The cult of Al Lawson: From a baseball career that landed in Spokane but never took flight, to aviation pioneer to, ultimately, crackpot economic theorist

When pitcher Al Lawson joined Spokane’s 1891 professional baseball team, he had a sore arm, so his fastball didn’t pop, and his curves didn’t snap.

The tall, slender right-hander’s on-field career didn’t last all that long, despite a brief time in the major leagues. Instead, he became a promoter, an aviation pioneer and, riding the crest of his considerable conceit, he devised his own view of physics. Then he developed a university, a Utopian community and a religion. A cult. Or, in the view of academics who study such things, he was a landmark crackpot.

Al Lawson claimed many things, some of them accurate. It’s true that he pitched over the course of several seasons and organized leagues and individual teams. But when things didn’t go his way, he was quick to cut and run. And because over-the-top self-confidence often stood in his way, he didn’t recognize that transportation by air should have remained his calling.

Alfred William Lawson was born in London’s East End slum on March 24, 1869. When he was a babe in arms, his family immigrated to Windsor, Canada. Two years later, they crossed the nearby Detroit River into the U.S., where, Lawson said, he completed high school with plans to study medicine.

Photographs show a blue-eyed handsome man with dark, wavy hair draped over a high forehead. It’s barely possible to trace his on-field baseball accomplishments because his recorded career amounts to just 249 innings. Including unrecognized leagues, it’s unlikely that he pitched a lot more. But, in those days, news traveled slowly. So, his charismatic personality allowed him to get away with talking better than he pitched.

Lawson’s ball-playing days began in 1887 in Frankfort, Indiana. Three years later, he began the season with Wilmington, Delaware, but quit, claiming mistreatment. He didn’t mention his 0-3 record when he told the National League’s Boston Beaneaters that, in 1889, he had won 33 of his 35 starts. In truth, he didn’t win that many in his whole recorded career.

Nonetheless, Lawson made his major-league debut on May 13 against the New York Giants. Matched against future Hall of Fame right-hander Mickey Welch, he lost, 7-2. The Boston Globe reported that all he had was “a slow drop with no speed,” and he was released.

Picked up by the league’s worst team, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, Lawson started twice. In 10 innings, he surrendered 20 runs on 15 hits and 10 walks. Released again, he finished the year as player-manager at Wellsville of the Western New York League.

That winter, he took a group of minor-leaguers – Al Lawson’s All-American All-Stars – on a tour of Cuba and Florida. John McGraw, the future Hall of Fame manager, was among them. Lawson soon claimed he was McGraw’s mentor.

In 1891, Lawson came west and signed with Spokane. The year before, manager John Barnes had fielded the Pacific Northwest League’s first championship team and expected to win again. Lawson didn’t make his debut until April 29, two weeks into the season. He earned an 8-3 victory at Tacoma. Three days later, he left in the fifth inning of a loss, claiming a sore arm. At Seattle on May 6, he left after four innings. Although he received credit for a win, Barnes had seen enough. Despite a 2-1 record, in 19 innings, Lawson had allowed 18 hits, walking nine and hitting two.

Then he lost a one-game trial with Portland, spent a few weeks with Pendleton of the Pacific Interstate League then talked his way into a tryout with Oakland’s California League team. Claiming he had won a majority of 17 starts for Spokane, he took the mound on July 4. Although he walked eight, he came away with a 7-5 victory. A week later, he gave up 16 hits, walked seven and lost, 19-7. The San Francisco Examiner report minced no words. “Whoever told him he could pitch has committed a great crime.”

Inexplicably, he had a career year in 1892. Pitching in faster company, he won 10 and lost four with Atlanta of the Southern Association. However, caught soliciting offers from another team, he sulked through a 14-4 loss to Memphis and was suspended.

He appeared in only 14 more professional games. But he managed many small-town teams and eventually claimed he had developed 13 leagues. Those ventures often ended prematurely because of what the press termed “difficulty with the directors.” And he made other unflattering news.

In the winter 1893-94, Lawson opened a shorthand school in Buffalo. Students praised his methods. But when he disappeared with a batch of tuition payments, the same students told a reporter, “We didn’t like him. He was always talking about himself.”

Ambitiously, in 1908, he formed the Union League, claiming it was a third major league. It collapsed before the end of May. By then, Lawson had discovered the airplane.

He took up flight, still a novelty, with his usual zeal. In retrospect, he was a visionary. However, he lacked the patience and business skills to make the most of what, today, is his only legacy.

Although not well qualified, he launched a magazine about airplanes. It 1910, he renamed it “Aircraft,” and it became the young industry’s authoritative journal. If he didn’t coin the term “aircraft,” as he claimed, he did conceive of “airliner,” the concept as well as the word. Al Lawson became the leading proponent of passenger air service.

In 1917, he opened Lawson Aircraft Company in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The U.S. Army liked the first product, a military trainer. But the war ended before production could begin, and Lawson moved operations to Milwaukee, where he developed the first large-scale passenger plane.

Uniquely, the Lawson C-2 Airliner had two 400-horsepower engines, a closed cockpit and bulkheads, rather than struts, that made it possible to walk upright through the cabin. Its cruising speed was 110 mph. It had a range of 400 miles. There were 18 seats plus folding chairs for the aisle.

Lawson adopted a new way to be his own worst enemy.

On Aug. 28, 1919, when the C-2 set out for its first test flight, Lawson handled the throttles, and a former RAF pilot managed everything else. Not waiting to warm up the engines, Lawson shoved the throttles all the way forward. The plane lurched down the runway and barely cleared the woods beyond it. Then, lost after circling the city, they had to land in a cow pasture.

The second flight turned into a marketing tour. In Chicago, Lawson announced his plans for a transcontinental airline. Then with a series of passengers, they headed east, making several overnight stops. On Sept. 13, the C-2 reached New York, and Lawson was front-page news in the Times. After stopping in Washington, D.C., where they took several senators for a ride, they headed back to Milwaukee. Including time for repairs, the trip covered 2,000 miles spread more than 80 days,

Almost at once, Lawson planned prototypes for a larger, three-engine plane that could carry 34 passengers. Those became the L-3 and the L-4.

When the L-4 was ready for its maiden flight, he saved time by not transporting it to the larger municipal airport. Instead, the crew rolled it out at Lawson Field at dawn on Sunday, May 8, 1921. The engines started, and Lawson hit the throttles. The large, heavy plane had trouble gaining speed. The runway, fewer than 500 yards, wasn’t long enough. As the woods loomed, the L-4 finally became airborne. But the left wing clipped an elm, and they crashed. Lawson and the pilot weren’t hurt, but the plane was badly damaged. Financing dried up at once. As a result, none of his planes ever went into production.

Later in the decade, Lawson patented a two-tier passenger compartment with seats for 125. He licensed that design to railroads and bus companies, quit the aviation business and used the royalties to pursue Lawsonomy, a composite of social, scientific, and economic beliefs.

In 1931, he published “Direct Credits for Everybody,” a utopian pamphlet that attacked private banking. It said that government-issued credits should replace money and that everyone should receive widespread government benefits. To understand that, he said, it also was necessary to comprehend his view of physics. He believed, rather than energy, that substances are moved by Suction or Pressure, spinning through space in a pattern he called zig-zag-and-swirl.

He founded a Direct Credits Society with chapters throughout farm country and Midwestern industrial centers. His speeches filled auditoriums. Regional conferences drew thousands of members, who wore white clothing and caps, waved flags and paraded through large cities.

By 1943, Lawson had published the many books that make up Lawsonomy. He bought an abandoned campus in Des Moines, Iowa, opened the University of Lawsonomy and made those the textbooks. Students attended Lawsonian churches. Almost no followers survive.

Lawson died on Nov. 29, 1954, in San Antonio, Texas. He was 85. The Des Moines Tribune devoted a generous amount of space to his obituary, identifying him as the founder of the cult that follows the teachings of Lawsonomy. It barely mentioned aviation. There was not a word about baseball.