Bushong, Kansas

[mikesglove]

Doc Bushong was one of the premier catchers of the 19th century. He is credited with the invention of a padded pillow type catchers mitt about the same time as Joe Gunson experimented with his own catchers mitt design. There was even a town in Kansas named after him.


As did many Kansas towns, Bushong came into being during the 1880s as the railroad developed in the newly opened Kansas Territory. The Missouri Pacific railroad, needing a depot in the area, constructed one in an empty pasture. A town followed naturally beside the tracks. Originally the town was called "Weeks" but the name was changed by railroad crewmen to Bushong, in honor of a baseball player famous at the time, Al "Doc" Bushong. The town, at its prime, was home to over 150 residents, but at present is under 60.


The town as it is today.


Here's a link to an intrepid photographers recent exploration of the town. It is pretty interesting. It is all about abandoned buildings and Atlas missile silos. I can see Rob exploring some of these artifacts. http://traversingtravy.wordpress.com/tag/bushong/

[mikesglove]

Doc Bushong resisted using gloves at all behind the plate and even took to wearing his chest protector under his uniform. By 1882, Bushong was a practicing dentist in addition to a professional ballplayer. He eventually saw the wisdom of using gloves to protect his hands so he could continue his dental career after baseball. Bushong had a habit of catching RH pitchers with his left hand and LH pitchers with his right. He needed to keep his right hand injury free to pursue his dentistry so he eventually caught only RH pitchers by the late 1880's. At that time he also jury rigged his catching glove with layers of sponge padding, twine and buckskin till it was more of the pillow shape we associate with modern catchers mitts. Bushong did this so he could catch one handed and was one of the first 19th century catcher's to do so. He unfortunately lost this mitt about 1889 so there doesn't seem to be any photos of it, just newspaper descriptions.

[mikesglove]