Tag Archives: Detroit Wolverines

“They Make just as many Fumbles as we did”

1 Mar

The summer before his death in 1932, 73-year-old Dan Brouthers, “Sat in the shade under the Yankee Stadium bleachers where Babe Ruth hits all those home runs.”

Brouthers spoke to Harold Burr of The Brooklyn Eagle:

“(He) admits that baseball has changed quite a bit…’But it hasn’t changed either,’ the old fellow, a giant of a man in shirt sleeves and straw hat contradicted himself. ‘I notice when the boys go out on the field nowadays, they make just as many fumbles as we did, pull just as many bones.”

Dan Brouthers

Brouthers said he didn’t believe players of his generation would have “ever made an error if,” they played on the current fields.

“’Do you know I never saw a groundskeeper until I played in Brooklyn in ’82? He was a curiosity. I used to take a rake myself and clean up around first base just before the game started. Then I’d pass it along to the second baseman, the third baseman.’

“’What about the shortstop?’

“’Oh, you mean Pop Smith?’ questioned Brouthers, the old eyes that were keen enough once upon a time in the past for their owner to lead the big-league batters for five seasons, lit up in admiration: ‘Pop didn’t need any rake.’”   

Brouthers told Burr he could not recall how many homeruns he hit but “remembers ever detail” of the 1887 World Series with the St. Louis Browns:

“Charlie Comiskey was on first base for them. Detroit slugged them to death, winning eight of the first 11 games. But the contract called for 15 games and we played it out. (Beginning with game 4) we went to Pittsburgh for a game—Brooklyn –New York—two games in Philadelphia—one in Washington—Baltimore—Boston—back to Brooklyn –Detroit—Chicago—and wound up in St. Louis. We traveled in a special train and were 28 days on the road.

“The crowds were good through all the barnstorming and the traveling World Series played to 15,000 and 20,000 people a day. Regular season prices prevailed—75 cents—in grandstand and 50 and 25 cents in the bleachers.”

Brouthers didn’t mention that he was injured and had just three at bats during the series, won by Detroit 10 games to five.

“No,” said Brouthers in the end, ‘the game hasn’t changed. But I guess there are more good hitters around.”

He said:

“’I see a lot of the Babe’s homers up there,’ pointing through the skeleton scaffolding of the bleachers looming above him. ‘I like to watch (Chuck) Klein and (Lou) Gehrig ride ‘em. Gehrig is strong as a bear. And Babe Herman. The kids are the same too wanting you to sign their books and baseballs. Only it was cigarette pictures we had to autograph.”

Brouthers then asked, “‘When will this story be in the paper, mister?’” Burr said Sunday:

“’I’ll bring you up some copies of it.’

“’Bring me one,’ said the quaint Dan Brouthers, ‘I’ll read it first and let you know if I want anymore.’”

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“The Brilliant Ignoramus of The Sun.”

1 Feb

The New York Sun took up the issue of “Scientific batting” in 1884. The paper said:

“(O)f course scientific play at the bat is not to be learned in a day, as hard hitting can be. Take a muscular man and place him at the bat for the first time, and the chances are five to one that he will make a home run the first hit he makes. But the skill to face for position in batting and to place a ball is an art that requires practice, and no novice can get into it at a jump as he can in home-run hitting.”

The Chicago Tribune was having none of it and suggested that “Somebody—probably “old Chad,” Henry Chadwick—was writing a “column of foolishness on the subject of scientific batting.”

The Tribune wasn’t done, and said, “It is hard to believe that the person who wrote this ever saw a professional game of ball,” and set out to correct “the brilliant ignoramus of The Sun.”

A first-time batter, no matter how “muscular” facing “the delivery of (Larry) Corcoran or (Old Hoss) Radbourn,” could not “hit clean for four bases once in 200 ties trying.”

The paper cited “a friendly dispute” between Corcoran and Cap Anson.

 “Anson, who is considered to be the most skillful batsman in American as regards ability to control the direction of the ball when hit, and whose average of right-field hitting is probably greater than that of any right-hand batsman, asserted that if he chose, he could place the ball in the direction of the right field any time.”

Cap Anson

Corcoran bet Anson he couldn’t do it half the time and offered to bet. Anson refused the bet but said he would prove his point the next day against Stump Weidman of the Detroit Wolverines.

“Out of five times at bat Anson went out on a fly twice in left-center and once in right field, was once thrown out at first base by the second baseman, and once popped on an easy foul fly. The result of the special effort to ‘place the ball’ was that he made not a single clean hit in five times at bat.”

Over the next fifteen games the White Stockings played in Chicago, the paper said Anson had fourteen hits in 65 at bats for a .215 average; he had six hits to right, three to center, and five to left and of his 51 other at bats, three were fly balls to left field, and 13 were ground balls to the right side. The conclusion was that Anson’s hitting suffered when he made a “systematic effort” to hit to right.

The Tribune said the current “swift curve throwing” that batters faced forced batters to focus on having “the judgement and patience to wait for a good ball, the skill to get it on his bat, and the strength to hit it hard.” This differed from when the “old-fashioned straight-arm pitching was in vogue it was quite possible for a skillful batsman to govern in a measure both the direction and force of the ball.”

The paper concluded that “Hard, clean hitting is what is wanted, and, as a rule, direction is of far less consequence than force.”

Henry Chadwick

The “ignoramus of The Sun” did not respond.

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“My Pitching Stock Consisted Mainly in Speed”

11 Jan

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said in 1918, Silver King—Charles Frederick Koenig—had not attended a baseball game since his career ended 20 years earlier.

“That fact was brought out when his interviewer asked him to make a comparison of modern pitchers and pitching methods with those of his day. He has no particular reason for shunning ballparks, but merely says he has lost interest in the game.”

Silver King

His connection to baseball was limited to “the lots of McCausland Avenue, near his home, ‘Silver’ King may be found every Sunday morning ‘burning them over’ to the neighborhood youngsters.”

King said “there’s no telling” how long his career would have lasted if rosters were larger when he played:

“We seldom carried over 12 regular players on any club. With the pitchers, it was work about every third day or sometimes every other day. If you couldn’t stand that pace you didn’t hold your job, that’s all. And a lot of them couldn’t stand it. Pitchers with big physiques and iron constitutions we the rule then.”

King said:

“My pitching stock consisted mainly in speed. I threw some curves, but I never knew about such things as a spitball, a fade away, shine ball, and all those tricks…There were some great batters in my day. I used to have a lot of trouble Ed Delehanty, not to mention Dave [sic, Dan] Brouthers, Roger O’Connor [sic, Connor]…Later on Larry Lajoie broke in and you can take it from me, he knew how to slug the ball.”

King said he’d “never forget” his first World Series with the St. Louis Browns versus the Detroit Wolverines in 1887:

“It was sort of an exhibition series because we traveled around the circuit instead of playing the games in our home cities. There wasn’t much of a financial plum in those days. For the 15 games we played, the game receipts were about $40,000.”

King was bit fuzzy on his World Series memories. He said he appeared in seven games in 1887—he appeared in four.

King told the reporter:

“I believe I’ll lay off from work one day next season and go out and see this fellow (Grover Cleveland) Alexander pitch. I might learn something about the game, you know.”

King apparently didn’t make it to watch Alexander; twenty years later, his obituary in the Post-Dispatch said:

 “Following his retirement from the game, Koenig did not attend a major league contest.”

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Things I Learned on the way to Looking up Other Things #41

21 Apr

King Kelly, ‘Conceited Ass,’ 1891

When King Kelly Jumped from the Boston Reds to the Boston Beaneaters in 1891, The Baltimore World was not pleased:

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King Kelly

“Kelly, in his jump from the Association to the League, has but proven conclusively that he is just as contemptible as the people had about decided him to be. He may be a great ballplayer, but his record this season doesn’t show it. He is a loud-mouthed, conceited ass. That’s about the build of Kelly, and the Association will not die over the loss of him.”

Annoying Vendors, 1891

After spending five seasons in the major leagues from 1881 to 1885, Dasher Troy was a fixture at the Polo Grounds—he had a liquor concession on and off from 1891 through 1900. During his first season at the ballpark, The New York Sun did not approve:

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Dasher Troy

“The refreshment privilege at the Polo Grounds is held by John Troy, an ex-ballplayer. He maintains a bar under the grandstand and also one in the rear of the men’s stand. The only part of the grounds in which waiters are permitted to peddle beer is on the bleachers. Some weeks ago one of the directors of the club compelled Troy to close the bar in the men’s stand and cease peddling beer in the bleachers.

“By some means he managed to resume and is now working in full blast. In the covered stands, a score of sandwich, peanut, and soft drink men are constantly at work, and annoying spectators by their continuous bawling. It is strongly asserted that the management can not afford to maintain these nuisances to the annoyance of its patrons.”

Clarkson’s Scouting Report, 1887

A reporter for The Detroit Free Press briefly eavesdropped on John Clarkson providing fellow pitcher Mark Baldwin with a scouting report on the Wolverines while the White Stockings were in Detroit for three game series in July of 1887:

clarkson

“Clarkson was overheard giving Baldwin some private lessons: ‘Now,’ said Clarkson, ‘there’s Hardy Richardson. Just send ‘em shoulder high at the outside corner of the plate, or a little beyond, and he’ll go after ‘em every time.’ Baldwin made a careful note of this. ‘Then there’s Dan Brouthers,’ continued the craft instructor: ‘Never give him a low ball.’ ‘Will he hit a low one?’ inquired Baldwin. ‘Will he hit it?’ said Clarkson: he’ll kill it.’

“This way of foreshadowing the fate of a regulation league ball unwisely delivered to the bat seemed to impress Baldwin powerfully, and he then and there resolved never to give big Dan any low ones. At this point the teacher and his pupil carried on the lesson in softer tomes, and the remainder of the interesting kindergarten session was lost to the world.”

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Things I Learned on the way to Looking up Other Things #40

1 Apr

Minor League Salaries, 1897

In 1897, Ren Mulford of The Cincinnati Times-Star compiled a list of the average monthly salaries in some of the minor leagues:

“Eastern League–$100 to $180 for youngsters, $200 to $250 for stars.

“Western League–$75 to $150 for young men, nominal–$200 limit—real limit, about $300.

“Western Association–$65 to $115.

“Southern League–$70 to $100.

“Texas League–$60 to $100

“New England League–$75 to $125.”

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Ren Mulford

Mulford said:

“Most of the minor league contracts are from four and one-half months. While they are in force the players have their boards and traveling expenses paid when away from home. Seven months in the year these players can earn money doing other work. And yet they are down-trodden! There are many business and professional men who would be willing to be as down-trodden as are ball players.”

Small Market Woes, 1887

Horace Fogel was the third manager of the Indianapolis Hoosiers in 1887; the last place club finished the season 37-89; 20-49 under Fogel.

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Horace Fogel

After the season Fogel told The Indianapolis News:

“(I)t is a fact that it is impossible for a weaker League club to compete against such clubs as New York, Chicago, Detroit, or Boston when one of these begins to negotiate with the players. There is no use trying to get him by the offer of more money, for it will do no good. The young players would rather play on the big clubs for $500 less than they would get in the Indianapolis club. They do not recognize they would have a chance for improvement in a weaker club, while in one of the big clubs they must be on an equality with the best or they cannot stay. Young ball players will learn that they will have to begin at the foot of the ladder.”

Indianapolis, under manager Harry Spence finished 50-85 in seventh place in 1888.

Barney’s Favorite Scout, 1910

Barney Dreyfuss told The Pittsburgh Press in 1910 that the “best scout in the country” worked for him despite having “never secured a ballplayer.”

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Barney Dreyfuss

Dreyfuss said, “And as long as he wants to stay on my payroll, he can do it.”

The scout was Pittsburgh’s man on the West Coast, George Van Haltren. Dreyfuss said:

“He is an excellent judge of ballplayers, When we are tipped off to some player who is said to be a wonder, George hikes out and takes a look at him.”

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Van Haltren never signed a prospect for the Pirates but remained Dreyfuss’ favorite scout.

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“So, Great Buck Ewing is Dead”

21 Aug

“So, great Buck Ewing is dead.”

That was Sam Thompson’s reaction when told by The Detroit News that Ewing had died at age 47.

Ewing was less than five months older than Thompson, who had come out of retirement to play in eight games for the Tigers just two months earlier.

“They’re slipping away, aren’t they, those fine old fellows who by their head work and lovable natures made the game what it is today! It was such men as Ewing, (Tim) Keefe, (Roger) Connor and a score of others who inspired me.”

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Ewing

Although roughly the same age, Ewing was in the major leagues for five seasons before Thompson made his debut:

“As a boy I used to read of the great Ewing, and I set him up as my ideal. He and Connor were always my idols.  Later, when I began to play in the big leagues and (later) went to Philadelphia, I roomed with Roger (in 1892), my acquaintance with—while it in no way lessened my regard for him—sort of pulled him from the pedestal. Ewing, however, I never became so closely attached to, and there was always the baseball idol worship about the man for me.”

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Thompson

Thompson said when he did interact with Ewing, it added “to this setting him higher as the ideal” of a baseball player:

“He was such a whole-souled, lovable chap. His wonderful work on the diamond in no way affected his disposition. He was always modest and retiring.”

And he said:

“There never lived a greater catcher or all -around ballplayer.

“Mike Kelly? Well, Kelly was a grand ballplayer all right, but he was the cunning player, the fellow with startling tricks. Ewing, on the other hand, was the thinker, the deep student of the game. His was the inside game. No player ever lived who could play the same kind of game that Kelly put up, but Ewing was of the different type. He was the more consistent thinker.”

Thompson said he believed Ewing was “the first catcher to get the infield signaling down t anything like a system,” and:

“He was the pioneer of present-day headwork behind the bat. He always had us hugging the bases. He devised tricks that are now common in baseball. They were figured out long before the game started. Kelly’s greatness, on the other hand, lay in his marvelous ability to grasp a situation quicker than lightning.”

He said when he played “with the old Detroit team we used to anxiously await who going to catch,” for the Giants:

“If it was (William ‘California’) Brown there was a sigh of relief. Not that we were belittling the work of Brown; it was simply that Ewing was so much better. He dazzled us. He had the infield under his control all the time. He had tricks of pulling us off the sacks that were new and we did not know what to do. That old Detroit bunch could win with Brown catching almost any day in the week, but with Ewing it was different.”

One man was responsible for New York’s success:

“It was Buck Ewing who won all those championships for the old Giants.

“Tim Keefe stood out as a wonderful pitcher. It was Keefe and Ewing. That old battery was the talk of the country.

“And yet Tim Keefe told me time and again, when they were at their best, that without Buck Ewing he would be no better than any other fairly good pitcher.

“’It’s all Buck,’ he would say, ‘he’s the boy who steadies me and gets the work done.”

Thompson’s first major league game—July 2, 1885–was against the Giants, with Keefe on the mound (although he misremembered Ewing being behind the plate that day—it was Pat Deasley):

“I don’t recall whether I did anything in the game (Thompson replaced Gene Moriarty in right field after the latter was in the 5th inning, he was 1 for 2 and scored a run) but I do remember we won. We beat the Giants 4 to 0.

“That victory did more for me among the players than any one thing. They called me their mascot. New York had been beating them right along.”

 

Thompson said when he left the Phillies in 1898, he nearly played for Ewing:

“I had left Philadelphia and had decided to give up the game. Ewing was then managing the Reds and wrote me asking if I would come to Cincinnati. He said he thought he could put through a deal whereby I could sign up all right.

“I was sorely tempted, as I had always wanted to play in Cincinnati. I had always been given a good reception there and had played some of my best games there.

“I didn’t accept, however. I thought that I might not do as well as I had, and I didn’t want to show poorly after all the good work I had done in that city.”

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“Several Thousands of Dollars Were Staked”

19 Jun

After the first game of the 1887 post season series between the American Association champion Browns and the National League champion Detroit Wolverines—won by St. Louis 6 to 1–The St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that the various options to bet on game two and the series “at the local pool rooms” was “exciting, and some of it was quite humorous.

The paper said before game one the “betting was 100 to 65 that Detroit would win the series and now the betting s even.”

The betting odds on game two were “10 to 9 on the Browns,” and said the paper “several thousands of dollars were staked.”

Most interesting, said the paper were the “peculiar bets” offered:

(Ten to win 30) that Bob Caruthers makes most hits in the game today

10—50 that Bill Gleason makes most hits

1-1 that Caruthers, Tip O’Neill, and Arlie Latham make more hits than Sam Thompson, Fred Dunlap, and Hardy Richardson

1—1 that O’Neill makes more hits than Thompson

4—1 that Thompson does not make the most hits

10—5 that Richardson does not make the most hits in game

10—5 that Dunlap does not make the most hits

10—5 that Latham does not

1—1 that Curt Welch, Charles Comiskey, and Latham steal at least one base

The paper also said the odds on that day’s game were “10—9 against Detroit.”

The Wolverines won game two, 5 to 3, and won the series 10 games to 5.

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The game two box score

As for the “peculiar bets” on game two: Detroit’s Charlie Bennett and Sam Thompson each led with three hits.  Latham, O’Neill, and Carruthers had four hits, Thompson, Dunlap, and Richardson had three.

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Sam Thompson

Thompson had three hits to O’Neill’s one, and while Comiskey and Latham each stole a base, Welch did not.

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Kick Kelly’s Night out

20 Feb

After John “Kick” Kelly was fired as manager of the Louisville Colonels in June of 1888, he returned to the National League as an umpire.

When he missed the September 21 game between the New York Giants and Detroit Wolverines, most papers reported he was out sick.  The Detroit Free Press was more specific:

“Mr. Kelly’s white uniform did not make its appearance yesterday when the signal was given and after a painful pause it was concluded to on with the game minus his presence, and John War of the New York team, was selected to umpire…Kelly’s non-appearance is not hard to explain.  The man who has masqueraded as a star umpire has for some time past been attempting the difficult feat of rendering proper decisions on the ball field and at the same time maintain intimate relations with an extensive ‘jag.’ In this effort Mr. Kelly has proven a dire failure, much to the discomfiture of the players compelled to submit to the awful decisions resultant on the aforementioned ‘jag.’”

The paper said Ward acquitted himself well and that Kelly “was not missed to any great extent.”

There was more to the story.

The following day The Free Press said:

“Mr. Kelly was a guest at police headquarters…The cause of Mr. Kelly’s presence at the headquarters was a disagreement between himself and a person whom it would be superfluous to mention by name.”

Their competition, The Detroit Tribune, thought no details of Kelly’s arrest were superfluous:

“Kelly, the League umpire…occupied the “Dead man’s” cell in the Central Police Station about three hours today.  For the past three nights Kelly has been painting the town, and last night his hilarity broke out in a house of bad reputation.  He and a number of local characters started out in the early part of the evening and went to a house on Antoine Street.”

After drinking “several bottles of wine,” Kelly was said to have told his companions:

“I can lick anybody, an I will pound the first person who says a word.”

The party moved to a local brothel, where after more wine, an attempt was made to remove Kelly from the premises:

“He struck one of the inmates, Emma Gordon, on the head and knocked her down and kicked her.  He then struck one of the other inmates, and when the Gordon woman arose, he struck her in the mouth, cutting her lower lip and nocking two of her teeth out. After having asserted his manhood in this way Mr. Kelly was willing to leave and did leave.”

Kelly returned to his room at Detroit’s Hotel Cadillac, where, as he was sleeping, the police “roused him up gently, but forcibly, and led him” to jail.

kick

Kick Kelly

According to the paper “a large delegation from the ‘sporting fraternity’” of Detroit had Kelly quickly released.

Kelly paid the woman he assaulted $75.  He worked the September 22 game between New York and Detroit.

Despite paying the woman, Kelly told a reporter for The New York World that had done nothing wrong:

“I was so sick on Friday that I could I was unable to leave the hotel.  I was perfectly sober; in fact, I have never abstained from the use of intoxicants so completely as of late.  I committed no assault, as the fact of my almost immediate dismissal proved, nor did I receive any injury of any kind…My arrest was prompted by spite.  I went out the next day and umpired good ball.”

Kelly said he was the victim of “a thirst to grind the umpire,” and a “love for sensationalism.”

The Boston Post said the story from Detroit was nothing new:

“At Washington recently, Umpire Kelly was too intoxicated to discharge his duties properly.”

The paper said that if the Detroit charges “are borne out by facts, he has disgraced himself and the league and should be discharged at once.”

The Detroit Tribune said of Kelly’s denials:

“Umpire Kelly is telling them in the East that he didn’t drink too much and didn’t abuse and beat a woman in Detroit, adding that the Detroit papers had a spite against him and tried to ‘do’ him.  Down in the East they take Kelly’s denial with a grain of salt.”

Kelly was never disciplined further by the authorities in Detroit or by the National League.  He and “Honest John” Gaffney were selected to umpire the post season series between the Giants and the American Association champion St. Louis Browns.

During that series, Kelly was accused of a charge that plagued him as frequently as the one about his drinking; his perceived favoritism of the Giants.  Browns owner Chris von der Ahe went so far as to charge that “Kelly had money on the New Yorks.”

Kelly responded in a letter that was printed in The Boston Globe:

“Chris von der Ahe is hot because the St. Louis men are being slaughtered by the New Yorks.…He lost his nerve and he wants to be revenged on the umpires.”

The Giants won the series six games to four.

Kelly then did what anyone trying dodge charges of a drinking problem would do; he and Mike “King” Kelly decided to open a bar.  The New York World said:

“Umpire John Kelly and $10000 Mike will begin operations in Shang Draper’s (a New York criminal and saloon keeper) old place, corner of thirty-first Street and Sixth Avenue.”

Kelly moved to the American Association the following season.

The business apparently did not operate for long either, the following spring The New York Herald asked:

“With Mike Kelly captain of the Bostons and John Kelly umpire in the American Association, what will become of the New York wine joint—Shang Draper’s old place?”

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“The Boys Began to Cast Threatening Looks”

4 Feb

The effect of “hoodoos” were the frequent subject of baseball stories in the 19th Century—but rarely was one chronicled from beginning to end during a single game. On August 26, 1885, on an unseasonably cold day and in front of a crowd of just 1200, the first place Chicago White Stockings were hosting the last place Detroit Wolverines. The Chicago Tribune marked the moment when the “Hoodoo” arrived:

“When (The White Stockings’) players took their positions on the diamond with (Ned) Hanlon at the bat for the visitors; a half-starved, miserable-looking little dog with a coat of hair like that of a hyena and the air of a coyote, shambled out from among the carriage wheels and took up his position close to (George) Gore. The centerfielder evidently looked upon the wretched animal as a ‘Hoodoo,’ for he threw a clod of dirt at it, and the forsaken little brute weakly trotted off to the shelter of the brick wall.”

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Gore

The dog made its way to the Chicago bench, where:

“(Ned) Williamson and (John) Clarkson tried in vain to make friends with him, but he would have none of it, and trotted off to the grass plot near the grandstand railing, where seated on his haunches he watched the game.”

The White Stockings scored two runs in the first inning when Anson and Fred Pfeffer scored on a Williamson double, and, according to the paper “Anson whispered to Gore that the dog was a ‘mascot.’”

The dog remained near the Chicago bench and when the team failed to score through the sixth inning, and the score remained 2 to 0:

“(T)he boys began to cast threatening looks in the direction of the miserable-looking canine mutter something about a ‘hoodoo.”

Each team added a run in seventh. In the eighth, Chicago allowed a run when Hanlon was attempting to steal second and scored after a wild throw by catcher Silver Flint and a poor throw by Gore.

“Hanlon had crossed the home plate. The coyote uttered a plaintive howl a Hanlon scored, and deliberately trotted over to the Detroit players’ bench, where he took his seat.”

The dog having switched sides, “(Chicago) knew they could not make another run and they did not, but fortunately for the prospective pennant-winners, (Detroit’s Charlie) Bennett’s two-bagger in the ninth inning was productive of no good,” when Jim McCormick retired the next three Detroit batters to end the game.

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Jim McCormick

The Chicago Inter Ocean noted:

“The dog then left the field in disgust and saved the game for Chicago.”

The White Stockings went on to win the pennant by two games. The dog was not heard from again.

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“I Never Felt More Sorry for a Fellow Player”

30 Nov

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle said Hugh Daily, the pitcher who lost his left hand—the result of an accident with a gun—used a “mask” that protected his right hand when he batted.  The paper said he began the practice which was “a case of locking the door after the horse had been stolen” as a result of an incident that involved George “Stump” Weidman.

Daily and Weidman had been teammates with the Rochester Hop Bitters in the National Association in 1880.

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Hugh Daily

According to the paper, Weidman told the story to a some fans “gathered around a table in his little sanctum at his place of business down State Street way,” in Rochester:

“I never felt more sorry for a fellow player than I did that day,  I was pitching for Detroit and Daily was in the box for Cleveland.  It was a tight game and when the ninth inning opened we were one run to the good.

“In the ninth though, Cleveland had a man on third and another on second, with two out.  Daily was at the bat.  I had two strikes on him .  I couldn’t afford to take a chance on even a one-armed batter…So I pitched as hard to Daily as I would have the heaviest sticker on the team.

“The next ball I gave him was aimed for the outside corner.  It was a fast ball with a sharp twist.  Daily evidently expected that kind of ball, for he reached forward a little.  It couldn’t be helped—I couldn’t warn him of what was almost sure to happen.  The ball struck him fairly on the fingers which were tightly grasped about the bat.  The bones of two fingers were broken.”

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Stump Weidman

Weidman said he and his teammates felt so bad they “took up a collection” and gave Daily $207.

Despite Daily’s reputation for having a volatile temper, Weidman said when he “told Daily I was sorry for the accident, he said that he knew it couldn’t be helped.”

Despite the injury, Daily appeared in 45 games and was 23-19 with a 2.42 ERA for the Cleveland Blues.

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