Tag Archives: Andrew Freedman

“I lay Awake All-Night Suffering from the Pain”

3 Sep

After taking in three Yankees games upon his arrival in New York—the first major league games he had seen in 20 years—New assistant Polo Grounds superintendent, Amos Rusie talked to Robert Boyd from The New York World, who asked “What impressed you the most,” after twenty years away.

“Babe Ruth.

“We had great hitters in my time, Napoleon Lajoie, (Honus) Wagner, and Ed Delahanty. But they didn’t hit the ball near as hard as this boy.”

Rusie, having seen the current baseball for three games, conceded it was livelier, and said, “I suppose the fans want hitting, and it looks like their getting it.”

Rusie

The Hoosier Thunderbolt also refused to say if pitchers of his era were better, telling Boyd he wanted to see a few more games before weighing in. He did share his general philosophy:

“I don’t approve of being too severe with pitchers. Do not curb their development. In my time we were not allowed to soil the ball. There were no freak deliveries. The spitter and shine were not heard of. We had to depend on speed and fast breaking curves, and we had a great advantage over the batsman. But today the batter has the edge. The livelier ball and the rules imposed on the pitcher are the cause of it.”

Rusie said he was pleased to see the large crowds at the Polo Grounds:

“Baseball has grown into a great national institution.”

He also said he felt the Black Sox scandal, “did not hurt the game much,’” and lauded the selection of Kennesaw Mountain Landis as commissioner, saying his presence would make the game “grow infinitely more powerful.”

Three weeks into his return to New York, the city’s baseball writers had not tired of talking baseball with Rusie.

John B. Foster of The Daily News walked the ground of Manhattan Field—the former Brotherhood Park built for the Players League in 1890 and the Giants home park beginning the following season, Rusie’s second with the Giants—with the former pitcher, who said

 “Remember the old wooden stand after you got in, and the little old lake in left field and center field after every heavy rain and high tide?

“Sometimes there’d be a lake in right field too. Remember that old two-story shed for the visiting club, and how the players used to cuss (Giants owner Andrew) Freedman because he didn’t build a better place.

“The old wooden stand wasn’t an old wooden stand when it was built. We used to think it was some theater. It was four times bigger’n the stands out West. The first time I saw it I didn’t think there’s ever’d be enough people to fill it.”

He stood firm on the question of whether the game had changed substantially:

“Nope, not as I’ve been able to see.”

Rusie talked more about his “gone” arm:

“I was sent from New York to Cincinnati. I pitched a little there (he appeared in three games and pitched 22 innings) but after a game I lay awake all-night suffering from the pain in my shoulder. I made up my mind to quit…if I couldn’t pitch the kind of ball that I had been accustomed to pitch when I was good, I wasn’t going to pitch. No bush league for me.”

At that point, New York pitcher Fred Toney—having eavesdropped on the conversation—said:

“’We are going to have him in a game before the season is over.’

“Rusie grinned and shook his head negatively

“’My old wing might break off if I took such a chance,’ replied Amos laughing.”

Despite his response, Rusie did wish he could face one more batter:

Fred Toney

“Sometimes, I’ve thought that I’d like to pitch just once against Ruth if I was up to my speed. Just for an experiment. I ‘don’t say that I could fool him anymore’n pitchers fool him now, but I’m like the kid and the buzz saw. I want to monkey with it just once.”

Rusie worked at the Polo Grounds until June of 1929—he picked a poor time to return to Washington and buy a farm—just months before the stock market crashed. His views about the modern game had also changed during his eight years back at the ballpark. 

More Rusie Monday

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“Amos Rusie’s Running Astray and Amuck”

12 May

In April of 1896, Oliver Perry “OP” Caylor of The New York Herald said of Amos Rusie, who was weeks into what would be a season-long holdout and legal battle:

“Rusie is just now a bigger man than old Harrison in Indianapolis.”

Amos Rusie

Benjamin Harrison, the former president, was rumored to be seeking the Republican nomination later that year, and Caylor said even if he became a candidate again, it would not elevate him to “that prominence in the public mind which the recalcitrant pitcher attained in his ‘hold off.’”

As for the current resident of the White House:

“Recently I had the pleasure of meeting the president of the United States at his desk in Washington. Probably to avoid the undesirable topic of politics, Mr. Cleveland brought up the subject of baseball.”

President Grover Cleveland told him:

“I was very fond of the game when I lived in Buffalo and had time to see it played. We had a good team up there then. There were (Pud) Galvin, who rated well as a pitcher, and (Jack) Rowe, and that big man who played first base—what was his name?’

“I said it was (Dan) Brouthers, and that he is still playing.”

The president was curious about finances:

“’These ball players get pretty good salaries, do they not?’ Inquired the president.

“When I told him that some received $3000 for six months’ service and yet were not satisfied, that catching smile, which is so infectious, lighted up his face as he aptly replied.

“’Well, Washington is pretty full of people who are glad to get employment at $1200 a year.”

President Grover Cleveland

Caylor, always an ally of ownership, concluded:

“And yet Amos Rusie refuses $400 a month on a technicality. No wonder baseball players as a class have the reputation of being the most unreasonable people on earth.”

Caylor, in another column, blamed the whole situation on former Giants outfielder Eddie Burke who he claimed, “was responsible for Amos Rusie’s running astray and amuck on the primrose path.”

The Indianapolis Journal told the story of what led to the dispute:

 “It started, to recount it briefly, in Jacksonville last year when the Giants were training there. Rusie drank too much. He never denied it. They said that he got drunk and insulted the mayor of the town. That was very naughty. In Baltimore again he and Eddie Burke…got ‘loaded,’ and were fined $100 each.”

Burke’s fine was rescinded, the paper said, and Rusie’s was—for a time:

“The last game of the season was with Baltimore, and Freedman sent down word by manager Harvey Watkins if Rusie didn’t win that game he would fine him another $100. It was talked about and got to Rusie, and the game was lost.”

Rusie was pounded for eight runs and walked seven in an 8 to 3 loss to the Orioles.

“Two hundred was held out of his pay and he went back to Indianapolis at the seasons close.”

While the pitcher sat at home in Indiana, Caylor said, “The national character of baseball was aptly illustrated,” at the 1896 season opener between the Rusie-less Giants and the Senators in Washington.

Three members of President Cleveland’s cabinet were in attendance, “and a reporter counted 40 members of the two houses of Congress among the rooters.”

Caylor chided Rusie for the holdout throughout the season; In October he wrote:

“He has been been met more than half way by President Freedman, and I am glad to announce that the Big Boy will be with us in 1896. If Amos is a friend to himself he will begin right now and turn up in the spring fully fortified to carry out his promise.”

A full year later, in April of 1897, Rusie signed again with the Giants for $3000 (the league reported the salary as $2400) and settled his legal claims for $5000. The Journal said:

“(T)he big fellow gets every cent he started out for, as well as all his attorneys’ fees. It is really not a compromise, but a capitulation on the part of Freedman, insisted upon by the league, and a tacit admission by that organization that the reserve rule, while all powerful in baseball and quite necessary to the life of the game, is not fitted to stand the strain of a court trial.”

Rusie left Indiana to join the team on April 20, two days before their season opener. The Indianapolis News said the “Hoosier Thunderbolt,” was:

“In better shape than he has been in years.”

Rusie was 28-10 with a 2.54 ERA for the third place Giants.

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“When Their Wishes Clash Something Will Break”

14 Apr

After hitting just .285 in 1897, and not managing the Colts to a finish better than fourth place in eight seasons, Cap Anson’s career in Chicago was coming to an end at age 45. His contract had expired and Albert Spalding had made no effort to sign him.

Cap” Anson

But Ned Hanlon of the Orioles said he was not convinced Anson’s career was over and offered him a contract. The Baltimore Sun said:

“Adrian C. Anson will play first base for Baltimore the coming season if he will consent to do so, Manager Hanlon will offer him every inducement that he can afford to have the ‘Grand Old Man’ come to Baltimore.”

Hanlon told the paper:

“I believe he would be a good man for Baltimore, and I shall write him at once for his terms…Anson is good for some years yet on the diamond. I consider his ability much underrated. With the things he had to contend with in Chicago it is a wonder to me he played as well as he did. With the Orioles he would bat .350 and be like a colt again.”

Ned Hanlon

Spalding, who was in the process of organizing a “testimonial” for Anson, intended to raise $50,000 for his retirement, told The Chicago Tribune Anson signing with Hanlon would be a mistake:

“(I)t will be a case of a big flash in the pan. Two or three months of praise and then, ‘Get out, you big dud.’ It is always the way, for a man of 47 [sic] cannot expect to play good ball for ever. Besides an error from Anson would not be excused. He would have to play perfect ball or be a failure.”

Orioles captain Wilbert Robinson agreed, saying that while Anson might help the Orioles  with his bat:

“I think he is too slow and too poor a fielder and thrower and baserunner to fit such a team as the Baltimores.”

In The Sun, Orioles third baseman John McGraw disagreed with Spalding and Robinson:

“I should be greatly pleased to see Anson come to our team, and if he should I believe it would be a case of Dan Brouthers and ’94 over again. When Brouthers came to Baltimore everybody said he was too old to play ball and no good, and you know how he played that year.”

Brouthers hit .347 and drove in 128 runs for the pennant winning Orioles in 1894 but was just 36 years old.

McGraw was skeptical about Dan McGann, who Hanlon had traded for to play first for the Orioles, and noted that Hanlon’s experiment the previous season had failed:

“McGann may be all right, and again he may not. In the minor leagues there are few who can hit the ball harder and oftener than George Carey, but in a club like ours he was nervous. Every time he went to bat his hand shook from nervousness. McGann may not be that way at all; I do not mean to say he would be, but he might.”

Carey hit .261 in his one season with Baltimore in 1895.

The Baltimore American reported that Hanlon said his proposal was “a joke,” but Hanlon immediately denied that and told The Sun:

“I had no interview in which I denied my intention of trying to get Anson, or did I in any way make light of that intention.”

The Chicago Journal was concerned that local “enthusiasts never would get over it,” if Anson made good in Baltimore.

The Chicago Post said:

“(T)hose who think they know how (Anson) feels say he will not entertain any such proposition.”

The Chicago Daily News said:

“Many of the veteran’s friends believe he will be glad of the chance to go with another club, especially such a team as Baltimore’s.”

The Tribune talked to Anson’s father in Iowa. Henry Anson said he wanted his son to retire so he could:

“(C)ome back to Marshalltown, the land of his birth, and assist me in the upbuilding of the city.”

While Anson remained silent about whether he would continue playing and refused to comment on whether he would go to Baltimore, he had a letter read at Spalding’s meeting at the Chicago Athletic Club to plan the “testimonial;” the letter was printed in The Daily News::

“I refuse to accept anything in the shape of a gift. The public owes me nothing. I am not old and am no pauper. I can earn my own living. Besides that, I am by no means out of baseball.”

After nearly two weeks, Anson sent a letter to Hanlon, The Sun said:

“Anson neither accepts nor declines the offer but says he has not yet decided upon his future plans., and until he does, he does not care to talk business with anyone.”

Anson told Hanlon:

“In the event I should care to do business with any club outside of Chicago, I should be pleased to negotiate with you. However, I do not care to do business with anyone just at this time.”

Anson stayed out of baseball until June when he signed to manage the New York Giants.  The Tribune said:

“Anson has been one of the few admirers of (Giants owner Andrew) Freedman. He admired him because of his stubbornness. Freedman has been an admirer of Anson. When their wishes clash something will break.”

Anson managed the Giants for just 22 games; guiding New York to a 9-13 record before he quit.  He told The Tribune:

“My experience as manager? I simply and shortly discovered that (Freedman) did not want me to manage the team. I wanted to manage it, as that was what I understood they wanted me to do. They didn’t really want me to, and so I resigned.”

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