LEWISTON, Maine -- The first call was to Cooperstown.
 
When Deb McCleery, granddaughter of Harry Lord, Class of 1908, later captain of the Boston Red Sox, wanted to clean her basement of old boxes, she contacted the Baseball Hall of Fame.
 
But when Bates, which had previously published original research on Lord, reached out, she agreed to, at least, listen. At June 2024 reunion, Bates hosted Deb and her husband Jack, and made a pitch for a different landing spot for Lord's memorabilia. They toured the Muskie Archives, viewed renderings of the new Stoddard Fitness and Well-Being Center, and wheeled around campus in a golf cart. In the end, the memorabilia had found a new home.
 
"I wanted it to go where it was appreciated," McCleery said. "Bates was interested, cared, and wanted it. It's fitting because Harry was a local Maine person."  
 
Born in Kezar Falls, Lord attended Bridgton Academy, before attending Bates in 1904. He lived in Parker Hall Room 18, down the hall from Bob Messenger in Room 21, who later played with Lord on the Chicago White Sox. Both played football and (some) baseball at Bates.
 
But Lord rocketed to stardom. Captain of the both the Red Sox (1908-1910) and White Sox (1910-1914), and player-manager of Buffalo in the Federal League (1915), he also played third base for a collection of All-Stars in 1910, alongside Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson. 
 
His memorabilia, spanning his baseball life and beyond, includes a large scrapbook that his wife began in 1907, when Lord started in Providence, Boston's top farm club. The scrapbook is chock-a-block full of newspaper clippings and mementoes tracing his meteoric rise.
 
The collection also includes a baseball bat, manufactured in Hiram, Maine, "that Harry used in a game," said Deb. It's stout, thick-handled and nut-brown unlike today's bats.
 
Another curio is a 1910 Western Union telegraph from Red Sox owner John I. Taylor, son of the Boston Globe publisher, who purchased the land for Fenway Park, informing Lord that he would be traded. Next stop was Chicago.
 
There are many photos, including Lord with the All-Star team and with Red Sox stars like Hall of Famer Tris Speaker and Lewiston's Bill Carrigan, Babe Ruth's first manager, who later coached at Bates in 1933 and 1934. In retirement, Lord is shown hosting Ted Williams at his fishing camp in Maine.
 
One of the fastest players of his era, Lord led a Red Sox team dubbed "The Speed Boys." He won a league competition for fastest from home to first on a bunt. Bates people might not have been surprised; Lord scored two touchdowns on long runs in victory against Colby in 1904—but also was ejected from that game for "slugging."
 
"He was hot-headed and stubborn," said Deb.  
 
One item not found in the collection is an engraved pocket watch presented by Manager Connie Mack, of the Philadelphia Athletics, for participating in the All-Star game. All the players were awarded watches, but Lord's was stolen from the family long ago. Antiques Road Show valued Walter Johnson's watch at $50,000.
 
Hidden jewels from the collection are Lord's reminiscences about his earlier life in the big leagues. "He loved to write," Deb said.
 
Recollections include his most memorable game; fiery battles with umpires and Cobb; and a "called" home run—that backfired disastrously. All are written in a folksy style reminiscent of "The Glory of Their Times," by Lawrence Ritter, about baseball's early years in the voice of the old-timers themselves. It is widely acclaimed as the greatest baseball book ever written.
 
And so, Lord described umpire Tim Hurst as "with failing eyesight (he) was terrible"; Hall of Famer Rube Waddell, who turned cartwheels on the mound and chased fire trucks, "of whom no greater left-hander ever lived"; a pinch hitter who enters the game, is introduced to the fans like this: "the announcer with his megaphone proclaimed to the stands"; but always the menacing specter of Cobb looms: "Cobb came to the plate swinging his three bats."
 
Cobb and Lord were fierce rivals, and mutual admirers; the collection attests to both. Infamous in lore for ruthlessly spiking players while sliding, Cobb is revealed to have a softer side: he avoided a titanic collision with Lord at third, and was promptly ruled out. Appropriately, Deb recently met Cobb's great-grandson at the Cobb Museum in Georgia, and saw Cobb's pocket watch from the All-Star game.
 
The collection affords students the opportunity to do their own research, if only in the esoteric field of 'baseball scholarship." One Bates alum recently found an old Harry Lord photo and discovered the previously forgotten All-Star Game against Mack's Athletics. That finding of "The 'First Ever All-Star Game' In 1910" was published in the Baseball Research Journal.   
 
Deb was only two when Lord died, but "He was a big presence in my life: the stories, the trophies strewn about, listening to his fishing buddies."
 
Pat Webber, Director of the Muskie Archives, said the papers are significant: "The collection is a fine example about a person who came to Bates and 'made good' in the world beyond. Not only does the collection document Lord's sporting life, but it helps us document local and regional baseball history from the period, as well as Lord's activities beyond his baseball exploits."
 
Lord returned to Maine, ran a successful coal business and later served in the Maine Legislature. "Too often we aren't able to tell stories about former Batesies after they leave campus, but this collection allows us to do just that," added Webber.
 
Even though Lord left Bates early to get married, and then played baseball against Bates right after he left, he eventually found his way back.
 
"Lord clearly kept Bates close to his heart—he sent his daughter Corinne (a 1927 grad here), and coached baseball for a time here (1918) after his retirement," notes Webber.
 
Indeed, he kept a lifelong friendship with his old Bates fullback, Eddie S. Conner, Class of 1908.  A 1944 clipping describes how Conner, who worked for Goodyear in Akron, often watched Lord play in Cleveland, and "always made it a point to be present if in any city where Harry's club was scheduled for a game."    
 
So the Bates connections lingered for years and continues even today.

"Deb and Jack McCleery are now officially part of the Bates Family," said Ira Waldman '73, a former football captain, on the Bates Athletics Hall of Fame Committee. "We welcome them now as our own."
 
And the Lord collection will keep those memories alive, now and into the future.
 
"The donation demonstrates that the Muskie Archives is a place where your family's stories can be kept, preserved and told for generations to come," said Webber.