When George Chalmers returned from Cuba with the Philadelphia Phillies in November of 1911 he wasn’t the same pitcher.
After pitching the first game of the series against Almendares and the great Cuban pitcher Jose Mendez, Chalmers saw little action in the final eight games.
While training in Hot Springs, Arkansas in the spring of 1912 it became clear that Chalmers’ shoulder was in bad shape. The Philadelphia Inquirer said he was sent from Hot Springs to Youngstown, Ohio to “visit ‘Bonesetter’ Reese.” (John D. Reese was a Welsh-born “practitioner of alternative medicine.” The “self trained” Reese was, according to The Pittsburgh Press, visited by many of baseball’s biggest stars, including Frank Chance, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and John McGraw. At the same time he was condemned by Ohio physicians who said there was no evidence of Reese “curing a single case where there was actual fracture or displacement of bone.”)
The famous “Bonesetter” was unable to do anything for Chalmers. The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader said in April:
“It is reported on good authority that Chalmers, one of the Phillies star pitchers, will be unable to deliver the goods this season owing to the condition of his pitching arm.”
As a result of the injury Chalmers only appeared in 12 games in 1912, with a 3-4 record, and didn’t pitch at all from July 5 until September 4. At the end of the season Phillies owner Horace Fogel, who would soon find himself chased out of the game, used Chalmers’ injury to suggest a change in how pitchers were paid. According to The Philadelphia Bulletin:Ho
“Horace wants to employ pitchers on the percentage basis, paying them so much per game—no game, no pay.
“The Phillies President conceived the idea after he had figured that it had cost him an average of $800 per game for the few games pitched by George Chalmers during the present season.”
Team photo from George Chalmers’ personal collection
The $800 per game figure was clearly wrong—Chalmers would have not earned anywhere near $9600 for the 1912 season (Christy Mathewson made between $8000 and $9000), Chalmers and “Pete” Alexander both probably made less than $3000. It is doubtful Fogel’s plan would have gone anywhere had he remained president of the Phillies.
The following season was no better; with no improvement to the injured shoulder, Chalmers appeared in 26 games, 15 as a starter, and was 3-10 with 4.81 ERA. It got so bad that after a loss near the end of the season The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader said:
“Our old friend ‘Dut’ Chalmers got another trimming yesterday. It has gotten to be such a regular thing for Chalmers to be beaten that he doesn’t mind it anymore.”
Two of the Phillies best pitchers in 1913, Tom Seaton (27-12), and Addison “Ad” Brennan (14-12) jumped to the Federal League, making Chalmers and his injured shoulder even more critical to the Phillies hopes for 1914.
In March The Philadelphia Inquirer said Chalmers had spent the winter in Hot Springs rehabilitating his shoulder and appeared “to be in splendid shape,” when he reported to spring training in Wilmington, North Carolina, and “(Charles “Red”) Dooin is thanking his lucky stars that Chalmers is in camp.”
The season turned out to be Chalmers’ worst. He pitched in three games, losing all three with an ERA of 5.50, and he Phillies released him on June 22. The Inquirer said his shoulder had never healed and attributed the injury to “rheumatism and a misplaced muscle.”
George “Dut” Chalmers
The Pittsburgh Press said:
“The frailty of baseball life and the quickness with which a career in the big show may be ruined are shown again in the case of George Chalmers…Chalmers may recover and come back some time, but it is doubtful, and his going marks the untimely end of a career that promised to be one of the most brilliant in baseball pitching history.”
According to The Inquirer, he was not yet ready for the end:
“Chalmers…had mighty little money, about $400 in all, and his best friends advised him to stick the little old four hundred into some good business and forget baseball…Good doctors had told George that his arm was gone. Other pitchers, real friends of the Phillies star, had told him the same thing…Then he heard of a specialist in New York who had done a great job on another pitcher’s arm which had seemed to be gone (no articles mentioned the name of the specialist or the other pitcher).”
With his arm seemingly better, Chalmers was invited to spring training with John McGraw’s New York Giants in Marlin, Texas. The New York Mail said “he looked good at Marlin,” but the Giants let him go before the season began. On April 20 he was signed again by the Phillies, and sent out to pitch the next day. The Inquirer said:
“George Chalmers, once a Philly discard and lately spurned by the Giants, with whom he trained during the spring trip to the Southland, was the hero of today’s festive occasion for Philadelphia. Chalmers had been without a big league contract and he was signed by (manager Pat) Moran only yesterday. But he gave him a quick trial by shunting him at the Giants, and he showed his gratitude to the Quaker boss by pitching the best game of his career.”
Chalmers gave up only two hits and beat the Giants 6-1.
As the Phillies fifth starter in 1915 he was 8-9 with a 2.48 ERA, appearing in 26 games. Jack Kofoed, a sportswriter for The Philadelphia Record said in “Baseball Magazine”that Chalmers’ record did not reflect how well he pitched:
“Throughout the season Chalmers twirled splendid ball, but played in tougher luck than any man on the Philly staff. Had fate been as kind to him as to Al Demaree (14-11 3.05 ERA) , for instance, he would have won twice the number of games he did. But the Phillies played more weird ball behind him than in back of any man on the staff.”
The Phillies won the National League pennant, and met the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. With Philadelphia down two games to one, Chalmers was Moran’s choice to pitch game four in Boston.
Facing Ernie Shore, who won 19 games for the Red Sox, Chalmers pitched well, but lost 2-1 (the same score of Philadelphia’s losses Geo 2 and 3); The Inquirer said:
“Another Phil pitcher was sacrificed on the altar of a futile attack…through the futile efforts of his companions to obtain for him even the slender margin that was all he required.”
The Red Sox beat the Phillies four games to one.
In November of 1915 several Pennsylvania papers said Chalmers had used his “World Series coin as a matrimonial nest egg.”
The following season was his last. The shoulder injury returned and the Phillies only used Chalmers in 12 games, he was 1-4 with a 3.19 ERA. He did not appear in a game after August 7, and was released at the end of the season. After an unsuccessful attempt to catch on with the Kansas City Blues in the American Association in 1917 Chalmers career was over before his 29th birthday.
In the waning days of his career, The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader said:
“’Dut,’ as George is called by his playmates is a fine, upstanding, intelligent young fellow, with all the sturdy Scotch virtues as well as a Scotch burr in his speech, and whether or not he lasts in baseball he is very likely to be successful in life.”
Chalmers retired to New York and died in the Bronx in 1960.
Special thanks to Karen Weiss, George Chalmers’ great niece, for generously providing copies of photos from Mr. Chalmers’ scrapbook.
Baseball History Daily 