Bobby Lowe - Amateur and Minor League Baseball

Amateur and Minor League Baseball

In 1881, Lowe was working as an "office devil" at the Newcastle Courant, a newspaper in New Castle, Pennsylvania. In the summer of 1881, at age 16, he played in a baseball game between the printers and the doctors of New Castle. Charley Powers, who played minor league baseball, was working as a compositor at the Courant and was selected as the captain of the printers. Lowe pleaded for a place on the team, and Powers stationed him in right field. He later recalled that "the kid carried off the honors both in the field and at the bat. I saw at once that he was a born ballplayer."

In 1882, Lowe played with the Archie Reeds, an amateur baseball club in New Castle. He left his job with the Courant in 1883 and, at age 18, took a job as a machinist at Witherow & Co., the largest manufacturing establishment in New Castle. He was the sole support at the time for his mother and youngest sister, Olive, and gave up baseball for several years. Some accounts indicate he also played for Witherow's plant baseball team and for the Neshannocks of New Castle.

In 1886, Charley Powers organized a baseball club in New Castle and persuaded Lowe's employer to allow him to play with the club occasionally. He played catcher and third base for New Castle in 1886 and led the team in batting and baserunning.

Powers and Lowe both signed to play with the Eau Claire, Wisconsin team in the Northwestern League during the summer of 1887. Powers later recalled that the manager of the Eau Claire club, Abe Devine, ran a saloon and refused to use Lowe because he refused to patronize his saloon. Devine sent him back to New Castle, declaring, "That boy can't play ball," but brought him back to Eau Claire after the team's starting third baseman, Charlie Levis, was injured. Lowe was put into the lineup in a game against Milwaukee and drew cheers from the crowd for his defensive play at third base. In his first at bat, he hit a long home run off Varney Anderson that "sailed far over the center field fence." He appeared in 108 games for Eau Claire in 1887, batting .294 with 47 extra base hits, 61 stolen bases, 100 runs scored and 240 total bases. He also demonstrated his versatility in the field, playing 51 games in left field, 21 games at shortstop, 17 games in right field, 11 games at third base, 6 games as catcher and 5 games in center field.

During the 1888 and 1889 baseball season, Lowe played for the Milwaukee Brewers of the Western Association. He hit .246 in 114 games in 1888, and hit .315 in 99 games in 1889.