Howard Camp

Howard Camp was an outfielder in five games for the 1917 New York Yankees.

Howard Lee Camp was born July 1, 1893, in Hopeful, Alabama, in Talladega County in the eastern part of the state, the second of eleven children born to Nathan Christopher Columbus Camp and Lucy Arleen Adams Camp. In the 1900 census the family was living on a farm near Munford, the closest larger town to Hopeful. At this point six of the children had been born, though only four of them survived.

In the 1910 census the family was living on Talladega Road in unincorporated Talladega County, and Nathan was president of a cotton mill. Howard was 16 years old and was the eldest of six children at home, older sister Mamie having moved out and the two youngest not having been born yet.

In 1913, the year Howard turned twenty years old, he made his professional baseball debut, playing outfield for the Talladega Indians of the Class D Georgia-Alabama League. He played in all 90 of the team’s games, hitting .314 with a .375 slugging percentage. In 1914 he returned to Talladega, played in 57 games, and hit .283 with eleven stolen bases; in 1915 he was back again, played in 57 games again, and hit .325 with a .445 slugging percentage despite hitting just one home run. (Incidentally, Howard is listed as “Howie” on the baseball websites but I did not find a single instance of him being referred to that way in the newspapers.)

In 1916 Howard again started the season in Talladega, but after hitting .309 and slugging .404 in 59 games, he moved up to the Charleston Sea Gulls of the Class C South Atlantic (“Sally”) League. He didn’t do well there, though, hitting .205 with a .282 slugging percentage in 42 games.

On March 11, 1917, Howard got mentioned in the Anniston Star and Daily Hot Blast, the earliest newspaper reference to him that I found, and the earliest bit of information about him outside of censuses and sparse baseball stats:

Howard Camp, the Talladega outfielder, has always been anxious to play in Anniston, but not half as much as the local fans would like to see him in an Anniston uniform. He now belongs to Charleston, South Atlantic league, and is trying to buy his release, so that he can join the Moulders. Here’s hoping.

Anniston was in the Georgia-Alabama League, so Howard was trying to go back; perhaps he was feeling overmatched in Class C. But he was not able to buy his release and he stayed in Charleston, and this time he did much better: in 77 games he hit .357 with 15 doubles, six triples and three home runs, for a .480 slugging percentage, in 294 at-bats.

Meanwhile, on June 5, Howard filled out his draft registration card. He gave his address as Munford, his occupation as “Ginner + Ball Player,” and his employer as W.H. Walsh of Charleston. He described himself as height: medium, build: stout (he is listed now as having been 5-9, 169), eyes: blue, and hair: light, and under “Do you claim exemption from draft (specify grounds)? he put “Yes Religious belief Church of Christ.” Under “Has person lost arm, leg, hand, feet, or both eyes, or is he otherwise disabled (specify)? he put “Both arms been Broken.”

On June 23 the Seagulls sold Howard’s rights to the New York Yankees, for delivery in the fall, which is pretty impressive for a guy who hit .205 at Charleston the year before and wanted to go back to Class D. At some point in July he was moved—I’m guessing at the Yankees’ instigation—to the Newark Bears of the Class AA International League. In 50 games there he hit .302 and slugged .396, then at the end of the Bears’ season he joined the Yankees.

Howard made his major league debut on September 19 at home against Cleveland, playing right field and leading off. He went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a walk against Stan Coveleski, with one putout in the field. The next day he again led off, playing center, and went 0-for-4 against Ed Klepfer, with three putouts and an error. The day after that the Browns came to town, and Howard, again in center field and leading off, went 4-for-5 with a double and three runs scored off Allen Sothoron, with two putouts and another error. The next day, the 22^nd, he led off and played center in both games of a doubleheader, going 2-for-9 with four putouts and two assists in the outfield. On September 24 the Bridgeport Evening Farmer reported that “Manager Bill Donovan considers him one of the finest outfield prospects he has seen in years,” but though the Yankees had eight more games left in their season, Howard was done, not only for the year but also for his major league career. He hit .286/.318/.333 in 21 at-bats.

Howard was on the Yankee reserve list during the off-season, and he reported a bit late to spring training in Macon after a contract holdout. On March 16 the Evansville Journal, in an article with the headline “HUGGINS PUTS BAN ON CIGARETTES AND CRAPS" (Miller Huggins had just replaced Bill Donovan as Yankee manager), mentioned that:

Howard Camp and Aaron Ward have made good impressions by their snappy work in the infield. Camp is an outfielder, but he looks as if he were trying to take [third baseman] Frank Baker’s job away.

It sounds like things were looking good for Howard, but, as the New York Daily Tribune reported on March 26, the draft board didn’t go for his religious exemption or his two broken arms:

Howard Camp, Yankee Rookie, Answers Call 

By Wood Ballard 

MACON, Ga., March 25. Uncle Sam’s long arm reached into the camp of the Yankees to-day and plucked one of Miller Huggins’s young recruits, who is wanted for the more serious business that is going on “over there.” Outfielder Howard Camp, last season with Charleston and Newark, received his call to the colors just before noon, and at 1:30 o’clock he had said farewell to the boys and was on his way. He went from Macon to his home at Talladega, Ala., where he will receive orders to report at one of the nearby cantonments…

The next mention of Howard (who was a private, Company E, 327^th Infantry, 82^nd Division) I found was over a year later, in the Montgomery Advertiser of June 1, 1919:

HOWARD CAMP IS LEAVING U.S. ARMY 

Young Ballplayer Was About to Enter Big League When Called to Colors 

(Special to the Advertiser) 

ANNISTON, Ala., May 31—A letter from Howard Camp to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. N.C. Camp, at Munford, tells of his honorable discharge from army service at Camp Upton, N.Y., and of his early return home. Young Camp is a well-known ball player…Last season he was training with the Yankees in Macon when called to the colors and he still belongs to that team. After a brief rest at home he will get back into the ball game.

It must have been a brief rest, as he got into 123 games with the Toledo Mud Hens of the Class AA American Association. He hit .252 and slugged .324, while leading the league in outfield errors.

On January 10, 1920, the US Census found Howard living with his parents and five of his younger siblings on Munford Road in Munford; Nathan was still the president of a cotton mill, while Howard was listed as a ball player. Still the property of the Yankees, after his sub-par 1919 he was dropped down to the Dallas Submarines of the Class B Texas League, and he rebounded at the plate. From the July 13 Beaumont Enterprise:

HOWARD CAMP SLATED TO RETURN TO YANKS 

Howard Camp, outfielder of the Dallas Marines, is slated to return to the New York Yankees at the end of the Texas League season, if he continues to perform at bat and afield as he has been during the past few weeks. Camp has been going at a great clip. He is right up among the leaders in batting, is covering a world of ground in the outfield and has one of the deadliest whips in the Lone Star league. Camp is the property of the Yankees and many critics believe he will prove a valuable addition to Huggins’ ranks despite the fact that he would have little chance to break into an outfield that boasts such stars as Pink [Ping] Bodie, Babe Ruth and Tommy Vick. Camp, it is believed, would fit in well with the Yanks as an extra gardener.

Howard finished the Texas League season hitting .333/.367/.418 in 110 games, stealing 18 bases but getting caught 20 times. Instead of going to New York, though, the Yankees sent him to the Vernon Tigers of the Class AA Pacific Coast League, where he had nine hits in 33 at-bats, including two triples and a homer. He then reverted to the Dallas roster, from which he was drafted by the Memphis Chickasaws of the Class A Southern Association. From the April 15, 1921, Arkansas Gazette:

Bad Start Brings Defeat to Travelers in Opener 

After Chicks Score Two Off Jonnard in First Inning, Ingram Holds Them Scoreless, but Camp’s Outfielding Ruins Chances for Local Scores. 

…Ingram kept the Chicks from getting any more, but the handicap beat him—the handicap and the excess activity of Howard Camp, a stubby center fielder, who did more than his share of playing on behalf of the Memphis club. 

This Camp person was a regular little busybody in the early innings of the game, but his conduct in the seventh is what ruined the party for the home folks. In that round the Travelers made their most dangerous threat to score and had the stage all set for a big time, when this Camp guy horned in and upset everything. Three Travelers were on bases and there were two outs, when Frank Kohlbecker swung into one of Senor Oskar Tuere’s fast ones and headed it for the deepest spot in center field. Mr. Camp misjudged it slightly, but not seriously. He started in and then headed out and grabbed the ball as it was about to drop into an excavation in center field, made during the process of the erection of the new flagpole. Had that ball hit the ground it would have gone into the ditch, out of sight, and four runs would have counted. As it happened, the Travelers were shut out for another inning, and Mr. Howard Camp was a hero. This ex-Texan certainly looked the part of a real outfielder.

Howard played mostly right field the rest of the season, and generally batted sixth. He ended up with a career-high 218 hits in 632 at-bats for a .345 batting average, fifth in the league. He had 34 doubles, eight triples and five homers for a .448 slugging percentage, and stole 23 bases while being caught 16 times. He also had 27 outfield assists, tied for third in the league, while Memphis won the league championship with a 104-49 record.

In 1922 Howard was back with Memphis. On May 20 it was mentioned in a few newspapers that he was ill in a Memphis hospital, but I didn’t find any other information on that, and he was back in the lineup by at least May 28. On June 10 he hit his third homer in two days, and he finished the season with ten, twice his previous high, as the deadball era faded into the past. He also had 20 doubles and five triples, hitting .311 and slugging .419 in 556 at-bats. Then, on October 6, he got married, to Frances “Peggy” Casey, in Memphis. Seven plus months later, on May 16, 1923, their son Howard Casey Camp was born.

By then, Howard had begun another season in the outfield for the Memphis Chickasaws. From the April 20 Arkansas Gazette:

Those who saw the game probably still are wondering why Patrolman Johnson went out and conferred with Howard Camp, Memphis right fielder, while Little Rock was at bat. The conversation stopped the game temporarily, and when the player agreed with the officer that profane language in a public place was improper, the officer left the field and play was resumed. 

Officer Johnson said he heard Camp swearing, and acting on Chief Rotenberry’s recent order that no profanity would be allowed at the park, did not hesitate in going after the athlete. The player promised the officer he would refrain from further abusive language, He explained that a “boneheaded” play caused his outburst.

This season Howard played mainly in center field, and he hit .305 and slugged .398 as his homers dropped to two while his doubles and triples went up to 31 and nine; there is no record of how many times he was spoken to by law enforcement about swearing. He was on the Memphis reserve list, but in December they traded him to Southern Association rivals Birmingham, as reported in the December 13 Sporting News:

BARONS FILL NEWS AS FOOTBALL QUITS 

DEAL FOR HOWARD CAMP OPENING GUN AT BIRMINGHAM. 

Now if Detroit Will Return Some of Those Recalled Players Stuffy Stewart Will Be Happy. 

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Dec. 9.—Just as the death-knell of football was sounded, Birmingham fandom was brought back to life with the announcement that Howard Camp, premier right fielder of the Southern League, would come to Birmingham as an aftermath of the Taylor-Milner trade last season. Holt Milner returns to Memphis as the property of that club and Birmingham acquires Howard Camp. Camp last season hit .305 and drove in over 80 runs, which is a good season for any outfielder. Camp is an Alabama boy and has always been popular in this man’s town. Last season he played wonderful ball on his every appearance here, making one of the prettiest catches ever seen at Rickwood Park during Memphis’ second sojourn here, and with Birmingham fans he should be a very popular player.

Howard played right field for Birmingham in 1924, hitting .312 in 609 at-bats, with 36 doubles, ten triples and six home runs for a .433 slugging percentage. That was his only season there, though; from the Birmingham report in the December 11 Sporting News:

Prexy Smith also announced the sale of Howard Camp, slugging right fielder of the locals, to Reading of the International League. It has been known for some time that Camp, along with several others on the local roster, including all the pitchers with the exception of Delmar Lundgren and Red Estes, were slated for the market. The sale of Camp is the first of the lot.

This brought Howard back to the AA level for the first time since his 13 games with Vernon in 1920. In 75 games with Reading in 1925 he hit .294, which may have been regarded as disappointing in that high-offense era, but with excellent power, slugging .495 with 18 doubles, seven triples and seven homers in 279 at-bats. In any case, on July 12 the Keystones sold him back to the Southern Association, this time with the Nashville Volunteers. He played left field and batted mainly in the second spot for Nashville, and in 65 games he hit .368 with 22 doubles, eight triples and nine home runs for a .594 slugging percentage; for both teams combined his totals were 40 doubles, 15 triples and 17 homers, hitting .332/.545.

On January 17, 1926, the following appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Former Chick Player Sought 

(By the Associated Press) 

Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 16—Howard Camp, Southern Association baseball player, was arrested today on a charge of assault and battery as a result of an encounter with Floyd Harris, fellow worker in an automobile assembling plant here, in which it was alleged Camp struck Harris with a wrench. 

Camp denied that he used a wrench or anything but his hands in the set-to and declared the fight was fair. 

Harris, however, was badly bruised and seven stitches were made to close a laceration in his cheek. 

Camp declares Harris started the argument. The matter will be threshed out in police court.

I didn't find a follow-up to the story. Two months after this, Frances gave birth to their second child, daughter Paula Ruth.

Nashville was excited about having Howard back in 1926 after his impressive half-season the year before. However, as reported in the Sporting News of April 22:

THEY’RE NOT ‘BREAKS’ WITH HAMILTON, BUT FRACTURES 

Injury to Howard Camp, Young Outfield Star, Recalls That Similar Mishap Cost Nashville Pennant in 1923; Present Outlook Good, However. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 18.—The jinx of a broken leg trailed Jimmy Hamilton out of a pennant chance in 1923, when Lance Richbourg fractured his leg when the team was traveling at championship stride. Now ‘tis Howard Camp that is missing with a dislocated bone in his lower leg and his services lost for a month or more. 

Camp is doubtless the most valuable man on the Vol team. His terrific hitting was to have been a factor. He amassed a mark of .368 last year and started like so many hurricanes again this year, only to be lost in the second game of the season. 

Howard had singled and slid back to first on an attempt to catch him off. His leg took the force of the slide against the bag and the long bone between the ankle and knee was torn from its ligaments. Physicians state that fully a month will be required before the injured member can even be used for walking and that Camp may suffer pain all summer. 

Camp’s undying enthusiasm, his constant pep and assurance to his mates, and his slashing hitting, cannot be replaced at this time and any pennant chances are wavering in Jimmy Hamilton’s vision…

Howard actually made it back in the first week of May. This year he was the right fielder, and he finished the season hitting .326 with a .473 slugging percentage on 29 doubles, seven triples and nine homers in 476 at-bats. That sounds pretty good, but in January 1927 he was released. From the March 6 Knoxville News-Sentinel:

Hornets Sign Former Vol Fielder 

Special to the News-Sentinel 

CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 5—Outfielder Howard Camp, Southern League slugger, who was with Nashville last year, has accepted terms with the Charlotte Hornets, according to a message received here to-day by Felix Hayman, owner of the Insects. Camp wired the local moguls as follows: 

“Have returned signed contract.” 

This bit of information followed negotiations of several weeks and definitely settled two outfield berths on the Hornets. Camp was purchased from the Nashville club, but refused to sign until the Charlotte owners came thru with more money. Another contract was mailed him Thursday [3^rd] and the player evidently was satisfied with the salary offered him, for he lost no time in signing. 

Camp hit the agate for the healthy average of .326 last season and is figured to make the Hornets a good man. Manager Kennedy intends to use Camp in left field and Johnny Jones in right, leaving the center field berth open to a flock of candidates.

Charlotte was Class B, in the Sally League. From the Sally League report in the April 7 Sporting News:

From Charlotte comes a yarn that will be of interest to all baseball fans who know Howard Camp, the former Southern Leaguer, now a member of the Queen City team. Let Bill Munday tell the story: 

“Some folks may prefer these high-falutin’ linaments with high-sounding names, but not for me,” declares Howard Camp the veteran Southern Leaguer. “No, siree, I have a little concoction of my own which can cure any ailment I may have.” 

The mighty slugger was referring to his home remedy for aching muscles which consists of camphor gum tablets and gasoline. He avers that this mixture will cure anything from gout to eczema. 

And he tells an interesting story relative to “his medicine.” Several years ago, it seems Alvin Crowder, the youthful Washington mound sensation, was turned loose from a certain Virginia League club because of a sore arm. 

“They told him his baseball sun had set,” Camp related, “and that the best thing he could do would be to go home and take up ploughing or something. 

“Well, very much dejected, he trekked his way to his domicile. One day an aged negro washerwoman advised him to apply the gasoline-camphor gum mixture to his sore hors de combat whipper. He did. Overnight his arm was cured. He returned to his old team, went so good he was sold to Birmingham. And today he’s in the big show. And all because of that homespun remedy.” 

“Do you think it will alleviate the pangs of lovesickness?” Camp was asked. 

“I could not dogmatically say it could. However, I’d give it a trial,” he advised curtly.

I don’t know whether it was due to the gasoline-camphor gum mixture, but Howard played in every one of Charlotte’s 150 games. He hit .305/.342/.486 in 564 at-bats, with 26 doubles, eight triples, and a career-high 20 home runs.

Baton Rouge Advocate, 1-19-28:

Howard Camp to Manage Meridian Baseball Outfit 

Former Southern League Player is Signed As Pilot by Cotton States Team. 

Meridian, Miss., Jan. 18 (AP)—Howard Camp, veteran outfielder formerly of the Memphis Chickasaws and Nashville Volunteers of the Southern league, and last year of the Charlotte club of the South Atlantic league, Wednesday evening signed as the 1928 manager of the Meridian Metros of the [Class D] Cotton States loop. Camp was the unanimous choice of the board of directors on the recommendation of President Mose Winkler, and won out over several other applicants for the job. 

The new Metro pilot served six years in the Southern league and won an enviable reputation as a player and a gentleman, both on and off the field. He bears the unique distinction of having been within the select .300 circle of batters every year, and is a steady, polished fielder. He is 33 [actually 34] years old, married, and the father of a 5-year-old son.

Howard predicted that the Mets would be in the thick of the pennant race, and he played himself in right field and batted himself second. He was let go as manager five days before the end of the season, replaced by fellow outfielder Dee Payne, though he finished the season as a player. He hit .331/.386/.434 in 459 at-bats in 121 games.

1929 found Howard, now 35 years old, back with the Talladega Indians of the Georgia-Alabama League, where he had started in pro ball back in 1913. He hit .327 and slugged .549, the highest mark of his career, with 25 doubles, eight triples and nine homers in 306 at-bats in 85 games. It was his tenth straight year with a batting average over .300—each year of the 1920s.

Howard’s family was counted for the 1930 census on April 16. They were living in a rented home on Snead-Brooksville Road in Blount County, Alabama, and Howard was listed as a cotton ginner in a public gin, working on his own account (as opposed to working for wages). Howard C. was six years old, while Paula Ruth was not listed. Frances was pregnant, and would give birth to son Joseph Lee on August 1.

On April 13, three days before the census, Howard played right field and batted cleanup for the Pine Bluff Judges of the Cotton States League in their opening day game. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, of all places, reported on April 20:

GAME’S LURE TOO STRONG 

Howard Camp, veteran outfielder, has signed with the new Pine Bluff team of the Cotton States League. Camp has a prosperous cotton business in Arkansas [sic], and had announced his intentions of retiring, but the call to return to the game was too strong.

From the May 26 Baton Rouge State Times Advocate:

ONE ON CAMP 

Howard Camp, veteran outfielder, who is now playing with Pine Bluff, doesn’t believe in hero worshippers as firmly as most ball players and he has a good reason. Three seasons ago he was with Charlotte in the South Atlantic league, and was going pretty good, hitting quite a few home runs over the short fences in that city. 

One day he won the game with a homer and an excited fan called him over, wrote out a check and presented it to Camp for his work. The genial red-faced veteran accepted same, smiled and thanked the fan. He cashed said check at the hotel and it bounced back the next day, hotter than even the two ground balls Camp hit at Tatum yesterday. 

No, Camp doesn’t believe in hero worshippers.

Howard only played 39 games for Pine Bluff, hitting .267 and slugging .380 with 11 doubles and two homers in 150 at-bats, and then he was done with baseball. As a player, that is.

In 1938 Howard was hired by the Southeastern League as an umpire; after two seasons he moved up to the Southern Association. In 1940 the census again counted the Camps on April 16. This time they were living at 410 Brown Street, Boaz, Alabama, in a house they owned, valued at $2500. Howard is again listed as a cotton ginner working on his own account, who worked 60 hours the previous week and worked 44 weeks during 1939. His income is given as zero. The children are listed as Howard C. 16, Ruth, 14, and Lee, 9.

From the Arkansas Gazette, July 2, 1942:

Two days ago, Percy Hinton, Arkansas’s human acre, observed a chunky individual rush out of a downtown hotel and observed: “I’ve seen him somewhere.” Hinton went to the ball game that night and there was the same little round man, all dressed in blue, headed for home plate. Then it hit Percy. He played ball with him in Dallas in the Texas League 20 years ago. The man was Umpire Howard Camp, most jittery batter who ever lived.

Tampa Times, August 26, 1943:

Howard Camp, more or less the aristocrat of the umpires, has six cotton gin mills in the vicinity of Birmingham. Camp is also a gentleman farmer with a country estate at Boaz, Ala.

New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 26, 1945:

Umpire Continues Job for Pleasure 

(The Associated Press) 

Memphis, April 25.—Howard Camp is one umpire who is “standing the gaff” simply because he loves it. 

Strike calling is more a hobby than a livelihood for the 51-year-old Memphian, who is one of the South’s most prosperous cotton men. 

Camp invested the earnings from a 15-year [17] baseball career in cotton. He is now a grower and owner-operator of several large gins in Alabama…

Howard continued in the Southern Association through 1947, then moved on. From the February 15, 1948, Arkansas Gazette:

Howard Camp, probably the Southern’s best umpire during the past two seasons, has doffed his mask but he still will be in baseball. He sold his farm near Helena, returned to his old home at Anniston, Ala., and hooked up with his friend, Billy Evans and the Detroit Tigers as a scout. Arkansas will be in his territory.

Arkansas Democrat, May 6, 1948:

…And while on scouting, it might be said that the job is not all the fun that some imagine. For instance, Howard Camp, the veteran umpire who is having his first fling at the scouting business as a representative of the Detroit Tigers, has already put 15,000 miles on his new automobile in the couple of months he has been scouring Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi for promising lads…

Omaha World-Herald, January 25, 1949:

Tiger Scout, Family Escape Burning Home 

Helena, Ark. (AP)—Detroit Tiger Scout Howard Camp and his wife and son escaped through a window as fire destroyed their home near here early Monday. 

The Camps saved only a few pieces of clothing. They were uninjured. Camp is a former Southern Association umpire.

I found one or two stories a year about Howard signing somebody, but it was never anyone I had heard of. On the other hand, in April 1950 commissioner Happy Chandler ruled that Howard had signed Faye Throneberry before his high school class graduated, and voided the contract.

From the January 20, 1956, Arkansas Democrat:

In recent years it has been the tremendous task of Howard Camp, the veteran ex-umpire and now baseball scout, to check five states, including Arkansas, for young baseball hopefuls for the Detroit Tigers. 

But the Tigers will branch out in 1956…lifting some of Camp’s load and assigning two more scouts to this territory. 

Bobby Mavis, Little Rock skipper of spring ’55, will take the western half of Arkansas, all of Oklahoma, and south Missouri for his talent search. 

Schoolboy Rowe, taken from the Tiger coaching list and given a scouting job, will have East Texas, Northern Louisiana, and South Arkansas. 

Camp will then take Eastern Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and part of Kentucky.

Anniston Star, December 9, 1956:

Mr. and Mrs. Howard L. Camp have moved to this community from Memphis and are living in the S.W. Pace home. With them are Mrs. Howard C. Camp and her two children while Mr. Howard C. Camp continues his work as a student at Mississippi State College.

In July 1957 it was reported that Howard had signed Tennessee high school catcher Ralph Harrell; this was the last reference to him as a scout that I found. From the Soil Conservation News column in the August 1, 1959, Anniston Star:

Howard Camp of Eastaboga plans to start construction in his acre and a half farm pond in the near future. Mr. Camp said he is very much in need of the pond for stock water. It will also be managed for fish production when completed.

Same newspaper, August 20:

Howard L. Camp, who recently started to work as a traveling representative for a Clanton firm, was at home for the weekend.

Same newspaper, May 10, 1960, the sports page:

Howard Camp Passes At 66 

Final rites were held Monday afternoon at the Munford Church of Christ for Howard Lee Camp, 66, of Eastaboga, a former major leaguer and a long-time favorite of Southern Association fans during his playing days with Birmingham. 

Mr. Camp played with the New York Yankees in 1917. He played the outfield and batted .286. 

The ex-baseball player, who died suddenly Sunday afternoon, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Francis [sic] Camp of Eastaboga, two sons, Howard C. of Eastaboga and Joseph L. of Opelika, one daughter, Mrs. E.L. Smith of California and his father, N.C. Camp of Munford.

It’s interesting to me that he “died suddenly” on Sunday but the funeral took place the next day. His father passed away a few weeks later at age 90.

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