The Tabasco Kid had softened. Kid Elberfeld, a man so contemptuous of umpires he hit a few and once told John McGraw, “I intend to fight ‘em as long as I live,” as 64-year-old in 1939 said he’d changed.
Elberfeld was asked by Val Flanagan of The New Orleans Times Picayune if he still held the same antipathy for the men in blue:
“No, There’s a couple of nice fellows out there now.”
Elberfeld singled out John Quinn in the American League and Polly McLarry, who after a major league career that lasted 70 games with the Cubs and White Sox, worked as a minor umpire for a decade in the South.
Flanagan was shocked:
“it was unbelievable—to hear this ancient umpire-baiter, who had battled the boys in blue from Maine’s tall pines and hills of snow to where palmetto breezes blow, speak such kindly words about an arbiter.”
The former player and manager, “Old, wrinkled and with just a few whisps of hair framing a shining bald head and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles athwart his battle-scarred nose.”
Flanagan said, “nothing loosens the tongue of the ‘Kid’ as to inject a few casual remarks about yester-year.”
Elberfeld told his version of one of his altercations with umpires a decade and a half earlier which ended when he punched an Atlanta police officer after being thrown out of a game.
Elberfeld
“The arbiter instructed the bluecoats to see that he went, peacefully or otherwise, and when the Kid balked, one of the John Laws reached over and bopped him one on the ear to show him who was the authority.
“’I didn’t see who hit me, but I figured it was the cop standing just beside me,’ the Kid said, ‘so I let go a right and whammed one of the other cops on the jaw. They took me down and put me right in the jug.”
Elberfeld didn’t just battle umpires. He told the story of a 1920 encounter with Charlie frank, the owner of the Atlanta Crackers. Elberfeld was in town with his Arkansas Travelers as two new additions to the roster: Tom Seaton and Casey Smith both were signed after being released by the San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League; Seals owner Charlie Graham said the release was due to rumors of crooked play by both.
When the team arrived at Atlanta’s Ponce de Leon Park, Frank was determined to not allow the Travelers inside. He looked the ballpark and “got a squadron of cops,” to bar entry.
“’I started to climb the fence,’ the Kid explained, ‘and had my team do the same, but Frank threatened to have me arrested if I did.”
Elberfeld said he backed down when he realized Frank wouldn’t. The game was delayed to the next day, Seaton and Smith never player for Little Rock, and Elberfeld lived to fight again.
Elberfeld’s interview with Flanagan coincided with his final return to organized baseball. Having only managed one season in the previous decade, Elberfeld signed on to manage the Gadsden (AL) club in the Southeastern League. He was ejected from a game during his first week.
Elberfeld retired again after the 1936 season; he died in 1944 in Chattanooga, TN.
Oscar “Flip Flap” Jones had a promising rookie season for the Brooklyn Superbas in 1903; he was 19-14 with a 2.94 ERA for the fifth-place club. He was 25-40 over the next two seasons. His major league career was over at age 25; he then spent most of the next decade pitching on the West Coast.
Jones was born in Missouri and as a teenager headed West to pursue his first career: circus performer.
According to Charles Zuber of The Cincinnati Times-Star he was a “trick bicycle rider,” who, “practiced his feats of defying gravitation with small circuses in the Southwest.”
Jones’ act included:
“Leaping over elephants—when the sheriffs allowed the shows to have the animals for awhile—horses, barrels, etc…was one of (his) favorite pastimes, and attired in pink or plae blue tights, he was one of the stars of the Arizona-New Mexico circuit.”
Jones found his way to baseball, according to The Cleveland Press when he realized, “if there is one thing harder than smashing rock, it’s circus life. So, Jones when a minor league manager told him that he saw in him the making of a great pitcher, quickly hocked his wheels and shook the sawdust.”
Zuber said, although Jones was two-years removed from circus life when he arrived in Brooklyn, he was earning a “black mark” with umpires and ultimately earned his nickname, because of some stunts he brought with him from his big top days.
Jones
“Jones’ crime, for which he has been banished on more than one occasion, consists of turning somersaults, forward or back, whenever an umpire gives a decision that has a yellow hue to it and incidentally is a handicap to the Brooklyn team.”
In addition to performing to annoy the umpires, The Brooklyn Times-Union reported during Jones’ rookie season that the pitcher would often coach first base and “amuse the crowd…by Turing back flips.”
Zuber noted that “in the old days” Arlie Latham “would fall down as though dead when a rank decision was handed down,” Jones brought a new flair to Latham’s act with, “gymnastics, cartwheels and handsprings…he worse the decision the greater the number of flip-flops and things he performs.”
Upon his return to the West Coast, Jones won 70 games over two seasons (1906 and 1907) with the Seattle Siwashes and San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League. He also continued to perform when coaching first base.
He pitched through 1914 and later opened a tire store in Los Angeles. Later he operated an auto repair shop in Kansas, and eventually settled in Texas.
While Jones’ circus and bike riding career (he also competed in bicycle races pre-baseball) was over by the time he was 21, and he spent 12 years as a professional ballplayer, his former career was the lede of his obituary; baseball a side note.
He died in Fort Worth, Texas in 1953. The Star-Telegram said:
“He won the title of fastest bicyclist in a contest on the West Coast when he was 17.
“Jones at one time was an acrobat with Ringling Brothers and Barnum Baily Circus. He also was a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox [sic].”
In 1944, Grantland Rice of The New York Herald Tribune lamented the inability of Lou Novikoff to live up expectations well into four seasons in the National League:
“It would have ben a big lift to big league baseball if…’The Mad Russian’ of the Cubs could only have approached his minor league average under the Big Tent.”
Novikoff
The reason was baseball’s need for “color;”
“There has always been a need in baseball for another Rube Waddell, another Bugs Raymond or another Dizzy Dean. They had more than their share of color. But they had something more than color—they were also great ballplayers.”
Novikoff, Rice said had “a gob of color,” but hadn’t come close to putting up the numbers he did the Pacific Coast League and American Association:
“Novikoff on the West Coast looked to be as good a hitter as Ted Williams…But he was no Ted Williams in the major show.”
Both Williams and Novikoff had huge seasons in the American Association after leaving the West Coast—Williams hit .366 in Minneapolis in 1938 and Novikoff hit .370 in Milwaukee in 1941—but as Rice concluded: No one had yet “wipe(d) away the dust from his big-league batting eye.”
The loss of Novikoff to pick up where Dizzy Dean left off “in the headline class, “ was a loss for baseball, Rice said:
“Baseball can use more color than it has known since Dizzy Dean retired to tell St. Luis radio listeners that someone ‘sold into third base.’
“It could use another Rube Waddell, who split his spring and summer days three ways—pitching, tending bar, and going fishing. But it should be remembered Dizzy Dean and Rube Waddell were among the great pitchers of all time.”
There was none he said, as colorful as Babe Ruth. Ping Bodie “was never a great ballplayer, but he was good enough. He was another remembered character. There was the time he bought a parrot and taught the bird to keep repeating— ‘Ping made good.’”
Rive said Bugs Raymond had color and talent—but for too short a time before the color overtook the talent.
Bugs Raymond
“There was the time when Bugs was pitching for Shreveport. He made a bet that he could eat a whole turkey, drink two quarts of Scotch and win a double header. He won his bet tradition says.”
By “tradition” Rice meant Rice. He was the source of the turkey and scotch story as a young reporter covering the Southern League.
Rice’s dream team of colorful players would include:
“Babe Ruth, Rube Waddell, Dizzy Dean, Bugs Raymond, Larry McLean, Tacks Parrott, Arlie Latham, German Schaefer, Al Schacht, Crazy Schmidt [sic Schmit] Rabbit Maranville and one or two more. I wouldn’t however, want to be manager.”
Grantland Rice
While Rice valued color, he said “two of the greatest ballclubs” he ever covered we not at all colorful:
“One was Connie Mack’s Athletics lineup from 1910 through 1914, winners of four pennants in five years. The other was the Yankees after Babe Ruth left, a crushing outfit season after season.
“These two squads were composed of fine ballplayers who were rarely prankish or the lighter side of life—Eddie Collins, Eddie Plank, Stuffy McInnis, Jack Barry, Homerun Baker, Jack Coombs, Chief Bender, to whom baseball was strictly a business matter. The same went for Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Lou Gehrig, Charlie Keller, Spud Chandler, Joe DiMaggio and others might have made up a session of bank presidents.”
Novikoff never lived up to his minor league hype. He hit a respectable .282 in five major league seasons but only played 17 games in the big-leagues after the end of World War II.
In August of 1904, Ted Sullivan came through the Midwest on his way to the West Coast on a scouting trip for the Cincinnati Reds He stopped long enough in Decatur, Illinois to talk baseball with the town’s daily papers, The Herald and The Review:
“He belonged on the diamond in the days of Anson. When it came time for him to quit he did not retire, rather he took up other lines of the game.”
Ted Sullivan
Sullivan had traveled the world, become “something of a philosopher, and “seems proudest of the fact that the National League selected him as its agent to see minor league players in action and report on the promising ones.”
Sullivan said the assignment was, “proof of the confidence the best of them of today place in my judgment.”
It was, he said, “not safe to take a man from the minor leagues on the showing of the score cards,” which were “often doctored.”
Sullivan had been visiting towns around the Three-I League, and was in Decatur to watch catcher Ed Krebs and shortstop Louie Gruebner, who, The Herald said:
“Fields fine and bats like an old lady.”
Krebs took 1905 off, in part, he told The Review, because baseball cut into his fishing time.
Sullivan was among the games pioneers who thought the days of the best players were in the past.
“No, the great ball players are not to be had now, they are all dead. Ball playing is not all in the arms and legs, most of it is in the head. It is in that head quality that the men of today are lacking. Who is there to take the place of Mike Kelly of old? Why that man showed them every trick they know today, they don’t do anything worth counting that Kelly did not show them.”
Sullivan scoffed at “talk about the Pittsburgh team…being a match for Anson’s team when it was at its best and had Kelly; why, Pittsburgh is not in the same class.”
He said, “everything else in the world today is showing better brain than it ever did before,” except, of course, baseball.
“I was at Harvard watching a ball game and I sat next to the president of that university. I mentioned to him that we needed brains in the game today and he told me he thought the college men could furnish that. I told him know that we could not get that from the colleges.”
Sullivan said the best brains for baseball came out of the “vacant lot leagues,” and mentioned, “one ball player who had to make a cross as his signature, but he was getting $4,000 a year…because he had it in his head to play the game.”
There were “a better class of men” playing currently, but:
“It is a mistaken idea to think that the college athlete by breaking into the game has elevated it.”
The Review said Sullivan was, “also faithful to the ‘Old Sod,’ and maintained that the Irish made the best baseball players:
“Not one that comes from Ireland, but one whose veins are filled with the blood of the Celt.”
But while baseball would never be the same as it was during his prime, Sullivan said the game still, “shows what a great we have,” as there were players who could earn “twice the sum,” of members of the US Senate.
Sullivan’s most significant “discovery” of the 1904 trip was Orval Overall; the 23-year-old “college man was amid a 32-25 season with a 2.78 ERA for the Tacoma Tigers in the Pacific Coast League. He was the only player Sullivan scouted out West “who will be drafted.” He told The San Francisco Chronicle:
Orville Overall
“I do not consider that Overall is the best pitcher in the league by any means…but Overall has it in him to make a great pitcher and with the coaching and development he will get in big league company it will be brought out.”
In 1923, Bill Byron again didn’t make it out of April without being pelted by bottles. During a game between the Oaks and the Salt Lake City Bees in Oakland. The Salt Lake Telegram said:
“The smiling and sarcastic indicator…was the target for a volley of pop bottles and cushions in the eighth inning of the morning game, when he made what the fans thought a rotten decision. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t much good.”
The Oakland Tribune said Byron’s decision—he called a player out at second on a force when the fielder was, according to the home team and visiting team’s local papers, “fully eighteen inches off the bag,” which led to the incident–“the worst decision ever witnessed at a Coast League game.”
This led to the third attempt since 1920 by Oakland management and fans in, “petitioning prexy McCarthy against Byron, claiming he is unjust to Oakland.” McCarthy made no response.
Byron’s long history of bearing the brunt of a physical attack from a player continued during a July game Between Sacrament and Seattle. The Sacramento Star said:
“Fred Mollwitz got himself into an awful jam…And the worse of it all was that Fred was right, DEAD RIGHT, in his argument. Not right in smacking Lord Byron one in the kisser but right in protesting that majestic gentleman’s decision at first base.”
The paper said Mollwitz had tagged Seattle’s Jimmy Welsh who was picked-off first base:
“Welsh’s hand was a good distance (from first base). Byron promptly waved him safe. Mollwitz held Welsh pinned to the ground and called for Byron to come over and look at it.”
Byron ignored him. After allowing Welsh up, Mollwitz got in a “hot argument” with the umpire and was ejected and began to leave the field.
“It couldn’t be determined from the grandstand whether or not Byron said something or not, but, for some reason Molly turned around and poked him in the jaw.
“It took half the Seattle Aggregation and a whole assemblage of Solons talent to drag the battling first baseman off. After that it was a riot of nearly ten minutes.”
The San Francisco Chronicle reminded readers that Byron’s “favorite hobby (is) putting a chip on his shoulder,” and many suggested the umpire was to blame for the incident.
The Salt Lake Telegram labeled Byron “a player baiter,” and said, “Bill usually gets busted once or twice a year. Molly’s action isn’t at all unusual.”
Mollwitz
A group led by the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce petitioned the league president to punish Byron, their letter read in part:
“Byron’s attitude toward Mollwitz Friday was so provocative that any red-blooded American under similar circumstances would probably have done just as Mollwitz did.”
League president McCarthy once again ignored criticisms of Byron and said:
“Mollwitz’ act was cowardly and I am sorry I cannot fine him several hundred dollars and suspend him for a month.”
Instead, he fined Mollwitz $100 and suspended him for a week and chastised Mollwitz’ supporters:
“When the people of Sacramento cool down, they will find that Mollwitz was wrong and Byron was right. The suspension stands and I will continue to employ Byron.”
Whether it was his animus towards Oakland or something else, Byron showed rare compassion for a player late in the 1923 season, a pitcher for the Vernon Tigers named Merrill “Heine” File was on the mound against the Oaks. The Oakland Tribune said:
“An Oak on second and Heinie File was pitching. He made a couple of balks and the Oaks howled loud. The squawking became so boisterous that Lord Bill Byron raised both hands in the air and in a loud voice said: ‘He’s only a young pitcher trying to break in!’ Then Byron went to the pitching box to show the young pitcher how to stand on the rubber. The kid balked again and then umpire Ward behind the plate stepped into the diamond and called a balk.”
Oaks manager Ivan Howard asked Byron:
“How old a pitcher must be before a balk can be called on him, and Ivan refused to tell anyone what Byron told him, but we understand it was something about how old a fellow must be to know how to run a ball club.”
By the end of the 1923 season, the Tigers, not withstanding Byron’s attempt to help File, joined the chorus of people asking the league to part ways with the singing umpire:
The Los Angeles Record team owner Ed Maier and Secretary Howard Lorenz felt the umpire, “lost $1700 insurance for the Tigers and the Beavers, robbed Vernon of a ball game and deprived spectators of a right to secure rain checks,” during the team’s series in Portland.
Lorenz told the paper:
“The game was tied when we finished the fourth. Rain was pouring down. Manager (Jim) Middleton of Portland urged Byron to call the game, but he refused. A Portland player made a home run in the fifth and Byron called the contest as soon as they finished their half.”
In December McCarthy was replaced as PCL president by Los Angeles Express sportswriter Harry Williams; The Sacramento Star said, “Byron announces he will quit the league.”
Byron sat out 1924 but missed the PCL and apparently, despite everything, the league missed him. He agreed to come back in 1925 but broke his leg and could not return. The Sacramento Bee said while team officials in that town had been among the umpire’s biggest detractors, they would have supported his return:
“Just to show Bill that Sacramento did not have any hard feelings against him. Edwin Bedell, chairman off the baseball committee had planned to have a ‘Byron Day’ when Bill first appeared here.”
Byron never worked as an umpire again. He spent the rest of his life in Detroit and died in 1955.
Abe Kemp, who spent decades at The San Francisco Examiner and was the only sportswriter still working on the West Coast who covered Byron’s stormy four years in the PCL, wrote:
“Bill Byron was my friend. He was not a man who made friends easily. He was a dedicated man; a man dedicated to the profession of umpiring baseball…He went out of his way to inflame (fans). As on occasions he went out of his way to inflame ballplayers.”
Kemp told a story about Byron that explained Byron better than any other ever written during his life:
“’This blue uniform,’ he turned on towering ‘Truck’ Hannah one afternoon at Recreation Park, ‘has got to be respected.’
“From his lofty height of six feet four, Hannah carefully inspected Bryon’s sacred blue uniform.
“’You know Bill,’ he said slowly, ‘I would have more respect for your blue uniform if it didn’t have a patch in the seat of the pants.’
“Theatrically, Byron waved Hannah out of the ball game.”
The other umpire, Bill Guthrie scolded Byron for throwing Hannah out of the game:
“Byron leveled his ejection finger at his partner. “’Hannah cast aspersions on the sacred cloth.”
Bill Byron resigned as a National League umpire after the 1919 season but “The singing umpire” couldn’t stay away.
He accepted a position with the Pacific Coast League (PCL) for 1920. The (Portland) Oregon Daily Journal said he was the only umpire in the PCL who did not have a reserve clause in his contract.
Byron was partnered with another former National League umpires, Mal Eason. The Los Angeles Evening Express said:
“This pair throws players out of the game on the least provocation.”
Byron
Byron cemented his reputation for throwing out players shortly after joining the PCL.
The Los Angeles Examiner said after he ejected five players during a May game between the Vernon Tigers and the Sacramento Senators:
“Byron, according to all accounts, is rapidly approaching that stage of popularity with everybody that caused him to be dropped from the National league.”
While his exit from the National League appears to have been voluntarily, The Sporting News later made the same claim The Examiner did, telling readers the umpire’s “chip in shoulder attitude caused his dismissal from the National staff.”
In September, Byron called Lu Blue of the Portland Beavers out at the plate on a play that would have tied the score in an eventual 1-0 loss to the Seals:
Blue
The San Francisco Examiner said Blue grabbed Byron, the umpire broke away and punched Blue in the nose, then:
“Lu hit Bill with a left hook and by that time every ball player, ‘copper,’ and umpire in the league were mixed up in one grand shoving contest.”
Blue got to Byron again and punched him in the eye. After that, Portland’s Dick Cox, “grabbed the ump around the neck and dragged him halfway around the park, while Bill’s nose proceeded to pick up stray hunks of pop bottles and rocks.”
Blue was fined $100 and suspended for a week, Cox managed to escape with neither.
Portland manager Judge McCredie was said to be “chafing under” Blue’s suspension, telling The Oregonian Blue acted in self-defense and that Byron should have been punished as well.
A month after the incident, Seals pitcher Sam Lewis yelled to the Byron:
“Hey, Bill, I know you are the king of umpires, for I saw Lu Blue of the Portland club crown you.
The Oregonian concluded:
“Even Byron had to laugh.”
When he was retained by the league for the 1921 season, The Evening Express said:
“Byron had an opportunity to return to the National League but preferred to remain on the Coast.
“Important if true.
“If true, it is too bad he didn’t accept (National League President) John Heydler’s offer.”
Byron was no less controversial his second year on the West Coast. In May, Oakland Oaks third baseman, and future National League umpire, Babe Pirelli knocked him down “with a blow over the eye,” after he ejected Pinelli for disputing a call.
Most of the players and fans–including one famous fan, actor Al Jolson–told The Oakland Tribune that Byron threw the first punch:
“Al wired President McCarthy of the Coast League at once, declaring that the umpire and not the player was to blame.”
Pinelli missed several games with an injured hand but was never officially suspended and was fined $50 by McCarthy who said, “he didn’t place all the blame,” on the player for the incident.
Shortly after the incident with Pinelli, Byron drew the ire of San Francisco fans for indecision on a ball hit by Morrie Schick of the Seals in a game against Oakland. Jack James of The Examiner described the play:
“He looked up. It wasn’t there.
He looked down. It wasn’t there.
He looked at both sides. It wasn’t there.
“He decided to call in an expert for advice.
‘”Where did it go?’ says to the Oakland third baseman a Mister White, temporarily taking the place of Mr. Pinelli, who recently assaulted Mister Byron, they do say, with cause.
“’Foul!’ Says Mr. White.
‘”Foul it is then,’ says Mr. Byron.”
Despite that call in their favor, the Oakland management—J. Cal Ewing and Del Howard—sent a letter to McCarty, asking the league president to not assign the umpire to Oakland games:
“Byron has our players feeling like a lot of spanked kids who are afraid to make a false move or stand up for their rights for fear that will get tossed out of the ball game and then be further punished by having a fine slapped on them.”
The request was ignored.
Soon after, Byron attempted to pull the trick he once pulled on John McGraw on San Francisco Seals manager Charlie Graham—pulling out his watch and giving his a minute to leave the field after an ejection. Graham, said The Sacramento Bee:
“Graham grabbed the time piece from the indicator man…Byron tried to to wrench his watch from Graham’s hand but he could not do so. The crowd gathered around and finally Graham gave the ‘umps’ back his watch and left the field.”
Graham drew a five-game suspension and $50 fine.
Within days, Los Angeles Angels manager Wade Killefer was fined $50 and suspended for five games, and two of his players—George Lyons and Red Baldwin–were fined and suspended. Baldwin was ejected and given “thirty seconds” to leave the field, Killefer and the rest of the Angels came out on the field and “surrounded” the umpire, who promptly “declared the game forfeited” to the Seattle Rainers:
The San Francisco Chronicle said:
“Byron should demand a commission, for he fines more players than all of the other umpires combined.”
After Byron’s active first half of the season, The Express noted on August 1:
“Bill Byron didn’t suspend anyone yesterday.”
Byron’s reputation was such, that The San Francisco Examiner headlined a story about a riot involving players, umpires, and fans at an International League in Buffalo that resulted player arrests:
“Here’s one that Bill Byron Missed”
The Chronicle referred to him and partner Jake Croter as “the demon umpires.”
The Los Angeles Record said, “the much-abused umpire” had also taking up singing on the field again:
“When a player protests a called strike too vehemently, Bill will drone in a sing-sing voice:
‘”Can’t hit the ball with the bat on your shoulder; can’t hit the ball with the bat on your shoulder!’
“And when a player tells Bill things that Bill doesn’t think he is paid to hear, Bill grabs the whiskbroom and starts dusting the plate to the accompaniment of:
“’Some one’s going to the clubhouse; some one IS going to the club house!’”
Not everyone thought Byron was bad for the league. Carl “Boots” Weber” spent more than 30 years in the front office with the Los Angeles Angels and later served as treasurer for the Chicago Cubs. Shortly after Byron’s dust up with manager Wade Killefer and the two Angles players, The Los Angeles Examiner recounted a conversation between Weber and Byron:
“You’re an absolute attraction,’ Weber told Byron, ‘and I’m for you. You help to draw the people through the gate.’
“’Yes, and I help draw them on me,’ replied Byron.
“that’s just the point,’ enthused Weber. ‘Keep them on you. The more they get on you the more they will come out to see you, and that, after all, is the first and main consideration.”’
Byron, not particularly wisely, might have taken Weber’s comment to heart. In mid-August, The Bee said the umpire endured a “pop bottle shower” after making a call at the plate that cost the Beavers the tying run in a game with the Sacramento Senators:
“Senatorial ball players say that Bill Byron showed a lot of courage…it is said he never retreated an inch, nor did he look toward the stand from where the barrage was coming. Bill walked up and down the line never flinching…There was a little too much courage in the umpire’s manner according to the players, who say if one of the bottles had hit Bill on the head, he might have been through for the season, and perhaps forever.”
The Bee also reported that after the bottle throwing incident, a rookie pitcher named Carroll Canfield was told by his teammates to “tell Bill” that an opposing player missed first base. The paper said the players meant Canfield to tell manage Bill Rodgers; the 18-year-old instead approached Byron:
“(Canfield) in a meek way, went out and told the umpire about the runner missing the sack.
“’You get back to that bench kid,’ roared Bill, ‘and watch those other fellows play for a coupe of years more before you ever come out and talk to me.”
Despite two seasons of controversy, PCL President William H. McCarthy enthusiastically retained him for the 1922 season, telling The Associated Press:
“Byron is as good an umpire as there is in baseball and the Coast League is fortunate to have him numbered among its list of officials.”
The Singing Umpire didn’t make it through the first week of the 1922 season before being pelted with pop bottles. During the April 15 game between the Oaks and the Seals, The Oakland Tribune said Byron called Dee Walsh of the Seals out on a close play at third base in the 10th inning; then reversed himself and ruled Walsh safe, “after a flock of Seals charged him from the dugout.”
The paper called what happened next, the biggest baseball riot witnessed here since the days at old Freeman’s park,” which the Oaks vacated nearly a decade earlier. After changing the call, Byron was showered with bottles and “surrounded” by Oaks players. Calm was restored and Walsh scored on a sacrifice fly.
When the Oaks came to bat in the bottom of the tenth, Byron ejected Oakland’s Ray Brubaker and Ray Kremer who were heckling him from the dugout; the ejections resulted in another round of bottles throw at the umpire. When the final Oaks batter was retired:
“(F)ans dashed from the stands as a flock of gray-coated policemen sought to give Byron protection. Pop bottles and cushions were heaved through the mob and the dressing room was wrecked by the angered fans.”
He continued ejecting players at a clip that caused The San Francisco Examiner to say after a June game between the Seals and Oaks:
“Umpire Bill Byron gave the crowd a little taste of the unusual when he failed to prescribe an early afternoon shower for a single player. This was without doubt, the most notable feature of the game.”
Late in the 1922 season, he stopped what could have been an ugly incident and received unusual praise in The Los Angels Times. During the September 30 game between the Vernon Tigers and Seattle Indians, Vernon pitcher Jakie May hit Seattle third baseman Tex Wisterzil with a pitch, for the second time in the game, this one struck the batter behind the right ear:
“Tex was plainly out of patience, and started for the box in a brisk walk, bat in hand. Jakie awaited the impending onslaught with folded arms, fearless, dignified, and Napoleonic. Just when everybody expected the spark to be struck with the bat which would inflame the whole world, Bill Byron, the great pacifier, made a flying tackle from the rear and nailed Wisterzil’s elbows to his floating ribs. Thus, crisis was averted.”
During his scouting trip to the West Coast looking for talent for the Boston Braves, Johnny Evers talked to Brian Bell, the Associated Press Bureau Chief in San Francisco:
“(He) has been sitting up late looking at games in the Pacific Coast League. The once great second baseman frankly is puzzled.
“Night baseball has turned the game topsy-turvy. A scout dislikes to recommend the purchase of an infielder or pitcher because with the lights the players have to adjust themselves to various conditions.
“’Recently, I looked at a promising shortstop.’ said Evers. ‘He was playing almost in left field. The next time I saw him in another park he was almost in back of the pitcher. When I spoke to him about it, he said that each park in the league has its dark spots and he has to play accordingly.’”
Johnny Evers
The shortstop Evers was scouting, according to The Los Angeles Express was Carl Dittmar. The club was said to be looking for a replacement for 39-year-old Rabbit Maranville, in order to move the veteran to 2nd base; the Braves instead purchased Billy Urbanski from the Montreal Royals.
Pitchers told Evers they would have to throw low pitches at the parks with lights mounted on top of the grandstand and high pitches at the parks with lower mounted lights:
“How can a scout tell whether these pitchers that are so good at night can pitch in the majors in the daytime?”
As for baseball as a whole?
“Evers calls the present ‘the cream puff era’ in baseball. ‘There’s no more fight in the game.”
He complained that one West Coast manager told him a player we wanted to scout had ‘a bad cold’ and would not be in the lineup:
“I cannot understand players staying out of a ball game because of a cold.”
There were at least two players of “the cream puff era” that Evers approved of:
“Babe Ruth and Lefty O’Doul are the greatest hitters today. They realized that conditions are changing in baseball. Ruth’s mighty swings eliminated the bunt and put the homerun at a premium some years ago. With the slowing up of the baseball, Ruth is accepting the changed conditions.
“The big fellow of the Yankees now just meets the ball most of the time. Because of his strength, the ball leaves the bat like a shot and is past the infielders before they are able to take a full step.
“O’Doul is meeting the ball in a sweeping motion, which results in many base hits. He started the season in a terrible slump, but he was smart enough to discover the trouble.”
O’Doul
The scout, and co-author with Hugh Fullerton of “Touching Second: The Science of Baseball” remained a fan of the dead ball:
“Evers thinks the slower the ball the better the players and the game. Brainy players and plays have been sacrificed by the lively ball for fellows who can do nothing but ‘cut and slash.’”
John Walter “Duster” Mails was another left-handed pitcher with talent who never lived up expectations and was labeled “eccentric,” or “Another Rube.”
John B. Foster of The New York Sun said:
“Mails’ ability is conceded so far as his arm is concerned, but when it comes to the illuminated phases of baseball Duster must have the center of the stage or he moans in a corner like a monkey with the pip. If he’d make the best use of his left arm, he should be able to win two games for every one he loses.”
Billy Evans, the American League umpire, and syndicated newspaper columnist called him, “A colorful critter.”
In 1925, when the St. Louis Cardinals acquired Mails from the Oakland Oaks in the Pacific Coast League for what would be Mails’ third and final shot at the big leagues, Evans wrote:
“Walter Mails has as much natural ability as Rube Waddell and no southpaw ever had more stuff than George Edward.
“Mails has a dazzling fastball. I umpired back of Waddell when he was at his best. If anything, Mails’ fastball had something on Rube’s.”
Mails
Evans concluded that Waddell “seemed to have uncanny control” of his pitches, which Mails lacked.
He argued that given Mails’ personality quirks, he would be “rival Babe Ruth” as a newspaper copy generator if he could recreate his short period of major league dominance in 1920:
“Joining Cleveland late in the season, when the Indians were on the ropes because of lack of pitching, Mails proved the man of the hour.
“Taking part in nine games he turned in seven victories and didn’t suffer a single defeat.”
The Indians won the pennant by two games over the White Sox.
“Late in the season when Cleveland met Chicago in the final and all series between the two clubs, Mails remarked to me before the first game:
“Those birds are made to order for me; If (Tris) Speaker starts me against them I won’t be satisfied with anything but a shutout.”
Mails shut the White Sox out and beat Urban Faber 2 to 0; the September 24 victory increased the Indians lead over the Sox to 1.5 games.
“In one inning, after walking three men a la Waddell, he continued Rube’s trick by striking the next three out.”
Evans’ recall was slightly off.
In the fifth inning, Mails retired Swede Risberg, then walked Ray Schalk, Faber, and Amos Strunk.
Mails then struck out Buck Weaver and Eddie Collins, The Chicago Tribune said, with a full count, Collins:
“(H)it three fouls in succession, swung at a bad ball and struck out.”
Mails’ dream season continued through the World Series, he relieved Ray Caldwell in the first inning of game three, pitching 6 2/3 scoreless innings in a 2 to 1 loss to the Brooklyn Robins.
Evans said Mails told him:
“If Speaker had only started me that one run we made would have been enough to win. He says he is going to give me a chance against (Sherry) Smith the next time he starts. Those birds will be lucky any time they score on me.”
He shut out the Robins and Smith 1 to 0.
Mails posted a 1.85 regular season ERA in 1920 which ballooned to 3.94 in 1921 and 5.28 in 1922, before he was sold to Oakland.
Mails’ final big-league stint ended like his first two, flashes of brilliance punctuating an overall lack of control and discipline.
He returned to the minor leagues for another decade.
Early in his career, Mails tried to explain his control issues to The Spokane Spokesman Review:
“In my younger days, my folks used to live just a short distance from the San Quentin penitentiary. It was always a hobby with me to throw stones at the guards on the ramparts to kid them. One day I thought I could get control by aiming at them, but the darn fools always used to be on the move and even today when I am out on the mound pitching, the home plate seems to act like those guards, always on the move. So, you can see I have an excuse coming.”
Satchel Paige was still a big enough draw in 1961 for his appearance in Spokane with the Portland Beavers to rate a front-page story in The Spokesman Review.
Reporter Dorothy Rochon Powers, called “Spokane’s best known and beloved journalist,” who spent more than 40 years with the paper, interviewed Paige:
“Satchel Paige is not old and no man’s got any business sticking his nose on the moon.
“And the man to tell you both is Leroy Satchel Paige.”
Satchel 1961
Paige told Powers:
“I’m the onliest man in the United States they don’t anybody know anything about his age!”
He vowed he was “never gonna turn that secret loose.”
Paige said Bill Veeck was the cause of the perpetual questions about his age.
“Veeck made a gag out of how old I was. People took it and haven’t let loose.”
As for the moon, Paige opined:
“People trying to get to the moon now. They didn’t put the moon up there; they got no business seeing what’s there.”
He told Powers he only ate two meals a day:
“I never had three meals in my life. When I got to the place where I could have three meals, I had six children—and I had to give it to them.”
Asked about his kids, the pitcher took out “a hand-printed list” of their names and ages.
And some Satchel wisdom:
“I don’t have no money. I never had none, so it don’t worry me. My hair’s gonna be black a long time if they wait for me to get gray hair worryin’ over money.”
Ad for Spokane vs. Portland
Paige pitched four innings for The Beavers on August 31, Harry Missildine, sports columnist for The Spokesman Review said:
“He was entertaining in four innings. He was effective for at least three.”
Paige ended each inning with a cigarette at the top of the dugout steps, “which is contrary to Pacific Coast League rules and custom…but I guess Paige is old enough to smoke if he wants to.”
Satchel gave up two earned runs in four innings and was pulled for a pinch hitter with Portland trailing 2 to 1; the Beavers came back to win 9 to 8.
The 54-year-old Paige appeared in five games for Portland with no decisions and 2.88 ERA in 25 innings.
He was popular enough to be featured as the only non-big-league manager to be included in a series of syndicated articles by Chicago journalists Joseph B. Bowles called “How I win.”
He wrote Bowles:
“I am willing to write what I know about winning ballgames to help out the young fellows and perhaps give them some points. I tell it to them so loud and so often I might as well print it.”
Happy Hogan
Hogan said:
“The difference between a winning ball player and a losing one is all in the disposition of the man himself. Almost any ball player who is skillful enough with his hands and feet to play minor league ball is good enough for the major leagues if he only will study the game, and has the courage and the nerve to go forward.”
He said the “great weakness” of most players was their lack of interest in studying the game:
“(T)o win a man must devote a lot of time and thought to every point of the game. I attribute what success I have had in the profession to the fact that I always have kept hustling and studying the game.”
He said that after he each game:
“I get out by myself and study it over, figuring how plays were made, and how they might be improved upon, and then I try to explain my theories to players. I find that when the manager can go into his own clubhouse and discuss plays with his men, he not only helps himself, but helps the team.”
Hogan said he believed in “strict discipline on ball fields, but I also believe in fighting the umpires when they are wrong.”
Hogan said he questioned calls before they were made:
“I believe claiming everything in sight and claiming it quick. If there is a chance for argument on a decision make the claim for decision before the umpire makes his decision and the chances are you will get the decision by thinking quicker than the umpire did.”
And once the umpire had rendered a decision:
“Yell real loud at the umpire and then quit, for there is no good nagging at a man, no matter how bad he may be. Let the yell be loud enough to impress him. I have yelled a lot of games out of bad umpires, but I claim I never yet have let out a yell when I did not think I was right.”
As for how to win on the field:
“I am a firm believer in doing the unexpected all the time and upsetting the other team by making plays for which they are not looking. Playing for one run at a time is my theory, and when runners are on bases, within scoring distance, I believe in abandoning all the rules of the game in order to get the runs home. It may be bad baseball to hit with three balls and no strikes, but if a hit will score runs I want the batters to hit. It may be bad baseball to refuse to sacrifice with men on bases and none out, but if the player sees a chance to hit through the field, let him hit. I try to place the responsibility on the player himself, and to rely upon his judgment as to when to hit, or not to hit.”
Hogan said, “The unexpected” is what wins “and breaks up games and makes contests more spectacular and exciting.”
Hogan managed the Vernon Tigers for six full seasons, never winning a pennant—his teams finished second twice—his club was 16-18 in 1915 when a cold developed into double pneumonia and the man The San Francisco Chronicle called “unquestionably the most popular figure” in the Pacific Coast League, died at age 37.
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