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Sunday, March 3, 2019

Plumber John A Quinn, Backbone of the Frankford Yellow Jackets Organization, Dead at 54 - Inquirer 28 Jan 1930






A lot of the background noise about the quick decline of the Frankford Yellow Jackets had to do with the Depression, especially starting in the 1930 season, firing the veterans and hiring the cheap players out of college. A losing season. That and a few stadium fires at their stadium on present Harbison Ave.  

It is possible that the death of John A. Quinn, a pillar of Frankford financial and sport circles can be a metaphor of the Depression cause for decline of the Yellow Jackets. His obit says that he was sick for ten weeks before passing away. On a timeline, that could be from a week or two out from the stock market crash for the decline in markets, for the number crunching and realizations to sink in, local markets like Real Estate especially, in which he was heavily involved as a factor in his illness(?).

As such the story of the Yellow Jackets would not have been much different than actual history. But it is possible that John A. Quinn was sheltered from the full effects of the crash and he was the backbone as a director of the Athletic organization that was the Yellow Jackets, that history would have been kinder to the Jackets and history revised had he lived a bit longer. 

I have tried to figure out where "Brown's Field" was exactly on a map, described vaguely as on Oxford Pike and above Frankford High School, and or below the Boulevard in newspapers. I have also seen a modern reference to Brown's Field being on Pratt Street. I have seen a glimpse of the "stadium" in a grainy newspaper photo which looks like 5-6 rows of wooden bleachers, much like Cambria Stadium on Kensington at Erie/Torresdale Aves.in the 1930s/40s. Brown's Field's capacity is 15,000 to 20,000 as described in record attendance in some newspapers. The question to me is whether Brown's Field was east or west of Oxford Pike in those vague newspaper descriptions. 

But considering how John A. Quinn was into many Frankford building and loan associations, his house at 1143 Dyre Street is not on the 1920 23rd Ward map. As such I am guessing that his modest home was built on the corner of Dyre at Horrocks. And it, the house was a likely candidate to have been built on the large lot(s) that was "Brown's Field" and on the west side of Oxford and from Dyre to Pratt before the Yellow Jackets home field moved in 1923.
 


1920 map 23rd Ward, Plate 9 


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