About the Silk Sox
If you think the “Field of Dreams” was created in an Iowa cornfield, you’re wrong.
Unlike the movie, it was built in 1916 and not on a farm … but behind a silk mill in Clifton, N.J. Ghostly voices didn’t motivate Harry Doherty to build it – his own single-minded obsessions did. The mill owner was consumed with winning – in business and baseball. His ballpark, the picture-perfect Doherty Oval, would become home to a forgotten baseball treasure, his independent Silk Sox.
Doherty hired the best players he could find – mavericks who wouldn’t be dictated to by organized baseball. And he paid them well, sometimes more than they could earn in the major leagues. Then his bold Doherty Silk Sox went out and beat major league teams, Negro League clubs and semipro outfits. In just over a decade, the Silk Sox would win 399 games, lose 236 and tie 15 times.
The Silk Sox played in a time not for the fainthearted. Their world was threatened by the Great War, where players and opponents sometimes fought and died an ocean a way. They would survive a pandemic – one more deadly than this century’s – where sickness preyed upon the young and healthy. And they would play against the backdrop of prohibition where beer sold by gangsters flowed through hoses under city streets.
The Doherty Silk Sox would run afoul of Baseball Commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis and make happy amends. They’d feature a mysterious eccentric pitcher with a dual identity, a basketball Hall of Famer playing under an assumed name, and a cantankerous catcher who drove opposing batters to distraction with his incessant chatter.
In 1922, one of their greatest stars would dupe the baseball world and wreck the American League pennant race with his sheer guile. The next season, the Silk Sox would mix it up with Babe Ruth as the Sultan of Swat caused a joyous riot at the Doherty Oval. And, in 1927, the team’s core players would gather in their rainy ballpark and mark the mournful death of the Silk Sox – a victim of the nation’s progress.
Step back in a time when white stars like Honus Wagner, Rogers Hornsby and Bill Terry, as well as African American standouts like Cyclone Joe Williams and John Henry Lloyd, played against the Silk Sox in their home ballpark. Grab a leather-backed seat in the grandstand of the Doherty Oval – a place now gone without a trace like the Silk Sox themselves.
Until now…
Please see “For Publishers” page to learn information about the book: When the Yankees Came to Town: The lost history of the Doherty Silk Sox, the independent team who took on all comers … and won! by Jack DeVries.