The man behind the window
The 1907 American League champion Detroit Tigers. Not pictured: Philo Robinson. Pictured: A really great baseball dog, front row.
He was there at Recreation Park when the Detroit Wolverines defeated the St. Louis Browns to win the World Series in 1887. He was there, at a new ballpark at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, in 1907, when the Detroit Tigers played one of their best seasons ever and won the American League championship. His face was so familiar that it was printed in the paper on Opening Day in 1905.
He was not a player, a coach, or even a loyal fan. He was Philo Robinson, and he was the chief ticket-taker for the Detroit Tigers for 25 years. The small change he handled in his career, a sportswriter said when he retired, “would make many millionaires.”
The Detroit Free Press, April 19, 1905.
Robinson started his ticket-taking career in 1882 with the Wolverines, Detroit’s first Major League baseball team, then in just its second season. His first game would have been May 15, when the Wolverines hosted Buffalo at Recreation Park and won 8-1 in a biting wind that turned out fans in fur-lined coats and left many seats vacant. The Free Press did not report attendance at the home opener, but the next day, an estimated 1,400 people came out to watch the Wolverines beat the Cleveland Blues. Maybe the weather was better that day.
The paper did not remark upon the ticket-handling of our man behind the window. We must assume it was capable, and that it may have even become something kind of magical, because by the turn of the century Philo Robinson was taking tickets all over town. Philo took tickets for horse races at the Detroit Driving Club, automobile races at the Grosse Pointe race track, shows at the Avenue Theatre.
“They all want Robbie,” the Detroit Free Press wrote in 1903, when it announced that Philo Robinson would be taking tickets for a concert series at Bennett Park, the newsworthiness of this particular ticket-taker getting this whatever job saying a lot about Philo Robinson’s popularity. I can imagine the sporting men planning their race days and exhibition games, barely even needing to say it through the cigar smoke: And for ticket sales, of course, we must have Robbie. We will have NO LESS than ROBBIE!
But speaking of cigars, you should know that Philo Robinson had another job, the success of which compelled him to end his ticket-taking in 1908. That was his cigar shop, where men would buy cigars, hang out, talk baseball, check the scoreboard, and … gamble.
This was not Philo Robinson’s cigar shop, this is just for vibes. Cogan’s Cigar Shop on Michigan Ave. in Detroit around 1880, via the Detroit Public Library.
Philo had a series of cigar shops going back to at least 1895. That’s when he first appeared in the paper not for his ticket-taking renown but because his shop was busted by the cops in a gambling raid. Two years later, a squad arrived at the cigar room of Robinson & Stein, interrupted a game of stud poker and seized “about 1,500 chips, 50 decks of cards, a card press and a cribbage board.” A warrant for Robinson’s arrest as a “handbook man” was issued in 1906. Philo’s son Ralph went into the cigar-shop-and-backroom-gambling business with him, and in 1914 they were arrested together after cops broke up a dice game at their shop. They were released after a “lecture” at the police station. Surely an effective reprimand for these two!
In 1922, police again raided the Robinsons’ shop. A clerk thought it was a stick-up and tossed $426 from the cash register into a trash can, which the police took. Philo Robinson challenged this in court, arguing that he had not been charged with any crime and that the cops had no claim to his cash. A judge agreed, but the city appealed, and the case went to the Michigan Supreme Court. The high court ruled that November that there was “no evidence that the money had been obtained as a result of illegal business” and that Robinson should get his money back.
Justice, in the end, for the famous Philo Robinson, who died the following October, 1923, at the age of 65. One of the most familiar faces of his day, now firmly forgotten.
Links, events & such
I won’t always do a link round-up here because link round-ups often exhaust me whether I am creating or consuming them. There’s so much to read! So much of it just OK! And yet sometimes it is appropriate and delightful to round up links. Here are some things I loved this week:
The Nebiolo Cafe in Melvindale, Mich., prominently advertising frogs’ legs. Via Boston Public Library.
Michigan’s first Mexican history marker: The history of Tejano music in Detroit is fascinating but so is the effort to diversify Michigan’s historical markers, none of which, before Friday, specifically recognized the Mexican-American community in Michigan. It was especially boggling to learn that there are a total of three Mexican people mentioned on two historic markers for essentially the same reason: they were artists who made concrete look like wood. Kim Kozlowski / Detroit News (I was an editor on this story, full disclosure.)
Detroit graffiti history and preservation: I love how this story provide a general survey of local graffiti history and preservation/celebration efforts while also asking questions about graffiti that connect to crime and punishment, blight and remediation, preservation and temporality, sanction and rebellion, the mural festivalization of it all!, graffiti preservation as part of a community benefits agreement!!!, with no easy answers and a lot of different perspectives. Malachi Barrett / Bridge Detroit
Joe Muer restaurant menu circa 1970: Can’t really go wrong with a vintage restaurant menu if you’re looking for somewhere to put your eyeballs. Thanks to the friend who sent this to me for getting me thinking for days about frogs’ legs (on the KIDS’ MENU no less!). Thanks also to Bill Loomis for writing about the local culinary history of frogs’ legs so I do not have to, because I briefly thought I would have to, and I’m relieved I don’t have to. True service journalism.
OMG, Little Toot: A secretive marine historical society launches a tiny boat into Lake Michigan for … reasons? Say less. Graham Kilmer / Urban Milwaukee
The Weather Girls: Not local history, but this is an amazing episode of one of my favorite podcasts, One Year, about how women got into broadcasting via meteorology, then had a bad time of it, then got kicked out of it, an unfortunately familiar tale. (This episode from the 1986 season of One Year, No Crime Day, is in fact local history, and is one of the best podcast episodes I’ve ever heard.)
Events and such: My Elmwood Cemetery tour for Preservation Detroit is sold out. Catch it next year! Or ask me to do one for you, I’d love to. Tickets are essentially infinite, however, for my virtual talk about the Dodge Fountain on Oct. 23 for the Jefferson Branch of the Detroit Public Library.
What’re you reading? I like exchanging emails about nerdy shit.
xoxo,
-aeb