At this time of year, we would normally be tuned into our favorite baseball team and planning trips to Fenway (assuming, of course, that the Sox are the team you root for!). This year is different, so instead, read about the Woods Hole Clippers.
The Clippers baseball team was part of the Woods Hole Athletic Association, which was a member of the Falmouth Twilight League Baseball Association. And since there was no organized basketball league, WHAA organized its own team, also called the Clippers, and schedule. The members named their team the Clippers, long before the Falmouth schools adopted the nickname. “We just discussed it and decided that this was appropriate for a team representing a Cape Cod seaport village,” Bob Griffin explained in a
Spritsail article in 2010 (volume 24, number 2)
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Woods Hole Clippers: Kneeling from left: Noggie Eldridge, Charlie Vail, Jimmy Gifford, Bob MacMillan, and Bob Griffin. Standing Sam Cahoon Jr., Ellie Eldridge, Jack Cavanaugh, Albert Chase, and Eugene Young. Also on the team were Thure Blomberg, Jim Cavanaugh, Dick Alberts, Warren “Whitey” Witzell, Al Graham, Dave Graham, Don Beers and Eddie Peterson.
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Woods Hole Clippers: Sitting from left: Sam Vincent, Newcomb Cassick, Pete Bailey, Bob MacMillan, Thure Blomberg. Middle: Jimmy Gifford, Dick Alberts, Noggie Eldridge, Ellie Eldridge, Jack Cavanaugh, Whitey Witzell. Back row: Bob Griffin, Dave Casiles, Sam Cahoon Jr., Richie Cahoon, Marshie Douthart, Bob Pratt and Bill Thay
er
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How did a town the size of Woods Hole come to have an athletic association? “After the Second World War, the soldiers came home, and people wanted to get together,” Mr. Griffin wrote. He founded the athletic association with Norman “Noggie” Eldridge, and was its first president and team manager. “It was the era before TV, and baseball and basketball games afforded the opportunity to not only play the sports, but for the townspeople to spend evenings together and socialize.”
The Falmouth Enterprise reported, "It has been unauthoritatively said that fishing boats often put in early at Woods Hole in order to be on hand for a Clipper game."
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They only played five years, 1946 to 1951, but they were glory days for the Woods Hole Clippers baseball team. They won the Falmouth Twilight League championship in 1947, and were honored at a sports night program in Community Hall in Woods Hole, attended by 100 people, where they were presented baseball jackets.
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The Clippers baseball team played mostly Falmouth teams: Johnny Pena and the Falmouth Giants, the North Falmouth team with its star and former semi-pro player Marshall Douthart, Waquoit and the Town club.
The teams played on hardball diamonds throughout the town, Nye Park in North Falmouth, the Woods Hole ballpark at Bell Tower lane, Falmouth Heights field and Fuller Field, which had been built for football and baseball during the Depression. Charlie White, town engineer and WPA coordinator, studied Fenway Park to get dimensions of Fuller Field correct.
At Bell Tower Lane, the ballfield bordered the marsh, and there were stories of outfielders who made the catch but landed in the swamp. There were other obstacles to the Twilight league. It got dark, of course. After one June game, Falmouth Town team’s manager Arthur Medeiros entered an official protest to the league when the umpire called their game with Woods Hole due to darkness. It was the sixth inning, the score was tied at 4, when Woods Hole catcher Charlie Vail complained to umpire Joseph Rabesa that he couldn’t see the ball. At the time the game was called, the Townies had one man on second, two outs and the count was two balls and two strikes, according to the Cape Cod Standard Times news clipping of the game.
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And, naturally, on Cape Cod, fog was always an issue. Sometimes it was so foggy that they couldn’t see the ball. “We had to have someone toss the ball in the air before the game to determine if it could be seen and the game could be played,” Ellie Eldridge said.
The Clippers played baseball through the summer months, then shifted their focus to basketball. The Clipper basketball squad played teams from Barnstable, Osterville, New Bedford, Wareham, Middleborough, Westport, Yarmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich, Bourne, Wellfleet, occasionally Vineyard Haven, and two Falmouth teams. There were 18 players on the squad, and sometimes they played both varsity and JV games. Most of the Clippers baseball players played basketball.
The Clippers traveled to Martha’s Vineyard to play the Vineyard Haven team several times. The steamship schedule would not have gotten them there in time for the game, so Jared Vincent took the Clippers over in his fishing boat, the Priscilla V.
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Clippers 1986 reunion: Left to right: back row: Marshy Cross, Ellie Eldridge, Bob Griffin, Dick Alberts, Whitey Witzell, Thure Blomberg. Front row: ?, Bill Thayer, Gene Young, Pete Bailey,
Steve McInnis
, Sam Vincent.
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Woods Hole Historical Museum
579 Woods Hole Road (P.O. Box 185)
Woods Hole, MA 02543
Phone: 508-548-7270
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