1926 Grand Rapids Body Co.

This is the launching page for my research on baseball teams in the Grand Rapids, MI area from the early 1900's.  My starting point was this photo of the 1926 GR Body Co. team - my Great-Grandpa Konyndyk was the pitcher.  I am interested in what became of the players of this team, what other teams they played for and the location of the games.  My first question when seeing this photo was "What's indoor baseball?"  This site is the random stuff I have collected so far.

Here is a good overview of the history of professional baseball in Grand Rapids.

1926 Grand Rapids Body Co. wins Indoor Baseball World Championship by beating the Chicago Postls—who had a record of  270-1 over previous seven seasons—twice in three-game series.

L-R, front: Marvin Glass, Garrett Rietberg, Ted Star (Manager), Nick Lovells (Secretary), Simon Schippers.
L-R, middle: Henry Schippers, Johnny Lucas, Harry Bissonette, Clarence Lucas, George Rooney.
L-R, back: Ike Command, Joe Champion, Sam Medema, Cornelius Klondyk (Konyndyk), Billy Vander Molen

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Indoor Baseball

1888-12-25 - 1st indoor baseball game played at fairgrounds in Philadelphia

1907 First successful Indoor Baseball League is organized in Grand Rapids.

From the “Grand Rapids Leader” newspaper January 23, 1920:

INDOOR LEAGUE TO BE FORMED HERE SOON TEAMS WILL EACH PLAY ONE GAME A WEEK AT ARMORY The Indoor Baseball league sition of Grand Rapids is expected oon to be in full swing Two games ave been played up to date 011 vs and Elks vs Badgers The Badgers are the mi team to organize and altho not in their first game show some good material The son and Normington teams dated before the game and have formed quite a strong nine C A Normington is at the head organization and working toward a permanent league It is the purpose of the founders of this idea to form a six team league and allow each team to play at least one game a week The Consolidated have ed two teams but have made no ther action to play All ing concerns or institutions of any kind are asked to organize a team and get in Request for admission may be made to Mr Normington A meeting will be held Saturday or Sunday.

From Paul Dickson, The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary [New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1990], p. 268):

The Library of Congress has more than one thousand of these guides, believed to be the largest collection held by any institution. A small sample is offered here in Spalding Base Ball Guides, 1889-1939; in the future, the entire collection may be digitized and made available on this Web site. The twenty Official Indoor Base Ball Guides and fifteen Spalding's Official Base Ball Guides currently presented are examples of the annuals described above.

While the game of baseball covered in Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guides is well known to most Americans, the game described in the Official Indoor Base Ball Guides may at first seem unfamiliar--yet in its current incarnation it is probably played by more Americans than traditional baseball. According to The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary, indoor baseball is “[t]he original name for the game from which modern softball derived. Its rules were written by George W. Hancock of Chicago who was one of the group of young men who created the game, using a boxing glove for a ball and a broomstick for a bat, while waiting at the Farragut Boat Club for the telegraphed results of the Harvard-Yale football game on Thanksgiving Day, 1887. Thus, softball in its first incarnation was baseball played inside a gymnasium” (Paul Dickson, The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary [New 

York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1990], p. 268).

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