From baseball season to rabbit season

Imagine you've been put in charge of hosting two celebrities who are visiting for the day. Where would you take them?

Wayne Berry, president of the Cape Girardeau Capahas baseball club, was faced with that question in November 1920. His guests were Branch Rickey, manager for the St. Louis Cardinals, and Ferdie Schupp, a starting pitcher for the Cardinals.

The answer? Take them rabbit hunting.

After the guests arrived on the noon Frisco train, Berry wasted no time in taking them, as the Southeast Missourian put it, "out in the jungles of Cape Girardeau township, after rabbits."

The newspaper story added, "Berry took them over ditches and through barbed-wire fences, being determined to have meat for that 6 o'clock dinner at which the St. Louis men are to be honor guests."

After two hours, the trio had bagged 11 rabbits. Schupp was the most successful, which led Berry to note that if he "has as good an aim next season, he ought to do a lot toward putting the team up in the National League race."

That evening the guests were honored at a Rotary Club banquet. Rickey then gave a motivational talk at Central High School. He delivered "kindly advice and chummy counsel" geared toward the boys in the audience.

During the following day, Rickey and Schupp went on another hunting expedition, this time to hunt quail in Scott County. They were escorted by Robert Nunn, "Doc" Willis and Dale Reed.

Baseball fans tried to convince Rickey to make another appearance in Cape, but he had to quickly return to St. Louis after receiving word that his daughter needed an operation. He did make at least one more appearance here at a Republican Party rally in 1936.

Rickey, as the Cardinals general manager, would develop the concept of a farm system, creating a talent machine that led to St. Louis winning the World Series six times between 1926 and 1946. He then joined the Brooklyn Dodgers where he famously helped break baseball's color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson. Rickey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.

Schupp had an impressive career as well. In 1916, playing for the New York Giants, he compiled an ERA of 0.90, a record that still stands today among qualifying major-league pitchers. The key word is "qualifying" since he only pitched 140 innings that season, but that was enough to qualify under the rules at the time.

Schupp was traded to the Cardinals in 1918, but he struggled with injuries and wildness. Always the master of player development, Rickey devised a system of poles and strings so that Schupp could better visualize the strike zone while practicing.

After the 1919 season, Schupp and other barnstorming major-leaguers were slated to play for the Perryville Red Sox in a rivalry game against the Capahas at Cape Girardeau. The Caps planned to counter with local pitching star Elam Vangilder. After much trash talking, the game was sadly rained out and never rescheduled.