Tag Archives: Pete Browning

“Old Timers make Monkeys of them”

29 May

“You may talk about your college hazing and your West Point tricks on the plebes and beasts, but they don’t beat the jobs put up on young ball players. A juvenile ball tosser is legitimate prey for all other members of the team and they have unlimited fun with him.”

In 1896, Bill Everitt, in his second season as third baseman for the Chicago Colts told The Chicago Daily News about the treatment of rookies:

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Everitt

“A great number of the young players who break into the league come with the idea that the older fellows necessarily know a great deal more about the game than they do and they are only too willing to do anything that may be told them. The result is that old timers make monkeys of them.”

Everitt told the paper that when his former teammate Jiggs Parrott joined Chicago in 1892:

“(Parrott) was told that he was too slow and that he must increase his running powers. How was he to do that? Why, easily enough. Just put on seven heavy sweaters and run ten times around the park in the hot sun without stopping. And Jiggs did it and couldn’t walk nor talk for three days after. Again, they told him that he must take a shower bath after practice—good advice in itself, but detrimental in this case, because they stole his clothes while he was bathing and he had to go home in a pair of brown overalls and a blanket, loaned him by the grounds keeper.”

Everitt said the latest story of a rookie hazing he heard involved 20-year-old Chicago native Joe Kostal, who had just joined the Louisville Colonels. While on a train, Pitcher Chick Fraser and catcher Doggie Miller told Kostal:

“(T)he way big league pitchers kept their arms in order was to suspend them at night in a strap, which hung from the roof of their berths. Of course, they had previously fixed up a strap, like a street car holder, in Kostal’s berth, and he took it for gospel truth. When he retired, he stuck his arm through the strap and hung that way all night. He couldn’t bend the arm the next day.”

Everitt said the most popular “way to have fun” with younger players involved food:

“I remember that we had some young recruits thoroughly drilled on the diet question. They ate nothing for breakfast but oatmeal mush, which they knew would not make the stomach too heavy, with red pepper sauce poured on it to brighten the batting eye, while they drank coffee with salt in it, guaranteed to harden the muscles and add to endurance.”

Pete Browning was particularly fond of this method of hazing:

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Browning

“(He) used to order the most absurd and hideous compounds and would tell the youngster that it was to help his batting. The juveniles would accept whatever Pete said and would order the same stuff until old Pete’s ingenuity was exhausted dividing new cruelties for them. He would order pancakes with onion dressing and sugar on top and tripe with maple syrup, and all such things and the poor lads who hoped some day to bat as Pete did would never tumble.”

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Things I Learned on the way to Looking up Other Things #43

28 May

A Record, 1906

Hall of Fame umpire Tom Connolly claimed to have been part of a record-setting achievement; in 1907 The Washington Star told the story of a game the previous season:

“It is seldom that a game in either of the big leagues is played through with only two balls.”

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Connolly

Connolly said it happened in St. Louis, the Browns were playing the Philadelphia Athletics:

“The first ball put into play by umpire Connolly lasted seven innings, and the game might have been finished with that ball had it not been for a funny accident…a foul tip hit the wire netting that protects the patrons of the grand stand and stuck there.  All efforts to dislodge it were in vain.”

The paper said it was “rather remarkable” given that the grandstand was “only a short distance back of the home plate,” at Sportsman’s Park:

“Tommy Connolly says he believes that two balls for a big league game is pretty nearly a record. How happy the magnates would be if all games could be run through so cheaply.”

Browning’s Honesty, 1887

In 1887, The Louisville Courier Journal said of Pete Browning:

“(He) may have his shortcomings as a ballplayer, but no one has ever questioned his honesty. He never resorts to trickery and always admits the truth when he is declared either safe or out in a close play. Umpires know this. Whenever Pete claims that he has not been touched by the baseman in a close play if can safely be put down that Pete is right.”

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Browning

Browning “seldom makes a kick, but justice is generally on his side when he does.” The Gladiator “won’t tell lies about any play that comes up, no matter whether it be to his advantage or against it.”

“Coacher” Decorum, 1887

The Detroit Free Press did not approve of “coachers,” the paper complained in 1887:

“There is no use having base ball rules if they are not enforced. A coacher has no right to say a word to anyone except a base runner. Imploring the batter to ‘hit her out for three bags,’ is out of order.”

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“The two Best Batsmen of the Game”

19 Aug

Jack Doyle spent part of 17 seasons in the major leagues from 1889 until 1905. In 1910, he told William A. Phelon of The New York Telegraph that among hitters, “There were two men who were real topliners in their trade.”

It was, he said, “Hardly probable,” there was anyone better than Pete Browning and Ed Delahanty.

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Browning

Doyle said neither benefited from “scorers who make everything a hit except a dropped pop fly.”

But, the two were largely dissimilar:

“(T)here never were two men more radically different in their ideas and their opinions of the game than those two great sluggers.”

“Pete Browning was an artist. To him baseball was an art or profession and batting an absorbing passion.

“Delahanty was a workman. Baseball to him was labor or a trade and batting simply part of the daily toil.

“When Browning left the field, the game wasn’t over. He continued to talk batting, theorize on batting, and I think dreamed of batting all night long.

“When Delahanty left the ballpark, the game was all through for the day, as if he were a laborer going home for supper. He ceased to think baseball and would only talk baseball when someone started the conversation that way.”

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Delahanty

Each handled success differently:

“Pete Browning made five hits one afternoon. He kept his clubmates awake for hours, telling it over and over. ‘Old Petey’s eyes is pretty bright yet, huh?’ he shouted. ‘Reckon the old man ain’t there with the hits no more, eh?’

“When Delahanty made the record in Chicago, four home runs and a single (July 13, 1896) and was told that he had outdone all former deeds, he grunted, said ‘That right?’ And wanted to know who won the second race.”

Their reaction to adversity differed as well:

“If Browning failed to make a hit at the time of need, he would have tears in his eyes and would bitterly bewail his misfortune. If Delahanty fell down in the pinch, he shrugged his shoulders, hoofed back to the bench and began to talk racing or the weather.

“When an outfielder galloped to the fence and pulled down one of Browning’s mighty drives, Pete would regard it as a personal insult, and glower at the defender like a baffled tiger. When an outfielder robbed Del of a home run, Ed would grunt ‘Good catch bo, didn’t think you’d get it!’ and forget it forever.”

And, of course, no one treated their bats and eyes the way Browning did:

“Pete Browning spent hours polishing his bats, hours rubbing his eyes, in the belief that it made them brighter. Delahanty, perhaps, spent an occasional half-hour fixing up his bats on a rainy afternoon.

“If you had told Pete Browning that the business was losing money, and that he would have to cut his salary next season, he would have accepted the money rather than lose the chance to play the game. If you handed that talk to Delahanty, he would have sneered scornfully, and remarked that you’d have to come up with 500 more beans before he’d even look at a contract.”

The two did have two things in common, he said:

“Neither Peter nor Del cared much where their teams finished on the season. Pete thought only of his hits and the glory of making them, Del thought of a comfortable winter life on the money he made in the summertime.”

Also, he said neither could bunt:

“Del wouldn’t simply try. Pete, with much groaning and protestation, would be coaxed to make the attempt, but his attempts were fizzles. Pure, old-fashioned, straightaway sluggers, both of them, and the two best batsmen of the game.”

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The Story of the Story of Browning’s bat

12 Aug

On the Louisville Slugger website, the simple story of how 17-year-old Bud Hillerich “changed the game of baseball forever,” is told.

According to company, Hillerich watched Browning break his bat during a Louisville Eclipse game in 1884, and offered to make him a new one—Browning sat at his side as he made the bat, and with that, “one of the most iconic brands,” was born.

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Pete Browning

That humble origin story was not enough for two of the most prominent baseball writers of the 1920s, who both told their readers more dramatic versions of the story nearly 20 years after Browning’s death.

Fred Lieb, then sports editor of The New York Telegram, told his version in February of 1923 as part of a series of articles he wrote on the game’s history for the Al Munro Elias Sports Bureau:

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Fred Lieb

“They still tell a story around the Hillerich and Bradsby factory in Louisville about Pete when he came in one night and would not leave the factory until they had made him a new bat.”

Lieb said Browning was “brooding,” having cracked “his most successful bat,” and walked to the factory:

“(F)ortunately, some of the men were working. He insisted that one of the workmen leave his lathe and get busy on making him a new bat. Personally, he selected the piece of timber and then had it put on the lathe.

“He had his old bat with him as a model, and insisted the new bludgeon be an exact duplicate. From time to time he would have it taken out of the lathe to see how it ‘felt.’ Then he would want a little more taken off here and a little more there. If too much was taken off, then an entirely new club would be prepared.

“It was early in the morning when he left the factory satisfied and happy. An exact duplicate of his lucky bat had been reproduced.”

And while the “official” story on the company website says Browning had “a trio of hits,” the following game, Lieb did them one better:

“That afternoon he slapped out four hits.”

Lieb closed by asking his readers:

“Can anyone imagine a player of today staying up all night to superintend the making of a new bat?”

One year later, just after Bud’s father, John Frederick “Fred,” Hillerich died, Bozeman Bulger, the sports editor of The New York World, who also wrote a nationally syndicated column, further embellished the story.

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Bozeman Bulger

In Bulger’s version, it was Fred who “never tired of telling the story of Browning’s night visit to the then small factory,” in Louisville:

“His favorite bat had been cracked. None other would do.”

In Bulger’s story, Browning arrived just as the factory workers were leaving.

“’I got to have a bat, and have it tonight,’ said Pete, ‘or I can’t sleep. If I don’t get my hits tomorrow, I’ll go daffy.’”

After Browning, “with an expert eye,” picked out the piece of timber “having the most solid wood,” the shop foreman told him:

“’(W)e’ll turn it for you tomorrow. We know your model.’”

In Bulger’s version, Browning had not brought the broken bat with him:

“’Tomorrow,’ exclaimed Browning. ‘Listen, I don’t care what it costs, and I’ll but supper for the gang. You fellows stay here and get the man on the lathe. I want that bat turned just right. But I’ve got to have it tonight.”

After feeding the factory workers, “The foreman and the lathe man,” returned to the factory with Browning, and after “They turned the stick again and again,” Browning said the bat “felt just right.”

It was “well after midnight,” and in Bulger’s version, Browning also had four hits that day, and soon “Others took up the fad.”

Six months after Fred’s death,  his hometown paper, The Louisville Courier-Journal, in a long article, under the headline “Baseball bat industry brings fame to city,” told the story.

In this version it was not Hillerich, but one of “the turners” who was “an ardent fan,” who stayed late to make Browning’s bat. When it was to his liking, Browning was so pleased with the bat he left with it “without waiting for the final polishing.” The paper qualified the claim about Browning’s performance the following day, saying “Tradition has it,” that he had four hits.

Lieb, Bulger, and The Courier-Journal did not mention Hillerich attending the Eclipse game on the day in question.

Bud Hillerich, who spent his winters in Florida, told his version the story to The Miami Herald in 1944.

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Bud Hillerich

In his own telling, he doesn’t mention having attended the game that day, but instead says Browning approached his father about making a bat:

“Dad refused. He said, ‘we don’t have time to turn out such junk. Besides baseball is just a passing fancy. But if you can find my son, Bud, he might make a bat for you.”

Bud Hillerich died in 1946 in Chicago, en route to the winter meeting in Los Angeles, his obituary in The Courier-Journal failed to mention the Browning story.

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“Cincinnati’ll be Sorry if They let me go”

14 Jan

Hitting above .300 but currently bed ridden with a kidney ailment, Pete Browning was unceremoniously released by the Cincinnati Reds on July 15, 1892, after the club had signed outfielder Curt Welch who had been released two days earlier by the Baltimore Orioles.

Browning had joined the Reds on May 22 after being released by Louisville.

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Browning

Just before the Reds released Browning, manager Charles Comiskey told The Cincinnati Enquirer:

“There has been some complaint about fielder Pete Browning, I don’t see where it comes in.  I know he isn’t the best fielder in the world, but I can get along with a little poor fielding, providing he keeps up his current batting lick.”

Business Manager Frank Bancroft disagreed with his manager.  The Reds beat the New York Giants 3 to 1 on July 10, after Welch made two catches in center field The Enquirer said robbed Jack Boyle and Harry Lyons of extra base hits.

The paper reported on a conversation at the team hotel between Bancroft and Comiskey after the game:

“’If Browning had been in Welch’s place today when that hard hit went out the batter would have been running yet.  The game would have been tied and perhaps lost to us.  Welch save us twice.  It’s a boss fielding team, isn’t it, Charley?’”

Comiskey responded:

“’It is for a fact, and I’m glad to see it, after what I’ve had to handle for the past three months.”

Browning remained sick in bed at Baltimore’s Eutaw House for several days, when he returned to Cincinnati, he told The Cincinnati Times-Star:

“I tell you, Cincinnati’ll be sorry if they let me go and keep a man like Welch.  Pete’s got kidney troubles, I guess.  I will go down to West Baden Springs (Indiana) if Comiskey says so, I think that will help my batting.”

Over the next month Browning’s whereabouts, state of mind, and next destination were the stuff of speculation.

The Times-Star said in early August that Browning remained in Cincinnati “although he does not attend the games or associate with his former baseball playing friends.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer said he was “brokenhearted since his release,” and there was “absolutely no demand for his services.”

The Boston Globe and The Washington Times said he was about to sign with the Senators.

On August 14, The Louisville Times said Browning was getting in shape in West Baden, two days later The Cincinnati Enquirer said, “Browning is lost again,” and had left Indiana.  The paper also announced that day that Welch had been released after hitting just .202 in 25 games.

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Browning

At the same time, Browns owner Chris von der Ahe was telling The S. Louis Post-Dispatch:

“I’ve got a man scouring Indiana after Pete Browning.”

After he found him, The St. Louis Republic said Browning “was offered $3500 to sign” by von der Ahe but refused.  In response von der Ahe said he had “no use” for Browning.

On July 31, The Louisville Times reported that former Louisville Colonels Director Larry Gatto received a telegram from Bancroft:

“Requesting that he see Pete Browning and notify him that if he wanted a place on the team he could report at once.  When Larry showed the telegram to Pietro the latter at once started on a run for his home to pack his grip.  He will leave this morning for Cincinnati to resume his old place with the Reds.”

Browning returned to the Reds lineup on September 2nd against Brooklyn, The Enquirer said:

“He had his ‘lampteenies’ trimmed and hit the ball in good style (he was 3 for 4).  Pete however, seemed to lose his head on the bases, and was caught twice after he reached first. In the third inning he ran as far as second on a long fly from Comiskey’s bat, (Bill) Hart caught the ball and threw it in before the Gladiator could scramble back to first.  Then in the fifth he was caught napping off first by (Tom) Kinslow.”

The fifth place Reds were 17-17 the rest of the way with Browning back in the lineup. He hit .303 for the season.

Browning was let go again by the Reds and joined the Louisville Colonels in 1893.

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Things I Learned on the Way to Looking up other Things: Quotes

28 Dec

Jack Clements, Phillies catcher in 1896 to The Chicago Daily News about umpire Tim Hurst:

“The reason Tim Hurst is so successful as an umpire is not only because he will break the face of any man who insults him, but because he joins in the talk behind the rubber and jollies the basemen into believing that almost everything je says is all right and that they shouldn’t kick about it.”

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Tim Hurst

Ed McKean, Cleveland shortstop from 1887-1898, to The Cleveland News, 1917

“’Walter Johnson smoke—Huh! Old Amos Rusie had just as much speed and a curve ball that Johnson or no other living pitcher ever had, why that curve came over the plate with just as much speed as did his fast one.’ Thus Ed McKean settled the much mooted question as to the speediest pitcher who ever wore a glove…’I know that many will take exception to my statement that Rusie had more speed than Johnson, but I am giving you my honest opinion.  I’ll admit I have never batted against Johnson, but I’ve watched him closely ever since he broke in.  I have batted against Rusie when Amos was at his best, and of the two, Rusie, to my way of thinking, had more speed.”’

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Amos Rusie

Dan Brouthers, while telling The Detroit Free Press in September of 1894 that the Baltimore Orioles would hold on to win the pennant, declared that teammate Kid Gleason:

“’(I)s the best pitcher I ever saw.  He can pitch every day in the week and be just as good at the end as at the beginning.  He is a hitter and a base runner, and an all-around player.  Why, if one of the players makes an error and lets in a run, Gleason says, ‘Never mind, old man, I’ll beat those ducks myself,’ and he is more than likely to do it…They talk about Rusie and (Jack) Stivetts.  They were great pitchers under the old rules, and they are very good now, but they’re not in it with this man Gleason.”

Gleason was purchased from the St. Louis Browns in June and was 15-5 in 21 games and hit .349 in 97 at bats.  The Orioles won the pennant by three games.

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Gleason

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said, in 1889, a reporter asked pitcher Toad Ramsey:

“’What would you suggest would be the best way to increase batting, Mr. Ramsey?’ was asked the ‘phenom’ the other day in Louisville.  The great left-hander winked his left eye in an off-hand way, but jovially declined to answer the question.  ‘It ain’t my business to give points on batting.’”

Ramsey was then asked who the best hitter in baseball was:

“’Tip O’Neill,’ he replied unhesitatingly.  ‘He’s the best hitter I ever saw, and he’s got the most judgement.  He can’t hit harder than Browning, if Pete would take care of himself, but nobody ever saw Pete doing that,’ concluded Mr. Ramsey, as a feeling of regret for Pete’s weakness displayed itself on his face.  Then he walked away with an acquaintance.”

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Ramsey

George Gore told The Chicago Daily News about one of his former teammates:

“Ed Williamson of the Chicago champions was the greatest shortstop of them all.  He was a wonderful thrower, probably the hardest in the business.  Anson used to play first base without gloves in those days, and Ed took delight in lacing over hot ones to the old man.  When anybody hit a grounder to Williamson, he would pick it up, wait until the runner was a few yards from the bag, and then line the ball to Anson like a cannon shot.  The old man was nearly knocked down on several occasions.”

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 Williamson with mascot Willie Hahn

 

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“He Would eat red Pepper and Drink Tabasco Sauce”

17 Dec

In June of 1905, when it was reported that Pete Browning was committed to Louisville’s Lakeland Hospital, William A. Phelon, then with The Chicago Journal wrote a slightly premature obituary for Browning:

“Browning was a natural batsman of vast ability and supreme self-confidence.  He quaked before no pitcher.  The smoothest curve or the fastest delivery were all the same to him. Carrying a huge bat, far heavier than they wield in these degenerate days, he would stride to the plate, pick out one that suited him and whang that leather with a crash that could be heard three miles away.”

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Browning

Phelon described Browning as:

“(L)ong and ungainly, comical in gait and action and eccentric to a marked degree.  He would eat red pepper and drink Tabasco Sauce, claiming that it helped his batting eye, and his conversation was full of baseball, and nothing but baseball.  It was also popularly supposed that Pete was the champion consumer of Bourbon in the baseball business, but that was time when conviviality and professional baseball went hand in hand, and the most famous players were the most famous drinkers too.”

In the field, Phelon said Browning was “a mixture of skill and laziness.”

He noted:

“He could make the most wonderful catches—if the ball got near him.  If it was hit beyond him, he deemed it beneath his dignity to pursue, claiming that the younger fielder in the other garden ought to do the running—that he, Pete Browning was hired to hit the ball, and not to run his breath out chasing three-baggers.”

Phelon “quoted” Browning:

‘” Youse kin git fellers ter run after dose hits,’ Pete would say, ‘but what good is dey outside of dat? Can dey walk up to de plate wit tree on bases an’ line ‘em out, bing, bang, de way Pete dus?’”

The Louisville Courier-Journal said it wasn’t just chasing balls that offended Browning:

“Pete was never known to slide for a base.  He insisted it was beneath his dignity to slide, and he never would do it, although he was repeatedly put out because of his refusal.”

The paper chronicled many of “his peculiarities,” including his bizarre rituals:

“During Pete’s palmy days he told some of his friends how he kept his eyes in condition for batting:

“’Buttermilk is the secret of old Pete’s batting,’ he would say.  ‘Just wash your eyes with buttermilk if you want to ‘em to the fence.  I wash my eyes with buttermilk and that keeps my lamps trimmed.  Whenever Old Pete’s lamps get dim and he cannot hit the ball, then he gets some good buttermilk and washes his eyes in it; that trims up the lamps all right and the next day-Old Pete will be hitting them out as usual.’”

The Chicago Tribune compared Browning to “Rube Waddell of our present-day Athletics” and told how Browning discussed his bats:

“When showing his assortment, he would speak of the bats much as a trainer would his stable of racehorses. ‘Ah, that is a fine 2-year-old,’ he would declare as picked one out of the lot, and ‘this one is a 4-year-old,’ he would say of another.”

The paper said Browning would never sell a bat, but occasionally “surprised the man” by giving away a bat to a player who had “looked longingly” at one of Browning’s.”

The Tribune’s early “eulogy” closed with the likely apocryphal story that was demonstrate how laser focused Browning was on baseball to the exclusion of everything else around him:

“(O)n the occasion of (President) Garfield’s assassination he said to the newsboy who was crying out extras: ‘Who’s that you say is assassinated?’ ‘Why, Garfield!’ shouted the boy…” What league did he play with?’ is the alleged return made by Browning.”

The Tribune allowed that the story was “discredited by some who knew the man best,” and that many claimed that Browning “knew the humor” in many of the things he was alleged to have said “by accident.”

Although the first reports of Browning’s imminent death were premature—he was released from Lakeland after two weeks—he spent the next six weeks in and out of hospitals before he died on September 10.

 

 

 

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“The Things That Bring Good Luck to the Various Clubs”

26 Nov

In 1886, The St, Louis Post-Dispatch noted:

“Gamblers and old women are not the only ones who are given to superstitious observations of signs and to the carrying of luck tokens…Baseball players are more given to that sort of thing of late years than any other class of men.”

Under the Headline The Things That Bring Luck to the Various Clubs, the paper laid out the different “mascottic tastes” of the teams.

The paper said the success of the Cincinnati Red Stockings the previous season, was attributed in part to “Kid Baldwin’s pink jersey,” but the team’s fortunes turned in 1886 after:

“(A)fter a St. Louis laundry women’s daughter eloped in ‘Kid’s’ jersey and the club is now in last place.”

The Louisville Colonels had recently found a new “lucky hanger-on,” for a mascot; a calf born with a caul—the rare instance has long been the subject of superstition. The team took the calf ad proceeded to take five out of six games from the defending champion St. Louis Brown Stockings.

Pete Browning of the Colonels,“(C)arries a loaded die in the hip pocket of his knickerbockers for luck.  Before a recent game somebody took the die out of Pete’s pocket and he failed to make a hit that day,” ending a long hitting streak.

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Pete Browning

The paper said that Brown Stockings captain Charles Comiskey and third baseman Arlie Latham disagreed on the best mascot for the team:

“Comiskey argued in favor of a mule, for which he has a kindly fellow feeling, and he said he knew where he could get one cheap.  Latham held out for (a small white) mouse because he owned one and won the day, though Comiskey still believed in the efficacy of the mule, and had his heel spikes made out of a cast-off shoe from the foot of his favorite animal.”

The mouse died–suffocating when Latham, carrying the mouse, got in a fight with teammate Doc Bushong—right around the time Louisville acquired their calf and the Brown Stockings dropped those five games to Louisville,

The Post-Dispatch said New York Giants President John Day had recently had a prospect for a new mascot for the team:

“(He) tore his hair out the other day when he was informed that the youngster born with a full beard in Williamsburg had died. Day was sure that he would have in him one of the best mascots in the country.”

The paper noted the better known mascots, “Little Willie Hahn,” of the Chicago White Stockings and Charlie Gallagher of the Detroit Wolverines—who was said to have been born with a full set of teeth—and said of other National League clubs:

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Willie Hahn

“The Bostons never had a mascot because they haven’t luck enough to find one.  The Washington and Kansas City teams are unable to get a mascot to even look at them.”

And concluded:

“The strangest thing about a baseball mascot is that he is occasionally traitorous and transfers his services to the other side without the slightest warning.  He will never play with a cripples, badly-managed or broken-up team, and as soon as a club begins to go down hill it is a clear case of desertion by the mascot.”

 

 

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Things I Learned on the way to Looking Up Other Things #24

1 Aug

Pitching to Ruth

According to the International News Service, during a discussion before a game in 1919, Frank Baker was talking to his Yankees teammates about “the days when batters demanded the sort of delivery they could hit best.”

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Babe Ruth

The players agreed:

“If that rule were in force in the present day the outfielders would have to be mounted on motorcycles, and Muddy Ruel said that the playing field would have to be as big as the parade grounds at old Camp Pike, where he was at officers training camp.

Just imagine Babe Ruth coming up with the bases filled and a hit needed if he had the privilege of demanding a fastball waist high.  The question of how to pitch to him under such conditions was placed in open discussion.  Ping Bodie solved it.  ‘I’d get back on second base, throw the ball and then duck,’ said Ping.”

Negotiating with Murphy

When it was first rumored that Fred Mitchell would step down as president of the Chicago Cubs in the summer of 1919, there was speculation that Charles Webb Murphy might return to the club as president (Bill Veeck Sr. was ultimately given the position)

Hearing word of Murphy’s possible return, Johnny Evers told The Sporting News what it was like to negotiate a contract with Murphy after the team’s back to back World Series wins in 1907 and 1908:

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Charles Webb Murphy

“We had made lots of money for the Cubs and certainly expected owner Murphy to give us a big boost in salary.  I received my contract, gave it the once over and returned it to C.W. with the curt reply that I thought I deserved more money for my labors.

“It was not a big salary,  In fact, the sum mentioned was so small that if I were to tell you the amount it would shock you.  Mr. Murphy was shrewd enough to get around my request for a raise.  His reply was to the effect that I might deserve more money, but should be satisfied to work for the amount he mentioned in view of the fact that I had such wonderful stars to help me as Frank Chance on my left and Joe Tinker on my right.

“Joe Tinker also protested against the figures mentioned in his contract that year and the crafty Mr. Murphy’s reply to him was that he should be satisfied to play for almost anything since he was teamed up with such stars as (Harry) Steinfeldt on his right, Evers on his left and Frank Chance at first base.  There was no way to get around an argument like that, and when the season opened Tinker and I were playing at the original figures offered by chubby Charley.”

Arguing with Browning

The Louisville Courier-Journal recalled in 1908 an incident “When Pete Browning played with the Louisville club.”

Browning, said the paper, was “no prize beauty…still he was sensitive regarding his un-Apollo like appearance and would get angry in a moment if any allusion was made to his lack of pulchritude.”

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Pete Browning

During a game in Cincinnati, umpire John Gaffney called Browning out on strikes.

 “The big fellow rushed up the umpire roaring like a toreador stuck bull.  But John Gaffney was afraid of no living man, and he ruled the field with a rod of iron, but he was also a reasonable man and would explain his decisions.  However, Pete would listen to no explanations.  Finally, Gaffney became angry, and walking up to Browning, he shook his finger in his face and said:

“’I would like to have a photograph of your face, Browning.’

“’And for why,’ shot back Pete, who was taken wholly by surprise, and began to color up when allusion was made to his face.

“’Why, I have a chicken farm back home,’ said Gaffney, ‘and I would like to put your picture in the coop so as to frighten eggs out of the hens.’”

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Stealing Bats, 1889

26 May

In 1889, The Cincinnati Enquirer said of the quest the average ballplayer made to secure a bat to his liking:

“The average ball-player has trouble in securing a bat of the size and weight to suit his fancy.  He will run over the stock of bats in sporting goods stores, buy pieces of wood and have them turned, and go miles to secure the article, but the season may be half over before he will find one that suits him exactly.  When he does find one to his fancy he will have trouble in keeping it, as opposing players will try to steal it.”

The paper said theft was so common:

“A bat is looked at as common property, and there is no crime in base-ball to swipe a bat providing you do it without getting caught.”

The Enquirer said John Reilly of the Red Stockings was a “Bat crank,” and “(H)as a mania for hunting good sticks.’”   Reilly was asked if he ever had a bat stolen:

“’I should say I did,’ was John’s reply.  ‘There are ball-players who make a business of stealing good bats.  I never knew Pete Browning to ‘swipe’ a bat, but you can get a trade out of the Gladiator at any stage of the game.  He has always got a stick or two to trade, and about the first thing he does when he strikes a lot is to size up the opposing club’s pile of bats and tries to drive a bargain.”

 

reilly

John Reilly

 

Reilly said there was a problem with Browning’s trades:

“Some of the Louisville players complain that Pete never trades his own bats, but grabs the first one he runs across in the Louisville pile.”

As for Browning’s use of heavy bats, Reilly said:

“Pete uses the heaviest bat of any man in the business…he had one here once that must have weighed twelve pounds.  It felt like it had an iron sash weight in the end of it.  Once, when I was in Louisville, I saw a bat floating around in a bath tub in the clubhouse.  ‘Whose bat is that? I inquired.  ‘it belongs to me,’ replied Pete:  ‘I put it in there so it will get heavy.”

petebrowning

Pete Browning

Reilly also told the story of “a splendid stick,” that had been stolen from his team in 1888.  Hick Carpenter had acquired the bat in a trade with John Sneed of the New Orleans Pelicans:

“(N)early all the players were using it.  We had it until sometime in May when it disappeared.  That was the last we saw of it until the Clevelands came around late in the summer.  One of our players saw the bat in the Cleveland club’s pile, and at once claimed It.  The Clevelands stopped the game and would not play until the bat was returned.  (Charles “Pop”) Snyder said it might belong to us, but he didn’t know anything about it.  He claimed that Tip O’Neill, of the St. Louis Browns brought it to Cleveland and forgot it, and that (Ed) McKean took it.  We had to give it up”

Reilly said another bat had been stolen from him in 1888:

“I cut the letter ‘R’ in the knob of the handle…I did not run across it again until late in the season in Brooklyn.  The bat had been painted and the knob sawed half in two to get rid of the little ‘R.’ I claimed the bat but did not get it”

Reilly said the New York Metropolitans, the American Association franchise that folded in 1887, were:

“(T)he best bat swipers in the business. They would leave New York on a trip with an empty bat bag and after they had played on a few lots they would have bats to sell.”

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