Chicago Orphans Manager Tom Burns suspended pitcher Bill Phyle without pay in August of 1899, even after Burns was replaced by Tom Loftus, Phyle remained in limbo.
Tom Loftus
In January Hugh Fullerton said in The Chicago Tribune that Loftus “probably will give him a chance.” But in early February The Chicago Inter Ocean said even though Phyle had met with team President James Hart nothing had been resolved. Phyle told the paper he was offered a contract but was “in no hurry to sign.”
Phyle finally signed at the end of the February, but The Tribune said Chicago would most likely trade him “although Loftus thinks highly of him.”
The team trained in West Baden Springs, Indiana, where according to The Tribune Phyle was “sarcastically called ‘Lucky,’ because of his proverbial hard luck, (he) rarely escapes a day without being hurt.” He also managed to alienate his new manager.
After several days of poor weather in Indiana, Loftus decided to take the team further south, to Selma, Alabama on March 18. According to The Tribune Phyle was not on the train:
“Phyle may not be with the team in Selma. He left Friday (March 16), announcing he was going to see the fights in Chicago. Manager Loftus hunted up the pitcher before he departed and told him it was a bad plan to start the year in such a manner. Phyle then said he was ill and was making the journey in order to consult a physician in Chicago.”
Phyle did return from Chicago (where he claimed he had an unspecified operation), and joined the team on the trip south. Upon his return he continued to suffer a series of illnesses and injuries, which included a bad reaction to a vaccination and a being hit in the knee with a thrown bat, both of which kept him inactive for several days.
Phyle was left in Chicago when the team opened the season in Cincinnati, and his imminent trade or release was speculated upon nearly daily in the Chicago press; he was finally traded to the Kansas City Blues in the American League with Sam Dungan and Bill Everitt for John Ganzel on May 18. Phyle refused to report to Kansas City and spent the season playing for Chicago City League teams and a semi-pro team in DeKalb County, Illinois. He was also a regular attendee at Chicago’s boxing venues and was said to own a piece of featherweight contender Eddie Santry.
Phyle returned to the National League in 1901 posting a 7-10 record for the New York Giants. In 1902 he went to the California League as an infielder and never pitched again. After his controversial exit from Memphis in 1903—and the aftermath—he continued to play until 1909.
Phyle worked as a boxing referee and as an umpire for more than 20 years in the Canadian, Eastern and Pacific Coast and International Leagues, and was involved in two final controversies.
Bill Phyle, 1913
In 1920 a grand jury was impaneled in Los Angeles to investigate charges of game fixing in the Pacific Coast League. Players Harl Maggert, William “Babe” Borton, Bill Rumler and Gene Dale were implicated. While all criminal charges were eventually dismissed, the four were banned from baseball in 1921.
Phyle was called to testify in front of the grand jury, and said umpires were often blamed when players were crooked:
“The fans make us the ‘goat’ for everything that goes on during the ball game. How many times we have suffered to suit the whims of a ballplayer who might have been working with the gamblers will never be known. They just slough us around, call us whatever names they please and yell murder when we happen to fire them out of the game or have them suspended.
“An umpire should have the same authority as a referee has in the prize-ring. If he believes a ballplayer isn’t giving his best toward the game, he ought to have the privilege of ousting him without taking the manager into confidence.”
In July of 1923 Phyle was working an International League game between the Baltimore Orioles and Rochester Tribe. Phyle called a Rochester runner safe at first, then immediately reversed his decision. He was dismissed the following day by league President John Conway Toole.
As a result of the dismissal, four other umpires resigned in sympathy. Toole, who was attending the game, claimed he had not released him because of the blown call, but because Phyle had failed to work a double hitter he was assigned to earlier in the month. The decision was upheld, and within three days the four other umpires withdrew their resignation.
Phyle ended his career back in the Pacific Coast League in 1926, and died in Los Angeles in 1953.
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