Billy Evans - Formative Years

Formative Years

Evans was born in Chicago, Illinois. When he was still a child, he relocated with his family to Youngstown, Ohio, where his Welsh-born father became superintendent at a Carnegie steel plant. In Youngstown, the Evans family joined Westminster Presbyterian Church, where Billy Evans attended Sunday school. As a youth, Evans was active in YMCA programs and participated in a neighborhood baseball club called the Youngstown Spiders, a team named in honor of the regionally popular Cleveland Spiders. He gained notability as an athlete at Youngstown's Rayen School, excelling at baseball, football, and track. In 1902, Evans enrolled at Cornell University, where he played on a freshman team managed by veteran major league shortstop Hughie Jennings. After two years, his law studies and collegiate sports career came to an end, with the sudden death of his father. Evans returned to Ohio and accepted a job as a sports reporter at the Youngstown Daily Vindicator. The paper's city editor, Sam Wright, hired Evans on the basis of writing experience he secured as a staff member of his high school yearbook and college newspaper. At the same time, Wright understood that Evans' varied experiences as an athlete provided him with an in-depth knowledge of sports.

In the early 1900s, while covering a baseball game between the Youngstown Ohio Works club and a team from Homestead, Pennsylvania, Evans was approached by the manager of the local club, ex-major leaguer Marty Hogan, and asked to fill an umpire vacancy. According to Evans's obituary, the aspiring reporter, who was on a date with a young woman, "wasn't interested until Hogan mentioned he would be paid $15 a week for officiating the game", a figure equivalent to a week's salary at his sportswriting job.

Evans' ability caught the attention of Charlie Morton, president of the Ohio-Pennsylvania League, and he was offered a full-time position as a league umpire. Evans accepted the job, on the condition that he could retain his position as a sportswriter. In 1906, he received a spectacular career boost from fellow Youngstowner Jimmy McAleer, an ex-major leaguer who was so impressed with the young man's ability that he recommended Evans to American League president Ban Johnson. This gesture enabled Evans to move from a Class C Division minor league club to the major leagues.