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].”
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.”
Seventy-two-year-old George Van Haltren (center, with Bill Steen and Jack Kennedy) at the San Francisco Seals’ third annual old-timers game on August 5, 1934.
Van Haltren was the oldest player to participate in the game; The Associated Press reported that Connie Bigelow, who played for various San Francisco based teams in the 1870s and Mike Fisher, who played for local teams in the 1880s, were the only two present who were older, although neither played.
Van Haltren provided the biggest highlight of the three inning game. Abe Kemp, who covered baseball for The San Francisco Examiner for more than 40 years, said:
Van Haltren’s hit
“George Van Haltren singles to right.
“Forty years ago, New York baseball fans expected such a thing to happen because it happened frequently, but when a fellow is crawling along in the seventies, as Van is, it approximates quite a feat; yet that is what this grand old warrior did yesterday in his first and only trip to the plate.”
Van Haltren’s Haverly’s lost 6 to 4 to the Pioneers.
Abe Kemp began working at newspapers in San Francisco in 1907, when he was 14 years old, and spent the next 62 years primarily at The San Francisco Examiner where he covered his two passions, baseball and horse racing.
Abe Kemp
Over the years he collected a number of stories of baseball on the West Coast.
Catcher Tubby Spencer hit just .127 in 21 games for the San Francisco Seals in 1913. Contemporaneous reports said Spencer wore out his welcome with manager Del Howard in Portland. Years later, Kemp said the decision to let Spencer go was made during a team stopover in Sonoma County, and not by Howard. Kemp said he saw:
“Spencer staggering down the highway at Boyes Hot Springs one morning and President/Owner Cal Ewing yelling at him, ‘Hey, ‘Tub,’ where are you going?’
“’I’m going for a little air,’ yelled back Tub.
“’Then keep going,’ shouted Ewing, ‘because you will need it. You’re through.’”
Tubby Spencer
Harry “Slim” Nelson was a mediocre left-handed pitcher and weak hitter who played a half a dozen years on the West Coast. Kemp told of witnessing him “hit a home run through the screen at Recreation Park” in San Francisco when Nelson was playing for the Oakland Oaks.
“(He) became so excited when he reached second base that he swallowed his cud of chewing tobacco. Later on the bench, Slim was asked how the home run felt and he replied ‘it would have felt a whole lot better if I could have cut it up into singles to last me the season.”
Kemp said when George Van Haltren made the switch from Oaks player to Pacific Coast League umpire in 1909 he told Kemp and umpire Jack McCarthy “umpiring would be easy…because he had so many friends,” throughout the league. Kemp said McCarty responded:
“You mean you had so many friends. You haven’t any now.”
McCarthy appears to have been correct. Van Haltren was criticized throughout his short time as a Coast League umpire, and became a West Coast scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates the following two seasons. Van Haltren made one more attempt as an umpire, joining the Northwestern League staff in 1912; he was no more successful, lasting only one season after incurring the season-long wrath of Seattle Siwashes owner Dan Dugdale who demanded Van Haltren not be retained for the 1913 season.
George Van Haltren
Another player who had similar training habits to Tubby Spencer, according to Kemp, was Charles “Truck Eagan. Kemp said he was with Vernon Tigers manager Wallace “Happy Hogan” Bray one day when Eagan played for the Tigers near the end of his career in 1909:
“Eagan, suffering from the effects of a bad night (told) manager Hap Hogan he was suffering from an attack of ptomaine poisoning.
‘”What did you eat’ the artful and suspicious Hogan asked.
“Eagan scratched his head a minute, then said guiltily, ‘It must have been the (bar) pretzels and herring, Hap.”
A 1952 photo of 80-year-old Bill “Brick” Devereaux holding a picture of the 1898 Santa Cruz club in the Pacific Coast League.
The Oakland Tribune said Devereaux was able to remember the first and last names of every player in the photo “but one, Cristall, a pitcher.”
Devereaux said the other ten players, in addition to him and Cristall, were Jack “Ike” Walters, Lyle Gorton, Charles “Buck” Francks, Ernest “Kid” Mohler, Julius Streib, Bill Dunleavy, Pete Lohman, George “Hardy” Hodson, Walter “Judge” McCredie, Henry “Smilin'” Schmidt.
Devereaux who spent 1894 and ’95 primarily as a pitcher for teams in Lincoln, Nebraska and Troy, Kansas, told the paper after those two seasons he ‘refused to go east again,” and spent the next 17 seasons playing for California based clubs. He only left the state to play for a team once, spending his final year in pro ball, 1914, in Calgary, Canada.
Devereaux was something of an eccentric during his playing day. Del Howard told a story about Devereaux, late in his career, to The San Francisco Call in 1921:
“Brick swiped six bases during the battle (against the San Francisco Seals) and promptly claimed a world record. ‘Not bad for an old man, eh?’ He chuckled.
“(Seals Manager) Danny Long, sitting on the Frisco bench shouted over ‘Record, where do you get that stuff? When I was with the Baltimore Orioles I stole seven bases myself in one game. Read it up.'”
Howard said Devereaux “grew red as a beet,” but didn’t respond.
“Next day, when he came up for the first time, Devereaux hit an easy grounder to short and was out at first base by 20 feet. Instead of stopping, he turned first at full speed, dashed for the Frisco bench and slid feet foremost into the visitors’ pile of bats scattering them in all directions and throwing dust and cinders in Long’s face.
“Brick rose and carefully brushed off his uniform.
“Well, I’m the best base stealer in Alameda County, anyway, Danny.”
Note: In the original posting, I misidentified the team shown as the 1902 Oakland Clamdiggers–I misread a caption on an old newspaper photograph. Thanks for the sharp eye of Jeff Dunn from Santa Cruz who brought the error to my attention.
There was a race to sign Joe Nealon in 1905. The San Francisco Chronicle said he was “thought to be the equal of Hal Chase,” the fellow first baseman and Californian who made his major league debut that season.
By November, West Coast newspapers had reported that at least four teams were after Nealon—the New York Highlanders, Boston Americans, St. Louis Browns, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, and Pittsburgh Pirates were after Nealon.
Joe Nealon
There likely would have been even more interest in Nealon if not for his background; as The Chronicle said after Nealon signed with the San Francisco Seals before the 1905 season:
“Parental objection had to be overcome, and this was accomplished through an understanding that the boy would remain in professional baseball not more than two or three seasons.”
Nealon was the son of the James C. Nealon, a wealthy real estate executive, elected official, owner of thoroughbreds, and one of the best known handball players on the West Coast who often played with boxer Jim Corbett.
Nealon attended St. Ignatius College (now the University of San Francisco) and had played in the California State League in 1903 and 1904.
Cincinnati and Boston appeared to be the most aggressive pursuer of Nealon; according to The Cincinnati Enquirer:
“Everybody who has seen him work says that Nealon will fill the bill. He is described as a second Bill Lange at the bat, and a new edition of Charley Comiskey on the bag. Allowing for exaggeration he seems to be the real goods.”
The Reds dispatched Ted Sullivan to San Francisco. The Americans sent Dan Long. They did not know that Pittsburgh Pirates Manager Fred Clarke was on his way West as well; Clarke arrived first. The Pirates manager won out. The Pittsburgh Post said:
“It was against these two men that Clarke had to use his ingenuity in securing Nealon. The player is a freelance and was at liberty to join a team of his own selection. Being independently wealthy and playing baseball only for the sport he finds in it. Nealon was not influenced by any financial proposition.”
“Why was not Ted Sullivan on the ground earlier? Ted left Cincinnati a week ago last Saturday (October 29) with instructions to make a bee line for Frisco. Mr. Herrmann knew that there was keen competition for the services of Nealon…If Sullivan had reached San Francisco on Tuesday or Wednesday, as he was expected to do he would have got in ahead of Fred Clarke, and the chances would have favored his securing the player.”
Ryder said he had a letter from James C. Nealon written to Herrmann promising “that his son would sign with Cincinnati, ‘other things being equal,’” Ryder noted that the Reds “offered the boy more salary than any other club including Pittsburgh.”
Ryder concluded:
“Fred Clarke, who was on the spot, while Ted Sullivan was not, was able to persuade (Nealon) that the Pirates are a far better aggregation than the Reds.”
Ted Sullivan was not about to blamed, and fired off a letter to The Enquirer:
“There is not a man in the city of Cincinnati that would feel as much hurt as myself to lose a good man for the Cincinnati club. The two years that I have acted as agent for Mr. Herrmann he has treated me like a king, and has showed a disposition to back my judgment on the skill of a player.”
Ted Sullivan
Sullivan said in the letter, he had discovered Nealon’s “hidden skill” in August:
“The skill I noticed in Nealon (I wrote Mr. Herrmann at the time) was skill hidden beneath a dross of inexperience and youth.”
While he conceded that some time in the major leagues would “make him a star,” he assured The Enquirer he was not of the caliber of Sullivan’s favorite first baseman:
“The greatest first baseman in the history of the game, Charles Comiskey, was my own selection and making (which I say without egotism), but the California fledgling, without disparaging him, is a pallbearer compared to the magnetism of the matchless Comiskey.”
Sullivan blamed his inability to sign Nealon on Nealon’s father. He claimed to have offered $3,800 to the first baseman in August, and was told that money was not the critical consideration, but complained that Nealon Sr. had immediately “proclaimed throughout Frisco, with the aid of a flashlight, and had also the newspaper men transmit (the offer) to all of the papers in the East.”
As for arriving is San Francisco after Clarke, Sullivan blamed that on the railroads:
“(I) was blocked between Salt Lake and Sacramento, caused by the immense amount of trains”
But, said Sullivan, none of that mattered. Nealon’s father had not dealt with the Reds in good faith:
“Mr. Nealon Sr., who claimed he was not out for the money, called Fred out on the porch of the house and showed him, in confidence, the offer from Cincinnati.”
The latest Cincinnati offer was $6500—with a clause that promised $1000 more than any other offer Nealon would receive–Sullivan said. Clarke matched the $6500, he said, and signed Nealon.
Fred Clarke
There was more said Sullivan:
“Now comes the most brazen effrontery of offended dignity that has more hypocritic brass in it than the Colossus of Rhodes. With this standing offer of Mr. Herrmann’s in his hands for days before I arrived, I asked Mr. Nealon Sr., why he did not close with Mr. Herrmann on such a grand offer. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I consider it an insult for any man to make me such an offer as that, as it would appear that I was playing one club against the other.” Think of that insult—one man offers another man $1000 more than the highest bidder and he is insulted.”
Sullivan closed his letter by again questioning Nealon’s prospects of making an immediate impact, and said:
“I would rather go down to Millcreek bottoms and pick up some young fellow that wanted to make baseball a profession, than any young man in the United States who thinks that he is condescending to play ball for $7000.”
Sullivan was not the only representative of a club who had expressed interest in Nealon who now questioned the prospects ability. In response to Frank Chance of the Chicago Cubs who said Nealon was “not of National League Caliber,” The Pittsburgh Press responded:
Thomas Stevens Rice was an attorney, a criminologist, and covered baseball for The Brooklyn Eagle for nearly 20 years. In 1921, he related a story that he said showed:
“That the mills of the gods may grind rapidly, as well as grind exceedingly fine.”
Thomas Stevens Rice
The story was told to him by George A. Putnam, the business manager of the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.
“Outside of San Francisco in the small towns is the Mission League, composed of semi-pro clubs and containing many old professional ballplayers, who turn an honest penny on the side in the sport now that they have passed from the big show and are regularly engaged in their occupations.
“Among the towns in the Mission League is San Jose. And San Jose has a semi-pro park that would delight Ring Lardner. Far out in center is an ambitious scoreboard, liberally decorated with the advertising sign of the town’s leading hardware merchant and a strong supporter of the team.
“About a month ago San Jose was playing at home and a ball was hit to center it was diligently pursued by two outfielders, both formerly in organized baseball, one of them a major leaguer in his day. They chased the ball up to the scoreboard and tried to retrieve it before carried out of sight of the umpire, but failed.
“As the two veterans whipped around the corner of the board they surprised a man peeping at the game through the planking. He was seedy in apparel, had a beard of several days growth, and a general air of utter forlornness. Both outfielders were at first indifferent to the stranger, but a second glance identified him.
“The utterly forlorn stranger was Hal Chase, who two years ago was a member of the New York Giants, at a salary that was probably beyond that which until war times was paid a United States Senator. It was the same Hal Chase who had been tried by the National League on the charge of throwing games when a member of the Cincinnati Reds and acquitted for lack of definite evidence; the same Hal Chase who had been given another chance by the New York National League club; the same Hal Chase who had been fired by the New York National League club on charges which were never fully explained, but were clearly understood to be based upon alleged crookedness; it was the same Hal Chase who had left New York, returned to his home state of California, and had been barred from the ball parks of that state on the ground of being involved in betting.”
Hal Chase
Rice had no complaints about the “forlornness,” or fate, of Chase:
“Chase, who stands before the world bearing unrefuted charges of having crooked the game which brought him fame and fortune, and which is an institution of which his country has been vastly proud, should remain an outcast forever he would be no more than bearing part of the penalty he deserved. If every man who had a hand in the crooking of the national game should die an outcast in the gutter, despised by the potter’s field men who bury him. It would be no more than they deserved.”
Rice also said there were fans who deserved the same fate as Chase:
“The baseball fan who patronizes semi-pro or other games openly participated in by men who have brought the national sport into disrepute and cast a cloud over its honesty merits the fate of a Chase for helping to encourage crookedness.”
He said his statements were in no way exaggerating his position—one he said was critical to protect the integrity of the game:
“The effective penalty imposed upon (Bill) Craver, (George) Hill [sic Hall], (Jim) Devlin, and (Al) Nichols in the 1870s (all were banned for accepting money to lose games in 1877), was not their being dropped from baseball and forced to turn to other means of making a living. It was the ostracism that followed them their graves and made them anathema even in the society of professional thieves.”
And, he said, all penalties related to gambling should remain in effect forever:
“To impose a definite penalty on baseball crooks and then have the public forgive and forget when it is worked out, would be nothing less than an incentive to a repetition of the crime. Let the possible throwers of games and the pawns of gamblers know they will be sneered at on the street by every pickpocket and dog-stealer who recognizes them, and that a bartender at a black and tan speakeasy will refuse to serve them.”
According to The International News Service, Chase, who spent the winter in San Jose, California playing for the Maxwells—a team sponsored by the automobile company–was “the last of the stars” of the defunct Federal League who had still not signed with a professional team.
Hal Chase
It got worse when he was arrested for failure to pay alimony and support to his ex-wife Nellie and their son Hal Jr.
He was released on $2000 bond, and it is unclear whether the case was ever fully adjudicated. After his release, Chase continued playing with the Maxwells and working out with Harry Wolverton‘s San Francisco Seals while rumors of who he would play for during the regular season were advanced on a daily basis.
The strongest rumors were that Chase would go to the New York Giants in a deal which would include Fred Merkle, who would be displaced at first base, going to the Chicago White Sox, the team Chase jumped to join the Federal League.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the deal was eventually foiled by Pirates Manager Jimmy “Nixey” Callahan, who “refuse(d) to waive.”
At the same time the papers in Cincinnati said Chase would be joining the Reds while West Coast papers said he might stay in California and join the Seals.
Herzog was even more forceful in his denial in The Cincinnati Times-Star:
“I wouldn’t have Chase at the camp. Mollwitz is a very much better player, and he won’t jump when he is most needed.”
An even stronger indictment of Chase came from Detroit Tigers Manager Hugh Jennings, who told The Detroit News:
“As a player, there is nobody who can touch Chase for holding down first base.”
Jennings went on to note Chase’s intelligence, speed, and “superb” fielding:
“Yet for all his ability I would not have him on my club, and I do not believe any other major league manager will take a chance on him. He will not heed training rules and has a demoralizing influence on the younger players.”
Tiger Manager Hugh Jennings
Jennings said while Chase managed the New York Highlanders in 1910 and ’11, led his team “astray,” instead of “trying to keep his players straight.”
Perhaps most damaging, Jennings said Chase was a source of dissent on the clubs he played for:
“One of his favorite stunts is to go around telling on man what another is supposed to have said about him, with the result that in a very short time he has the fellows pulling in all directions instead of working together. He is apt to take a dislike to the manager and work against him with the players until the whole squad is sore and will not give the sort of work that it is paid for.”
Jennings, whose team finished second in 1915 with George Burns at first base, said:
“The Tigers would win the pennant beyond question with a player of Hal’s ability on first this season, but I wouldn’t risk introducing a man who had such a bad disposition. I believe that we can accomplish better results by having harmony on the squad, even if we have to get along with a first baseman with less talent.”
Despite the negative press, and over the objection of Herzog, the Reds purchased Chase’s contract from the defunct Buffalo Blues on April 6.
The New York Times lauded the move and defended Chase against his detractors. The paper said “His failure with the New York Americans was due to petty controversies and rebellion against the club’s discipline,” and “(W)hen he is at his best there is not a player in the major leagues who is more spectacular than ‘Prince Hal.’”
Chase initially balked at reporting to Cincinnati, telling The San Francisco Chronicle “I haven’t made up my mind…it is possible that I would prefer to remain in California, even if there is no chance to play ball.”
Six days later, while his new team opened the season, Chase was on a train to Cincinnati. The Associated Press said he agreed to join the Reds after receiving “word from Cincinnati that his entire contract with the Federal League, which calls for a salary of $8,000 a year, has been taken over,” by the Reds.
When Chase arrived in Cincinnati on April 15, the Reds had won three straight after losing their opener, and Mollwitz had played well at first base with five hits in 13 at-bats and just one error.
According to Frederick Bushnell “Jack” Ryder–college football star and Ohio State football coach turned sportswriter–of The Enquirer, Herzog had no intention of putting Chase in the game April 16:
“Herzog had little thought of playing him, as Fritz Mollwitz was putting up a bang-up game and hitting better than any member of the club,” until “Mollwitz made a bad mental mistake in the third inning.”
After Umpire Hank O’Day called a strike on Mollwitz, “the youngster allowed his tongue to slip,” and was ejected.
Fritz Mollwitz
Chase came to bat with an 0-2 count and doubled off of Pirates pitcher Frank Miller, stole third, and after catcher Tommy Clark walked “(Chase) caused an upheaval in the stands by scoring on (a) double steal with Clark.”
Chase also wowed the crowd in the ninth. After making “a nice stop” on Max Carey’s hard ground ball over first base and with pitcher Fred Toney unable to cover first in time, Chase dove “headforemost to first base to make a putout on the fleet Carey.”
In all, he played 98 games at first base, 25 in the outfield, and 16 at second base, he also hit a league-leading and career-high .329.
While the Reds struggled, Chase was wildly popular in Cincinnati. The Enquirer’s Ryder was possibly his biggest fan—the writer raved about Chase’s performance in the outfield, his adjustment to playing second base, and his consistent bat.
While Chase thrived, Herzog, who had a contentious relationship with Reds’ owner August Herrmann, exacerbated by the signing of Chase against his wishes, began to unravel as the season progressed. On May 30, he was hit in the head and knocked unconscious, by a throw from catcher Ivey Wingo during pregame warm-ups. While he recovered physically, he became increasingly frustrated by the club’s performance. On July 5—with a 29-40 record– he announced that he would retire at the end of the season when his contract expired. He told The Times-Star:
“It would be a great blow to my pride to continue as a player, after being a manager for three years.”
The following day it was reported that the Chicago Cubs and New York Giants were interested in acquiring Herzog. Within a week, it was reported that Herzog was heading to New York in a trade that would bring Christy Mathewson to Cincinnati to manage. The negotiations continued over several days but floundered. The Cubs reentered the picture—Owner Charles Weeghman told The Chicago Daily News “I brought the bankroll along…and I’ll get Herzog so quick I’ll make (the Reds) eyes pop.” He later told the paper he offered “$25,000 and an outfielder” for Herzog.
At the same time The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said the Dodgers were after Herzog, and The Pittsburgh Post said the Pirates were in pursuit as well.
The pressure got to Herzog who held himself out of the lineup of July 17, The Enquirer said:
“The managerial situation is worrying Herzie, who had expected by this time to be cavorting at the third corner for the giddy Giants. With the deal held off for various reasons, the Red leader is naturally a bit anxious.”
Herzog’s destination was unclear, but it was clear he would be gone. With Mathewson seeming to be out of the picture, rumors persisted—fueled by Ryder of The Enquirer and William A. Phelon in The Times-Star—that Chase would be the new manager.
On July 20, Ivey Wingo managed the team to a doubleheader split with the Philadelphia Phillies, and the papers reported on Herzog’s successor:
The Enquirer ran Chase’s picture under the headline “Reds’ New Manager,” although they hedged in another headline which said he would “probably” be named.
The Times-Star said “Hermann has decided to allow Hal Chase to manage the team for the remainder of the season, and for this reason he does not want Mathewson.”
They were both wrong.
Within hours of the papers hitting the streets, a trade involving three future Hall of Famers was agreed to. Herzog, along with catcher Wade “Red” Killefer went to New York for Mathewson, Edd Roush, and Bill McKechnie. Mathewson was immediately named manager.
Cartoon which accompanied the announcement of Mathewson’s appointment.
Ryder said in The Enquirer that “Chase was greeted with a great round of applause” when he stepped to the plate for the first time on July 20:
“The fans at that time did not know of President Herrmann’s change of mind with regard to Matty, and they thought Chase was the new leader of the team. The universal and hearty applause showed how popular the star third-sacker has become in this town.”
The Chase story is well-known; two years later Mathewson would suspend him, charge him with “indifferent playing.” With Mathewson in Europe when the charges were heard by National League President John Heydler that winter, three Reds teammates, and Giants Manager Pol Perritt testified Chase had thrown games.
But in October of 1916 Chase appeared to have repaired his reputation, and his difficult March appeared to be far behind him. In a season wrap-up, The Enquirer–there was no byline on the article, but it was likely the work of Ryder–published a glowing profile of the National League’s leading hitter and the man who nearly became the Reds’ manager:
“What has become of all the talk about Chase being a bad actor, a disorganizer, a former of cliques and a knocker of managers? All gone to the discard. Chase has not only played brilliant ball for the reds all season, but he has been loyal to the club and the managers. He worked hard for Herzog and equally hard for Matty. He has been a wonderful fellow on the club. Chase is modest and does not seek notoriety or approbation…He played game after game in midseason when he was so badly crippled with a Charley horse that he could scarcely walk. When Manager Herzog wanted to make an outfielder out of him he went to the garden and played sensational ball…Later in the season he filled in for several games at second base, a difficult position for a left-hand thrower, but he put up great ball there. He is a natural ballplayer of the highest class, and with it all a perfect gentleman, both on and off the field.”
The profile concluded with this assessment of the man who would become synonymous with the baseball’s greatest sins:
“Chase has been a great man for the Reds, and there is many a manager of today who wishes that he had got in ahead of the Cincinnati club in signing him. He is the smartest ballplayer and the quickest thinker in the National League today. He is a model for the young ballplayer to emulate, because he is a real artist in his profession.”
Berry’s Angels won the Pacific Coast League championship in 1907 and ’08, and that success, along with his own profits in the oil business, made Berry a wealthy man in his own right.
He also managed, during his tenure with the Angels, to sell a player to a big league club for the highest amount ever received by a Coast League Club to that point, when he was paid $5,000 by Charles Comiskey of the Chicago White Sox for 18-year-old Lee “Flame” Delhi in 1911; Delhi appeared in just one game for the Sox the following season and was out of organized ball well before his 25th birthday.
Berry was also the driving force in getting the league to finally adopt a two-umpire system in 1912.
He also had a theory about what the type of lifestyle that best suited his players. In 1914, he talked about it with a reporter from The Los Angeles Examiner:
“’A ballplayer can’t chase ‘chickens’ and chase flies at the same time with any degree of certainty that he’ll land the flies.’
“That is ‘Hen’ Berry’s way of saying that a player whose head is turned by the hero-worship of the fair patrons on the diamond stands a mighty slim chance at high fielding averages or of shining in the .300 batting class…Wedding bells for all players, he believes, would result in the highest possible efficiency.”
Eighteen of the 21 members of the Angels were married, and it was that way by design:
“’It is his susceptibility to the attentions of pretty hero worshippers that keep many a promising athlete from reaching the high place that otherwise would be his in the world of sport,’ asserts Berry.
“’The ballplayer is perhaps more constantly beset by these fair idolizers than any other professional athlete because women frequent the diamond more generally by far than any other sport.’
“’So we have the very thing which keeps baseball keyed up to concert pitch—the element of personal admiration for the players—becoming the most dangerous possibility in pulling a good man down or keeping him mediocre.’”
“Hen” Berry caricature
While Berry conceded that marriage didn’t guarantee that a player would be “immune from lionizing” by women, it would at least reduce the “social diversions which frazzle a man’s nerves.”
Marriage, said Berry, resulted in “Emotional calm” and provides “stability which goes far towards winning pennants.”
Berry’s theory had not resulted in any recent success; after his two pennants in 1907 and ’08, the Angels had experienced a drought that would continue in 1914 when his predominately married club finished second to the Portland Beavers.
Berry sold the Angels after the 1914 season and moved north, purchasing the San Francisco Seals.
He picked up two more championships with the Seals—it is unclear how many of the players on each pennant-winning club were married– and sold the team to group headed by former Coast League catcher Charlie Graham before the 1918 season.
Charlie Graham
After leaving baseball, Berry managed the family’s oil holdings in California. On March 13, 1929 the steering broke on Berry’s car as he rounded a curve while driving near his home in Maricopa. The car plunged 100 feet into a ravine, and the former West Coast baseball magnate was dead at age 59.
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