Copyright

The National Pastime: A Review of Baseball History

edited by John Thorn

Copyright © 1982, 2014 by the Society for American Baseball Research, Inc.

New preface copyright © 2014 by John Thorn

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

SABR, Inc.

4455 E. Camelback Dr. Suite D-140

Phoenix, AZ 85018

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PICTURE CREDITS (See print or PDF edition for corresponding page numbers):

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design; Jesse Metcalf Fund and Walter H. Kimball Fund: for the front-cover detail from Thomas Eakins' Baseball Players Practicing, 1875.

Library of Congress: 21, 29, 44 (top), 45, 46 (l.), 57.

National Baseball Hall of Fame: 6, 9, 17, 18, 26, 27, 30, 33,38, 39 (l.), 50,51,54, 55,59,60.

A. G. Spalding Collection, General Research & Humanities Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations: 39 (top), 43 (cen.).

MarkRucker: 39(r.), 40, 41, 43, (top&bot.), 46(top&r.), 47, 72.

Lew Lipset; 42, 44 (bot.), 49,88.

Stuart Leeds, 68,69.

Bob Carroll: 1.

John B. Holway:8, 11.

Harold Seymour, Ph.D.: 75.

GeraldTomlinson: 84.

John Thorn: 20, 56, 64, 65.

Preface, 2014

When I joined SABR in mid-1981, ten years after its founding, I could not imagine the future, neither the society’s nor mine. I was a defrocked English Lit guy poking around in journalism. I had written a couple of baseball books—“on the side,” I told myself, though my central endeavor was by no means known. If I didn’t have the chops to play with Dickens and Dostoevsky, I figured, maybe I could write baseball books for real grownups, like those of Larry Ritter and Harold Seymour, already longtime idols for me.

After covering the SABR convention in Toronto for The Sporting News, and meeting so many strange and wonderful individuals, I knew I had found a spiritual home, a place where my nose for mathematics, my curiosity about history, and my love of the game’s imagery made me a fit with like minds: Pete Palmer, Bob Carroll, John Holway, and Mark Rucker, among so many others.

It struck me in the fall of 1981 that SABR's main vehicle for publication, the Baseball Research Journal, hosted outstanding research but was editorially narrow and visually unappealing. I proposed to the Executive Board—consisting of Kit Crissey, Jerry Gregory, Vern Luse, Bob Soderman, John Pardon, Cliff Kachline, Frank Phelps, and Stan Grosshandler—that I create a new publication to broaden our scope and look to appeal to a somewhat wider, non-specialist readership. Maybe, I figured, such an “American Heritage of Baseball,” as I thought of it, might even give a boost to SABR membership. On January 9, 1982, the board gave me a green light.

That they also provided no funding—except for the cost of typeset, printing, paper, and mailing—meant that I would have to scramble a bit, but that was OK. I enlisted contributors—those mentioned above, my newfound friends, my onetime idols, and veteran authors, journalists, and researchers. Gordon Fleming, author of The Unforgettable Season, a pioneering new form of baseball book, sent me a brilliant treatment of the Merkle Boner. Dr. Seymour and David Voigt, who had long disapproved of each other, took the roles of lion and lamb for this new journal, coexisting peaceably and contributing bold, fresh articles. Baseball Research Journal regulars like Art Ahrens, Al Kermisch, and Ted DiTullio contributed fine pieces. And an unpublished researcher, a bank accounting officer named Frank J. Williams, submitted an exhaustive article, handwritten on yellow legal paper, which upon publication became a landmark in the history of baseball record keeping.

I designed the publication and on my kitchen table laid out the reproduction proof with paste pot and Exacto knife. I created the headlines with Letraset transfer type and a burnishing tool, as our printer Dean Coughenour of Manhattan, Kansas, could not obtain display-size versions of the type I had specified. If all this sounds like complaint, then I have failed to strike the proper tone. Trust me, it was heaven. I could not have believed more fervently than I did in the opening words of my “house column”:

The National Pastime has sprung into being to depict the panorama of baseball, from its murky beginnings on up to last night’s news, showing that the past of this great game is every bit as exciting as its present.

The debut issue was mailed in late October and immediately met with rave reviews. Its nominal cost was $5, but that was paid only by nonmembers—whose cost could be reduced to nothing if they added $10 to purchase a SABR membership. Our rolls rose from 1250 in July 1981 to 2800 at year end, 1982.

In the June/July 1983 issue of American Heritage, which had been my model for TNP, the editor wrote:

Thorn, who assembled the portfolio of baseball pictures in this issue, is editor of The National Pastime, a handsomely produced publication sponsored by the Society for American Baseball Research. And like all of SABR’s three thousand members, he is interested in exploring and preserving the legacy of the sport.

Actually by the time that issue of AH hit the stands, SABR membership had climbed to nearly 4000. This debut issue, which even in reprint more than three decades later, still looks handsome to me, also won an honorable mention in the 1983 PRINT Magazine annual review of the nation’s top achievements in the graphic arts.

But enough button-popping about the look of the thing. It is the quality of the writing that will impress most today, as it did then.

—JOHN THORN

November, 2014

Note from the Editor, 1982

Baseball history lives. It is a seamless web in which every act on the field or off echoes across the years, reverberating both forward and back. Valenzuela calls up visions of Hubbell, Rose chases the ghost of Cobb, Walter Johnson wins another game 55 years after throwing his last pitch in earnest. History may slumber undisturbed for generations until, unexpectedly, it yields up one of its secrets, and present and future are instantly transformed.

The National Pastime has sprung into being to depict the panorama of baseball, from its murky beginnings on up to last night's news, showing that the past of this great game is every bit as exciting as its present. TNP's publisher, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), is similarly dedicated to that proposition, and its more than 1600 members engage in a variety of pursuits, either as individuals or as participants in research committees, to further knowledge of the national pastime. Won't you join us? Details about SABR membership and other SABR publications are on the final page.

In fact, this premiere issue ofTNP is a tribute not only to baseball but to the interests and talents of SABR. Each of TNP's contributors is a member, as well as its printer, Dean Coughenour, whose expertise and care are evident in the way the publication looks. Special thanks must also go to: Cliff Kachline, who offered invaluable advice and aid from TNP's inception; Evelyn Kachline, who administered the funds for TNP; David Reuther, whose help in the planning stage was indispensable; and Mark Rucker, Lew Lipset, and Bob Carroll, for many kindnesses apart from their visible contributions. Thanks as well to Mike Saporito, Alan Benjamin, and Mimi Harrison.

Allow me to offer a concluding thought on the subject of baseball history. A September regional meeting ofSABR at Rockville, Maryland, was enlivened by the wonderful stories of 90-year-old Zip Collins, who had been a center fielder for three major-league clubs between 1914 and 1921. Taking me aside after his remarks to the gathering, Zip spoke passionately of his long-time dream, the establishment of a retirement home for former players who could no longer care for themselves. ''Write something in that magazine about the home, will you? It's important." As Zip left the hall on the arm of his grandson, I heard someone say, "Boy, if they ever get that home, someone ought to wire it from top to bottom and tape everything." Yes, they should, and someone ought to. —J.T.

RECORDS: Nate Colbert's Unknown RBI Record

BOB CARROLL

Nate Colbert set a single-season RBI record in 1972; hardly anyone noticed. Even today—ten years after the fact—few fans and fewer record books are aware of the big right-handed slugger's accomplishment. In fact, if it hadn't been for his performance on August 1 of that year—the best single day ever enjoyed by a major league hitter—he might not be remembered at all.

Some of Colbert's obscurity may be blamed on the season. Nineteen seventy-two was not the happiest of baseball years. It began with Gil Hodges' fatal heart attack at spring training and ended with Roberto Clemente's tragic death in an airplane crash. In between, a player walkout shortened the season by 13 days.

Another strike against Colbert was his team. The '72 San Diego Padres weren't quite the worst club in the National League—the Phillies were .001 lower—but it was hard to get excited about anything that happened on a 58-95 team sporting a .227 team batting average. Unless you had a cousin on the roster, you probably wouldn't even read the Padres' box scores.

A third strike on Colbert was his habit of missing third strikes. He could hit home runs and keep his batting average higher than his weight, but he also fanned more often than Scarlett O'Hara during a Georgia July. On average, he struck out every fourth time he went to bat. Among ten-year men, only Dave Kingman has been easier prey.

All in all, Nate was the wrong player on the wrong team in the wrong year to be making his mark on history.

His record doesn't reveal itself by a cursory glance at his batting stats for 1972: a .250 average, with 38 home runs and 111 RBIs. Forget the 127 strikeouts and it's a good year. But great? Record-setting?

Take a look at San Diego's team batting. During the whole season, the Padres managed a mere 488 runs. Why, it seemed like the 1927 Yankees had that many by Memorial Day!

Now, put the figures together. Colbert batted in 22.75 percent of his team's runs! Think of it this way: each batter makes up 11.1% of his team's lineup; Colbert did the work of two and then some. No major-league batter has ever done more for his team.

"How Nate ever knocked in 111 runs that otherwise dismal season has puzzled the experts ever since," says Padre statistician Mil Chipp. "He usually batted behind Derrel Thomas, Dave Roberts, and Jerry Morales. And none of them were that adept at getting on base. Thomas's on-base percentage in 1972 was 29%, Roberts' was 28% and Morales' 31%." Colbert himself led the team with his modest 34% OBP.

It was no contest in RBIs. Chipp points out: "The only Padre players 'close' to Nate ... were Leron Lee (47) and Clarence Gaston (44). They were light years away."

There is a certain element of controversy involved in any RBI record: is it the man or the opportunity? Ever since the ribbie was dreamed up, some fans have opposed it as a measure of individual achievement. At the end of the 1880 National League season, according to Preston D. Orem's Baseball (1845-1881) from the Newspaper Accounts, "the Chicago Tribune proudly presented the 'Runs Batted In' record of the Chicago players for the season, showing Anson and Kelly in the lead. Readers were unimpressed. Objections were that the men who led off, Dalrymple and Gore, did not have the same opportunities to knock in runs. The paper actually wound up almost apologizing for the computation."

Ernie Lanigan, patron saint of ribbies, in his 1922 Baseball Cyclopedia, observed, "As far back as 1879 a Buffalo paper used to include the runs batted in in the summary of the box score of the home game. Henry Chadwick urged the adoption of this feature in the middle '80s and by 1891 carried his point so that the National League scorers were instructed to report this data. They reported it grudgingly and finally were told they wouldn't have to report it."

Lanigan took up the ribbie torch in 1907 for the New York Press, working up the figures annually. At last, on the request of the Baseball Writers' Association, the major leagues added RBIs to their 1920 averages.

Yet, even more than a hundred years after RBIs were introduced, many fans view the stat skeptically. If a man singles, goes the argument, he has performed an individual act. But, to get a ribbie on that same single, he must have a teammate in scoring position. Colbert's 111 is an excellent total, but how many more might he have driven home in 1972 had he played for heavy-hitting Pittsburgh? For the record, Pirate first baseman Willie Stargell drove in 112.

Looking at the percentage of a team's runs driven in somewhat circumvents the anti-RBI argument. In theory, at least, a player on a light hitting team with fewer opportunities to drive in runs can show his mettle by knocking in a high percentage. Conversely, a player with a group of bombers clustered around him in the batting order must drive in a much higher number to achieve the same percentage.

When Hack Wilson set the major league record with 190 ribbies in 1930 (soon to be revised upward, to 191 or 192), his team scored another 803. His percentage was 19.04. Lou Gehrig's American League mark of 184 accounted for "only" 17.24 percent of the '31 Yankees' 1,067 runs. The accompanying chart shows all those players since 1900 who have knocked in 150 or more runs in a season, along with their teams' runs and percentages. It comes as no surprise that all 150-plus boys played on teams that scored a ton. Sox. Colbert's Padres scored an ounce, but his percentage was three points better than the highest of the big RBI guys.

As a matter of fact, only eight men in major league history—from 1876 on—have topped the 20 percent mark. More men have hit .400.

The first hitter to achieve the improbable 20 was, not surprisingly, Babe Ruth. What is indeed surprising is that the Babe did it before he became a Yankee. In 1919, his last season in Boston, he drove in 114 runs – a 20.13 clip – for the fifth-place Red Sox. Although he topped that RBI total eleven times in a Yankee uniform, he never again drove in so high a proportion. (Note: some sources credit Ruth with only 112 RBIs in 1919, a 19.8 percent).

It took 16 years before another player reached 20 percent. Then, the Braves’ Wally Berger chased home teammates at 22.61 (130 out of 575). Despite Berger’s efforts, the Braves won only 38 games and came in dead last on a stretcher. But Wally’s mark stood as the record until Colbert’s big year.

Swish Nicholson drove the Cubs up to fifth place in 1943 with his 20.25 percent (128 out of 632). The Cubbies were back in fifth place in 1959 when Hall-of-Famer Ernie Banks made the "20 Club" with 21.25 (143 out of 673). That performance earned Banks his second consecutive MVP award. Interestingly, he's the only 20-percenter to be so honored by the BBWAA.

Jim Gentile became the fifth member of the society in 1961. His 20.41 percent (141 out of 691) was a big factor in lifting the Orioles into third place, but it went virtually unnoticed in the excitement over Roger Maris's asterisk-pursuit. Maris was also crowned the RBI "leader" on the basis of one more ribbie than Gentile, but his percentage was only 17.17 (142 out of 827).

Big Frank Howard belongs in the 20-percenter Hall of Fame—he topped the magic mark twice. In 1968 with Washington, he knocked in 106 runs (out of 524) for a 20.23 percent. Two years later, he reached 20.13 (on 126 out of 626). Unfortunately, Washington finished last both years, but without Frank's bat they would have finished in Guam.

Another two years went by before Colbert set the record. Since then only one player has been able to break the 20 barrier, Bill Buckner with 20.27 percent for the Cubs in last year's strike-shortened season. Buckner's accomplishment is interesting in that it came on only 75 RBIs.

Most of the 20-percenters played on second-division teams not only in their big years, but for the majority of their careers; most of them might also be characterized as underrated. The relationship is not coincidental.

The key to Nate Colbert's record occurred on August 1, 1972 in Atlanta, where the Padres met the Braves in a twi-night doubleheader. Colbert was among the league leaders in home runs and RBIs, but a slump had plunged his batting average toward .200. He'd also been forced to miss a couple of games the previous week when he'd injured a knee in a collision at home plate.

On the plane from Houston, Padre manager Don Zimmer asked Nate if he'd prefer to sit out another day or two. The big slugger insisted it didn't matter how he felt. He wanted to play in the Braves' cozy park, and he was determined "someone was going to pay" for his recent slump. Before all the Atlanta fans had even found their seats for the opener, Nate put San Diego in front in the first inning with a three-run homer off Ron Schueler. In the third frame he contributed to a four-run Padre out burst by singling home a teammate. Another single and a bases-empty homer off Mike McQueen in the seventh gave him four-for-five and five ribbies in the 9-0 Padre win.

The second game was even better. Tom Kelley opened for the Braves and he was as wild as a Penthouse party. He walked Colbert in the first inning and Nate came around to score. Pat Jarvis replaced Kelley in the second inning just in time to face Colbert with the bases loaded. Nate promptly cleared them with his third homer of the evening.

A two-run blast off Jim Hardin in the seventh made the score 9-1. But the shell-shocked Braves fought back to make it 9-7 going into the final inning. Colbert was due up fourth. Cecil Upshaw retired the first two Padres, but Larry Stahl got a ground single to right. And up came Colbert.

The side-arming Upshaw had always given him trouble, so Nate decided to just try to meet the ball for a hit. Upshaw threw a high fastball for the first pitch. Colbert met it. Home run.

"I was shocked when I hit it," Colbert recalled. "I couldn't believe it when I saw it go over the fence. It was unreal! When I rounded second base, Umpire Bruce Froemming said to me: 'I don't believe this.' I told him: 'I don't either.' "

The next day, it took The New York Times three paragraphs just to explain the records Colbert had broken or tied:

The 13 runs batted in erased the major league record of 11 for a double-header, which had been shared by three American League batters, Earl Averill of the Cleveland Indians (1930), Jim Tabor of the Boston Red Sox (1939) and Boog Powell of the Baltimore Orioles (1966). The National League record of 10 was established in 1947 by Enos Slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The 6-foot-l½ inch 200-pound Colbert also broke the National League record of 12 runs batted in in two consecutive games by Jim Bottomley of St. Louis in 1924. The major league mark is 15, established in 1925 by Tony Lazzeri of the New York Yankees.

The five home runs in a double-header by Colbert equaled the major league mark set by Stan Musial of the Cardinals in 1954 and also broke Musial's record of 22 total bases in a twin bill.

Yet when 1972 ended and Colbert had racked up a record even more impressive than any of these, not a newspaper in the land gave it so much as an agate line.

Call it Catch-22.75.

SOAPBOX: 19th-Century Baseball Deserves Equal Time

ART AHRENS

ON APRIL 22, 1980, Chicago Cub shortstop Ivan DeJesus became only the tenth player in that team's history to hit for the cycle, collecting a single, a double, a triple, and a home run during a 16-12 win over St. Louis. The following morning, the writeup in the Chicago Sun-Times listed every Cub player of the so-called "modern" era (i.e., since 1901) who accomplished this rare feat. The Cub who pulled it off in the nineteenth century Jimmy Ryan (twice)—was not given a syllable. Once again, baseball's formative century was left on the back of the shelf to gather dust. Exclusion of nineteenth-century baseball from its rightful place is equivalent to saying that American history prior to 1776 should be discarded because our country was led by King George rather than General George. Once upon a time there was only one set of records, including both centuries. By the mid-1930s, however, most baseball writers who had been active in the old century were either dead or retired. It was during this era that the nebulous term "modern baseball" came into existence. A kind of "newspeak" was born. During all the years that this distinction has been in vogue, no one has ever explained what revolutionary metamorphosis at the turn of the century rendered pre-1900 or pre-1901 records unworthy of consideration. All the artificial demarcation provides is a convenient excuse for incomplete research.

This all too dominant attitude has resulted in a near-total ignorance of nineteenth-century baseball on the part of fans and writers alike. The casual fan is likely to be familiar with such players as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner, and Walter Johnson, even if he is not well versed in their accomplishments. Why? Because they all played wholly or primarily in the twentieth century. If the same individual is confronted with the names of such nineteenth-century giants as Cap Anson, Amos Rusie, Ed Delahanty, Jake Beckley, and Jesse Burkett, his mind is apt to go blank. Even among baseball fans who display some interest in history, it is probable that 90 percent believe Rogers Hornsby (.424 in 1924) rather than Hugh Duffy (.438 in 1894) holds the record for highest batting average in a season.

Example after example of slightings to nineteenth-century ball can be cited. Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig's otherwise marvelous volume The Image of Their Greatness makes no bones about being a pictorial history of twentieth century major league ball exclusively. The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball, while not ignoring the nineteenth century entirely, devotes only limited coverage to the years 1876 through 1900, thereby giving the era second-class status. Annually, Baseball Digest prints listings of the season leaders in all major batting and pitching categories, but only from 1900 to the present. (It is curious that the year 1900 is included since that season was actually part of the nineteenth century: centuries begin in 01 and end in 00, contrary to popular belief.) Scores of other instances could be mentioned.

The effects of the "modern base ball" syndrome on Hall of Fame balloting have been sickening. For the first three years of voting—1936, '37, and '38—no players who performed entirely or mainly in the nineteenth century were elected save Connie Mack and John McGraw, both of whom were installed because of their achievements as twentieth-century managers (though McGraw was a formidable player). Not until 1939, after a huge outcry from elderly fans, did the first crop of nineteenth century immortals receive the honors due them.

In the ensuing years, the Cooperstown Veterans Committee dragged its feet when it came to enshrining nineteenth-century stars. Such heroes of the previous century as Jake Beckley, Mickey Welch, Sam Thompson, Joe Kelley, and Amos Rusie did not enter baseball's Valhalla until the 1970s. All the while, twentieth century players with lesser qualifications were being whisked in right and left.

Particularly glaring was the case of Roger Connor, who played from 1880 to 1897, enjoying his best years with the Giants. Elected to the hall in 1976, he was a .325 lifetime batter with 2535 hits and an incredible (for that era) 138 home runs. The last figure was a major-league record until broken by Babe Ruth with a livelier ball. Connor's home-run record alone should have elected him 30 years earlier. And while it is gratifying that he has finally been honored, injustices continue. The exclusion of such greats as George Van Haltren (2573 hits, .321 average) and Jimmy Ryan (2577 hits, .314 average, plus 113 homers) while the doors are opened for such "modern" lesser lights as George Kelly (1778 hits, .297 average) and Dave Bancroft (2004 hits, .279 average) is inexcusable. Apparently all ballplayers are created equal, but those who played in the twentieth century are more equal than others.

To set an arbitrary cut-off date of 1900 or 1901 defies all logic. The game as it was played in 1901-- and for years thereafter—bore a far greater resemblance to that performed in 1899 than to the baseball of 1980. Players still wore small gloves, high-topped shoes, wide belts, collared jerseys that laced up the middle, and flat-topped caps, while fans rode to wooden ballparks in horse-drawn carriages or streetcars. One or two umpires did the law enforcement: relief pitching was virtually nonexistent, batting helmets unheard of, and night ball inconceivable. With the ball as dead as it ever was, the psychology of the base hit, the bunt, and the stolen base remained in style until the advent of the lively ball in 1920. It was Ring Lardner's hated 'Jackrabbit," not the turning of the centuries, that brought in the long ball to alter the game irrevocably. This was probably the single most revolutionary change in baseball history, yet no one has ever suggested that 1920 replace 1901 as the demarcation line of the "modern" era.

Those few changes which did take place precisely at the turn of the century were generally minor. In 1900, the five-sided home plate replaced the square form previously in use, hardly an earth-shaking development. The same year, the National League shrank from twelve clubs to eight, which was nothing new since an eight-city circuit had been the rule prior to 1892 (except for 1877 and '78, when it was a six-team league).

In 1901 it was written into the rulebook that the catcher must remain right behind the batter, but this had already been the common practice for roughly a decade. In another minor change, the infield-fly rule was extended to apply when there were no outs as well as one. That year also witnessed the emergence of the American League as a major circuit, which did not alter the way the game was played. Finally, the year 1901 saw the introduction of the foul-strike rule in the National League, although the junior circuit did not adopt it until 1903. This change was of considerable significance, as the cumulative National League batting average dropped from .279 in 1900 to .267 the following year. In and of itself, however, the rule could not be considered dynamic enough to render the previous conditions "a whole different ballgame."

At this point it will be conceded that distinctions should be allowed in certain narrowly defined areas, namely pre-1893 pitching records and pre-1898 stolen-base statistics. From 1876 through 1880, the pitching distance was only 45 feet. A 50-foot distance was in effect from 1881 through 1892, after which the interval was extended to its present length of 60 feet, six inches. Yet until 1887, batters could call for high or low pitches and until 1884, pitchers' motions were restricted. Consequently, early pitching feats are somewhat difficult to assess. Prior to 1898, a player was credited with a stolen base if he advanced from first base to third on a single. Hence the stolen base totals for the early years are a bit dubious also. Nevertheless, these reservations should apply only to those particular categories, not to the entire sport. Let it be observed also that neither of these rule changes involved an 1899-1900 or 1900-1901 date break.

Then comes the touchy question of World War II baseball, well into the "modern" era. With most of the genuine talent being drafted into the army, major-league rosters filled up with 4-F's, fuzzy-faced teenagers, aging veterans attempting comebacks, and Triple-A lifers who never would have made it to the majors otherwise. Granted, wartime baseball was an aberration. But can any serious student of baseball history believe that the playing quality of 1945 was superior to that of 1899, when Ed Delahanty, Jesse Burkett, Cy Young, Willie Keeler, Kid Nichols, Honus Wagner, and Nap Lajoie were in their prime? I think not.

One cannot help but worry that after the year 2001, twentieth-century baseball will be accorded the same shabby treatment that our era has given the nineteenth century. What then will constitute the beginning of "modern" baseball: the introduction of night games in 1935? The desegregation of the major leagues in 1947? The beginning of divisional play in 1969? Marvin Miller's birthday? It is something to think about.

NEGRO LEAGUES: Dandy at Third: Ray Dandridge

JOHN B. HOLWAY

SQUAT, BOW-LEGGED Ray Dandridge was a "vacuum cleaner" at third base, black veterans agree. Charging into bare hand a bunt, leaping to his right to backhand a line drive, racing in front of short-stop to cut off a slow roller, Ray Dandridge was “fantastic," according to Monte Irvin, who played with Ray on the Newark Eagles. "A lot of people say Judy Johnson was best," says Irvin, "but a lot who saw both would have to give it to Dandridge because of his hitting, his fielding, and his speed." In fact, Dandridge forces comparison with the best third basemen of any era and any league—whites such as Pie Traynor or Brooks Robinson, or blacks such as Oliver Marcelle and Johnson.

Roy Campanella, who played in both the black and white leagues, calls Dandridge the best he's ever seen at third, including his own flashy fielding teammate on the Brooklyn Dodgers, Billy Cox. And Al Lopez, who managed against Dandridge in the American Association in 1949, recalls that "Ray's arms practically dragged the ground." Here Lopez hunches over in an exaggerated in fielder's crouch, knuckles swaying just above the floor. "Funny as hell, but the sonofabitch could play ball real good. And he'd throw that ball as soon as he got it. Like Brooks Robinson." And, adds Larry Doby, Ray's teammate at Newark, "You couldn't put Brooks in there with Ray in hitting."

Ray could hit as well as field. His lifetime average was .355 in the Negro leagues, .348 in several seasons in Mexico, and .321 in the games he played against white major leaguers. Among black third basemen, only Jud Wilson hit better than that, and Wilson was a rock compared to Dandridge in the field. When black old timers voted on their all-time all black team at Ashland, Kentucky in June 1982, the result at third was a dead heat between Judy Johnson and Ray Dandridge.

Ray Dandridge's story is even more poignant than that of most other blackball stars, because he just missed the major leagues by a year or two. He was 31 when Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers in 1945. Younger men made the switch with ease. Older ones had no expectations. But Dandridge was just young enough to get his hopes up, and just old enough to have them dashed.

Dandridge did get as far as the Giants' Triple-A farm team in Minneapolis, where he watched the younger Willie Mays go on to big league stardom. Irvin, and Sal Maglie, who faced Ray in the Mexican leagues, both urged Giant manager Leo Durocher to bring Ray up in 1950, but the quota system was still in effect, and the Giants were full up-with two, Irvin and Hank Thompson. They left the 36-year old Dandridge in Minneapolis, where he was voted the league's most valuable player. If they had brought him up to the Polo Grounds, Irvin is convinced, they could have won the 1950 pennant.

Twelve years earlier, when Ray was in his prime, New York columnist Jimmy Powers had also urged the Giants to sign him. Of course, given the times, that idea was preposterous and the Giants never even considered it. They finished third that year and would not win a pennant until 1951. How much difference might Ray have made if he'd been in the lineup all those years along with Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, Johnny Mize, and the other Giant stars?

Dandridge was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1913. A short, barrel-chested youth, ''built like a midget rassler," as one player would put it, Ray was a Golden Glove boxer and football quarterback until an opposing lineman hit him with a tackle that knocked a knee out of kilter.

Ray played baseball in Virginia and North Carolina, and that's where he first met Dave Barnhill, the diminutive fastballer who later would go up to the Minneapolis Millers with him. Barnhill remembers that Dandridge played first base with a red bandana around his neck like a railroad engineer. Ray nonchalantly scooped low throws out of the dirt, seemingly without even looking. At bat he seemed to wield a four-foot-long club, or so Barnhill thought, because no pitch was too high or too wide for him to hit.

In 1933, at the age of 19, Ray won a tryout with the Detroit Stars as an outfielder, He fancied himself a longball hitter. It was Detroit manager Candy Jim Taylor, an old third baseman, who made Ray into a shortstop and changed his hitting style completely. 'Jim Taylor was the smartest man," Ray says. "He took my light bat away from me. He got me out there for one solid week and learned me to hit that ball: spray here and there." Instead of trying to pull every pitch, Dandridge learned to punch outside pitches to right field. He forgot about home runs. "Eleven home runs was tops in my entire career," he says. "But I had a hell of an average—doubles, singles, and triples."

"Dandridge was built close to the ground," laughs Judy Johnson. "They would pitch up in his eyes. Right in his alley. Looked like he was chopping wood."

A year later Dandridge was with Newark and hitting .333. There Dick Lundy, a great shortstop, transformed Ray into a third baseman. When the club's third baseman was late reporting to spring training, Lundy told Dandridge, "Ray, you work out at third." By the time the regular third baseman got there, Lundy told him, "You can go home now. I've got a third baseman."

Ray studied hard. He admired Judy Johnson, then winding up his career with the Pittsburgh Crawfords and now a member of baseball's Hall of Fame. But he credits Jud "Boojum" Wilson for giving him the secret that made him into a great third baseman. When a batter topped the ball, Ray says, he used to wait for the ball. The hitters consequently were beating them out. Wilson told him, "Kid, always charge a ball." "I used to listen to oldtimers," Ray says, "and I found out Boojum was right. You got to study the man running. If he's a fast man, I've got to fire it. If he's a slow man, I'd lob it, just get him by a step." He was soon playing so close on bunts that "I came near to bumping the catcher." Says former pitcher Bill Holland of the New York Black Yankees, "Dandridge had plenty of guts. Guys used to fake bunts to draw the third baseman in. Some third basemen wouldn't come in too close. Dandridge would."

Black veterans were soon comparing the fresh young kid with the greatest third sackers in black annals Johnson and Marcelle. Catcher Larry Brown gave Dandridge the edge. "He was a better hitter, a better fielder, and a better thrower," Brown says. "And he was faster." Cum Posey, owner of the Homestead Grays and perhaps the number-one authority on black baseball history, enthusiastically called Ray the nonpareil. "There never was a smoother master at third," he wrote.

Ray was a cocky youngster. "When I came up, I was just one of those wild ones," he says. "But I learned." He likes to tell the story of his first meeting with the great Satchel Paige. The Eagles were in Pittsburgh for a doubleheader and won the first game. In the dressing room between games Ray got a couple of stools and stood on tip toes to look over the partition into the Craws' dressing room. Satchel was due to pitch the second game. "All right, you're next, you're next, you're next," Ray called to Satch. "You just come out here, talkin' 'bout how you can throw hard. We'll see how hard you throw. We're gonna rack you back," and so on and so on.

On Ray's first trip to the plate, he now admits, he did feel a little nervous and kept wondering what Satchel would throw. Boom! The first pitch exploded under his chin. Ray ducked, and he says he was a lot looser when he stood back up at the plate for pitch number two. The next pitch was another fastball, but in the strike zone and Ray lined it out for a hit. "That's one thing I'll say," he says: "I don't believe any man alive could throw that fastball by me."

In '35 Dandridge raised his average to .368 and appeared in the annual East-West, or all star, game, getting a single in his only at bat. He dropped to .286 in 1936, but Posey still picked the flashy fielder on his all-star team at season's end, as he would do in the next two years as well.

In 1939 Dandridge jumped the Negro league and traveled south of the border to play with Vera Cruz in the Mexican league. The owner of the Newark Eagles, Mrs. Effa Manley, recalls: "Dandridge came to me one day with this money in his hand and said, 'Well, Mrs. Manley, this is the money they've given me to come play with them. If you'll give me the same amount, I won't go.' At that time we were having such a bad time financially, I decided not to give it to him. But I thought it showed a nice attitude, because he had a family to support."

At Vera Cruz Dandridge teamed with the great shortstop Willie "Diablico" Wells, who also managed the team. "Dandridge depended on his speed and his arm," Wells says. But he didn't always play the hitters the way Wells, an astute field manager, thought they should be played. To complicate matters, at Vera Cruz Wells discovered that Dandridge was hard of hearing in his left ear, so he couldn't hear Wells' instructions to come in, play back, etc. So Wells simply transformed him into a second baseman!

At first Ray couldn't make the pivot. He was taking the toss from short on the run and throwing across his body under his left arm to first base. As a consequence, the throws were going wild. Wells taught him to take the throw, pause, pivot, and then throw. After that, he says, "We set all kinds of records for double plays."

We have only fragmentary statistics on Ray in Mexico. In 1943 he hit .370 and led the league in runs batted in with 70 in a roughly 90-game schedule. The next year Ray returned to Newark and led the Negro National League in runs and hits while again batting .370.

Back in Mexico in 1945 Ray managed Vera Cruz. They won the pennant by 13 games, he says. Ray himself batted .354 and set a record by hitting safely in 29 straight games. League czar Jorge Pasquel gave him a trophy inscribed in Spanish, "He came, he conquered."

The next year Pasquel began raiding the white big leagues, waving big bucks, and signed pitchers Sal Maglie, Max Lanier, Ace Adams, and Harry Feldman, along with catcher Mickey Owens, outfielder Luis Olmo and others. Ray hit .320 that year. Box scores for five games against the white big-league pitchers show him hitting an even .400 against them. He slugged Maglie especially hard, with four hits in nine at bats. In the all-star game that summer he went 2-for-4.

In the spring of 1947 Dandridge was playing in Venezuela when the New York Yankees came through. The Yanks would win the World Series that year, and Ray played two games against then, facing Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, and Bill Bevens. He tripled off Bevens in the first game and scored on Phil Rizzuto's error, as Kansas City Monarch pitcher Hilton Smith beat the Yanks 4-3.

Dandridge played in Mexico the next two summers. One of the youngsters there was Whitey Ford, and both Ford and Dandridge were named to the all-star team. Whitey was a fastball pitcher then, and Ray was a fastball hitter. He allows as how he hit Ford "pretty well." Barnhill, who was there, is more emphatic: "He hit Whitey like he owned him!"

In 1948 we finally get complete statistics on Dandridge at Vera Cruz. He led the league in batting at .369. It was Jackie Robinson's second year at Brooklyn, and Ray, like every other black star, saw his big opportunity coming up at last.

Ray hustled home in '49 to manage the New York Cubans, who played their home games in the Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants. Giant great Carl Hubbell approached Cubans' owner Alexander Pompez, who agreed to sell his two best prospects, Barnhill and Dandridge. (Minnie Minoso wasn't ready yet, Pompez figured.)

"Pompez called me on the road one day," Dandridge recalls, "and asked me if I wanted to play in the big leagues before I quit. I told him, 'Sure!' So he said, 'Pack up your bag and get on the plane to Minneapolis.' Did the big chance come too late? "I was 35," Ray grins, "but I told them I was 30."

Dandridge and Barnhill caught the plane and hustled straight to the Millers' stadium, suitcases and all. The game was already in progress while they suited up. Wild Mickey McDermott, a left-handed fastballer with Louisville, was opposing the Millers and had struck out about 17 or 18 men, Ray says, when the two newcomers walked into the dugout and shook hands with Minneapolis manager Tommy Heath, then took seats at the end of the bench.

"Ray, when was the last time you played?" Heath asked. "Last time I played? Are you kidding? I played yesterday." "Well, do you think you can play today?" Heath wanted to know. "I came here to play," Ray told him, "I didn't come here to look around."

"Well, how'd you like to go up and hit against him?" Heath asked, jerking his head toward McDermott.

"I'll go up and try," Ray shrugged. He went to the bat rack, shook several models, picked out "one to my balance," and walked up to the plate.

The first pitch whistled in under Dandridge's chin. But he was used to those and on the next pitch shot a line drive toward right field, which the second baseman leaped and grabbed. And that, Ray remembers, was his debut in Organized Ball.

Barnhill started and won the second game, and Ray made some good plays in the field. After that, Barnhill says, when the players took their seats, the dugout was integrated, there were no more blacks on one end, whites on the other. "They treated me and Ray like we were on the ball club," Barnhill says. "Well, we were on the club. It wasn't who was white or who was black. Oh man, I had some experiences with that ball club-good experiences."

Traveling was no problem, Barnhill says. The two blacks stayed in white hotels with the team everywhere but Louisville and Kansas City.

Heath installed Dandridge at second base. When the Giants sent second baseman Davey Williams down to Minneapolis for more seasoning, Dandridge was hitting like a terror. Heath asked him to move to the outfield. "I don't want to play no damn outfield," Dandridge retorted, so Heath shrugged and decided he had no choice but to keep Williams on the bench.

When the Millers' third baseman got spiked, Heath asked Dandridge, "Ray, ever play third before?"

"I'll go over there and try," Ray said modestly.

On the first pitch the batter dragged a bunt to third. Ray swooped in, and in one fluid motion threw the man out. The Millers watched in awe. Barnhill simply winked. "You just threw the rabbit in the briar patch," he told Heath.

That year Ray played first base, second base, shortstop, and third, hit .369, and just missed winning the batting championship. He was voted Rookie of the Year-at the age of 35.

Why didn't the Giants bring Ray up to the parent club that year? It was Leo Durocher's first full season with the team, and he complained that he had inherited a muscle-bound team of sluggers who couldn't run. Sid Gordon on third hit 26 home runs but was slow afield and afoot.

The Giants made their first tentative experiment in race relations that year, bringing Monte Irvin, Ray's old teammate at Newark, up to play a few games at outfield and third base; Monte hit .224. Twenty-three-year old Hank Thompson, a product of the Kansas City Monarchs, played second for half the season and hit .280. The Giants finished fifth, 24 games behind the Dodgers, and Leo swore he would rebuild the team in his own aggressive image in 1950. Would he cast his eyes toward Minneapolis and Dandridge?

No. Instead, Leo brought Eddie Stanky over from Brooklyn to play second and shifted Thompson to third. Ray would have to stay in Minneapolis in 1950. He had another splendid year there, hitting at a .311 clip and knocking out a personal-high 11 round-trippers. When the votes for league Most Valuable Player were counted, Ray Dandridge came out on top.

The Giants meanwhile were making a dash for the pennant, in hot pursuit of the Phillies and Dodgers.

Sal Maglie, who had seen Ray in Mexico, pleaded with the Giants' top scout to bring him up.

"But he's too old," Maglie was told.

''That's not the question," Sal replied. "We have a month to play. Bring him up for a month."

Looking back today, Maglie shakes his head. The scout didn't have the authority, he says; it was up to Giants' owner Horace Stoneham. "But we could have won the pennant. I know damn well, with Dandridge playing third, we'd have won that pennant in '50."

In the Giants' defense, it must be said that it made sense to go with youth. Thompson was having a good year, hitting .289 with 91 RBIs. In fact, it is hard to see where Ray could have fit into the team, with Stanky

hitting .300 at second and AI Dark, a .279 hitter, at short. The weak spot of the infield was first baseman Tookie Gilbert, who batted only .220. Could Dandridge have handled that position? At least he could have provided back-up insurance at the other three positions, and he could have given Durocher a tenth bat in emergencies.

Irvin blames the quota system, still in effect on those few teams that had integrated. Then, too, the Millers won the American Association flag that year. "They were going to call me and Ray to finish the season with the Giants," Barnhill says, "but we had to play in the playoffs instead. I could have had a cup of coffee and a cookie in the big leagues. You never saw a man as mad as I was! Man, was I mad!"

The next year, the fateful '51 season, the Giants had high hopes but began miserably. Thompson, a moody, unpopular man, was not doing the job at third. Meanwhile, the Giants had sent a kid outfielder to Minneapolis from their Trenton farm club, a youngster by the name of Willie Mays. "Did you know I was part of the cause of Willie going to the Giants?" Dandridge asks. He had seen Mays, then 19, play in Cuba one winter, and a few days later, as Ray knelt in the on-deck circle, a spectator caught his eye. "Damn," he said to himself, "that looks like Rosy Ryan sitting there." Ryan was Minneapolis general manager, and as Ray trotted back to the dugout after his at bat, he stopped at Ryan's box. "What are you doing here, Rosy?" he asked.

"I came to look at a ballplayer," Ryan replied. "What do you think of this boy Mays? How do you think he'd do at Minneapolis?"

Ray said, "Are you kidding? If you came here to get him, then get him!"

When Mays reported to Minneapolis, he hit right ahead of Dandridge in the batting order. "Every time Willie came up and hit one over the center-field fence, it seemed like I came up and hit one over the left-field fence," Dandridge grins. Pretty soon, every time Willie hit a homer, Ray would hit the dirt as the pitcher aimed the next one at his head. Ruefully he dusted himself off and told manager Heath, "You better get that man out from in front of me or you're going to get [me] killed!"

Willie recalls, "Ray Dandridge was like my father." Once, Mays says, a pitcher named Jim Atkins with Louisville threw three straight beanballs at the 20-year-old outfielder. While Willie lay sprawled on the ground, he looked up to see Dandridge advancing on Atkins. Atkins was huge, about 6'4" or 6'5", Willie says. Dandridge was about 5'7". "Now I'm on the ground, I'm looking up, and I'm looking at Ray saying something to Atkins, and I'm saying to myself, 'My God, don't let this guy hit Ray.' "

Back in the dugout Mays asked Dandridge what he had said. Ray replied: "I told the guy, 'Back home I have two dogs. I have a dog that will go right to your spot if I say Bite! Then I got another one that just sits back until the first one gets through, and then I will say Bite! again.' "

Atkins told Ray, "Well, Ray, I like you, but I don't like that little black worm over there."

And Ray replied, "You call him that again and I'll sic my third dog on you!"

One spring day in 1951, before an exhibition game at Sioux City, Iowa, Willie and Ray were sitting in a movie when a message flashed on the screen: "Willie Mays, report to the box office." In a moment Mays returned and whispered, "Ray, I've got to go to the hotel." Ray stayed for the end of the show, then joined his teammates.

"Hey, Skip, where the hell is Willie at?" he asked Heath.

"Didn't you know?" Heath replied. "He's already on a plane. He's halfway to New York now."

Dandridge went back to the room, gathered Mays' belongings and mailed them to the Polo Grounds.

But again there was no plane ticket for Ray, although he hit .324. In fact, the Giants had to dismiss second baseman Artie Wilson, ironically Mays' old tutor with the Birmingham Black Barons, to maintain the quota when Willie joined the team.

Instead of calling up Dandridge, Durocher moved outfielder Bobby Thomson to third. Though Thomson was no Dandridge with the glove, he hit with power, and the rest is history. But it's fascinating to speculate how history might have been changed if the Giants had put Ray on third. Would he have meant an extra victory or two? If so, there would not have been a playoff and Thomson would not have hit his "shot heard 'round the world."

In 1952 Ray hit .292 at Minneapolis with ten home runs. Judy Johnson, scouting for the Phillies, urged them to buy Ray, but the Giants wouldn't sell. They wouldn't bring him up to the Polo Grounds either. Davey Williams, a journeyman second baseman, had replaced Stanky but hit only .254. Irvin broke his ankle, Mays was drafted, Hank Thompson was moved to the outfield, and Bobby Thomson continued to struggle with the unfamiliar hot corner. The Giants finished second, four and a half games behind the champion Brooklyn Dodgers.

Finally, in 1953, the Giants let Ray go, to Oakland in the Pacific Coast League. But Ray, by then 40 years old, ran into the catcher chasing a foul ball, hurt his elbow, hit only .268, and at the end of the year was given his release.

He was out of the game in 1954, but the arm came around in '55 and he played with Bismarck, North Dakota, where he hit .360. But he was 42 years old. At last he realized that the big-league doors would never open for him. He called it a career.

Dandridge returned to Newark, tending bar and scouting part-time for the Giants.

"I met Horace Stoneham, the Giants' owner, at an oldtimers' game," Ray says. "I cussed him out. My ambition was to go from the lowest to the highest. They could have called me up. I asked him, 'Gee, couldn't you at least have brought me up even for one week, just so I could say I've actually put my foot in a major-league park?'"

JOHN B. HOLWAY is the author of Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues.

JUST HOW FAST was Cool Papa Bell?

Well, listen to the master story teller, Satchel Paige.

"One day, when I was pitchin' to Cool, he drilled one right through my legs and was hit in the back by his own ground ball when he slid into second."

Or, how about this? Satchel again. "Bell was so fast that he could turn out the light and jump in bed before it got dark." Paige amused people with this claim for nearly 40 years but, of course, nobody really believed him.

Finally, at the 1981 Negro Baseball Reunion in Ashland, Kentucky, Cool Papa assured everyone that his friend was telling the truth. "During the 1937 winter season, Satchel and I roomed together in California. One night, before he got back, I turned out the light, but it didn't go off right away. There was a delay of about three seconds between the time I flipped the switch and the time the light went out. Must of been a short or something.

"I thought to myself, here's a chance to turn the tables on Ol' Satch. He was always playing tricks on everybody else, you know. Anyway, when he came back to the room, I said, 'Hey Satch, I'm pretty fast, right?'

'You're the fastest,' he said.

"Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet, I told him. Why, I'm so fast, I can turn out the light and be in bed before the room gets dark. 'Sure, Cool. Sure you can,' he said.

"I told him to just sit down and watch. I turned off the light, jumped in bed, and pulled the covers all the way up to my chin. Then, the light went out.

"It was the only time I ever saw Satchel speechless. Anyway, he was telling the truth all these years."

—JIM BANKES

THE WRITER'S GAME: The Field Of Play

DAVID SANDERS

FOR ALMOST A CENTURY baseball has engaged layers of the imagination that other sports have only begun to penetrate; the game lives without the stadium as well as within. Its intricacies may be summoned up by collector's cards, table games, statistics, halls of fame, and burnished memories. It complemented card games and pinball in their day, and will adapt to video games. No other sport confronts the computer so fiercely, megafact for megabyte. And baseball is surely the writer's game.

What is baseball's hold on the mind (or Roger Angell's "interior stadium") where we replay it endlessly? More than any other game, it is a world in itself, and so it draws writers, whose occupation it is to create other worlds. This, although its action inspires no more writing than any other action in sports. The tireless writers of juveniles work easily and impartially with all sports; Ralph Henry Barbour, for example, published both The Long Pass and Relief Pitcher in 1927 in a career of two or more books a year that stretched from 1899 to 1942. The writer's game goes on from this view of baseball's surface to what the players call "the mental game, “or what happens beside and beyond clear-cut skill. To browse in baseball books is to move through a succession of imagined worlds.

Alibi Ike's hitting is simply the excuse for his excuses. When he starts talking, we are off the field and into the dugout and the lobby, and Ring Lardner has delivered the world which the ballplayer inhabits. It is at once a realistic place where fictional batters face Walter Johnson and a richly imagined tale where a reporter's observation has been the springboard for more comedy and irony than ever occurred on the Cubs and White Sox. Mark Harris invents Henry "Author" Wiggen, a player-narrator somewhat on the order of Huckleberry Finn, to tell his own story of big-league celebrity and thereby creates the most realistically detailed of all fictional baseball worlds. Through four novels complete with rosters taken directly from New York Mammoths scorecards, Harris's imaginary big leagues point up the glories of the mid-'50s and the commerce of the mid-'70s. Philip Roth invents a lost third major league, as romantic as Atlantis, and calls the collection of its legends The Great American Novel. Robert Coover invents J. Henry Waugh, a recluse completely drawn into the imaginary baseball league he has created from a table-top game. If we read J. H. Waugh (JHWH) as a symbolic Jehovah, then Coover's Universal Baseball Association becomes the ultimate baseball fiction, the end of the line for fictional baseball worlds.

The game is only one item on a long list in "Song of Myself' when Whitman mentions "enjoying picnics or jig&' or a good game of baseball.” It is an allusion to American character in The Great Gatsby when Fitzgerald introduces Meyer Wolfsheim, whose shady deeds include having fixed the 1919 World's Series.

Perhaps its earliest significant literary appearance was in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court when Mark Twain divided the knights of the round table into opposing batting orders as an alternative to their absurd jousting. In the Yankee's scheme of imposing progress on a backward people, the game is a force just below bicycles, Sunday school, and the patent office. Whether Twain respected baseball or thought it ludicrous depends on how we understand Hank Morgan, his Yankee, to whom he referred once as an "ignoramus" and whom he so clearly endowed with many of his own deepest loves and prejudices.

Ernest Hemingway invoked baseball in The Old Man and the Sea where his heroic fisherman, his hands cut and bleeding from the line hooked to his marlin adversary, is strengthened by the example of "the great DiMaggio" playing despite his bone spur. It would be pleasant, Santiago thinks at one point in his struggle, to have a radio out in his boat and listen to games or at least get the scores ahead of day-old newspapers. Lacking this, the old man turns to his memories of Dick Sisler's home runs in Havana during the first spring exhibition season after World War II.

Twenty-five years earlier in Paris, Hemingway wrote of baseball with amusement bordering on contempt in "The Three-Day Blow," which is basically a record of the marvelous flights of conversation by two boys on a rainy day in the North Woods, their intellectual gusto soaring with each swig of a parent's Scotch. They begin by wondering (probably in 1916) if the Cardinals will ever win a pennant. No, they agree, of course not. Not as long as McGraw can trade for any good player he wants like Heinie Zimmerman. ''There's always a lot more to it than we know," one says. "Of course," the other replies, ''but we've got pretty good dope for being so faraway.” They go on to literature, more intricate and mysterious. Finally, at the pinnacle of human utterance, there is fishing, too beautiful to talk about. They drink to it.

"It's better than baseball."

"There isn't any comparison. How did we get to talking about baseball?"

"It was a mistake. Baseball is a game for louts."

Whitman's passing mention precedes a stream of baseball in American poetry that included poems by Marianne Moore, Rolfe Humphries, and Horace Gregory, a wild variety of verse in the irrepressible anthology, Baseball, I Gave You the Best Years of My Life; and, even more recently, Spitball, a review devoted to poetry about baseball. Perhaps the most thoughtful reference to the game by an American poet is in "Birches," in which Robert Frost's "swinger of birches" is a boy "who lives too far from town to play baseball.” By himself in the woods, he shinnies up the young trees to the precise point where they bend to the ground under his weight—reaching out toward heaven, dropping gently back to earth. What would have happened to that metaphysical youngster if he had lived nearer town? Were most of us on our playgrounds and sandlots given any intimation of swinging on birches?

Growing up, most of us probably pored over a hundred issues of The Sporting News and thousands of box scores for every baseball book we read, yet by far the greatest number of titles in baseball fiction are, of course, those written especially for the young. What will surprise anyone who skims through Anton Brogani's valuable A Guide to Baseball Literature is that their appearance continues apace, decades after the advent of network television. Any baseball fan ought to be curious about how writers like Bill Knott and C. Paul Jackson contend with the electronic barrage that Ralph Henry Barbour never lived to see. Unless these juveniles are being read only by nostalgic middle-aged men, we have grounds for wondering if little league and instant replay are strangely congenial to fiction. The times may even produce a new John R. Tunis.

Ballplayers themselves—and their agents—have been tempted by the writer's game ever since Christy Mathewson's five ghosted novels (Won in the Ninth, First-Base Faulkner, Second-Base Sloan, Pitcher Pollack, Catcher Craig.) Most of these efforts deserve the treatment given them in Mark Harris' The Southpaw and Ring Lardner's "A Caddie's Diary.” Harris' "Author" Wiggen discovers upon joining the Mammoths that the author of the cherished baseball books he grew up with is probably the most vicious and ignorant of all his teammates. Lardner's illiterate caddy starts keeping a dairy so he can learn how to write the books about his future career that would otherwise make sportswriters rich.

Very few readers, even smaller children, from Mathewson's era to the early '60s, ever took up a player's book, fiction or otherwise, without hefty skepticism. Then several things happened to throw the whole field into a new era of gullibility. Ghosts still abound, but players' contributions to "their" books are now often greater than the mere use of their names. Miniaturization of tape recorders meant that the creative process could help kill time on road trips. The concurrent removal of most taboos in print meant that player-authors could follow Henry James' injunction to ''be one on whom nothing is lost.” Confessions replaced the old guides to play and conduct.

What is most remarkable about the whole movement, which takes in such names as Bouton, Lyle, and Durocher, is that two players emerged as bona fide writers. Pat Jordan wrote an affecting memoir of his aborted career in the Braves organization (where he was Phil Niekro's teammate at McCook) and went on to become a free-lance journalist. Jim Brosnan's The Long Season is the journal of the relief pitcher's 1959 season; it was followed by Pennant Race, some juveniles, and a few pieces for national magazines. Then came the barrage of his successors who fashioned their tapes, usually with help, into other formats besides seasons and pennant races.

Baseball also appeals to writers (except possibly the expose specialists) because it is inherently humorous. Its complex rules are matched by sly evasions and circumventions of those rules. In no other American sport, perhaps in no other American pursuit, including politics, have so many humorous types flourished: the rube, the braggart, the trickster, the innocent. Lardner caught them whole, but also-called "serious" baseball fiction has humorous underpinnings. All of it is funnier than the joke books sold as baseball humor.

Finally, there is the work of the baseball writer, a specific term excluding novelists, poets, confessors-for the men and women who report on the game for newspapers and magazines. The working press encompasses an enormous range of careers: Lardner, Fred Lieb, Bob Broeg, Roger Angell, Roger Kahn, Heywood Broun and Westbrook Pegler who went on to other beats, the ghosts, the sportswriters who became "publicists" and "information directors.” Going from sportswriter to commissioner, was Ford Frick the prototype of J. Henry Waugh?

DAVID SANDERS is Professor of English at Harvey Mudd College in California.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting Marty McHale

LAWRENCE S. RITTER

A rediscovered interview, taped in 1963 for The Glory of Their Times

DAMON RUNYON ONCE WROTE a story about me, saying this fellow McHale, who is not the greatest ballplayer that ever lived, is probably the most versatile man who ever took up the game. This was in the 1920s, after I had left baseball. So Johnny Kieran of the New York Times asked Babe Ruth about it, knowing he and I had been on the Red Sox together. Johnny said, "Marty played in the big leagues, he played football in college, he was on the track team, he was on the stage, he wrote for the Wheeler Syndicate and the Sun, he was in the Air Service" --and so forth. He went on listing my accomplishments until the Babe interrupted to say, 'Well, I don't know about all those things, but he was the best goddamn singer I ever heard!"

You see, I sang in vaudeville for 12 years, a high baritone tenor--an "Irish Thrush," they called it then, and Variety called me "The Baseball Caruso." But even before vaudeville, before baseball even, I used to work in a lot of shows around Boston and made trips down to Wakefield, Winchester--minstrel shows, usually--and sometimes these little two-act sketches.

So when I joined the Boston club, a bunch of us—Buck O'Brien, Hughie Bradley, Larry Gardner, and myself—formed the Red Sox Quartette. After a while Gardner gave it up and a fellow named Bill Lyons stepped in. This Lyons was no ballplayer, but Boston signed him to a contract anyway, just to make the name of the act look proper. We were together three years, and when we broke up I was just as well satisfied because it was quite an ordeal keeping the boys on schedule. They just couldn't get used to that buzzer that tells you you're on next. They'd be a couple of minutes late and think nothing of it, but you can’t do that in vaudeville, you know—you're on.

I did a single for about another three years, which was not very good—just good enough so that they paid for it—and then Mike Donlin and I got together. Now, you may not remember Mike, but he was—well, he was the Babe Ruth of his day. "Turkey Mike," they called him, because when he'd make a terrific catch or something he'd do a kind of turkey step and take his cap off and throw it up like a ham, a real ham; but he was a great one, he could live up to that stuff in the field or at the bat. His widow gave me some of his souvenirs: a gold bat and ball that were given to him as the most valuable player in 1905, some cufflinks, and a couple of gold cups, one from the Giants and the other from the Reds. He hit over .350 for both of them.

Mike and I were together for five years, doing a double entendre act called "Right Off the Bat”—not too much singing, Mike would only go through the motions—and we played the Keith-Orpheum circuit twice in one year. We were booked into the Palace in New York and that was when it was the Palace, not the way it is now! They had nothing but the big headliners. When Mike left for Hollywood, I went back to doing a single. He made a bunch of pictures out there, and that's where he died.

Which did I like better, baseball or vaudeville? Well, I'd call it about 50-50. The vaudeville was more difficult because of the traveling. Sure, you had to travel a lot in baseball, but you always had somebody taking care of your trunk and your tickets and everything; all you had to do was get your slip, hop onto the train, and go to bed. When you got to the hotel your trunk was there. In vaudeville you had to watch your own stuff. I used to say to Mike, you're the best valet I know, because he was always on time with the tickets and had our baggage checks and everything all taken care of, right on the button all the time.

Of course, Mike and I wouldn't have been such an attraction if it hadn't been for baseball, so maybe I ought to tell you how I came to sign with the Red Sox in 1910. First of all, Boston was almost my home town—I grew up in Stoneham, that's nine miles out and if you took a trolley car and changed two or three times, you could get to the ballpark. Which I'd done only once—I only saw one big-league game before I played in one, and Cy Young pitched it; I wasn't really a Red Sox fan. But here comes the second reason for my signing: they gave me a big bonus. How big? Two thousand dollars, and back then that was money!

You see, that year for Maine University I had thrown three consecutive no-hitters, and the scouts were all over. I had a bid from Detroit, one from Pittsburgh, one from the Giants, and another from the Braves. And there was sort of a veiled offer from Cincinnati, which is an interesting story.

This Cincinnati situation, Clark Griffith was down there managing and when I reported to the Red Sox, which was in June, following the end of the college term, his club was playing the Braves, over at Braves Field across the tracks from the Huntington Avenue park. Now, the Red Sox were on the road when I and some other college boys reported. We had signed, but the Red Sox didn't want us with them right away; they had to make room for us, they could only have so many players. So I remember that Griffith came over to the Red Sox park one morning to watch the boys work out. The clubhouse man told us we were all being watched—like you'd watch horses, you know, working out each morning, and he said if we wanted to stay with the club, better take it easy and not put too much on the ball and so on. See, the club usually asks waivers on the newcomers immediately upon reporting to see if anybody else is interested in them, and if so they can withdraw the waivers after a certain time.

I remember very definitely—I went out there and I was pitching to the hitters and I put everything I had on the ball, because after looking over that bunch of Red Sox pitchers I could see there was not much chance for a young collegian to crack that lineup.

At any rate, Griffith must have put in some claim, you see, because two days later I was on my way to Chicago to join the Red Sox. They had withdrawn the waivers. I joined them in Chicago and we went from there to Cleveland. I remember my pal Tris Speaker hurt his finger in Chicago and he was out for a few days, and Fordham's Chris Mahoney, who was an outfielder, a pitcher, and a good hitter, took his place.

He and I weren't the only college boys on that team, you know: Bill Carrigan, Jake Stahl, Larry Gardner, Duffy Lewis, Harry Hooper. . . even Speaker went to—not the University of Texas, but Texas Polyclinic, Polytechnic or something of that kind out there; only went for two years, but he went. And Ray Collins and Hughie Bradley, too. Buck O'Brien, he came the next year. He said, "I got a degree, I got a B.S. from Brockton." He said B.S. stood for boots and shoes, meaning that he worked in a factory.

Now on this day in Cleveland, we had Chris Mahoney playing right field, Harry Hooper moved over to center, and Duffy Lewis stayed in left, and Patsy Donovan put me in to pitch my first game in the big leagues against Joe Jackson and those Cleveland boys.

I wasn't what you'd call sloppily relaxed, but I wasn't particularly nervous, either. You see, I was one of the most egotistical guys that God ever put on this earth. I felt that I could beat anybody. I struck out ten of those Naps, including Jackson. The first time he was up, I had Joe two strikes, no balls, and I did something that the average big-league pitcher would never do. Instead of trying to fool him with a pitch, I stuck the next one right through there and caught him flat-footed. He never dreamed I'd do that.

So the next time up there the same thing happened. He hit a foul, then took a strike, and then Red Kleinow, an old head who was catching me, came out for a conference. He said, "What do you want to pitch him, a curve ball?" And I said, "No, I'm going to stick another fast one right through there."

He said, "He'll murder it." Well—he did! Joe hit a ball that was like a shot out of a rifle against the right-field wall. Harry Hooper retrieved it in left center!

Yes, I had ten strikeouts, but I lost the ballgame. It was one of those sun-field things: a fellow named Hohnhurst was playing first base for Cleveland and, with a man on first, he hit a long fly to left-center field. Harry Hooper, who was in center this day, was dead certain on fly balls, but when Speaker was out there, as Harry said afterwards, he used to let Speaker take everything within range. Harry said he and Duffy Lewis didn't exactly get their signals crossed, but they were not sure as to who was going to take the ball.

Finally Duffy went for it, and just as he made his pitch for the ball the sun hit him right between the eyes and he didn't get his hands on the thing and the run, of course, scored, and Hohnhurst, the fellow who hit the ball—he got himself to second base. Ted Easterly got a single on top of that, and anyway, the score ended up 4-3. That was it.

I was supposed to be a spitball pitcher, but I had a better overhand curve, what they called a drop curve. You'd get that over spin on it and that ball would break much better than a spitter. I had what they call a medium-good fastball, not overpowering but good enough, and if you took something off your curve and your spitter, your fastball looked a lot better. For my slow one, the changeup as they call it now, I tried a knuckler but never could get any results with it, so I stole Eddie Karger's slow-breaking downer. He and I used to take two fingers off the ball and throw it with the same motion as we used for the fastball.

They still have those fellows today that throw spitters, but it doesn't make much difference because even when the spitter was legal in my day, in both leagues you couldn't pick six good spitball pitchers. You'd take a fellow like Ed Walsh with the White Sox, the two Coveleski’s, Burleigh Grimes, and the left-handed spitter in the National League, who has since lost both legs, Clarence Mitchell.

Now, Clarence was a good spitball pitcher, but Walsh was the best. He worked harder at it, had a better break, had better control of it, and he pitched in more ballgames than any pitcher in either league over a period of years.

Eddie Cicotte, he was with us in Boston, you know, he was going with a spitter for a while. He used to throw that emery ball, too, and then he developed what we call the "shine" ball. He used to have paraffin on different parts of his trousers, which was not legal, and he would just go over all the stitches with that paraffin, making the other part of the ball rougher. It was just like the emery situation, but in reverse, and an emery ball is one of the most dangerous, not like the spitter, which can be controlled. But Cicotte's main pitch was the knuckleball, and he used that to such an extent that we called him Knuckles.

Joe Wood was with the Red Sox when I joined them, too. Now there was a fellow who could do nearly everything well. He was a great ballplayer, not just a pitcher; he was a good outfielder, he was a good hitter, he was a good baseman, and he could run like blazes. He used to work real hard before a ballgame. He was just a good all-around ballplayer and a great pitcher. And he was a fine pool player, too, and billiards. He could play any kind of a card game and well; also he was a good golfer. I think that he could have done nearly everything. If he were playing football he'd be a good quarterback.

Joey was a natural—and talking about egotistical people, there's a guy who had terrific confidence, terrific. Without being too fresh, he was very cocky, you know. He just had "the old confidence."

I wasn't with Boston the year they won the world's championship and Joey won those 34 games and then three more against the Giants, but I was at the Series and wrote a story about that final game. I saw the Snodgrass muff—he was careless, and that happens. But right after that he made a gorgeous running catch.

Earlier in that game Harry Hooper made the best catch I ever saw. I hear from Harry twice a year or so; he lives in California, and he's got plenty of the world's goods. Harry made this catch—he had his back to the ball—and from the bench it looked like he caught it backhanded, over his shoulder. After I sent my story to him, he wrote to me. "I thought it was a very good catch, too," he said, "but you were wrong in your perspective. When I ran for that ball, I ran with my back toward it and you guys with your craning necks were so excited about it, when I ran into the low fence”—you see, the bleachers came up from a low fence in Fenway—“the fence turned me around halfway to the right and I caught the ball in my bare right hand." Imagine!

In 1913 I joined the Yankees—they weren't called the Highlanders any more—and then three years later I went back to the Red Sox. Bill Carrigan, who was the Boston manager then, said, "Now that you're seasoned enough you can come back and pitch for a big-league team." The Yankees in those days were a terrible ballclub. In 1914 I lost 16 games and won only 7, with an earned-run average under three. I got no runs. I would be beaten one to nothing, two to nothing, three to one, scores like that. You were never ahead of anybody. You can't win without runs. Take this fellow who's pitching for the Mets, Roger Craig, what did he lose—22, something like that? What did he win—5? One to nothing, two to nothing. Terrible.

When I got to New York Frank Chance was the manager, a great guy. He had a reputation as a really tough egg, but if you went out there and worked and hustled and showed him that you were interested in what you were doing he would certainly be in your corner, to the extent that he would try and get you more money come contract time.

I have a watch, one of these little "wafer" watches, that Chance gave me in 1914 after I guess about the first month. I had won a couple of games for him. One of them was the opening game against the world champion A's, and one day, just as a gesture, he said, he gave me this watch.

Frank and I were such good friends that late in 1914, when we were playing a series in Washington, after dinner one evening he said, let's take a little walk. So we went out to a park across from the hotel and sat down. "I'm going to quit," he said. "I can't stand this being manager, can't stand being the manager of this ballclub."

He said, "We're not going to get anyplace. I've got a good pitching staff”—and he did have a good pitching staff—“but you fellows are just batting your heads against the wall every time you go out there, no runs." The owners wouldn't get him any players, see, and he said, "I just can't take it—I’m going to quit."

He had already talked it over with the front office in New York and one of the reasons he took me out to the park was that he had told them which men he thought they should keep, and I happened to be one of three pitchers along with Slim Caldwell and Ray Fisher, and he said I know that you'll be working in vaudeville next winter and I would advise you to get yourself a two-or three-year contract, if you can, before you leave New York on your tour, which was very good advice—which advice I didn't take. I was too smart—you know how it is, very smart—so Mike Donlin and I went out on the Orpheum circuit that winter after opening at the Palace.

So Mike, before we left New York, he said, you better go over to the Yankee office and get yourself signed in before we leave for Chicago. He said, you never can tell what's going to happen. I, being very, very smart, I said, "No, I’ll be worth more money to them in the spring than I am now after the publicity we will get in vaudeville this winter."

But I was wrong, because during the winter, while we were in Minneapolis at the Orpheum theatre, Devery and Farrell sold the team to Ruppert and Huston. I'm quite sure I could have made a deal with Frank Farrell for a two- or three-year contract before leaving, but as I say I wasn't very smart.

When we got back east Bill Donovan (that's Bill, not Patsy) had been appointed manager of the Yankees, and he was not in favor of anybody having a long-term contract. I didn't even last out the year with him.

It seemed every time I pitched against Washington I had Walter Johnson as an opponent, or Jim Shaw, either one. Griffith, he used to ... I don't know ... I had an idea he didn't pitch them against Caldwell. It seemed that every time Slim pitched, the team would get him three or four runs—though he didn't need them, he was a great pitcher.

Was Johnson as great a pitcher as they say? Let me tell you, he was greater than they say. He was with one of the worst ballclubs imaginable, not quite as bad as the old Yankees but almost as bad.

When I got out of the Air Service, after the war—you see, I quit baseball on the 4th of July, I think, in 1917 and went into the Air Service—when I came out I went to work for the New York Evening Sun. I wrote articles, and the Sun used to run them every Saturday. The Wheeler Syndicate used to sell them to wherever they could sell them: Boston, Philadelphia, Newark, anywhere they could, you know—and I used to get five, two, four, eight dollars apiece for them, and one of the stories that I wrote was about Walter Johnson.

I wrote one about Joey, too, and about Cicotte, and Mathewson, oh, so many of them. In the story about Johnson, I wondered what would have happened if he had been pitching for the Giants, who could get him five or six runs nearly every time he started, and I'm wondering if he'd ever lose a ballgame. I found out from Joe Vila, who was the sports editor for the Sun, that Matty didn't care very much for that.

Matty was a very good friend of Mike's, and so was McGraw, who was my sponsor into the Lambs Club. He was a Jekyll and Hyde character. Off the field he was very affable, but the minute he'd get in uniform, he was one of the toughest guys you'd ever want to know. Mike used to tell me a lot of inside information which of course helped me when I was writing these stories.

Do you know about the movie Speaker and I made? In 1917, just before I went into the Service, we produced a motion picture of the big stars in both major leagues. We had $80,000 worth of bookings for the picture, and then they declared baseball during the war not essential, so all the bookings were cancelled. We sold the rights to the YMCA to use it in the camps all over Europe, in the ships going over and back, and in the camps here.

After the war was over I showed the film to my friend Roxy, God rest him, and he took the thing over and showed it at the Rivoli and the Rialto and down to Fifth Avenue, and then I happened to come into Wall Street to work as a stockbroker—in 1920 I started my own firm, which I still run today—and I forgot all about the film.

It was put in the morgue some place up at the Rialto or the Rivoli, and the YMCA lost their prints somewhere over in France, but I had left in the tins some cuts and out-takes of the shots of—well, Speaker, Hooper, Ruth, Wood, Matty, and Johnson and all, and I still have them. I showed the clips only about two years ago at the Pathe projection room one day and they still look pretty good.

The game's a lot different today from what it was when I played. The biggest change—and the worst one, in my opinion—is the home run. Now, let's first talk of the fellow going up to the plate. Seventy-five percent of the time he goes up there with the thought of hitting the ball out of the ballpark, and it's not too difficult to do, because they have moved the ballpark in on him. Now in right field and center field and left field, you've got stands. They used to have a bleacher, way out, in the old days, but the only home run you'd get would be if you hit it between the fielders. "In grounds," they'd call it, a home run in grounds; if a ball got in between those fielders and if you had any speed, they wouldn't be able to throw you out. Today, if you hit a good long fly it's in one of these short stands.

In the old days they juiced up the ball some, but when they talk about the dead ball—there never was any dead ball that I can remember. I've got a couple of scars on my chin to prove it. I saw Joe Jackson hit a ball over the top of the Polo Grounds in right field—the top of it—off one of our pitchers, and I have never seen or heard of anyone hitting it over since, and that was around 1914-15, in there.

Today's ball is livelier, no doubt of that. They are using an Australian wool now in winding the core of the ball. In the old days they used wool but not one that is as elastic as this wool. The bats are whippier, too. But the principal reason for all these homers is the concentration of the hitter on trying to hit the ball out of the park.

The fielding today? Well, any of these boys in the big leagues today could field in any league at any time. I think the better equipment has more to do with the spectacular play. You take this here third baseman up with the Yankees—Clete Boyer—he’s terrific, just terrific. Larry Gardner, who played third on the Boston team with me, he was a great third baseman, and he had that "trolley-wire throw" to first, but Larry was not as agile as Boyer. I think Boyer is a little quicker. But, if you want a fellow to compare with Boyer, take Buck Weaver of that Black Sox team. He would field with Boyer any day, and throw with him, and he was a better hitter. He would be my all-time third baseman.

Players of my day, give them the good equipment, and they would be just as good or better. Now, you take a fellow like Wagner—I don't mean the Wagner we had with the Red Sox, but the Pirates' Wagner, Honus Wagner, who came to see us in Pittsburgh at the theatre—and he took up the whole dressing room with that big can of his. There was one of the most awkward-looking humans you ever saw, but he made the plays, without the shovel glove. And Speaker—could a big glove have made him any better?

As an outfielder, Speaker was in a class by himself. He would play so close to the infield that he'd get in on rundown plays! Then the next man perhaps would hit a long fly into center field and he would be on his bicycle with his back to the ball—not backing away, he'd turn and run—and you'd think he had a radar or a magnet or something because just at the proper time he'd turn his head and catch the ball over his shoulder.

Those fellows, Speaker, Lewis, and Hooper, they used to practice throwing, something that you don't see anymore. Those fellows would have a cap down near the catcher and they'd see who would come closest to the cap when they'd throw from the outfield. They all had marvelous arms. Nobody would run on them and I think that most of the people who ever saw them play would say there was no trio that could compare with them.

Mike and I, in our act, we used to do a number called "When You're a Long, Long Way From Home." In it I used to do a recitation, and the last two lines were, "When you're on third base alone, you're still a long, long way from home.” It was serious, about life being like a game of baseball. Times have changed—a boy can't peek through a knothole in a concrete fence—but that's still true.

LAWRENCE S. RITTER teaches economics and finance at New York University. He has authored or co-authored (with Donald Honig) three baseball books besides The Glory of Their Times.

Remembrance of Summers Past

BOB BROEG

"The Cardinals did NOT plan a strike against Robinson. "

IN MY YEARS AS A traveling baseball writer, namely 1946 through 1958, I believe I bridged the gap between the yesteryear of hero worship and the modern adversary era. When I came along, writers were just beginning to find warts on athletes' faces. Now? Heck, they're apt to see nothing but.

Somewhere, of course, there is the proper balance between writing independently and writing arrogantly, between criticizing justly and unjustly. And I've never felt, by the way, that no matter how unpleasant an athlete might be, a writer was justified in teeing off on him. In other words, if it’s germane to the story, let the man make an ass of himself, but don't look for or -- most certainly not --originate criticism that isn't justified. As an epitaph, I believe a writer can qualify for only one: "He Was Fair." (That's fair as in “just," not as in "mediocre.")

George Hendrick, the St. Louis Cardinals' right fielder, rarely speaks, though I suspect that underneath his silence lurks a man who would be direct and personable in conversation if he hadn't been singed somewhere along the line. Hendrick is helpful and supportive of young players and, more pertinently, one helluva fine outfielder. He can crank up for the long ball, hit behind the runner, field and throw.

When I went around the circuit, I never met ballplayers who declared themselves off-limits or were invariably surly. But a generation ago, ballplayers weren't nearly so financially independent and, maybe, writers were more tolerant.

Although I proudly took out my BBWAA card in Boston late in 1941, shortly before I went into the Marines, I really didn't travel until 1946. That season, of course, provided an interesting mixture of established stars who had been away and the 4-Fs who had taken over.

Equally interesting--and often sad-was the effort of the returning vets to regain what for too many had been lost. Even though he'd missed the center cut of his career, Bob Feller came back with an impressive flourish. Obviously, Joe DiMaggio had been hurt. From a record standpoint, Ted Williams had been, too. Others were hurt physically. The Cardinals' Johnny Beazley, a handsome 21-game winner as a rookie in 1942 and twice a World Series victor over the Yankees, ruined his arm through the caprice of a military superior's command to pitch when not ready. Cecil Travis, a superior hitting infielder who went to war with a career batting average of .327, wound up with frostbite of his feet, and never again hit higher than .252. And the minor leagues' most promising pitcher in 1942, John Grodzicki, had been hit in the lower backside with a bullet as a paratrooper, giving him a dropped foot he couldn't offset.

I look back in amazement now that we ever tolerated a day without the blacks in the big leagues. Looking back, I can't understand how it never struck me as odd that I went through school without ever having a black in class. And I'd competed against just one, who couldn't hit a curve ball ... but, then, hell, I couldn't, either.

As a writer, I believe I treated Jackie Robinson fairly in 1947, his rookie year. I subscribed to the theory expressed then by Eddie Dyer, manager of the Cardinals. Dyer had been a football star at Rice and an assistant football coach there. He admired Robinson as an all-around athlete.

"Don't jockey him," cautioned Dyer. "He's like Frank Frisch. You make him mad and he'll beat the hell out of you all by himself."

The story about the Cardinals' planned "rebellion" against Robinson early in 1947 is a barnyard vulgarism. Some players grumbled about having to play on the same field with a black, just as did some of the Dodgers. Maybe here and there one popped off about how he didn't care to play against Robinson but no one paid attention to it. Certainly not the captain of the Cardinals, Terry Moore, nor his infield alter ego, Marty Marion, the man to whom ballplayers are most indebted for their tremendous pension plan.

Sure, club owner Sam Breadon was worried about his team's reaction to Robinson. First, a little background. Mr. Breadon was a funny man. Personally generous, he was pretty tight-fisted with his talent, though the sheer ability of the Cardinals made him pay close to top dollar even when the team failed to draw. The colorful Gas House Gang, for instance, needed the 100,000 paid admissions they attracted in the thrilling final week of the 1934 season to draw 334,863. The club's peak attendance until 1946 was 778,147 in 1928, a pennant-winning season of better financial times.

When the Redbirds went over the one-million mark in 1946, so did many other clubs. Breadon no longer had to pay the more than $80,000 in salary and profit percentage to Branch Rickey, but he writhed when that applecheeked, graceful outfielder, Stan Musial wanted big money. Stan was paid $13,500 at the outset of the '46 season, in which he shifted to first base to shore up a hole and also hit .365. After all, Musial reasoned, wasn't Feller getting about $80,000 at Cleveland and DiMaggio and Williams doing extremely well, too? He had turned down $75,000 cash and an attractive contract from the brothers Pasquel, who, in effect, did almost as much for the players in their day as the Federal League had earlier and arbitrator Peter Seitz much later.

The Man asked for $37,000 and settled finally for $31,000, which made Breadon fretful, to say the least. With his ballooning payroll Sam, who had grown up poor and had an abiding fear of coming up short again, was beside himself when his world champions lost 11 of their first 13 games in '47. Hmmm, were they worried too much about that black man in the Dodgers' lineup? He consulted with Moore and Marion about Dyer's control of the club. After all, Breadon had been, in part, an early-day George Steinbrenner. From 1926 through 1930, he'd had six managers even though the Cardinals won three pennants.

Moore and Marion checked out Dyer as A-OK, but Dr. Robert F. Hyland, the surgeon-general of baseball, as Judge Landis described him, expressed Breadon's concern to an old friend, Rud Rennie, baseball writer of the New York Herald-Tribune. Rennie told his sports editor, Stanley Woodward, who went to National League president Ford Frick. Frick did the only thing logical-yes, decent-and said he'd suspend any player who went on strike because of Robinson.

The Herald-Trib broke a copyrighted story and the monkey was on the Cardinals' back. I've always resented the story, not because I had to scramble at night to follow it up, but only because it put so many fine players in an unfavorable light.

The truth is, to repeat, the Cardinals did NOT plan a strike against Robinson even though a few players grumbled in their beer about the athlete of a different color. But baseball history has labeled them unfairly.

I've got at my desk a picture, that, as a photo often does, tells the story. It shows Robinson, ejected by Bill Stewart for his publicized chokeup sign in a key moment of an important game in 1949, walking through the Cardinals' dugout, grinning at St. Louis players who were smiling over something said by Robinson or by one of them.

Another postwar development was the establishment of the baseball pension, in which the prime influence was Marty Marion and the Cardinals. I broke the story and watched the wire services pick it up and bounce it around the country. I was delighted over the years to watch the idea take hold and become a reality.

In 1946, as Boston lawyer Robert Murphy sought to form a players' union and Jorge Pasquel beckoned from Mexico, the teams asked management for rinky-dink improvements: more meal money . . . buses instead of taxi cabs after night games. . . personal luggage handled by the club instead of the players, etc.

Aided by trainer Weaver, Marion drew up the Cardinals' recommendation at the old New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. Each player would make a modest daily contribution toward a pension and the club would match it. In addition, All-Star game receipts and World Series radio rights would be used. If necessary, too, a midseason exhibition between natural rivals (Cubs vs. White Sox, Yanks vs. Giants, Red Sox vs. Braves, Athletics vs. Phillies) could be played.

Other clubs recognized a good idea when they heard one. So, too, did such management representatives as Larry MacPhail, Tom Yawkey, Phil Wrigley, and Breadon. Breadon had been giving the National League $100 a month to dole out to alcoholic Grover Cleveland Alexander, unwilling to let his role become public.

The World Series representatives, the Cardinals and Boston Red Sox, had to approve. The Redbirds did, unanimously. Veteran Bosox, moaning about a skimpy Series between two teams with small parks, didn't want to give up the radio money, but Yawkey offered to put up if they didn't shut up. And the Sox recognized a truly fine sportsman's beau geste.

So now, 36 years later, the original notion of $100 a month at age 50 has been transformed by the television windfall, aggressive player unionization, and ownership opulence. Today's pension setup spirals to more than $50,000 a year at 65—if any of the well-heeled present-day players will need it.

To get back to where we came in, as a traveling baseball writer I saw the game go a l-o-n-g way, sometimes backward, more often forward. I don't like to sound too much like an oldtimer, much less a grouchy one.

The game has changed from trains to planes; from regional to national; from soggy, dirty flannel uniforms to clean, form-fitting polyesters; from smaller gloves that required sure hands to beartraps that often will snare a ball without the hand knowing it.

The players no longer wear cabbage leaves under their caps -- dugouts are air-conditioned and, thank heaven, so are trains and hotel rooms. I used to make those three-and four-week trips with so much clothing that I had to take a theatrical trunk-and I wasn't a clothes horse.

When I was on the beat, they changed old ideas with new ones that made sense. They hauled players' gloves off the field, to avoid a mishap, and they began to drag the infield, a midgame boon for concessionaires, weak kidneys, and dented infielders' cups. Now, of course, they've got artificial turf, which has done to game-canceling wet fields almost what night baseball did to the sport, as Breadon saw it: that is, made every night Sunday.

Personally, I like the ersatz fields, the development of the relief pitcher into a position of prominence, and the present-day combination by which the stolen base and home run, previously strange bedfellows, coexist if not cohabitate.

No newspaperman--I am not an exception--likes it if a player won't talk or sulks out of bounds in the trainer's room. I recognize, too, that fuller radio coverage, including clubhouse programs for which players often are paid, have made the job more difficult for print reporters. Television heading toward national cable coverage will have further impact. But the prophets of doom should look elsewhere than baseball. Funny thing, I have a 1932 Baseball Magazine in which a headline reads: "Will Broadcasting Kill Baseball?" Obviously, despite some of its own attempts to commit suicide, the grand old game is still pretty healthy.

The state of baseball writing is another matter. Yes, a reporter has to interview players and use the clubhouse for illuminating comments, but I honestly believe writers need to rely more on their own judgment, to review a ballgame as if they were reviewing a movie or a stage play. A film critic can't ask Burt Reynolds if he thought he'd had his stuff in this scene or that one-and when did you ever hear of any drama reviewer asking an actor his opinion of the audience on opening night?

Pointed questions, clarifying a situation for the writer and the reader, are extremely worthwhile, but I weary of, for instance, talk about the batter hitting a "hanging" slider or curve. Hell, I can see that. Besides, who cares? The question is banal, the answer insipid.

Writers today are generally better educated and as a whole write better. They ought to rely more upon their abilities: a well-written narrative, not peppered with quotes, can be an excellent change-of-pace.

The years in which I traveled regularly, until I became a sports editor in 1958 and merely picked my spots, were a joy and an education. Those ten-day barnstorming trips north from Florida every spring, each town a one-night stand, enabled a guy to see places he otherwise would have missed. Yet my most enjoyable trip was a 1960 season-opening tour from St. Petersburg to San Francisco which included a week's stopoff in the Phoenix area.

A highlight of the trip was the last confrontation of Stan Musial and Ted Williams as active ballplayers. The Red Sox, after all, trained then at Scottsdale. Both great hitters had suffered what appeared to be end-of-the-career seasons in '59 (Musial .255, Williams .254). But they put on a great show that day and then some. Williams hit a home run, Musial hit two.

That year Ted went on at 42 to hit .316. Stan, three years later at nearly43, played enough to contend for an official batting championship, hitting .330. Musial was a delight to travel with as a player and as a person, before and after his 3000-hit railroad bandwagon trip from Chicago to St. Louis in May, 1958, the Cardinals' last train ride.

When the Cardinals made their first plane trip west to Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1958, it was, of course, an emotional tug, the loss of Brooklyn's Ebbets Field and New York's Polo Grounds. But I looked forward to the Coast, where I'd spent two enjoyable springs with the Browns in 1950-51. They lived in Hollywood and trained near Burbank.

I'm glad that I got out there again when the Giants' home was Seals Stadium, the springboard to stardom for Joe DiMaggio, and the Dodgers played at the Coliseum where Roy Campanella, if he hadn't been hurt, would have used that open stance and uppercut swing to hit a ton of home runs.

At San Francisco, where the raw trade winds at night should have foretold the problem at Candlestick Park, Ty Cobb saw Musial play the first big-league game there. Stan went 4-for-4 and Cobb invited him to breakfast, chortling: "You still can run and you still can hit. Drink a little wine before dinner and you'll play for years."

At the Coliseum, where the right-field fence was in Siberia by contrast with the pitch-and-putt screen looming large in left, Duke Snider moaned to Musial at the batting cage before the game. Stan nodded, motioning to left field, "If you can't beat 'em, Duke, join 'em. Go the other way." So with a large crowd there to see Musial, as there had been in San Francisco, The Man broke in at L.A. the same way: 4-for-4.

After all, he was en route to 3000 hits then, past 37years old, and he didn't want to waste time. "I might get hit in the can with a cab," he said. So he made it in just 22 games-with 43 hits!

BOB BROEG is sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and author of Super Stars of Baseball and other sports books.

The Merkle Blunder: A Kaleidoscopic View

G. H. FLEMING

"Maybe Evers got the ball and touched the base afterward. If he did it didn't prove anything."

ON SEPTEMBER 23, 1908, as I wrote in The Unforgettable Season, "the Giants and Cubs played the most celebrated, most widely discussed, most controversial contest in the history of American sports. The game was declared a 1 to 1 tie." This was, of course, the game of the "Merkle blunder." As Kurosawa's film masterpiece Rashomon beautifully illustrated, the same event may be seen in different ways by different people; and so it was with what took place at the Polo Grounds on that momentous day. What is the truth, and what is illusion? You be the judge. As inThe Unforgettable Season, everything below is presented exactly as it appeared in the original accounts of 1908.

Monday, September 21

Here is something for the fans to consider. Suppose Fred Tenney should be crippled. That would be a calamity, wouldn't it? Yes, it would in one way, but it wouldn't keep the Giants from winning the pennant. There is a young fellow on the bench named Fred Merkle who can fill that job better than nine tenths of the first basemen in the league. He is crying for a chance to work, but with Tenney playing like a youngster just out of college it would be silly to take him out of the game.

—BOZEMAN BULGER, Chicago Tribune

Wednesday, September 23

There were rumors afloat last night to the effect that Mr. Tenney had injured his back and might not play today.

—Chicago Tribune

"Take nothing for granted" is the motto that hangs over the desk of President Pulliam. Evidently McCormick has never seen it. When he cracked a grounder to centre in the fifth inning of the second game [of a doubleheader which the Giants lost to the Cubs] he loafed a little, thinking it a sure hit. Evers went over for a fine stop and his throw just nailed McCormick. It should have been an infield hit.

—New York Globe

Thursday, September 24

Censurable stupidity on the part of Merkle yesterday placed the Giants' chances of winning the pennant in jeopardy. His unusual conduct in the final inning perhaps deprived New York of a victory that would have been unquestionable had he not committed a breach in baseball play that resulted in Umpire O'Day calling the game a tie.

With the game tied in the ninth inning and two outs, and New York having a runner, McCormick, on third base waiting for an opportunity to score and Merkle on first looking for a similar chance, Bridwell hit into centre field, a fair ball sufficient to win the game had Merkle gone on his way down the base path while McCormick was scoring. But instead of going to second base, Merkle ran toward the clubhouse, evidently thinking his share in the game had ended when Bridwell hit the ball into safe territory.

Manager Chance quickly grasped the situation and directed the ball be thrown to second base, which would force out Merkle.

Manager Chance ran to second base and the ball was thrown there, but immediately Pitcher McGinnity interfered in the play and a scramble of players ensued, in which, it is said, McGinnity obtained the ball and threw it into the crowd before Chance could complete a force play on Merkle, who was far from the base line. Merkle said he had touched second base, and the Chicago players were equally positive he had not done so.

Chance then appealed to Umpire O'Day for a decision. The crowd, thinking the Giants had won, swarmed on the playing field in such a confusion that none of the fans seemed able to grasp the situation, but finally their attitude toward O'Day became so offensive that the police ran into the crowd and protected the umpire.

Umpire O'Day finally decided the run did not count, and inasmuch as the spectators had gained such large numbers on the field the game could not be resumed O'Day declared the game a tie. Although both Umpires O'Day and Emslie, it is claimed, say they did not see the play at second base, Umpire O'Day's action was based upon the presumption that a force play was made on Merkle.

The singular ending of the game aroused intense interest throughout the city, and everywhere it was the chief topic of discussion.

—New York Times

Hofman threw the ball to Evers, but before the latter could step on second base McGinnity, who had been on the coaching line and was on his way to the clubhouse, took a hand and grabbed the ball away from Evers. Evers and Tinker then grabbed McGinnity and wrestled with him trying to get the ball. They weren't successful, for the next minute the ball was sailing over toward the left field bleachers. Some Chicago player rescued it and brought it in. Merkle in the meantime had been trying to go back to second base before the ball could be brought there, and two or three Chicagoans were hanging on to him trying to keep him from the bag.

There were excited cranks surging around the grouped and tussling players and many more swarming around the umpires, on their way to the exit beneath the stand. The Chicago players chased the umpires to find out what ruling had been made, and the cranks gathered around both, jostling, elbowing, and rubbering. The police jumped in quickly and scattered the crowds right and left as the umpires slowly made their way to the exit, the players following at their heels. The umpires made their escape finally and then a crowd tagged on to the heels of Capt. Chance and other Cubs who had been in the wrangling and turmoil. The police blocked off the crowd as the players moved across the field.

Everywhere in the stands and on the field spectators were all at sea as to what had happened and as to the status of the game. The cops were too active for anything in the way of violence to break loose. It was the general impression, too, that New York had won, and there was a feeling of satisfaction over that. Herzog, who had made the first run for the Giants, was carried off the field on the shoulders of a shouting string of admirers.

Charles Murphy, president of the Chicago club, came down from his box in the upper stand to find out what the umpire's decision had been. When O'Day was asked how the game stood he replied: "Emslie says he didn't see the play at second base, and it's no game I suppose."

—New York Sun

When Bridwell slammed his hit in the ninth, Merkle, instead of starting promptly for the second bag, made a move toward the clubhouse. Warned by the yells of Little Johnnie Evers, the boy orator, who was entreating Hofman to chuck the ball to the infield, Merkle changed his course and waddled toward second base. The crowd, at this time, was surging out onto the field, and exactly what happened, no man can say. But this much is certain: Hofman threw the ball to the infield, it bounced off Evers' back, rolled toward Kling and was finally corralled by Joe McGinnity. When three or four frantic Cubs tried to tear the ball from Joseph's grasp, it disappeared from the scene and plays no further part in the interesting narrative.

Merkle, when he had touched second base, wanted to stay and see the fight out, as Frank Chance, Evers, Steinfeldt, and a few other invaders were making frantic protests to Emslie and O'Day, but Mathewson dragged him away and they went on a run to the clubhouse.

The writer wishes to assure the fans that neither Emslie nor O'Day saw the play at second base, and neither Emslie nor O'Day knows whether Merkle went to second base ahead of or behind the ball. As a matter of fact the ball never got there.

The moment that both umpires started for their little coop, and the crowd started for the "L" and surface cars, members of the visiting club rushed toward Emslie and shouted, "Merkle hasn't touched second base." Emslie kept on going, remarking, in reply, "I didn't see any such play." O'Day also hurried to the shelter of the stand, though Chance tried nobly to get within slugging distance and the gathering thousands from stands and bleachers began to threaten the impetuous Chicago leader in rather ugly fashion.

Hank O'Day and Robert Emslie stayed in that little coop for many moments, talking it over. Emslie, seeing that he has a wig, was the judge, and Hank was the attorney. Many and learned were the arguments going back and forth, because neither of the worthy arbitrators had seen the play, and they were to make up in talk what they lacked in vision. When they finally came out of the gloom, and were braced by a gathering of baseball scribes, Emslie declined to be interviewed and O'Day muttered something about "no game."

—WILLIAM F. KIRK, New York American

Never was a victory more cleanly won. The Giants and Cubs gave one of the most brilliant exhibitions of baseball in the history of the game, and all the way the Giants had just that shade of superiority that wins games and pennants. First of all credit must go to Mathewson, who outpitched Pfiester, the southpaw who has bothered the Giants all season, but there was brilliant work all around, and McGraw's men fully justified the confidence of the crowd that went up to the Polo Grounds sure that New York would hold the lead so splendidly earned.

No matter what the ultimate decision as to the game may be, and that decision may determine the ownership of the pennant, yesterday's was a glorious victory.

New York was without the services of Tenney, who has a bad leg, and Merkle, who was to acquire notoriety soon enough, took his place. He played well, but Mathewson dominated the struggle and pitched a game that he has never surpassed in his wonderful career.

—New York Tribune

The facts gleaned from active participants and survivors are these: Hofman fielded Bridwell's knock and threw to Evers for a force play on the absent Merkle. But McGinnity cut in and grabbed the ball before it reached the eager Trojan [Evers, who came from Troy, New York]. Three Cubs landed on the Iron Man from as many directions at the same time and jolted the ball from his cruel grasp. It rolled among the spectators who had swarmed upon the diamond like an army of starving potato bugs.

At this thrilling juncture "Kid" Kroh, the demon southpaw, swarmed upon the human potato bugs and knocked six of them galley-west. The triumphant Kroh passed the ball to Steinfeldt, after cleaning up the gang that had it. Tinker wedged in, and the ball was conveyed to Evers for the force-out of Merkle....

Some say Merkle eventually touched second base, but not until he had been forced out by Hofman to McGinnity to six potato bugs to "Kid" Kroh to some more Cubs, and the shrieking, triumphant Mr. Evers, the well-known Troy shoe dealer. There have been some complicated plays in baseball, but we do not recall one like this in a career of years of monkeying with the national pastime.

Peerless Leader Chance ran at O'Day to find out what Hank had to say, but the sparrow cops, specials, 200 cops, and Pinks—slang for Pinkertons—thought Chance was going to bite Hank on the ankle. Half a hundred men in uniform surrounded the P.L. and thousands of bugs surrounded them. Bill Marshall [the utility player usually known as Doc], who is an expert on bacteria, and Del Howard rushed in to help the Peerless Leader. Another squad of cops had O'Day in tow some yards away.

Hank didn't know Chance wanted to converse with him, and they couldn't get together anyhow. Finally the cops got O'Day into a coop under the stand and tried to slam the door in the face of the Peerless Leader. He jammed his robust frame in the opening and defied the sparrow chasers. Chance later got to O'Day, who said Emslie, working on the bases, did not see the second base play because of the crowd, but Hank informed Chance that McCormick's run didn't count.

Still later Hank submitted gracefully to an interview by war scribes. He said Merkle was forced at second and the game ended in a tie. None of the Giants remained to make public statements. Part of the crowd lifted a player in white to their shoulders and bore him to the clubhouse. The Giant thus honored was not Mr. Merkle. He left long before the trouble started.

—CHARLES DRYDEN, Chicago Tribune

Merkle lost his head. He started for the clubhouse, but only took a few steps when Matty, waiting his turn at bat, yelled to him. Chance was watching Merkle and frantically called to Hofman to field the ball to second. Hofman was also in the air and began to hunt for the ball. Evers ran down the field waving his arms and legs at Hofman like a guy gone daffy.

The crowd, thinking the game was won, poured over the stands in a surging mass that swept some of the players off their feet.

Just then Chance and Steinfeldt got to second on the run, and those two, with Evers, surrounded McGinnity and began to wrestle with him for possession of the ball. Seeing he was outnumbered, and getting wise to why they wanted the ball, Joe threw it into the left field bleachers.

Where that ball is now no one knows, except perhaps the fan who captured it and has it in a frame over his pillow.

One thing is certain, it never got to second. Merkle got to second. He started late, but he got there. The ball never did.

Chance tore after Emslie, but the crowd blocked his way, not really knowing why they did it, but blocking him all the same.

Chance fought like a real bear, and a grizzly at that, to get to the umpires. He's a husky guy, that Chance, and from the way he almost got through he'd do well on a football team. But you can't buck a line of thousands, and Chance was stalled. He had his lungs with him, however, and did some yelling. This was partly drowned by the yells of the crowd, which had become a mob.

It began to look ugly. Chance was packed in the center of a push that didn't even give him elbow room. And O'Day was in a like predicament.

The near-cops were spectators on the outside fringe of affairs. Then the real blue boys got busy. They formed a flying wedge, and got to the center of the maelstrom. It took a few pokes with their night sticks to do it, but when did a cop hide his stick when it was handy?

They rescued Chance, and the umpires were locked up behind the grand stand for safekeeping until such time as the crowd could be scattered to their homes.

—GYM BAGLEY, New York Evening Mail

The Cubs are right, under every rule of baseball law and common sense, and entitled to win their protest. Rules are rules, and clubs having boneheaded mutts on the basepaths deserve only to be penalized.

All honor to Hank O'Day. There has been much roasting of Hank, both on account of the exactly similar Pittsburgh affair some weeks ago [on September 4], and because he seemed to be handing the lemons to the Cubs in all close decisions. But Hank has shown the genuine goods, and has put himself on record as an honest umpire and a game man--all honor and praise to Hank O'Day!

—W. A. PHELON, Chicago Journal

It is high time that the league took a decided stand on the rules which are not specific enough for the controversial play of yesterday. It has long been an unwritten baseball law that as soon as a home player crossed the plate with a run that breaks a tie after the eighth inning the game is over that instant. A batter runs out his hit and that is all. If a batter singles and scores a runner from second base, it is necessary for him to touch only first base.

If a game does not end when the winning run scores, then, pray, why does not a batter who makes a long hit get full credit for it? If it is a three-bagger, and a man scores from third, why does not the batter get as many bases as he can take? If a ball is lifted into the bleachers, thereby scoring a runner ahead of the batter, no credit is given for a home run. [Since 1920 a ball thus hit has been ruled a home run.] Then why should base runners be compelled to run around the sack after the winning run has been scored?

If the National League throws out the game on such a technicality the organization does not deserve any more of the splendid patronage it has had in this city. When games are played in an office with technicalities by politicians of the game, it is time for ping-pong to be chosen for the great American game. —SID MERCER, New York Globe

"When I saw Merkle leave the base path," declares Christy Mathewson, "I ran after him and brought him back to second base, so as to make our lead unquestionable. He was on second base after McGinnity tossed away the ball, following his tussle with the Chicago players. Maybe Evers got the ball and touched the base afterward. If he did it didn't prove anything. I can state positively that no force play was made before Merkle got to the base. He wanted to stick there when he saw the scrapping on the diamond, but I pulled him away, and we went to the clubhouse." [A myth later developed, and continues to receive support in print, that because Mathewson, unable to tell a lie, informed National League President Pulliam that Merkle had not touched second base, Pulliam ruled the game a tie.] —New York Globe

Friday, September 25

Following a sleepless night of agony throughout the length and breadth of Manhattan haggard bugs waited all morning for President Pulliam's decision on the riotous windup of Wednesday's game. War scribes from far and near assembled in Pulliam's outer office, where he conversed on general topics in his usual affable manner. Then he retired to the inner sanctum and sent out a neatly typewritten ruling, which in effect ruled the game a 1 to 1 tie.

Barring himself within the inner precincts, Mr. Pulliam declined to see anybody, nor would he come forth to reveal the future. Questions sent in by scribes came back in the original state—unanswered. Nothing was said about playing off the tie game, as provided by the league constitution, which says such games shall be played. As this is the last day the game could be played, the Giants are subject to a fine. It rests with the home club to arrange such matters but McGraw announced last night the contest would not be played over.

Umpires O'Day and Emslie were present in Pulliam's office when the decision was rendered. Secretary Williams of the Cubs notified these officials the Chicago team would be at the Polo Grounds at 1:30 today [September 24], the regular hour for starting double headers. Hank and Bob were dumb as clams. All they did was do a looking listening part.

Thinking the Giants might assemble on the field at 1:30 and attempt to put something over, the Cubs swallowed a quick lunch and hiked to the scene of combat. A dozen Giants were there in uniform, with a crowd pouring in, but the locals made no effort to line up in battle array. At 1:30 the Peerless Leader put a complete team on the field, with Coakley pitching and Kling behind the bat. Tom Needham kindly stood at the plate with a pestle in his hand while Coakley pitched four balls. There were no umpires to tell Needham whether he struck out or got a pass. The bugs howled derision, but Chance had made his little play and will claim the game by forfeit.

—CHARLES DRYDEN, Chicago Tribune

I have never seen local lovers of the game so fairly boiling over with anger as they were yesterday when President Pulliam's decision was announced. Eddie Tolcott voiced the opinion of all true lovers of the game when he said to me yesterday: "There was never a more hideous outrage committed. It is a slur on the great national game, the sport we all love and admire above all others for its heretofore absolute cleanliness and absence of all taint of dishonesty or unfairness.

"That the foundation of the sport should be undermined by such a contemptible trick is shameful. If the Cubs win the pennant by that one game they stole from the Giants, the streamer would amount to nothing but a dirty, dishonored dishrag. The Cubs' title to the championship would be discredited and the name Champions would be an empty honor. It is simply a disgrace that any gentleman connected with the national game should stoop to such unsportsmanlike methods as I understand President Murphy has. If the Giants are robbed of their fair victory I shall be ashamed to say I was ever connected with baseball."

—SAM CRANE, New York Evening Journal

One of the remarkable things in this baseball race is the attitude of Mr. Fan and all his family and friends toward the late disaster at the Polo Grounds. Truly, John McGraw should feel grateful for the sympathy of almost the entire baseball world in the controversy over that memorable battle with the Cubs.

For doing what is right Umpire Hank O'Day and President Pulliam are being condemned all over the country, while Frank Chance and his Cubs are everywhere being branded as poor sportsmen because, forsooth, they acted with intelligence and took advantage of the rules to gain an edge in a race that is so close that every fraction counts.

The game of baseball takes nothing for granted. Because the play happened to be a final one does not make it excusable to slur the rule. It is just as much a crime against the baseball code to fail to complete a play at the end of a game as in the middle. Merkle was asleep and worked his little dab of gray matter very poorly. He paid the penalty of thoughtlessness, just as he must have paid the penalty had he been caught asleep off base.

Frank Chance was a man on his job. He saw the mistake and took advantage of it, and for this he deserves not condemnation but praise for his watchfulness and thoughtfulness.

As a matter of fact, the Giants deserved not merely to have the game declared a tie, but to forfeit it. McGinnity's effort to stop the play by throwing away the ball is distinctly interference, the penalty for which is loss of the battle. And if you probe that cautious mind of John J. McGraw, you will probably find him secretly satisfied that no worse result followed the indiscretions of Merkle and McGinnity.

—JOHN E. WRAY, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Saturday, October 10

During the last few days many veteran ball players have come to the front and spoken in behalf of Fred Merkle, the young Giant who has been unmercifully roasted by many fans for his alleged failure to touch second base at the finish of the memorable September 23 contest. Seasoned ball players like Joe Kelley, Bill Dahlen, Billy Gilbert, Willie Keeler, Frank Bowerman, and manager Billy Murray of the Philadelphia Club, are among them. They call attention to the fact that ever since the rule was adopted under which a game ends when the team last at bat scores the winning run, players have run for the clubhouse as soon as the runner crossed the plate, without advancing to the next base.

—New York World

A Tale of Two Sluggers: Roger Maris and Hack Wilson

DON NELSON

An occult story of star-crossed swingers

IF YOU WERE ASKED what Hack Wilson and Roger Maris had in common, your reply might be: "Wilson holds the record for home runs in the National League, Maris has the American League record." That would be correct.

But are there other things? You might also say: "Roger holds a significant major league record-for home runs in a season---and Hack set one too, for runs batted in."

Fine. Anything else? "Well," you might go on, "each had his troubles after his big year (1930 for Wilson and 1961 for Maris), never getting anywhere near his great year again, and each retired at a relatively young age." You might also add, "and both were outfielders."

These similarities are the ones most readers would cite, but they are only the beginning.

Both players started their careers slowly, made a meteoric dash to fame, and then took a fast slide to retirement. Both spent 12 years in the big leagues. Both reached the majors in their 23rd year. Wilson played his last major league game in 1934 at age 34; 34 years later, in 1968, Maris played his last season, also at age 34.

Each had his second-best home-run output the year before his big campaign and each hit exactly 39 home runs in that year. More coincidental yet, each had a teammate club one more homer in the season previous to the Big One. Rogers Hornsby hit 40 for the Cubs in 1929. Mickey Mantle cracked the same number—40 for the Bronx Bombers—to lead the league in 1960.

Similarities enough? No. I'm just warming up. When Maris clouted his 61, teammate Mantle also had his greatest home-run season—hitting 54. Wilson also had a teammate enjoying his greatest long-ball year—Gabby Hartnett connected for a career-high 37 round-trippers the same year Wilson lifted 56. The Maris-Mantle total of 115 homers is the American and major league season record for two players on the same club. Wilson and Hartnett's 93 are the most ever hit by two National League teammates in a season.

I mentioned Wilson's major league record of190 RBIs in 1930. Hack led the league that year and also the year before, when he drove 159 across. Maris also led the league in the year before THE year and topped that with 142 to lead the league and set a personal high in 1961. Neither ever led the league in RBIs in any other year.

Not surprisingly, Maris and Wilson set several other personal highs in their record-shattering years. Besides home runs and RBIs, Wilson had his highest batting average and most games played, at-bats, runs, home-run percentage, bases on balls, slugging average, and hits. Maris also had personal highs in games, at-bats, runs, home-run percentage, bases on balls, slugging average, and hits, though he did match his at-bat total the next season. Maris tied for the league lead in runs, in addition to his HR and RBI titles. Wilson also had league leaderships besides HRs and RBIs in 1930 (home-run percentage, bases on balls, slugging average), but two of them weren't the most coveted achievements—Hack led the league in striking out and outfield errors.

To continue. Both were about the same threat to poke it out of the park: Hack's career homers-to-at-bats ratio was 1 to 19.5; Roger's rate was 1 homer for every 18.5 official plate appearances. They had about the same totals for walks (Wilson 674, Maris 652) and strikeouts (Maris 733, Wilson 713).

Both started and closed their careers with teams other than those with which they achieved stardom—Maris was with the Indians and the A's before putting on the Yankee pinstripes; he was traded to the Cardinals for his last two years. Wilson began as a Giant and closed out with the Dodgers and Phillies (he spent a year in the minors before he called it quits). Each played for pennant winners other than his principal team—Maris on the '67 and '68 Cards; Wilson on the '24 Giants.

Perhaps most puzzling about the careers of both men is that their historic feats have failed to win them lasting admiration, even among their own fans. Wilson's achievement of 56 homers, though a National League record that has endured for 52 years, couldn't have been too thrilling at the time, coming so soon after Ruth had blasted 60 (and also 59 and 54 twice). Besides, Hack came off as somewhat of a heavy. At 5'6" and 190 pounds with a size 5½ shoe, he was no Frank Merriwell glamourboy, and he had problems with booze. Maris was considered by some to be more of a villain than a hero for his 1961 triumphs. Many pointed out that Rog had the benefit of a 162-game schedule and expansion teams to face in cracking Ruth's mark. And, to add insult to injury, he had the audacity to over-shadow the long-ball feats of a latter-day Yankee favorite—Mantle—at the same time he was violating the immortal Ruth's 60-homer record.

It remains to be seen if Maris will ever have his name enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Wilson's name waited more than four decades to be cast in bronze at Cooperstown.

Certainly not everything about these two ill-fated athletes supplies such fascinating parallels. Wilson hit for a higher career average (.307) than Maris (.260). Maris never batted .300 in the majors-.283 in 1960 was his best. Wilson topped the magic .300 mark five times; his best year was his big year, 1930, when he averaged .356. However, considering the eras in which they performed, their relative batting averages are not too far apart. During Wilson's career, the average National Leaguer batted .283. In Maris's time, the average ballplayer batted 33 points less (.250). Wilson was 8.5 percent better than the average batter of his time, Maris 4 percent better than his peers.

There are many other differences, statistical, physical, temperamental. But this piece is about similarities. Ready for some more?

Wilson had more home runs in his one great year than in his first four major league seasons or his last four; he hit more than half of his career homers in the three consecutive seasons of1928 through 1930. Maris's home-run career fits the same mold: he had more round-trippers in 1961 than in his first three seasons and as many as in his last five; he also hit almost half of his career home runs in three consecutive campaigns—1960 through 1962.

Wilson closed out his career with only 15 four-baggers in his last two seasons (9 and 6) and Maris followed suit with 14 (9 and 5).

And then there was ... What? "Stop!" did you say? "Hold it! That's enough!" O.K., if you say you're convinced of the connection; but there's more. . . .

Baseball's Misbegottens: Expansion Era Managers

DAVID VOIGT

Supervisor, disciplinarian, strategist … and scapegoat.

IN THE 1970s, THE VERY TIME when players and umpires gained wealth and power, baseball's field managers' status declined as they became wretched scapegoats to be sacrificed to the bloodlust of victory-starved fans. True, sacking the manager was a time-honored ploy; whenever rumblings of fan discontent erupted, a manager was bumped off as virgins in ancient rites were thrown down to appease the volcano god. From the 1880s till 1970, indeed, every passing season was littered with cashiered pilots. But beginning in 1970 this practice was accelerated. From then through 1981, National League managers enjoyed but a 2.4-year tenure on the average, while American League managers stood to last only 1.9 years. Incredibly, Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles was the only manager to survive with the same team thru the '70s, and in 1981 12 of the 26 teams changed managers.

Managers have always known that they were hired to be fired. But if any manager in 1946 dared think that his status had sunk so low that it must improve, he was deluded. In the years 1946-66 firings reduced managerial tenure to 2.3 years on the average. Thus, Walter Alston, the most enduring manager of the 1946-1981 era, who served 23 years with the Dodgers, watched about 85 colleagues get walking papers. And from 1968 till now, Weaver, the next hardiest survivor, exchanged lineup cards at home plate with 95 different helmsmen.

Like vulnerable foremen in industry, managers had every right to feel paranoid. On the one hand their bosses expected them to win games with personnel provided by the front office; on the other, they faced the hopeless task of pleasing 25 individualistic players. Worse, the latter gained steadily in power what with multiyear contracts and salaries often exceeding the manager's own. As Dick Williams recently put it: "If a manager who's in the last year of his contract tries to tell a player who's got four or five more years left in his contract what to do, the player won't pay attention, because he knows he's going to be there long after the manager is gone."

In the postwar era a few managers still emulated the dictatorial style of the late John McGraw, who regularly called five-hour practices on days of scheduled games and who made both major and minor tactical decisions himself, down to the calling of each pitch. Convinced of his own importance, McGraw was contemptuous of his charges. Once, spotting a player at practice ogling a woman in the stands, he told a nearby rookie: "See that? That cement head is thinking more about that girl than today's game. Remember this, son. One percent of ballplayers are leaders of men. The other 99 percent are followers of women."

For many reasons that kind of vanity became passé. Nevertheless, the years after World War II still provided some Little Napoleon managers who wore number 1 on their backs and lorded their rank over the players. In the '40s the archetype of McGraw was Leo Durocher: in the three-way classification of managers served up by pitcher-writer Jim Brosnan—the "I did it," the "We did it," and the "They did it"—Leo the Lip was an unreconstructed "I" type. Managers of this category also included such men as Charley Dressen, Eddie Stanky, and Gene Mauch.

But increasing pressure from organized players and from owners was endangering this breed to the point of extinction, replacing them with "We" and "They" types. Resembling school guidance counselors, the "We's" oozed concern for players and tried to win their cooperation by downplaying their own roles. According to Brosnan, examples included Walter Alston, Ralph Houk, and Danny Murtaugh; one surely must add Tom Lasorda of the Dodgers. Of course, some like Hank Bauer, Fred Hutchinson, Sparky Anderson, and Weaver mixed into the "We" method a strong dash of egoistic "I" projections.

Meanwhile a third type spotted by Brosnan, the "Theys," sought to weld players into tightly knit communities. Insisting on conformity to team standards, they unloaded trouble-making players. In general, this posture worked best with talent-rich teams. Representatives of this type in Brosnan's judgment included Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Billy Southworth, and Al Lopez.

The growing number of "We" and "They" types spotlighted the tendency of status-deprived managers trying to adapt to eroding powers. Certainly the importance of field managers was being questioned. Bill Veeck voiced his opinion that managerial strategy and tactics were a minor factor in a game's outcome. Naturally a Durocher or a Paul Richards disputed this, but not Yogi Berra who, while managing the 1964 Yankees, told a reporter that he could hardly invent any new plays!

For openly debasing managers in the 1960s, nobody matched Charles Finley. After firing a dozen, Finley suggested that any fan could do the job—even an above average monkey. Yet, ironically, to this day only the conservative owner Phil Wrigley has ever tried to eliminate managers. Back in the '60s he employed a system of revolving coaches for a couple of years before returning to the manager system. Not surprisingly Wrigley's experiment was derided by other clubs; still, a general trend was taking shape in the direction of excluding managers from such matters as trade decisions, player discipline, policy making and—by surrounding them with bevies of coaching specialists—even from strategy, tactics, and training.

Even with clipped wings some managers are avidly courted, especially those reputed to be good strategists and leaders. In 1967 the Mets gave the Senators $100,000 and a pitcher to obtain Gil Hodges as manager, and in 1976 the Pirates paid cash and a good catcher for Chuck Tanner, who currently holds a five-year contract—the longest ever issued to a manager. In the fullness of time each of these acquisitions produced a world championship, thus fueling the mystique of the charismatic manager. Even the cynical Finley was not wholly immune to its siren song as demonstrated by his refusal to let the Yankees sign one of his better prodigals, Dick Williams.

With geniuses in short supply, many managers when sacked were paid off only to be plucked later by another club to fit the same role. Sometimes this game of managerial musical chairs waxed ludicrous, as in the early '50s when three working managers drew double salaries, one for managing their current team and another from the team that had discarded them. Usually this kind of double-dipping was limited, but sacking managers was not. Open season began in earnest in the Eisenhower decade when a record 58 were fired or quit, but that record was erased by the 90 cashiered in the 1960s and by the 95 jettisoned in the '70s.

One must look hard to find the logic behind some managerial dismissals. Incredibly, two were fired during spring training after having given apparent satisfaction over the previous season. The Cubs dumped Phil Cavaretta in March 1954, and shortly before the 1978 season was to open the Padres fired Alvin Dark. In 1969 the Angels' big-spender owner Gene Autry dropped Bill Rigney to save money from Rigney's salary. And that same year Larry Shepard was dismissed as Pirate pilot for winning only 88 games; in 1970 his successor, Danny Murtaugh, went on to become Manager of the Year on the strength of 89 wins!

Such Alice-in-Wonderland owners' antics were accompanied by their growing contempt for managers and their tendency to impose their whims as tacticians and strategists. Most notorious was Finley, whose dreaded phone calls reduced managers to page boys. And late in the 1970s George Steinbrenner's clashes with Billy Martin drew national attention, especially when Steinbrenner laid down a list of commandments aimed at reining in Martin's independence. But Martin hung tough. In times past, his defiance of owners cost him jobs at Minnesota, Detroit, and Texas, and with the Yankees he was twice fired by Steinbrenner. Bloodied but unbowed, Martin surfaced in 1980 at Finley's Oakland gulag. Yet the brash Martin, after getting that sorry team off to a flying start with his old-fashioned "Billy Ball," warned Finley to take no credit, saying, "I've dealt with owners like that before. I didn't take it then, and I'm not gonna take it now. If it does happen, it's bye-bye Billy."

Luckily for Martin, Finley sold out to a jeans manufacturer, ending that owner's stormy baseball career during which no manager satisfied. Outfielder Rick Monday, during his five years with the Athletics, saw six skippers come and go, including hard-nosed "I" type Williams, "We" type Al Dark, and "They" type Bob Kennedy.

As if meddling owners were not enough of a plague, managerial authority was challenged by the new breed of players. While admitting that expansion players were able, older managers generally viewed them as less dedicated and tougher to discipline than players of the '50s. Now shielded by a strong Association, a generation of better-educated, better-paid players resisted dogmatic authority. They challenged training programs, demanding the right to use regimens of their own design. Nor did they passively accept strategical and tactical decisions: sidelined players protested lineup decisions hotly, and in 1980 pitcher Luis Tiant, when taken out of a game by Dick Howser, angrily threw the ball to the ground and later tossed his glove into the stands. Humiliated by this public tantrum, Howser could only level a $500 fine; to do more would have brought Player Association counteraction.

In the 1970s all managers faced this problem of lese majesty and eroding credibility. From their retirement haunts, former hard-line managers like Jimmy Dykes and Billy Herman wondered how modern managers survived. Dykes blasted opinionated players, interfering wives, and pampered specialists. And after being fired by the 1966 Red Sox, Herman accused modern players of placing personal glory ahead of the team. In 1977 Sparky Anderson groused that only rookies responded to discipline, and after three seasons they too were prima donnas.

Billy Martin blamed the salary revolution for eroding his authority: in 1972 he urged owners to adopt pro football's policy of paying coaches higher salaries than players and giving them long-term contract security. Managers also complained of affluent players being distracted by their outside business investments. But reforming the new plutocrats was touchy-push a star too hard and a manager was likely to be the loser. It was a lesson Martin learned from Reggie Jackson. Comparative beggars amid affluence, to survive some managers evoked ethereal ideals like team loyalty and "family" spirit. A favorite ploy of "We" types, making it work took great patience and huge dollops of praise. When it worked, according to Jim Bouton, the style produced nondescript managers like Houk, Ed Kasko, Ken Aspromonte, Tom Lasorda, Bill Virdon, and Whitey Herzog. But even if a sunny optimist like Lasorda managed to make a theology of Dodger blue and Great Dodgers in the Sky, glory was fleeting at best: by 1980 he presided over a divided team and admitted that most players nursed grievances against him.

Besides having to fight off interfering owners and hostile players, managers had to contend with their ancient enemies the sportswriters, who often sided with the players in their reporting of confrontations. In Billy Martin's Yankee ordeal, writers seized on every rumble involving that embattled manager: when Martin blew off steam, writers captured his words and printed them, thus hastening his ouster. (When Bob Lemon succeeded Martin, a providential New York newspaper strike blacked out baseball news for the second half of the campaign. Thus in blissful silence, Lemon regrouped the team and drove it to a miracle victory.) But even phlegmatics like Danny Ozark of the Phils suffered at the hands of the scribes: a yearlong campaign mounted by Inquirer writers ended with Ozark's dismissal in 1979. And in 1972 Durocher was cut loose as persistent Chicago writers eventually wore down Phil Wrigley's stubborn refusal to let any "reporter S.O.B. . . . run my ballclub."

In what must be the most unkindest cut of all, even umpires now lorded it over managers. Long the whipping boys, umpires turned tartars behind their Association, which won them job security and relief from harassing managers. In times past a manager could confront an ump, blame him for a defeat or a boner, and blast him in postseason evaluations, but by the mid-'70s the tables were turned. Now arbiters like Tom Gorman wrote taunting books, citing ump-baiters like Hutchinson, Durocher, Stanky, Mauch, Anderson, and Weaver. And Gorman's best line might have been his description of his visit to Durocher's bedside: he came, he told the ailing Durocher, "to see if you were dying."

By the 1980s it was abundantly clear that with the possible exception of super managers like Weaver, any semblance of job security was a thing of the past: even winning was no assurance of continued employment. Although the divisional system adopted in 1969 provided four winners in place of two, in the minds of owners a division victory was not enough, a lesson learned by Whitey Herzog and Danny Ozark. Each won three consecutive division titles in the '70s, but for failure to do more both were canned in 1979, and before the axe fell, each was booed by fans, scorned by players, and pilloried by scribes.

It was the same with Don Zimmer, who managed Boston to more than 90 victories in 1978 and 1979 yet was sacked in 1980. His Red Sox had taken the 1978 Eastern race to a playoff game with a valiant final-week win streak; the following season he was so cruelly booed at Fenway that his wife quit going to games.

To be fired or laid off from one's job is a major trauma. Like bereavement or divorce, it is linked with suicide. Yet managers, whose firings are so flagrantly public, seem to suffer surprisingly little stigma. Indeed, firings are usually gentlemanly affairs, with damnation speedily followed by redemption. And often the fallen wretch is replaced with a previous victim, which makes for a lively market in used managers (Bucky Harris setting the record by being rehired seven times.) Still, the public airing of one's failures is devastating upon one's family; according to Frank Lucchesi, after a firing his school-aged son came home crying, saying, "Dad . . . do we have to go through that again?" To escape the stigma of being fired some "resigned," but Harris sneered at that dodge, saying that departing managers are always fired.

Once dismissed, decorum prescribed a quiet exit. Yogi Berra showed how when dumped by the Mets in 1975: questioned by reporters, he badmouthed no one and even promised to pray for the Mets, who needed supernatural intervention. Only a cut below this in style were performances by Frank Robinson and Preston Gomez. When fired by Cleveland, Robinson—the first black manager—told reporters that some players took advantage of him, but added that he learned much and would go home and live on his severance. When Gomez was fired by the Padres, he took it philosophically, saying that the club needed a fresh face to hype attendance.

But some did not go gentle into the night. At Baltimore, tough Hank Bauer raged at the new breed of players, saying he'd manage no more. To the G.M. who pink slipped him, Bauer warned that the severance payments better not be late. Mayo Smith, when told, quickly downed a drink and summed up his experience with the judgment that "Detroit fans don't know the difference between a ballplayer and a Japanese aviator."

Among the cashiered were weepers, drinkers, and solitary brooders. But few outdid Bill Norman. Fired by the Tigers in 1959 after winning two of 17 games, he stripped to his shorts in the clubhouse, downed two cases of beer, and was finally led out "in a maudlin state," according to Sports Illustrated.

Next to the ordeal by public firing, loss of effective control over players ranked high on the list of woes. In 1971 rebellious Astros destroyed Harry Walker's tough disciplinary code. A good teacher of hitting and fundamentals, Walker fined players for tactical mistakes and sought to curb boozing and wenching. But the Astros mocked Walker's "horseshit" lectures, protested his fines, and openly parodied his moral stance by loudly singing a satirical ditty with this refrain:

Now Harry Walker is the one that manages this crew;

He doesn't like it when we drink and fight and smoke and screw:

But when we win our game each day,

Then what the fuck can Harry say?

It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro.

One year afterward, Walker walked the plank, but his was no isolated fate. At Philadelphia and other stopovers Richie Allen's refusal to meet deadlines undercut managers. Alex Johnson bounced around not only because he refused to hustle, but also because he persisted in calling teammates and managers alike "shitheads." And Minnesota pitcher Jim Kaat protested manager Sam Mele's firing of pitching coach John Sain by festooning his locker with heroic poses of Sain.

Not only were managers routinely undercut, but at times they were uppercut. In 1977 the luckless Lucchesi was punched and kicked into unconsciousness by Lenny Randle, who was embittered at being benched. Lucchesi's injuries required plastic surgery and dental work, but humiliation hurt him more. Randle was fined $10,000 and dispatched to another team, but Lucchesi was fired soon after. Although retained by the club, Lucchesi still sued for $200,000 to preserve "the integrity of baseball."

Protesting fans could undercut managers, too, and their protests were often orchestrated by the press. Indeed, columnist Milt Richman once told Frank Robinson that his chief managerial task was to please writers. Some managers, like Stengel and Murtaugh, were great with reporters. And those who were not, like Durocher, Ozark, and Zimmer, had their stays shortened by massive press criticisms.

Managers were likely to feel pressure from above, in the form of meddlesome owners and general managers, and also from below, in the form of their coaches. Usually these were cronies of the manager, but they also represented a labor pool of potential replacements. Realizing this, some managers rid themselves of underlings who became too popular. Thus Sain was cut loose on at least three occasions for his close rapport with pitchers. And for his personal zeal as Dodger batting coach, Jim Lefebvre was first barred from filming Dodger batters and later fired by Manager Lasorda. In the stormy aftermath to that firing, Lefebvre decked Lasorda. If such outcomes were rare, the plenitude of coaches threatened all managers by 1980. Some teams counted as many as eight coaches, plus auxiliaries that included trainers, physicians, and occasional psychologists and priests. If managers might otherwise be lulled into thinking they were prime movers, the presence of so many experts sent a message that perhaps a single manager was no longer up to the job.

The role of the modern manager is that of supervisor, disciplinarian, and strategist. As supervisors, managers now delegate authority to coaches who conduct practices and instruct players; each coach contributes his bit of expertise and the manager is charged with coordinating these activities. As a disciplinarian, the manager retains enough authority to compel players to follow rules and do their duty. Indeed, some managerial discipline codes yet resemble those of closed institutions like police forces and mental asylums. At Philadelphia in 1980, Dallas Green's rules were formally printed and issued to each man. The code established a curfew, set dress standards, limited drinking and card playing, imposed rigorous rules of conduct at practices, and banned players' children from the dugout during practice sessions. As strategist, which is still the essence of the managerial mystique, pilots still rely on time-honored devices such as flashing signals to third-base coaches, devising defensive alignments to thwart hitters, and most important, setting a pitching rotation and knowing when to change pitchers.

In the final analysis, however, it may be that the manager's main function is to serve as scapegoat and thus preserve the jobs of others. Like the legendary lamed vov, whose task was to shoulder the collective grief of his downtrodden Jewish brethren, the manager is answerable for a multitude of sins, few of his direct commission. Lest one doubt this continuing function, consider that during last year's grotesque split season, which canceled more than a third of the games, six managers were jettisoned, and over the winter another six.

And with an owner like Steinbrenner intervening incessantly, going so far as to order special fundamental drills, one can only expect continuing pressure on managers. Indeed, the best relief for these besieged foremen seems to have been hit upon by Whitey Herzog. By functioning both as manager and GM, he seems to be pointing the way toward a protective adaptation for an otherwise highly endangered species. And if he can find a way to buy his club—well, how do you think Connie Mack lasted 50 years?

DAVID VOIGT is the author of American Baseball, a major league history; the third volume will be appearing this fall.

The Early Years: A Gallery

MARK RUCKER and LEW LIPSET

(Please see the PDF edition for clearer representations of these vintage photos.)

What stories these pictures tell! They give voice to a game, and to a nation, that regularly recast their own image yet somehow remain recognizably, essentially, eternally the same. Everything connects: Steinbrenner with Von Der Ahe, Jackson with Kelly, Weaver with Wright. Step into the picture below, turn the pages, and commune with the past—it won't seem distant at all.

This remarkable photograph, surely one of the earliest depicting a game in progress, was taken on August 31, 1870, at the Troy Haymakers’ grounds, the Bull’s Head Tavern Field in Batestown. Opposing the Haymakers are the Athletics of Philadelphia. The photographer was James Irving.

Two men who can both lay claim to being the "Father of Baseball" are posed in this 1863 photo of a Philadelphia-area cricket club, perhaps the Wharton. On the right in the middle row is Henry Chadwick, covering the sport for the New York Clipper; on the right in the bottom row is Harry Wright, at this time a professional cricket player but soon to make history with the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

Here are several of the men who played in the game shown on the facing page. Note that the relationship between baseball and commerce predates the major leagues. In the tintype at the right. (reversed so as to obtain a positive image), two Athletics pose in the early 1870s. Dick McBride, the seated pitcher, and Al Reach, the lefthanded second baseman, have exchanged tools:

This is the Lowell of Boston team, 1866, one of the city’s best. The players wear large boots with painted cleats and heavy woolen uniforms, not ideal for speed or agility. Note that the long pants are belted at the ankle; knickers were not de rigueur until Cincinnati’s Red Stockings made them famous in 1869:

Research indicates this is a game in progress at Millerton, Ohio. The yellow mount on the stereo card from which this view was taken suggests an 1870s origin:

The figure on the right has the look of someone important, and he is. The man is Candy Cummings, the disputed inventor of the curveball, in the uniform of the Star of Brooklyn team, for whom he pitched from 1868 through 1871:

Above are "rookie" cartes de visite of two of the better ballplayers of the century: Ned Williamson, on the lift, broke in with the Alleghany of Pittsburgh and Joe Hornung with the Tecumseh of London, Ontario, both in the International Association of 1877. The photo card below was issued as an advertisement for Peck & Snyder Sporting Goods. The legendary Joe Start, every boy's idol in the 1860s, appears in the picture:

A one-of-a-kind item: a hand-drawn and hand-lettered composite of the 1880 Worcesters, later to become the Phillies. John Lee Richmond threw the first perfect game:

An unidentified player of the 1860s, wearing the “Zouave” style uniform inspired by the regiment of that name led by Civil War hero Col. Elmer Ellsworth.

The Providence team of 1882, festooned with great names of baseball. Left to right: (top) Paul Hines, Jerry Denny, Hoss Radbourn, Jack Farrell; (center) Tom York, Joe Start, Harry Wright, George Wright, Monte Ward; (bottom) Charlie Reilley, Sandy Nava, Barney Gilligan. Nava is thought by several modern historians to have been a Negro, joining the Walker brothers as a major-league forerunner of Jackie Robinson—judge for yourself.

Unidentified.

Three players of 1887 who went on to greater fame: Sam Crane, sportswriter; Connie Mack, manager; Hank O'Day, umpire.

Opening Day in Philadelphia, 1889, at the grand stadium, only two years old, that came to be known as Baker Bowl. This early action shot shows an attempted steal of second base; the “ball” has been brushed in bigger than a cantaloupe.

Opening Day, Boston and New York, 1886, before a Polo Grounds crowd of 12,000. Hall of Famers abound: Buck Ewing, Roger Connor, Jim O’Rourke, Tim Keefe, Mickey Welch, Monte Ward, Hoss Radbourn. Can you spot them? Clue: Radbourn is the one gesturing indelicately over Charlie Buffington’s shoulder.

Three Phillies of 1887: Joe Mulvey, with the place hitter's grip; Sid Farrar, best known as the father of opera diva Geraldine Farrar; Jim Fogarty, posing for an artistic catch.

A smartly attired team from Honeoye, N.Y., poses beneath their banner. They took their name from the original Live Oaks of Rochester, of which Honeoye is a suburb.

A rare view of three members of the Forest City of Cleveland team, 1870: (left) unidentified; (center) Chick Fulmer; (right) Ezra Sutton. Sutton may be seen 16 years later on page 45, in the center row, third from the left.

The White Stockings of 1886. Left to right: (top), Billy Sunday, Abner Dalrymple, Ned Williamson, Jimmy Ryan, Jocko Flynn, Tommy Burns; (center) King Kelly, George Gore, George Moolic, Fred Pfeffer, Frank Flint; (bottom) John Clarkson, Adrian Anson, Jim McCormick.

Two teams in a large 1870s ballpark, from a stereo card labeled "Troy vs. New York." The suspicion is, however, that this is in fact a contest played in Troy between the Haymakers and the Chicago White Stockings in late October or early November of 1871. Observe the motley assortment of uniforms worn by the team on the left. The White Stockings had lost their uniforms and nearly all of their personal belongings in the Great Fire of October 8·10, which immortalized Mrs. O'Leary's cow. They desperately needed the cash that the late-season contests would bring and, besides, the pennant hung in the balance. Peck & Snyder refused to give the Whites new uniforms on credit, so they had to borrow an odd collection from the New York Mutuals, the Brooklyn Eckfords, and even the Junior Fly Aways.

MARK RUCKER is a New York artist; one of his superrealist paintings of ballplayers is on exhibit at the Hall of Fame.

Lew LIPSET, a collector of 19th-century baseball memorabilia, is working on a detailed history of all baseball cards.

The Early Years: A Gallery

MARK RUCKER and LEW LIPSET

(Please see the PDF edition for clearer representations of these vintage photos.)

What stories these pictures tell! They give voice to a game, and to a nation, that regularly recast their own image yet somehow remain recognizably, essentially, eternally the same. Everything connects: Steinbrenner with Von Der Ahe, Jackson with Kelly, Weaver with Wright. Step into the picture below, turn the pages, and commune with the past—it won't seem distant at all.

This remarkable photograph, surely one of the earliest depicting a game in progress, was taken on August 31, 1870, at the Troy Haymakers’ grounds, the Bull’s Head Tavern Field in Batestown. Opposing the Haymakers are the Athletics of Philadelphia. The photographer was James Irving.

Two men who can both lay claim to being the "Father of Baseball" are posed in this 1863 photo of a Philadelphia-area cricket club, perhaps the Wharton. On the right in the middle row is Henry Chadwick, covering the sport for the New York Clipper; on the right in the bottom row is Harry Wright, at this time a professional cricket player but soon to make history with the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

Here are several of the men who played in the game shown on the facing page. Note that the relationship between baseball and commerce predates the major leagues. In the tintype at the right. (reversed so as to obtain a positive image), two Athletics pose in the early 1870s. Dick McBride, the seated pitcher, and Al Reach, the lefthanded second baseman, have exchanged tools:

This is the Lowell of Boston team, 1866, one of the city’s best. The players wear large boots with painted cleats and heavy woolen uniforms, not ideal for speed or agility. Note that the long pants are belted at the ankle; knickers were not de rigueur until Cincinnati’s Red Stockings made them famous in 1869:

Research indicates this is a game in progress at Millerton, Ohio. The yellow mount on the stereo card from which this view was taken suggests an 1870s origin:

The figure on the right has the look of someone important, and he is. The man is Candy Cummings, the disputed inventor of the curveball, in the uniform of the Star of Brooklyn team, for whom he pitched from 1868 through 1871:

Above are "rookie" cartes de visite of two of the better ballplayers of the century: Ned Williamson, on the lift, broke in with the Alleghany of Pittsburgh and Joe Hornung with the Tecumseh of London, Ontario, both in the International Association of 1877. The photo card below was issued as an advertisement for Peck & Snyder Sporting Goods. The legendary Joe Start, every boy's idol in the 1860s, appears in the picture:

A one-of-a-kind item: a hand-drawn and hand-lettered composite of the 1880 Worcesters, later to become the Phillies. John Lee Richmond threw the first perfect game:

An unidentified player of the 1860s, wearing the “Zouave” style uniform inspired by the regiment of that name led by Civil War hero Col. Elmer Ellsworth.

The Providence team of 1882, festooned with great names of baseball. Left to right: (top) Paul Hines, Jerry Denny, Hoss Radbourn, Jack Farrell; (center) Tom York, Joe Start, Harry Wright, George Wright, Monte Ward; (bottom) Charlie Reilley, Sandy Nava, Barney Gilligan. Nava is thought by several modern historians to have been a Negro, joining the Walker brothers as a major-league forerunner of Jackie Robinson—judge for yourself.

Unidentified.

Three players of 1887 who went on to greater fame: Sam Crane, sportswriter; Connie Mack, manager; Hank O'Day, umpire.

Opening Day in Philadelphia, 1889, at the grand stadium, only two years old, that came to be known as Baker Bowl. This early action shot shows an attempted steal of second base; the “ball” has been brushed in bigger than a cantaloupe.

Opening Day, Boston and New York, 1886, before a Polo Grounds crowd of 12,000. Hall of Famers abound: Buck Ewing, Roger Connor, Jim O’Rourke, Tim Keefe, Mickey Welch, Monte Ward, Hoss Radbourn. Can you spot them? Clue: Radbourn is the one gesturing indelicately over Charlie Buffington’s shoulder.

Three Phillies of 1887: Joe Mulvey, with the place hitter's grip; Sid Farrar, best known as the father of opera diva Geraldine Farrar; Jim Fogarty, posing for an artistic catch.

A smartly attired team from Honeoye, N.Y., poses beneath their banner. They took their name from the original Live Oaks of Rochester, of which Honeoye is a suburb.

A rare view of three members of the Forest City of Cleveland team, 1870: (left) unidentified; (center) Chick Fulmer; (right) Ezra Sutton. Sutton may be seen 16 years later on page 45, in the center row, third from the left.

The White Stockings of 1886. Left to right: (top), Billy Sunday, Abner Dalrymple, Ned Williamson, Jimmy Ryan, Jocko Flynn, Tommy Burns; (center) King Kelly, George Gore, George Moolic, Fred Pfeffer, Frank Flint; (bottom) John Clarkson, Adrian Anson, Jim McCormick.

Two teams in a large 1870s ballpark, from a stereo card labeled "Troy vs. New York." The suspicion is, however, that this is in fact a contest played in Troy between the Haymakers and the Chicago White Stockings in late October or early November of 1871. Observe the motley assortment of uniforms worn by the team on the left. The White Stockings had lost their uniforms and nearly all of their personal belongings in the Great Fire of October 8·10, which immortalized Mrs. O'Leary's cow. They desperately needed the cash that the late-season contests would bring and, besides, the pennant hung in the balance. Peck & Snyder refused to give the Whites new uniforms on credit, so they had to borrow an odd collection from the New York Mutuals, the Brooklyn Eckfords, and even the Junior Fly Aways.

MARK RUCKER is a N. Y. artist; one of his superrealist paintings of ballplayers is on exhibit at the Hall of Fame.

Lew LIPSET, a collector of 19th-century baseball memorabilia, is working on a detailed history of all baseball cards.

The Egyptian and the Greyhounds

LEW LIPSET

TWO YEARS AGO at an auction in St. Louis, I acquired a cabinet card showing the 1888 Browns posed in an indoor setting after winning their fourth consecutive American Association title. I couldn't help but notice the matching sports jackets the Browns were wearing, or the magnificent pair of greyhounds reclining in the foreground.

The matching jackets, I knew, had been purchased by the Browns' flamboyant owner, Chris Von Der Ahe, who reportedly had spent $20,000 on accommodations for the team's 1888 championship series against the Giants. What the greyhounds were doing in the picture I had no idea. When I returned to my table with the photo, a friend and fellow 19th-century collector remarked that he had read about the dogs in one of a series of three books by Al Spink entitled Spink Sport Stories.

In an interesting coincidence I had just purchased this series myself, so I made a mental note to browse through the books and try to find that specific item. Since the three volumes consisted of 1000 stories and ran over 1400 pages, I was not optimistic of obtaining speedy satisfaction; however, fortune was on my side as the story appeared in the first 50 pages of Volume 1. It goes like this:

In the mid-1880s Peoria, Illinois, was an enthusiastic baseball town. Charlie Flynn was the baseball team's president and doubled as chief of police. Flynn was a friend of most ballplayers who came through town and probably knew everyone in the National League and American Association.

Spink recalled that one Thursday night in St. Louis ca. 1885, he was aroused by Flynn at an unorthodox hour. Flynn complained, "Saturday we play Davenport the deciding game for the championship." He went on, "Fish Hall [Peoria's pitcher] tried to turn Peoria dry and now he has the ‘jimmies.’ Nothing will save us but another pitcher." Flynn urged Spink to get him a pitcher immediately "with speed like Old Rad when he was right and a cool head like Clarkson." Spink got dressed and went looking for the "Egyptian," who, he knew, had just come into town.

The "Egyptian" was John Healy and he hailed from Cairo, Illinois—hence the nickname. Spink and Flynn found Healy in his boarding house. Healy said he couldn't possibly pitch in the championship game for Peoria, and pointed to two greyhounds he had brought with him from "Egypt." He said his first business was to sell the dogs, and he could not leave them for a moment. Spink offered to help sell the dogs for Healy. The Egyptian said, "If you can, I'll go with you to Peoria and win that flag for Flynn and his bunch."

Spink and Flynn took the dogs to Faust's tavern on Broadway, where Chris Von Der Ahe was throwing down a few. Immediately on sight of the dogs, he said he wanted them. Spink wrote, "Charlie Flynn and I put the $300 in Healy's pocket, hurried him to the railway station, and on the next Saturday John Healy and the Peoria team swept Davenport from the face of the earth."

What became of the dogs? Von Der Ahe named them Fly and Prince. Prince was given to John Botto, the owner of the Louisville club. Fly died in the fire that destroyed old Sportsman's Park, despite Von Der Ahe's efforts to save him.

And Egyptian Healy, who came into the National League, according to Spink, with "the skill of a wizard, speed to burn, and an uncanny command of the ball," went on to a mediocre eight year big-league career topped by his selection for the World Tour squad in 1889.

All the Record Books Are Wrong

FRANK J. WILLIAMS

A breakthrough—the "Rosetta Stone" for deciphering won-lost decisions of the dead-ball era

READY, BASEBALL EXPERTS? Here’s a quick quiz, consisting of only three questions, and—bending over backwards to be fair—I will permit you the use of any baseball encyclopedia or record book of your choosing. If you answer all three correctly, your prize is the next tour of duty as manager of the Yankees.

• Who was the won-lost percentage leader in the American League in 1905 and what was his record?

• How many games did Ralph Comstock win for the Boston Red Sox in 1915?

• How many victories did Cy Young and Walter Johnson amass over their careers?

Question 1: The answer, according to both major encyclopedias—Macmillan and Grosset & Dunlap (commonly referred to as Neft-Cohen)—is Andy Coakley of the Philadelphia A's, with a mark of 20-7. The Sporting News Record Book lists Boston's Jess Tannehill as the leader at 22-9. The correct answer is Rube Waddell, also of the A's, at 27-10; this may be found only in Seymour Siwoff’s Book of Baseball Records. All other sources credit Waddell with a record of 26-11; Coakley's correct log of18-8 is nowhere to be found.

Question 2: Both Macmillan and Neft-Cohen show the obscure Comstock at 2-0 for Boston in the three games in which he pitched. However, the results of those three games were one victory, one defeat, and one tie. Only Turkin-Thompson gives Comstock his due at 1-0.

Question 3: Over the years, Cy Young's victory total has been given variously between 507 and 511; Johnson's wins have been listed as 413, 414, and 416. Currently, Macmillan credits Young with 511 and Johnson 416, as does Neft-Cohen; Turkin-Thompson lists Johnson at 416 but Young at 507. The correct figures are 510 for Young and 417 for Johnson, as derived from my year-by-year, game-by-game study of the official scoring sheets housed in the Baseball Hall of Fame Library. This research, as yet not complete for all pitchers, has revealed errors in Young's record for 1907 and Johnson's for 1912 which are of the same nature as those in last year's celebrated flap over the 1910 race for the American League batting title between Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie. How these errors crept into the record and stayed there for 70-75 years I will detail later in this discussion.

In fact, the confusion surrounding these three "trick" questions is merely the tip of the iceberg represented by the period 1901-19, one in which scoring peculiarities (by modern standards) and transcription errors are legion, affecting Hall of Famers and nonentities alike. Moreover, the random, misguided, unreconciled tinkering of the last 15 years—well-intentioned though it may have been—has piled error upon error, creating a dizzying snarl of statistics which becomes harder to untangle with the appearance of each "revised" edition.

Although the mess spills over into batting and fielding records as well, for the time being I will confine myself largely to pitchers' won-lost records of the 1901-19 era, how they went wrong, and how they can be righted once and for all. But first, a bit of history.

Until 1967, the official scoring sheets for both the American and National Leagues were unavailable to researchers. This meant that baseball reference books compiled prior to that time (such as Moreland, Richter, Lanigan, Turkin-Thompson, Reichler, et al.) were forced to base their versions of pitchers' won-lost decisions in 1901-19 on the Spalding and Reach Baseball Guides of that period.

This method caused a number of problems. For example, from 1902 through 1906 the Spalding Guide showed two sets of pitchers' won-lost records for the previous season for both the American and National Leagues. There were the records according to Henry Chadwick, who edited the Spalding Guide, and there were the official records put out by the two major leagues. In the 1906 guide, on page 77 Chadwick shows Christy Mathewson with a 32-8 record for 1905, and then on page 107 the National League official record has him at 31-9. The American League was treated the same way, with Chadwick listing Cy Young as 16-18 on page 121 and the American League official record showing him at 18-19 on page 145. This discrepancy was the product of Chadwick's idiosyncratic practices in awarding wins and losses; it must be remembered that his records were unofficial.

The guides published by Spalding and Reach from 1907 through 1913 were based solely on the official records of both leagues. This continued with respect to the National League in the 1914 guides, but a strange development had occurred in the American League for the season of 1913. Ban Johnson, A.L. president, omitted won-lost decisions from the official records released to the public, believing that these did not reflect the true worth of a pitcher, and that earned run averages did. (Earned run average was an official statistic in the American League for the first time in 1913.)

In the 1914 Reach Guide, the editor, Francis Richter, put it this way:

It will be seen that in the above official record the pitchers are ranked according to percentage of earned runs, and the old way of ranking them according to games won and lost is omitted altogether. As that custom had been too well established to be discontinued at once, the Editor of the Reach Guide takes the liberty for the benefit of the readers of the Reach Guide to append the following unofficial, but substantially covered record of games won and lost and the pitchers' rating thereunder.

In the 1915 Reach Guide, Richter did not give even an unofficial won-lost list, simply mentioning that the decisions were omitted from the official record. In the 1916 guide, Richter went back to showing an unofficial won-lost list; but instead of showing just the 1915 season, he also offered the 1914 season with the following explanation:

During the 1914 season the pitchers' won and lost records were omitted, which had become so well established that they were regarded as indispensable alike by fans and critics. The omission created such a general protest that President Johnson announced that he would restore that pitching feature to future records. Never the less, we find the won and lost records again absent from the official figures. In obedience to public demands, we therefore append the unofficial records for both 1914 and 1915.

Ban Johnson's policy continued right through the 1919 season, and each year the Reach Guide carried the unofficial won-lost records; Richter was always very careful to keep these separate from the regular official pitching records (E.R.A., strikeouts, etc.). After all, the Reach Guide was the American League publication and felt an obligation to keep its readers informed.

The Spalding Guide was a National League publication, however, and its editor felt no such obligation. The 1914 and 1915 Spalding Guides offered no explanation for the omissions from the official record and did not bother to show any won-lost decisions for the American League. Unofficial won-lost records did appear in the 1916 Spalding Guide—but were thrown in with the official pitching records, accompanied by a footnote which read, "The won and lost columns are not included in averages compiled by the American League, but are inserted unofficially as a matter of record."

This approach by the Spalding Guide, which continued through 1919 (no won-lost records were shown in the 1920 guide), was very confusing for two reasons. First, if the reader did not see the footnote, he thought he was looking at the official won-lost pitching records; and second, the footnote implied that the American League did not compile any official won-lost records during the seasons of 1915 through 1918. The American League did compile these records, but just didn't release them to the public.

More confusion was added in the 1918 and 1919 Spalding Guides when the wording of the footnote was altered. It now read, "The won and lost and percent columns are not included in the official averages compiled by the American League, but are obtained from official scores."

During this period, both guides obtained their unofficial won-lost records from the weekly list of pitchers' decisions published in The Sporting Life, The Sporting News, and the Sunday edition of such newspapers as The New York Times and the Washington Post. These lists were based on what the official scorer recommended to the league secretary or president. (He could never do more than recommend: it was the secretary or president who officially compiled the pitchers' won-lost records during the season.)

Often, when two or more pitchers were involved in a game, the official scorer's recommendation was overruled by the league president. It was widely known that Ban Johnson, after reviewing the situation, often disagreed with his official scorers. Sometimes the dispute was made public; usually it was not. This compelled statisticians like George Moreland, who compiled many of the weekly lists that appeared in newspapers, to rely solely on the scorers' unofficial recommendations rather than the final, official decision rendered by Johnson. Of course, the Reach and Spalding Guides were also forced to use these unofficial lists at the end of the season because Johnson did not release the official won-lost decisions.

Such, then, was the data base for the 1901-19 period which was to be used in record books and encyclopedias between 1920 and 1967. It was the best and only information available.

In the fall of 1967, the official sheets of both the American and National Leagues were made available to researchers from Information Concepts Incorporated, the organization responsible for the first edition of the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia. (The I.C.I. group, incidentally, disbanded shortly after the 1969 publication of Big Mac, but David Neft, Richard Cohen, and Jordan Deutsch of that crew went on to compile a rival encyclopedia for Grosset & Dunlap.) The researchers made a sincere and honest effort to clear up any discrepancies that existed in past major-league records. One of the major problems confronting them was the won-lost pitching records prior to 1920, particularly in the American League. The official sheets for the American League prior to 1905 had not survived and the same situation obtained in the National League prior to 1903. This meant the I.C.I. group had to reconstruct day-by-day pitching and hitting statistics for those periods.

In doing the pitching records for the American League, I.C.I. discovered that the won-lost columns on the 1914 A.L. official sheets were blank. In the National League, too, there were games in which no pitcher had been awarded a win or loss; or a pitcher was awarded a win when it should have been a loss, or vice versa; or two pitchers had been awarded the same win or loss. The I.C.I. researchers corrected most of these mistakes and were able to reconcile the individual pitchers' won-lost records to those of the teams.

Although there were some errors of this nature, the majority of the won-lost decisions for the American League, 1905-1919, had been recorded correctly on the official sheets. Yet the researchers were perplexed by these records too: they found that in games in which two or more pitchers were used, the win or loss was awarded on a basis which did not conform to pitching rules in effect from 1920 to 1949, nor to those prevailing from 1950 to the present.

Evidently convinced that there was no consistency in these pitching practices, I.C.I. chose to apply modern standards, as is indicated on page 2328 of Macmillan I (1969):

Scoring rules governing won and lost decisions by a pitcher did not become official until 1950. It was decided that all pitching decisions during the period 1920-1949 shall stand as they are in the official records, but that for the period 1876-1919 the 1950 ruling shall be in effect. The reason for this was that since 1920 the official scorer did exist, and he had the explicit authority to award the victory based on common practice, which was very close to the rule adopted in 1950. In the pre-1920 period, however, there was no official scoring rule or common practice for wins by a pitcher and for many years no official scorer.

This wholesale ravaging of the official records was as if a team of archaeologists had come upon the monoliths of Stonehenge and, not fathoming the reason for the complex astronomical arrangement of the stones, had rearranged them into a pattern they could understand.

Of course, this switching around of wins and losses caused quite a few changes in pitchers' won-lost records, including those of Young and Johnson. Young's wins went from 511 down to 509 and his losses went up from 313 to 316. Johnson's wins decreased from 416 down to 413, as did his defeats, from 279 to 277.

In 1978, I undertook a research project to verify the Boston Red Sox won-lost pitching records day by day from 1901-62, comparing my figures with the statistics compiled in the various editions of Macmillan (the current edition, published in 1982, is the fifth). I had no problem in agreeing with Macmillan's records post-1920, but for the 1901-19 era, it was a different story. I realized that my totals for Red Sox pitchers, gleaned from a variety of sources, differed so much from Macmillan's that I would have to go to the Hall of Fame Library and go through the official sheets for the American League.

Despite the lack of official sheets from 1901 through 1904, I did not find those four seasons that hard to check because most of the games featured only one pitcher per team and the official won-lost records were in the Reach and Spalding Guides. The 1905-19 period was not so easy, as I had to start matching written newspaper accounts against the official sheets in order to ascertain the official scorer's thinking in awarding a decision. This procedure worked out amazingly well: a consistent pattern emerged on all won-lost decisions for Red Sox pitchers. Many of these practices were completely foreign to anything in use today.

I began to wonder if these practices might apply to other American League teams, and if they were common in the National League, too. This started me on a course of doing other teams' pitchers on a day-by-day basis for 1905-19 and, sure enough, I found the same common practices in effect. I also found that Irwin Howe, A.L. statistician, had released pitching won-lost records in 1914 to The Sporting News, Sporting Life, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. This solved the dilemma of the blank won-lost columns on the 1914 A.L. official pitching sheets.

All of this plus invaluable information, advice, and help from SABR members Cliff Kachline, Ed Walton, Bob Wood, Pete Palmer, John Thorn, Paul Doherty, Don Luce, Bill Gavin, and former Boston Red Sox pitcher Smoky Joe Wood, brought about a list of common scoring practices used in both the American and National Leagues between 1901 and 1919. Had these practices been known to the I.C.I. researchers 15 years ago, we would have a perfect set of won-lost records today.

The first practice existed primarily from 1876 to 1904. Most pitchers went the full nine innings, but when they didn't, the win went to the starter if he left the game with the lead and his team never relinquished it. The starter did not have to go five innings, but could get away with pitching two or three innings and still be awarded the win. A couple of examples of this are as follows (pitchers are listed only for the one team which illustrates the practice at hand):

The 1969 edition of Macmillan originally gave the latter win to Young, showing him at 27-16 for the 1904 season and George Winter at 7-4, but the 1982 edition has correctly given the win back to Winter, showing him at 8-4 and Young at 26-16. Macmillan failed, however, to change the relief record. Young's record should now be 1-0 with one save, but Macmillan still shows him at 2-0. When you make any single change like that, it must be traced all the way through in order to reconcile individual and team totals.

The season of 1905 brought the first real influx of relief pitchers into baseball, and along with this came a drastic change in the awarding of won-lost decisions. It became the official scorer's job to determine who deserved the win or defeat and then recommend this decision to his superiors, Ban Johnson or John Heydler of the National League. Neither man was shy about overruling official scorers if he disagreed with them.

The second practice, an early change in awarding won-lost decisions, covered the period 1905-15 and is best depicted in a National League game played in 1912.

The following explanation appeared in the New York Times of June 13, 1912:

The Rube was taken out of the game in the last half of the eighth inning to allow Shafer to try his skill as a pinch-hitter. At that time, the Cubs were in the lead 2 to 1. Shafer walked and that started the rally which gave the Giants two runs and the victory. Crandall pitched the ninth inning. Well, if you must know, Marquard gets the credit for the victory. That is, the official scorer will send in such a recommendation to the Secretary of the National League. In most instances, when a pitcher is retired and the team is behind, the credit for the victory goes to the pitcher who succeeds him. The circumstances in games are so different that there is no rule to cover it and it is often a matter of judgment. The reason that Marquard received credit for yesterday's game was because he did the bulk of the pitching, and he was not withdrawn from the game for poor pitching. In fact, Rube pitched pretty good ball. [Emphasis mine-F.J.W.]

Under today's rules, Marquard would also get this win, but not for the same reason. The following examples are from American League games between 1905 and 1915 which conformed to this practice.

April 21, 1905; at Boston

Philadelphia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 -5 Coakley, 7 inn.

Boston 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 -4 Waddell, 2 inn., WON

Coakley was batted for in the eighth inning and left the game trailing. He was taken out for not pitching well. Waddell faced six batters in two innings and struck out five of them. In the judgment of the official scorer, he pitched better than Coakley did and thus deserved the win.

May 30, 1905; at Washington —first game

Boston 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 -4 Winter, 8 inn.

Washington 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 -3 Young, 1 inn., WON

Winter was batted for in the ninth. It wasn't until the latest edition that Macmillan gave this win back to Young and changed his record from 17-19 to 18-19.

The third practice was the most common used in 1905-19. Under modern rules, this situation would be described as a save, but back then, it was a win. Usually, the relief pitcher finished the game and pitched more effectively in crucial situations than did any of his predecessors. The written coverage of this type of game often stated that the relief pitcher saved the game. Examples are as follows:

June 30, 1905; at New York

Philadelphia 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 2-7 Plank, 8 inn.

New York 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 0 0 -4 Waddell, 1 inn., WON

With none out in the ninth, Eddie Plank left the game leading 7-4, but Waddell pitched out of a tight situation and saved the game. According to the latest edition of Macmillan, Plank and Waddell both had 26 victories that year to lead the American League, but this is incorrect. Waddell was awarded the above game, which made him 27-10. He is also the A.L. won-last-percentage champion for 1905 —as you know from the opening quiz—rather than Coakley, who was 18-8 per the practices of that time (the official sheets showed Coakley 17-8, but omitted a complete-game victory on July 10).

Elmer Steele left this game in the bottom of the sixth inning leading 5-4, but Wood pitched one of the best strikeout games ever by a relief pitcher. In four frames, he faced 17 batters and fanned 10 of them without walking anyone. There was no doubt that he saved the game and, in line with this observed practice, was awarded the win.

June 6, 1912; at Chicago

Washington 1 0 1 0 0 0 3 0 4 -9 Musser, 5 inn.

Chicago 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 -1 Johnson,4 inn., WON

Johnson came into this game when the score was only 2-1 and stopped Chicago the rest of the way.

There are countless more examples of this practice. Can you imagine what Macmillan did with all these games in its first edition? Every one of them must have been changed!

The fourth practice is an extension of Practice Number One, which was in effect from 1876 to 1904, but with some slight differences. Page 21 of the 1910 Spalding Guide says, "If a pitcher retires from the game after pitching four innings and his team has a big lead, which is maintained to the end, he surely should get the victory."

I would add to this that a pitcher who left a game because of an injury, illness, or banishment would also get the victory if he had the lead when he departed and his team never tied or trailed. I have combined all these situations into one practice because they go hand in hand. Moreover, I have found that the practice was not limited to a pitcher going four innings; the real point is that so long as he was not pulled for ineffectiveness, he could pick up the win. Examples follow.

May 22, 1909; at Cleveland

Washington 0 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 -4 Johnson, 3 inn., WON

Cleveland 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 Hughes, 6 inn.

Johnson was batted for in the fourth because he was not feeling well and could not continue.

Joe Benz left this game because of an injury and the relief pitchers did not pitch particularly well, so in the judgment of the official scorer, he was the winner.

The fifth practice is very similar to Practice Number Four except for one main point. It works this way. Let's say the starter for Team A is pitching strongly, but for any number of reasons except for poor pitching, he is forced to leave the game with his club ahead. The relief pitcher allows Team B to tie or go ahead, but then Team A rallies to win. If the starter has pitched at least four innings and was not driven from the box, he gets the win. This practice came down to a fine matter of judgment on the part of the official scorer, but it certainly shows up a lot in 1907-15. Examples follow.

April 20, 1912; at New York

Brooklyn 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 -3 Tesreau, 8 inn., WON

New York 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 -4 Marquard, 1 inn.

The scoring practice used in this game cost Marquard a 20-game winning streak. Rube relieved Jeff Tesreau in the top of the ninth inning with the Giants in front 2-1. Two baserunners scored on a Giant fielding error, and they trailed 3-2. Although the Giants rallied to win, the decision was given to Tesreau. The 1913 Spalding Record Book says on page 55, "As Marquard faced but three batters in the 9th inning the game was given to Tesreau on the ground that he had done the bulk of the work and that he was fully entitled to any honor which might arise therefrom."

Young was pinch-hit for in the ninth and left the game ahead 4-3. He had pitched strongly. The writeup of the game says Tannehill did not perform well in the ninth and allowed Philadelphia to tie.

September 20, 1912; at Detroit

Boston 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 0 -4 Covington, 4 inn., WON

Detroit 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 1 x -6 Lake, 5 inn.

Bill Covington had allowed only one hit through four innings when he was thrown out of the game by the umpire in the fifth. He left in front, 3-1. The official sheets, Reach Baseball Guide, and the New York Times all stated that Covington was awarded the victory. This game received a lot of attention because it was the end of Joe Wood's 16-game winning streak.

August 15, 1913; at St. Louis

Boston 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 -2 Moseley, 6 inn., WON

St. Louis 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 -1 Hall, 3 inn.

I saved this game until last to show a slight variation in the practice. Here we have Earl Moseley allowing only one hit in six innings and being forced to leave because of an injury. He left with the game tied, but in the judgment of the scorer, he pitched longer and better than Charley Hall, and was primarily responsible for the victory.

The sixth practice was discovered by Paul MacFarlane of The Sporting News, who passed the information on to Cliff Kachline in January 1980. This practice started in 1913 and was reported in The Sporting Life as follows :

"Ban Johnson ruled that when a pitcher leaves the box at the end of an inning he shall not receive benefit of any runs made in the following inning. He says all runs should aid the reliever, not the previous pitcher."

The game on which Johnson ruled was played in St. Louis on July 16, 1913.

This was part of Walter Johnson's 14-game winning streak in 1913.

The seventh practice involves the relief pitcher being held responsible for the runners left on base by the starting or previous pitcher. During this period, if the runners he inherited represented the winning runs and the reliever prevented them from scoring, he was often credited with the victory (this would tie into Practice Three).

Johnson was sent in to relieve Long Tom Hughes in the seventh inning with the score tied 2-2, one out, and two men on the bases. Johnson allowed both men to score and, as was the custom of the time, he was charged for both runs.

It now came down to who was more responsible for the defeat, Hughes or Johnson. There were those who would have given the defeat to Hughes so that Walter Johnson could continue his 16-game winning streak. Ban Johnson after a couple of days ruled that Walter Johnson was the loser because with the score tied, no matter how many men were left on base by his predecessor, Johnson would have been credited with a victory had his team won out. (Full details are on page 207 of the 1913 Reach Baseball Guide).

Although this decision could have gone the other way, there are enough examples of this type of game to make it definitely an individual practice. Cliff Kachline discovered the earliest form of this manner of awarding defeats:

May 4, 1904; at Detroit

Cleveland 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -2 Hickey, 4-1/3 inn.

Detroit 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 -3 Joss, 4-2/3 inn., LOST

John Hickey started this game, but left in the fifth inning with one out and the bases filled. Addie Joss relieved and allowed a triple by Charlie Carr of Detroit. This allowed the three winning runs to score and the defeat was charged to Joss. This is proven by the fact that the official A.L. records in the 1905 Reach Baseball Guide show Hickey with an 0-1 record in 1904. Hickey pitched a complete-game loss on April 16 against Chicago. Joss is shown with a 14-10 record. The latest edition of Macmillan shows Joss at 14-9 in 1904 and Hickey at 0-2; they did not award this defeat to Joss. A complete game-by-game breakdown of both pitchers also proves Joss should be 14-10 and Hickey 0-1. The Sporting News Hall of Fame Fact Book has the correct record for Joss.

The eighth practice is one of the most interesting ones, involving the awarding of won-lost decisions in forfeited games. Pete Palmer was the first one to come across it in research he was doing on pitching records in the dead-ball era. Thanks to an excellent article on all forfeited games in the 1978 Baseball Research Journal by Paul Doherty, I was able to find a set pattern in both the American and National Leagues for the period 1901-19. In all forfeited games from 1901 through 1925, won-lost decisions were awarded to pitchers. There were 20 such games during this period, of which nine were less than the regulation four and a half innings (the last such contest occurring in 1914). There were no forfeited games between 1925 and 1937. All baseball record books show complete won-lost decisions without mention of forfeits because the baseball guides and official sheets of that period included them in the pitchers' tables.

In fact, it was not until 1940 that the Spalding Baseball Guide stated, "A new clause has been added to Section Eleven in which it is provided that no victory shall be credited nor defeat charged to a pitcher in a regulation game which the umpire has forfeited."

July 6, 1913; at Chicago —second game, stopped in fourth inning

St. Louis 3 1 0 x -4 Sallee (St. L.), WON

Chicago 0 0 0 x -0 Overall (Chi.), LOST

The ninth practice was based on the theory of charging the starting pitcher with the defeat if he was the one who allowed the most runs or could be held mainly responsible for the loss. It did not matter if his team tied the game or went ahead after he left—just that they lost because of him. This really came down to a matter of judgment on the part of the official scorer, but enough examples of the type exist to warrant it as a practice of that period. Examples:

Ruth was charged with all four runs in the third inning.

The tenth practice was not as common as the others, but I believe I will find more games of this nature as my research continues. Basically, it came down to one-run games in which the starter left the game behind, but the reliever got the loss because he pitched poorly and allowed the deciding runs to score. The following examples will serve to illustrate:

September 11, 1912; at St. Louis

New York 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 2 0 -5 Powell, 7 inn.

St. Louis 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 -4 Baumgardner, 2 inn., LOST

Jack Powell had pitched very well for St. Louis, and the report of the game in the New York Times stresses that it was George Baumgardner who pitched poorly and allowed the two runs that provided the margin of victory for New York. It was felt that Baumgardner was more responsible for the loss than Powell.

October 3, 1914; at Boston

New York 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 -3 Shore, 7 inn.

Boston 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 -2 Cooper, 2 inn., LOST

Guy Cooper allowed the runs which were the margin of victory for New York. The Yankee run that scored in the first was due to fielding errors and was in no way the fault of Shore.

The eleventh and last practice awarded the decision to the middle-inning reliever when he pitched the best. Usually the reliever who finished the game strongly was given the win, but there were occasions when this did not happen.

Mays went out for a pinch runner in the ninth, but his exit was not for poor pitching.

Hub Leonard allowed no hits in two innings.

I have not completed the American League for the period 1901-19 and a couple of more practices may yet emerge, but it is unlikely. Although there are many more examples than those cited in this article, space limitations prevent my listing all of them.

There is no doubt that both the American and National Leagues used all but the first practice starting around 1905, but no mention of them appears in print until the editor of the 1910 Spalding Guide thought to bring them up for discussion by the Baseball Writers' Association. This discussion didn't change any of the practices, but in later Spalding publications—How to Score a Baseball Game, J. M. Cummings (1913) and the 1917 Baseball Guide—John Heydler tried to set standard practices for his official scorers to follow. The American League published nothing on this subject during the period.

The existence and the consistent application of these practices during the 1901-19 era demonstrate that there should have been no changing of pitching won-lost records, except for out-and-out errors on the official sheets, by I.C.I. and Macmillan in 1969. Later editions of The Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia came out under a new editor, Joe Reichler, and many changes made for the 1969 edition, particularly those of Hall of Famers, reverted to what they were supposed to be.

The 1982 edition states on page 2237, "It was decided that all pitching decisions during the period 1901-1949 shall stand as they are in the official records"—the same wording which has appeared in all editions but the first. The Neft-Cohen encyclopedia also tried to go back to the correct pitchers' won-lost records for 1901-19. Yet the current editions of both books differ from each other, and neither agrees completely with the official records.

Macmillan did not switch all the pitchers' won-lost decisions back to agree with the official sheets, and even when the switch was made, it was not always a complete job. A good example of this is Smoky Joe Wood's pitching record. I was glad to see that Macmillan corrected his lifetime record to 116-57 from the 114-69 they had shown previously (11 of Wood's 12 losses in the minors in 1908 had somehow found their way into his major-league totals), but the editor did not change Wood's won-lost marks in relief or his number of saves. When I did Wood's day-by-day record, I not only found an extra win for him, but also emended his relief totals. Macmillan should be showing Wood with a lifetime mark of 19-8 in relief with 11 saves, but instead, they are showing him at 15-9 with 17 saves.

When Wood's 1911 record was changed back to 23-17 from the 21-17 cited in the 1969 edition, Larry Pape's record should have been reduced by two victories, but it wasn't. Even by doing that, however, Macmillan wouldn't get Pape's record straight because another win it has given to him should be transferred over to Ray Collins! Pape should be 10-8 in 1911, and Collins 11-12. If you add up all the Red Sox pitchers' wins for 1911 in Macmillan, you will get 80; Boston won only 78 games. This is by no means an isolated instance of halfhearted, unreconciled tinkering.

The reason that Neft-Cohen doesn't agree with the official sheets is that it is relying heavily upon American League won-lost decisions from the Spalding and Reach Guides for the period 1913-19, which are mostly unofficial records. Even some of the years prior to 1913 do not match up to the official sheets; the season of 1915 provides a good example of some of these differences. Examining the Red-Sox won-lost marks, we see Rube Foster at 20-8 when he should be 19-8; Babe Ruth at 18-6 when he was really 18-8; Wood at 14-5 rather than 15-5; Leonard at 14-7 (should be 15-7);Vean Gregg at 5-3 (correctly3-2); Collins at 5-7 (correctly 4-7); Mays at 4-6 (correctly 6-5); and the aforementioned Ralph Comstock at 2-0 rather than 1-0. And this mess all arises from one team in one year.

* * *

Although the 1982 editions of both encyclopedias disagree on some of the yearly records of Cy Young, they are in accord when it comes to his grand totals of 511 wins and 313 defeats. The Hall of Fame Fact Book and the 1982 Macmillan agree completely on Young from 1890 to 1901, and I agree with them that this is his correct record for those 12 years. They also concur on the 1902 season in showing Young with a 32-10 record, but here I agree with Neft-Cohen, which gives Young a mark of 32-11.

I did Young's 1902 season game by game and it is impossible to come up with any other record. Cy pitched in 45 games, of which 43 were starts, 41 of these complete, and two games were in relief where he had no record. His record in complete games was 32-9 (including a forfeit game of eight innings). The other two starts were incomplete games which were losses beyond a doubt. They are as follows:

There is no doubt after looking at these two games, in each of which Young allowed six runs, that he was 32-11 in 1902. Pitching practices both then and now would charge Young with these defeats. Interestingly, I obtained this information from the Macmillan reconstructed sheets which are housed in the Hall of Fame Library (remember, there were no official American League sheets for 1902). The 32-11 record that I.C.I. originally compiled in 1967 and which was printed in the first edition of Big Mac was correct; now Macmillan lists an "improved" record.

For 1903, both the 1982 Macmillan and The Hall of Fame Fact Book show Young at 28-10, but this too is wrong. The Spalding and Reach Guides containing the American League's official won-lost records show Young at 28-9. The previous Macmillan edition listed Young correctly at 28-9, and by changing this to 28-10 Macmillan has taken away the won-lost-percentage championship which is rightfully his.

Cy Young was in 40 games in 1903, of which 35 were starts—all but one complete—and five were in relief. He was 26-8 in complete games, and 2-1 in relief with two saves. The one start which did not affect his record is as follows:

April 20, 1903; at Boston—second game

Philad. 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 1 3 -10 Young, 7 inn. (6 runs)

Boston 0 2 1 0 3 0 0 0 1 -7 Hughes, 2 inn., LOST

The two encyclopedias and The Hall of Fame Fact Book all agree on Cy Young's records for the years 1904-11, as do I with one crucial exception. For 1907, all three books show Young with a 22-15 record, but my research shows that he was actually 21-15.

In reviewing the Red Sox pitching staff day by day for 1907 from the official sheets, I discovered that an extra win had been marked on Cy Young's personal sheet without a corresponding date. The extra win is sandwiched between the dates of May24, when Young pitched a complete-game victory over St. Louis, and May 29, when Young made his next start and lost. He did not pitch in any games between those dates.

See the photo of this portion of Young's official sheet, and note the peculiar placement of the extra "W." It could be that the official scorer started to give Young a win on May 29, then realized his mistake and added the "L." The writing was in ink and may have been difficult to erase. Or the scorer could have been thinking of the game of May 30, which Young finished for the victorious Ralph Glaze. In any event, the bottom of Young's sheet showed a won-lost record of either 20-15 or 21-15, which was erased and changed to 22-15 (the handwriting was of the period). The scorer must have counted the "W"s without matching the dates. It could well be that he originally had Young at 21-15, but in rechecking counted the extra "W" and changed the total to 22-15.

In 1907 Young appeared in 43 games, completing 33 of 37 starts and relieving six times. In complete games, Young had a record of 18-13; in incomplete starts, 1-2; and in relief, 2-0 with a pair of saves. He pitched two more complete games which ended in ties, and one start in which he was not involved in the decision.

I checked out Young's two saves and his incomplete start that the Red Sox won. They are as follows:

Glaze was batted for in the ninth, but was not removed for poor pitching (see Practice Two and the example of Marquard-Crandall). The official sheets gave this win to Glaze.

August 9, 1907; at Boston

Chicago 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 2 0 -6 Glaze, 6 inn., WON

Boston 1 0 2 1 0 3 0 0 x -7 Young, 3 inn.

Glaze was batted for in the sixth inning, but went out with the Red Sox ahead by at least 4-3. The official sheets give the win to Glaze. Macmillan shows Young with a relief record of l-0 with three saves, but the correct figures are 2-0 with two saves, the wins coming on August 21 and August 28.

June 14, 1907; at Boston

St. Louis 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -3 Young, 1 inn.

Boston 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 x -4 Winter,8 inn., WON

Official sheets show Winter the victor.

After proving to myself that Young was without a doubt 21-15 in 1907, I was led to wonder how the two encyclopedias ever reconciled the individual records of the Red Sox pitching staff to the team record that year of 59-90: if he had one win too many, somebody had to have one win too few. My first hunch was that Glaze had been deprived of his win on May 30, described above, but no—both books are in accord with the official sheets in listing him at 9-13. Neft-Cohen and Macmillan each gave Winter one win too few. . . but this they balanced by giving Cy Morgan one too many! The win which disappeared in order to balance Young's belonged to Rube Krah, who pitched a complete-game 2-1 victory over the Browns on August 18, 1907, yet is listed in Neft-Cohen and in Macmillan as 0-4 for the year. Whatever Macmillan and Neft-Cohen are basing their won-lost decisions on, it certainly is not the official record.

Another major difference between the official sheets and the reference books has to do with the lifetime record of Walter Johnson. The Hall of Fame Fact Book; Macmillan; Neft-Cohen-Deutsch; Turkin-Thompson you name it, they all show The Big Train with a career record of 416-279. Yet my research proved him to have one more win and one fewer defeat.

I discovered the first error on his record while examining the 1912 season. This was the year in which Johnson became the first A.L. pitcher to win 16 straight games. Although this outstanding record was equaled later that same year by Joe Wood, and again by Lefty Grove in 1931 and Schoolboy Rowe in 1934, it remains unsurpassed in the American League 70 years later.

This great streak lasted from July 3 to August 23. It was well documented in the Spalding and Reach Guides and in all the newspapers of 1912. Ban Johnson fully accepted this winning streak and his references to it were amply quoted in the guides and the daily press. Included in the streak was a game played against Chicago on August 5.

At Chicago—10 innings

Washington 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 3 0 1 - 8 Groom, 2-1/3 inn.

Chicago 1 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 7 Cashion, 5-1/3 inn.

Johnson, 2·1/3 inn.

Walter Johnson drove in the winning run in the tenth inning. The weekly listings in the Washington Post and the New York Times gave this win to him. The Reach and Spalding Guides gave this win to him. There did not exist a scoring practice in that period which would have given the win to anyone but him.

It was an open-and-shut case—except that the A.L. official sheets showed Jay Cashion as the winner, and thus left Johnson with only a 15-game winning streak!

This problem is unresolved today. There is no doubt in my mind that the clerk making out the official sheets made a mistake. Walter Johnson allowed no hits and no runs in 2-1/3 innings, plus drove in the winning run. This was a performance far superior to that of Cashion, who allowed three hits and two runs in 5-1/3 innings.

As mentioned earlier, during this period an A.L. official scorer recommended a pitcher for a win or a loss, and then Ban Johnson either agreed or changed the decision. The fact that Walter Johnson appears as the winner in the weekly newspaper listing proves that the official scorer recommended him for the victory. The fact that Ban Johnson accepted the 16-game winning streak proves he agreed with the official scorer. Walter Johnson's record in 1912 should be changed from 32-12 to 33-12.

In 1917, Al Munro Elias published Walter Johnson's pitching record from 1907-17 in a Washington newspaper. He showed Johnson's record against every team for the 1912 season and added it all up to a 33-12 record. I have researched Johnson's 1912 season day by day and my breakdown agrees completely with that of Elias.

The additional win for Johnson will give him a 9-1 mark against Chicago, which will tie the major-league record for most wins over one club in a season. This will also mean that he had the most wins on the road of any A.L. pitcher in 1912: his record was 17-4.

If Johnson is not given the victory, it will mean that his winning streak in 1912 was only 15 games, and he would no longer be tied for the A.L. high. I believe Johnson deserves the win because all the evidence is on his side. In the Cobb-Lajoie affair, the Baseball Records Committee ultimately left the batting title in the hands of Cobb, despite the obvious existence of a duplicated entry on his sheet, primarily on the basis that Ban Johnson had investigated the matter and had so ruled. Consistency as well as simple justice would dictate following Ban Johnson in the matter of Walter Johnson's "hidden" win in 1912.

The other two errors in Johnson's record occurred in the season of 1916. The Hall of Fame Fact Book, Macmillan, and Neft-Cohen all show him with a 25-20 mark, but the official sheets have Johnson at 24-19.

Anyone looking at the 1916 newspaper boxscores of the games in which Johnson pitched and applying modern scoring practices would give him 20 losses. Under the practices of that period, however, only 19 losses were awarded to him. The game in question:

Common Practice Number Nine applies perfectly to this game: the theory of charging the starting pitcher with the defeat if he was the one who allowed the most runs or could be held mainly responsible for the defeat. The official scorer must have felt this was the case and so charged Bert Gallia with the defeat, even though he did not pitch poorly. There are too many examples of this type of game between 1905 and 1916 to dismiss it as an error or a fluke.

The other problem on Johnson's record in 1916 was whether he won 25 games, as shown in all the reference books, or only 24, as shown on the official sheets. The game in question was played at New York on June 26, 1916, and lasted 11 innings.

Washington 0 3 1 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 - 9 Gallia, 3-1/3 inn.

New York 0 1 1 3 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 - 8 Harper, 3-2/3 inn.

Johnson, 4 inn.

The weekly newspaper listings in the New York Times show Johnson as the winner in this game. This would mean that the official scorer recommended him for the victory; but the official sheets show Harry Harper as the winner. Johnson allowed one run and three hits in four innings while striking out five. He was far better than Harper, who allowed five hits and three runs in three and two-thirds innings. Also, Johnson finished the game very strongly and was pitching when the lead run scored.

I cannot see Ban Johnson overruling the official scorer on a decision like this. Unlike the game of August 7, 1916 cited above, for which we have an abundance of examples to show that the official scorer was right in not giving the defeat to Johnson, here we have a situation in which the common practices of the period all point to a Johnson victory. He should have a 25-19 record in 1916, and accordingly a lifetime mark of 417-278.

I am not the first person to find errors on Johnson's won-lost record. Up to the late 1950s, Johnson was universally shown with a lifetime log of414-281, but then a researcher found that The Big Train had been charged with two defeats in 1911 which were really complete game victories. This elevated his record that season from 23-15 to 25-13, and his lifetime totals from 414-281 to 416-279.

As we have seen from the 1910 Cobb-Lajoie situation, errors were made on the batting records, too—and something similar to Cobb's "phantom" 2-for-4 game can be found in the 1913 record of Boston outfielder Duffy Lewis. His official sheet lists him as playing in a game on June 29 and collecting two hits (a single and a triple) in four at bats while scoring a run. The only problem was that the Red Sox did not play that day, so his 1913 totals have to be adjusted. Oddly, the rest of that famous outfield—Tris Speaker and Harry Hooper—also had their records botched that year, as Speaker was given an extra hit and Hooper an extra at bat. Small potatoes, perhaps, but it gives you an idea of how rampant scoring errors are in the years before 1920.

Even something impossible to overlook, like a record-setting winning streak, can be overlooked. Reviewing the season of 1891 in the newspaper accounts, I came across an 18-game winning streak by the Boston Nationals. All record books show Boston's longest winning streak as 17 in 1897, but this is wrong. The Braves, who were then known as the Beaneaters, made one of the greatest comebacks in the history of baseball: on September 15, they were six and a half games behind Chicago, but then they started on the 18-game streak which resulted in their winning the pennant by three and a half games. The streak lasted from September 16 to October 2.

I hope that the Baseball Records Committee and the publishers of the various encyclopedias and record books can straighten out the statistics for 1876-1919. Since there are no official sheets before 1903 (N.L.) and 1905 (A.L.), I would think that the I.C.I.-recompiled batting records for the period 1876-1904 should be accepted as the most nearly correct. My personal goal is to finish my day-to-day record for all American League pitchers from 1901-1919 and to compile a complete won-lost list for each pitcher based on the official sheets, except where errors are found. Included will be a won-lost record in relief along with the total saves.

In conclusion, I would say along with the identification of the common scoring practices of the 1901-1919 era as they relate to pitchers’ won-lost decisions, the time is right to support the goals of this study, and, at last, to clear up the baseball records mess.

FRANK J. WILLIAMS is a bank accounting officer whose special interests are the Boston Braves, Red Sox, and Joe Wood.

The Great New York Team of 1927—And It Wasn't The Yankees

FRED STEIN

"How did the Giants contrive to finish in third place?"

THE 1927 NEW YORK YANKEES, featuring Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, et al., are generally considered the greatest team ever to play the game. This superb club won the American League pennant by 19 games, then went on to crush the Pittsburgh Pirates in four straight games. Across the Harlem River that year, John McGraw's Giants finished in third place, two games behind the Pirates-yet in a sense, they too were a "great" team. The basis for this questionable conclusion: of the twenty-three men on the Giant roster, seven eventually were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

These seven were Bill Terry, Rogers Hornsby, Travis Jackson, Fred Lindstrom, Edd Roush, Mel Ott, and Burleigh Grimes. An eighth Giant Hall of Famer, outfielder Ross "Pep" Youngs, was on the roster before the 1927 season opened; but Youngs developed Bright's Disease, did not appear in a regular-season game, and died shortly after the season ended. How this constellation of all-time stars came together in the Polo Grounds in 1927 is an interesting story.

First baseman Bill Terry, a big, slightly stoop shouldered Southern native elected to the Hall of Fame in 1954, had his first big major league season in 1927, hitting .326 and batting in 121 runs. A handsome, ambitious young man with jet-black hair and a pronounced Southern drawl, Memphis Bill played what Polo Grounds devotees considered to be the most graceful and effective first base this side of Hal Chase and George Sisler.

Terry was a powerful left hand hitter who specialized in drilling low line drives into the alleys rather than pulling the ball down the Polo Grounds' short right-field line. This style enabled him to hit for high average (he was the last National League hitter to scale the .400 mark with his .401 in 1930) and to collect an impressive number of extra base hits. Typically, in 1927 Terry hit 13 triples and only 20 home runs.

Terry was a hard-headed realist and shrewd businessman. The realistic side of the Terry personality manifested itself in his first meeting with manager john McGraw. The Giants were in Memphis in April 1922, on the way to New York to start the regular season, and Memphis club owner Tom Watkins told his old friend McGraw about Terry, then a 23-year-old semi-pro left hand pitcher. Bill had performed in the Texas League in 1916-17, but quit to take a job with the Standard Oil Company office in Memphis.

At Watkins' suggestion, Terry visited McGraw in the Giant manager's hotel room. McGraw was impressed by the serious Terry but somewhat taken aback. Accustomed to young players who would have given anything for a shot with the Giants, McGraw said to Terry, "How would you like to come to New York with us?" Without batting an eye, Terry responded, "For how much?" McGraw's broad Irish grin was replaced by a frown as he said sharply, "I'm not sure you understand. I'm giving you a chance to make the Giants if you can." Terry drawled pleasantly, "Please understand, Mr. McGraw, I'm not impressed by the Giants unless you can offer me a lot more money than I'm making here working regular hours and playing local ball. I'm married, we have a child and a nice home, and I'm not leaving it unless you can make it worth my while." The nonplussed McGraw said, "There's no hurry. Let me think about it." Terry got to his feet, shook hands with McGraw, and said softly, ''You can reach me in care of Standard Oil if you want to contact me." He walked out leaving a thoughtful McGraw behind.

A few weeks later McGraw wired Terry, offering him a $5000 contract with the Giants retaining an option on Terry if he was sent to the minors. Terry accepted and reported but, impressing McGraw more with his hitting than with his pitching, was sent to Toledo to be converted into a first baseman. Terry was recalled near the end of the 1923 season and stayed with the Giants for the rest of his career, going on to replace McGraw at the helm in 1932.

Second baseman Rogers Hornsby hit .361 and batted in 125 runs for the 1927 Giants. Incredibly, this was something of a comedown for the great Rajah, who had averaged a cool .402 during the 1921-1925 period with a high of.424 in 1924. While Hornsby's playing performance was all the Giants had hoped for when they obtained him from the St. Louis Cardinals before the 1927 season, in every other respect, the mix of Hornsby and the Giants was a disaster.

Hornsby, who made the Hall of Fame in 1942, left his native Winters, Texas, in 1914 to play in the Texas Oklahoma League. The Cardinals picked him up in 1915 and by 1920 he had gained recognition as one of the foremost right hand hitters in the game. He became the Cardinals' playing-manager on June 1, 1925 and in 1926 he managed the Redbirds to a pennant and a World Series over the Yankees in a dramatic seven-game set.

Hornsby, like Ty Cobb and Ted Williams, sometimes was accused of "living for his next time at bat." Still, despite his preoccupation with hitting, he was considered a good second baseman, although, almost incomprehensibly, he had difficulty handling deep pop flies. Hornsby did not drink or smoke and he stuck to a diet of steak and potatoes, reasoning that a "hitter needs his strength." To conserve his keen eyesight for hitting baseballs, the Texan did not go to movies and he read very little except the Racing Form. His major off-the-field passion was betting on the ponies, an avocation which would cost him most of his life savings. Above all, Hornsby was outspoken and, in the words of a veteran New York writer, "the most tactless public figure I ever met."

The Giants obtained Hornsby from the Cardinals, to the astonishment of St. Louis fans, on December 20, 1926 in exchange for second baseman Frank Frisch and pitcher Jimmy Ring. (Hornsby's contractual demands were greater than the Cardinals would pay, and Frisch had been ticketed for a trade following a violent argument with McGraw which resulted in Frisch's jumping the club in September 1926.) Six weeks after the trade, National League President John Heydler belatedly ordered Hornsby to sell his 1,167 shares of stock in the Cardinals before playing for the Giants. Owner Sam Breadon reminded Hornsby that when he acquired the stock in 1924, it was for $45 a share. Rogers retorted, "Hell, they're worth $120 now because I won the pennant and Series for you!" Eventually, according to Fred Lieb, Breadon paid Hornsby $80,000, the Giants kicked in $16,000, and the National League put up an additional $16,000. Rogers' two-year capital gain thus came to a tidy $59,485.

At about the same time as the stock matter, a Kentucky betting commissioner sued Hornsby unsuccessfully for $70,000 to collect Hornsby's alleged unpaid gambling debts. Although Hornsby was acquitted, the baseball establishment was unhappy about the accompanying bad publicity.

Hornsby signed a two-year contract with the Giants for $40,000 a year, which made him the second-highest-paid player in the game after Babe Ruth. McGraw immediately appointed Hornsby team captain-the least he could do for a man who had managed his club to a World Series victory the previous season. A few weeks into spring training, a writer asked Hornsby, "Not for publication, Rog, what do you think of the outfield situation with Edd Roush holding out?" The newly appointed field leader answered with his usual bluntness, "First, I don't talk 'not for publication.' Anything I say you can put in the paper and if anyone doesn't like it he can lump it. Second, I think the outfield stinks. With Roush out of center field, all those clowns are running into each other." There was considerable consternation in the Giant front office over that unvarnished commentary while the club was engaged in delicate salary negotiations with Roush.

Hornsby's worsening position with management was matched by a deterioration in his relationships with his teammates. Several times during the 1927 season Hornsby took over as acting manager for the absent McGraw, and he succeeded in alienating the other players by insisting, "To hell with what McGraw told you, you'll do things my way when the Old Man isn't here." McGraw's reaction was not reported.

The last straw came in September when acting manager Hornsby cussed out club president Charles A. Stoneham in the clubhouse after Stoneham had had the temerity to question a point of strategy. An infuriated Stoneham told close friends later that Hornsby was finished with the Giants. With no clear indication that McGraw supported the deal, Stoneham personally announced the trade of Hornsby to the Boston Braves for two undistinguished players on January 10, 1928.

Shortstop Travis "Stonewall" Jackson, a Hall of Fame selection in 1982, had one of his best seasons for the Giants in 1927, hitting .318 and driving in 98 runs. In his sixth year with the Giants, the native of Waldo, Arkansas, was recognized as a classic ''ballplayers' ballplayer"-widely respected and liked, a great fielding shortstop with a rifle arm, a superb bunter and hit-and-run man, and possessed of surprising power considering his slight build. In his quiet, unassuming way, Jackson was an authoritative figure. Giant right hander Freddy Fitzsimmons once said, "People think Jax is an easygoing guy but he can really lay into you on the field if he thinks you're not bearing down."

Jackson was brought to McGraw's attention in Memphis in April 1922 at the same time as Bill Terry. Kid Elberfeld, who managed the Little Rock club, told McGraw about Jackson, then a virtually unknown 18-year-old shortstop with Little Rock. The Giants bought Jackson a few months later and he joined them at the end of that season. He became the Giants' regular shortstop in 1924 and played only with New York until the end of his big-league days.

Third baseman Fred Lindstrom was signed by the Giants as a 16-year-old, also in 1922, fresh off the campus of Loyola Academy in Chicago. McGraw dispatched the rangy, speedy youth to the Giants' farm club at Toledo for seasoning, where he played with Terry, then brought him up to the parent club before the 1924 season. Lindstrom was little used that year, backing up second baseman Frank Frisch and third baseman Heinie Groh while coming to bat only 79 times.

Yet when Groh came up with a gimpy leg just before the World Series, Lindstrom played all seven games and gained nationwide recognition. Still two months shy of being 19, Lindstrom hit .333, including a four-hit game against Walter Johnson, and fielded flawlessly. But his best-remembered role in the Series came in the bottom of the twelfth inning of the last game when the Senator’s' Earl McNeely sent an easy ground ball to third base which struck a pebble and bounced over Lindstrom's head to send in the Series-winning run.

Playing both third base and the outfield, Lindstrom hit .306 in 1927. During a practice game in the spring of that year, acting manager Hornsby viciously criticized a play Lindstrom had made at third. Lindstrom responded, 'Jeez, that's how McGraw wants the play made." Hornsby fired back the familiar line, "When I'm running the club, you'll do it my way." Lindstrom walked directly in front of Hornsby and said in a voice that rang through the dugout, "Look, fella, you maybe a .400 hitter but you're no bargain yourself when you put that bat down!" With that riposte (to the delight of the more timid Giants in the dugout), Lindstrom ended the argument by grabbing his glove and storming angrily into the clubhouse.

Outfielder Edd Roush hit .304 in 140 games for the Giants in 1927. The 34-year-old Roush, enshrined in Cooperstown in 1962, had been a remarkably consistent hitter for the Cincinnati Reds from 1917 through the 1926 season, twice winning batting titles and staying within a narrow range of .321 to .352 during that ten-year period. A speedy line-drive hitter, Roush was usually among the leaders in triples. In addition he was a clever center fielder, noted for shifting his position as a pitch was delivered without tipping off the hitter.

Roush also is remembered as an independent, self-possessed man who drove a hard bargain for his services. He missed all but 49 Cincinnati games in 1922 because of a holdout and he stayed out for the entire 1930 season over a contract dispute. The businesslike Hoosier farmer began his major league career as a 20-year-old with the Chicago White Sox in 1913, then moved to the Federal League in 1914 and 1915.

The Giants signed Roush in 1916 but traded him in midseason to Cincinnati along with a fading Christy Mathewson and infielder Bill McKechnie for infielder Buck Herzog and outfielder Red Killefer. With the loss of Ross Youngs, McGraw reacquired Roush from the Reds in a trade for first baseman George "Highpockets" Kelly on February 9, 1927. And how did Roush react to the trade back to the dictatorial McGraw, whom he disliked intensely? Characteristically, he held out until well into the spring training season, obtained a lucrative three-year contract, and extracted an agreement from McGraw to "leave me alone and let me play my own game."

Mel Ott, a 5-foot, 7-inch, 150-pound,18-year-old reserve outfielder, hit .282 in 82 Giant games in 1927. The fuzzy-cheeked Ott scarcely looked his age, and was not yet ready to assume a full-time role-that would come in 1928-yet he was widely recognized as a coming major league star.

Master Melvin was a stylist from the very start. He had an unusual swing, featuring a high kick with his front (right) leg as the pitcher completed his windup, a quick planting of the foot just after the pitch was released, and a smooth, flat cut with a quick wrist snap. In the spring of 1926 McGraw decided to keep the 17 -year-old with the Giants while he learned his trade for fear that a minor league manager would tinker with Ott's unique batting form. So for two years Ott remained under McGraw's gruff but loving supervision, learning the pitchers, building his confidence (McGraw would not let him hit against a lefthander in a game unless it was unavoidable), perfecting his outfielding skills, learning to control his powerful arm, and mastering the difficult caroms of drives off the Polo Grounds' outfield walls.

Despite Ott's natural hitting ability, in 1927 McGraw's prodigy had yet to master the knack of pulling the ball to benefit from the 257-foot right-field wall at the Polo Grounds. Through the end of the 1927 season, Ott surprisingly had hit only one home run in 223 at-bats and that was a low liner to center which eluded Hack Wilson and went for an inside-the-park homer. Once gained, the pull-hitting stroke produced for Mel 511 home runs.

Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1951, Ott was another of the many young players recommended to McGraw by an old friend. In this case Harry Williams, a wealthy Louisiana lumberman, sent the adolescent catcher to The Little Napoleon. McGraw decided to convert the backstop to an outfielder because of his small size and heavy legs which were likely to knot up from continual crouching behind the plate. He asked Ott whether he had ever played the outfield. The scared 17-year-old responded with the classic line, "Yes, Mr. McGraw, when I was a kid."

Right handed spitballer Burleigh Grimes had a 19-8 record in 1927, his only year with the Polo Grounders. Before that he had won 163 games for Pittsburgh and Brooklyn. McGraw obtained "Old Stubblebeard" on January 18,1927, in a complicated three-team deal in which the Giants gave up infielder Fresco Thompson and righthander Jack Scott for the Dodgers' Grimes and Phils' outfielder George Harper. Not overwhelmed by Grimes' performance in 1927 even though he won 13 straight games and finished with the best record on the Giants' lackluster staff, McGraw traded Burleigh to Pittsburgh for veteran righthander Vic Aldridge on February 11,1928.

Grimes' pitching style reflected his rough-hewn, no-nonsense makeup. The last major-league pitcher to throw a legal spitball, Grimes also was one of the foremost dispensers of the knockdown pitch. Burleigh reached new heights, or depths, in a game against the Giants in 1926. As Mel Ott described it years later: "Bill Terry was batting against Grimes and Bill's roommate, Fred Lindstrom, was waiting to hit. Lindstrom shouted out to Grimes jokingly, 'Bet you a quarter you're afraid to knock him down, Burleigh.' Whoosh-Bill was knocked down by the next pitch and he got up glaring, first at Lindy and then at Grimes. Then when Lindstrom came up I'll be darned if Boiley didn't knock him down, too, just for good measure."

Frank Frisch, one of the most intrepid Giants, admitted that Grimes could scare him more than any other pitcher of the era. Frisch said, "Burleigh could frighten you just by his appearance. He had that mean scowl and they called him 'Old Stubblebeard' because he never shaved the day he pitched, so he looked even meaner out there. Then, too, his spitball was murder. But the worst thing was that duster. If you even got a loud foul or, worse still, a hot smash through the box the last time up, Grimes would set you down on the first pitch and maybe the second. But, in his rough-tough way, he was one of the best." The Hall of Fame Veterans Committee agreed, electing Grimes to the Hall in 1964.

The question inevitably comes to mind: how did the 1927 Giants, with seven all-time greats on their roster, contrive to finish in third place?

First, the club suffered from mediocre pitching. The club's ERA of 3.97 exceeded the league average, and only eight times in 201 major-league campaigns (not once in the period 1915-66!) has a team won a pennant despite such a situation. Grimes led the staff with 19 wins and Freddy Fitzsimmons, the knuckleballer with the distinctive turntable pitching motion, added 17, but no other starter was even average. The catching was weak as Zack Taylor, who caught most of the games, hit a mere .233 and veteran Al DeVormer was equally ineffectual at .248. The outfield was poor defensively and unremarkable offensively. Right fielder George Harper had a good season with 87 RBI's and a .331 average but Roush was on the downhill slide, his extra-base power waning despite a .304 average. And left field was manned inadequately by Heinie Mueller and Ty Tyson; Ott was still learning his trade at McGraw's side. To sum it up, the brilliant infield of Terry, Hornsby, Jackson, and Lindstrom could not compensate for the Giants' inadequacies elsewhere.

To top it off, the Giants had serious morale problems. The aging McGraw, obsessed with winning one last pennant, became jittery and more dictatorial than ever; the counterproductive results were increased tension on the field and deterioration in McGraw's health. Then, in the boss's absence, Hornsby's abuse of authority aggravated the players still more.

And finally, as the accompanying Table I demonstrates, the correlation between future Hall of Famers and pennant winners is ragged at best. And Table II, which enumerates the Hall of Famers on the ten teams Donald Honig identified in a recent book as the greatest of all time, further points up the adage that baseball is a team game, and the best teams are somehow greater than the sum of their parts.

FRED STEIN is the author of Under Coogan's Bluff: A Fan's Recollections of the Giants Under Terry and Ott.

PORTFOLIO: Modern Times

Stuart Leeds

THE COLLEGE GAME: Books Before Baseball: A Personal History

HAROLD SEYMOUR, Ph.D.

The image of American higher education reflected by college athletics is anything but flattering. As of March 1982, 17 schools were on the National Collegiate Athletic Association's probation list—the highest number for a single period—and the Association's enforcement department declared that the list would lengthen before it shortened. An additional 35 schools were under investigation for possible violation of NCAA rules.1 What is more, these cases are only the exposed fin of the swimming shark. A prominent coach estimates that 50 percent of American colleges quality for probation, and numerous administrators and faculty members believe that the athletic situation is out of control.

The transgressions are well known, ranging from breaking NCAA rules to downright scandals. The wrongdoing starts with recruitment of semiliterate high-school athletes who have graduated by virtue of spurious grades or nonacademic curricula. Like hyenas squabbling over an antelope carcass, college coaches compete with each other for these high school jocks, wooing them with letters, telephone calls, home visits, and free trips to campuses where they are dined, entertained, and given sales talks.

The chief lure in the degrading chase is, of course, that contradiction in terms, the athletic scholarship. This camouflage is the major source of violation of NCAA rules. Charges of undercover payments beyond the amount of the scholarship are not new, but recently Notre Dame's Richard “Digger” Phelps became the first college coach to claim openly that at least seven schools were using boosters’ cash to offer a high-school player the standard underground rate of $10,000 for each of his four years, in the hope that he would be the decisive factor in earning millions for its athletic department.

Abuses do not cease after the barrage of high-pressured salesmanship. Once corralled, the high-school luminary receives further perquisites—perhaps a car, an apartment, money for clothes and a stereo, game tickets purchased by alumni to convert into cash, a promissory note cosigned by a local businessman, and, in one case at least, even arrangements for a girlfriend’s abortion.

Lastly, the “student” athletes come under the control of coaches who are under great pressure to produce winning teams (but at least are rewarded by higher salaries than the institution's scholars and, not infrequently, presidents). In a win-or-perish environment, coaches stoop to conquer. To preserve their gladiators' academic eligibility, coaches steer them into such Mickey Mouse courses as “Safety with Hand Power Tools” and “Jogging.” One football player even received credit for wind sprints performed during practice. Worse, colleges have given athletes credit for extension and off-campus summer courses they never took or even knew they were taking. Academic transcripts have been forged.

Because of the financial stake involved, college presidents, administrators, and trustees tacitly condone and faculties primly ignore these odious practices. They, together with the superkindergarten alumni they suborn and the college's political and financial patrons they cultivate, are all consumed by a craving for winning teams. The rot of malpractice that, like damp under fresh paint, seeps through the razzledazzle surrounding intercollegiate sports is only slightly less deplorable than the hypocritical pretension that the players are amateurs and the contests educationally beneficial. In fact, as the New York Times put it, the athletic program constitutes an entertainment business quartered on campus.

The moral dwarfism of these athletic spectacles often has a pernicious impact on both the athletes and members of the general student body. Despite all the talk about education the athletes soon learn, if they did not know it beforehand, that their primary function is to perform well on the playing field or risk losing their scholarships. Indeed, realizing that many colleges in effect provide cost free farms for pro football and basketball leagues, many athletes see college playas the way to fulfill their dream of becoming professionals; however, since only an estimated 2 percent achieve pro status and countless others fail to finish college, athletes frequently end up with neither pro career nor college degree. Those who manage to get an education in spite of everything deserve respect.

Detrimental effects of the athletic system on the other undergraduates may be more insidious. These students observe the disparity between what is professed and what is practiced, between the paeans accorded learning and what is really honored, between the ideals preached and the squalid tactics employed. (On second thought, perhaps in a perverse way the experience does have educational value, in that it helps prepare them for the kind of society they will enter!)

In recent years the onus of corruption in college sports has attached largely to football and basketball. Baseball escaped most of it, but not out of any intrinsic moral superiority. The record of college baseball in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when it was the leading intercollegiate team sport, shows an accumulation of similar abuses. Except for more sophisticated methods now used and the immensely larger stakes involved, the corrupt practices of the two eras are hardly distinguishable. In the nineteenth century professional baseball coaches were brought into colleges to replace student captains and charged with producing winning teams "or else." Money and other inducements were soon offered to recruit good players from prep schools, and colleges raided each other's players. Ringers and what were called trampathletes passed for bona fide students. A story is told of a tobacco-chewing player obviously above college age warming up before a college baseball game. Suspicious, the opposing captain asked him whether he was a student. Answer: "Yeh." "What course are you taking?" Pronouncing the name of his pretended major with the ch as in chest, he answered, "Chemistry"!

The burden of abuses gradually shifted from baseball to football and basketball for several reasons. First, the professional football and basketball leagues and especially the advent of television greatly increased interest in these sports. Football and basketball took place while the colleges were in session and regardless of weather, whereas baseball was limited to short seasons, especially in the colder parts of the country. When television entered the picture—or rather created it for masses of people—and dangled rich contracts before the colleges, they snapped at the bait.

Another important factor played a part in the trend. A country-wide network of professional minor league baseball teams already served to develop and feed players to the major league baseball clubs; pro football and basketball, lacking these farms, turned to the colleges for talent. Realizing this, high schoolers who envisioned lucrative careers in pro football and basketball became keen to serve their apprenticeships on college teams, so buyers and sellers met, and the scramble to deal became ever more frantic. Smoothed over with genuflections to education, character-building, and sportsmanship, corruption in the colleges became rife.

Fortunately, the college athletic scene has a brighter side. Some colleges succeed in keeping the athletic tail from wagging the academic dog. Some have done so from the day they opened, for example my alma mater, Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, where I played a prominent part in the establishment of varsity baseball on a genuinely amateur basis.

The university began as a Methodist Episcopal seminary founded in 1866 with money provided by Daniel Drew, whose bequest demonstrates (to vary an observation of Samuel Johnson's) that philanthropy can be the last refuge of a scoundrel. One of the most disreputable figures in American finance, Drew began his career as a drover, and his trick of increasing his cattle's weight by having the animals lick salt on the way to market and then filling them with water just before selling them inspired the term "watered stock." In the post-Civil War era Drew became one of the infamous robber barons who corrupted legislatures, bought judges, broke laws, and swindled the public and each other.

During the seminary era, sports at what was to become Drew University were limited to informal football games among the young theologians. They played anywhere they could find a suitable place on the 300-acre campus. With the opening of a gymnasium in 1910 they also engaged in intramural basketball. Intercollegiate competition appeared only after the founding of the liberal arts college in 1928.

Varsity baseball at Drew University dates from fall 1930, when I entered as a student. That summer, when I applied for admission to the arts college (then called Brothers College, in honor of the founding Baldwin brothers), I was interviewed by Dean William P. Tolley. During the interview I asked if there would be a varsity baseball team. He replied—for all I know, on the spur of the moment—that there would be, and that a faculty member, Dr. Sherman Plato Young, would handle it. I wondered how a guy with that middle name could run a ball team, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

That fall, as a freshman I joined others interested in baseball in a scrub game on a rough meadow just behind the gym. After the game Doc Young, as he was known, called everyone together and spoke briefly of plans for a team. When he finished he asked if there were any questions; there were none except mine. Having grown up under the influence of the professional code of going all-out to win, I entertained some fear that our games might be looked upon as an opportunity for "good fun" and "fellowship." Besides the lingering seminary influence I was aware that some of the candidates for the baseball team were pre-ministerial students and that Doc Young, who taught Latin and Greek, was also an ordained minister. So I asked right out whether we were going to play to win. Doc looked a bit quizzical but assured me that such was his intention. I was satisfied, but as things turned out my fears were not entirely unfounded.

The following spring, 1931, what passed for practice began in the small gym and then, as soon as weather permitted, moved outside. Just before the start of the season Doc was suddenly stricken with appendicitis and carried off to a Morristown hospital. A gym teacher from Madison High School showed up, apparently to replace Doc as coach, but he knew as much about baseball as an organ grinder does about playing an organ. After only a couple of practices he either quit or was fired by Dean Tolley.

Next somebody suggested that the players select one of their own to take charge of the team until Doc's return. At any rate, the players held an evening meeting in one of the college classrooms and, knowing something of my baseball background, unanimously chose me for the post.

I knew a good deal about the game, not only the techniques of play and "inside baseball" strategy but also how to teach them. Since boyhood I had played ball on the Brooklyn sandlots and had read everything I could find on baseball techniques, such as Christy Mathewson's Pitching in a Pinch. I had obtained my first uniform by playing for a couple of years on the Fenimore Street Methodist Episcopal Church team in Brooklyn, New York; the pastor there was instrumental in my matriculation at Drew. Later, in high school, I had played two years of varsity baseball and had received honorable mention for New York City's All-Scholastic PSAL team.

In addition, I was already in my fourth season of coaching and field managing a boys' team I had organized in Brooklyn in 1927; although nominally amateurs, we played for a side bet and a National or American League ball. (Actually, outside of scholastic and college ball, the leader of the team was called the manager, as in professional ball; the term "coach" was scorned.) I was in fact to continue to manage such amateur and even semipro teams for six more years, the last one, the Crestons, entering the Brooklyn Amateur League in 1936 for the first time and winning the championship.

The dessert in this early baseball feast consisted of three summers I worked as batboy at Ebbets Field, two of them for the visiting National League teams and one for the Brooklyn Dodgers, then called the Robins after Uncle Robbie, their bumbling, colorful manager. Those were the days of players like Hornsby, Traynor, Alexander, Wheat, Vance, and of course McGraw. There I learned more about the game and a lot about the atmosphere of a big league bench and clubhouse by listening and asking questions of the players. But that is another story.

With only a tiny student body of fewer than fifty to draw from that first season of Drew baseball, we had barely enough players to field a team, let alone provide bench strength. Apart from a few decent hitters and a passable outfield, the squad was woefully weak. We had no pitching to speak of, infielders who couldn't stop a pig coming down a gangway, and a general lack of speed. The catcher, one of two or three older pre-theological students in the lineup, once waved weakly at a throw to the plate, allowing a sliding runner to score. When I angrily asked what the hell was the matter with him, he replied that he could not afford to get hurt! In short, we were what big leaguers called a humpty-dumpty team.

To make matters worse, we played a schedule that an interested student, our "student manager," improvised as best he could without his having any idea of the caliber of the opposition. As a result we suffered a string of defeats, some of them "laughers" that provided the opposition with little more than batting practice and a workout running the bases. After each game I grimly sent a less than cheerful written report to Doc, and I also visited him in the hospital a number of times. Dean Tolley had called the birth of the college "an adventure in excellence"; the birth of the ball team was anything but that.

Later in the season Doc returned, leaning on a cane. I assumed he would take over the team and would have been glad of it, but when I immediately said as much he replied, "No, just continue as you are doing." So he sat on the bench and acted as cheerleader while I continued to handle the team. In effect, therefore, I was the coach—Drew's first baseball coach—though officially I was called Drew's first captain.

None of us realized it at the time, but this arrangement was a throwback to the system followed by the first college teams of the nineteenth century, when the players chose a captain who took full charge of the team. For this position the squad usually elected the best and most knowledgeable player, who laid down training rules, selected the players, ran the practice, chose the lineup, and determined strategy during games. So the captain in those days was what we would now call the coach.

Somehow we managed to win the last game of the season, a road game. I drove in what turned out to be the winning run, but the outcome remained in doubt until the final out; New Haven Teachers College had the potential tying and winning runs on base with two out in the ninth when as first baseman I caught a high pop fly to end the game. I can still see Doc yelling and waving his cane in exultation as he limped out from the bench. He also sent a telegram to the college dean in Latin paraphrasing Caesar's famous message: "We came. We saw. We conquered."

During my first year at college I doubled as reporter, writing up Drew baseball and some basketball, about which I understood little, for the college newspaper, the Acorn, and for the local Madison Eagle. I also recommended one of the players whom I had taught on my Brooklyn team, Bill Lohrman, a pitcher, to the St. Louis Cardinals, who signed him after watching him pitch batting practice. His only baseball experience and instruction had been with my club. When Warren Giles, then Branch Rickey's righthand man, first saw Lohrman pitch, he said to me, "Well, your boy knows how to stand on the mound"—intended as high praise, since most rookies were just throwers. Lohrman eventually made the major leagues. As a result of recommending him I became an unofficial scout ("bird-dog") for the Cardinals; later I did the same for the Boston Red Sox.

In my second year of college I spent Easter vacation at the spring training camp of the Rochester Red Wings, a Cardinal farm team, in Greensboro, North Carolina. There I had the opportunity of discussing the fine points of baseball with the team's playing manager, George "Specs" Toporcer, a former Cardinal who had been the first big-league infielder to wear glasses and who was a fount of technical baseball knowledge.

In our second year of Drew baseball we began winning because of the added experience of the holdovers on the squad, the departure of some of the poorer players of the first season, and the addition of some new recruits, especially batterymen, from the incoming freshman class. Our fielding improved, too, as a result of a new second-base combination and third baseman and also because of Doc's daily fungo hitting to the outfielders during batting practice and to the infield after it—something I could not do the previous season, of course, and still play my position. Finally, Doc's careful scheduling of teams more in our class made us genuinely competitive, and during my last three years at Drew we enjoyed winning seasons. Each year Doc quietly appointed me field captain, but at the end of each season he also named as "honorary captain" one of the three players who had formed the nucleus of that first Drew ball team and who continued to be varsity regulars.

A statement in a recent book/ by an alumnus begins by pointing out that no sport at Drew surpassed the excellence of baseball, and goes on to say that "This stemmed from Sherman Plato Young ... who coached baseball with a combination of vim, meticulous attention to detail, and spirited locker room rhetoric." All this was correct except for the "meticulous attention to detail."

To be sure, Doc was a baseball enthusiast, had played some high school ball and had seen big leaguers play, but his knowledge of the game was superficial. In the four seasons I played at Drew he never held "skull practice" to teach team play and tactics or instructed individuals in batting or in how to play their positions. Nor did he go over the mistakes of individual players after each game, as I did with my own teams.

During my career at Drew, Doc Young in effect acknowledged that I knew more baseball than he did. At indoor spring practice Doc would take me aside and ask such questions as, "How would you show them how to throw the curve?" "How would you show them sliding?" Or he would have me illustrate how to bunt. At crucial stages in the game Doc would consult me on tactics: "Would you let him hit or have him bunt?" etc., and he invariably followed my advice. I also gave him a sign from the field when I thought our pitcher was losing his stuff; it was then up to Doc to decide whether to yank him.

As already mentioned, Doc's work during practice consisted of hitting fungoes to infielders and outfielders, the kind of drill our players badly needed. In games, we played "straight baseball," employing very little strategy. We had only two signs, bunt and steal, which Doc rarely gave, partly because he conducted a conservative game and partly because we had only a few players who had the speed or bat control to "execute." On the eve of our second season Doc sounded me out as to whether he should coach at third base instead of from the bench. Apparently he wanted to, but hesitated because, I suspected, he was afraid that being so conspicuous might appear unseemly in the eyes of some of his colleagues. When I encouraged him to go ahead, he did so, and thereafter always took up his position at third.

Nor did Doc know the rules as thoroughly as a coach should. On a number of occasions the Drew team lost out when the umpire, ignorant of the rules, called a play against us and Doc, not knowing them either, not only failed to dispute him but kept me from doing so.

Once an umpire's ignorance helped us. On an attempted suicide squeeze play with me at bat, the only time we ever tried it, I missed the pitch, so I tried to protect the runner coming in from third by "accidentally" getting in the way of the catcher; then, trying to get out of his way, I "accidentally" got tangled up with him, allowing our runner to slide in ahead of the tag. The plate umpire was not fooled and called me out for interference—but allowed the run to score! As the man remarked when he threw a stone at a dog and hit his mother-in-law instead, "Although the intention miscarried, the effort was not entirely wasted." The tactics used remind me of Roy Campanella's fumble of his closing homily on a radio program on which I was his guest: "And now, boys, remember—it's not how you play the game, but whether you win or lose"!

After my years at Drew, baseball there continued to grow in strength and competence. As enrollments increased, more ballplayers appeared, especially from the junior college in nearby Morristown. Two young men who learned baseball on my Brooklyn teams entered Drew and played key parts in later Drew diamond success. One of them, Joe Mele, a southpaw and good hitter, pitched Drew to a signal victory over Yale. In the course of Doc's tenure as coach, Drew baseball teams won more than 70 percent of their games.

My close relationship with Doc Young did not fade away when my years at Drew were over. After I graduated he gave me a gold baseball for my watch chain, inscribed "Drew's First Captain." In 1940 Drew named me as first baseman on the All-Star Team for Drew's first baseball decade, a squad apparently selected by Doc. My record included batting over .300 in each of the four seasons-in two of them over.SOO, for a combined average of .425.

Doc and I continued to keep in touch, mostly by mail. Many years passed before he apparently felt secure enough to admit, even in private, my contribution to Drew's baseball beginnings. On the occasion of his retirement he wrote to thank me for my telegram:

You were the principal factor in giving direction and quality to Drew sports. You were always so decent to me. You knew much more baseball than I did but you always kept perspective and never embarrassed me. In time I learned a lot—much of it from you—and Drew developed a true tradition of sports.3

Later he put it even more frankly:

When you first knew me at Drew I knew nothing about baseball. By long, serious study I mastered tactics and I could get men to hustle. After 30 years I realize how little I know about the game. 4

Doc Young was far more than a baseball coach. In the afterlight it is clear that his real importance lay in his contribution as a teacher. He used baseball as a vehicle through which he exerted a significant influence on young men-ballplayers and nonplayers alike, as students and after graduation as well. My own case exemplified the others. His interest in my future began in my freshman year when he invited me to lunch at the Ridgedale Inn, a fine old establishment in Madison where I lived in my senior year and that alas is no more. There we discussed not baseball but Oxford University, where he had spent a term and which he envisioned my attending one day. How proud he was when Oxford University Press became my publisher! Doc was instrumental in my going on to graduate work at Cornell, and in later years I often sought his counsel and advice. His encouragement and guidance never failed.

Doc's primary position as full-fledged member of the arts faculty and his interest in lifting the intellectual sights of all his students, not just the ballplayers, harmonized with the college's policy of subordinating athletics to the pursuit of learning. From the very outset, classroom and library took precedence at Drew University over gymnasium and playing field, although the latter two were by no means neglected. Put another way, intercollegiate sports stood on a par with such other extra classroom activities as dramatics, debate, and clubs, and like them existed only for whatever educational and recreational value they might afford.

To ensure fulfillment of its policy toward athletics, the college adopted a cluster of specific measures: No athletic scholarships or recruitment of athletes, no lengthy playing schedules or extended road trips, no admission charges to games or inordinate publicity for athletics, no special privileges or perquisites for athletes, no snap courses or academic leniency for them. Indeed, if anything we athletes suspected some professors (no doubt wrongly) of grading us a bit more severely than they did the others. Lastly, coaches were tenured members of the faculty, free from pressure to produce winners, and the college eschewed varsity football completely.

These strictures were designed to help advance the overriding purpose of the college. Rather than turning out narrow, vocationally trained people, it sought to produce liberally educated men—and, beginning with World War Two, women—familiar with, in Matthew Arnold's words, "the best that has been thought and said in the world," and possessed of what John Henry Newman called enlargement ofmind.5 In brief, the primary task of the college was to provide an education as distinguished from training, which was the function of business and professional schools.

The policy toward athletics and extra class activities in general was complemented by high academic standards; yet no eligibility rules for participation were established. Students were free to take part or not. If they failed to meet the required standards they simply left or were dropped from the college. Because they gained admission as students in the first place, athletes on the whole worked as hard and did as well scholastically as the other students. A fair portion of them made the dean's list, and at the end of our freshman year it was a ballplayer who won a $300 scholarship for achieving the highest average in the class.

The condition of the campus field on which the baseball team practiced the first year seemed to symbolize the Drew policy. It was in such poor shape that we played nearly all home games on Dodge Field in downtown Madison. Only after a couple of seasons did all home games take place on campus, on what is now Young Field, named in Doc's honor at the request of alumni upon his retirement. Even then the campus field was little more than a rough meadow, without a cut-out infield; it featured a steep hill in center field, a crude backstop close behind home plate, and a couple of benches set up along the foul lines for the players. Spectators stood behind the backstop and on an embankment along the first-base side of the field. The only groundskeeping, apart from an occasional cutting of the grass, was done by the players, who raked some of the infield for fear of losing their teeth trying to field ground balls. Not until years later was the field improved, dugouts built for the players, and some wooden seats for fans added on the first-base side. The college also constructed a splendid new gym with swimming pool, but wisely never built a stadium.

Indeed, in those pioneer years of Drew baseball Doc Young and most of the players sensed a coolness and even some hostility toward intercollegiate competition on the part of some students and faculty. The 1929 Carnegie Report supplied them with ample ammunition. Warnings of "professionalism" and "overemphasis on sports" together with praise of intramural competition and of the casual attitude toward sports that supposedly prevailed at Oxford and Cambridge circulated about the campus. I recall a meeting of the student "extra classroom activity committee" where, in freshman naivete, I proposed a training table for varsity players! To this suggestion the faculty chairman reacted as though I had just proposed blowing up his science laboratory. He sternly (and, I came to realize, rightly) squelched the idea. Another professor, the epitome of the stereotype—Harvard Ph.D., goatee, tweeds, knickers, cane, and a second pair of glasses worn over the first when he read a passage in class —volunteered during a classroom lecture that faculty members were under no obligation to attend athletic contests; he never attended any, either.

On the other hand, a number of faculty members proved sympathetic to baseball. Dean Tolley occasionally caught batting practice—lefthanded and garbed in tennis whites. Others attended games with some frequency, and one sometimes asked me afterward to explain a play. Professor Frank Lankard, who succeeded Tolley as dean, also showed great interest in baseball.

To help dispel any doubts about the legitimacy of our baseball enterprise and to lift the morale of the players, I took it upon myself before the opening of our second season to obtain some gesture of support from the university's president, Arlo Brown. Without Doc Young's or anyone's prior knowledge I went to President Brown's office and asked him to come over to the field the day before the first game and say a few words to the team. He seemed quite pleased with the idea and readily complied, and much to the satisfaction of Doc and the players he in effect put his imprimatur on our venture.

Despite great growth and vast changes over a half-century, the college has held to the essentials of its intercollegiate athletic policy and appears likely to continue, at least during the administration of the incumbent president, who, prior to coming to Drew, as president of Southern Methodist University called the attention of the NCAA to violations by members of his own institution. More important, Drew has stuck to its original educational objectives, in part because it keeps athletics under control. If anything, admission requirements and academic standards are stiffer, the more noteworthy in these times when colleges commonly offer bonehead English and remedial mathematics.

My experience at Drew was, to use an overworked word, rewarding. Although my Drew baseball experience added little to my knowledge of the game, I thoroughly enjoyed playing, and in fact probably devoted too much time to it. More important, some of my teammates and I gradually began to understand what the college was trying to get across to us, and what education was all about. With the passing years I learned to view baseball in broader perspective. Much of what we absorbed took place outside the classroom because of close association with a few professors, not on a palsy-walsy, first-name basis but on one of respect and friendliness between master and apprentice. Such valuable relationships were common at Drew, where it was not unusual to have dinner at professors' homes, to attend the theatre, opera, or lectures with them in New York City, as well as Broadway musicals and ballgames with Doc at the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field. Besides Doc, I still have fond memories of close association with other professors, especially Herrman Meier, Grange Wooley, and Jack Benton, Doctors of the Universities of Marburg, Paris, and Edinburgh respectively, from whom I probably learned as much or more outside the classroom than in it, through no fault of theirs.

Drew University and other colleges have demonstrated that intercollegiate athletics can and should play a part in an institution of higher learning, if, as is often piously said, they are properly conducted. That is a very big if. Far too few conduct athletics properly. Their varsity programs, as Professor Francis J. Lodato of Manhattan College recently wrote function apart from the lifeline of the colleges and universities and contribute nothing to the academic environment.6 Like pre-1870 Prussia, which was an army with a state, many institutions of higher education are athletic establishments with a college or university. Long ago Thorstein Veblen put the matter more graphically. Speaking of college-sponsored sports extravaganzas, he said they had about as much relevance to education as bullfighting does to agriculture.

The solution is plain. Let colleges and universities presently engaged in operating sports businesses get out of them and instead embrace and enforce programs like that of Drew University. Unfortunately, judging from past experience, the possibility of such major surgery being performed is about as great as of nations converting all nuclear arms into sources of energy. Intermittent efforts to tame intercollegiate athletics since early in the century have made little headway. Even if colleges possessed the will and the courage to reform, and it is not clear that they do, the task is more formidable than ever. Too many financial and emotional interests are involved for fundamental change to take place easily. More likely, there will be deploring and hand wringing, promises to eliminate abuses, bandaid remedies, and wrist-slapping penalties. Eventually, the hullabaloo will subside and the system will carry on much as before.

Robert M. Hutchins had the courage to ban football at the University of Chicago, because, as he said in answer to critics, "I'm running a university, not a circus." He once wrote:

You may be sure, that the American educational system will be engaged in the cultivation of whatever is honored in the United States. Its weaknesses will be the weaknesses of American ideals. 7

Recently, however, Professor Thomas Bender of New York University went beyond Hutchins' observation, declaring that:

Unless liberal institutions and universities in particular have courage to stand for something substantive, how can they be defended? A university worth affirming must have an ethos, a sense of its own integrity. 8

Intercollegiate athletics is but one of many serious problems that beset higher educational institutions in these parlous times. Will they rise to the occasion, as good ballplayers do? Grover Cleveland once said, "A good way to begin is to begin." A good place for colleges and universities to begin is with intercollegiate athletics.

NOTES

1 For a brief survey of the current college athletic situation, see a series of articles in the New York Times, March 21-24, 1982.

2 John T. Cunningham, The University in the Forest (1972), p. 205.

3 Young to Seymour, May 30, 1954.

4 Young to Seymour, August 6, 1959.

5 For an elaboration of this view, see Harold Seymour, "Education for Free Men," Journal of Higher Education (December 1952), pp. 489-494.

6 New York Times, April 11, 1982.

7 Robert M. Hutchins, Education for Freedom (Louisiana University Press, 1945), p. 49.

8 New York Times Book Review, May 23, 1982, p.20.

BALLPARKS: A Quiz

BOB BLUTHARDT

1. Who were the two Cincinnati pitchers who took a rowboat across the outfield wall of a flooded Crosley Field in 1937?

2. Where did the 1914 Boston Braves and the 1915-1916 Boston Red Sox play their home World Series games?

3. In several World Series, all the games were played in one park; name the years and parks.

4. What major league park hosted the first night game?

5. Wrigley Field came within months of having lights in 1942. What happened?

6. Where is Navin Field today, and who was Navin?

7. Fenway Park's left-field wall or Connie Mack Stadium's right-field wall: which was higher?

8. In what park did a goat assist the groundskeeper in trimming the outfield grass?

9-14. In what parks would you find these places:

9. Ashburn's Ridge

10. Duffy’s Cliff

11. The Crow's Nest

12. Ruthville

13. The Jury Box

14. Kiner's Korner

15. In what park was umpire George Magerkurth attacked by a fan?

16. First called Weeghman Park, it is still in use today. What is the present name, and who was Weeghman?

17. Who frrst cleared the right -field roof at Forbes Field with a towering home run?

18. Thirty years ago, a friend says, "Meet me under the tree." What park will you be visiting?

19. What famous event took place at Ebbets Field at its first night game in 1938?

20. Mickey Mantle victimized what pitcher at what park for his famous 565-foot home run?

21. Where did Babe Ruth "call" a World Series homer?

22. The first All-Star Game graced what park?

23. Walter Johnson pitched only one no-hitter in his career; where?

24-33. Match the streets with the parks they bordered:

24. Gaffney Street ---------------- Wrigley Field

25. Montgomery Street ------------- Sportsman's Park

26. Waveland Avenue --------------- Shibe Park

27. Trumbull Avenue --------------- Ebbets Field

28. Sennott Street ---------------- Tiger Stadium

29. Georgia Avenue ---------------- Polo Grounds

30. York Street ------------------- Crosley Field

31. Dodier Street ----------------- Forbes Field

32. Somerset Street --------------- Braves Field

33. East 155th Street ------------- Griffith Stadium

34. Few hitters ever reached the center-field bleachers at the Polo Grounds; name the first three.

35. Which team can claim the oldest park in operation today in the majors?

36. Who was Abe Stark?

37. It is September 21, 1961; what park is closing and what is unusual about the game?

38. Cite the outfield distances at Yankee Stadium in its last year before remodeling.

39. Where did a groundskeeper live in the ballpark?

40. Which park never hosted a no-hit game?

41. To the distress and embarrassment of all, what park opened without a press box?

42. In what park did a public address system first appear?

43. In the World Series, there has been one unassisted triple play; where did it occur?

44. The home team has just hit a home run; an eagle on the scoreboard celebrates the event; where are you?

45. It held fewer than 20,000 seats and its right-field wall loomed a scant 280 feet from home plate. A marvel when it opened in 1887, it was a joke when it closed in 1938. What park?

46. Name the five hitters who have cleared the center-field wall in Fenway Park to the right of the flag pole.

47. Who are the famous Yankees honored by the tablets that used to reside in the center field of Yankee Stadium?

48. What former park now sits in the backyard of a baseball fan?

49. Where did the longest game in the majors take place?

50. You are watching a game at the Polo Grounds, but the Giants are the visiting team! Explain.

BOB BLUTHARDT works at the Fort Concho Museum in San Angelo, Texas.

ANSWERS TO QUIZ

1. Lee Grissom and Gene Schott.

2. The Braves used Fenway Park as their new park wasn't ready. Returning the favor, they let the Sox use Braves Field a year later.

3. In 1921 and 1922 the Yankees and Giants battled at the Polo Grounds; in 1944, the Browns and Cardinals played at Sportsman's Park.

4. Cincinnati's Crosley Field on May 24, 1935. President Roosevelt threw the lights on from a switch in the White House.

5. The lights were ready to be installed, but World War II came, and Phil Wrigley donated them to a nearby shipyard to help the war effort.

6. Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Frank Navin was president of the Tigers from 1911 to 1935.

7. Fenway's "Green Monster" has stayed at 37-plus feet for over 40 years; from 1934 to 1956 Connie Mack's rightfield wall checked in at 50 feet.

8. In Sportsman's Park in St. Louis in the 1930s.

9. In Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium (Shibe Park). It was a doctored area of the third-base line to assist his bunting.

10. In Fenway Park, the famed sloped left field that Duffy Lewis played so well.

11. In Pittsburgh at Forbes Field. This extra deck of seats was added in 1938 in anticipation of a Pirate pennant that didn't happen.

12. In Yankee Stadium, the right-field bleachers, a favorite target of Babe Ruth. This area was also known as Gehrigsville.

13. In Braves Field, the detached, box-like bleacher section in right field.

14. In Forbes Field, the shortened left-field corner feasted upon by Ralph Kiner. Once Kiner left the club, the distance was restored.

15. In Ebbets Field after a game in 1939.

16. Today, Weeghman Park is Wrigley Field. Charles Weeghman owned the Chicago Whales of the short-lived Federal League. Built in 1914, the park was taken over by the Cubs in 1916.

17. Babe Ruth, when he played with the Boston Braves in 1935, his last season. His last of three homers that May 25th cleared the roof.

18. Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. The tree was just outside the center-field wall.

19. Johnny Vander Meer pitched his second straight no-hitter for Cincinnati.

20. Senators' pitcher Chuck Stobbs at Griffith Stadium in 1953.

21. Wrigley Field.

22. Chicago’s Comiskey Park in 1933.

23. Fenway Park.

24. Braves Field.

25. Ebbets Field.

26. Wrigley Field.

27. Tiger Stadium.

28. Forbes Field.

29. Griffith Stadium

30. Crosley Field

31. Sportsman's Park

32. Shibe Park! Connie Mack Stadium

33. Polo Grounds.

34. The Braves' Joe Adcock was first in 1953; later came Lou Brock and Hank Aaron.

35. The White Sox at Comiskey Park-first game on July 1, 1910.

36. A Brooklyn businessman whose sign on Ebbets Field's right-field wall offered a free suit for any hitter striking it.

37. It is the last game at Griffith Stadium and the expansion Washington Senators are playing the old Senator team now called the Minnesota Twins.

38. Left field, 301 feet; center field, 461 feet; right field, 296 feet.

39. In the Polo Grounds, head groundskeeper Matty Schwab lived under section 31 in left field. Horace Stoneham had lured him from Ebbets Field, and he built an apartment for Schwab and his family under the stands.

40. Forbes Field.

41. Brooklyn's Ebbets Field in 1913.

42. Polo Grounds, 1929: a microphone was attached to the mask of the home-plate umpire.

43. At League Park in Cleveland in the 1920 Indians-Dodgers contest. Bill Wambsganss pulled it off in game 5.

44. Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

45. Philadelphia's Baker Bowl.

46. Hank Greenberg, 1937;Jimmy Foxx, 1937; Bill Skowron, 1957; Carl Yastrzemski, 1970; Bobby Mitchell, 1973; Jim Rice, 1975.

47. Miller Huggins, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jake Ruppert.

48. Crosley Field, at least many pieces of it, now endures in the large yard of a super fan in Kentucky.

49. At Braves Field: Boston against Brooklyn, 26 innings of l-l baseball in 1920.

50. It is 1962 or 1963 and the Giants, now in San Francisco, are meeting the New York Mets; or it is the World Series of 1921 or 1922 (see question 3).

Runs and Wins

PETE PALMER

MOST STATISTICAL analyses of baseball have been concerned with evaluating offensive performance, with pitching and fielding coming in for less attention. An important area that has been little studied is the relationship of runs scored and allowed to wins and losses: how many games a team ought to have won, how many it did win, and which teams' actual won-lost records varied far from their probable won-lost records.

The initial published attempt on this subject was Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in 1964. Examining major-league results from 1950 through 1960 he found winning percentage equal to .484 times runs scored divided by runs allowed. (Example: in 1965 the American League champion Minnesota Twins scored 774 runs and allowed 600; 774 times .484 divided by 600 yields an expected winning percentage of .630. The Twins in fact finished at 102-60, a winning percentage of.624. Had they lost one of the games they won, their percentage would have been .623.) Arnold Soolman, in an unpublished paper which received some media attention, looked at results from 1901 through 1970 and came up with winning percentage equal to .102 times runs scored per game minus .103 times runs allowed per game plus .505. (Using the '65 Twins, Soolman's method produces an expected won-lost percentage of.611.) Bill James, in his Baseball Abstract, developed winning percentage equal to runs scored raised to the power x, divided by the sum of runs scored and runs allowed each raised to the power x. Originally, x was equal to two but then better results were obtained when a value of 1.83 was used. James' original method shows the '65 Twins at .625, his improved method at .614.)

My work showed that as a rough rule of thumb, each additional ten runs scored (or ten less runs allowed) produced one extra win, essentially the same as the Soolman study. However, breaking the teams into groups showed that high-scoring teams needed more runs to produce a win. This runs-per-win factor I determined to be equal to ten times the square root of the average number of runs scored per inning by both teams. Thus in normal play, when 4.5 runs per game are scored by each club, the factor comes out equal to ten on the button. (When 4.5 runs are scored by each team scores .5 runs per inning –totally one run, the square root of which is one, times ten.) In any given year, the value is usually in the nine to eleven range. James handled this situation by adjusting his exponent x to be equal to two minus one over the quantity of runs scored plus runs allowed per game minus three. Thus with 4.5 runs per game, x equals two minus one over the quantity nine minus three: two minus one-sixth equals 1.83.

Based on results from 1900 through 1981, my method or Bill's (the refined model taking into account runs per game) work equally well, giving an average error of 2.75 wins per team. Using Soolman's method, or a constant ten runs per win, results in an error about 4 percent higher, while Cook's method is about 20 percent worse.

Probability theory defines standard deviation as the square root of the sum of the squares of the deviations divided by the number of samples. Average error is usually two-thirds of the standard deviation. If the distribution is normal, then two-thirds of all the deviations will be less than one standard deviation, one in twenty will be more than two away, and one in four hundred will be more than three away. If these conditions are met, then the variation is considered due to chance alone.

From 1900 through 1981 there were 1448 team seasons. Using the square root of runs per inning method, one standard deviation (or sigma) was 26 percentage points. Seventy teams were more than 52 points (two sigmas) away and only two were more than 78 points (three sigmas) off. The expected numbers here were 72 two-sigma team seasons and 4 three-sigma team seasons, so there is no reason to doubt that the distribution is normal and that differences are basically due to chance.

Still, it is interesting to look at the individual teams that had the largest differences in actual and expected won-lost percentage and try to figure out why they did not achieve normal results. By far the most unusual situation occurred in the American League in 1905. Here two teams had virtually identical figures for runs scored and allowed, yet one finished 25 games ahead of the other! It turns out that with one exception, these two teams had the largest differences in each direction in the entire period. Detroit that season scored 512 runs and allowed 602. The Tigers' expected winning percentage was .435, but they actually had a 79-74 mark, worth a percentage of .517. St. Louis, on the other hand, had run data of 511-608 and an expected percentage of .430, yet went 54-99, a .353 percentage.

Looking at game scores, the difference can be traced to the performance in close contests. Detroit was 32-17 in one-run games and 13-10 in those decided by two runs. St. Louis had marks of17-34 and 10-25 in these categories. Detroit still finished 15 games out in third place, while St. Louis was dead last. Ty Cobb made his debut with the Tigers that year, but did little to help the team, batting .240 in 41 games.

The only team to have a larger difference between expected and actual percentage in either direction than these two teams was in the strike-shortened season last year, when Cincinnati finished a record 88 points higher than expected. Their 23-10 record in one-run games was the major factor. The 1955 Kansas City Athletics, who played 76 points better than expected, had an incredible 30-15 mark in one-run games, while going 33-76 otherwise.

Listed above are all the teams with differences of 70 or more points.

The 1924 National League season affords an interesting contrast which is evident in the chart. St. Louis failed of its expected won-lost percentage by 72 points while Brooklyn exceeded its predicted won-lost mark by 70.

The two poor showings by the Pittsburgh club in 1911 and 1917 were part of an eight-year string ending in 1918 in which the Pirates played an average of 37 points below expectations, a difference of about six wins per year. This was the worst record over a long stretch in modern major-league history. Cincinnati was 40 points under in a shorter span, covering 1902 through 1907. No American League team ever played worse than 25 points below expectation over a period of six or more years.

On the plus side, the best mark is held by the current Baltimore Orioles under Earl Weaver. From 1976 through 1981 they have averaged 41 points better than expected. The best National League mark was achieved by the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers in 1954-63, 27 points higher than expectations over a ten-year period, or about four wins per year.

The three-sigma limit for ten-year performance is 25 points. The number of clubs which exceeded this limit over such a period is not more than would be expected by chance. So it would seem that the teams were just lucky or unlucky, and that there are no other reasons for their departure from expected performance.

Here are the actual results and differences for the four teams covered.

PETE PALMER is chairman of SABR's statistical analysis committee.

RESEARCHER’S NOTEBOOK: Baltimore, the Eastern Shore, And More

AL KERMISCH

Baltimore’s Worst Starts In Years Ending in “2”

It was probably inevitable that the Orioles struggled through their worst start in American League history in 1982, winning only two of their first twelve games. Baltimore’s worst starts in two other major leagues, in which it held membership for more than two years, the American Association and the National League, also occurred in years ending in “2.” Baltimore fielded its first major league team 100 years ago—in 1882—in the newly organized American Association. The Monumental City entry got off to a horrible start. They were 1-8, 2-11, and 3-26, which included a string of 15 consecutive defeats, Baltimore’s all-time major league record—all on the road. This team won only 19 and lost 54 in finishing in last place.

In 1892, when the American Association consolidated with the National League to form one 12-club circuit, Baltimore was one of the entries. The Orioles had finished third in the American Association in 1891 and were expected to give a good account of themselves. George Van Haltren was player-manager of the team, which included Wilbert Robinson, Sadie McMahon, and young John McGraw. But the Birds got off to a miserable start and were 1-16, the worst immediate beginning for a Baltimore major league team. The National League had a split season that year and the Orioles finished last with an overall record of 46-101.

The poor start by the Orioles, however, had a silver lining. Van Haltren relinquished the managerial reigns although he did stay on as a player. He was replaced temporarily by John Waltz, vice-president of the club. However, on May 6 the Orioles signed Ned Hanlon as manager. Within two years Hanlon, who proved to be one of baseball’s shrewdest traders, transformed the Orioles into one of baseball’s most capable and colorful teams.

It was also in a year ending in “2” that the Orioles finished last in the American League for the only time. That was in 1902, the final year that John McGraw managed the club before jumping to the New York Giants of the National League in midseason. The Orioles started off that year as a contender with such players as Joe Kelley, Wilbert Robinson, Joe McGinnity, Roger Bresnahan, Jim Williams, Cy Seymour, Kip Selbach, Dan McGann, Harry Howell, and Tom Hughes. But McGraw couldn’t get along with American League president Ban Johnson. When McGraw left Baltimore, the Orioles were in fifth place but still in contention with a record of 30 wins and 34 defeats. The defection of McGraw, however, led to the rape of the Baltimore club. Bresnahan, McGinnity and McGann followed McGraw to New York, Joe Kelley joined Cincinnati as manager and Seymour went along with him, while Hughes went to the Boston American League club.

With what was left, and players supplied by the other American League teams to fill out the roster, the Orioles gradually fell to the cellar as they were able to win only 20 of their last 74 games. After the 1902 season the franchise was moved to New York and, while the New York Yankees became the most successful team in major league history, the Orioles had to wait 52 years to get back in the league when the St. Louis Browns’ franchise was moved to Baltimore in 1954.

1937 Salisbury Club Proved Mettle

In 1937 the Salisbury, Maryland, club of the Eastern Shore League won the pennant by three and one-half games over the second-place Easton team. They went on to win the playoffs two out of three from Cambridge and three out of five from Centerville, after losing the first two games. These cold statistics, however, do not tell the story behind this courageous team, which was piloted by D’Arcy “Jake” Flowers.

The club started off the season in high gear and on June 19 it was making a runaway of the race with a record of 22 and 5, for an .815 gait. But on the next day, the standings showed Salisbury in last place with a record of 1 win and 26 losses, an .037 percentage! This was no typographical error, for on June 20, Thomas J. Kibler, president of the league, put Salisbury on the bottom of the list for a technical violation. He ordered 21 games the Indians had won to be awarded to the teams defeated.

The technical violation concerned a first baseman by the name of Robert Brady, who was signed as a rookie but was found to be listed in the National Association’s record as a player with one year’s experience. Brady had signed with Harrisburg of the New York-Pennsylvania League in1934 but was released before the season opened. He never played a game nor received a penny from the team. But the Harrisburg club never registered this release with the National Association. Consequently, Salisbury was made to suffer for the negligence of the Harrisburg organization. As soon as Brady’s status was questioned, Salisbury released him. Kibler admitted that he felt the Salisbury club was innocent of any knowing attempt to break league rules, but he stuck to the technicality and would not relent.

So all the Salisbury team did was to go out and win 58 of the next 69 games to end up on top.

Joe Kohlman won 25 and lost only 1 for Salisbury, and threw a no hitter, his second of the season, in the deciding playoff against Centerville. Jorge Comellas was 22-1. The other standouts were second baseman Jerry Lynn, who hit .342; shortstop Frank Trechock, .338; and catcher Fermin “Mike” Guerra, .296. Kohlman got into nine games with the Washington Senators in 1937-38, won his only decision, but had an ERA of 5.27. Comellas was 0-2 for the Chicago Cubs in 1945. Lynn, Trechock, and Guerra each got into one game for the Senators at the tag end of the 1937 campaign. Lynn got 2 hits in 3 at bats, including a double; Trechock was 2-for-4, and Guerra 0-for-3. For Lynn and Trechock that was the extent of their major-league careers. Guerra, however, hung around in the big show for nine years and batted .242.

On the other hand, there were a couple of rookies in the Eastern Shore League in 1937 who left indelible marks in the majors. Mickey Vernon broke in with Easton that year, batting .287 in 83 games. He spent 20 years in the big leagues and hit a solid .286, winning two American League batting titles. And the late Danny Murtaugh, who began with Centerville that season, played nine years in the majors and managed the Pirates for fourteen years, winning two pennants, two world championships, and four divisional titles.

Arlett’s Four-Homer Explosions Fifty Years Ago

In Baltimore’s long history in professional baseball—both major and minor—only one of its players has been able to hit four home runs in a game. . .and that player did it twice within a period of five weeks. It was fifty years ago that Russell “Buzz” Arlett went on his home-run rampage for the International League Orioles. Both of Arlett’s four-homer performances came against the Reading club, the first outburst on the road and the second at home. His first big day took place on Wednesday, June 1, 1932, when he hit four consecutive home runs, with a base on balls sandwiched in between, as the Orioles outlasted the Reading Keys 14-13. Arlett scored five runs and batted in seven. His first three circuit clouts were hit lefthanded off righthander Clayton Van Alstyne and the last one righthanded off southpaw Carroll Yerkes. All went over the right-field fence. Arlett’s first home run came as leadoff batter in the second inning. His second came in the third inning with two on. He walked in the fifth inning and scored on a home run by Frank McGowan.

His third came in the sixth inning with the bases empty, and his fourth homer, in the eighth frame, came with one on and was the margin of victory.

Arlett’s next home-run explosion came on Monday, July 4, 1932 as the Orioles swamped Reading 21-10 in the first game of a twin bill at Oriole Park. He celebrated the holiday by hitting four home runs in a row after striking out in his first time at bat. This time he reversed the procedure of June 1, hitting the first one righthanded and the other three from the left side. In the second frame Buzz hit a grand-slam home run off Yerkes. He hit his second off Emery Zumbro in the fifth inning with one on. His final two home runs came off Buck Newsom, with the bases empty in the seventh and one on in the eighth. The Orioles scored 11 runs in the eighth and Buzz got a chance for a fifth home run, but he popped to the infield. Arlett did make it five circuit smashes for the day when he blasted one off Van Alstyne in the fifth inning of the nightcap.

“First World Series” Just Exhibitions

Some historians would have you believe that the major leagues’ first World Series took place 100 years ago when the Cincinnati Reds, the first champions of the American Association, played host to Cap Anson’s Chicago club, National League winners. The clubs played two games, the Reds winning 2-0 before 2,700 on Friday, October 6, 1882, and Chicago winning 2-0 the next day before a crowd of 4,500. As the story goes, Denny McKnight, president of the American Association, then stepped in and notified the Cincinnati club that it would be expelled if the games continued and as a result the series was abandoned. This makes a good story but it is not based on fact. Although supporters of the Cincinnati club were anxious to see the Reds in action against National League opposition, there seemed to be little chance of it happening since it was against the constitution of the Association and could result in expulsion.

A wealthy Cincinnati booster came up with an idea that would make exhibition games with National League clubs possible. Since the Cincinnati players’ salaries ran to October 15, the gentleman made an offer to assume responsibility for the remainder of the players’ salaries after October 1 (amounting to about $4,000) if the club would turn over all the players to him, including release of the players. This proposition looked good to the club officials, since it would produce a big saving, and they readily agreed. The players also agreed to take their releases on October 1 and for two weeks remain in the employ of the wealthy benefactor. Thus the Cincinnati club had no official status and was enabled to circumvent the American Association ban on playing N.L. teams.

Exhibition games were then arranged with Cleveland and Chicago. The Reds lost two out of three to Cleveland before Chicago came in for the two games as mentioned above. There wasn’t any abrupt ending to this series. Two games were all that were scheduled and the clubs could not have continued the series even had they wanted to. The Reds were scheduled to play an exhibition game in St. Louis on October 8, while Chicago had to depart for Providence, where they were to start a nine-game exhibition series against the second place Providence club on October 10.

When the latter series was first proposed at a special meeting of the National League in September, it appeared it would be a series to decide the league championship. Earlier the National League had announced that the Troy and Worcester clubs were to be dropped in 1883, upon which these clubs threatened to drop out before the end of the season. This could have resulted in revision of the standings to exclude the games played with those clubs and could have deprived Chicago of the championship. Hence, the nine-game series for the title was planned. But Troy and Worcester did finish out the season, and Chicago was the winner by three games. Providence still wanted to have the nine-game series decide the title but finally agreed to play the contests as exhibitions. Three games were played in Providence, one in New York, four in Chicago, and one at Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The series was hampered by bad weather and was poorly attended. Chicago finally prevailed, five games to four.

Ty Cobb’s 4,000th Hit A Routine Affair

Pete Rose, the Phils’ superstar who hopes to play long enough to surpass Ty Cobb’s major-league record of 4,191 hits, or at least become the second player to reach the 4,000 mark, passed his 41st birthday on April 14, 1982. Cobb was 41 years and 7 months old to the day when he registered what was then considered to be his 4,000th hit at Detroit on July 18, 1927. Cobb, who was then with the Philadelphia Athletics after spending 22 years with the Tigers, doubled in the first inning off Sam Gibson but Detroit beat the A’s and Lefty Grove 5-3.

If Rose ever gets close to the 4,000 mark, television, radio and newspaper coverage probably will be unprecedented. When Cobb made his “4,000th” hit many papers, except for those in Detroit and Philadelphia, didn’t even bother to mention it.

AL KERMISCH, a retired colonel, had his first baseball article published in 1939.

FIGURES: David and Goliath

TED DiTULLIO

300 Home Run Hitters: Average Strikeouts per Home Run

PLAYER LEAGUE HR SO AVERAGE

1. DiMaggio A 361 369 1.02

2. Berra A 358 415 1.16

3. Williams, T. A 521 709 1.36

4. Mize N 359 524 1.46

5. Musial N 475 696 1.47

6. Gehrig A 493 789 1.60

7. Klein N 300 521 1.74

8. Ott N 511 896 1.75

9. Aaron N 755 1383 1.83

10. Ruth A 714 1330 1.86

11. Kiner N 369 749 2.03

12. Hornsby N 301 679 2.26

13. Mays N 660 1526 2.31

14. Colavito A 374 880 2.35

15. Simmons A 307 737 2.40

16. Banks N 512 1236 2.41

17. Foxx A 534 1311 2.46

18. Williams, B. N 426 1046 2.46

19. Greenberg A 331 844 2.55

20. Kaline A 399 1020 2.56

21. Robinson N 586 1532 2.61

22. Sievers A 318 920 2.89

23. Cash A 377 1091 2.89

24. Mathews N 512 1487 2.90

25. Nettles A 313 924 2.95

26. Killebrew A 573 1699 2.96

27. McCovey N 521 1550 2.97

28. Snider N 407 1237 3.04

29. Hodges N 370 1137 3.07

30. Cepeda N 379 1169 3.08

31. Yastrzem. A 442 1364 3.09

32. Adcock N 336 1059 3.15

33. Mantle A 536 1710 3.19

34. Smith, Reg. N 314 1030 3.28

35. Bench N 388 1240 3.29

36. Powell A 339 1226 3.62

37. Schmidt N 349 1279 3.66

38. Howard A 382 1460 3.82

39. Santo N 342 1343 3.93

40. Horton A 325 1313 3.93

41. Stargell N 475 1936 4.08

42. Jackson A 464 1966 4.24

43. Kingman N 329 1400 4.26

44. Allen N 351 1556 4.43

45. May N 354 1570 4.44

46. Perez N 363 1742 4.80

47. Bonds N 332 1757 5.30

175 Singles in a Season

PLAYER LEAGUE YEAR SINGLES

1. Keeler, W. N 1898 202

2. Keeler, W. N 1897 200

3. Waner, L. N 1927 198

4. Burkett, J. N 1895 194

5. Burkett, J. N 1899 194

6. Burkett,J. N 1896 192

7. Burkett, J. N 1898 188

8. Keeler, W. N 1899 187

9. Wilson, W. A 1980 184

10. Alou, M. N 1969 183

11. Hamilton, B. N 1894 183

12. Rice, S. A 1925 182

13. Ashburn, R. N 1951 181

14. O'Doul, L. N 1929 181

15. Rose, P. N 1973 181

16. Waner, L. N 1929 181

17. Burkett, J. N 1901 180

18. Carew, R. A 1974 180

19. Garr, R. N 1971 180

20. Waner, L. N 1928 180

21. Keeler, W. N 1895 179

22. Keeler, W. N 1900 179

23. Tobin, J. A 1921 179

24. Ward, M. P 1890 179

25. Wills, M. N 1962 179

26. Flood, C. N 1964 178

27. Sisler, G. A 1922 178

28. Waner, P. N 1937 178

29. Terry, B. N 1930 177

30. Ashburn, R. N 1958 176

31. Keeler, W. N 1901 176

32. Jennings, H. N 1896 175

33. Keeler, W. N 1896 175

300 Home Run Hitters,

Average Walks per Home Run

PLAYER LEAGUE HR BB AVERAGE

1. Yastrzem. A 442 1791 4.05

2. Williams, T. A 521 2019 3.88

3. Hornsby N 301 1038 3.45

4. Musial N 475 1599 3.37

5. Ott N 511 1708 3.34

6. Santo N 342 1108 3.24

7. Mantle A 536 1733 3.23

8. Kaline A 399 1277 3.20

9. Gehrig A 493 1508 3.06

10. Powell A 339 1001 2.95

11. Ruth A 714 2056 2.88

12. Smith, Reg. N 314 890 2.83

13. Mathews N 512 1444 2.82

14. Cash A 377 1043 2.77

15. Bonds N 332 914 2.75

16. Schmidt N 349 958 2.74

17. Kiner N 369 1011 2.74

18. Killebrew A 573 1559 2.72

19. Foxx A 534 1452 2.71

20. Nettles A 313 835 2.67

21. Sievers A 318 841 2.64

22. McCovey N 521 1345 2.58

23. Greenberg A 331 852 2.57

24. Hodges N 370 943 2.54

25. Colavito A 351 894 2.54

26. Allen A 374 951 2.54

27. Williams, B N 426 1045 2.45

28. Robinson N 586 1420 2.42

29. Snider N 407 971 2.39

30. Mize N 359 856 2.38

31. Perez N 361 839 2.31

32. Bench N 377 867 2.30

33. Jackson A 464 1065 2.30

34. Mays N 660 1463 2.22

35. DiMaggio A 361 790 2.19

36. Howard A 382 782 2.05

37. Klein N 300 601 2.00

38. Simmons A 307 615 2.00

39. Stargell N 475 937 1.97

40. Berra A 358 704 1.97

41. Horton A 325 619 1.90

42. Adcock N 336 594 1.86

43. Aaron N 755 1402 1.77

44. Cepeda N 379 588 1.55

45. Banks N 512 763 1.49

46. May N 354 487 1.38

47. Kingman N 329 447 1.36

TED DiTULLIO has also been published in SABR's Baseball Research Journal.

Double Joe Dwyer: A Life In the Bushes

Gerald Tomlinson

When Joe Dwyer was a kid in high school, his teammates on the Orange Athletic Association Meadowbrooks of Orange, New Jersey, a semipro outfit, watched him belt out more than his share of doubles. "I always had a penchant for two-base hits," said Joe. That being the case (and nicknames being a big part of baseball) someone on the Orange A.A.'s-Joe wasn't sure who-thought to call him "Double Joe." The nickname stuck.

It proved appropriate, too, not only for Double Joe the semipro but right through his playing days in Organized Baseball. He didn't generally lead the league in doubles, so the sobriquet can't be said to characterize his career, but it did attain the ring of truth in Dwyer's best season, 1936, when, along with a .383 batting average, he walloped a record 65 doubles for the Nashville Vols, a mark that no one in the Southern Association ever topped.

So impressive was Joe's total of two-baggers in a single season that some sportswriters assumed the nickname had been given to him after the 1936 campaign. Not so: it was a classic case of life imitating art.

The man who became known as Double Joe was born Joseph Michael Dwyer on March 27, 1907, in Orange, New Jersey. One of five children, he started playing baseball early and showed great promise from the beginning. He had it all: he could hit, he could run, he could field, he could throw. Yet when Double Joe's long baseball career was over, he had come to bat only eleven times in the major leagues, and the three hits he had garnered there were all singles. Even so, he was such a talented ballplayer, so clearly major-league material, that in many ways he is the quintessential might-have-been.

He started his career with a bang. Or it might be more accurate to say he started it with a toothache. One day, while still a sandlot player, he was walking down Main Street in Orange, his jaw bulging from a tooth extraction minutes earlier. He felt pretty low, pained and discouraged. But like Lana Turner on that soda fountain stool at Schwab's Drugstore, Joe Dwyer was in the right place at the right time.

The guy who played shortstop for the Orange A.A.s was walking up the same street, mulling over a problem. His club had a game that afternoon against a semipro powerhouse from nearby Paterson-the Doherty Silk Sox-and he needed an outfielder. Two of the regulars, who were auditors during the week, had to work that Saturday. "The guy had seen me up at the playground," Joe told me. "My mouth was sticking out like that, but he said, 'Don't worry, Joe. You're not going to hit with your mouth.' "

You can figure out the rest. The Orange A.A.s, with Joe Dwyer in center field, beat the favored Silk Sox 2-1. Joe put in a sizzling 4-for-4 day at the plate, and he did it against Milt Gaston, who had beaten the New York Yankees the Sunday before. The missing tooth, once so bothersome, was forgotten.

The Orange A.A.s, having seen what Joe could do, began paying him well to do it: $175 a month for playing two games a week, on Saturdays and Sundays. This outfit played against major-league teams and also against the top Negro clubs in the country. Fans paid a dollar to watch the games, and when such teams as the Detroit Tigers, featuring Ty Cobb, came to town, the AA.s really packed them in.

In 1924 Joe had a tryout with Rochester of the International League. They signed him. "But I was a kid," he said. "Seventeen years old. They wouldn't use me. When the season started, the manager, George Stallings, put me in as a pinch hitter. Against Baltimore I hit one out of the park, but other times I didn't do so good. Stallings said, ‘Joe, we're going with names this year. If you want to go down to a lower league, I'll recommend you. But you'll only get half as much money."

Rochester had offered him a salary of $400 a month if he made the team. That was all right, but the prospect of playing full time for $200 didn't attract him. "I told him, 'I'm earning that much at home on weekends.' It just didn't appeal to me. So I went back to semipro."

In 1924 and 1925 Dwyer worked in the Thomas A. Edison factory in West Orange, pressing out phonograph records. He left the Orange A.A.s and moved over to the Bloomfield Elks, a semipro club that played on Wednesdays and Saturdays in Washington, New Jersey, and Sunday doubleheaders in Bloomfield. His batting average hovered around .500, even though in some of the games he was facing major-league pitchers like Ownie Carroll and George Earnshaw and such great Negro League pitchers as Satchel Paige, Cannonball Dick Redding, and Cyclone Williams.

Said Joe of the black players: "They were the best I ever saw. They were big-league ballplayers. The Bacharach Giants, Kansas City Monarchs, Philadelphia Stars, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Cuban All-Stars. Good? They were terrific."

Dwyer could have gone on playing semipro ball for years, but the Newark Bears developed an interest in him and signed him for the 1926 season. They optioned him to Salem, Massachusetts, in the Class B New England League, where he hit .369 in 350 times at bat, cracking out eight home runs in the vast ballparks of that league (Salem's right field fence was 435 feet away; Lynn's was an incredible 500 feet down the line!). "After the pitchers I'd been facing in semipro," he said, "these guys were easy."

Dwyer expected 1927 to be even better but, he said, "I got into a little argument. I didn't want to go back to the New England League. I figured my .369 average should count for something, and I said so. 'You'll do what we tell you,' they told me. See, it was rough. What could I do?"

What he did was this: "I asked for my option money from Newark. They owed me $300. 'Oh,' they said, 'we changed the rule.' What do you think of that? After I hit .369 for Salem, they wouldn't pay me. And I needed the money. I didn't have two nickels to rub together. Honest. But Paul Block, the new owner of the Bears, wouldn't listen to me. He wouldn't answer my letters. The business manager told me to forget it. The rules had been changed. They brushed me off.

"So I wrote a letter to Judge Landis. The Judge got on the warpath. He investigated. They owed me the money, of course. They waited awhile and finally sent it to me-$302.50. I had a lot of sodas that week."

Was he glad he pursued the issue of the option money? "Naw, it probably ruined me. At least it didn't do me any good. I was a marked man. The owners ran everything and stuck together. They put me down as a troublemaker. "

Joe spent not one year but four in the New England League. His second and third-year performances faded in comparison with that of his strong rookie season. He batted .289 in 1927 and .275 in 1928, but then bounced back in 1929. Playing for Lynn, he brought his batting average back up to .358, banging out 192 hits. This performance attracted the attention of Harold Meyers, a baseball club owner in northeastern Pennsylvania. A deal was made, and when the 1930 season opened Double Joe Dwyer took the field as a Wilkes-Barre Baron. He would spend the next six years there.

A bustling, crowded industrial city, Wilkes-Barre had a population of about 85,000 when Joe first played there (it is much smaller than that today). Located on the east bank of the Susquehanna, it lies at the heart of the Wyoming Valley's once prosperous anthracite region and across the river from the city of Kingston, where Artillery Park used to stand. The wooden grandstand and bleachers of Artillery Park are gone now, but the old Barons' playing field still exists. Left field in Artillery Park was where Joe Dwyer was to become a fixture and a favorite among local fans.

In joining the Barons, also a Class B outfit but in the faster New York Pennsylvania League, Joe was hoping for a better break, more rapid advancement. It didn't happen. The league went up to Class A in 1933, and Double Joe was there to see it.

He started off strongly with the Barons. "We had a bunch of good ballplayers in 1930," he said. "Especially pitchers: Johnny Miller, Dick Barrett, Johnny Tillman, Bots Nekola, Joe Martinski, John Milligan. The outfield was strong, too, with Matt Donahue in right field and Eddie Burke in center. They were all pretty good, the whole team. If they weren't, they wouldn't have been there. It was a tough league, and you had to produce or out you went."

Dwyer produced. As the Barons fought their way to Wilkes-Barre's first NYP pennant, he batted .363, collecting 187 hits, including 2B doubles, 13 triples, and 3 home runs. When asked about his low home run total, Joe replied, "That's right, only three. You know, after Babe Ruth started belting them out of the park in the 1920s, the fans wanted homers. But how could I hit them? What fences! I batted left handed and pulled the ball. In Artillery Park it was 400 feet on the line, and 450 to right center."

Except for the distant fences, Joe regarded Artillery Park as one of the best ballparks in the league. "The playing field, that is. The stands were a little antiquated, wooden, but it was a nice park to play in. Hazleton had the worst field. At Hazleton it was kind of rocky, and they had trees inside the fences."

Those trees at Buhler Stadium, Hazleton, led to an incident that Dwyer recalled vividly. With the Barons leading Hazleton 4-2 in the top of the ninth inning, the Mountaineers loaded the bases. A humming line drive sent him racing back toward the trees. The ball was high, Joe leaped into the air, grabbed a limb with his right hand, and speared the ball with his gloved hand!

Dwyer tailed off a bit in the next two years, to .322 and .318. But then he rebounded with three .340-plus seasons in a row. He batted .351 in 1933, losing the league batting title in the final days to George McQuinn of Binghamton. In 1934 he chalked up a .343 mark, then closed out his years with the Barons by batting .363-the same average he had started with back in 1930.

Joe was now 28. He had played professional baseball for ten years, never higher than class A-and that high only because the NYP League, not Joe himself, got a promotion. He started nearly every game in those years, pounding out 1,598 hits for a batting average of .335.

Not bad. Where had it gotten him? Not far. It had given him a job during a period when 16 million Americans were out of work, and Joe, however disgruntled, never underestimated the importance of that. It made him a recognized and well-liked figure among baseball fans in Salem, Lynn, and Wilkes-Barre.

Catcher Bill Steinecke, whose years in the NYP League paralleled Dwyer's, gave a player's view of him in those days: 'Joe was a fine defensive outfielder, with great speed, a good arm-one of the best all-around players in the league. He had the tools to be outstanding." Pitcher Thornton Lee added: "One of the best young hitters I ever saw. Good discipline. A solid contact hitter who went with the pitch."

The fans admired him, the players respected him, but if advancement to the majors is the name of the game, his ten years in the minors had been for nothing.

Why hadn't Joe moved up, given his fine record and his obvious ability? The answer is not hard to find. Wilkes-Barre, like Salem and Lynn and many other small cities, operated an independent minor-league club. The operations were not part of a feeder system for the major leagues. Like their major-league counterparts, the owners were in business to make money, which they could do with a crowd-pleasing pennant contender.

Now, if they could make bigger profits by selling a homegrown star to a higher classification club, so much the better. But that star had to bring in more money on the market than he was likely to bring in through the turnstiles, and the bids for Joe Dwyer evidently were not high enough.

"They didn't want a player with potential," said Dwyer. "I learned that early, one day up in Salem. The manager had let a couple of young players go, and I said, 'Gee, those guys had real potential.' The manager said, 'Yeah, and when they reach their potential, where will I be?' You see what he meant? He had to win. I learned that lesson fast.

"They wanted performance right off the reel. If you were a kid, you had to play like a veteran. If you couldn't help win ballgames for them, what good were you? You didn't stay."

On the other hand, if you did win ballgames, you might stay a lot longer than you wanted to. Joe found that out at Wilkes-Barre. Nor was this stuck-in-the-bushes complaint just his personal grievance; it was a fact of baseball life in the minors. Consider the story of Hall of Famer Lefty Grove, as told by Robert Obojski in his book Bush League:

Robert "Lefty" Grove, ace of the [International League's] Baltimore Orioles pitching staff, was sold to the Philadelphia Athletics at the conclusion of the 1924 campaign for a record $100,600 . . . . In his five years with the Orioles, Grove won 109 games and lost only 35, having amassed 27 victories in each of his final two sessions. . . . Baltimore, of course, was not controlled by a big-league club at this time, and it could thus hold out for the best possible price for a star like Grove. If the Orioles had been operating under the aegis of a major-league outfit, there is no question that Lefty would have 'graduated' earlier.

The situation was doubly frustrating in the NYP League in the 1930s. Ball clubs in a couple of cities-Elmira and Binghamton-had become part of the growing system of major-league farm teams, and the players on those teams, unlike Joe Dwyer, were mobile. The St. Louis Cardinals kept close watch over players like Johnny Mize, Mort Cooper, Johnny Keane, and Billy Myers, moving them up and out of Elmira. The New York Yankees did the same thing at Binghamton with future major leaguers like Spud Chandler, Pinky May, Buddy Rosar, and Atley Donald.

What bothered Joe was that many of these farm system players went up whether they did well in the NYP League or not. "I fattened up on some future major leaguers," Joe said. "And guys like Wally Moses and Terry Moore couldn't get started at Elmira. Even Johnny Mize didn't set the league on fire. Neither did Ralph Kiner for Albany later on. Mize and Kiner weren't really home-run hitters until they got to the majors."

Joe Dwyer went into organized baseball expecting to be a long-ball hitter, which he had been as a semipro. But the rightfield fences at Salem, Lynn, and Wilkes-Barre put a crimp in that. "You had to change your batting style just to keep your job," he said. Which he did with notable success, becoming a drawing card. Joe's wife Ruth once heard Harold Meyers, the principal owner of the Wilkes-Barre club, say in an unguarded moment, "If we sold Joe, the bleachers would be empty."

"I was at my best in those years," Dwyer said. "Twenty-three, twenty-four years old. I'd ask Mr. Meyers, 'Doesn't anyone want to buy me?' He'd say, 'No. I'm sorry, Joe. There are no buyers. Too bad. But if you don't want to play ball here, you can always find another job.' That was it: I could find another job in the middle of the Depression."

What were Joe's strongest recollections of those years? "You mean, what do I remember most about Wilkes-Barre?" he replied. "The owners. They sabotaged my baseball career."

Be that as it may, Joe Dwyer gave every indication of being bound for glory in 1936. The Wilkes-Barre owners, financially straitened by the end of the '35 season, were compelled to sell Joe's contract to Nashville of the Southern Association. Free from Harold Meyers and playing ball in a superior league, he improved on ten years of prior success. He came through with 230 hits in 600 at bats, including those never equaled 65 doubles and an impressive 117 runs batted in. His .383 batting average barely missed the title in the Southern Association, as Fred Sington, an outfielder for the Chattanooga Lookouts, finished with .384.

Dwyer's superb year at Nashville finally gave him a shot at the majors. He went to spring training with the Cincinnati Reds, and when the season opened, he was on the team. He appeared only as a pinch hitter, however, collecting three singles in eleven times at bat, one each off Carl Hubbell, Freddie Fitzsimmons, and Joe Bowman.

Disaster struck early in Cincinnati. "In a game against St. Louis," Joe recalled, "I slid into second base, Durocher dove for me, and I fell back, my right arm doubled over. I thought it was just a sprain, but it didn't heal. It was really broken, a five-point fracture, and it pained all the time. But, you know, you get a chance and you try to play. They didn't know what was wrong. But then my arm stiffened up. They wanted me to go back to Nashville. I wouldn’t go, and I was suspended."

A couple of months later the New York Giants signed Dwyer and sent him to Jersey City in the International League. "I shouldn't have signed that year. I shouldn't have played. I was in agony. I had one arm. I know I was terrible, but I hit .263. Some guys don't do that well with two arms. Still, everything went lousy in '37 and '38. I couldn't hit a ball to right field because the arm wouldn't give."

That could have been the end of Joe's baseball career, but he came back fairly strong with the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association in 1939, batting .315 for 79 games. He divided the 1940 season between Toledo (.310) and Little Rock in the Southern Association (.349). His last full season was 1941, when in 151 games for Little Rock he came to bat 589 times, collected 191 hits, including 33 doubles, and finished with a .324 batting average. "A pretty good year," Joe remembered.

But apparently it was not good enough, for he took a salary cut after both Little Rock seasons and, according to a Len Goldin column in the Orange Courier, "when his 1942 contract called for another slash, Joe revolted.

"'At that rate,' he declared, 'I'd have to pay to get into the ballpark in 1943 if I hit .300. So I refused to sign.'

“Joe didn't sign either, and as a result he was suspended by the Little Rock club. His suspension stuck. He didn't play ball at all. And then, in August, he received a call from George Weiss, the Yanks' mastermind of their farms. . . [who] bought his contract from Little Rock, signed him, and sent him to Binghamton."

The Triplets were in the Class A Eastern League, one step down from the Southern Association. This Eastern League was the old New York Pennsylvania League, renamed in 1938. Wilkes-Barre still had a franchise, and in 1942 Joe played against his former Artillery Park team, the pennant-winning Barons. The Barons had a star pitcher that year, right-hander Allie Reynolds, who set the all-time NYP-Eastern League record for shutouts in one season, 11. Nearly as impressive was the 1.96 posted by another future major leaguer, the Hartford Chiefs' young lefty, Warren Spahn. Against Reynolds, Spahn, and the other Eastern League pitchers Dwyer hit .279.

Next year he went up to Double A again, and for the last three years of his career he played on what he regarded as practically his hometown ball team, the Newark Bears of the International League. In wartime 1943, 1944, and 1945 he appeared as a utility infielder in a total of 181 games for the Bears, compiling batting averages of .274, .281, and .267. Not bad, but hardly up to his old standards. The years had drained his abilities, and after the 1945 season Double Joe Dwyer called it quits.

"I had good luck when I severed from baseball," he said abruptly, as if to shut off further memories.

GERALD TOMLINSON, a writer-editor, in his youth haunted Dunn Field in Elmira.

Indice

Copyright

Preface, 2014

Note from the Editor, 1982

RECORDS: Nate Colbert's Unknown RBI Record

SOAPBOX: 19th-Century Baseball Deserves Equal Time

NEGRO LEAGUES: Dandy at Third: Ray Dandridge

JUST HOW FAST was Cool Papa Bell?

THE WRITER'S GAME: The Field Of Play

Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting Marty McHale

Remembrance of Summers Past

The Merkle Blunder: A Kaleidoscopic View

A Tale of Two Sluggers: Roger Maris and Hack Wilson

Baseball's Misbegottens: Expansion Era Managers

The Early Years: A Gallery

The Egyptian and the Greyhounds

All the Record Books Are Wrong

The Great New York Team of 1927—And It Wasn't The Yankees

THE COLLEGE GAME: Books Before Baseball: A Personal History

BALLPARKS: A Quiz

ANSWERS TO QUIZ

Runs and Wins

RESEARCHER’S NOTEBOOK: Baltimore, the Eastern Shore, And More

FIGURES: David and Goliath

Double Joe Dwyer: A Life In the Bushes