Wilmington Chicks · Wilmington, Delaware · 1911

Brent Gets to Top as the Chick Premier Hitter

June 1911: the Wilmington Chicks are still last in the Tri-State League, but they won three of six this week, Brent is hitting .339, and the paper prints every man's averages down to Ziegler at .000 in one game.

The Evening Journal opens with the standings and no anesthetic: “Although the Chicks are still at the bottom of the Tri-State League race, they finish the week with a much better showing than they had last week, and stand a fine chance of getting out during the home series next week.” Three wins in six games, for a last-place club, is a genuine trend.

Then the good news, delivered with the precision of a man who keeps books: “To date, Brent leads the Chicks in hitting with an average of .339. Fritz has hit at a .325 clip and Weeks at .304. They are the only men on the team who are in the premier class.”

What makes this clipping is the table underneath, credited “By Alexander Abrahams,” eleven columns per man for the whole roster. There you learn that Bastian has played every one of the 42 games, that Buscher is fielding a spotless 1.000, and that Ziegler went to bat three times in his single game and is carrying an even .000 for it. A batting and fielding ledger this honest, printed in a town whose team was called both the Chicks and, when the mood struck, the Chickens, is the Tri-State League at its finest.