 |
| Des Moines Tribune. August 29, 1925 |
Langford, age 22, had a batting average of .350 and was the leading scorer in the league. The Des Moines Tribune said he was a long-distance hitter and averaged a home run in every games as well as several doubles and triples.
 |
| Des Moines Register. September 15, 1912. |
Team members:
Upper row: (left to right) M. J. Locker, William Coffin, and H. G. Stiles.
Bottom row: (left to right) Walter Balkema, P. W. Hedlund, and O. J. Bartos.
 |
| Des Moines Register. July 7, 1912. |
Clement T. Wilson, head of the Coe College track team qualified for the 1912 Olympics held in Stockholm, Sweden. He won a place on the American Olympic Team by equaling the world's record in the 100-yard dash in the tryouts held at the Northwestern University field in Evanston, Illinois.
He was eliminated in the semi-finals of the 100-meter competition, and the Americanrelay team was disqualified because of a fault while passing the first baton.
 |
| Des Moines Register. June 3, 1906. |
Martin "Farmer" Burns was born in Cedar County, Iowa, in 1861, and grew into one of the toughest wrestlers of his time. He studied the sport, figuring out holds and techniques that gave him an edge. By the late 1800s, he’d worked his way up to the American Heavyweight Championship.
Burns helped turn Frank Gotch into a world champion. His workouts were brutal—neck bridges, long runs, endless drills—but they worked. He turned wrestling into something smarter, tougher, and a lot more dangerous.
 |
| Des Moines Register. July 16, 1905. |
Upper row: (left to right) Con Strothers; Whitaker; Routcliffe; and Henry Schuhknecht.
Middle row: (left to right) Joe Kappel; Sammy Nichols; Bob Allen, captain; Charles Gessinger; and Henry Kappel.
Bottom row: (left to right) jerry Harrington; Billy Rhines; Jack Fanning; Jack and Jacj Lauler.
 |
| (Picture from Des Moines Register. January 17, 1909) |
In January 1909, the Des Moines Register published plans for the Hyperion Club, offering a glimpse of what was shaping up to be one of Des Moines’s more ambitious country clubs.
The Hyperion started out in 1904 as a dancing club, organized by about 19 members. Before long, the group shifted gears, reorganized as a country club, and grew to around 100 members.
By 1909, it was still growing. Membership had reached 225, and the club was clearly thinking bigger. Its grounds, near Waveland Park, covered 225 acres and included an 18-hole golf course laid out at full championship length.
The plan printed in the paper showed a sketch of a new clubhouse with plenty of extras. The building was to include family quarters, bachelor quarters, lockers, a bathhouse, and a billiard parlor. There was also to be a separate building called Bachelor’s Hall.
The club sat along the Perry Interurban Line, about a 35-minute ride from downtown Des Moines. That made it close
enough for city members to get there with little trouble, while still feeling
like a trip out of town.
Cyril Charles Slapnicka was born in Cedar Rapids in 1886.
Farm country. Immigrant parents. Baseball was the quickest way out of town and
the surest way back in.
He pitched forever in the minors. Iowa. Illinois.
Anywhere they’d pay him. In 1911 he won 26 games in Rockford and forced the
Chicago Cubs to notice. September call-up. Big league clubhouse. A few
appearances. Then, back on the train.
He resurfaced with Pittsburgh in 1918. Ten major
league games total. Record: 1–6. He wasn’t a star. Not even close.
A lot of men would’ve faded right there.
Slapnicka didn’t.
In 1921, he signed on with Cleveland as a scout.
That’s where the story actually starts. He had an eye, and knew what a
big-league arm looked like before it knew itself. He drove Iowa’s back roads.
Watched high school kids throw in half-empty parks. Talked to parents. Took
notes. Made bets with other scouts and usually won.
In 1936, he found Bob Feller, an Iowa farm kid
throwing gas past grown men. Slapnicka signed him. That changed Cleveland for a
decade. Later came Bob Lemon and a pipeline of players who filled out rosters
that could actually win.
For a stretch in the mid-1930s, he ran the club.
General manager. Contracts, salaries, egos. No draft system back then. You
wanted a player; you found him first and signed him fast. Slapnicka operated
like a man who understood scarcity. Talent was gold. Hesitation was death.
He stayed with Cleveland over forty years,
scouting into his seventies because he trusted his judgment more than anyone
else’s reports.
He died in 1979 at 93, back in Cedar Rapids.
Here’s the clean version: He had a short,
forgettable pitching career and a long, consequential second act.
He didn’t conquer the mound. He built the roster.
And in baseball, that can matter more.
Robert Gates, catcher; Andrew Chalmers, pitcher and team captain; Martin Peterson, first base; Fred Gates, second base; Walter Sargent, third base; Ray Prather, shortstop; Burt Sargent, left field; Ray Hampton, center field; John Dwight, right field; and Benjamin Franklin and Charlie Holmes, substitutes.
 |
| Waveland Park Clubhouse in 1913 |
Waveland Park Golf Club had nearly 250 members
in 1913. Not bad for a club that started in 1907.
The present building went up in 1911 on ground
leased from the city. It was three stories and built to be used.
The main floor held dining rooms, reception rooms,
and a kitchen. Upstairs was a card room and a ladies’ locker room. The basement
had another locker room and bath equipment. You could play 18 holes, eat,
smoke, wash up, and sit down for cards without leaving the building.
The club met every week. There were smokers, card
parties, and dances. The smokers meant cigars, speeches, and stories that
improved with each telling. The card parties meant competition that lasted
longer than daylight. The dances brought in the rest of the membership and made
the place feel less like a sports club and more like a social one.
This 1913 cartoon from the Des Moines Register (September 7, 1913) shows that football was as big a part of Iowa life then as it is today.
In October 1916, every eye in Iowa was focused on the World
Series and Babe Ruth. Farmers leaned on fence posts. Barbers argued over box
scores.
Telegraph wires hummed like angry bees. Out there in Boston, a thick-armed kid with a mean fastball was turning October into his own private carnival.
Ruth wasn’t the Sultan of Swat yet. He was just a left-handed wrecking crew in wool flannel, chewing up the Brooklyn Robins. In Game 2, he worked fast, jaw set, eyes flat. Brooklyn hitters swung like men chopping at ghosts. Boston won. No fuss.
Game 5 was where things got strange. Fourteen innings. No lights. No mercy. The crowd sagged and swayed. Pitch after pitch, Ruth kept firing, as if he’d tapped into some private reservoir of stubborn American madness. When it ended—scoreless for Brooklyn—he’d stacked up nearly 30 straight World Series innings without allowing a run.
Iowans read the numbers in the morning papers and shook their heads. They didn’t know they were witnessing the early rumble of a coming storm that would blow the fences down and change the sport forever.
Babe Ruth would be an unstoppable force in the game.
Ray Fisher, 18, was the leading picture for the Des Moines Federal League in 1916. When he pitched for the MsCurmin Drug team, he won twelve straight games, averaged twelve strikeouts, and five hits per game.
He got his start in the West Des Moines Sunday School League, where he played for the South Des Moines Methodist team. In 1916, he was given a trial with the local Western League Club.
(Picture from the Des Moines Register. February 20, 1916)
 |
| Des Moines Register. January 19, 1930. |
 |
| (colorized image, from a black and white photo) |
The contest drew twelve professional riders from different parts
of the country, along with over 30 riders from Iowa and neighboring states.
Several well-known hill climb riders entered the contest.
Petrali of Chicago was listed as a national hill climb champion. Reiber of
Milwaukee entered as the runner-up from the previous year’s championship climb.
Art Erlenbaugh of Milwaukee also competed. He was reported to hold a hill climb
record of 6.25 seconds.
