As baseball teams go, the Wyoming State Penitentiary All-Stars looked a lot like any other from the era. A team photo from their 1911 season shows a sharp-looking ball club decked out in spiffy uniforms, matching caps, gloves and bats proudly displayed.
Closer examination reveals a darker side.
The lineup included a murderer at shortstop, a burglar at third and manning first base was a convicted rapist. If that’s not enough, the team’s star player in right field had a date with the hangman before the season was scheduled to end.
-Sherm
Gives 'stealing second' a whole new meaning.
ReplyDelete-lg
Here in Louisiana at our maximum security prison we have the Angola Prison Rodeo every fall.... It's definitely different than any other rodeo I've been to....
ReplyDeleteThey don't look as sharp as the guys in the picture though..
JD
And you were told Pete Rose was a really bad guy.
ReplyDeleteSounds like any NFL team roster today.
ReplyDeleteJpaul
A prison photo with only one black guy?!?
ReplyDeleteOh, wait. Wyoming. How'd the black guy get in there?
He was there ... because he was there.
DeleteMy dad played fast pitch softball from the late '50s until c. 1970 for some of the best teams in Atlanta, and played a few games against the team in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. He said the sound of the gate clanging shut behind them always made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
ReplyDeleteAt one game, he walked through the crowd of inmates to get a drink of water from a fountain and heard someone in that crowd call his name. Turned around and it was a man he'd gone to high school with who was in for murder.