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Baldy Wittman

American football player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ4850651 ↗
Source-derived summary

Julius "Baldy" Wittmann was an American professional football player in the Ohio League for the Massillon Tigers, as well as the Tigers 1907 spin-off team the "All-Massillions". When the Tigers were established in 1903, Wittmann was picked to start on the team at end, despite never playing the game before. Prior to his involvement with the Tigers, Wittman was the proprietor of a local cigar store and a spare-time police officer. His slogan for the cigar store was "our prices and the Massillon Tigers can't be beat".

Wittmann was a natural leader and an athlete who learned quickly. As a result, he was elected captain of the team during the 1903 season. During a December 5, 1903 game against the Akron East Ends, Wittman was reportedly assaulted by a gang of five men, until several Massillon fans came to his aid. During the 1904 season he was moved to the tackle position. In 1905, while Wittmann kept his title as team captain, Clark Schrontz was named as the team's "field captain".

In 1907, he was a member of the "All-Massillons".

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Baldy Wittman” as american football player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Baldy, Wittman and American.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1907, 1903, 1904, 1905—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1871-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Baldy, Wittman and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Baldy Wittman”, the useful work is to connect “american football player” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4850651. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1907, 1903, 1904 and 1905.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Baldy Wittman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Baldy Wittman primary sources, Baldy Wittman archive and Baldy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Baldy Wittman”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Baldy Wittman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.