I recently found a few mentions of the Bears in mainstream newspapers:

On December 23, 1920, the New York Times reported that “a right-hander named Tom Godfrey, was signed by the new scout, Paul Krichell, and was acquired from Jeff Tesreau’s Bears.”  Then, from a March 5, 1921, Times report on a split-squad spring training game at the Yankees’ camp in Shreveport, Louisiana: “Tom Godfrey, the Pelham youngster who has starred as a collar model and as a pitcher for Jeff Tesreau’s Bears, worked the last three innings for [Johnny] Mitchell’s team and allowed only two hits, but one was a home run and it was good for two runs.”

Collar model?  Well, I hope that was a good Plan B for Tom, because he never pitched in the majors.  He never appeared in the American Association, International League, Texas League, or Southern Association, either (the PCL book I have—Carlos Bauer’s Early Coast League Statistical Record, isn’t indexed, and I haven’t checked through it yet).

Anyway, another right-hander, this one in the Boston Red Sox camp in 1921, hailed from the Bears: Curtis Fullerton, who made the Red Sox that spring, debuting in April, but pitched only four games for them.  He spent most of 1921 with the International League’s Toronto Maple Leafs as one of their best pitchers, going 14-10, 2.78, in 217 innings.  Fullerton went on to a pretty bad major league career (10-37, 83 ERA+) with the awful Red Sox of the 1920s.  He also appeared in various high minor leagues in the 1920s and 1930s with such teams as the Hollywood Stars and Portland Rosebuds of the Pacific Coast League, and the St. Paul Saints and Kansas City Blues of the American Association.  The last I’ve found of him is a three-year run with the Dallas Steers of the Texas League from 1936 through 1938, though he could well have gone on in lower leagues.

Also, here is an item from the New York Times for July 4, 1921.  It appears in the midst of a long front page article on a terrible heat wave that gripped the city the day before, causing a mass exodus to the beach.

While Tesreau’s Bears and the Lincoln Giants were playing at Dyckman Oval yesterday two players on the Giants and an umpire were overcome by the heat.  The game was a double-header.  The umpire, Henry Tone, dropped in the first game while working behind the bat and was carried off the field.  Cyclone Joe Williams, the pitcher, dropped in the seventh inning and, after being revived, was sent home.  The third baseman, G. Fiall, succumbed in the second game, and it was more than an hour before he recovered consciousness.

I happen to have the Chicago Defender’s box score for this game.  The Times didn’t bother to mention it, but the Bears won, 7 to 4, scoring six runs off Lincolns reliever Ed Rile after Williams’s departure.  Jules Thomas, Bill Pierce, and Orville Singer all hit home runs for the Lincolns, but at least two of them were solo shots. The Bears also took the second game, 4 to 2, Willie Kelleher outduelling Kenneth “Ping” Gardner.  Jeff Tesreau played right field and hit a home run.  Spot Poles homered for the Lincolns.