O'Neill Town Team · O'Neill, Nebraska · 1934

O'Neill's Big Free Day

September 18, 1934 was O'Neill's Big Free Day, and the O'Neill Business and Professional Men bought a whole page to prove it. Baseball at 2:00, football at 4:00, kitten ball at 6:30, plus a water fight, a pie eating contest, fifty cents for the boy or girl with the most freckles and a big pavement dance at night. The entire program is free.

The Frontier of September 13, 1934 gave a whole page to one invitation: “O’NEILL’S BIG FREE DAY, Sept. 18, 1934. Bring the family and spend the day as guests of the O’Neill Business and Professional Men. ENTIRE PROGRAM IS FREE.”

The program runs from a school children’s parade at 10:30 to a “Big Pavement Dance At Night,” and the middle of the day belongs to the ball fields. “BASEBALL GAME 2:00 P.M. Redbird vs. Junior American Legion Team, of Neligh,” and the fine print vouches for the visitors: the Junior Legion team “won first in this state and also won at the Midwest Tournament at Sterling, Colo., losing to Seattle in the contest at Topeka, Kans., by a very close score.” Football follows at 4, O’Neill High against the Alumni, then “Kitten Ball, Town Team vs. Country Club, 6:30,” with a water fight, a concert and fireworks packed around them. The bottom of the page compresses the whole day into one banner: “Foot Ball—Base Ball—Kitten Ball.”

Kitten ball is softball before anybody called it softball. The outdoor game grew up with the Minneapolis fire department around 1895, where a lieutenant named Lewis Rober set it up to keep idle firemen busy between alarms. His team was called the Kittens, and the name stuck to the game itself. It went by kitten ball, diamond ball and playground ball for decades, and the name softball only arrived in 1926. Eight years later O’Neill was still saying kitten ball, and we thank them for it. The softball missionaries were still making converts in 1939.

The prize list deserves a browse of its own. A pie eating contest. A backward running race. A fat men’s race for “225 lbs. and over.” Fifty cents and no second prize for the “Boy or Girl With the Most Freckles.” And a stern closing rule: “Each contestant must furnish their own sacks, skates and bicycles.”