Regina Leader Post,
May 1, 1914
Regina Team Photo
Luther Smith
Played under the name Brown
Born: 1891 (April 21?)
Died: August 27, 1968
Goto Baseball Reference for Luther Smith 		3b-p Majors:
No
St. Louis
Position: 3b-p
First game: May 18, 1913
Last game: May 22, 1913
# of games: 3		 Subsequently played for Pittsburgh in 1913.

SABR bio for Luther Smith.


As the Terriers first road trip wound down in Indianapolis, Charlie Stis got sick in Indianapolis. Manager O'Connor tried a player identified as Brown at shortstop on May 18 and May 20. After Stis returned, he was the starting pitcher for the final game of the road trip (and his final game with St. Louis) on May 22. The Indianapolis News wrote the day after his first appearnace with St. Louis "Shortstop Brown is a full-blooded Indian, who arrived yesterday from the coast. He made a favorable impression on his initial appearance" (May 19, 1913: 10). A few days later, after Brown appeared as the starting pitcher against Indianapolis, the same paper wrote "O'Connor made it easy for the local Feds yesterday when he improvised a pitcher out of his redskin infielder, whose diamond non de plume is Brown." (Indianapolis News, May 23, 1913: 20.)

Just about a week after Brown's last game with St. Louis, the Pittsburgh Federal League club tried out L. Brown, "an Indian" at third base in a double header in St. Louis (Pittsburgh Daily Post, May 29, 1913: 15). He was injured in the second game, as a few days later the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that he had been sent home to Louisville to rest (May 31, 1913: 12). He returned to Pittsburgh for a few games in June. L. Brown was the alias for Luther (Casey) Smith.

Luther Smith was a Native American from California who received a brief tryout with the Cubs in the spring of 1912, where Frank Chance gave him the nickname "Casey". The Cubs sent him to Louisville, and Louisville sent him to Columbia (SC), where he played shortstop, third base, and pitched. In 1913, the Columbia club was transferred to Charleston. Three of the players reserved by Columbia/Charleston for 1913 were James Barton, Leo Witter (Witterstaetter) and Jack Ridgway. Jimmy Barton was an infielder for the Terriers, first at second base, and then at short after Charlie Stis got hurt. Leo Witter and Jack Ridgway both jumped from Charelston to the Federal League in May where they played for the St. Louis Terriers under the names Leo Jones and Jack Mullin, respectively. Casey Smith jumped to the Federal League at the same time, ending up in Pittsburgh (Columbia Record, September 19, 1913). Per his SABR bio, he played 25 games in Charleston before quitting the club. He played for a team in Louisville later in the summer, after he was done in Pittsburgh.

In 1914, Smith signed with Regina (Saskatchewan, Canada), where the papers noted he was one of four ex-Federal League players on the club. The manager at Regina was Charlie Stis, whom Brown filled in for at shortstop for two games while the latter was sick. Outfielder Joe Zoeller, also with Regina in 1914, was a St. Louis native who played a few games with the Terriers at the start of the 1913 season.

It seems entirely plausible, then, that Casey Smith also used the non de plume Brown by during a brief stint with St. Louis after leaving Charleston with Witter and Ridgeway. When he didn't impress O'Connor, he was turned over to Pittsburgh. Smith's Sporting News Player Contract Card indicates he was with the St. Louis Federals in 1913.

At one point, Brown was identified in Baseball-Reference as James Brown, an outfielder from Pittsburgh who played the previous season with Pittsburgh in the United States League, followed by a stint with Youngstown. Jimmy Brown started the season with Indianapolis, playing in a few games before being released. As Jimmy Brown was neither Native American, nor would he have arrived from the coast (His last game with Indianapolis was May 13, 1913), 'Brown' for St. Louis was not Jimmy Brown.