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Squinting into the late afternoon sun, you can barely see it across a grassy field: a long, L-shaped concrete wall, stained dark by time, lost in the shadows. In the 1920s, Homer Lee Fink lived up to his name by launching towering shots over that wall. In the ’30s, Grey Clarke patrolled third base within its boundaries. And in the ’50s, Clarke’s son and his friends avoided paying admission to games by sneaking over it.

The wall is all that remains of Midway Ballpark in Kannapolis, where thousands of fans once cheered on their hometown baseball team, the Towelers. The club was sponsored by nearby Cannon Mills, once the largest producer of towels in the world.

By the 1920s, Cannon Mills was known nationally for its towels and sheets, and locally for its baseball team. Photography courtesy of Cannon Mills, Kannapolis, N.C., Cabarrus County, North Carolina Postcard Collection (P052), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill

The Towelers were just one among dozens of mill-supported teams that blanketed the Piedmont in the first half of the 20th century: There were the Concord Weavers, the Gastonia Spinners, the Valdese Textiles, the Lenoir Finishers, the Mount Holly Yarners, the Chatham Blanketeers, and many more.

At the turn of the 20th century, textile mills represented the vanguard of industrialization in North Carolina’s rural Piedmont. Mill owners enticed workers off their hardscrabble farms by building communities that provided everything they needed. In baseball — then the most popular sport in the country — those textile titans saw an opportunity to provide a wholesome diversion for their employees, an inexpensive escape from the monotony of mill work.

• • •

In the beginning, teams were made up of mill employees. But as rivalries heated up and community pride swelled, mill owners brought in ringers — professional minor league players — to improve their chances of notching a “W” against the competition.

One incident illustrates the escalating arms race that began in the ’20s. With the rivalry between the Towelers and the Concord Weavers fast becoming one of the fiercest in the Textile Leagues, the Weavers’ manager arranged to pay a hurler from Cooleemee $35 to pitch in an important game against Kannapolis. After learning of the plan, wily Toweler fans located the hired ace before the game and paid him $70 not to show up. The Towelers romped that day, 16-1, leaving the Weavers’ manager to wonder what had happened to his ace pitcher — and his $35.

The Kannapolis Towelers’ victory in the 1926 North Carolina Semi-Pro Championship is memorialized in a team photo. Homer Fink (back row, third from left) later signed a contract with a team in New York but didn’t like the travel and returned home. Photography courtesy of Kannapolis History Associates

Homer Lee Fink Sr. Photography courtesy of Crystal O’Guin

Although he was a hometown boy, Homer Lee Fink was never a Cannon Mills employee, so he might very well have been one of those ringers when he played for the Towelers in the mid-’20s. A fleet-footed center fielder and prodigious slugger, “he was a big, strapping guy,” says his granddaughter Crystal Fink O’Guin. Crystal and her husband, Chris, live in China Grove, not far from where her Papaw made a name for himself. Priceless family mementos of Fink’s playing days include a gold watch he received for being the most popular player on his 1924 squad and a $5 gold piece given to him by his manager for his homerun-hitting prowess.

Fink was playing for the Towelers when they won the 1926 North Carolina Semi-Pro Championship. That year, the sports pages of The Charlotte Observer were filled with his dazzling diamond exploits: “Homer Fink’s home run in the fourth inning … was the longest ever seen here … brilliant running catches by Homer Fink, local outfielder, was nothing shy of sensational.” When the Observer named its “Mythical” All-State team that year, he was crowned “King of Sluggers.”

• • •

Fink wasn’t on the Towelers roster in 1927, a year that featured the most legendary contest in mill baseball history. At the conclusion of the season, Concord had defeated Kannapolis 10 times while the Towelers had prevailed in nine contests. A season-ending championship series (one game if the Weavers won, a second game to break the tie if the Towelers won the first) was duly scheduled between the two rivals. In the weeks leading up to the final faceoff, both managers scoured the Southeast for professional “outlaw” players that could give them an edge.

By the time of the first game at Webb Field in Concord, the two rosters had been remade so thoroughly that the 2,000 or so spectators could scarcely recognize their hometown teams. Not that it mattered. A controversial call by the home plate umpire in the first inning led fans to storm the field — just as a real storm hit. The deluge cooled everyone off and forced the cancellation of the whole series. Mill owner Charles Cannon declined to field a team in 1928 to allow both sides to simmer down.

After playing third base for Kannapolis in 1936, Grey Clarke played for Dallas (pictured), hitting .361 to lead the Texas League in 1941. Photography courtesy of Grey Clarke Jr.

But before long, things were back to normal, with teams boldly hiring outlaw players whenever the occasion required. When an infielder for Kannapolis broke his leg sliding into third in 1936, the team manager sought a replacement. He soon found his man: Grey Clarke, who was then playing for the Asheville Tourists, a professional minor league team.

“His nickname was ‘Noisy,’” says his son Richard Grey Clarke Jr., “because he never talked.” One year, after presenting Clarke with a batting title trophy, the owner of a team invited him back onto the field to say a few words. Clarke spoke what could be considered a sermon by his standards: “Thank you,” he said, before handing the microphone back.

Clarke’s arrangement with the Towelers was a familiar one to many players. According to Clarke Jr., Cannon Mills gave his dad a job but told him: “We’ll pay you, but we just want you to play baseball.”

As a Toweler, “Noisy” Clarke let his bat and glove do the talking. He excelled in Kannapolis — and everywhere else he played, including the Chicago White Sox. But he eventually moved back to North Carolina and took a real job at Cannon Mills, where he worked for 35 years.

• • •

Mill baseball evolved through the 1930s, culminating in the formation of the Carolina League — a power play by mill owners and town leaders to create their own independent, fully professional teams to vanquish the minor league teams from which they’d been poaching players for years. This “outlaw” league survived three years before the farm clubs of the major leagues prevailed.

Over time, amateur American Legion teams (many also sponsored by mill owners) supplanted the mill teams, but a lot of the player names remained the same. The sons of Homer Fink and Grey Clarke inherited their dads’ names and their baseball talent as well. Homer Lee Fink Jr. picked up where his dad left off, playing on a Kannapolis American Legion team that won back-to-back state championships in 1946 and 1947. “My dad could really hit the ball,” Crystal says. “He was like Boog Powell.”

Grey Clarke Jr. did likewise, playing for an American Legion team that won another state championship for Kannapolis in 1961. A pitcher, Clarke Jr. sported a dazzling 11-2 record on the diamond. But he’ll be the first to tell you that he wasn’t a hitter like his dad. “I can’t hit anything,” he says with a laugh. “If there were men on base, I usually tried to bunt.”

Though the Textile League teams are now as much a memory as the mills that once supported them, their legacy lives on in the enduring popularity of baseball across the state. Today, North Carolina boasts nine minor league baseball teams — more than any other state in the U.S. except for Florida and California.

In Kannapolis, the thread that connects yesterday’s mill teams with today’s baseball fans runs as straight and true as the chalked lines between home plate and the foul poles. Crystal carried on the Fink family baseball legacy in a brief career playing on a middle-school softball team coached by her famous father. “I played third base, same as my dad,” she says proudly.

She and Chris did their best to pass on their love for baseball to their three children. “We tried to make baseball players out of them, but both of our sons played football,” Chris says. Still, he remains optimistic: “We’re the keepers of the flame. We have two grandsons who are still little, and we hope one of them gets interested in baseball.”

So if you happen to settle into your seat at Atrium Health Ballpark say, oh, sometime around 2040, don’t be surprised if you see a Cannon Baller with the name O-G-U-I-N stitched on the back of his uniform. It will be one more reminder of a time when the game of baseball could knit together entire communities.

The Atrium Health Ballpark in Kannapolis is the crown jewel of an extensive downtown renovation project. photograph by Jerry Wolford & Scott Muthersbaugh

A Ballpark for All

Matt Millward, general manager of Kannapolis’s minor league team, shows off photographs and memorabilia on the walls outside the suites at Atrium Health Ballpark. “There are still a lot of connections here to mill history,” he says, pointing out championship Toweler teams, Midway Ballpark, and the Cannon Mills sign that dominated the Kannapolis skyline for 50 years. But the most obvious connection is right there in the team’s name: the Cannon Ballers.

The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers’ mascot, Boomer, resembles native son Dale Earnhardt. The late NASCAR legend’s nickname, “The Intimidator,” inspired the team’s previous name. photograph by Jerry Wolford & Scott Muthersbaugh

In 2020, Atrium Health Ballpark opened as the centerpiece of a $100 million downtown revitalization project. Ever since, fans have flocked to the field, not just for games but also for exercise and recreation. When the Cannon Ballers aren’t playing, the ballpark offers picnic tables, a walking track, and a “Kids Zone” with a splash pad. You can even just sit in the stands and daydream about making a game-winning catch in deep center field.

“What makes it amazing is that we truly have something for everyone,” Millward says. Not to mention a winning ball club and a passionate fan base. “When we made the playoffs this year, it was the first week of the NFL season, but 4,300 fans showed up.”

1 Cannon Baller Way
Kannapolis, NC 28081
(704) 932-3267
milb.com/kannapolis

Uncovering forgotten artifacts and delving into dusty archives to explore the little-known stories of our state. Got an idea for an upcoming column? Email us at editorial@ourstate.com.