When browsing through our archives, which go back 150+ years for our older publications, you truly never know what you will find.

Much of the reporting from back then focused, as it still does today, on hyper-local issues, such as railroad improvements, heinous crimes, and goings-on of the local government. But sometimes you come across something that is equal parts mysterious and entertaining.

In this case, a comic strip positioned next to an intriguing letter submission captured attention right away. Cartoonish men identified as being from Warren and Bristol baseball teams hugged each other joyfully, proclaiming, “Even if the ‘Red Sox’ wouldn’t come - we can play together - can’t we?”
The letter seated to the left was titled, “The Plot That Failed — Truth about Boston Red Sox Game that was announced to be played in Warren on August 13 and 20”.

Consider my curiosity piqued.

The letter, signed anonymously by the “Bristol Baseball Association,” goes on to accuse a former manager of the Bristol baseball club of receiving a Western Union telegram from the Boston Red Sox that stated they had an open date on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1922, and that they would be happy to come to Bristol to play.

“Instead of declining to receive the same, or delivering it over to the proper authorities, he deliberately went up to Warren with the telegram and delivered to the manager of the Warren Baseball Club the offer that the Red Sox made to Bristol,” the letter proclaims, adding that the former Bristol manager, a Mr. Harold D. Shippee, proceeded to send a telegram back to the Red Sox from Warren, which stated:

“Cannot play Bristol, already booked, Warren will give you game field. Has been fixed up ok. Warren will give sixty percent gross and furnish their own battery [meaning lineup of players].”

The Warren team then allegedly went on to announce the Red Sox would be coming to town before the team could respond to the wire. But when a wire did come back from the Red Sox, it stated they would not play in Warren for the same terms offered to Bristol, but would require a guarantee of $750 instead.

“Evidently this was too big a proposition for Warren, as Mr. Higgins [The Warren baseball club manager] immediately wired back that the game was off on account of the short time, and announced in a Providence paper that as arrangements were not completed, the came would be played Sunday, August 20 instead of August 13,” the letter stated.

The letter further states that the Red Sox reached out to Bristol denouncing the acts of the Warren club, and that they had only ever intended to play in Bristol, and shamed the Warren club for impugning the highly honorable game of baseball.

“The sport of baseball is bigger than any individual or group of individuals,” it reads. “The rank and file of the American people are its custodians. It should be above suspicion. The Bristol Baseball Association, in so far as we are able and in so far as we have any connection with the game, will keep it above suspicion. It is most unfortunate that any persons should be in any way identified with the game who are not to be guided by the same motive.”

Warren club fires back
In the following edition of the Times-Gazette, Francis Higgins himself wrote back and personally signed a lengthy letter deriding and challenging the Bristol club’s version of how things went down.

“After perusing the false and ridiculous article with little amusement, my first thought was to disregard it entirely, as I did not wish to become involved in a controversy over baseball with anyone, much less with a person of the calibre of the author of ‘The Plot That Failed,’” Higgins wrote. “However, I was approached by many Warren people and urged to reply to what is evidently an attempt to get some cheap publicity, and am now setting forth the facts just as they happened.”

Higgins said that the telegram sent to Shippee by the Red Sox on Aug. 6 indeed offered Bristol a chance to play the Red Sox, but since the Bristol team was booked on Aug. 13 already, he extended the offer to Higgins courteously in the hopes that Warren might be able to accommodate the professional team.

Wiggins said that he was unable to acquire the players he wanted to field, or stage sufficient advertising, in the short turnaround, but offered the team a date of Aug. 20 instead, which he said they accepted. Unfortunately, arrangements fell through due to time constrictions and delays in sending wires.

Higgins further tells that the Bristol club had sent representatives to Warren to figure out whether or not they were playing the Red Sox, and since Higgins was unaware of whether or not it was actually happening at that time, he told them as much. When that duo went to Boston to find out for themselves, they learned the game was still not determined, and that the wire had been sent to Shippee first.

“Highly elated at his sleuthing, Mr. Godfrey [of the Bristol ball club] (Sherlock Holmes) accompanied by his trusty office boy, Hughes, hurried back to Bristol and there spent a week in concocting the now famous letter with the movie title: ‘The Plot That Failed,’” Higgins wrote.

The letter goes on to dispute each claim made by the Bristol club, with a particularly quippy response to the allegation that the offer from the Red Sox was too much for Warren to handle.

“No baseball proposition too big to be handled in Warren has ever yet arisen…We will prove this to your satisfaction if you have nerve enough to play a series with my team at the end of the season,” Wiggins wrote.

In concluding his written rebuke, Higgins threw back the claim of impugning the name of baseball back onto Bristol’s club.

“I wish to say to the Warren people that I regret being drawn into a controversy of this kind, for it has all the appearances of baby play and cheap advertising,” he wrote. “I felt, however, that the true facts should be known and that you should have an opportunity to hear my side of the case. Also, that “Hank” Shippee should be cleared of the cloud thrown over him by the misrepresentation of facts contained in the Association’s letter.
“In signing my letter, I do not wish to hide my identity as did the Bristol author under the name of the Association, but prefer to sign myself — Francis L. Higgins."

Moral of the story: Never let anyone think that people are any more or less petty and argumentative today than they were a century ago.