Kings (and Queens) of the Ring

Early Days of the US National Marbles Tournament (Page 2)

by Stan Flewelling

GROWTH

The 1924 National Marbles Tournament was even bigger. More than half a million kids took part in local playoffs. Eventually, 54 regional champions converged on Atlantic City, including several from New England, upstate New York, and western Pennsylvania (none of which were represented the first year). The reigning champ, Harlin McCoy, was brought back to help crown the new winner, a tradition that holds to this day. When all the dust had settled, the victory went to dark horse George Lenox (14), from Catonsville, MD (near Baltimore), who edged out record-setting marble wizard Tommy Wright (14), from Chicopee, MA (near Springfield).

George Lennox,
1924 Champ

Still growing, the 1925 tournament hosted 64 champions. One of them, Marie Lawley (13, Harrisburg, PA), was the first girl ever to win a city championship. Throughout the contest, Marie cheerfully endured a barrage of media attention and teasing from the mostly-male crowd. Every subsequent National Marbles Tournament included one or more girl champions, and no boy wanted to lose to them. (A separate "Girls National Champion" title was finally created in 1948.) As for 1925, in what was billed as a Blue-Gray final, Howard "Dutch" Robbins (13, Springfield, MA) overcame Thomas Raley (13, Owensboro, KY) – and a severe case of homesickness – to take it all. Dutch was welcomed home by a crowd of 35,000 and the biggest parade in Springfield history. His victory anchored what could be called the first marbles "dynasty." Between 1924 and 1927, a boy from the Springfield area was in the finals every year, and the town produced another national champion in 1934 (and again in 1963).

Howard "Dutch" Robbins,
1925 Champ

Willis "Fats" Harper,
1926 Champ

By 1926, some 3 million kids – as many as now participate in Little League Baseball each year – were said to be vying for the national championship. One of the 1926 competitors, Chinese-American Francis Kau, came to New Jersey all the way from Hawaii. In another Blue-Gray final that year, a coal miner’s son from Muhlenberg County, KY beat Springfield’s Danny Gore. Willis Harper (11) was the youngest national champ ever, a record that stood for over 50 years. No marbles champ has ever hailed from a smaller hometown: Bevier, KY – no longer on the maps – claimed a population of around 50.

In 1927, Teddy Walag (14, Ludlow, MA) was beaten by tiny Joe Medvidovich (13, Clairton, PA, near Pittsburgh). The champ’s Croatian parents ran a pool hall, where "Gypsy Joe" had spent long winter evenings pegging shots at marbles he arranged on top of a pool table. In 1928, Alfred Huey (12, Kenmore, OH, now part of Akron) burst into tears when he beat Dominic Cartelli (12, New Britain, CT). Even adult champions cry in the joy and relief of victory, and Alfred had never been more than 30 miles away from home before. The runner-up was a 3-year veteran of the tourney whose Italian family had moved to America just 8 years earlier.

Joseph
"Gypsy Joe" Medvidovich, 1927 Champ

Alfred Huey,
1928 Champ

OCEAN CITY TO WILDWOOD

Dominic Cartelli (L), Runner-up and Al Huey (R), champion, share a friendly chat before the 1928 final match.

In 1929 the National Marbles Tournament took a new turn. After a three-year promotional campaign, Ocean City, NJ (just south of Atlantic City) was picked from more than a dozen contenders to be the new host town of the tournament. For "America’s Greatest Family Resort," it was considered a huge publicity coup. Ocean City was the tourney’s home for eight years. Charles "Sunny" Albany (12) took the 1929 crown back to Philadelphia, PA, where the original inter-city match had taken place. For the first time ever, the finals were broadcast live to the nation, with famous sportscaster Graham McNamee giving the play-by-play. In 1930, a Columbus, OH boy, Jimmy Lee, was again victorious. His bonus prize was an awesome ocean cruise from New York to Los Angeles via the Panama Canal. 1931 and 1932 saw the first ever consecutive victories for the same state. John Jeffries (12, Greenville, KY) beat Harley Corum (13, from Louisville) in ’31. The next year, Harley again fought his way to the finals and won, the first ever runner-up to do so. Many contenders have matched that achievement since then.

New changes in 1933 were designed to make the booming tournament more inclusive – and also cut down on long distance travel expenses in hard times. While Eastern states competed in Ocean City, a separate Western regional tourney was conducted in the Midwest. The first Western match was held at Soldiers Field in Chicago during the Century of Progress International Exposition. The winner was then flown to New Jersey to meet his Eastern counterpart in Ocean City. Passenger aviation service was still in its infancy. The next year, there were three regional bouts, and by the early 1940s, the tourney had expanded to six separate district contests (North, East, Central, West, South, and Midwest) in five locations around the country. Regional champs were always brought to the New Jersey coast for the national finals.

A boy from tiny Throop, PA won in 1933, and a new "dynasty" began. Kids from Throop, a coal mining town near Scranton, won national championships twice more (1935, 1938) and runner-up honors twice (1937, 1941) before World War II erupted. Their Scranton partners also did well (1938 runner-up, 1941 champ). The first ever African-American champion was Leonard "Bobby" Tyner (13, Chicago, IL), an orphan whose 1936 victory over a boy from Birmingham, AL was celebrated in the Black press.

Wildwood, NJ became the official host city from 1937 to 1948. The first Wildwood champion was from Canton, OH and was congratulated by Sally Rand, the famous fan dancer, among others. Subsequent early Wildwood champs hailed from Landenburg, PA (1939) , East Point, KY (1940), Scranton, PA (1941), and Huntington, WV (1942). Because of the war, the 1943 tournament went inland to Cleveland, OH, where a Pittsburgh, PA boy was victor. Tournament play was canceled entirely in ‘44 and ‘45. Asbury Park, NJ became the tourney home for 11 years starting in 1949. It returned to Wildwood in 1960, where it remains today. (There was a one-time 1976 Bicentennial Year stint at Great Adventure Park in Jackson, NJ.) The National Marbles Hall of Fame, dedicated in 1993, is in Wildwood.

MODERN TIMES

1950 VFW National Champ
Tilton "Pork Chop" Holt in
action at the Eaton Rapids,
Michigan finals. From LIFE
Magazine, June 26, 1950

The immense popularity of the National Marbles Tournament recovered for a while after its wartime hiatus, but wavered in the mid-’50s. This trend was usually blamed on the rise of TV and other new childhood fads. Smaller circles of "mibsters" still huddled around the game, especially in Mid-Atlantic and Appalachian towns where adult enthusiasts took time to coach youngsters in marbles’ arts. New "dynasties" emerged from places like Huntington and Beckley, WV, Yonkers, NY, Cumberland, MD, and Reading and Pittsburgh, PA. No place has produced more National Marbles Champions than the Pittsburgh area.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) organization sponsored a separate annual marbles tournament of its own starting in 1947. The first VFW nationals were held at Father Flanagan’s famous Boys Town, near Omaha, Nebraska. The host city changed every year thereafter, and the VFW tourney tried hard to involve champs from every part of the country (and some points overseas). But overall participation never rivaled the early popularity of the official National Tourney.

By the 1970s, rude eulogies were being written for the game and the tourney. Death knells were premature, but the game had to struggle for respect. What made the difference, ultimately, were tournament alumni who stayed active in the game. Instead of retiring at age 15, several former champs turned to coaching young players, usually with great success. US teams made up of former champs also flew to England several times in recent decades for the annual Good Friday Worlds Championship at Tinsley Green. Whenever they went, they won. The current boom in marble collecting, too, has kept interest in the game alive.

Whatever the future of the tournament, memories and records of its past impact on the nation’s kids remain. For a while, the National Marbles Tournament was, as one newspaper put it in 1925, "the highest honor possible in the sporting world of boydom." That will never hold true again, but there are signs of revival in this venerable youth tourney. Over the past decade, champs from Kentucky, Tennessee, and New Jersey have returned to Wildwood as regulars, joining perennial contenders from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Other states are sometimes represented. The 2000 Boys Champion is Andrew Martinez, from Colorado – remarkably, the first national champ ever from anyplace west of the Mississippi, and first of Hispanic ancestry. As in its beginnings, the National Marbles Tournament may find fresh energy and enthusiasm in the children of new immigrants who hail from different parts of the world where marbles games are still extremely popular.

References:

[Magazines]: American Boy (1922); American City (1922); Life (1937, 1942, 1947, 1950); Playground (1922, 1923).

[Newspapers]: Atlantic City Daily Press; Baltimore Daily Post; Baltimore Sun; Cleveland Press; Columbus Citizen; Harrisburg Evening Telegraph; Ocean City (NJ) Sentinel-Ledger; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin; Pittsburgh Press; St. Louis Star; Scranton Times; Seattle Star; Springfield (MA) Union; Tacoma Times; Washington (DC) Daily News; Wildwood Leader.

[Other]: National Marbles Tournament Committee (Gene Mason, Director); National Marbles Hall of Fame (Wildwood, NJ); Bert Cohen Collection (Boston, MA).

Free-lance author Stan Flewelling has been researching the early story of the US National Marbles Tournament for some 15 years, and plans to do more writing about it. His home is in the Pacific Northwest, which hasn’t sent a single champ to the national tourney since the first one in 1923. Stan welcomes your feedback, and any information you might have about pre-WWII champs, runners-up, and their descendants. He can be reached at "flewelling@juno.com".

THE MARBLE MUSEUM wishes to thank Stan Flewelling for writing this article for use in our web site and the museum. This is the best article that has been written on this subject for many years. Thank You, Stan! The Marble Museum is also interested in hearing from past National Tournament and VFW Tournament participants and in any tournament memorabilia and artifacts that you may wish to donate to this national museum project. The contents of this text has been copyrighted 2000 by Stan Flewelling.

The contents of this Web Site has been copyrighted 2000 by The Marble Museum. The Painting "The Marble Tournament," has been copyrighted 2000 by Merlin McCulley. All rights are reserved!

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