It isn’t often that a sports franchise relocates to a city based on the potential drawing power of having a star player from that city on the roster, but that was a major factor in the creation of the Trenton Senators.
By the mid-1930s Trenton, New Jersey had long been a baseball hotbed. Numerous successful amateur and industrial league teams played there, including the American Legion powerhouse, the Schroths. Atop the city’s baseball heap was the semi-pro Trenton Case Packers, sponsored by the pork packing plant founded by George Washington Case. The Case Packers honed their skills against not only other semi-pro clubs but also some of the better Negro League teams of the time, the New York Black Yankees, Newark Eagles and Zulu Colored Giants.
Enter Joe Cambria. The Italian-born Baltimore laundryman and former semi-pro player got back into baseball by purchasing the Hagerstown club in the Blue Ridge League in 1929. Cambria eventually moved that franchise to Youngstown, Ohio and, in 1932 reached a working agreement with Clark Griffith to make Youngstown a Washington Nationals farm team. Cambria expanded his minor league holdings over the next three years, buying the Class AA International League’s Albany Senators in 1933 and the Harrisburg Senators of the Class A New York-Pennsylvania League in 1935. Although he supplied other major league teams with Albany and Harrisburg talent, Cambria effectively made those franchises Washington farm clubs as well.
The Harrisburg club was set to open its 1936 campaign when heavy flooding in March sent much of their home park washing down the Susquehanna River. With repair of the stadium in time for opening day an impossibility, Cambria hurriedly arranged to move the franchise to nearby York. There the team, renamed the White Roses, struggled in the field and at the gate, languishing in the New York-Penn basement and drawing double-digit crowds at home. The cash-strapped Cambria sought to move his franchise yet again to a city that could support it and generate more revenue. Luckily for Cambria, one of the White Roses’ recent signees had star power and strong connections.
Twenty-year old pitcher/outfielder George Washington Case, Jr., coming off a tryout with the Philadelphia Athletics, had been recommended by Connie Mack to Clark Griffith, whose Washington outfield was lacking in depth compared to Mack’s. Trenton native Case, Junior was the half-brother of Clifford Case, who had taken over the pork packing business and backed the semi-pro Packers. Clifford Case and a committee of Trenton business leaders soon met with city officials and Joe Cambria and on June 30, 1936, Cambria signed a one-year lease from the Trenton Cathedral Parish on Dunn Field, a soccer facility, to be converted to baseball use. The announcement came the next day, July 1, that the York White Roses would become the Trenton Senators and play the second half of the season in the New Jersey state capital.
The newly minted Senators featured a pair of Garden State stars in addition to George Case. Catcher Alex Sabo, a New Brunswick native, had been one of the “Seven Blocks of Granite” on the Fordham University offensive line as well as a baseball star at the Bronx school. Outfielder Johnny Welaj, from nearby Manville, led the White Roses in batting and RBI while showing flashes of speed on the basepaths. The presence of the three New Jerseyans did little to help the Senators’ on-field fortunes, however. Sabo played well enough to earn a callup to Washington to replace the injured Cliff Bolton but Cambria struggled to find a replacement. Mike Guerra, one of the first of many Cuban players signed by Cambria, became the starter and was backed up by Chick Starr, who had been demoted from Washington and begrudgingly assigned from Albany. Even the infamous Ed “Alabama” Pitts, formerly of Sing Sing Prison, was of little help, failing to hit Class A pitching and earning an outright release.
The team endured several long losing streaks of eight (twice), nine and twelve games and lost 19 of its last 21 to finish the second half in last place at a dismal 16-54, 28 games off the pace. Cambria fired manager Walter Smallwood at season’s end and replaced him with minor league veteran pitcher/manager Bud Shaney for the 1937 season. In addition to the managing shakeup, Cambria made several moves designed to improve Trenton’s fortunes. He sold the Albany franchise to the New York Giants, bought the Class D Salisbury (MD) Indians to serve as a feeder, and developed a working relationship with Joe Engel and the Chattanooga Lookouts to exchange talent. Only nine of the 1936 Senators returned for 1937, including Case, Sabo and Welaj and late-season pickup Joe Krakauskas, a lefty pitcher from Brockville, Ontario of the Class C Can-Am League.
Although Krakauskas soon emerged as the team’s star pitcher (and would go on to win the NY-P strikeout title), he had little help from the rest of the staff including player/manager Shaney. The team fell quickly to the league cellar and even after playing .500 ball after Memorial Day, languished in the second division. Cambria responded by firing Shaney and replacing him with Spencer Abbott, a veteran minor league skipper who had long managed the Pacific Coast League’s Seattle Indians (later Rainiers). Abbott helped turn the Senators’ fortunes around briefly but the team chemistry suffered from constant shuffling of talent between Trenton, Salisbury and Greenville (SC), another of Cambria’s holdings, and the selling of prospects for cash. One deal that did not go through was one offered by the rival Scranton Miners: Scranton offered a trio of veterans to Trenton for George Case, who Scranton would in turn ship to their parent club, the Boston Bees. Cambria nixed the deal, having already earmarked the speedy outfielder for Clark Griffith. On September 8 Case, who finished in a three-way tie for the NY-P batting crown with a .338 average, would make his major league debut with the Nats at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.
After finishing the 1937 season in a sixth-place tie, the Senators had a strong start to the 1938 Eastern League campaign (the Sens did not change leagues; the league changed names as more than one team was now located outside New York and Pennsylvania). Johnny Welaj batted a blistering .426 and another of Cambria’s Cubans, pitcher Rene Monteagudo, was hurling his way to a 19-9 record. Holding a solid third place in mid-July, the team then nosedived, finishing the month 3-15 and dropping to fifth. Player fatigue was the main reason for the swoon: Joe Cambria had scheduled four consecutive home doubleheaders from July 27-30 in an effort to boost attendance. Trenton went 1-7 in those games.
Further losses on the field were met with losses at the gate, and Cambria moved two home series to Albany (which had rejoined the league as a Cincinnati Reds farm club) and Hartford (the former Scranton franchise). Trenton stayed in playoff contention until late in the season; when finally eliminated from the hunt, the Senators deflated and finished seventh. While the 62-77 record was the club’s best since relocating from York, the fans had grown tired of Joe Cambria’s revolving clubhouse door and had begun to stay away from Dunn Field in droves. Trenton’s Eastern League opponents had begun to complain of diminishing shares of gate receipts and Cambria made noises that he was becoming less able to cover his team’s expenses.
Finally, during a winter of local discontent, Joe Cambria announced in February 1939 that he would relocate the franchise to Springfield, Massachusetts for the upcoming season. The former Trenton Senators would remain in the Eastern League and would be rechristened as the Springfield Nationals. Meanwhile, Clifford Case led a group of businessmen to form the Class C Interstate League, which would include a new franchise in Trenton. While the new Trenton team would retain the Senators nickname and hire a famous ex-Washington star – Salem, New Jersey native Goose Goslin – as its manager, it was no longer a Washington farm club but an independent. The new Trenton Senators would undergo several name changes (to Packers, Spartans and Giants) and several affiliations (Phillies, Dodgers, Giants) before moving to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, in 1951. In their final season in Trenton in 1950, the Giants would be led by Willie Mays, in his first minor league stop after leaving the Birmingham Black Barons.
Trenton would remain without professional baseball until 1994, when the London Tigers would relocate there and become the Trenton Thunder. The Thunder, having enjoyed a successful quarter century in the New Jersey capital, announced earlier this year that they would be rebranding themselves as the Trenton Pork Roll for Friday home games during the 2018 season. Perhaps this is a nod not only to the famed breakfast meat but also to Trenton’s minor league history as well.
Trenton players promoted to Washington
George Case
Ken Chase
Fermin (Mike) Guerra
Joe Krakauskas
Ed Leip
Mickey Livingston
Bobby Loane
Rene Monteagudo
Alex Sabo
Johnny Welaj
Former Washington players assigned to Trenton
Joe Bokina
Herb Crompton
Sammy Holbrook
Harry Kelley (would return to Washington 1938-39)
Johnny (Red) Marion (would return to Washington 1943)
Orlin (Buck) Rogers
Bill (Chick) Starr
