Chapter 18

The Rise and Fall of the River Valley League
1926-1941

While proficiency is greater in the big leagues, the skill of those who take part in the twilight games is often all a thing of note and a reminder that there are tens of thousands of good ball players and that it is only a slight, even if a definite, margin by which those who play in the big leagues excel.
Springfield Republican on the Westfield River Valley League / June 1927

As in the decades before, so to did the late 1920s and into the 1940s Westfield and the River Valley hilltowns would be the home of great baseball and the River Valley League (sometimes known as and sometimes competed with: Westfield River League, Mountain Valley League, Westfield River Valley Twilight League, Westfield Industrial Twilight League, City League) was the arena(s). Although the River Valley League would function beyond the Second World War, it would never be the same.

At the close of the 1925 season, a league of Westfield baseball would cease operations for two years. Although there was no Westfield based league, there was certainly plenty of baseball at Whitney Playground to fill the void during this time period with the Westfield Athletics taking center stage. These were, however, the beginnings of extremely tough economic times; the roaring twenties was coming to a close and the United States was about to plummet into the great depression. Although for Westfield, tough economic times had already arrived with the demise of the whip industry and the automation of cigar rolling. H.B. Smith, a large employer in Westfield and a maker of heating systems, was by 1928 feeling the beginnings of the depression with a slow down in orders and law-offs due to a national construction slow down. By the summer of 1930 nearly eight hundred men were unemployed and that number was constantly growing, by the early 1930s Westfield Manufacturing, the second largest employer in Westfield, nearly folded and unpaid tax bills throughout the city reached staggering numbers. Many people were arrested for vagrancy just so they could eat. The situation in Westfield and throughout the country was serious and getting worse. But by the late 1930s, however, things were turning around. The New Deal enacted by newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 included many relief acts such as the W.P.A. which put many American, and Westfield men, back to work doing construction and infra-structure work throughout the city. One such project included the construction of the recreation field what is now known as Bullens Field.

During this time period semi-pro and industrial teams and leagues would come and go as less and less disposable income was available when the hat was passed. The River Valley region of Western Massachusetts (Westfield, Russell, Huntington, Blanford, Chester, and Woronoco) during the late 1920s to 1940s was a hot-bed of baseball action. As a researcher, it was a challenge trying to keep straight the various names of these leagues, teams, and players as they were seemingly always changing teams and leagues and leagues changing names. For these players, playing from year-to-year, there was no confusion. Looking back some seventy-five years its one big cloud. For several years a twilight league based in the hilltowns would often compete for players in Westfields twilight league. Some years one of these rival leagues would not form or they would unite to form one league. One thing is clearthese were hard working, factory men during the day and baseball junkies at twilightthey lived for thisthis was baseball.

Leagues are formed; teams are formed; games are played
Year after year the process was the same. In late April a council was elected by representatives of interested organizations from Westfield to form a league. For example, in 1933 the team managers elected James Terry Rogers as president and Pop Bowler as vice-president. Two wise choices as both men had prior experience in the business side of Westfield baseball.

Rules of the league would be adopted governing a wide scale of scenarios. Basically a laundry list of which the most interesting was 1933s Rule Number 17: No player may participate in the league that lives out of town except Lawson and members of the Sanatorium who either must work at the Sanatorium or live in Westfield. A few years previous, when an earlier version of the league struggled, the Westfield Valley Herald pointed out; Importation of players from various places to represent the teams in the loop resulted indirectly in the demise of the circuit In the industrial league era, a similar rule existed barring any player from a roster who was not employed at the shop or did not live in Westfield. Basically, a league of our own was the answer.

In later years (once we dropped the league of our own stuff) teams represented would range from the industrial giants such as Foster Machine, Old Colony Envelope and Columbia Manufacturing to up river teams like Strathmore and town clubs to independent clubs like the All-Stars, Club 25, and various Athletic Clubs. As long as you paid an entrance fee and abide by the rules, you were in. The management of the clubs would supply the teams with uniforms and the entrance fees would help to cover the expenses of the leaguei.e.cost of balls, umpires fees and official scorers fee (fifty cents per game). In order to add income to the league the hat would be passed with usually meager returns and later years, once the gate was controlled, a booster game would be held, featuring some of the leagues top players, in hopes of drawing a decent gate. As in the past, a threat of the league ending play early because of weak finances was common.