He leaned back in his chair and opened the pocket watch up that he had removed from his waistcoat, GM Neil Thomas was just like the owner of the Oilers maybe that’s why Chester Colfax gave him the job, not out of sympathy but out of understanding.
Within the pocket watch was a photograph of Mary and Anna, Mary and Neil had married in 1888 their daughter had arrived 3 years later in the summer of 1891.
Colfax knew what it was like to lose a wife, however it ran deeper than that much deeper for Thomas. Two years after losing his wife Mary to TB in 1895, GM Thomas lost his daughter Anna to polio in eary 1897. Colfax knew what Thomas had gone through as he had lost his wife Eunice to pneumonia.
After his wife had passed his sole purpose in life was his daughter when she passed he felt he had no purpose, so hit the bottle hard. His lowest point came the day he stood outside the pawnbrokers, he’d sold everything bar the pocket watch. He was at the stage nobody would give him money, nobody would give him work. He had nothing nor anybody within his life, he’d come to the realisation that one more drink could be his last in a way it would be a relief as the pain would wash away.
He’d finished work for the day and decided to walk home rather than take the tram.
After he’d left the bottle and cleaned himself up he’d managed to find work as a labourer in a steel mill in Pittsburgh, it was hard work, hot sweaty hard work but it helped keep his mind of the bottle and sweat the booze out of his body.
His walk had taken him past a school were a group of boys were playing baseball.
“Hold the bat nearer the end you’ll get more whip on it, more distance when you connect”.
He shouted out to the hitter.
A lady looked over, he presumed it was a teacher.
“Mr Thomas isn’t it? I haven’t seen you at the shelter for awhile, I was wondering if you were still around”.
Miss Burns was a school teacher by day and helped out at the shelter for the less fortunate in the evenings and weekends, she had got to know Pittsburgh’s new GM when he had hit hard times.
“You mean you weren’t so sure if I was still alive”.
She blushed.
“Don’t worry part of me wondered the same”.
It turned out that Miss Burns had been given the job of coach to the boys baseball team due to the fact her Uncle Daniel had played for the Pittsburgh Oilers in 1895.
(Daniel Burns baseball career wouldn’t ammount to much playing in just 10 games for the Oilers before retiring due to a dislocated shoulder.)
During the summer months GM Thomas never got the tram home, he’d walk and stop off at the school to coach the baseball team, after 4 years in which the school won 3 city championships he would go onto coach at the college level for the winning 1 championship in 2 years before Chester Colfax came calling.
Like Colfax, Thomas had found solace within baseball.