Bill Phyle was a no-show. He failed to appear before Southern Association President William Kavanaugh at the league’s hearing regarding his charges that the end of the 1903 season was fixed. After the league suspended him he failed to appear in St. Louis to defend his charges in front of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL). He claimed he was too ill to attend either meeting.
As a result he was expelled from organized baseball in October of 1903. His appeal was denied in December.
Phyle had very few supporters by the time his fate was settled by the NAPBL, but he still had at least one—kind of: Milwaukee Brewers Manager “Pongo” Joe Cantillon, the man who sold Phyle’s contract to the Memphis Egyptians.
Joe Cantillon
Cantillon told William A. Phelon of The Chicago Daily News that his former player wasn’t too bright, but that he also wasn’t wrong:
“I consider him a weak, foolish talker, who opened his head when it did not do him any good. Just the same, Billy Phyle had cause for the charges which he made, and I got it good and straight that there was work done in the Southern league last season which was on the scandalous pattern.”
Cantillon stopped short of saying the season was fixed—but not very far short:
“Understand I do not say, neither does Phyle charge, that any games were sold, or that either manager or club owners were in on any such deals. Even though there are thousands who say—apparently with mighty good reason—that the league is crooked, always has been crooked since it started, and always will be crooked—I do not accuse anyone of selling out.”
Cantillon then came pretty close to accusing Atlanta of selling out:
“This is the way the thing was done—and if anybody wants to howl I’ll show the goods and produce the names. When Memphis was playing Atlanta it was a case of anything to beat out Little Rock. The Atlanta players, knowing that their only chances had gone glimmering, were anxious to help their friend’s to beat Mike Finn’s gang (Little Rock). There was no sell out and there were no intentional errors—nothing so gross and coarse as that. But a couple of the best regulars on the Atlanta team were laid off; a couple of substitutes were put in their places; a raw, unseasoned amateur was sent in to pitch, and then, to make assurances doubly sure, the Atlanta catcher told each Memphis batsman just what to expect as he came to the plate.”
Cantillon also said the Birmingham Barons were “trying to help (Little Rock) along,” and:
“Every player in the league was dead wise to the whole situation, but Billy Phyle was the only man who was foolish enough to open his face, and he got soaked proper.”
Cantillon claimed to “positively know” that Phyle had been sick, and that was the only reason he failed to appear to substantiate his claims in front the league and the NAPBL. Regardless, he said Phyle would have had a difficult time:
“Even if he had been able to attend, what show would he have had, with every manager determined to clear his own skirts and swat Bill for the squeal he made?”
Cantillon challenged anyone in the Southern Association to refute his allegations.
In February of 1904 Cantillon cancelled a scheduled spring tour of the South and Phelon said in The Daily News that Southern Association teams had refused to play against Brewers.
The following month Clark Griffith, who was in the South with the New York Highlanders, told The Atlanta Constitution that Cantillon was “ a nice fellow,” who “had been misquoted and had not authorized the interview, and in fact knew nothing of it until it appeared in the press.”
Cantillon himself never directly denied his statement, but The Constitution, content to keep the focus of Southern wrath on Phyle was happy to give the Milwaukee manager a pass:
“(Griffith’s claim) puts a new light on the question and it is very probable that he has been judged too harshly in the south…Phyle as a baseball issue is now dead. Any effort to revive him and bring him forward on the stage either as a hero suffering persecution or a sick man worrying his life out by the blacklist hanging over him, will meet with the opposition of every paper in the south.”
Phyle went to Toledo and spent the spring and summer wiring Southern Association President Kavanaugh asking for reinstatement so his contract could be assigned to the Mud Hens. After his application was rejected in May, and again in July, Phyle joined the independent Youngstown Ohio Works team. The team played exhibition games that summer with the Brooklyn Superbas and Pittsburgh Pirates—both National League clubs were fined $100 for playing against the blacklisted Phyle.
(Some sources list Phyle as a member of the 1904 Johnstown Johnnies in the independent Pennsylvania League, but several Pennsylvania newspapers, including The Williamsport Gazette and The Scranton Republican said in August “Phyle turned down a $225 per month offer from Johnstown.”)
Phyle became part of another scandal in 1905.
Bill Phyle
Youngstown joined the newly formed Ohio-Pennsylvania League, and needed to submit a roster to the NAPBL for approval. Phyle’s name did not appear on the submitted list, but he played third base for the club all season, including an exhibition with the Cincinnati Reds on August 31. Youngstown was fined $500 in mid September and ordered to release Phyle. Cincinnati was fined $100.
Phyle was finally reinstated in February of 1906, after he submitted a letter to the directors of the Southern Association retracting all of his 1903 allegations.
His contract was assigned to the Nashville Volunteers who sold him to the Kansas City Blues in the American Association. After hitting .295 in 72 games, Phyle got one last trip to the National League. He was traded to the St. Louis; he hit just .178 for the Cardinals. He retired after playing three years in the Eastern League with the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1907-1909.
More than twenty years later Joe Cantillon was apparently forgiven in the South. He managed the Little Rock Travelers to back-to-back eighth place finishes in 1926 and 1927.
The rest of Bill Phyle’s story next week.
Baseball History Daily 