George Herman

“Sweater” McGinnis,
Blueface, Grey
Posted by G A M E NE S S T I L T H E E N D  on 2 0 1 1 / 1 2 / 1 4

Repost
The articles below are good study on the most popular
bloodlines of today from a history perspective.
I have not created a pedigree table yet like most of the past
articles on “Cockfighters and Breeds” category. I want
everyone to read and digest all the words written. And not
just look at the pedigree table.
Let’s memorialize December for George
Herman “Sweater” McGinnis. He died
enjoying our sports. McGinnis was a
cockfighter first. He was a World War II
veteran second.
Sweater McGinnis must be one of the best all around
cockfighter. A cockfighter with complete cockfighting skills.
 doctor/surgeon/behavioral therapist
 pitter/gaffer
 trainer/coach/massage therapist
 feeder/nutritionist
 breeder/raiser/geneticist
  carpenter/farmer
 protector of all liberties/individual liberty activist
At the bottom are photos from my visit to William T. Greene
who received these bloodlines from McGinnis. WTG
returned the favor by breeding these bloodlines pure without
any outside blood. At 91 yrs old – more or less during my
visit, WTG is still a purist propagator of Sweater McGinnis’
Blueface and Grey.
– Gameness til the End
George Herman “Red
Sweater” McGinnis
Posted by ChinaChicks1
George Herman “Red Sweater” McGinnis had a great
sense of humor. If he could return to earth right now, he
would realize that the controversy about the Blueface story
was the best practical joke he ever pulled. Im sure he would
get a few chuckles out of this article, but I am going to write
it anyway. Perhaps if nothing else comes of it, it will inspire
others to give us their version of the story.
Biography
Herman McGinnis was born in 1905 in Southwest Oklahoma
near Chickaska. For much of his early life he stayed with
uncle, Dave Lane, a druggist in Oklahoma City. Dave Lane
was one of the best of the old time chicken fighters. In the
early 1920’s while Sweater was still a teenager, he handled
a main of cocks from Frank Perry and Sap Barret against
the legendary Henry Wortham and won with his last 4 cocks
to win the main. This was the old Shell Creek Pit near Sand
Springs, Oklahoma.
Sweater was a professional cocker in every sense of the
word. Except for a short hitch in military service in WWII, he
spent his lifetime working with gamefowl. He was in great
demand as a feeder and handler, and he spent considerable
time with John Madigin, Walter Kelso and Jack Walton. With
his conditioning method, he could build stronger thighs on a
cock than any feeder I ever knew. They would be as hard
and big around as the average mans wrist. They were so
strong that his cocks frequently broke their own legs. As a
handler, Sweater never missed a trick, legal or otherwise. It
is fitting that he died in the pit with a gamecock in his arms
at the Boxwood Pit in Virginia on the 19th of December
1959.
Breeding History
Sweater had hundreds of chickens raised for him each year
but until he moved to North Carolina in 1954 to work for
Percy Flowers at Pineville Farms, none of them were
specifically called the Blueface family. There is no particular
combination of bloodlines that could be pointed out as
Blueface to the exclusion of all others. They were simply
referred to as McGinnis Reds or Greys, depending on the
color. Sweater never advertised his fowl, he didn’t like to sell
them and almost never did, however he gave many of them
away.
Breeding Method
His usual breeding method was to place a cock and 6 hens
on a farm walk where they could reproduce freely. In the
Fall, Sweater would pick up what stags he wanted, and tell
the farmer to eat the rest of them. Thus a great deal of
Sweaters stock was available to anyone who knew where
he walked his fowl. Many of the so called Blueface families
today are based on fowl obtained from these farm walks and
contain not a touch of the McLean Hatch usually associated
with the name Blueface. The bloodlines that Sweater used
in various combinations and which appear in some of the
modern Blueface lines include the Madigan Texas Rangers,
a truly great family of Brown Reds.
When Sweater was in charge of Madigan’s brood yards in
Houston in the late 1930’s, a great many of the cocks and
hens were carrying a fourth or more of this Texas Ranger
breeding. When Madigan died in 1942, Kelso and Japhet
inherited his fowl which were all shipped to Kelso’s place in
Galveston. Sweater set up the various brood yards then
Kelso and Japhet alternated in choosing which ones they
wanted. But Kelso didn’t like the Clarets, not to mention the
Rangers, so Sweater took what he wanted of those.
Sometime later, Sweater decided he needed more speed in
his fowl and someone sold him a family of Three Spurs from
Washington state. These cock had a normal spur, plus a
rudimentary spur above and below it. I know of at least one
family of modern Blueface that show this trait and some of
the cocks cannot be heeled properly until these small spurs
are clipped off. I understand the Black Sumatra Jungle Fowl
and their descendants have this odd spur formation.
Sweater fought a lot of the Sam Bigham fowl a Marsh
Butcher/Claret cross. This is one of the sources of the rare
white leg that shows up in some Blueface. He also had
some Kearney stock he got from up North. A particular
favorite of Sweaters was his Jim Thompson Mahoganies, as
bred by Bob Lang of Long Island, New York. Sweater called
these Thompson’s his secret weapon and left them in
Oklahoma when he went to North Carolina. He didn’t know
how the deal with Percy Flowers would work out, and he
was hedging his bets by leaving the Thompson’s and
several other yards of his seed stock with friends he
trusted. He left some of his McLean seed stock with an old
Okie friend in Arizona and most of the Thompson’s with Billy
the Barber Atchley of Oklahoma City, who in turn supplied
Sweater with some really good Butcher fowl. After Sweater
died, the brood yards he left at Pineville deteriorated and
much of the reason could be lack of access to these
Oklahoma seed stock fowl.
More on the life of Sweater McGinnis
In addition to the Red fowl, Sweater raised a lot of Greys,
primarily Madigan and Kelso. These were frequently
combined with the various Red fowl,and the resulting
offspring were either McGinnis Reds or McGinnis Greys,
even though they were full brothers but different colors. I
have a photo I took of a full plumaged Grey cock in 1949
while visiting Sweater and Lun Gilmore at Jack Walton’s
place in Dallas. Sweater told me that all his battle cocks that
year were carrying some of this cocks bloodlines. Much of
the material in this article came out of that meeting. I believe
that Gilmore was Jack Walton’s brother-in-law, and I will
discuss his role in the Blueface story later on. Until now I
haven’t mentioned the straight Blueface. The fowl I have
mentioned in the previous paragraphs do appear in many of
the modern Blueface lines, but Sweater wouldn’t have
considered them the real thing. To properly describe the
evolution of the Blueface, I first have to establish the
historical perspective. To do this, I have to mention 2 other
professional cockers: J.D. Perry of Oklahoma City and the
inimitable Max Thaggard who until recently was still pitting
them around Gunthrie, Oklahoma. In the early 1940’s, the
team of J.D. Perry and Karl Bashara was the class  entry at
all the Oklahoma pits. Karl’s Shufflers and J.D.’s ability as a
feeder and handler made a combination that was hard to
beat. When C.C.Cooke of Oklahoma bought all of the
Sandy Hatch fowl for $ 2,500 and then joined forces with
E.W. Law in Florida, they hired J.D. to run their show. J.D.
crossed Cooke’s Hatch with Law’s Claret’s to make the now
famous Hatch/Clarets that revolutionized long heel cocking.
Power/Speed Blends became a household word at least in
the cockhouse. About this same time, Max Thaggard bred
an old one eyed Frost Grey cock (that Bobby Manziel have
given him) over some Brown Red hens. The resulting
offspring became the Vibrators the greatest infighters
(cutting to the breast) that I, or most likely any man ever
saw. For a too brief period, they were unstoppable. After
losing all too many fights to the Hatch/Clarets and those
speckle-bellied Vibrators, Sweater started out to go them
one better. He came up with the bright idea of combining the
Hatch/Claret type fowl with the Grey/Brown Reds and beat
everybody.
Sweaters friend Lun Gilmore had a sickly looking, pale
headed old buff hen that normally would have been killed,
but she was supposed to be one of the very few good Hatch
hens ever to leave Ted McLeans place. Presumably she
was carrying some Morgan Whitehackle breeding, as many
of the McLean fowl did, because on rare occasions she
would produce some spangled-looking offspring. However,
the Jim Thompson fowl on which the original Hatch were
based also produced about 20% spangles and sometimes
even a pure white. In fact I have seen White Hatch fowl that
their breeder was reluctant to claim as Hatch for fear of
others would accuse him of poor record keeping. Lun may
have got this hen from Pete Frost but they both shared her,
so to speak, Frost got McLean to send them a Hatch cock to
mate to this old hen. McLean owed Frost a favor but he
wasn’t happy to see his bloodlines scattered around. So he
sent them a cock alright- a little 4:02 blinker peacomb bird
he intended to kill anyway.
When this runty little cock was sparred, he really put on a
show. He could hit as hard as a shake. These South Texas
boys were used to seeing the shotgun type cocks, and one
that can hit so hard as this Hatch was something new. They
bred him to the old pale headed hen just to see what the
pair would produce. That first year they raised about 20
chicks and fought the stags with mediocre success. One of
the few that won was rattled and would turn dark in the face
when he was sparred. Sweater took this Old Blueface cock
to breed to some hens he liked that were a mixture of
Madigin Grey and Lieper Hatch. Thus was started the first
attempt to breed a family of Blueface, although they were
not really called by that name. It was that first old pale-
headed hen that really started things. It so happened that
most of her chicks also showed that sickly pale face.
Somebody told Sweater that the old hen was a disease
carrier (Leukosis) and that he ought to kill her and all her
offspring, Sweater didn’t like those damned blue-faced
chickens,but he wasn’t ready to give up on them. They all
had well rounded bodies and felt good in his hands, they
just looked pale-even the cocks in good condition.
Sweater took some of the damned blue faced chickens to
the poultry experts at Texas A&M College to see what was
wrong. After some tests, they told him the chickens were
perfectly healthy. The pale head was caused by an inherited
genetic abnormality. To get rid of it, Sweater will have to
raise a lot of young stock and keep the red faced ones for
his future brood stock. That year Sweater and his friends
hatched over 500 chickens from the old hen and her
daughters out of several cocks. They only produced two red
faced pullets-no stags.
When J.D. Perry left Cooke’s employ in 1948 to go work for
G.A.C. Halff at Quien Sabe Ranch near SanAntonio, he took
the best of the Hatch fowl with him. These Hatch were
primarily the Jim Thompson / J.W.E. Clarke / Kearney
bloodlines with an added touch of this and that. The McLean
fowl were the same basic bloodlines but showed less of the
Yellow leg breeding. The pea combs came from the old
Boston Roundhead and Low Comb Irish Whitehackle that
was in the Duryea fowl which appears in the pedigrees of
both the Clark and Kearney Families. The Kearney stock at
that time was a combination of his Irish Brown Reds and
Whitehackles, plus the Duryea and Joe Wingate stock. So
this was the source of the Green legs At any rate, Sweater
and J.D. traded some Hatch fowl, and in 1958 J.D. was
advertising Blueface for sale. The straight Blueface
(McLeans)were comparitivaly slow,single stroke,ground
fighters. They had the suicidal tendency of sticking their
necks out while reaching for a bill hold. A cock like that just
doesnt win many fights in first-class long heel competition.
So Sweater tried various crosses with those damned blue
faced chickens. Most of the crosses produced just average
fighting cocks. A few showed promise but wouldn’t pass on
their good qualities to the next generation. The one cross he
tried though that seemed to add just the edge he was
looking for was with Karl Bashara’s Shufflers. He also got
some Brown Reds from old man Starnes of Konowa,
Oklahoma. I had always heard this was an old Irish family of
Brown Reds but my buddy for 50 years-Old Lunch Money,
himself published an article quoting Mr. Starnes as saying
his fowl were just the Bashara Shufflers with a touch of
Madigan Grey Sweater. He also got the D.H. Pierce
Wisconsin Red Shufflers from various other breeders,
especially C.V.Myers of Pensylvania. By trying out many
different combinations, he developed just the right blend of
Hatch/Shuffler and his other bloodlines that he could win
with.
And win he did. He set a fantastic record in the 5 short years
he was working for Percy Flowers in North Carolina. In 1957
he entered the Lally Memorial Stag Derby in Pensylvania.
This was the premier short heel (1-1/4 inch gaffs) event for
each year. This was the first time Sweater ever conditioned
cocks for a short heel event and the first time he ever
conditioned a full show of stags for a major event. (None of
the major pits in the south ever scheduled stag derbys or
tournaments. So Sweater had always fought 2 year old
cocks. He won 9 and lost 1 to take first money. The 1 loss
was to a Jim Thompson stag owned by Bob Lang, who was
responsible for one of Sweater’s seed stock lines.
The short heel men said that the 1957 win was a fluke and
that Sweater wouldn’t have a chance next time. So he
entered the Lally in 1958 and won it by the same identical
score, 9 wins and 1 loss. Now the boys were convinced that
this Okie was pretty foxie, so they decided to keep their
money and not enter the event in 1959. The pit
management finally got an entry list together though and
sure enough Sweater didn’t win this time, he only took 2nd
with 8 wins and 2 losses.
As a final tribute to a real chicken man, I can think of
nothing more appropriate than the words spectator used in
describing Sweaters stags at the 1957 Lally Memorial
Derby. Remember that these stags were direct descendants
of those damned blue-faced chickens produced by a
sickly-faced, pale-headed old hen and a runty little 4:02
cock that had been destined for the chopping block.
“The best the North and East could produce
was lined up against them, and they made
a runaway of the show. They were fast,
terrific bucklers, hard hitters, good cutters,
aggressive finishers. Their legs reached out
a mile every stroke, they delivered blows
with a snap, and every punch landed where
it counted. The only fight they lost was a
quick one shot affair to the brain in the first
few seconds, which sort of thing can and
will happen to anybody who is meeting top
grade fowl.” (written by Spectator, 1957)
When talking about the Blueface they should never be
called Hatch. That would automatically bring up the picture
of a dark black breasted red cock with green legs. Even the
Hatch fowl don’t all come that color and certainly not the
Blueface.
The colors range from a deep black or brown red
(Shuffler’s,Brown Red’s, 3 spur) through a typical black
breasted red (Thompson, Butcher, Claret) to a ginger or
pumpkin (California Chet or Redquill). The Chet was only
added to a couple of brood yards by Sweater but it sure
made some good cutting cocks. The Blueface come both
pea comb and straight comb and may have green, blue,
yellow or white legs. Perhaps this explains some of the
controversy over the Blueface. One man might have
Blueface that come pea comb pumpkins with white legs and
another man straight comb black reds with green legs.
Rarely, the cocks also might be white, black or red spangle,
even grey. These bloodlines were all in certain Blueface
brood pens.
I was well acquainted with Sweater McGinnis in the 1940’s
and 50’s. During those years, I was working as chicken
man and handler for some of the major cockers
( C.C.Cooke, Bobby Manziel Sr., etc.) and many lesser
known men. Although we were friends and visited back and
forth, Sweater didn’t to let me have his good Blueface. He
knew we would meet in the pit, and he didn’t like to fight
against his own bloodlines. When Sweater died, I was in the
process of moving from Ft. Worth Texas to Denver,
Colorado. It was awkward for me to do so, but I made a
quick trip to visit people who were keeping Sweaters seed
stock yards. I bought all the birds I could from four brood
yards, each yard containing different bloodlines. Over the
past 30 years, have blended these four lines to make my
present day Blueface.
The Sweater Name
by COLONEL SPARKMAN
Herman McGinnis used to work for Percy Flowers. He grew
up near Oklahoma City, Blanchard, and east of Chikasha.
His friends used to call him Herman until one day (1926) the
temperature went down from a normal warm weather to a
cold day. Herman Mcginnis was seen wearing an red old
knit sweater with buttons down the front. The bottom went to
his knees like a dress. The sleeves were rolled up from his
elbows to his wrist and the roll on each arm was big as a
football. All about you could see was a face, two hands, and
two feet sticking out of a red sweater. Immediately people
around him would say “Come here, Sweater” that is when
the nickname came to be.
by Brownred Kelso
This coming from a man who was there,, that i know really
well,,,,,,Sweater McGinnis died at the OLD BOXWOOD PIT,
at Axton, Virginia, it was a long drag fight, he won that fight
and let out a rebel yell and had a massive heart attack, the
hat he was wearing that day kinda hung there on a nail in
the doorway, one day a fella was messin around and put
that hat on an old black fella named “Mose” who cleaned the
floor at the pit and it likin to scared him to death,,after
Sweater had died Percy Flowers might have had one of his
best feeders/trainers ever a French Canadian named
Johnny Monroe Sweater had left Percys cupboard loaded
with good bred stuff and the only problem “i was told” Percy
had was Monroe was more interested in selling those
chcikens behind Percys back and sending them back to
Canada,,,well here’s the way the story goes Mr. Flowers
found out and hired a hit on Monroe but the gunman missed
and Monroe left town,,,,he hung out in Western NC and got
gone from there and i have never heard his name since!
The sweaters as bred by Sweater McGinnis for Percy
Flowers were some of the gameest cocks that ever lived, it
got so bad people were stealing them off the tie cords,,,so
Sweater bred bantam into the blood and i was told they
were better as far as fighting cocks then the sweaters were.
Sweater Mcguiness was a gameness freak,,,that was his
thang,, he wanted the gamest cock on the planet….and
should he lived he might have gotten to that point because it
was close to perfect then,,,,,,
One of the best selectors and trainers ever from what the
old timers tell me was Col Jack Claffey, Col Claffey, would
pick through and feed the cocks Sweater would throw out
when they were going to those big tournaments in Florida,
at St. Augustine The colonel had a tremendous win record
and the unique thinng about him was that he never went into
the pit and had no interest in the cocks fighting, just merely
liked to feed and condition gamefowl. This was a most
admirable man from what all was able to gather about him
and he lived his life out on Percy Flowers farm until his
passing, i was told,,,,,,
Now, when Percy Flowers got into trouble for making
moonshine whiskey, he had a trial and finally got aquitted,
the state was trying to convict him not for making the liquer
but for the unpaid tax on that whiskey. The thing that might
have helped him get out of that situation was that foreman
of the jury was Willis Holding, the same Willis Holding that
was gifted the fowl from TK BRUNER ast his death. Now as
i was reading when Sweaster died Harry Parr was able to
get one of the sweater cocks back from Pinehill farms
(Percy Flowers) and that was a cock Willis Holding had out
on loan, he was lucky to have even gotten that one
back,,,,,,,,good roosters used to have more pull than
American Express Gold back in the day………
The state accused Percy of making alcohol for so many
years 24 hours a day 7 days a week, they had planned to
tax him on this amount of money,,,by that time Pinehill farm
had reached 5000acres and Percy Flowers owned Johnson
county, NC,,,,his store is still there and i visited johnson
couty just a few weeks back, his daughter has developed
this area into its own city,,,,,,,,,,,,anyhow,,,,Oh Percy Flowers
had a son,,,Jr. that went to UNC was going to be an
attorney and was killed in a plane crash, i noticed pictures of
him piloting an experimental craft, had he became a
politician we might have cockfighting now in the USA,,,who
knows…..
Willam T. Greene calls the grey bloodline “McGinnis
Perfection Grey”.