120 years later, a righthander is remembered

Before Saturday turned the well-dressed into the overdressed, bundled-up local baseball historian Betsy Wood gave a short speech at the corner of 9th Street E and 8th Avenue E in Kalispell.

You don’t have to tell me, a renter on First Avenue East-North, that this sounds confusing. But this is where the backstop of venerable Gus Thompson Field rises out of the earth, framing a PeeWee baseball field that is at least 70 and possibly 80 years old.

Some of the details have been lost to history, as was the name of the field for a time. After the overgrown city block was renovated by locals early this century, it was called “Eastside Park.”

Which is where Wood came in, helping lead a charge to re-rename the field after its original namesake, Thompson. The Iowa transplant met a Flathead High graduate named Edna Knapp — part of her school’s first graduating class, in 1898 — at the University of Iowa, married her and the two settled in Kalispell around 1910-11.

OK, there’s more to him than that. For example, in 1903 Thompson pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first modern World Series.

That Series is notable for the Boston Americans winning the best-of-9 showdown 5 games to 3; and for the Pirates’ Deacon Phillippe throwing five complete games in the span of 13 days. That includes all three of his team’s wins.

All evidence to the contrary Phillippe couldn’t pitch in every game, so Thompson got on the bump for one: He threw the final two innings of an 11-2 loss to winning pitcher Cy Young and the future (in 1908) Red Sox on Oct. 7. Pretty cool.

Thompson was also known for the Thompson and Cahill cigar store on Main Street in Kalispell, and for marching into the Daily Inter Lake in 1953.

That was after an article ran about every surviving member of both teams from that first World Series being invited to a celebration. Somehow the 6-foot-2 righthander had been overlooked.

In between, or maybe around that point, Thompson had become known as the “Grand Old Man of Baseball.” That’s what it says on his tombstone at Conrad Cemetery. John Gustav Thompson died March 28, 1958.

Which more or less brings us up to date.

“When our boys played here, in the 1990s, that was pre-KidSport,” said Wood, whose grandson AJ Wood recently finished out his Legion pitching career with the Kalispell Lakers. “This was THE field.”

It still is. As Saturday grew longer and much warmer, and a minors game gave way to a majors contest, Thompson Memorial Park had the only baseball being played in the heart of Kalispell.

Which is also pretty cool. A playground sits beyond left field, and tennis courts loom beyond center at the opposite corner of the park. A young man dressed in late-19th century baseball togs threw out the first pitch.

Thompson won four games in his Major League career, two with Pittsburgh and two with St. Louis. Forgettable numbers, possibly. He reportedly nearly signed with the 1910 Detroit Tigers before he and Edna settled in Kalispell for good. Then he became a local baseball benefactor.

Now every April, on the PeeWee Opening Day, Betsy Wood makes sure he is not forgotten again, on a diamond re-cut out of the rough.

Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 758-4463 or fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com.