The 2024 season in the North American Major League Baseball (MLB) has come to an end. The Los Angeles Dodgers and the most titled team, the New York Yankees (27 championships), fought for the championship title for the 12th time in history. True, the last time the giants won the World Series (as the final round of MLB is called) was in 2009 – and this year the Yankees also lost (1-4 in the series). Another team from New York, the Mets, stopped at the semifinal stage. This season, 31-year-old Brandon Nimmo was especially useful in her lineup, who showed record personal statistics. The veteran player hails from Wyoming, a state that has never had an MLB club. But the region made its mark on baseball history thanks to the local Wyoming Penitentiary All-Star team, which was featured in all American newspapers in 1911.
With good intentions
In a photo of the WSP team taken early in the 1911 season, 10 players sit and stand wearing standard baseball paraphernalia: bats, catchers, branded caps and uniforms. There was even a boy mascot in the middle: at the beginning of the 20th century. Sports team mascots were often real people. But the abbreviation on the form stands for unusually – Wyoming State Prison (Wyoming State Prison), and the picture shows thieves, murderers and rapists. They entered the field not for a salary, but for the opportunity to reduce their prison term or even extend their lives.
Baseball began to actively develop in the USA in the second half of the 19th century, at the same time the first national leagues and professional teams appeared, where baseball players were paid for playing – and this demonstrated the demand for the sport among spectators. Baseball was even called “the national religion of America,” and during the 1910 season, more than 6 million tickets were sold for Major League games. The amateur format was also popular. Almost every businessman sought to assemble a team of employees of his company so that they could relax after work, and at the same time measure their strength with competing enterprises.
Sheriff Felix Alston, appointed warden of the Wyoming prison in 1911, was also a baseball fan and created his own team as part of the liberal reform program at the institution. Those who were interested in baseball or were distinguished by athletic ability were selected for the composition. The previous prison manager, the owner of the broom and brush company Otto Gramm, had other interests – he used prison labor almost free of charge and earned $250,000 during eight years of management.
Alston decided to introduce the practice of physical exercise. He believed that creating a baseball team would improve morale in prison, but he did not imagine that the idea would be so successful that the inmates would begin to hate the “new stars.”
Profitable business
The WSP team was coached and captained by George Saban, who was sentenced to 25 years for the cold-blooded murder of three cattlemen during a turf war between sheep and cattle ranchers in Wyoming. At that time, the region still respected the justice of the Wild West, which justified the murder of a person who encroached on someone else’s land, so many, including Sheriff Alston, sympathized with Saban. He was respected in prison: he was even allowed to leave under the supervision of a guard. During his “outings,” Alston visited bars and convinced men to bet on his prison team’s matches. If he wins, Saban receives a 20% commission. The warden and the governor also made money from the games.
The first opponent of the prison team was one of the best amateur teams in the state, Juniors, the owner of the construction and plumbing company Wyoming Supply, which had a contract with the prison. In the match, which took place on a sunny July day on the prison grounds, the prisoners left no chance for their opponents, winning with a score of 11:1. The event made it into newspapers across the country. The Washington Post headlined the news story: “Killer Hit Home Runs: Death Row Man Helps Prisoners Win First Game.” It was about 31-year-old Joseph Seng, who, according to legend, in a fit of jealousy shot his lover’s husband and received the nickname “Ruthless Kid.” The official version is that Seng shot his boss for firing him from his job as a security guard.
In prison, Seng helped newcomers adapt, and once provided first aid to poisoned prisoners. For this act, the prison chaplain and part-time doctor asked the Governor of Wyoming for Seng’s pardon, but on the day of the prison team’s first victory, he received only a reprieve of the death penalty – while the appeal was considered.
Rumors about preferences for players spread among prisoners – and baseball players began to receive threats. And there was even an attempt on Seng’s life: a heavy box of sand was pushed on him, which only by chance did not hit him. At the same time, Captain Saban, who was in close contact with the prison management, on the contrary, demanded that his teammates train better, threatening to increase their sentences in case of defeats. “Mistakes on the field are unacceptable,” Seng recounted Saban’s words in one of his letters to loved ones. “He told us that prisoners whose mistakes would affect the outcome of the match would be given extra time. Victory will lead to his reduction and postponement of execution.”
In the second and third matches, the prison team again beat the Juniors. Newspapers fueled public interest in unusual baseball players. This made the prison warden think about holding the game “outside” for the first time, in front of ordinary spectators, who, of course, had to pay for such a spectacle. In late August, under heavy security, Wyoming prison baseball players took to the Juniors field in front of packed stands. A couple of days before the match, Seng once again received a reprieve from hanging, which, of course, was facilitated by Alston: he could not lose the team’s main star before the first public match.
If the prisoners won the first three games with a large advantage, then the match outside turned out to be more interesting in content, but still ended in a victory for the criminals over the amateurs.
On the last journey
While the prison team was gaining popularity, rumors that the WSP captain and the prison warden were taking bets on matches reached the former head of the correctional facility, Gramm, who wanted free labor back for his business. Having secured the support of the ex-governor of Wyoming, who also dreamed of returning to his post, Gramm spoke about the illegal bets to the press, which forced the current head of the region to put pressure on Alston and disband the baseball team, despite the interest of the media and spectators in the project. A month later, the prison governor announced the end of the sports experiment in favor of a new educational program.
Joseph Seng fully hoped that the death sentence would be commuted to life, especially since the then-governor pardoned 63 people and commuted the sentences of 96 during his tenure in office. But the star player did not get the chance, becoming the first to be hanged in the Wyoming prison since its founding in 1901. .
Reporters wrote that Seng walked to the gallows proudly and without fear. Baseball extended his life by a whole year and made him a star, whose execution attracted journalists from all over the country. Nine months after the last match, Seng was hanged.
