This is the first chapter of the bio I wrote of my Uncle Mike -- more to come.

1. Contents
In the Beginning 3
Growing Up 4
First Baseball Records 6
Anaconda 13
Tacoma – 1901 23
The Show! 25
Tacoma 1902/05 33
Tacoma 1906/08 41
Seattle/Tacoma 1909/11 51
Tacoma/Victoria/Spokane 1912 – 15 69
Retirement 81
Last Words 85
Bibliography 87
Additional Pictures 89
Baseball Cards 93

2. 2

3. In The Beginning…
Between 1820 and
1920, almost half the
population of Ireland-
over four million
people- migrated to
the United States. The
potato famine in
Ireland was the main
culprit, but oppressive
land-ownership laws, British rule, and other factors
contributed.
Among the thousands who emigrated in the 1860s was a
young couple, John and Mary (Cahill) Lynch, who arrived
from Liverpool in 1867. They settled in Minneapolis, where
John went to work as a laborer on the St. Paul and Pacific
Railroad. They started to raise a family, as was duly
recorded in the 1880 Minneapolis census:
Mike Lynch was born on September 10th, 1875, and shows
up on the census report as the 4-year-old son. Mike had
two older sisters and a younger brother.
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4. Growing up
The St. Paul and Pacific
Railroad ran west across the
northern tier of states to
Tacoma, Washington.
Although no definitive link can
be made, it seems likely that
John’s connection to
railroading rubbed off on his
son, because Mike shows up
in the 1900 census of
Anaconda, Montana, as a
baggage handler on the
Butte, Anaconda and Pacific
Railway, a small local railway
that served the copper mines
in the central part of the state. He was boarding with the
McCabe family in Anaconda – Mr. McCabe was the
Superintendent of the railroad - and Mike’s skill at tossing
bags around may have caught the attention of Jack Grim,
manager of the Anaconda Calciners baseball team,
because Mike ended up playing for Anaconda in 1900.
The 1900 census data from Anaconda, Montana, show an
interesting household – McCabe, his sister, and 4
“Roomers,” including Mike:
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5. Growing Up
Above - the residence at 414 Hickory in Anaconda, where Mike lodged
with the McCabe family in 1900, still stands.
Below - Anaconda, 1887 – Hickory St. is just off the left side of the photo
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6. First Baseball Records
Anaconda was not Mike’s
first brush with baseball,
however. The roster of the
1894 Minneapolis Millers of
the Western League lists,
under “other players,” one
“lynch, rf.” This was Mike,
playing right field, on his first
professional team, at 19.
The team was operated by
John Barnes, a promoter
and fitness buff who is a
towering figure in the history
of minor league baseball in
the Midwest and Northwest.
At that time, baseball was
seen as an avenue of
escape by many of Irish
descent. The Irish were
often shut out of higher
paying jobs and ended up
as menial laborers – Mike –High School graduation picture?
especially on the canals and
railroads. Baseball was a way out, and many of the early
leagues were dominated by Irish players. In later years,
Barnes claimed to
have “discovered”
Mike. This headline
appeared in the
February 7th, 1909,
edition of the
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7. Portland Oregonian. Reporting on the results of a meeting
between the managers and officials of the Northwestern
League, the paper relates that at the end of the official
meeting, several of the league old-timers were telling tales
of their early days in baseball.
Barnes is a bit off on his
dates – he was in
China in 1900 – but
Mike did play for his
Minneapolis team in
1894. The article also
points out why Mike
did so well in the many
“scraps” he got into
over the course of his
career – he was a
good boxer.
The Millers played ball at Athletic Park, described by Stew
Thornley, a Millers historian,
as “a bandbox at the
corner of Sixth Street and
First Avenue North, behind
the West Hotel in
Minneapolis. Estimates are
that the distances down
the foul lines were barely
250 feet, creating some
high home run totals even
in this era of the dead ball.
So small was the park that
players had to frequently
‘leg out’ base hits to right
field, and it wasn’t Old engraving of Athletic Park
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8. uncommon for a runner to be thrown out at first base on
an apparent single to right.”
According to Thornley, although the Millers had a potent
offense (no doubt helped by Athletic Park) and were good
at putting runs on the board, (averaging 10.5 runs per
game overall and 12.7 runs per game in home games), the
team’s pitchers and fielders were even more talented
when it came to giving up runs. Five times during the
season, the Millers allowed more than 30 runs in a game.
On August 30th, 1894, at Athletic Park, Minneapolis lost to
Indianapolis by a score of 33-23. Mike got involved, hitting
a home run in a game lost by the Millers to Grand Rapids
on September 4th, 18-4. Good pitchers were apparently a
rare commodity, in an era during which a foul ball didn’t
count as a strike. Mike joined the team late in the season
and wasn’t a regular player.
Here’s another view of Athletic Park
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9. More history of Mike’s early career comes in the form of an
article in The Anaconda Standard on June 6th, 1906.
Commenting on the arrival of the Tacoma team for a series
of games against Butte, the paper describes how manager
Lynch would be traveling to Anaconda to visit old friends,
including Harry O’Gorman, secretary of the local baseball
association, who claims to have “made a pitcher of Lynch
back in St. Paul” while he was managing a minor league
team there. That must have been after Mike played for
John Barnes in Minneapolis, maybe 1895 or so. The Fort
Wayne (Indiana) Daily News ran an article in March 1911,
reminiscing about the beginnings of baseball in that town.
In 1896, a businessman named Stanley Robison established
a team in Fort Wayne. Robison was the owner of the
Cleveland club of the National League and wanted a
place to let some of his young players get experience, so
he sent them to Fort Wayne. His third baseman for that
season was listed as Mike Lynch. Was it our Mike Lynch? It’s
possible – Mike would have been 21 at the time, with some
experience under his belt in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Lynch’s next “verified”
appearance is in the 1900
Anaconda census, as a
railroad baggage man, a
job he may have had in
order to play baseball. It
was common practice for
local businessmen to
employ a town’s
ballplayers, and in this
case, not only did Mike
A Montana minor league club at the work for the railroad, he
turn of the last century
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10. was living with the superintendent and his family. Maybe
Barnes got him the job or recommended him to Jack Grim.
Baseball was much more loosely organized back then.
There was no consistent structure of major leagues, minor
leagues, farm teams, or developmental leagues as there is
now. Teams, and whole leagues, opened and closed on
almost a daily basis. Teams moved and leagues merged,
fell apart and re-constituted themselves with regularity. Pay
was low – a couple hundred dollars a month if you were
good - and the seasons were long – and 200 or more
games were not uncommon. A group of businessmen
might start a team, or a league, on short notice, with visions
of making it “big,” only to fold up the tents overnight, move
to another city, or disappear entirely. Player contracts were
bought and sold almost as commodities, if an owner
perceived there was financial benefit in doing so. There
was a lot of gambling on the games – players were
sometimes showered with coins after a particularly good
play. Teams could be re-made overnight if there was
money to be made on the betting.
Jim Price writes in “You Want Stars, Titles, Nicknames?
Tacoma’s Got ’Em”: “Owners catered to their hard-core
male fans, permitting rough play, rough talk and attacks on
umpires. Many players were drunkards and more than a
few were illiterate.”
In this setting Mike really began his career as a professional
ballplayer. The Montana State League that Mike played for
in 1900 was brand new that year. It appears, however, that
Mike was playing in Anaconda for at least part of 1898 and
most of 1899. Several newspaper articles list Mike Lynch on
the semi-pro Anaconda team those two years. When the
State league was organized in 1900 and played a regular
10
Photo

11. schedule, the newspaper reports make it possible to trace
Mike’s path with certainty from that point on.
Unfortunately, none of the articles refer back to the
previous years, so it can’t be said definitely that the Mike
Lynch on the 1899 Anaconda semi-pro team is the same
one on the 1900 team – but it seems likely. So here’s the
progression as nearly as it can be laid out –
1894 – with the Minneapolis Millers
1895 – St. Paul team (maybe)
1896 – Ft. Wayne, Indiana (maybe)
1897 --?
1898/99 – Anaconda, Montana (probably)
1900 – Anaconda, Montana – definitely
Now the story picks up in Anaconda, as reported on the
pages of the Anaconda Standard.
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