From Prison to Pother

In the winter of 1930, Manhattan police arrested four young men for stealing $59 from an Amsterdam Avenue grocery store. Three of them received short jail terms The fourth, one Edwin Collins Pitts of Opelika, Ala., had carried a gun. For his first robbery he was sentenced to from eight to 16 years in Sing Sing. Convict Pitts, as "Alabama" Pitts, became a star player on the prison's baseball and football teams. News stories about Sing Sing's games against local teams of semi" professionals, firemen and police made him a U. S. sports celebrity. Last week his term shortened by behavior so exemplary that he had become, besides its most famed athlete, the keeper of the prison's zoo and a trusty who had the run of warden Lewis E. Lawes' household, Edwin Collins Pitts emerged from Sing Sing into the centre of a minor national controversy.

If Society was ever sincere in its boasted readiness to rehabilitate a young criminal who wanted to go straight Alabama Pitts certainly seemed in line for such social rehabilitation. His offense had been relatively trivial. He had paid for it by five years in prison. He was now eager to make a fresh start. To that end therefore, he accepted the offer of a $200-per-month job with the Albany Senators, International League baseball team, of which famed Johnny Evers* is general manager. But even before Alabama Pitts left Sing Sing, President William G. Bramham of the National Association of Minor Professional Baseball Leagues telegraphed Manager Evers that he forbade the deal "for the good of professional baseball." Said Warden Lawes: "It is difficult to understand Judge Bramham's ruling. If a man is able to do any legitimate work well, he should be allowed to do it, not discouraged."

Said Johnny Evers: "Alabama won't have to worry about a job. If they won't let him play, we'll find some other job."

Answering a telegram from Warden Lawes, Judge Bramham amplified his decision: "It is not a question of the individual, but his case presents a question: 'Shall the ranks of organized baseball be open to ex-convicts?'. . . If my judgment is erroneous, I am glad the executive committee and the commissioner have the power to reverse me."

At Sing Sing, Ex-Convict Pitts emerged from prison at 8 o'clock, kissed his mother, who said over the radio she hoped he would get "a fair chance," breakfasted with Warden Lawes and a group of reporters. In Syracuse, where he joined the Albany Senators pending an executive committee hearing to decide whether he could play, a crowd of 300 met Baseballer Pitts at the station. He reached his hotel with a motorcycle police escort. Four days later the executive committee upheld Judge Bramham's ruling. Albany executives planned to refer the case to baseball's Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Said Alabama Pitts: "You know it's funny, all this fuss being made about me, when they don't really know whether I can play ball."

*Onetime second-baseman for the Chicago Cubs (1902-13), member of the double-play combination of "Tinker to Evers to Chance."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.