Tag Archives: New York Highlanders

“I’ve Seen him Throw a Ball out of the Park in a Spell of Anger”

20 Aug

Walter Johnson rated Rube Waddell the greatest pitcher he saw in a 1925 syndicated article. He listed Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, and Ed Walsh as his next three.

Cy Young came next.

Johnson acknowledged he had not seen Young at his best, “His greatest three years were back in 1891 to 1893…Yet 15 years later I worked many games with the grand old veteran when he was still effective against the best batters in the American League.”

Johnson said like Young, he, “had to use more curves,” later in his career, and:

“His work was always smooth and pleasure to watch. He seldom did the sensational thing on the diamond. But one thing he did that will always live—he won 508 [sic, 511] victories.”

Cy Young

Next was Eddie Plank who Johnson said had “The best cross-fire I ever saw,” and “He was simply a wonder on doping out the other club.”

Johnson said during the 1924 World Series, “(Plank) told me some things about (Frank) Frisch and (Ross) Youngs that helped a lot.”

Johnson said Bender was “always deliberate when pithing, “wasted few balls,” and threw “an inside ball,” that “The leading batters in the league couldn’t solve.”

Chief Bender had, “a good curve and wonderful fastball. Added to these qualities he was smart as a whip.”

Chief Bender

Johnson said his temper was as much as a detriment as his intelligence was a benefit though:

“I’ve seen him throw a ball out of the park in a spell of anger.”

Johnson said umpire Tommy Connolly told a friend Bender was capable of throwing as hard as Johnson, “but he would only let himself out once or twice during a game. Usually in a tight place with men on bases and two strikes on the batter.”

Johnson’s final three were Mordecai Brown, Jack Chesbro, and Bill Donovan.

Brown, owing to the injury that cost him parts of two fingers and earned him his nickname, made it, “possible for him to get a peculiar hold on the ball that produced a deceiving curve.”

Mordecai Brown

He also rated Brown and Bender the two best fielding pitchers.

Chesbro, who served as a coach early in the season for Johnson’s World Series Champion Senators in 1924.

Johnson said of  Chesbro, “I don’t believe he has ever outlived the sting of disappointment,” over missing out on a championship in 1904—Chesbro took the loss in two of the three straight games the Highlanders dropped to the Americans on October 8 and 10, giving Boston the pennant.

Johnson said he admired Wild Bill Donovan’s side arm fast ball but admired more the fact that he wore an “eternal smile.”

“He was peeved and Hughey Jennings, then Detroit’s manager, was walking by and tried to get him sore with a bit of joshing.

‘Hell, (Donovan) ain’t got nothing on the ball.’

“’No,’ was Hughey’s reply, ‘but he’s got a smile on his face.”’


Johnson said that smile, “made the batter feel there wasn’t any use trying.”

Just misses from Johnson’s ten were Smoky Joe Wood, Rube Marquard, Addie Joss, Urban Shocker, Babe Ruth, and Stan Coveleski.

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“Outpitched by a Nineteen-year-old Country yap”

17 Mar

By 1911, Jack Chesbro had been two seasons removed from professional baseball. Lou Guernsey of The Los Angeles Times said:

“Only a year or two ago Jack Chesbro’s praises were sung throughout the length and breadth of the land. Everyone knew who Jack Chesbro was. Everyone from the slant-jawed-son-of-the-slums to the Boss Barber knew that Jack originated the spitball and was the great big calcimine applier in the American League…his appearance at the bat or on the field was the signal for a great outburst of cheers. He was idolized.”

Jack Chesbro

But, said Guernsey, “the inevitable” followed:

“He started to slip. He lost control, couldn’t get his spitter working right and he was banged all over the lot by opposing swatsmen. He looked around one day after he had twirled a losing game and found his friends had gone and that tremendous thing we call fame struggling around somewhere in the vortex of oblivion…Chesbro went, or rather was sent away.”

Guernsey said he had recently visited Massachusetts:

“I stopped at a little town called Whitinsville. It was necessary for me to pass several hours in the little puritanical hamlet in order to catch my train on another road.” I followed a thin line of people out to a typical country baseball field in the afternoon to see Whitinsville hook up with a team from a nearby town.”

Sitting on the bleachers, he said re related:

“Is Chesbro going to pitch today?’ I heard one bewhiskered individual ask of a Whitinsville fan sitting next to him.

“’I guess they’re goin’ to put the big dub in today,’ replied the fan rather hopelessly.”’

And there on the bench sat:

 “Happy Jack Chesbro of international fame once upon a time sitting with his fellow players. He was chewing a wad on Navy plug and fingering his glove.”

Chesbro took the field to, “Not a handclap or cheer,” while Guernsey recalled just three years earlier in New York hearing “25,000 frenzied fans shout the name of Chesbro until the very grandstand trembled.”

According to Guernsey:

“The game commenced. The nearby villagers fell against Jack’s curves and shoots for a total of seventeen hits totaling thirty-one bases. Whitinsville couldn’t do anything with the lanky twirler for the opposing team and they lost the game 11 to 3. Chesbro outpitched by a nineteen-year-old country yap.

“After the game the manager of the Whitinsville team paid Chesbro his $10 for pitching the game and informed him that services would no longer be needed. He went, or rather was sent away.”

Chesbro’s fate had become part of a cycle:

“The fickle crowd throws itself at the feet of the hero for the moment only to rise soon to cast itself before another idol and forget the one upon whom it showered praises at first.”

Chesbro made one last attempt to return to pro ball in 1912, failing to get signed after tryouts with Pittsburgh and Brooklyn in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He returned to Massachusetts and continued pitching in semi-pro leagues well into his 50s.

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“The Longest hit ever Secured in a Ball Game”

3 Feb

On June 4, 1913, Joe Jackson hit a home run in the second inning of a game at the Polo Grounds with the New York Highlanders.

The New York Tribune said the blast, off a Russel Ford Spitball that cleared the roof of the rightfield grandstand was:

“(S)et down immediately as the longest hit on record at the grounds.”

Jackson

The ball ended up in Manhattan Field—the previous Polo Grounds which was sold and renamed when the new stadium was opened in 1890

The New York Sun said it was “the longest hit ever made in New York.”

The New York Times was more measured:

“The hit, while perhaps not the longest ever made at the field, has not been approached in this section of the Polo Grounds since the new stands were built.”

The discussion of the longest home runs hit was taken up by infielder turned sportswriter Sam Crane in The New York Journal, who declared Jackson’s:

“(The) longest hit ever secured in a ball game.”

He also reported that the “small boy” who retrieved the ball from Manhattan Field was rewarded with a “$10 bill.”

The Baltimore Sun and a previous generation of fans and players were not going to accept Jackson’s homerun as the longest:

“(T)he present generation, cocksure that everything exceptional happening on the diamond nowadays could not have been eclipsed in the good old days, is wrong again.”

The paper said the longest hit ever made, “happened in 1894” off the bat of Dan Brouthers and lined up five witnesses; Brouthers, his Baltimore Orioles teammates John McGraw and Hughie Jennings, Tom Murphy, the groundskeeper at Oriole Park, and “Abe Marks, scorecard man.”

Brouthers said of his home run:

“I remember distinctly hitting a ball over the right field fence at Baltimore…This hit was a line drive clearing the fence by about 15 feet…I have talked to groundskeeper Murphy regarding this matter, and he says the fence was fully 500 feet from the home plate.”

Brouthers

Brouthers also said he had, “made several other hits that I know equaled the one made by Jackson, particularly one in Boston, one in Columbus, one in Springfield, and one in Raleigh.”

And while Brouthers insisted he did not “wish to detract in any way from the credit due Jackson,” he said he was present at the Polo Grounds when Jackson hit his home run and told an entirely different story about where the ball landed–and who recovered it:

“I saw the hit, and the ball did not go entirely over the grandstand but landed on the top. I had a man go up and get the ball and bring it to Jackson, who gave him 50 cents for it.”

McGraw conceded that he didn’t see Jackson’s hit, but said:

“I have never seen a hit to equal the one made by Brouthers in Baltimore.”

Jennings said, “Jackson’s (hit) isn’t in it at all,” compared to Brouthers.

Jennings also said the Baltimore home run was not Brouthers’ longest; he said the one Brouthers mentioned in Raleigh—also in 1894 on the Orioles “training trip.”

The Sun’s comparison of Brouthers’ homerun versus Jackson’s–also shown is the landing spot of Frank Baker’s homerun in the 1911 World Series

The scorecard vendor, Abe Marks, declared Brouthers’ hit “has never been equaled.” He claimed the ball, after clearing the right field fence, “never stopped until it hit something sticking up in Guilford Avenue.”

All agreed that the ball rolled a long way after it landed and ended up resting from 1300 to 1500 feet from home plate.

While Jackson received his home run ball (or two of them) on the day he hit his long drive, it took Brouthers more than a decade to get his.

When a reunion was held for the 1894 National League Champion Orioles in Baltimore in 1907,

The Sun said the ball had been in the possession of “S.C. Appleby…who is one of the hottest of Oriole fans,” Appleby gave a speech at the reunion held at the Eutaw House, one of Baltimore’s finest hotels, and “toss(ed) it back to Dan Brouthers across the dining table.”

Brouthers said of the presentation:

“This ball went so far that I never expected to see it again. Now that it has been given to me, I shall ever keep it as a memento of my connection with the champion Orioles.”

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Borrowed Uniforms

20 Apr

Ernest Lanigan, writing in The Cleveland Leader in 1918 said:

“One way a team could be assured a victory in every stop on a trip, would be to lose its uniforms.”

Lanigan said it happened twice in the last four seasons:

“Last season, on their way East, the Saint Louis Cardinals lost their baggage and had to meet the Superbas in clothing for which Charles Hercules Ebbets had paid. The result was a 9 to 2 victory for Jack (manager Jack) Hendrick’s team.”

The Brooklyn Citizen described the June 1, 1918 game:

“The schedule called for a game between the Saint Louis Cardinals and the Robins. But if the fans were just going by the uniforms the players wore, then it was a combat between the HOME and the TRAVELING uniforms of the Brooklyn Baseball Club, for the Cardinals were arrayed in the traveling unies of the Robins.”

Fourteen trunks belonging to the Cardinals failed to make it from Pittsburgh with the team.  The paper said the Cardinals did have to purchase shoes for the team from a local store:

“(Hendricks) had to order 15 pairs of new ones, which will set the club back $210.”

In a borrowed uniform and in new shoes, Red Ames allowed 10 hits, but just two runs, and the Cardinals chased Rube Marquard in the fifth inning—scoring six runs off the Brooklyn starter.

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Red Ames

Lanigan said the previous time a team played in their opponents’ uniforms was 1915:

“The Saint Louis Browns reached Detroit minus uniforms and attired in Tiger togs they defeated the Junglemen, 1 to 0.”

Edward A. Batchelor of The Detroit Free Press said of the June 20th game:

“You see it was this way. The St. Louis club’s baggage went astray somewhere between Boston and Detroit and when the Browns arrived, they possessed nothing in the way of baseball equipment except the usual number of arms and legs. Some of them had heads, though this is not considered a requisite in big league ball anymore. They didn’t even have a manager, as Branch Rickey refused to come along. He won’t even look at Sunday ball.

“With true hospitality the Tigers took pity on the forlorn crew and outfitted them completely in the Detroit Road uniforms. They also loaned them gloves and shoes and otherwise contributed to their comfort and convenience.”

Dressed in Detroit uniforms, Batchelor said the Browns “forgot they are tail-enders and imagined they were really the Jungaleers.”

Carl Weilman pitched a four-hit shutout for the seventh place Browns.

weilman

Carl Weilman

Lanigan said one had to go back to 1912 to find a team losing in borrowed uniforms:

“A game which a visiting team did not win when it was compelled to play in the home club’s regalia because of the non-arrival of its baggage took place at the hilltop, in New York on August 12 [sic, August 13]. The Tigers and their baggage parted company in Syracuse and Jennings’ men played in the Yanks’ road uniforms, being beaten 3 to 2.”

Batchelor said in The Free Press:

“A most peculiar combination of circumstances thwarted the well laid plans of Hughie Jennings and kept the fiery siren dumb on the bench in civilian clothes. Detroit’s baggage was misplaced somewhere in Syracuse where an exhibition game was played yesterday. Only the artful hospitality of manager (Harry) Wolverton saved the Jungaleers from forfeit. Wolverton lent the visitors his road uniforms. But had no shoes of guaranteed fit.

“Consequently, the entire invading squad had to go out and purchase new kicks. Winning ballgames in unbroken brogans is no nice business.”

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Harry Wolverton

Batchelor said the bats loaned to the Tigers were “so full of holes that Jennings’ heavy artillery were able to collect a measly bundle of three hits”

The Tigers scored two runs in the first inning of New York starter Ray Fisher, who was ejected along with Wolverton for arguing a call at first base.  Jack Warhop pitched 8 ½ innings in relief, giving up just two hits in the 3 to 2 victory.

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“That is something Mr. Chesbro”

5 Feb

In 1905, The Chicago Tribune promised readers that an interview would “Undoubtedly cause a sensation.”

The subject?

“Jack Chesbro for the first time tells of the ‘spit ball,’ by which he won forty-one victories last year”

According to The Tribune:

“All last summer Chesbro persistently refused to tell the secret. Manager Clark Griffith did not know how Chesbro got his control and scores of pitchers in the two big leagues vainly tried to emulate him.”

chesbro

Jack Chesbro

Chesbro attributed “over thirty of the forty-one victories” to his use of the spit ball, and the paper said:

“Many baseball pitchers will be surprised when they read Chesbro’s explanation, and, according to him, fans and experts who have thought they really knew something of the ball have been groping in the dark.

“The wetting of the ball by Chesbro is done simply and solely in order in order that the ball may slip off the index and middle fingers first and from the thumb last…It has been supposed that the spit ball must be pitched slowly. Chesbro, on the contrary, says the ball is only effective when pitched with speed.”

Chesbro told the paper:

“The spitball has come to stay and is easily the most effective ball that possibly be used. It is easy to pitch once you have acquired its secrets. I have never yet read an explanation of it that was anywhere near correct.”

Chesbro said he injured the fingers of New York’s catchers Deacon McGuire and Red Kleinow early in the season, but later he was able to let them know “just how far the ball would drop and whether it would drop straight or outside,” before throwing a pitch.

Chesbro said old time players would find the pitch impossible to hit:

“Cap Anson couldn’t hit the spitball in a hundred years. In fact, I would be willing to bet Anson couldn’t even catch it.”

Chesbro said Norwood Gibson of Boston had “better control of the ball” than any spitball pitcher he saw.  Chesbro said his wild pitch that “gave Boston the pennant” on the final day of the season was because “I simply put a little too much force on the ball,” and because Boston pitcher Bill Dinneen was throwing the spitball too, “so that it was slippery.”

norwood

Norwood Gibson

Chesbro who had seen Elmer Stricklett throw the spitball in Sacramento in 1902 and again in the spring of 1904, said of the second encounter:

“It was down at New Orleans last spring. I saw Stricklett throw one, and I quickly said: That is something Mr. Chesbro, that you must acquire. I watched Stricklett closely and noticed how he wet his fingers. I did the same and soon discovered it was the thumb that did the work”

The Tribune sad Chesbro was spending the winter tending to “two of the fastest horses in western Massachusetts,” one purchased for him by Highlanders owner Frank Farrell which “bears the name spitball.”

After revealing the secrets of his spitball after his 41-12 season in 1904, Chesbro was 66-72 for the remainder of his career which ended in 1909.

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“Probably the Best Known bad man”

10 Apr

In 1908, Malcolm Wallace Bingay, the long-time writer for The Detroit News told of the “nervy ballplayers,” who were tough on the field but afraid of a “personal encounter,” while, ”There are some quiet ball players who play an ordinary game on the field who, when occasion demands, can show gamesmanship tom a degree that would surprise the average follower of the fighting business.”

Bingay named the current toughest man in baseball:

“Big John Anderson, now with Comiskey’s White Sox, as handsome a figure as there is in baseball, could, if he but cared, hold his own with most of the wrestlers in America. Not only this, but the big Swede, although naturally quiet, when thoroughly aroused, can put up a terrific battle. Among ball players he is probably the most respected man in the league when it comes to a personal mix-up. Anderson is a clever boxer, has a wicked punch in either hand and doesn’t seem to know what pain is when angry.

“Anderson is a physical culture crank. He is probably the most ideally built man in baseball. The grace with which he carries himself on the diamond is only brought out more clearly when he is boxing. And John doesn’t stop with the gloves. He is as wicked a rough-and-tumble fighter as one would care to run across.”

johnanderson

John Anderson

George Moriarty—then with the New York Highlanders—was, according to Bingay, “another bad man to bother.” Bingay said in 1907 in Chicago:

“(A) big fellow came from the bleachers. He hit the Yankee on the jaw and sent him staggering against the fence.

“’Moriarty seemed to come back like a piece of rubber,’ says (New York catcher) Ira Thomas, who saw the battle. ‘The fellow was far bigger than he, but Moriarty didn’t seem to care. Before the mob could get to him he had the man from the bleachers helpless.”

moriarty

George Moriarty

Thomas said the New York players were concerned about getting Moriarty out of the ballpark past the large throng of White Sox fans, until the fans realized it was a Chicago native involved in the fight:

“’Going from the grounds there was fear of a riot, and about 200 big men were lined up near the gates as we passed out.’

‘”Is George Moriarty there/’ the leader yelled to me.’

“’He is,’ I said, ‘expecting a fight.’

“’Well, tell him that we’re from the South Side and don’t go back on the boys who come from here. Tell him we’ll fight for him if he needs help.’”

But, said Bingay:

“Probably the best-known bad man, when he wants to ne, in baseball is Bill (Kid) Gleason.”

Gleason was just 5’ 8” and weighed 160 pounds, but Bingay said he was “the biggest little man that ever stood in shoe leather.”

Kid_Gleason

Kid Gleason

Despite his size:

“He has the strength of a giant and is as agile as a wild cat. Bill was the man who kept Kid Elberfeld playing good ball around Detroit. When the Kid wouldn’t behave himself, Bill would take him out back of the clubhouse and give him a thrashing.”

Jimmy Williams, the St. Louis Browns infielder, was, according to Bingay, “as quiet as any of them and yet he is as wicked a man when crossed as there is.”

Tigers pitcher Bill Donovan told Bingay a story about Williams when the two played together on the “all-American” team that barnstormed the West Coast during the off-season.  There was a fan in one town who “was a giant in strength, always in an ugly mood, and always hunting for trouble.”

Donovan said:

“’Now Jimmy wasn’t hunting for trouble, understand. He was minding his own business when this chap got gay. Williams knew of his reputation but never hesitated. He gave the big duffer such a whipping that he begged for mercy. After that anybody in town could chase the bully up an alley. The citizens warmly thanked Jimmy for what he had done.’”

Bingay said the manager of the Tigers, was the opposite of the quiet players on the field who had no problem throwing a few punches:

“No man ever displayed more nerve on the ball field than Hughie Jennings, who for years was a league sensation. Yet, Jennings never had a fight in his life. He’s as peaceful as a Quaker off the field.”

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Lost Pictures: Hal Chase at Indy

27 Feb

chaseindy.jpg

A 1911 photo of Hal Chase, with pitcher Russell Ford in the passenger seat, behind the wheel of a race car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  The Indianapolis Times said Chase “has entered the ranks of the ‘speed kings.'”

While the New York Highlanders were playing a series of games before the 1911 opener Chase visited the speedway:

“The youthful manager of the Highlanders enjoyed the time annihilating sport and took the wheel…He reeled off a fast lap on the track, making the two and one-half miles in two minutes flat, or at the rate of 75 miles per hour,

“Chase said if he was not so busy trying to annex the American League Pennant, he certainly would be one of the starters in the 500-mile race at the Speedway on Memorial Day.”

In his only full season as a manager, Chase’s Highlanders finished in sixth place with a 76-76 record.

 

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Things I Learned on the Way to Looking up Other Things #25

15 Aug

“Used to Come Upon Field Staggeringly Drunk”

Arthur Irwin was a scout for the New York Highlanders in 1912 when he declared to William A. Phelon of The Cincinnati Times-Star that, “Players who are hard drinkers in the big leagues are scarce now.”

irwin

Arthur Irwin

Irwin said a combination of “the improvement in morals” of players, and more so the fact that current players were “money mad” were the reason:

“Long ago the hail fellow and the good fellow, who believed that drinking was the jolliest part of life, were numerous in the big leagues, and there were surely some wonderful soaks in the profession.  Stars whose names will shine forever used to come upon the field staggering drunk, and other stars who had sense enough not to exhibit their follies in public would wait till the game was over and then tank up till dawn.”

Irwin told Phelon about King Kelly’s American Association team:

“The club that tried to play ball under King Kel in 1891 at Cincinnati was about the limit.  They made their headquarters at a saloon across the street from the ball park and some of them could be found asleep there at almost all hours when not actually in the game.  Some of the champion Chicago White Stockings and some of the old St. Louis Browns were likewise marvels on the jag, and it has become a baseball legend that the Browns defeated Anson’s men for the world’s championship (in 1886) because (John) Clarkson, Kelly and two or three others were beautifully corned.”

Clarkson won his first two starts of the series, but lost his next two.  Kelly hit just .208 in the series and St. Louis won four games to two.

Jennings’ Six Best

In 1916, Hughie Jennings “wrote” a short piece for the Wheeler syndicate that appeared in several papers across the country, about the six best pitchers he faced:

hughiejennings

Hughie Jennings

“Jack Taylor and Nig Cuppy had fair speed and a fine curve ball, with the added advantage of a slow ball, and good control.  The latter, I contend is the most important asset a pitcher can possess.  My six greatest pitchers are:

Amos Rusie

Jack Taylor

Cy Seymour

Denton (Cy) Young

Charles “Kid” Nichols

Nig Cuppy

“Rusie, Nichols and Young had wonderful speed and fast breaking curves.  Cy Seymour also belonged to this case.”

“Batters Might as Well Hang up Their Sticks”

Add Ned Hanlon to the long list of prognosticators who were sure a rule change would be the death of the game—in this case, the decision in 1887 that abolished the rule allowing batters to call for high or low pitches.

hanlon

Ned Hanlon

 

According to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

 “Hanlon of the Detroits says the abolition of the high and low ball was a fatal mistake, and the batters might as well hang up their sticks.  Ned argues that as the pitcher has the space between the knee and the shoulder in which to throw the ball, all he has got to do is vary the height of his delivery with every ball he pitches, and thus completely delude the batter.  He claims that pitchers capable of doing head work will have a picnic, and that Baldwin will be particularly successful.”

 

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Things I Learned on the Way to Looking Up Other Things #23

4 Jun

Evers Shuts Down Donlin

Mike Donlin’s final comeback ended with a final stop with the New York Giants as a coach and pinch hitter.

donlin

Mike Donlin

Frank Menke of Hearst’s International News Service said Donlin tried to get under Johnny Evers’ skin in the last series the Giants played with the Braves:

“Evers, the peppery captain of the Boston Braves, walked up to the plate…watched three strikes whizz by and was declared out.

“’Oh, I say, Johnny,’ chirped up Donlin.  ‘What was you waiting for?’

“Quick as a flash Johnny shot back:

“’I wasn’t waiting for the first and fifteenth of the month so as to get rent money, anyway.’

“The retort hurt Mike who was holding down the job as pinch hitter and coach for the Giants not because of his ability in either department, but through the friendship of Manager (John) McGraw.”

johnnyevers

Johnny Evers,

Donlin appeared in just 35 games for the Giants, all as a pinch hitter, he hit just .161.

Comiskey Can’t Understand Padden

By 1906, Hugh Fullerton of The Chicago Tribune said of the importance of “a man whose brain is as agile as his body…Never was this fact so impressed upon me as a few years ago when I was sitting with (Charles) Comiskey.”

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Charles Comiskey

Fullerton and Comiskey were watching the White Sox play the St. Louis Browns:

“Commy was talking, half to himself, about Dick Padden, who was about as quick a thinker as ever played the game.

“’I can’t understand it,’ soliloquized the Old Roman.  ‘He can’t hit. He can’t run. He isn’t good on ground balls.  He’s not any too sure of thrown balls, and his arm is bad.’ He stopped a moment and then added: ‘But he’s a hell of a good ballplayer.’”

padden

Dick Padden

Jones Shuts Down Altrock

Nick Altrock won 20 games for the 1906 White Sox, after an arm injury and his general disinterest in staying in shape, Altrock slipped to 7-13 the following season.

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Nick Altrock

Late in 1907, The Washington Evening Star said:

“Altrock is the champion mimic and imitator of the American League…Nick delights to give his various imitations, and much amusement do his companions find in these diversions of Altrock.

“The other day at Chicago, and just a few minutes before the game between the New Yorks and the Windy City aggregation began, the big pitcher was delighting the members of his own team, as well as several of the New York bunch, with his clever imitations of notable people, when he suddenly turned to Fielder Jones, the captain and manager of the Chicagos, and asked:

‘”What shall be my last imitation for the evening, Fielder?’

“’Why,’ replied Jones, with that sober look of his, ‘as I am going to pitch you this evening, Nick, suppose when you get in the box you give us an imitation of a winning pitcher.”

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“The Decomposition of a Perfectly Healthy Game”

1 Jun

Umpire Billy Evans said:

“Perhaps nothing shows up an umpire worse than for the catcher to hold up the ball on him, after he has declared the pitch a ball, while the receiver is equally confident it should have been a strike.  Repetition of the stunt often draws a tin can and sometimes several days’ rest.”

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Billy Evans

After the 1908 season, in his nationally column, Evans said that some umpires took it more personally than others:

“(Gabby) Street, who broke into the American League last season and established a record that makes him stand out as one of the best backstops in the business, looks on his first run in with Silk O’Loughlin with a lot of humor.  Nothing hurts the arbitrator any more during the game more than to intimate that he possibly could be wrong, and when Street held up a ball, to inform Silk that his judgment was questioned, he almost keeled over.

“’Throw it back; throw it back, busher,’ yelled Silk in his loudest voice.

“Street complied at once and didn’t question the arbitrator any more during the game, but admits that O’Loughlin kept up a continual chatter over the incident throughout the rest of the contest.

“’Don’t forget this is your first year in the league Street, and I’ve been up here six or seven seasons.  I’ll do the umpiring and you tend to the catching, and you will find you have plenty of work to keep you busy.  Sometime you will hold one of those balls up to me when I’m not feeling good and you will probably draw a week’s vacation.”’

gabbywash

Gabby Street

And, the umpire said, it wouldn’t just be him:

“’Unless you want to have all the umpires in the league a bunch of soreheads you had better forget that trick of holding up the ball.’ These were just a few of the things Silk got out of his system during the remainder of the game, and Street didn’t make any effort to contradict him.”

Four years later, after ejecting Street, then a member of the New York Highlanders,  from a game with the Tigers, for arguing balls and strikes, O’Loughlin faced one of the most harrowing incidents of career.  The New York Sun said:

silk

Silk O’Loughlin

“First, (Manager Harry) Wolverton was chased off the field, then (pitcher Jack) Quinn… was put out for kicking over a called ball and throwing his glove, and then Street aired his opinion of O’Loughlin as an arbiter and was summarily dismissed..”

The ejections led to “Certain spectators in the grand stand with an acute sense of fair play threw bottles out at O’Loughlin, who stood his ground without flinching in the face of the glassware bombardment and the hooting which went with it.”

The New York Tribune said the incident was “the decomposition of a perfectly healthy game (and) was a frightful site.”

After the game, a 9 to 5 Detroit victory, The Tribune said:

“O’Loughlin was surrounded by a lusty corps of Pinkertons after the game, and was protected from a crowd of spectators who acted threateningly.”

When O’Loughlin died during the 1918 influenza epidemic at age 42, Evans, who worked behind the plate in the last game O’Loughlin worked,  said, “Baseball was a serious proposition for him,” and told the late umpire’s hometown paper, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that he “planned to write a biography of O’Loughlin’s life soon.”

Evans never wrote the book.

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