Dahlen, is taking vigorous exercise at the Chicago Athletic Association these days. It appears early in the morning, enveloped in seven sweaters, and does nothing all day long, but run around the track and work off mutton. Of course, you will remember what it looked like last summer—a well built, sinewy little fellow, who could play ball like a whirlwind? Well it weighs 196 pounds nowadays, and can’t button its clothing.
To do Dahlen justice, he is working hard, and says he will be down to 165 pounds by April. Frank Houseman, almost as heavy, is working with the shortstop, and will be in splendid shape before Gus Schmelz gets his tribe together.
And two weeks later, March 2:
HINTS ON TRAINING.
Lovers of good comedy and acrobatic diversion ought to visit the Chicago Athletic Association gymnasium and see the daily training indulged in by those chubby exponents of the national game—Bill Dahlen and Frank Houseman.
They start in about 9 o’clock every morning, Dahlen heavily padded, and Houseman armed with a huge slapstick, of the kind used by knockabout performers.
Dahlen shins around the track at a fair rate of speed. Close behind him come Houseman and the slapstick, and the stick lands solidly on Dahlen’s system at every jump. This exercises Dahlen’s running muscles, hardens his hide and reduces his weight, while it gives Houseman’s arm unlimited training…
Frank went to spring training with the Senators, and there
were reports that he was looking good and would be the regular shortstop. But
he was released before the regular season and hooked up with the Richmond Blue
Birds of the Virginia State League. The Johnstown, New York, correspondent to Sporting Life wrote in the April 20 issue:
I see that Frank Houseman, who played second bag for Johnstown last season, has been released by Washington and signed by Richmond. The cranks here, although not questioning his ability to play good ball, thought he was getting a little too fast, just at present, in jumping from a minor into the National League…
A week later, Sporting
Life’s Richmond correspondent said:
Frank Houseman, the clever second baseman procured from the Washingtons, has been putting up a class exhibition of ball playing, and as for tricks, why he knows them by the barrel. The universal verdict is that he will do.
And on May 4:
The greatest injury to the team, however, was to Frank Houseman, who was badly spiked last week by McCreery, of Norfolk. No blame is to be attached to anyone, as it is one of those things that will always happen, but the laying off of this player cripples the team no little. It will be perhaps two or three weeks before Houseman will again be with the game. He is the life of the team, and the fans are hoping for his speedy recovery.
But apparently opinions varied widely, as the Virginia State
League correspondent to the Sporting News
reported on June 8 that:
Houseman has proven that he is not fast enough for this league and besides he has created a lot of dissatisfaction among the players by talking too much. He should be given his release and Berte [?] played at second regularly and Barley Kalo [?] stationed at short. This would greatly strengthen our infield.
Three weeks later, the same writer said “Houseman is
improving in his work at second. He is not catering so much to the grandstand,”
and on September 14 the Richmond Sporting
Life writer added that “Houseman, at second, is also a very clever player,
and more than handy with the stick.” Both papers reported on Frank’s
performance in a Labor Day doubleheader, when he went 9-for-9 with 17 total
bases. Also on September 14 Sporting
Life’s Chicago correspondent wrote:
Frank Houseman is expected home from Virginia next Sunday, and will join the Whitings. [Colts manager] Anson might do worse than telegraph Frank to join him right away. He played mighty good ball in Virginia, and must stand away up in batting, base running and second base playing. Washington made a fatal break when it let him out and had to depend on such work as Nicholson, Coogan, and other clubs have furnished all summer.
Frank played 106 games for Richmond, hitting .310 and
slugging .415 with 90 runs scored and 53 stolen bases, though stolen bases were
awarded more liberally in those days. On October 12 the Chicago Sporting Life correspondent reported:
Frank Houseman is home, and says that the Virginia climate is unequaled. His bad wing is restored to life, and he points to the fact that he went to bat fourth in all the games of the champion Richmonds as proof of the improvement in his eye.
This is the first mention of an eye problem that I found,
but it won’t be the last.
In December it was announced that Frank had signed to play
with the National League’s St. Louis Browns in 1896; in January he was
mentioned in a report from the Chicago Sporting
Life correspondent about the resurgence in popularity in the city of indoor
baseball. The 1896 Chicago city directory lists him as a ball player, residing
at 1332 W Madison.
On March 11 the New
Orleans Times-Picayune reported:
A NEW PLAYER FOR NEW ORLEANS.
Manager Abner Powell announced yesterday that he has signed another player for the New Orleans team. His name is Frank Houseman, who played second base for the Richmond, Va., team last season. Houseman was well thought of in the Virginia League, and many regrets are expressed by the Richmond cranks at his departure. While in the club he proved a hard worker, and when the season closed his batting and fielding record was of the best.
Powell is racking his brain to determine Houseman’s position. The player can handle either second base or right field in excellent style, so it depends on the future where he will be played.
He ended up playing 69 games in the outfield and 32 at
shortstop. On June 17 the Chicago Daily
News ran this item:
Frank Houseman, as good a minor-league player as there is in the country, describes his sensations when, for the first time, he went against a big-league twirler. Houseman was filling in for Chicago during Dahlen’s illness and faced Staley, the Boston pitcher, with all the confidence that became a man who had led the New York State league in batting with a percentage of .425 [I didn’t find any 1894 NY State League stats].
“The first ball Staley threw,” says Houseman, “had a different twist on it from anything I had been accustomed to see. I stopped, puzzled, for a second, and, bing! He seized the chance and shot a strike across before I could get my bat up again. I found before I got to the bench again that a National league twirler has tricks that a new man in the business never thinks of. Down in the minor leagues there are plenty of swift pitchers, but they don’t have the heads. That’s what keeps big pitchers in the big league—the superiority of their skulls, and that’s why the average young twirler from the farm feels lost in fast company and why the young batter just breaking in is confused, scared and finally gets struck out.”
In another Daily News
article, the following day, Frank says that he played in the Texas League in
1888. I found no evidence of this, but it’s possible. The (Class B) Southern
League season ended in August, and Frank batted .298 and slugged .354 in 102
games, finishing third in fielding percentage among shortstops with .906. The
Eastern League report in the August 8 Sporting
Life included the following:
The Southern League season being about over Eastern League managers are casting their eyes that way. Frank Houseman, of the New Orleans Club, is thought by many to be the star of that League. He is very handy either in the in or outfield, and is a batsman as well. He would strengthen the Rochester team.
The August 29 issue included this from their Chicago
correspondent:
Frank Houseman, Bill Bowman, and the other Chicagoans who went to New Orleans this spring are back, with disgusted looks and very little to say. New Orleans was all right, they remark, but some of the other Southern League towns wouldn’t do. I believe nearly every Chicago boy who went campaigning this summer has returned, many of them without their salaries.
Apparently Frank did not go to the Eastern League. He was
mentioned as having played in a game for the City League’s Whitings in
September, then on September 26 the Sporting
Life Chicago correspondent reported:
FRANK HOUSEMAN,
the bronzed and brawny captain of the champions of the South, was the maddest man in town the other day. By laborious chasing of Jim Hart he secured permission to practice on the League grounds. Then he went and packed his grip with shoes and sweaters and things, and bought a brand new ball, and hurried out to the fray. He started to bat up flies, and the first one he hit flew backwards over the fence. Frank climbed up on top of the stand, and told a small boy where to find the ball. The boy got the ball, pronounced it a good thing, and flew up the alley. And all that Houseman could to was to rave on top of the stand till people passing by wanted to know if the asylum was located over there.
During the 96-97 offseason Frank captained an indoor
baseball team. On March 23 the Norfolk
Virginian quoted the Sporting News
on Frank, adding their own commentary:
Frank Houseman wants to break into the big league again. He claims to be free to sign anywhere. Houseman was with Washington several years ago. A bad wing put him out of the business at that time.—Sporting News. Houseman was also with Richmond two years ago and bad playing put him out of this league.
Frank’s 1895 season continued to provoke a divergence of
assessments.
In April there were reports that he had signed with
Milwaukee of the Western League, but that proved to be false. In May he found a
spot with the St. Louis Browns, about a year and a half after it was originally
reported that he had signed with them. From the Topeka State Journal, May 11:
St. Louis, Mo., May 11.—Frank Houseman, a crack second baseman in one of the Chicago city league teams, came here today to take the place of Bierbauer, who deserted the St. Louis Browns at Louisville some days ago. As punishment for his action, President Von der Ahe had fined Bierbauer $200 and suspended him indefinitely.
On May 14 the St.
Louis Republic reported:
Frank Houseman, who joined the St. Louis ball team yesterday, has been a member of the All-Chicagos since the beginning of the season. Last year he played in the South, where he earned the reputation of being one of the heaviest hitters and best fielders in his league. He has several times been offered a place in the National League, but lost his chance by quibbling over salary. He will do well with the Browns.
On May 22 the Chicago Sporting
Life correspondent wrote:
FRANK HOUSEMAN
has caught on with St. Louis, and is doing very well so far—batting and fielding both very fair, and base running excellent. As the Browns are in a rut and are getting walloped in every game he has hardly a fair chance to show his speed in a winning battle.
While the same day the Norfolk
Virginian continued their carping about him:
Frank Houseman has been in and out of the league on several occasions, and this time his friends expect him to stick with St. Louis.
Aren’t his friends expecting too much?
Sporting Life of
June 12 reported that Frank was hitting .310 in a utility role for the Browns. On
July 23 it was reported that he had been released, but apparently that was not
the case. On July 27 the St. Louis
Republic reported:
A funny incident occurred during yesterday’s baseball game. Frank Houseman had just bunted a ball, and stood at the plate like a dummy waiting to see if it would roll fair or foul instead of chasing to first base as fast as his legs could carry him. When he got back to the bench Chris Von der Ahe opened up on him in this wise: “Vas you mesmerized, Houseman? Somebody must have put salt on your bloomers, for you stood there like a wooden Indian and wouldn’t budge. You ought to have flown to the bag, and would have been called back all right if it had been a foul bunt. Blow your nose and play ball hereafter. No more trance acts goes.”
Conversely, on August 23 the Milwaukee Journal reported:
And now they talk of making Frank Houseman captain down at St. Louis. Frank will get so elevated that his friends will have to speak to him with the aid of a lineman and a coil of wire.
For the year, Frank hit .245/.329/.309 in 289 at-bats in 80
games, a big drop from his .310 average as of June. The October 23 Sporting Life’s Chicago report included
the following:
Frank Houseman, of St. Louis, is home for the winter. Frank has little to say about the Browns, but has much ridicule for the other teams, and wild kicks against the fat average of Billy Keeler.
“In Baltimore one day,” says Frank, “I saw Keeler hoist two flies to left, and Dan Lally muffed them both. Then he hit one to third, and Hartman, after fumbling, threw wild to first. Then he made one good single. Next morning—four hits in the Baltimore papers. Oh, they don’t do a thing for their hitters down there.”
The Baltimore method of scoring stolen bases has been sufficiently ventilated, and I had heard players say before that the base hit records were badly padded…
A week later the same correspondent added “Frank Houseman is
receiving a jacketing from the Baltimore scribes for his published criticism of
their scoring methods.” On December 4 Sporting
Life reported “Frank Houseman of the Browns, who has it is said, inherited
a fortune, is said to be contemplating a trip to Europe in the near future.”
But in the same issue, the Chicago correspondent had this story:
HOUSEMAN IN HARD LUCK.
Frank Houseman, of Von der Aheville, is around town with a bad eye. The eye troubled him so severely this fall that his batting average flopped from .302 to .240 and has since caused him a great deal of trouble. An operation is to be performed; if it succeeds the boy will be good enough for any company; if it fails he will probably retire from the diamond. His friends hope for the best, as Frank is extremely popular among all who know him. Like other players, he is puzzled over the complexion of Der Prowns for 1898…
I didn’t find a story on the results of the surgery, but in
March 1898 Frank was fighting with the Browns over his contract. From the March
1 Chicago Daily News:
Frank Houseman went to St. Louis last night, intent on kicking. He says that he was offered the same salary as last year, but that the St. Louis players are required to buy their own uniforms, while the club stood for the expense last season.
Frank tried to get his release from the Browns; meanwhile on
March 8 the Milwaukee Journal
reported:
U. of W. Men After Houseman.
Representatives of the University of Wisconsin are in Chicago looking for Frank Houseman, the Chicago player who made a good showing with the St. Louis Browns last season. They wish him to act as coach of the ‘varsity team. Houseman knows a great deal about ball, and, above all, is what the boys call a “jollier.” He would get a great deal of work out of the ‘varsity candidates without making them weary, by keeping up a continual fire of joking. It is not known whether the Chicago man can accept the offer…
On April 15 Frank secured his release, and it was said that
the Omaha, Columbus, and Milwaukee Western League teams were after him. But he
ended up back in the Southern League, signing with the Birmingham Reds on April
25, though somehow he had already played two games for league rivals the
Atlanta Colts. For the Reds he played center field and batted sixth in the
order; after playing eleven games for them, though, the league folded. The Birmingham Age-Herald reported on May
23:
THE RED LEGS ARE SCATTERING
But Five of the Players left Behind.
HOUSEMAN’S MEAN TRICK
He is Alleged to Have Stolen Ten Dollars from Outfielder White and Wearing Apparel from Other Players Before Departing.
“Wang” Switzer, Midget Montgomery, the handsome La Porte and Outfielder Housman [sic] have shaken the dust of Birmingham from their feet and are speeding away to their homes.
Switzer goes to Kansas City, Montgomery to Allegheny, Pa., La Porte to Uricksville, O., and Housman to Cincinnati [?]…
Housman, the short center fielder, does not leave a very savory reputation behind. It is alleged that he carried away with him $10 belonging to Outfielder White, besides some wearing apparel belonging to other players.
It is said that Saturday afternoon the start was made to West End park, and White gave Housman $10 to put in care of the hotel clerk at the Metropolitan. When they returned to the city White discovered that the money had not been turned over. Before the discovery was made, however, Housman was out of town.
Catcher La Porte found his valise had been broken open and several shirts stolen…
In Frank’s 13 Southern League games he hit .315 with a .500
slugging percentage, so it seems as if his eyes were fine. But after his
departure from Birmingham he vanishes, perhaps for good reason, until the March
25, 1899 Sporting Life, under the
heading of Engagements Wanted:
Frank Houseman, hard-hitting second baseman and outfielder, late of the St. Louis Browns, has quite recovered from the accident to his eyes, which kept him out of the game last season, and is ready to do business with some good club. Address 1621 Sauvage street, New Orleans, La.
Yeah, that’s right, he was out of the game last season, and
didn’t play in Birmingham, no matter what you may have heard to the contrary…
Frank apparently spent the spring playing ball around New
Orleans before signing a contract on April 21—in the re-formed Southern League,
now Class C, with the Mobile Blackbirds. This Southern League had only four
teams (the 1898 league had eight), the others being Dallas, New Orleans and
Shreveport. Frank mostly played second base and led off for the Blackbirds,
until on June 2 the league folded. He had hit .302 and slugged .373 in 40
games. Within a few days he had caught on with the Houston Buffaloes of the
Texas League, another four-team Class C league; he played ten games for them,
again playing second and leading off, and then was gone—by whose decision I do
not know. The Chicago report in the July 1 Sporting
Life included the following:
Frank Houseman, with Chicago in 1894, Washington in ’95 and St. Louis two years ago, is looking for a job, and wants to go with Louisville. Frank is in good shape, a weakness of the eyes that spoiled his batting average having left him, and the man would fit in well anywhere. He wrote Fred Clarke, but Fred said a short stop was the one thing needed down there and Houseman is preferably a second baseman.
Clarke was the manager of the Louisville National League
team; he had Honus Wagner but Honus hadn’t become a shortstop yet. On July 6
the Chicago Record reported that the
owner of the Grand Rapids team of the Interstate League was in town:
Torreyson, in addition to wanting to get rid of some players, is on the lookout for new ones, and that was one of the reasons for his coming to Chicago. He has Houseman particularly in mind, but could not find him yesterday.
In March 1900 there was speculation that Frank might play
for Charlie Comiskey’s Chicago White Stockings in the new American League, but he
wasn’t interested, saying he was out of baseball. The 1900 Chicago city
directory, though, still listed him with the occupation of ballplayer, with his
address as 925 W Harrison. On December 26 of that year he attended Clark
Griffith’s wedding reception.
On December 30, 1903, Frank went to the theater. As reported
in the January 9, 1904 issue of Sporting
Life:
BASE BALL HEROES.
TWO NOTED PLAYERS RISE TO A GREAT OCCASION.
Charles Dexter and Frank Houseman, Caught in the Burning Iroquois Theatre, Save Their Families and Rescue Other Women and Children.
The national game furnished its quota of heroes in the horrible Chicago Iroquois Theatre disaster of December 30, which cost nearly 700 lives. Charles Dexter, late of the Boston National League team, and Frank Houseman, the retired second baseman of the Chicago League Club, with their families, occupied a box. Both claimed that but for the presence of mind of Eddie Foy the death roll would have been doubled. When the panic began Dexter and Houseman each made for and manned a door leading into the alley on the north side of the theatre. The people from the balconies had already commenced jumping to the ground floor when
HOUSEMAN AND DEXTER
forced open their doors, and they were compelled to lift away the maimed and the dead in order to permit of exits from the ground floor. Houseman, having escorted his party out, took a position at his door and kept it from choking up by assisting people through. Finally forced away by the flames, Houseman got into the alley just in time to hear
THE AGONIZED VOICE
of a woman from the window in an upper gallery shriek: “Catch me!” As the woman screamed she jumped, and Houseman, catching her to the best of his ability, broke her fall to the ground, and she walked away uninjured.
The “Iroquois Theatre fire” Wikipedia page calls it “the deadliest theater fire and the
deadliest single-building fire in United States history, resulting in at least
602 deaths;” the article mentions Frank’s efforts. The Sporting Life article made reference to
Frank’s family, but I don’t know who that would be. I have not found any
indication that he was married before 1913, and I found no mention of children—but
then, I could not find him in any census.
In February 1904 Frank, whose address was given
as 293 Warren Avenue, and Dexter testified at the grand jury on the fire. Frank
pops up in the 1907 Chicago city directory as having a saloon at 75 Monroe
Street, on the ground floor of the new Majestic Theatre building, which opened
in 1906 and was at the time the tallest building in Chicago. In the 1909
directory the saloon’s address is given as 73 Monroe. The April 25, 1909, Washington Evening Star referred to
Frank as “once a second baseman of the big leagues, now a prosperous Chicago boniface.”
The San Francisco
Chronicle of July 19, 1910, featured a story told by Frank about playing in
a winter league in St. Augustine, Florida, early in his career, involving a run-in
with a very young John McGraw; this story would appear in many newspapers over
the following years. A few weeks later, on August 12, the Chicago Daily News ran the following item:
IRISH AND GERMANS TO PLAY BALL
Members of the Teams Will Weigh 200 Pounds—Game at Sox Park.
The All-Star baseball team, picked by Callahan and McNichols, will play “Rube” Foster’s Leland Giants Wednesday at the south side ball park. After this contest a team of Irish 200-pounders, captained by Paddy Martin, and a team of German 200-pounders, captained by Frank Houseman, will play. Charles Comiskey will play first base for the Irish team and an attempt will be made to get Mayor Busse to lead the Germans. Elaborate field events have also been scheduled.
On October 6 the following wire service story appeared in
the Erie Times-News:
BETTING BEGINS ON POST SERIES
CHICAGO SPORTS BACK CUBS TO WIN AT SMALL ODDS. ONE BET MADE OF $2,550 ON WINDY CITY TEAM TO $2,000 ON ATHLETICS.
(By National News Association.)
CHICAGO, Oct. 6.—Betting on the world’s series baseball games has taken a brisk turn and within the next few days local bookmakers expect to handle bundles of coin…
The odds set by the professional layers of odds here are 10 to 13 on Chicago and 6 to 5 on Philadelphia. One of the biggest bets yet made was placed at Frank Houseman’s, where $2,550 was wagered on the Cubs against $2,000 on the Athletics…
In December 1911 Frank accompanied White Sox manager Jimmy
Callahan to the major league winter meetings in New York. In 1912 Hugh
Fullerton, in his story on the October 9 World Series game between the Giants
and Red Sox, which appeared in many newspapers, wrote:
In defensive work the Giants were wretched. Fletcher, who besides Frank Houseman and Sammy Samuels, is the worst infielder I ever saw in a major league, almost made a joke of the Giants…
From the January 2, 1913, Grand Forks Daily Herald:
Al Palzer’s Father Shows Sporting Blood; Bet $250 on Battle
Chicago, Jan. 1.—Henry Palzer, of Ossian, Iowa, father of Al Palzer, who is to battle today for the white heavyweight championship, yesterday wagered $250 that his son would be returned winner. Frank Houseman, a local sporting enthusiast, covered the money…
A few weeks later, in the January 25 Sporting Life:
During the National Commission meeting in Chicago President Herrmann, of the Cincinnati club, sold 100 box seats for his opening game next Spring. The block of seats was purchased by Frank Houseman, who will chaperon a crowd of Chicagoans by special train so they may cheer for Joe Tinker in his first game as manager.
However, the railroad informed Frank that the special train
could not be provided, so instead they had a testimonial dinner for Tinker the
first time the Reds visited Chicago. On March 27 Frank married 34-year-old Kate
Summet. On July 7 the Chicago Daily News
reported on a plan advocated by a former alderman to have loop district saloons
close at 11 PM instead of the current 1 AM. Saloon keepers were quoted for and against,
including Frank:
Frank Houseman, Majestic Theater building—I want all I can get for my $1,000. If I closed at 11 o’clock I’d lose a good part of my trade. Naturally I don’t want to do that. I see nothing to be gained by 11 o’clock closing. I see no advantage to anybody. One o’clock seems just about right and also accommodates the public in this locality just about right.
It doesn’t seem as if anything came of the proposal. In
February 1914 Frank was reported to be part of a group trying to buy the Cubs;
nothing came of that either. On March 10 he was part of the entertainment
committee for a banquet in honor of Charles Comiskey. In July 1915 he was part
of the executive committee in charge of the celebration of Joe Tinker Day;
Tinker was by then back in Chicago, managing the Federal League Chicago Whales.
In February 1916 Frank was the chairman of a banquet in honor of Charles
Weeghman, who had just bought the Cubs.
By the 1916 city directory Frank’s saloon’s address is shown
as 20 W Monroe and the Majestic Building’s address as 20 W Monroe, so I assume
the city had done some reassigning of addresses. In early 1918 there were
stories about Frank getting a Cubs tryout for his nephew, a 19-year-old,
6-foot-5, lefthanded pitcher named William Alexander “Bill” Johnson, from
Kansas City. He was released on April 9. Later that month Frank was part of a
group of Cubs rooters who traveled to the opening day game in St. Louis. At the
end of the month it was announced that he would be playing in an old-timers
game at White Sox Park on May 9 “for the benefit of a patriotic fund;” on May 4
this item ran in the Denver Rocky
Mountain News, of all places: “Following announcement in the morning papers
that Frank Houseman would play third base for the All-Nationals in the
old-timer’s war benefit game, local sporting goods stores reported an
unprecedented sale of bunting sticks.”
1919 was the last year that Frank and his saloon appeared in
the Chicago city directory. On November 6, 1922, his death notice ran in the Chicago Daily News:
HOUSEMAN – Frank Houseman, at his home, 561 Surf st., Saturday, Nov. 4, 1922. beloved husband of Kate. Funeral services at his late home. Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 3:30 p.m. Interment at Kansas City, Mo.
In the same day’s edition:
RITES FOR FRANK HOUSEMAN
Funeral of Former Baseball Player Will Be Held To-Morrow.
Funeral services for Frank Houseman, 52 years old, old-time baseball player and hero of the Iroquois fire, who died yesterday [actually the day before] after an apoplectic stroke, will be held to-morrow afternoon from the home at 561 Surf Street. Houseman, a semipro baseball player in this city and later captain and second baseman of the old St. Louis team, was engaged in the wholesale liquor business prior to prohibition. He was the owner of the Majestic bar, a saloon famous in other days, and a member of the Illiniois Athletic and the Eagle River Fishing and Shooting clubs. Some of his closest friends included Charles A. Comiskey, “Bill” Lange, Robert M. Sweitzer and Charles A. McCulloch.
He was actually buried in Independence, Missouri, not Kansas
City. His headstone reads simply “FRANK HOUSEMAN 1870-1922.”
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