Thomas Stevens Rice was an attorney, a criminologist, and covered baseball for The Brooklyn Eagle for nearly 20 years. In 1921, he related a story that he said showed:
“That the mills of the gods may grind rapidly, as well as grind exceedingly fine.”
Thomas Stevens Rice
The story was told to him by George A. Putnam, the business manager of the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.
“Outside of San Francisco in the small towns is the Mission League, composed of semi-pro clubs and containing many old professional ballplayers, who turn an honest penny on the side in the sport now that they have passed from the big show and are regularly engaged in their occupations.
“Among the towns in the Mission League is San Jose. And San Jose has a semi-pro park that would delight Ring Lardner. Far out in center is an ambitious scoreboard, liberally decorated with the advertising sign of the town’s leading hardware merchant and a strong supporter of the team.
“About a month ago San Jose was playing at home and a ball was hit to center it was diligently pursued by two outfielders, both formerly in organized baseball, one of them a major leaguer in his day. They chased the ball up to the scoreboard and tried to retrieve it before carried out of sight of the umpire, but failed.
“As the two veterans whipped around the corner of the board they surprised a man peeping at the game through the planking. He was seedy in apparel, had a beard of several days growth, and a general air of utter forlornness. Both outfielders were at first indifferent to the stranger, but a second glance identified him.
“The utterly forlorn stranger was Hal Chase, who two years ago was a member of the New York Giants, at a salary that was probably beyond that which until war times was paid a United States Senator. It was the same Hal Chase who had been tried by the National League on the charge of throwing games when a member of the Cincinnati Reds and acquitted for lack of definite evidence; the same Hal Chase who had been given another chance by the New York National League club; the same Hal Chase who had been fired by the New York National League club on charges which were never fully explained, but were clearly understood to be based upon alleged crookedness; it was the same Hal Chase who had left New York, returned to his home state of California, and had been barred from the ball parks of that state on the ground of being involved in betting.”
Hal Chase
Rice had no complaints about the “forlornness,” or fate, of Chase:
“Chase, who stands before the world bearing unrefuted charges of having crooked the game which brought him fame and fortune, and which is an institution of which his country has been vastly proud, should remain an outcast forever he would be no more than bearing part of the penalty he deserved. If every man who had a hand in the crooking of the national game should die an outcast in the gutter, despised by the potter’s field men who bury him. It would be no more than they deserved.”
Rice also said there were fans who deserved the same fate as Chase:
“The baseball fan who patronizes semi-pro or other games openly participated in by men who have brought the national sport into disrepute and cast a cloud over its honesty merits the fate of a Chase for helping to encourage crookedness.”
He said his statements were in no way exaggerating his position—one he said was critical to protect the integrity of the game:
“The effective penalty imposed upon (Bill) Craver, (George) Hill [sic Hall], (Jim) Devlin, and (Al) Nichols in the 1870s (all were banned for accepting money to lose games in 1877), was not their being dropped from baseball and forced to turn to other means of making a living. It was the ostracism that followed them their graves and made them anathema even in the society of professional thieves.”
And, he said, all penalties related to gambling should remain in effect forever:
“To impose a definite penalty on baseball crooks and then have the public forgive and forget when it is worked out, would be nothing less than an incentive to a repetition of the crime. Let the possible throwers of games and the pawns of gamblers know they will be sneered at on the street by every pickpocket and dog-stealer who recognizes them, and that a bartender at a black and tan speakeasy will refuse to serve them.”
Baseball History Daily 