Baseball & More…

“It all began when he was about ten years old, as he stole through a hole in the fence of old Shibe Park to watch the Philadelphia Athletics play baseball. Now, some seventy-five years later, his fanatical appreciation for and recollection of the sport has not changed … only his morality!”

Rev. Thomas F. Daily, OSFS
from Introduction to
With Mind and Heart Renewed - Essays in Honor of Rev. John F. Harvey, OSFS

Shibe Park Shenanigans

To know Father Harvey is to know he loved baseball. Father himself said, “I was a sports nut of the first order!” His family lived near Shibe Park where the neighbourhood was alive with excitement and pride for their home team, the Philadelphia Athletics. Prior to John Harvey’s birth into this sports-loving corner of the world in 1918, the Athletics had already won several pennants (1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914) and they had won the World Series in 1910, 1911, and 1913.

Young John Harvey would wait until the later innings of a game, when the side gates were opened up to let people out. He would then sneak in to watch the rest of the game instead of listening from outside the stadium or following a radio broadcast, both of which he also did. During his childhood years, the Philadelphia Athletics won pennants again in 1929, 1930, and 1931 and they won the World Series again in 1929 and 1930. He remembered those events distinctly and, although the Athletics as a team were not as successful after 1933, John Harvey remained a loyal fan and a lifelong baseball enthusiast.

The games at Shibe Park introduced him to players like Ty Cobb, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, and Howard Ehmke.

Bleacher Houses

Before John Harvey was born, baseball fans in the Shibe Park vicinity had taken to gathering on rooftops across from the stadium to watch the game. These homes came to be known as “bleacher houses”. Initially, homeowners whose roofs provided a good view of the game would generously share their view freely, but eventually it became a welcome source of income, especially as the Great Depression spread across the country; they would charge cheaper-than-Shibe-Park prices for those who wished to view the game, and provide spectators with homemade refreshments. The practice came to an end when a high fence of uncorrugated metal was erected in 1934-35, limiting the view.

It’s unknown if John Harvey ever attempted to view the game from one of these rooftops before the fence was built, but one imagines the option would’ve been enticing to a fan like him. While his family home was walking distance from the stadium, it wasn’t close enough to offer a rooftop view.

World Series Champions

Young John Harvey would’ve been able to name each of the players pictured above. This was the Philadelphia Athletics team that won the World Series in 1929, when John was just 11 years old and already paying close attention to everything baseball-related. The proximity of Shibe Park and the action-packed games played within it were excitement enough, but imagine knowing that many of these players lived right in your neighbourhood! In To Everything a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia, we read the following:

Ballplayers still came out of the neighborhood to play in Shibe Park. Lefty Grove boarded on Lehigh. Max Bishop lived on Somerset with a dentist and his family. On a summer evening, Connie Mack would cruise Lehigh checking on his players, and he could usually find his rookies, who lived in a three-story house, across the street from St. Columba’s, in Doc Hoffman’s drinking a cherry coke. Jimmy Dykes and Joe Boley attended dances at Twenty-second and Clearfield. Al Simmons had a second-floor room with the Conwells on 20th Street behind the right-field stands. Mrs. Conwell, an older woman, was reluctant to get Simmons up in the morning. She would signal one of the kids on the block, who would scoot in to wake the star: ‘Hey Al…you got to get your batting practice if you’re gonna win the batting title.’ A short time later, after he ate breakfast, Simmons would saunter down the street to his job. (Kuklick, 1991, p. 55)

One imagines young John Harvey hearing that a favourite ball player is lodging somewhere in his neighbourhood. Does he try to meet that player personally? Does he chance to observe him from afar? Perhaps he might hope to see George “Mule” Haas or Al Simmons at Sunday Mass at St. Columba’s?

Connie Mack, manager of the Athletics, was himself a devout Catholic: “When the A’s played at home,” recalled his daughter Ruth, “he always attended Sunday Mass at St. Madeleine Sophie’s with our family. On the road, he always accompanied his Catholic players to Mass after Sunday breakfast.” (Kashatus, Connie Mack's '29 Triumph : The Rise and Fall of the Philadelphia Athletics Dynasty, p. 81.)

As the players themselves mostly resided near Shibe Park when playing home games, it’s likely that the Catholics among them would’ve attended St. Columba’s for Sunday Mass, as that would’ve been the parish closest to them.

“Over the years, a natural affinity developed between the A’s and the residents of North Penn,” writes William Kashatus:

”We’d treat them just as if they were neighbors,” recalled Joe Barrett, who was raised in the neighborhood. “Many of them were our neighbors. Since the ball games were played in the afternoon, you’d see the A’s sitting out on their front steps in the early evening, or at Schilling’s ice-cream parlour, or even at the movie theatre. Sometimes the single ballplayers would stand out on the corner at 23rd and Lehigh and challenge the neighborhood kids to a game of stickball.” Another neighborhood resident, Bill Brendley, recalls, “In 1929 I bought a new baseball and took it around to the main gate at Shibe. Just inside, I saw Mickey Cochrane. I yelled, ‘Hey Mickey, how about getting the ball signed for me?’ He said ‘Sure kid,’ and took the ball in the clubhouse with him. A few minutes later, he came back with it, and the whole team, including Connie Mack, had signed it.” These kind of simple gestures earned the fellow who wore an A’s uniform the hero-worship of the youngsters. (Kashatus, Connie Mack's '29 Triumph : The Rise and Fall of the Philadelphia Athletics Dynasty, p. 29.)

“The neighborhood goes by various names: Catholics usually say they are from Saint Columba's, the name of the local parish; business people prefer the term North Penn (the local newspaper is The North Penn Chat); mostly we call it Swampoodle. 
It is a row house, working class neighborhood, in many ways similar to other Philadelphia neighborhoods, such as
Brewerytown, Fishtown or Hollywood-Under-the- Gas-Tank. 

None of these places, however, has a major league ballpark.”

John Rooney
remembering the year 1928 in his book
Bleachers In the Bedroom: the Swampoodle Irish and Connie Mack

Swampoodle

The North Philadelphia neighbourhood in which John Harvey grew up was initially known as “Swampoodle”. Swampoodle was said to be the area surrounding the junction of three railroad lines near Lehigh Avenue and 22nd Street, although the junction itself was well east of 22nd Street.

It’s not certain where the name came from, although it may have had to do with the “swampiness” of the area at that time due to the frequent occurrence of puddles, not unlike a neighbourhood of the same name in Washington, DC.

The Neighbourhood

The Harveys’ home was a modest two-storey row house typical of their neighbourhood, with a bay window on the 2nd floor and a small front porch. They were less than a ten minute walk away from St. Columba Catholic Church, with adjoining grade school run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, and only 15 minutes away from Shibe Park. John Harvey was baptized at St. Columba’s parish on April 28, 1918, the same Church where he would one day celebrate his first solemn Mass. He attended St. Columba’s grade school and remembered the Sisters as dedicated teachers who treated the students with patience and gentleness.

St. Columba’s and the Sisters of St. Joseph

St. Columba’s school, church, and rectory were conceptualized and built over 1895 - 1904. Professor Bruce Kuklick writes that St. Columba’s was “central to the lives of the Irish…the parish priests were respected figures, the most important men in the neighborhood. For children, the nuns at school loomed largest.” (To Everything a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia, p. 44.)

St. Columba parish school was staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Philadelphia. The Sisters came to Philadelphia in 1847 and proceeded to generously serve several parishes and communities through education, healthcare, and many other charitable endeavours.

Approximately six months after John Harvey was born in 1918, the Great Influenza hit Philadelphia with great severity and the Sisters of St. Joseph did extraordinary work in tending to the sick and dying in their homes. A full account of this can be read in the Records of the American Catholic Historical Society.

While there were no influenza casualties in the Harvey home, Margaret Harvey, John’s Mother, died of kidney failure a few years later when John was not yet four years old. In the absence of his own beloved mother, Fr. Harvey recalled growing especially close to the Blessed Mother for whom he developed a lifelong devotion. He also came to regard the Sisters at St. Columba’s as kind, motherly figures; they treated their students with gentleness and warmth, and exercised discipline with parental love. John Harvey attended St. Columba’s parochial school from 1924 through 1932; he and his family regularly attended Mass at St. Columba’s parish.

Author John Rooney recalls “The ballpark across the street afforded one center of activity in the neighborhood; St. Columba's Church, its gray stone Gothic structures extending from 23rd to 24th on Lehigh Avenue, provided another.  One of the largest and most vibrant parishes in the city, with seven priests and a couple of dozen Sisters of St. Joseph, it sponsored carnivals, block parties, Bingo and card games, stage shows and carefully selected movies.  It featured a boys' choir and a Boy Scout troop. Something appealing was always going on.” (Bleachers In the Bedroom: the Swampoodle Irish and Connie Mack, Preface)

In 1993 St. Columba’s parish and school were renamed and placed under the patronage of St. Martin de Porres. The Sisters of St. Joseph continue to staff and lead the school, now operating as an Independence Mission School with the blessing of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Go Higher, “Jack!”

In 1932, after grade school, John Harvey began attending Northeast Catholic High School for Boys (aka North Catholic), run by the Oblates of St. Francis De Sales. He was happy to be going to school there, as he’d heard the Oblates were wonderful teachers.

North Catholic opened in 1926 as the fourth diocesan high school in Philadelphia, under the sponsorship of Dennis Cardinal Dougherty. Originally designed to accommodate 1500 students, it was already exceeding that capacity in 1935, when enrolment rose to 2300 students. A freshman annex had to be built at a parish school in Kensington; by then John was beginning his senior year.

John Harvey’s high school career included consistent honour roll achievements as well as participation in the Classical Club and Sectional Sports. In his graduating year (1936), the following was written about him in the school yearbook:

Here’s the “A student” par excellence for Class ‘36. Four years on the Honor Roll speaks for itself. Yes, “Jack” must be good to accomplish that. Yet we know that everything didn’t come to John as easily as many students thought. Conscientious, energetic, studious, John spent many of his waking hours in quest of knowledge. What merits he received for class work, he earned. We admire John because he was consistent in his one aim - to acquire a sound Catholic education. Mannerly, gentlemanly and kindly to all during his sojourn here, John wins the prize for his classmates for these traits. The respect we bear for him is one born of our humble recognition of our intellectual peer. Go higher, “Jack.”

John Harvey was not disappointed in his hopes for a good Catholic education under the Oblates of St. Francis De Sales. Their gentle spirit and wise counsel during his high school years made a deep impact on him, leading John to eventually turn down scholarships to St. Joseph’s College (now St. Joseph’s University), Augustinian College of Villanova (now Villanova University), and La Salle College (now La Salle University) as he’d already made up his mind to enter the seminary and join the Oblates.

Incidentally, other notable alumni of North Catholic include cartoonist Bill Keane (“Family Circus”), Emmy award winning sportscaster Jack Whitaker, and All-Pro football player Frank “Bucko” Kilroy, lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles during the 1948 & 1949 championships.

Northeast Catholic High School closed in 2010 - the same year Fr. Harvey passed away - but it produced 40,000 graduates during its 84 year run, and continues to have an active, spirited, and very generous alumni association.

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