James Kennedy, the editor of The Alliance (OH) Daily Leader, in 1906, “contributed another to the growing fund of yarns about Mike ‘King’ Kelly.”
Unlike most Kelly stories of tricks sprung on the field, he was on the wrong end of this one.
Kelly
“It was a Fourth of July, back in the later 80s. Boston was playing in Cleveland, with the $20,000 pair, Clarkson and Kelly, in full bloom.”
Cleveland pounded Old Hoss Radbourn and held an 11-4 lead:
“Along about the seventh inning Kel smashed a double to left, just making second. (Cleveland second baseman) Cub (Stricker) held the ball a minute, after it was thrown in, then deliberately walked it up to the Cleveland pitcher and reached out the ball at arm’s length. The pitcher seemed to take it, walked back to the box, and began the usual series of contortions which preceded his delivery.
“Kelly took a good lead off second, Cub bringing a laugh to the fans by lock-stepping him until they were almost halfway to third. Then the little, diminutive, red-headed second baseman lifted his arm and dealt Kelly a resounding whack between the should with the ball.”
Kennedy said it took Kelly:
Cub Stricker
“(A)bout five minutes to realize that Cub had caught him on a trick which is as ancient as baseball.”
Kennedy said Kelly then, “went clear down to second to shake hands with Cub and admit that the horse was on him.”
Unlike so many stories told nearly three decades after the fact, Kennedy was right on nearly every detail.
The game did take place on the fourth of July, in 1889. The second game of a double header—Clarkson and Boston had shut out the Spiders in the first game.
In the bottom of the seventh, down seven runs, Kelly doubled, driving in Dick Johnston to make the score 11 to 5.
The Boston Globe described what happened next:
“While Mike was loafing off second, Stricker stole up to second and put his man out. The crowd yelled for a minute and Kelly then ran to the bench with his head down.”
After several retirements and returns to the game, Dan Brouthers appeared in his final professional game at age 48, then worked for several years as a scout for the New York Giants.
In 1911, The American Press Association asked him to answer the question, “What does a scout do?”
Brouthers said:
“Within the last few years scouting has become a business. Every club in the major organizations has a man employed whose business is to keep close tabs on a young ball tosser who gives promise of developing into a crack. In fact, the scout plays an important part in a wining ball team. It is on his judgment that the major league club owners buy up the cream before the drafting period comes around.”
And how did scouts like Brouthers spend their time?
“Well, one day he may be watching a minor league player and the next may be looking over some semi professional player on the lots who never has played with a league, but who has so much baseball ability that somebody has seen him and reported him to the scout’s employer or to the scout himself. The following day he may be with some Class B league, and a week from then he my be in some other part of the country getting a line on the material in that section.”
Brouthers
Brouthers told readers his job was, “not an easy one by any means.” He said:
“First of all, he must be a good judge of what there is in a young ball tosser. If the presumably future great star has a bad arm, is slow on his feet or can do nothing but bat, the scout must be able to tell whether he is worth a trial or not. If he sees a youngster who can field like a big leaguer, he must be able to make up his mind whether the youngster will ever be able to do anything with the bat against the pitchers of fame.”
Brouthers told a story of scouting a player “in one of the trolley leagues,” several years earlier:
“A youngster had been recommended to me as a future great. For weeks this fellow had been doing wonders with the willow and in the field. One day I decided to take a peep at him.”
Someone tipped the prospect that Dan Brouthers was in the stands scouting him:
“I could see by his actions that he was nervous. The first time up he fanned. He repeated this in the second attempt. The third time, however, he managed to work the pitcher for a base on balls”
The walk loaded the bases:
“The youngster began prancing around first trying hard to get the pitcher rattled…Then Mr. Bonehead started for second base at full speed, and, thinking that it would close the shave, he slid for the base. After he picked himself up and was informed that his bonehead steal had retired his side he quit the game and made for the clubhouse.”
Brouthers concluded:
“Perhaps if someone had not informed him of the presence of a scout from the major leagues in the grandstand he would not have made such a bonehead play.
“But, nevertheless it proved that he lacked brains.”
The Dubuque Tribune called Ted Sullivan, “The Burton Homes of Baseball.”
Holmes, who coined the phrase “travelogue” presented live stage presentations which combined slides, motion pictures, and monologues about his world travel.
Sullivan was in Iowa in 1915 to present his “illustrated lecture” of the history of baseball and his life as one of the early, nomadic pioneers of the game, to a group in Dubuque.
Ted Sullivan
He told the paper he was “no longer connected with baseball anymore but am still a ‘bug’ and will be until the end of my time.”
He also had personal history in the Iowa town:
“In 1878 Sullivan heeded the call of baseball and organized a club in Dubuque.”
By 1879, with a roster including Old Hoss Radbourn, Charlie Comiskey, Tom Loftus, and Jack and Bill Gleason, the Rabbits won the Northwestern League. The team’s most famous game was August 4 that year, when behind Radbourn the club beat the Chicago White Stockings 1 to 0 in front of 1200 fans.
The Dubuque Herald said the day after 4-hit Radbourn’s masterpiece:
“(The Rabbits) defeat by a score like 12 to 0 was thought to be a foregone conclusion. Pools were even sold in Chicago yesterday on the game 13 to 0 on the white-hosed club.
“But the Dubuques gloriously…gave the visitors a most thorough whitewashing. The victory is due in great part to the deceptive and very effective pitching of Radbourn–spelled without an “e”–and to the splendid backing which the nine gave him in the field.”
The Box Score
Sullivan, 36-years later, told The Tribune how he “landed the pitcher” for Dubuque:
“Sullivan arrived at the Radbourn home (in Bloomington, Illinois) late at night, the family having retired with the exception of Radbourne [sic] Sr. To the pitcher’s father, Sullivan explained his mission and asked if Charlie was home.”
Sullivan was told Radbourn was sleeping.
“Old Hoss” Radbourn
Radbourn was roused from bed:
“’Charlie came down,’ said Mr. Sullivan, ‘and I told him I wanted him for my team.’
“’Of course, you know Sullivan, ‘he said to me, ‘I must get $75 a month,’
“’We’ll fix that up,’ I said, ‘you just sign this contract.’”
Sullivan said after victories over Providence and Rockford early in the season, “the other fellows realized that I had discovered a real treasure…I never tire of talking about Radbourne [sic] he was a great ballplayer and could not only pitch but play the infield and outfield as well.”
In 1944, Grantland Rice of The New York Herald Tribune lamented the inability of Lou Novikoff to live up expectations well into four seasons in the National League:
“It would have ben a big lift to big league baseball if…’The Mad Russian’ of the Cubs could only have approached his minor league average under the Big Tent.”
Novikoff
The reason was baseball’s need for “color;”
“There has always been a need in baseball for another Rube Waddell, another Bugs Raymond or another Dizzy Dean. They had more than their share of color. But they had something more than color—they were also great ballplayers.”
Novikoff, Rice said had “a gob of color,” but hadn’t come close to putting up the numbers he did the Pacific Coast League and American Association:
“Novikoff on the West Coast looked to be as good a hitter as Ted Williams…But he was no Ted Williams in the major show.”
Both Williams and Novikoff had huge seasons in the American Association after leaving the West Coast—Williams hit .366 in Minneapolis in 1938 and Novikoff hit .370 in Milwaukee in 1941—but as Rice concluded: No one had yet “wipe(d) away the dust from his big-league batting eye.”
The loss of Novikoff to pick up where Dizzy Dean left off “in the headline class, “ was a loss for baseball, Rice said:
“Baseball can use more color than it has known since Dizzy Dean retired to tell St. Luis radio listeners that someone ‘sold into third base.’
“It could use another Rube Waddell, who split his spring and summer days three ways—pitching, tending bar, and going fishing. But it should be remembered Dizzy Dean and Rube Waddell were among the great pitchers of all time.”
There was none he said, as colorful as Babe Ruth. Ping Bodie “was never a great ballplayer, but he was good enough. He was another remembered character. There was the time he bought a parrot and taught the bird to keep repeating— ‘Ping made good.’”
Rive said Bugs Raymond had color and talent—but for too short a time before the color overtook the talent.
Bugs Raymond
“There was the time when Bugs was pitching for Shreveport. He made a bet that he could eat a whole turkey, drink two quarts of Scotch and win a double header. He won his bet tradition says.”
By “tradition” Rice meant Rice. He was the source of the turkey and scotch story as a young reporter covering the Southern League.
Rice’s dream team of colorful players would include:
“Babe Ruth, Rube Waddell, Dizzy Dean, Bugs Raymond, Larry McLean, Tacks Parrott, Arlie Latham, German Schaefer, Al Schacht, Crazy Schmidt [sic Schmit] Rabbit Maranville and one or two more. I wouldn’t however, want to be manager.”
Grantland Rice
While Rice valued color, he said “two of the greatest ballclubs” he ever covered we not at all colorful:
“One was Connie Mack’s Athletics lineup from 1910 through 1914, winners of four pennants in five years. The other was the Yankees after Babe Ruth left, a crushing outfit season after season.
“These two squads were composed of fine ballplayers who were rarely prankish or the lighter side of life—Eddie Collins, Eddie Plank, Stuffy McInnis, Jack Barry, Homerun Baker, Jack Coombs, Chief Bender, to whom baseball was strictly a business matter. The same went for Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Lou Gehrig, Charlie Keller, Spud Chandler, Joe DiMaggio and others might have made up a session of bank presidents.”
Novikoff never lived up to his minor league hype. He hit a respectable .282 in five major league seasons but only played 17 games in the big-leagues after the end of World War II.
Louis Gemmett engaged in a bizarre more than 20-year crusade. It culminated the day the 71-year-old cigar maker from Davenport, Iowa appeared in court in Chicago in front of Cook County probate Judge Henry Horner—who would later serve two terms as governor of Illinois.
The Chicago Daily News said:
“(Gemmett) who has been a fan for 60 years, presented several arguments which he thought were prima facie evidence that ball players are not quite right… (and should be) adjudged insane.”
Horner, apparently to avoid a spectacle, adjourned court and heard Gemmett’s arguments in chambers.
Henry Horner
The Daily News obtained a transcript:
“One of the signs of insanity,’ said Gemmett, ‘is in the method of scoring. A batter makes a one base hit, after which he proceeds at high speed to first base, ignoring the fact apparently that his effort is useless to his team unless his mates are successful in their efforts to make additional hits in order that he continue on around the bases and register a score. That’s crazy isn’t it.
It got weirder
“There should be two pitchers, one right and one left-handed, in the box at the same time, and the batter wouldn’t know which one was going to pitch. The purpose of the pitcher is to deceive the batsman, and baseball players are crazy to think one pitcher alone could fool batters.”
Perhaps to sway the judge, Gemmett suggested rather than an umpire making a “final ruling,” there should instead be a “judicial committee to act upon” any decisions under dispute.
He also kind of saw the future:
“And it’s crazy to call a game on account of rain. There ought to be a canopy over the field, suspended by balloons, so that play could go right on, no matter what the weather.”
said in 1909It was notable that Gemmett’s day in court received national coverage, The Associated Press said it was the 18th time Gemmett had appeared in front a judge in various jurisdictions throughout the country, but until then his notoriety was limited to a handful of papers in Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa. The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald said in 1909:
“(He) annually squanders a small-sized fortune away in trying to advance a weird baseball system he calls the ‘Reality.'”
Gemmett’s system called for many of the same changes he argued for in court 21-years later.
Perhaps exercising the political skills that sent him to the governor’s mansion within three years, Horner declined to issue a ruling until Mr. Gemmett could get an audience with Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, to first make his case to the baseball commissioner.
There is no record of Gemmett meeting with Landis or appearing in court again.
John McGraw, when reminiscing about his “thirty years in baseball” for a series of articles syndicated by The North American Newspaper Alliance in 1923, called Arthur “Bugs” Raymond, “one of the greatest natural pitchers who ever lived.”
Bugs
He recalled the first time Chief Myers caught Raymond:
“’Say Mc,’ (he said), ‘that fellow can do more tricks with a baseball than any man in the world.’”
McGraw said, “Raymond’s long suit” was the spit ball and, “He could make that ball do the querist of stunts and never did he hesitate to pull one of these tricks when the team was in a hole.”
McGraw blamed Raymond’s “fondness for companionship” for continually leading him astray, no matter how many times he pledged to stop drinking. Even when McGraw tried to keep people from loaning Raymond money, the pitcher would always find a way to get some and continue drinking.
On one occasion, with his starter struggling on the mound, McGraw sent the bat boy to the bullpen to get Raymond. Not being able to locate him, the team’s trainer then looked and eventually found Raymond drinking in a nearby tavern:
“He had taken the new ball that I had given him for warming up and had sold it to the saloon keeper.”
“Bugs was very proud of his term in the Keeley Institute. He even wore a class button and very proudly exhibited an album with photographs and other souvenirs of his schoolmates.”
As the papers in New York were filled with stories of Raymond’s “wonderful reform “while the club trained in Texas, McGraw was seeing “ominous signs.”
The team stayed in the Oriental Hotel on a trip to Dallas where “they always served cocktails,” with Sunday night dinner service.:
“Knowing the head steward, Bugs decided to visit him. He left the dining room and started to the kitchen. As he stepped through the swinging doors his eye lighted on the long rows of cocktails—hundreds of them all lined in rows. Promptly, Raymond started right down the first row, drinking one after another until he had consumed more than a dozen.”
McGraw had a detective follow Raymond for the next 24 hours—while papers continued to report on his “reform.” The Giants manager questioned the pitcher who denied drinking. McGraw said he faced a “dilemma:”
“I didn’t know whether to denounce him to the newspaper men who had tried so hard to help him, or to make one more attempt to bring about reform.”
McGraw
McGraw said he never knew a newspaper reporter who would “violate a confidence” and enlisted them to serve as a mock jury in a “trial: of the pitcher:
The jury was a who’s who of legendary New York baseball writers: Sam Crane, Sid Mercer, Boseman Bulger, Damon Runyon, and Charles Van Loan, “and one or two of the younger writers,” whose names the manager could no longer recall:
“Gentlemen, I have called upon you to sit as a jury on this man. He has promised all of you not drink and you have given him every help. You have praised him in the papers. He has violated that faith. He’s a big bum that’s laid down on his friends.”
McGraw presented the evidence and asked the reporters to decide whether to share it with their readers or to give Raymond another chance:
McGraw read the detective report to the assembled jury, in a back room the Turf Exchange bar in Dallas, Raymond “drank seven glasses of beer, ate a handful of pretzels, and two Bermuda onion,” on to the nearby Knight Saloon, Raymond had “drank nine glasses of beer, ate more pretzels, and two or three more onions.”
Raymond called the report “a dammed lie.”
His defense:
“Mac, of course I might’ve had a couple dozen glasses of beer, but I’m telling you it’s a lie—I ain’t eat an onion in seven months.”
In sympathy, the jury unanimously decided to give Raymond one more chance and not report his tumble from the wagon. Raymond, of course, vowed to stop drinking.
McGraw’s ploy bought him a stretch of several weeks when Raymond “partially straightened up,” unfortunately, like every other last chance Raymond was given, he eventually relapsed.
Raymond died less than 18 months after McGraw’s mock trial.
Charlie Sweeney was a talented, troubled pitcher. Hall of Famer Tim Keefe called him, “The greatest twirler who ever lived,” and player turned sportswriter, The Boston Globe’s Tim Murnane agreed, and said Sweeney was the only pitcher he ever saw who could “curve and out-ball to a left-handed barrer,.”
Sweeney, after his best days were past, but still just 31, spent nearly three years in prison for killing a man in a San Francisco bar in 1894. It wasn’t the first time the pitcher pulled a gun in a bar.
In 1886, just days after being released by the St. Louis Maroons, the 23-year-old Sweeney appeared to have plenty of prospects. The St. Louis Republic said:
“In the Northwestern League he has been offered the managership of three clubs.”
The paper said he also had offers from at least two major league teams:
“The Cincinnati Club would take him, while Louisville will be glad to get him.”
Sweeney
Sweeney’s release came after what The Sporting News called “a gentle controversy” that turned into a serious altercation between the pitcher and his once close friend, catcher Tom Dolan who was also released:
“On the morning after the Maroons’ late arrival from the East, Mr. Sweeney, on going to his dressing case, found marked on it these words:
“Charles Dead Arm Sweeney.
“Only this and nothing more.
“On the very day following Mr. Sweeney’s find, Mr. Dolan, when about to enter his dressing case, found marked on it these words:
“Thomas Hamfat Dolan.
“Only this and nothing more.
“On the very next day Mr. Dolan collided with Mr. Sweeney at Sportsman’s Park. As they glanced at each other their eyes involuntary [sic] spoke
“Mr. Sweeney said ‘Hamfat.’
“Mr. Dolan muttered ‘Dead arm.’”
The two continued to taunt one another. Dolan reminding Sweeney he gave up seven home runs to the Detroit Wolverines on June 12. Sweeny pointing out that Dolan had seven passed balls in a recent game.
The following day, the two were practicing with their teammates at Union Grounds, when their tempers flared again:
“Mr. Dolan was seen to waltz up to (Sweeney) in a threatening manner.”
Sweeney suggested they go to “the cellar under the clubhouse.”
While Sweeney and Dolan began to fight—with an audience of teammates Jack Glasscock and Henry Boyle, as well as groundskeeper Bill Richards.
Someone alerted manager Gus Schmelz, yelling:
“Fight! Dolan! Sweeney! Cellar!”
Schmelz arriving in the cellar, immediately, “released the prospective combatants from the St. Louis club and fined them $50 each.”
The two almost came to blows the following day, and:
“(Dolan) has given out from the start that blood will be spilled, so that something desperate may be looked for by the habitues of Union Park.”
The Sporting News noted that “the saddest part” of the fight was that “the writing on their dressing cases was the act of a practical joker,” and neither Sweeney nor Dolan was responsible.
Later in the week, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said, Sweeney found himself in a local tavern
“The hands on the big clock on the wall pointed to the hour of 2 and the bartender thought it was time his congregation dispersed and meandered homeward.”
As the bartender attempted to move the patrons towards the door:
“Charley Sweeney was among the number, and he rather objected to leaving the place at that early hour.”
Some other patrons helped lead him out the door:
“Sweeney was furious.
“He drew the revolver which he has carried about him lately and made an attack on the front door.
“In a moment, pistol shots seemed to be coming from every direction.
The bullets, however, all cam from Charley’s favorite weapon.”
The paper said those left inside the bar “were paralyzed with fear” as Sweeney fired shits through the door.
“Some of them climbed over the counter and his under the pop bottles and kegs of beer.
“Others jumped behind posts and held their positions with a tenacity that was simply wonderful to behold.
“Others made their escape through the windows in the rear, for the doors were all locked, ahile a few scrambled under the table and did their best to get out of harm’s way.
“Sweeney emptied his revolver and then reloaded and emptied it again.”
After firing fourteen shots, police arrived “and called upon Sweeney to cease firing.”
Sweeney, then:
“(I)n the coolest manner possible, put his revolver in his pocket, laughed, and walked away.”
Sweeney had begun carrying the gun after he was “attacked by hoodlums” earlier in the year and was granted a permit by St. Louis Mayor David Francis:
“Ever since that he has gone around carrying a small arsenal in his rear pocket, and on several occasions has seen fit to flourish his weapon and threaten to let daylight out of those who happened to be in his way.”
Not another word appears to have been printed about the incident. Two days later, The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that Sweeney had signed for $1400 with the Syracuse Stars in the International League. He appeared in just two games for the Stars, losing both and posting a 4.85 ERA.
Less than a year before the Black Sox scandal, Ed Bang of The Cleveland News wrote about the need for a central authority to govern the game. He suggested his top candidate:
“William H. Taft.
“That’s the name to conjure with in any walk of life to say nothing of baseball and it may come to pass that one of these days the former president of the United States will be the sole member of the national baseball commission, the court of last resort in the national pastime.”
Taft shakes hands with Mordecai Brown, 1909
Bang called baseball “a rather sick individual” since the Federal League wars of 1914 and ’15., then “confined to bed” when the war department declared baseball a non-essential occupation. The situation became more dire earlier in the year when minor league magnates “threw down the gauntlet,” threatening to no longer honor the draft and options agreements.
“It became evident,” wrote Bang, “that baseball needed a doctor.”
Taft, he said was agreeable to most of the major league owners who, like the public had a “lack of confidence,” in August Herrmann, chairman of the National Commission as well as American League President Ban Johnson, and John Tener, who had resigned as National League president in August.
Bang said:
“A man of the caliber of William Howard Taft, one who is in no way connected with the national pastime either as league president or club owner and one who would give all parties a square deal, would add considerable prestige to the sport. Prestige is what is needed right now and if Mr. Taft or any other figure of equal ability can bring that about, the baseball magnates could well afford to pay him $50,000 a year and figure the money as well spent.”
Taft was, of course never hired, and baseball lacked a single, central power as commissioner through the 1919 season and scandal, until Kennesaw Mountain Landis became the first commissioner in 1920.
After winning 139 games during a 12-year major league career, Fred Toney’s professional career came to an abrupt and unceremonious end after appearing in nine games (4-3 4.09 ERA) for the Nashville Volunteers in 1925.
Munce Pique, a long-time figure in Southern baseball—he had a long career as an umpire as a brief one as a player—told the story to Blinkey Horn of The Nashville Tennessean in 1935:
“They were in Mobile, and a runner was on third when a Mobile batter his a long foul. The Nashville left fielder—I can’t remember his name—caught the foul and the runner scored.
“Fred Toney walked out of the box, went over to the dressing room, knocked the lock off the door with a bat and put on his clothing and went home.
“So it wasn’t the case in Munce Pique’s opinion, of a sore arm, but rather that Fred Toney was sore at his left fielder for making a dumb catch.
“You could hardly blame him.”
The story had become relevant in Nashville 10 years later because that summer Toney returned, The Associated Press said:
“The other day the hurler, now 45 [sic, 46] and weighing 270 pounds, walked to the mound in Nashville’s ballpark and began throwing a ‘mighty small ball’ down the slot in batting practice.
“Not even the ever-enthusiastic local fans knew that the middle-aged giant out there was Fred Toney, in new shoes and a drab grey uniform.”
Toney, who had a farm and operated a tavern and gas station on Hydes Ferry Pike in Nashville, and had recently attended his first baseball game in a decade; he, “Never liked baseball so much when he was in it,” but now wanted back in the game as a coach.
Toney pitched in a couple semi-pro games in Tennessee in the summer of 1935, and in the spring of 1936 continued his quest to coach, but even he admitted it was his second choice, telling The Nashville Banner:
“I’ve been trying to get on the Nashville police force, but that has just about fallen through. If I can’t make that I want to start dickering for a coaching job.”
The prospects were dim for 47-year-old, 270-pound rookie cops and for coaches 10-years removed from the game
In September of 1936 Toney’s name was back in the news when the farm, filling station, and a “trophy room (containing) valuable relics from his baseball days; pictures, autographed baseballs, and gloves went up in smoke.”
Toney lost his home, one of his businesses, and every piece of memorabilia he had saved from his career.
The next summer, while working at a local nightclub he continued to seek a coaching job but seemed to have been annoyed by the prospect of interacting with modern players. The told The Associated Press:
“Pitchers today don’t do as they should, because they can’t. They are soft. They can’t take it.”
The pitchers of his day were, “farmers, coal miners, cotton pickers. They were physically equal to the strain.”
Toney concluded that, “young men who live normal lives, going through school and having things pretty easy can’t possibly develop into great pitchers.”
By early 1941, bed ridden with the flu and with no job prospects, Toney made another pitch for a baseball job through The Tennessean, telling a reporter:
“I’ll be up soon and all I ask is a chance.”
The best prospect for a job came from the Kitty League, Shelby Peace, the league president sent a wire to the paper:
“I would be glad for you to notify Fred Toney that if he is willing to accept a job as an umpire in the Kitty League, I will be very glad to send him a contract.”
Toney, in 1949, shows a group of minor leaguers his grip on a ball purported to be the one he used to record the final out in the 17-inning no-hitter in 1917; except more than a decade earlier, Toney was said to have lost every important piece of memorabilia in in afire.
That job never materialized, not did a coaching position. Toney spent his final years working as a security guard and later as a bailiff in the Davidson County Criminal Court House.
Toney died in March of 1953; shortly before his death, and appropriate for his personality, he did not call either his 17-inning minor league, or 10-inning major league no-hitters his greatest moment. His greatest moment was born out of revenge. He told The Banner:
“When I first came up to the Chicago Cub from Winchester in 1911, my manager was Frank Chance. I have no doubt I’d have spent my entire career with the Cubs if Chance hadn’t left and gone to the American League.
“Johnny Evers, who was known as ‘the Crab.’ And I never got along. I never could go for a brow beating manager. Evers sent me back to Louisville and I had to battle my way back to the big leagues with Cincinnati in 1915.
“Evers was then managing Boston. In my first start against him, boy, I beat him good. That one win did more for me than any other.”
Unfortunately, Toney’s greatest moment wasn’t quite accurate either . He lost three decisions to the Braves in 1915 before beating them with a one-hitter on September 1.
Amos Rusie’s return to the Seattle area to purchase a farm in 1929 made his briefly as interesting to West Coast baseball writers and his arrival at the Polo Grounds eight years earlier had briefly made his reminiscences of great interest to the New York scribes.
There is some disagreement about whether Rusie enjoyed his time in New York. What’s certain is his eight years caused him to retract his opinion from 1921 that the game had not substantially changed.
Rusie
When he arrived in Washington, The Associated Press asked the former pitcher/ballpark superintendent turned farmer for his views on the game and to select his all-time team.
Rusie said he couldn’t understand how modern pitchers “don’t pitch to sluggers,” enough:
“None of the pitchers in my day were afraid to pitch to the best of them. You didn’t find us walking the slugger almost every time he came to bat, as they do nowadays. We figured we would either make him hit the ball or sit down. That’s what he was up there for.”
Rusie said “brain counts more than slugging,” and selected an all-time team that included just one (barely) active player:
Pitchers: Christy Mathewson, Kid Nichols, Cy Young
Catchers: Buck Ewing, Roger Bresnahan, John Kling
First base: Dan Brouthers, Fred Tenney
Second base: Napoleon Lajoie, Eddie Collins
Third base: Jimmy Collins, John McGraw
Shortstop: Honus Wagner, Hughie Jennings
Left field: Ed Delahanty, Joe Kelley
Center field: Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker
Right Field: Willie Keeler, Fred Clarke
Eddie Collins appeared in just nine games in 1929 and three in 1930 while coaching for the Athletics. Babe Ruth, who made such an impression on Rusie when eight years earlier he watched major league baseball for the first time in two decades, didn’t make the cut.
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