AMERICAN GLADIATOR: The Life And Times Of ... - The Book Locker

AMERICAN GLADIATOR
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Remembrances are all that Browning had at this point, and on June 1, the Courier-Journal followed with this
Detroit newspaper pickup about the golden age of batting.
“I think the golden age of batting, says Jake Beckley, according to the Detroit Free Press, was from 1885 to
1891. Of course, they say there were no batters in those times like (Nap) Lajoie and (Honus) Wagner, but I think
the sluggers of that generation were the genuine article.
“Here’s a point that is always overlooked when it comes to comparing the records—the difference in the
scoring methods.
“In those days, infielders got errors time after time on plays that every scorer now gives as hits. Fifteen years
ago, the scorers were always soaking the fielders and the old idea of scoring an error to anyone who touched a ball
and didn’t get it was in some reporters’ minds till they croaked.
“The hits that (Dan) Brouthers, (Tip) O’Neill and (Pete) Browning made were the real thing. They fairly
smoked as they sped along.”
1905
In late January of Browning’s final season of life, the Courier-Journal reported the death of Riley Hawkins, a
long-time baseball rooter and local character.
About 60, Hawkins—an alcoholic who had been the product of a fine Louisville family—had been found
dead in his cell at the local workhouse.
A month later, the Louisville Herald ran a piece on a new-fangled baseball invention—the batting helmet.
Other interesting baseball items included a July 10 piece about the death of former Louisville pitcher Pete
Dowling, a hardcore alcoholic and mentally unstable individual who had been killed in Oregon by a train; a July
18 piece about the retirement of longtime Chicago President and former Louisville manager James Hart from the
game; a July 30 item about noted nature writer Clarence Hawkes, who regularly attended baseball games despite
being blind; and a voluminous August 15 article about college men in baseball.
Another major sports story was the February 1 death in Asheville, North Carolina of the legendary
bookmaker and gambler, “Pittsburgh Phil” (real name: George Smith).
But all of those paled in comparison to the death of Browning.
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Some people live so long on the edge of life that they seemingly lose all fear of heights. Almost
automatically, by reflex, they come to believe in the transient vagaries of life, relish them in fact, and suffer
nothing in contradiction.
After a time, over the years, it becomes an ingrained habit, a routine, this way of life that can be activated by
such stimuli as alcohol, drugs, and gambling. Feast or famine. Starve in the off-season, feast in the on-season.
They have never known any other way of life, and therefore believe it to be the only way of life with the possible
exception of the rich, whom they obviously know nothing about.
So it was with Pete Browning. But what goes up under these circumstances must always come down. And,
when Pete Browning’s life began to unravel, the decline was rapid, the fall precipitous, the end dark and lonely.
After some years out of the public light, he came back in on stage, and with it, the end of his peaceful
retirement and life. All at once, it seemed, it all caved in on him, burying him. In actuality, it had been building up
for years, and this was the culmination of forces no one could stop.
On June 7, 1905, according to official records, Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning (a.k.a. “The Gladiator”, “Line-
‘em-out Pete”, “The Louisville Slugger”, etc.) was produced in the criminal division of Jefferson County Circuit
Court where he was declared a lunatic and ordered to the insane asylum at nearby Lakeland.
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