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Jimmy Callahan
Though known today as “Nixey” Callahan, the slim, 5-feet-10, 180-pound, right-handed jack of all trades (Leftfielder, Pitcher and Third Baseman) rarely used that moniker during his big league days. Nixey was a childhood nickname that Jimmy largely left behind when his baseball skills took him from his native Fitchburg, Massachusetts to the pinnacle of the sport — although the local papers continued to use “Nixey” throughout his life. At 14, he entered the local clothing mills. Though a certificate in his scrapbook indicates that Jimmy qualified for high school, it is unclear if he ever attended a secondary institution. For 75 cents a day, he toiled as a “bobbin boy.” It was dusty, dangerous work that might have ruined the lad had he not proved more valuable to his employer on the baseball diamond.
After a brief stint with the Phillies, he became a staple for the Chicago Orphans before jumping to the White Sox with the creation of the American League in 1901. Callahan recalled, "I figured that if anybody had been specially appointed to look after my interests his name was Callahan. I figured that if Callahan didn’t look after my interests there was something wrong with his noodle. So, I told him to get busy. I was getting X dollars with the Cubs. Comiskey offered me X plus Y dollars. I compared the two salaries and found that one would buy more collars and shirts than the other. While never noted as a mathematician in my school studies my mind was able to grasp that salient fact. So, I decided to change my Sox, putting on the more or less white ones that Comiskey furnished, and was duly branded as a rebel, traitor and undesirable citizen by the National League after the accepted manner of baseball tradition.”
In 1906 he began his career as semipro magnate, the sandlot king of Chicago He bought the Logan Squares semipro team and their stadium at the corner of Diversey and Milwaukee in the Logan Square section of Chicago. The club very quickly established itself as one of the finest if not the premier semipro baseball team in the country. By 1911, however, he returned to the White Sox for a final three-year run in the majors. Following his baseball career, Callahan became one of Chicago’s most successful contractors, building the entire waterworks for the Great Lakes Naval Station. - SABR
Redid the facegen for Nixey.
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