Earl “Oil” Smith (1897–1963)

Earl “Oil” Smith was a catcher in the major leagues during the golden age of baseball. He participated in five World Series and ended his twelve-year major league career with a .303 batting average.

Earl Sutton Smith was born in Sheridan (Grant County) on February 14, 1897, to Julie Belle Mayberry Smith and Jordan D. Smith. Smith’s father died in 1898, and Smith’s mother married Enoch Wilson Scott in Hot Springs (Garland County) in 1905. Smith attended Jones Elementary School in Hot Springs, but it is uncertain if he completed high school.

At fourteen years old, Smith enjoyed playing baseball and strengthened his throwing by heaving newspapers as a paperboy. As a stout sixteen-year-old catcher who threw right and batted left, Smith played for the Jonestown Baseball Team in Hot Springs in 1913. During the early 1900s, Smith observed many major and minor league baseball teams coming to spring training in his hometown. For many years, during February and March, Hot Springs was loaded with teams practicing for the coming season.

Smith’s ability as a player showed up early when he played for a semi-pro team in Hot Springs, with most games at that time played at Hot Springs Baseball Grounds between Woodbine and Hawthorne streets. (Buildings and parking lots dot the area in the twenty-first century.) The Chicago White Stockings played there in 1886 when they became the first major league team to make Hot Springs their home for spring training.

Smith began his professional baseball career in 1916 at the age of nineteen with the Waxahachie Athletics of Waxahachie, Texas, and later in the same year, he was sent to the Giants of Dallas, Texas (Class B). His next move was to the Fort Smith Twins in the Class D league in 1917.

In the spring of 1918, Smith—who did not yet have a baseball contract—was observing the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers) training camp at Whittington Park in Hot Springs. A former Fort Smith Twins teammate of his, pitcher “Mule” Watson, was working out at the park. He persuaded Brooklyn’s manager Wilbert Robinson to let Smith work out with the team, and an impressed Robinson told Arthur Irwin about the catcher. Irwin was manager of the Rochester Hustlers (New York) of the newly reorganized class AA, International League. Rochester signed Smith, who ended the season with a rousing .358 batting average in ninety-four games, also playing solidly as a catcher.

Several major league teams soon showed interest in him, but he was drafted into the U.S. Army near the end of World War I. On August 21, 1918, Smith reported to the army induction center and was sent to Camp Pike in North Little Rock (Pulaski County). On November 10, 1918, the day before the war ended, he married Bessie Riley in Hot Springs; a few days later, he was discharged from the army.

Smith was looking forward to returning to Rochester, but New York Giants manager John McGraw had other plans, signing the five-foot-ten-inch, 180-pound catcher to his first major league contract. He traveled to San Antonio, Texas, to begin his first spring training. Smith debuted in the majors on April 24, 1919, against the Philadelphia Phillies, posting one hit and one RBI. In 1920, he became the primary New York Giants catcher. He played in ninety-one games and hit a solid .294.

Columnist Westbrook Pegler gave Smith the moniker “Oil” because the Brooklyn fans pronounced “Earl” as “Oil.” Smith had a reputation for being combative and was often associated with disputes, altercations, and fines. For example, he fought a cop in the team’s locker room, sassed manager McGraw, annoyed and distracted batters while catching, used obscene language, and went into the stands after a heckler.

Smith’s twelve seasons in the majors included playing with the New York Giants (1919–1923), Boston Braves (1923–1924), Pittsburgh Pirates (1924–1928), and St. Louis Cardinals (1928–1930). In 1926, he achieved a batting average of .346 while playing for the Pirates. Smith participated in five World Series—two with the Giants, two with the Pirates, and one with the Cardinals.

In 1930, Smith played minor league baseball in Toledo, Ohio, and Rochester, New York. Smith joined the Nashville Vols in February 1931 and was released on June 4 of that year.

He returned home to Hot Springs, where the semi-pro Hot Springs Athletics soon signed him. On June 14, 1931, the Athletics played a good Mount Ida (Montgomery County) team at Whittington Park. Smith’s hometown paper, the Sentinel-Record, related, “Patrons had the opportunity of witnessing the play of Earl Smith, former major league catcher, in action behind the bat the first time in a number of years.” Concerning the same game, the Arkansas Gazette stated, “Smith caught a good game, made a spectacular catch of a foul back of the grandstand, got one hit and was robbed of two other drives by Whittington, whose work in center field for the visitors was a feature.” Hot Springs came from behind to beat Mount Ida 12–9.

A month later, Smith and his team played the powerful Tucker Prison Farm convict team, which had been undefeated for two years, at Whittington Park in Hot Springs. The fans were looking for a close game, but Hot Springs won 13–2.

Following his time with the barnstorming House of David team in 1934–1935, he returned home to fish in the scenic Ouachita Mountains region and to hunt ducks in southeastern Arkansas.

On Smith’s World War II draft registration, he was listed as divorced, and there is no mention of children. He died in a Little Rock (Pulaski County) hospital on June 8, 1963, and is buried at the Little Rock National Cemetery. His headstone reads “Earl V. Smith,” for some reason using the initial “V” for Vetal or Vital, a name he had dropped many years earlier.

For additional information:
“Athletics Win Close Game from Mount Ida.” Sentinel-Record, June 16, 1931, p. 4.

Blaeuer, Mark. Baseball in Hot Springs: Images of Baseball. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2016.

“Earl Smith.” Baseball Reference. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/smithea02.shtml (accessed May 5, 2026).

“Earl Smith, Ex-National League Star, Plays with Hot Springs.” Arkansas Gazette, June 15, 1931, p. 10.

“Earl Smith, Former Major Leaguer, Dies.” Sentinel-Record, June 11, 1963, p. 11.

“Earl Smith Joins Local City Loop; Hunter Expected.” Sentinel-Record, July 3, 1935, p. 6.

“Earl Sutton ‘Oil’ Smith (1897–1963).” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7324170/earl_sutton-smith (accessed May 5, 2026).

Leatherman, Leland. “Sellers Stars as Hot Springs Downs Convicts.” Sentinel-Record, July 21, 1931, p. 8.

Sharp, Andrew. “Earl Smith.” Society of American Baseball Research. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/earl-smith/ (accessed May 5, 2026).

Don Duren
Plano, Texas