Tag: Races

by Charlie Crowell

I started running in the 1980s, going to local races through the 1990s with the realization early on that I enjoyed trail running over road courses. I trained and ran at home on the Horse-Shoe Trail, doing short out-and-back runs, but thought a point-to-point run would be more interesting. My favorite run was from from Hopewell Furnace at the Chester County line to Plowville which was approximately 17 miles. My Dad, a great hiker of the Horse-Shoe and many other trails, would drop me off. There I was, all alone, with a couple of water bottles, a power bar, no aid stations, and no cell phone. There was no other option but to make it home.

In the Spring of 1997, I went to New York and did Ed Hart’s “Make Your Mother Proud.”  
This was a point-to-point ultra trail run with a one-way ride in an old Greyhound bus somewhere out in the Finger Lakes. In September of 1997, I did the Conestoga Trail Run, first of twenty. This was similar to Ed Hart’s, but with school buses and only ten miles instead of thirty.

Another interest I enjoyed during this time was coaching Special Olympic athletes, year round in all sports. I did this for thirteen years with a ten-year tenure as head basketball coach. All Special Olympic sports were at no cost to the athletes and so there was always a need for funds for equipment, uniforms, venues to practice, and many other things. A light bulb went off – a fund raiser for Berks County Special Olympics!

I had a favorite run on a good trail with no roads (that changed).  Shorten the distance a little. Find a start and finish. My neighbor is the school bus contractor for Twin Valley School District. We had a great cause. Let’s do a trail run. No problem!

I kind of knew everything that had to be done, so in the Fall of 1997, I planned a trail run with a small group consisting of relatives, friends, and Pagoda Pacers, to try out the course, explain what I had in mind, and see if they had any suggestions. Mike and Denise Yoder were the Pagoda Pacers who joined us that day.  On a warm Saturday morning, we ran from French Creek to Sleepy Hollow, and then back to my home in Plowville. After a good run, we gathered around outside to talk, come up with some final plans, and drink some cold Yuenglings. Just as we started, someone in the group doubled over, yelling out in pain with a major leg cramp. Denise calmly said, “You have a Charlie-Horse!” I immediately said, “That’s it. We’ll name the race The Charlie-Horse.”
That was the final missing piece we needed: a name.

People often ask me if I ever got a chance to run the race. The answer is yes; I ran the 8th, 9th and 23rd Charlie-Horses and finished in first place over all. For the rest of this story, you’re going to have to wait for the movie to come out.

I have always enjoyed running with the Pagoda Pacers and now enjoy volunteering at their events.

Next year will be the 25th running of the Charlie Horse Race.  In anticipation of that milestone we are going to publish a two part series on the origin story of this race.  Part I will be a short history of the origin of the term “Charlie Horse”.  Part II will be the true story of how that term was applied to this race from the original race director, Charlie Crowell.

Now someone somewhere reading this may say “hey, weren’t there a couple of years in the early 2000’s where there was no race?” Or “hey what about the Covid year?”  Rest assured that even when there was no formal race, at least one person ran the course on Memorial Day weekend and at least one person paid an entry fee and a donation was made to the Special Olympics.

Part I — “A Quest for the Origin”

According to baseball historian Andy Strasberg, the origin of the term “Charlie horse” can be traced back to a 19th-century baseball player by the name of Joseph Quest.

Strasberg cites a couple different version of the story. Let’s start with the one that’s less likely to be accurate.

From an 1898 article in the New Castle (PA) Daily News:

Joe was employed in the establishment of Quest & Shaw, this city, learning the machinist’s trade, the senior member of the firm being his father. An old white horse named Charley was used by the firm in a wagon utilized for hauling machinery around the works. Charley had drawn so many heavy loads and was so advanced in years that he had a peculiarly wobbly gait, occasioned by his strained tendons. When Joe noticed the ball players limping around Charley’s walk was recalled in his mind and he named the condition of the players after the old horse at his father’s works.

The more probable version of the story, also from 1898, comes from Quest’s former teammate, Hugh Nichol:

Joe Quest coined the phrase a way back in 1882, in Chicago…It’s a racehorse story and it happened this way. Chicago was having an off day. Our schedule called for some eighty odd games in those seasons and we had more spare time than the big leaguers have now. There was racing down on the south side and some of the boys took great interest in it…The tip had gone out the night before that a horse named “Charley” was a sure winner that afternoon…we were all in with the exception of Joe Quest. No amount of argument could induce him to bet a copper on that horse…In the last turn Charley stumbled, went lame in his right hind leg, and the field closed up. Quest threw a fit: “Look, look!” he shouted as the first horse passed Charley. “Look at your Charley horse now.” And he kept it up. Charley finished outside the money and we didn’t hear the last of “our old Charley horse” the rest of the day.

It was during a game Chicago played the next day with Chicago’s George Gore on base and attempting a steal and about half way down Gore stepped into a pocket and sprung a strain, just the way the pony had done the day before and Quest sang out: “There’s your old Charley horse— he’d made it all right if it hadn’t been for that old Charley horse.”

Decades later, after settling in San Diego, Quest died in 1924 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Just recently, however, the Society for American Baseball Research found the money to commission a gravestone for him, thus immortalizing his idiomatic contribution.