The EDSEL--Car of the Future--Really?

I grew up in the Dearborn, Michigan--the center of what is commonly known as Ford Country. Most people in the area buy Ford products--unless of course they work for Chrysler or General Motors. Brand loyalty is encouraged by the automotive companies and most workers comply--especially when the company offers employee discounts.

When Ford Motor Company came out with the Edsel in 1958, the company upgraded its Lincoln Division to compete with General Motor's luxury Cadillac. Ford needed a premium vehicle to fill the intermediate slot vacated by Lincoln to compete with Oldsmobile, Buick, and DeSoto. Ford promoted the Edsel as the product of extensive research and development. Their sophisticated market analysis indicated to the suits at Ford's that they had a winner.

The Edsel was touted as the car of the future. Ford executives were confident of brand acceptance by the car buying public. Innovative features like a rolling-dome speedometer, engine warning lights, an available Teletouch pushbutton shifting system, self-adjusting brakes, optional seat belts, and child-proof rear door locks would surely capture the imagination of modern-thinking consumers.

The day after the Edsel was introduced, The New York Times dubbed it the "reborn LaSalle"--a nameplate that disappeared in the early 1940s. So much for the car of the future concept. Once the Edsel hit the streets, the public thought it was unattractive, overpriced, and overhyped. The car's production was stopped after three years of under performing in Ford and Mercury showrooms.

Ford Motor Company lost $250 million on the project. Edsel's failure was across the board. Popular culture thought the car's styling was odd. The nameplate's trademark horsecollar grille was said to resemble "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon." The Teletouch pushbutton transmission was problematic being centered on the steering wheel hub where most cars had their warning horn. Some drivers accidently shifted when they meant to sound their horn. Another unforeseen problem was that the pushbutton transmission was not suited for street racing, so the Edsel became known as an old man's car.

What turned off other consumers was the car's sticker price which placed it in direct competition with Mercury--Ford's sister division. Further complicating matters, the low priced Volkswagen Beetle hit the American car market in 1957. Many younger buyers were fascinated by the odd-looking vehicle with the incredible gas mileage. The Edsel was a gas guzzler.

Consumer Reports blamed the car's poor workmanship. For instance, the trunk leaked in heavy rain, and the pushbutton transmission was fraught with technical problems. Marketing experts insisted the Edsel was doomed from the start because of Ford's inability to understand the American consumer and market trends. Automotive historians believe the Edsel was the wrong car at the wrong time.

Edsel Ford

Unfairly, the name Edsel became synonymous with epic failure. Named after Henry Ford's only son, this car became a posthumous slap in the face to the man who mobilized his family's vast industrial resources to produce B-24 Liberator bombers, instrumental in helping win World War II. Edsel Ford's legacy deserved better.

As luck would have it, my father bought a brand-new Edsel in 1959. It was Christmas time and I was eleven years old. After my brothers and I had our photograph taken with Santa at Muirhead's Department Store, my dad brought us to the Ford Dealership across the street for our family Christmas present.

He went into an office and signed a few papers, then the salesman handed over the keys. As we were driving away from the dealership, I remember snowflake clusters illuminated by the car's headlights. It was magical. By the time my family got home, we were intoxicated with the new-car smell of fresh upholstery and uncured lacquer.

Later that week, my dad was celebrating with his friends on Friday and had a few too many before coming home from work. On the way, he hit an ice patch and lost control of the car, wrapping it around a telephone pole. He was relatively uninjured, but the Edsel was totaled. We had that Edsel for such a short time I can't remember what color it was. 

Edsel concept car.

Misfortune aside, I've always had a love for the Edsel and often wished Ford would find a market for the nameplate and start production again. That may never happen, but a boy can dream.

Here is a Psychology Today article on how the Edsel got its name: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-yesterday/201311/how-the-edsel-got-its-name

The Mustang Gallops into Automotive History

New York World's Fair Mustang Introduction.

The recession of the late 1950s hit Detroit especially hard. Money was tight and car sales fell for the Big Three [General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler]. Factories were struggling to keep their workers employed and their plants open. In response to that, Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) reorganized their corporation and formed an Automotive Assembly Division promoting middle-management marketing man Lee Iacocca to head the division.

Lee Iacocca's challenges were many, but his goals were well-defined. He championed shifting production to smaller, fuel efficient cars and dressing them up to enhance their appeal to an economy-minded market. His first success was the Falcon Futura. The car was stylish, comfortable, and economical. Afterall, gas averaged thirty-one cents a gallon in 1961.

Iacocca formed a secret Fairlane Committee to come up with a new car concept unlike anything else on the market. FoMoCo needed a dynamic new car to capture a greater share of the youth market.

Their market research in 1961 indicated that a tidal wave of teenaged Baby Boomers [post World War II babies] were coming of age soon and itching to get behind the wheel of a sporty-looking car they could afford. By 1965, 40% of the United States population would be under 20 years old. By 1970, half of Americans would be under 25 years old. FoMoCo wanted to tap into that market.

The Edsel's 1958 introduction with Edsel Ford's three sons.

The wounds from the Edsel debacle were still fresh at FoMoCo leading to a company shakeup. Iacocca knew the Edsel was advertised as the Car of the Future, but it was a product in search of a market it never found. Here was a market in search of a product. FoMoCo tailored their new product for this new market.

Since the original 1955 two-seater Thunderbird was reborn as a four-seater, suburban luxury car in 1958, FoMoCo received lots of mail asking for another two-seater. But Ford's market research indicated a two-seater did not have the mass appeal they were looking for. That market was limited to a mere 100,000 units.

The parameters for their new concept car required it to be sporty but capable of seating four passengers; it had to be lightweight, under 2,500 pounds; and it had to be inexpensive, no more than $2,500 with special equipment included as part of their standard model to sweeten the deal.

Helping to cut engineering and production costs, the chassis and the power train of the Ford Falcon were chosen. What this car needed was a new skin. Iacocca initiated a competition among seven designers to come up with clay mockups of the exterior design fit to specific platform specifications.

On August 15, 1962, Henry Ford II picked the model he liked best by saying "That's it!" The winning model was designed by Dave Ash's design team, for Joe Oros, FoMoCo's Design Studio head. In profile, the car had a long hood, a swept-back cabin, and a short deck [trunk].

Car designers want to see their vision transformed into sleek sculpted steel, but automotive engineers have to figure how to put the actual car together and make it work. Once the model was approved, the battle between the designers and the engineers began in what they called "the battles of the inch."

First was the battle of the radiator cap that would not fit under the stylist's low hood. The solution was to raise the hood a quarter inch and the engineers counter-sunk the cap.

Next, the stylists designed the back bumper to fit flush with the rear quarter panels for a clean look. The engineers wanted to simply bolt the bumper with brackets onto the back of the car like they had always done. The designers won that battle.

The last disagreement was between Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca over leg-room for the rear seats. Ford was a large man who wanted an extra inch. Iacocca argued that it would spoil the lines of the car. Ford won that battle.

Next, the car needed a name. Hundreds of names were whittled down to several finalists including Colt, Bronco, Mustang, Puma, Cougar, and Cheetah. Cougar was the front runner until Mr. Ford became embroiled in a messy divorce, and the publicity department was afraid the name Cougar might cause some unnecessary notority or embarassment for their boss.

At the same time, the name Mustang did well in their market research. The name was felt to embody the spirit of the wide open spaces and recalled the famous World War II fighter plane. Once the name was decided upon, the Mustang's signature galloping horse front grill was designed.

What has become one of the most iconic and famous emblems in automobile history was criticized early on by a reporter at a FoMoCo press conference. His observation was that the horse was running in the wrong direction. Obviously, the reporter spent too much time at the track where the ponies only run counter-clockwise. Iacocco's wise reply was "Wild horses run anywhere they damn well please."

The Mustang was introduced in Ford showrooms on April 17, 1964. It came as a two-door coupe or convertible. Five months later, a three-door hatchback was introduced. The Mustang came with a three-speed automatic transmission or a four speed manual, both console mounted on the floor. At first, there were two, straight-six engine choices available, with V-6 and V-8 options offered later in the Mustang's run. The basic car was equipped with front disk brakes, all for the low sticker price of $2,368.

Iacocca gave free rein to his marketing expertise and saturated the media with Mustang ads like no product had before. FoMoCo ran glossy ads in national magazines with stories about their youth-oriented car, and 420 local television stations were sent footage of the car for their feature stories.

Radio DJs were given Mustangs to test drive and plug over their airwaves. In Detroit, radio jocks were allowed to put the Mustang through its paces on Ford's test track in Dearborn, Michigan. Images of the Mustang appeared on 15,500 outdoor billboards nationwide and the car was displayed in the lobby of Holiday Inn motels and other high traffic venues like airport terminals in twelve major United States cities.

The evening before the car's debut, FoMoCo bought simultaneous time on all three major television networks from 9:30 to 10:00 pm. Twenty-eight million viewers of Perry Mason [CBS], Hazel [NBC], and Jimmy Dean [ABC] were wowed with Mustang advertising. 

Forty-four college newspaper editors were given the use of Mustangs to show off on their campuses for the spring term. No stone was left unturned to generate interest. As a final touch, Hayden Fry, football coach of the Southern Methodist University Mustangs, received a blue and red [school colors] Mustang as part of the car's debut launch.

After the Mustang's meteoric rise in the marketplace, Time and Newsweek featured simultaneous cover stories on the Mustang that Iacocca said led to the sale of an extra 100,000 units. By December of 1964, the Mustang had "the most successful new car launch ever introduced by the auto industry," reported Frank Zimmerman, Ford marketing chief.

At first, FoMoCo planned to produce only 100,000 Mustangs using only a portion of the Dearborn Assembly Plant. Before the car went to market, it was clear that demand was going to be greater than anticipated, so the whole plant was changed over to exclusive "Pony Car" production. Soon, another Ford plant in San Jose, California went online to boost yearly capacity to 360,000 cars.

In 1965, a third Ford plant in Metuchen, New Jersey was added to boost output to 440,000 cars prompting FoMoCo Assistant General Manager Don Frey to credit the Mustang's success on unprecedented market penetration. The Mustang is the only Ford nameplate that has been in continuous production since its introduction.

Latest Mustang Trotted Out

2023 Radio Hall of Fame Inductee Pat St. John

Pat St. John at the SXM control panel.

In Pat St. John’s senior year at Southfield High School, Pat began broadcasting from WSHJ, their ten-watt radio station. He was required by the Federal Communications Commission to get a broadcasting license. Upon graduation in 1968 at the age of seventeen, Pat was hired as an announcer on WWWW-FM in Detroit.

Young and ambitious, Pat made a demo tape and took it to CKLW-AM, a 50,000 watt station across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The station’s strong signal was a regional powerhouse reaching well beyond the Detroit/Windsor area to several adjoining states and Provinces.

CKLW-AM hired Pat in 1969 as a weekend personality and news reporter on the station’s 20/20 newscasts. He also worked as a booth announcer for CKLW TV-Channel 9. Pat left CKLW late in 1970 when he was hired at Detroit’s popular WKNR (Keener 13) until 1972, when he was lured away to join ABC’s WRIF-FM, 101.1.

Musical tastes had shifted from Top 40 pop music to album-oriented rock. In the early 1970s, FM radio began dominating AM stations because they broadcast in stereo and allowed for a wider range of music beyond the Top 40 playlists, staples of many AM stations.

Pat St. John’s ratings in the Motor City were noticed by ABC’s network brass in New York and they convinced him to leave his hometown Detroit, America’s fifth-largest media market at the time, and move to The Big Apple, the largest media market in the United States. Radio stations in New York reached 14% of American listeners. The more listeners a Dee-Jay could attract, the more money was at stake for the company’s advertising revenue.

St. John began his New York broadcasting career at WPLJ-FM in 1973 where he stayed almost fifteen years. Arbitron, radio’s consumer research service, ranked Pat the most listened-to afternoon radio personality in the country for most of the years he worked at WPLJ.

From 1987 through 1998, Pat worked at WNEW-FM in New York, both as a personality and the station’s program director for several years of his eleven year stay there. He left WNEW-FM when the station changed to a “talk radio” format. Pat was immediately approached by Sirius XM satellite radio to become their Director of Rock Programming, making him one of the first people hired by the company.

Now, Pat is one of the longest-serving employees at SXM, having worked on several of their channels from pop to rock to blues. Today, Pat can be heard live across the United States and Canada every weekday afternoon (3 pm Eastern/12 pm Pacific) and Saturday evenings (8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific) on Channel 73, 60’s Gold.

Pat continued working on New York (terrestrial) radio part-time for fun at WCBS-FM (2000-2015) while working full-time at Sirius XM. His final CBS-FM New York broadcast was on April 12, 2015, marking the end of Pat’s forty-two-year run in the New York broadcasting market, making him New York City’s longest-running on-air personality up to that time.

Pat and his wife Jan moved to San Diego, California in 2015 to be closer to their two daughters and grandchildren where he broadcasts from his home studio. Pat’s 60s Gold show begins with a six-note fanfare reminding Pat’s Great Lakes listeners of his CKLW radio roots. Then, comes his theme song “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” by Les Elgart and his Orchestra setting the stage for the show. Listeners always know from the opening that they are in for a good time.

Pat St. John’s on-air style is conversational and upbeat as he shares behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the music and performers between the music he plays. Pat has interviewed virtually everybody in the music business from Little Richard and Bo Diddley to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. He has been called “a walking, music encyclopedia."

Pat St. John with his Radio Hall of Fame Award.

With over fifty-five years in broadcasting, Pat St. John was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2023 for his lifetime of service to the industry. Not bad for a high school kid from Southfield, Michigan.

Pat St. John SXM Compilation (Six minutes)

Early Detroit Tiger History

Charlie Bennett

 

Prior to 1894, the Detroit Tigers played minor league baseball and were one of the founding members of the West League that played throughout the Great Lakes states. Owner George Vandereck choose the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Boulevards as their home field. Previously, the vacant lot was used as a local hay market for farmers and livestock owners. Vandereck bought the lot and built Bennett Park--named after a popular Tiger catcher Charlie Bennett--who lost his legs in a railway accident in 1894 while running on a rain-slick train platform and falling onto the tracks. Bennett's left foot and his right leg above the knee were severed as the train pulled out, ending his baseball career.

Frank "Old Stone Face" Navin

In 1901, the Tigers joined the new American League as one of its eight founding members. Samuel F. Angus bought the Tigers in 1902 and hired lawyer and baseball enthusiast Frank Joseph Navin to run the club for him. As a young man, Navin was a blackjack and poker dealer in an illegal gambling establishment. He loved horse racing and was an avid wagerer at two racetracks in Windsor, Ontario and attended the Kentucky Derby annually. In 1908, Navin parlayed $5,000 of winnings into buying a significant portion of Tiger stock.

In 1908, Navin bought another large block of shares making him controlling owner and new president of the organization. When Navin's silent business partner William Yawkey--lumber fortune heir--died in 1919, Navin bought his stock becoming full owner of the club. Because he was suddenly cash-poor, he sold 25% of the franchise to auto-body manufacturer Walter Briggs Sr. and 25% to wheel maker John Kelsey of Kelsey-Hayes Corporation. When Kelsey died, Briggs bought his interest in the team becoming an equal co-owner with Navin, but Briggs was content to allow Navin to run the team unhampered.

Frank Navin and Ty Cobb

In 1905, Navin signed legendary Tiger center fielder Ty Cobb for $1,500. The talented ballplayer led the Tigers to their first American League pennant win in 1907. Between seasons, Cobb held out for a $5,000 contract. After bitter negotiations, Navin--a tight-fisted owner--met his match. Cobb was wildly popular with the fans and threatened to expose Navin for the conniving cheapskate he was. The penny-pinching owner quickly did the math and caved-in to Cobb's demand. Cobb led the Tigers to two more consecutive American League pennants in 1908 and 1909 turning a nice profit for the team. Navin made Cobb the team's manager as well as being the team's star player.

Navin Field

Bennett Park consisted of a wooden grandstand and bleachers. It was the smallest ballpark in the league seating 14,000. Owners Navin and Briggs tore down the obsolete wooden Bennett Park between the 1911 and 1912 seasons and built a concrete and steel stadium seating 23,000 fans--renaming it Navin Field. In 1924, Navin built a second deck increasing seating to 30,000.

By 1931, the Great Depression cut Tiger attendance by 30%. To draw fans to the ballpark, Navin tried to sign the most popular player in the game--Babe Ruth--but he wasn't availabe, so Navin bought out Mickey Cochrane's contact from Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack for $100,000 and made him a player-manager. Cochrane was just what the team needed. He helped the Tigers win pennants in 1934 and 1935.

Mickey Cochran with Grace and Frank Navin--1935

 

Under Navin's stewardship, the Tigers won four American League pennants but did not win a World Series until the 1935 season, giving the Tigers their first series win. But Navin's victory lap was short-lived. Navin and his wife Grace rode horses several times a week at the Detroit Riding and Hunt Club. Six weeks after the Tigers won the series, Navin went for a solo ride on his favorite horse Masquerader and suffered a fatal heart attack, falling to the ground. When his horse returned riderless to the stable, his wife cried out for help, but it was too late. Navin was dead at age sixty-five. He was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan in a family mausoleum.

Mickey Cochrane and Walter Briggs

 

After Navin's death, Walter O. Briggs purchased Navin's stock and became sole owner. Because Briggs made a fortune manufacturing automobile bodies for Ford, Chrysler, Packard, Hudson, and Willys-Overland, he did not need an income from the team and promised not to take a salary during his tenure as owner. In 1938, he changed the name of Navin Field to Briggs Stadium and remained the sole owner of the Tigers until his death in 1952. The stadium was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961 until the franchise moved to Comerica Park in 2000.

For 104 seasons, the Tigers played baseball at Michigan and Trumbull earning them the distinction of being the oldest continuous one-name-only city franchise in major league baseball.

1935--Detroit Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings win their championships. 

Detroit's Nineteenth-Century Moonlight Towers

Newport, Rhode Island introduced the first gas street-lighting in America in 1803. Throughout the nineteenth-century, it was the preferred method of outdoor street illumination, but the system was expensive to install and each lamp had limited range. In the 1880s, electric carbon-arc lighting offered a relatively inexpensive alternative to coal-generated gas lighting.

Large municipalities who could afford them invested in moonlight towers to illuminate large expanses like parks and public squares. Each tower was crowned with six carbon-arc lights giving off 200 times more illumination than the most powerful incandescent light bulbs.

Because the "moonlight" was harsh, the arc-lights were mounted 175 feet high and lit up a circle with a radius of 1,500 feet.  Downtown nightlife became a new reality for many Americans who believed that general illumination drove criminals deeper into the shadows.

The lights buzzed loudly and dropped shreds of burning ash as the carbon electrodes burned quickly and had to be replaced nightly. The height of the moonlight towers made them difficult to maintain, so a counter-balanced "dumbwaiter" elevator system was soon developed to change out electrodes more efficiently.

Detroit winter street lit up by a moonlight tower.

Detroit had one of the most extensive moonlight tower systems in the country inaugurated in 1882. One-hundred and twenty-two towers were placed 1,000 to 1,200 feet apart. The entire system illuminated twenty-one square miles. By the turn of the century, most of the towers were replaced by incandescent lighting once the AC electrical grid was laid out. Detroit sold its towers to several small municipalities such as Grand Rapids, Michigan and Austin, Texas.

Austin moonlight tower.

In 1885, Austin, Texas was terrorized by a serial killer known as the Servant Girl Annihilator, who killed eight servant girls all attacked at night. The only night light Austin had in those days was moonlight, but when the evening skies were cloudy, Austin had no light at all.

Detroit agreed to sell thirty-one of their used moonlight towers to Austin. Over the years, the lamps have been refitted with modern mercury-vapor light bulbs which require much less maintainence than the crude carbon-arc technology. Seventeen of their original thirty-one towers--the last of the moonlight towers--are still in operation.

Austin city officials were ready to remove the towers by 1976, but they were too late. The moonlight towers were inducted into the National Registry of Historical Places. In 1993, the city dismantled and rebuilt each existing tower for a citywide Moonlight Tower Festival which began in 1995. Next time you are in Austin, Texas, behold some Michigan history.

Little Richard Streicher--Ypsilanti's Depression Era Unsolved Murder

On the blustery afternoon of March 8, 1935, thirteen-year-old Buck Holt and his eleven-year-old brother Billy followed muskrat tracks in the snow and discovered the body of seven-year-old Richard Streicher Jr., missing since the previous evening. He was found frozen solid under the footbridge leading to Island Park (now called Frog Island), adjacent to the Cross Street bridge spanning the Huron River.

Buck Holt ran to the Anderson Service Station (gas station) across the street and told attendant Raymond Deck (22) there was a dead kid down there. Deck investigated and immediately phoned the Ypsilanti police. Chief Ralph Southard was the first to arrive, followed shortly by Washtenaw County Deputy Sheriff Richard Klavitter, and his brother Sergeant Ernest Klavitter of the Ypsilanti police.

Scene under the footbridge where Streicher's body was discovered.

By the time police arrived, a crowd of curious bystanders had trampled any footprint evidence left in the overnight snow. To further complicate matters, a bucket of sand was spread on the snow to make it safer for investigators to climb down the slope to view the body. The shovel used to spread the sand was used to pry Richard Streicher from the cement ledge he was frozen onto. Then the body was taken to the Moore Funeral Home in Ypsilanti to thaw. Richard Streicher's stiff clothes were cut from his body and burned at the request of his parents. More potential evidence was destroyed.

The autopsy was done at the funeral home rather than a medical facility. Of fourteen knife wounds, three punctured the wall of the heart causing his death. A good-faith police investigation--by Depression era standards--was conducted. Seven months later, Richard Streicher's body was exhumed, with a second autopsy performed by the county coroner's office.

On September 27, 1937, a one-man grand jury was conducted by State Attorney General Raymond W. Starr. He took another look into the case and interviewed close to forty people, but no new evidence was disclosed. The result--nobody charged--nobody indicted. The case remains unsolved over eighty years later.

Richard Streicher, Jr. was buried in Highland Cemetery (Section 16 - Lot 66), but nobody in living memory can say if his grave site ever had a marker or headstone. It has been unmarked for decades. Perhaps someone misplaced the headstone when Richard's body was exhumed. More likely--someone removed it for a macabre souvenir. Nobody knows.

Five years ago, an article about Richard Streicher Jr. by John Counts for MLive (December 27, 2015) moved John Sisk Jr. to start a Go Fund Me page to raise money for a gravestone. With the help of Robison-Bahnmiller Funeral Home in Saline, Michigan, Tina Atkinson-Kalusha of Highland Cemetery, and private donations, a monument was designed to honor the memory of Richard Streicher Jr., who deserved better than he got. A nineteenth-century sled is engraved in the granite headstone. Richard was last seen alive sledding with friends. A graveside memorial service was held on Saturday, October 15, 2016.

Richard Streicher Jr. paperback and ebook reduced in price. 

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, Mack Park, and the Detroit Stars

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes

The Negro National League (NNL), America's first successful Black baseball league, was the brainchild of Andrew "Rube" Foster, who was born in Calvert, Texas in 1879. He grew up playing sandlot baseball in the Deep South. A gifted pitcher, Foster was a much sought after player for neighborhood and regional teams. He became a vagabond ballplayer and barnstormed throughout the South, scratching out a living on the mound rather than the land. Like many Black Americans, Foster was drawn to the North by the Great Migration for jobs and a better life.

In 1910, Foster had the foresight to realize that the Chicago area, and other Midwestern cities had sizeable Black populations which could support their own city teams. He organized, owned, and managed the Chicago American Giants. The American Giants were a barnstorming team that picked up games whenever and wherever they could, or they hosted exhibitions which allowed local teams and factory teams to compete against a professional team and split the gate profits after expenses were paid out.

Rube, as he became known professionally, also pitched for the American Giants until 1916. At the age of thirty-seven, his weight became a problem, and he lost his snap. Foster decided to hire younger men to take over the hurling chores, so he could devote his full attention to managing and scheduling the team.

When World War I ended in 1919, Foster acted on his dream to create a professional Negro league modeled after the White major leagues. He installed a new team in Detroit and hired known numbers [illegal lottery] operator John T. "Tenny" Blount to manage the team which Foster dubbed The Detroit Stars. Foster also owned the Dayton Marcos from Dayton, Ohio; he hired someone to manage that team for him also. From these three charter teams, the fledgling NNL was born. Soon four other teams rounded out the league though teams came and went over the life of the league.

For the next decade, the Detroit Stars played at Mack Park on Fairview and Mack Avenues in the middle of a White, working-class, German neighborhood on Detroit's near Eastside. It was a short four-mile trolley ride from Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood to the ball park. The Stars performed before mixed crowds and had fans on both sides of the color line.

Mack Park was constructed in 1914 by Joe Roesink, an avid sports fan from Grand Rapids, who ran a chain of successful haberdasheries [men's clothing stores]. He leased his field to the NNL Detroit Stars, so Detroit could have its own Black team. Roesink also got 25% of the gate.

On most weekends, as many as 8,000 people could be squeezed into the bleachers with another 2,000 in the grandstand. The ball park was a single-decked structure made of fir lumber planking and tin sheeting over the grandstand. The expensive seats were padded stadium seats under the grandstand. The cheap seats were in the bleachers where spectators had to contend with the elements and teeming crowds. Surprisingly, crowds tended to get along well for the most part. 

Mack Park was a left-handed hitters' ball park. Right center field was 279' from home plate, the right field power alley was only 265'. The left field fence was 358', left center field was 390', and center field was 405'. Statistics indicate that NNL batters hit 128% more home runs in Mack Park than in any other Negro league park. Soon, the Stars were to have their first superstar who would take full advantage of that.

***

In an aside, on Sunday, July 7, 1929, the Detroit Stars were to play a double-header against the Kansas City Monarchs. Two days of heavy rain had soaked Mack Park. Owner and operator John Roesink wanted to get these two games in before he had to issue rain checks and lose money. The skies cleared and 2,000 fans were inside the ball park anxious to see some good baseball. 

Standing water surrounded first and second base. A common practice in those days was to use blazing gasoline to evaporate standing water. [Wouldn't spreading sand be safer and more effective?]

Roesink telephoned a nearby gas station ordering 40 gallons of gas, but the ball park did not have an approved storage tank for that amount, so they filled eight, five-gallon gas cans and stored them under the grandstand along the first base line where the team club houses and the ground keeper's lodging were.

Two gas cans were taken to the infield and emptied on the standing water around first and second base. Before the field was set ablaze, an explosion was heard under the grandstand and someone shouted "FIRE!" Smoke and fire began to rise from the stands and a full-blown panic broke out. 

Only three days after the 4th of July, it seems likely someone threw a powerful firework like an M-80 or Cherry Bomb under the stands, but the fire marshal surmised someone dropped a hot cigarette butt under the stands starting the blaze. That theory did not explain the many reports of an explosion and a cloud of black smoke rising before the conflagration. Nobody was ever charged with arson.

Fans were trapped in the stands by a chicken wire barrier to protect them from stray foul balls. Quick-thinking ball players pulled down the wire barrier with some difficulty, allowing fans to pour onto the field, but they were now stuck on the gasoline soaked field. Players from both teams bravely battered down a section of wooden wall enclosing the ball park so fans could escape the flames.

Sixty-one people went to the hospital with thirty cases of broken arms, legs, and other injuries. Miraculously, nobody lost their life. Damage to the park was estimated to be $12,000. Five cars were also lost in the fire. The Stars played out the rest of their season at Dequindre Field at Dequindre and Modern streets on Detroit's far Eastside.

For the 1930 season, Roesink built a new $30,000 ball park for the Stars in Hamtramck, Michigan, located at 3201 Dan Street. Originally named Roesink Stadium, this ball park had a 315' left field fence and a 407' right field fence. Now, right-handed batters had the homerun advantage. Soon, the ball park became known as Hamtramck Stadium.

2022

***

Over the lifetime of The Detroit Stars, many great ballplayers donned the uniform, but one player stood above the rest as the Stars' greatest player. His name was Norman "Turkey" Stearnes from Nashville, Tennessee. The agile and quick Stearnes played first base and pitched for the semipro Southern Negro League in 1920 for the Montgomery Grey Soxs and in 1921 for the Memphis Red Soxs. Scouts from Detroit liked what they saw in the left-handed thrower and batter.

Detroit Stars management offered Stearnes a contract for the 1922 season, but he turned it down so he could finish high school at the age of twenty-one. When his father died, Norman Stearnes had to quit school and get a job to help his mother support their family. But Stearnes returned when he could and graduated late. In 1922, he earned his diploma, much to the joy of his mother. She was determined that Norman get an education. 

The achievement is all the more remarkable because in the 1920s, most males and females of both races quit school in the eighth grade when they were fourteen so they could get working papers. Times were always hard and money was to be made.

Stearnes signed with the Detroit Stars for the 1923 season at $200 a month. He soon earned the nickname "Turkey" because of the peculiar way he ran with his arms flapping. But in a foot race, at 5'11" and 175#s, Stearnes was one of the fastest men in the league.

He sported broad shoulders and had a powerful, whiplike swing that could connect with the ball and hit home runs to any field in any park he played in. Remember that in the 1920s and 1930s, baseballs were not as wound tightly and less lively than they are in today's game. When Turkey Stearnes hit a long ball, the leather sphere cried out in pain.

Satchel Paige is considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time in any league.

Turkey Stearnes' upper body strength, quick reflexes, and good batting eye made him a threat at the plate. Legendary hurler for the Kansas City Monarchs Satchel Paige called Turkey Stearnes "one of the greatest hitters in the Negro leagues, as good as anybody who ever played baseball. I feared him more than any other hitter."

The Stars shifted Stearnes to center field where his speed and wide-ranging fielding ability could cover a lot of ground. Most of the real estate in Mack Park was in center field and he owned it.

Turkey Stearnes' career statistics boast a .349 lifetime batting average, 186 league homeruns, 129 stolen bases, 997 runs batted in, and a .617 slugging percentage. Stearnes is the only professional baseball player to lead his league in triples for six years. Five times he was chosen for the Black All-Star Game, twice he was the NNL batting champion. On November 7, 1987, Stearnes was inducted into the Michigan African American Sports Hall of Fame along with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.

As a player, Turkey Stearnes was detached, colorless, and cooly efficient. Unlike other players, he did not enjoy the spotlight and rarely spoke more than a phrase or a brief sentence. Off the field, he did not smoke, drink, chase women, or keep irregular hours. Stearnes donned the Detroit Stars uniform for eleven seasons. Longer than any other player, and unlike most of the Detroit Star players, he lived in Detroit in the off season with his wife.

In the off season, rather than barnstorm like other players to earn extra money, Stearnes worked in Walter Briggs' automobile body factory at Harper Avenue and Russell Street as a spray painter and a wet sander. He could make steady money that way and spend more time with his wife Nettie Mae.

After working from late autumn through early April, Stearnes left for spring training in 1927, only days before a fire burned down the block-long Briggs factory. From then on, Stearnes worked the off-season in the foundry at Henry Ford's Rouge Plant until he retired from baseball and worked there full time. 

After Stearnes passed away, his wife Nettie Mae worked tirelessly to get her husband into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, where some of Turkey Stearnes' contemporaries like Rube Foster, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Ray Dandridge and Satchel Paige were already installed. She told the Detroit Free Press, "It's not for me or my daughters' sake, it is for Norman. He deserves it."

Baseball Hall of Fame Plaque

When the Detroit Tigers moved to Comerica Park in 2000, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was finally honored with a bronze plaque mounted outside the stadium at the center field gate. Although meant as a tribute to Stearnes by the Tiger management, many Detroit African Americans wondered aloud what it was going to take to get Turkey Stearnes inside the ballpark. There is also a display honoring Stearnes along the third base concourse at The Corner Ballpark, the site of the old Tiger Stadium at Michigan Avenue and Trumbull.

Joyce Stearnes-Thompson at a preservation ceremony for Hamtramck Stadium proudly displaying a photo of her father.

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was finally elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame in 2000, sixty years after his career ended and twenty-one years after his death on September 4, 1979, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was elected along with former Tiger manager Sparky Anderson. 

In Comerica Park's center field, a NNL flag flies commemorating the Negro league, and during every Negro League Weekend at Comerica Park, Stearnes' daughters Roslyn Stearnes-Brown and Joyce Stearnes-Thompson sing the National Anthem.

Early Detroit Tiger History