Baseball Teams
Purnell was a sports enthusiast and encouraged the members of the Israelite Community to play sports, especially baseball, to build physical and spiritual discipline.
In 1913, the Israelite House of David began to play competitive baseball and by 1915, they were following a grueling schedule. The House became famous as a barnstorming baseball team which toured rural America from the 1920s through the 1950s, playing amateur and semi-pro teams in exhibition games. They were motivated by the need to make money for their families and colony back home and by the opportunity to share their beliefs. The team members wore long hair and beards as they played.
By the late 1920s, needing more skilled players, the House began hiring professionals, the most notable being Grover Cleveland Alexander, Satchel Paige, and Mordecai Brown. Some professional players grew their beards out to show respect towards the God of Israel, while others wore false beards. They were known for their skill and played against some of the greatest teams in the country. The House of David played against Major League, Minor League, independent and Negro League teams, with all the same spirit of competition and fair play. At one point, the community had three separate barnstorming teams touring the country, playing and evangelizing wherever they went.
The House of David continued to sponsor barnstorming teams well into the 1930s and then sponsored weekend semi-professional teams until the 1940s. Mary's City of David sent out barnstorming teams from 1930 until 1940 and then again from 1946 until 1955. Throughout this period, there were numerous teams which bore the House of David name and wore beards. The most famous was probably the Black House of David, an all African-American barnstorming team that played solely within the Negro Leagues.
The House of David was the inspiration behind the James Sturm graphic novel, The Golem's Mighty Swing (in which the team was called the "Stars of David").
A vintage baseball club (the House of David Echoes BBC) has been honoring the legacy of the House of David teams since 2001, playing vintage baseball under the 1858 rules while growing their beards and playing at historic Eastman Field near Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Read more about this topic: House Of David (commune)
Famous quotes containing the words baseball and/or teams:
“I don’t like comparisons with football. Baseball is an entirely different game. You can watch a tight, well-played football game, but it isn’t exciting if half the stadium is empty. The violence on the field must bounce off a lot of people. But you can go to a ball park on a quiet Tuesday afternoon with only a few thousand people in the place and thoroughly enjoy a one-sided game. Baseball has an aesthetic, intellectual appeal found in no other team sport.”
—Bowie Kuhn (b. 1926)
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)