Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The House of David

Episode Date: November 28, 2020

What do you get when you take one part religious cult and one part Harlem Globetrotters and one part Troy Polamalu’s hair and put them all together? You wind up with the House of David Baseball Team. One of the most popular baseball barnstorming acts of the early 20th Century. Learn more about the House of David, both the religion and the team, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you get when you take one part religious cult, one part Harlem Globetrotters, and one part Troy Palomalu's hair, and put them all together? You wind up with the House of David baseball team, one of the most popular barnstorming acts of the early 20th century. Learn more about the House of David, both the religion and the team, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being saturated. sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay. The great awakening is coming.

What is happening? Every week on Conspiratuality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by Skillshare. If you want to get anywhere in life, you need skills. And nothing makes learning those skills easier than Skillshare. Skillshare has videos available for almost every subject you can think of. They have academic subjects like math, physics, biology, and art history,

as well as practical subjects like learning how to play the piano, dancing, and mixing cocktails. They even have a video on basket weaving. With Skillshare Premium, you can have unlimited access to everything for as low as 825 per month. Go to Everything Dash Everywhere slash Skillshare to get a free two-week trial of Skillshare premium membership, or just click on the link in the show notes. The 18th and 19th centuries in the United States saw an explosion in religious communities with rather novel and unique beliefs. The religious freedom offered in the United States,

plus the distance from the centers of traditional Christianity in Europe, allowed for new religions to thrive. Most of the time, these churches were founded around a charismatic leader or leaders. Today, we might call a group that went to create their own community based on such a leader, a cult. Back then, they would just be called a religious sect. It was in this environment that Benjamin and Mary Pernel created a church called the Israelite House of David. The tenants of this church were based on the teachings of an 18th century British prophet named Joanna Southcott,

who started a group called the Visitation Movement. She did the predictable End of the World predictions, which never came to fruition and died in 1814. But her movement outlived her. Part of her predictions that there would be seven messengers before the apocalypse, and surprise, Benjamin and Mary were collectively. the seventh messenger. The belief system of this new church had several unique characteristics. First, everyone in the church took a vow of celibacy.

Everyone. If there were any marriages, the couple had to take a vow to live together as brother and sister. They also didn't eat meat, didn't drink, didn't smoke, could not be next to a corpse, and most notable to anyone who took a look at them, they never cut their hair or shaved. Never. Everyone in the church, men and women alike, had extremely long hair, and the men had very long beards. In 1903, the Pernel set up a 1,000-acre community in Benton Harbor,

in the southwest of Michigan near the shores of Lake Michigan. Within a few years, they had several hundred followers, all who lived on the compound. Everything was communally owned, and everyone who joined the community had to give up all their possessions, and give them to the Parnels. The community had its own electric plant, tailor, carpenter, and laundry. They grew their own food, and also had a farmer's market. market. There was one particular interest which Benjamin Pernel had, which he encouraged the rest of the community to participate in. Baseball. Pernel believed that baseball encouraged physical and

spiritual discipline. So, the House of David played lots of baseball. And they got pretty good. By 1914, they started playing competitive games with teams outside of the community. They began barnstorming and playing exhibition games as a way to raise money for the church. The House of David was a hit with fans who were willing to pay and travel to watch these long-haired baseball players. It was not only an opportunity to raise money, but to spread the message of their faith. One of the things which made them popular was pepperball, which they would play in the middle of the fifth inning. This was the equivalent of what the Harlem Globetrotters would do later on when they did comedic skits and other things to entertain the fans. One of the favorites is when they

would throw the ball around the bases and hide it in their long beards. Over time, the team became really good. In the early years, they would often go entire seasons without losing a game. Unlike the Harlem Globetrotters, they didn't play staged games against the same team over and over. And herewhile, we'll reference you to listen to my episode on the Washington Generals. They played legitimate amateur, semi-pro, and professional teams all over the country. Their most famous player was Jesse Talley, who earned the nickname The Bearded Babe Ruth. In the 1920s, the church faced its biggest crisis ever. Church founder Benjamin Pernell was accused by 13 young women who were minors at the time of having sexual relations with them.

So much for the celibacy rule. The story eventually got out to the press, and it almost destroyed the community. Benjamin Pernell went to trial and was found guilty of embezzlement and died in 1927 before any punishment could be rendered. This eventually led to a leadership struggle in the church. Mary Pernell, Benjamin's wife, and one of the co-founders, said that she should be the leader. A council of elders who ran the day-to-day affairs of the church said that they should be the leaders. This resulted in Mary taking a group of followers and starting a new community with

land that they had purchased, right across the street from the old one. As part of this split, the new group called the City of David started their own baseball team, using the exact same name as the old team, the House of David. The scandal might have hurt the church, but it didn't hurt the baseball. If anything, the House of David became even more popular. Both teams began hiring professional players to play for them. Hall of Famers such as Grover Cleveland Alexander and Mordecai Three Fingers Brown played for the team. When they had outside players play, they would often wear a fake beard, or they would grow their hair out if they were playing for a longer period of time. In 1934, they tried to sign Babe Ruth after he retired, but then backed out when they realized that the

drinking, smoking, womanizing, meat-eating Babe Ruth pretty much stood against everything that the church stood for. They hired Jackie Mitchell, who was probably the greatest female pitcher in his history. She would travel and play with the team and wear a fake beard when pitching to entertain the fans. She once struck out Babe Ruth and Lugarig in succession during an exhibition game. They would regularly play against teams in the Negro League, becoming one of the first white teams willing to do so. They eventually created the Black House of Israel team, which was an all-black barnstorming team. They managed to get the great satchel page to play for them for a few games. Despite the name, none of the members of the Black House of David were actually members of the church. They were the first

professional baseball team to play a game at night. They played a 1930 night game against the Kansas City monarchs of the Negro League. The team had their own lighting system which they would travel with because in the early 30s, night baseball was such a novelty, people would come out and pay just to see it. Eventually, however, both the church and the team came to an end. Both the House of David teams stopped playing in the mid-1950s and Mary Pernell died in 1953. Barnstorming decreased in popularity with the advent of television. The collapse of the Negro League, with the integration of the major leagues, also took away many of their opponents. The church slowly dwindled.

As it turns out, celibacy was not a great recruiting tool, and it didn't lead to another generation of House of David to take their place. As for the church, believe it or not, there are still a small handful of members who are still alive and own the church property in Benton Harbor. There is a museum and tours which are available for those that wanted to visit the site. The team itself was rumored to have a lifetime winning percentage of 750. which is really good considering that their games were actually competitive games.

The legacy of the House of David baseball team still lives on. There are people that collect their memorabilia today, and a postcard of the team can sell for well over $100. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James McAlla. The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Remember to leave a five-star review to get your review read on the show. They can be left at Apple Podcasts, Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Also, you can help support the show over at patreon.com.

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