Tag Archives: Tony Mullane

Salaries, 1885

23 Mar

Before the 1885 season, The Pittsburgh Dispatch asserted:

“It was confidently claimed at the close of last season’s play that salaries would not go higher, and if any changes were made they would rather be in the other direction, but recent contracts do not justify that assertion”

The paper then told readers who would be the best paid players in baseball:

“The highest salaried ballplayer in the profession for 1885 will be James O’Rourke, late of the Buffalo team. After receiving flattering offers from the Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Providence, St. Louis, and Athletic clubs he finally signed in New York for $6500.”

o'r

Jim O’Rourke

The Spalding Guide placed his salary at $4500.

The paper said Tony Mullane had signed with the Browns for $3500 with a $500 advance from owner Chris von der Ahe; Mullane would also “sign” with Cincinnati which drew him a suspension for the entire 1885 season:

“(Mullane) went before a notary and entered into an agreement with the St. Louis club…The Cincinnati managers offered him $5000 for this season’s work with $2000 advance money, and the great flopper flopped.”

Other salaries reported by The Dispatch differed with the Spalding Guide:

“(John Montgomery) Ward of the New York League team gets $3400 next year ($3000), and Buck Ewing $3000 ($3100).”

jmward

John Montgomery Ward

The paper claimed that Old Hoss Radbourn, who was reported to have made $4000 for the 1885 season, “had an offer of $6000 for his services,” but did not say who had made the offer,

Louisville’s Guy Hecker, Cincinnati’s Pop Snyder, Buffalo’s Pud Galvin, Pittsburgh’s Ed Morris; Barney Gilligan of Providence, and John Morrill and Jack Burdock of Boston were are to receive $2500 according to The Dispatch.

Cap Anson was to receive $3000 in Chicago; Frank Mountain, acquired by Pittsburgh with the rest of his Columbus Buckeye teammates after that club folded, was said to have been signed for $3300 for the 1885 season.

Sam Barkley of St. Louis, Joe Gerhardt of New York, Charlie Bastian of Philadelphia, and Jim Manning and Mert Hackett of Boston “and several more players will receive $2000, while the number receiving $1500 and upward are entirely too numerous to mention.”

sambarkley2

Sam Barkley

The Dispatch concluded:

“From the above figures it would seem that, instead of decreasing, the salaries of good players are going higher and higher each season.”

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“A Baseball Player is Unfitted as a Rule for Business”

8 Mar

When the Baltimore Orioles obtained pitcher John Clarkson from the Cleveland Spiders for pitcher Tony Mullane, Clarkson chose to go home to Bay City, Michigan and open a cigar business.

Ned Hanlon did not give up on Clarkson returning to baseball; in fact, the Orioles’ manager was sure Clarkson would need the job in 1895.  He told The Baltimore American:

“I am confident John Clarkson will be on my staff of pitchers next year.  John is now running a store up in Michigan, but I hear he will have the same experience which befalls all players who embark in business.  I fitted up a hat store in New York in 1889 and did all I could to establish myself.”

clarkson.jpg

Hanlon failed and he assumed Clarkson would as well.

“‘Every man to his trade,’ is the best plan for getting through life.  A baseball player is unfitted as a rule for business.  I found that I could not get rid of a stock of out-of-style hats as easily as I did some of the back-number players who were drawing salaries from the Baltimore club when I took charge of it.”

Hanlon bragged of unloading “faded stars” like George Van Haltren and Tim O’Rourke who he traded in separate deals for Hughie Jennings and Joe Kelley.

“Yes, John will be back in the business next year and will help us to retain the championship.  He knows that we treat our players right.  John will get a new lease of life after this long rest and be all the better for it.”

Clarkson’s business–along with three subsequent ones he started were successful enough to keep him out of major league baseball for good.  Hanlon managed to win another pennant without him in 1895.

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“In Chicago, the Baseball Slump is what the Crank would call Disgusting”

8 Jun

Oliver Perry (OP) Caylor of The New York Herald came to a conclusion in August of 1892 that many have shared before and since:  baseball‘s best days were behind it.

O.P. Caylor

O.P. Caylor

Earlier,  National League President Nick Young had declared 1892—featuring an expanded twelve team circuit after the collapse of the American Association and just weeks into the only scheduled split-season in major league history—an unqualified success.

But now, into what Caylor called “A Dog Days Depression,” reality had set in.

“Much has been said since the League’s second championship season opened (the second half began July 15) about the renewed interest which was alleged to have sprung up and was keeping pace with the new season.  It has taken no more than a month to prove that this so-called revival was an illusion.”

Caylor noted that there was brief uptick in attendance in games played in Eastern cities during the first three weeks of the second half:

“(B)ut before the teams started west the same old rut of passing indifference seemed to be struck.  And nowhere in the west thus far has there been a sign of a promising revival.”

Caylor pointed to two cities as evidence of baseball’s bleak state;

“In Chicago, the baseball slump is what the crank would call disgusting.  People of that progressive center have use for nothing but the best, and Uncle (Cap) Anson this year has not succeeded in giving them such an article in baseball.  The great general has done the best possible, handicapped as he was in the beginning of the season by the poor allotment of players from the Indianapolis (Hoosiers, the defunct American Association franchise) consolidation pool.”

Cap Anson, 50 errors in 1876

Cap Anson

Caylor blamed most of Anson’s problems on a weak middle infield:

“(Jimmy) Cooney, his shortstop, turned out a sudden complete failure and he has never been able to successfully fill (Fred) Pfeffer’s vacant shoes on the nine.  Any team which is weak at short field and second base is bound to be weak all over, and that is the condition of the Chicagos.

“The old man has been experimenting on new material with more or less success and less success than more.  But by the time he gets his men into what he is pleased to consider championship form, the season will be so far spent that he will have no chance to arouse the chilled pride of the army of Chicago baseball ‘rooters.’”

Caylor said Anson had some optimism for “next season.”

“Maybe the Chicago club can well afford to waste this year whipping together a winning team for 1893.  For next year, the World’s Fair (The World Columbian Exhibition) should be bring a small fortune to the treasury of the Chicago club if they can get a winning team together by that time.  Yet there are those who will argue that the World’s Fair is bound to be a financial injury than a benefit to the Chicago club under any circumstance, and the argument is based upon baseball experience in Philadelphia during the year of the Centennial (1876).”

World's Colombian Exhibition

World’s Colombian Exhibition

 

Caylor said even, A. G. Spalding, former White Stockings president, felt the fair “will be a financial burden” on the team.

Spalding believed:

“(T)hat for every visiting stranger who will be attracted to the ball grounds three resident patrons will be kept away by the unusual demand upon their time by excessive business.”

But Caylor said, his former home was in even more distress than Chicago:

 “Cincinnati, the best-paying city of the circuit during the first half of the year, has become financially alarming.”

Cincinnati had suffered as a result of the National League’s cost cutting measure agreed upon in late June, which resulted in rosters being reduced from 15 to 13 players and across-the-board pay cuts of 30-40 percent for all players.  The Reds best pitcher, Tony Mullane, quit as a result of the cuts.

Tony Mullane

Tony Mullane

“The sorry slump in baseball interest at Cincinnati is another exemplification of that old moral taught by the fable of the ‘Hen Which Laid the Golden Egg.’ I know it is modern usage to speak of the golden egg producer as a goose, but my Latin book called it a hen.  As applied to the Cincinnati case it makes little difference whether we call it a hen or a goose…The Cincinnati club’s hen was laying golden eggs regularly through the first season.  The newspapers put the club down as a sure winner financially.  Then came the greed mentioned in the fable.  The officials thought they saw a way to squeeze  the old hen into more active and valuable work, and on the squeezing they killed her.”

As a result of the pay cuts:

“Cincinnati patrons became disgusted.  For the sake of saving a few thousand dollars in salaries while working at a profit, this club had thrown away its chances to win the second championship.  Nobody who understands human nature need wonder the result.”

Cleveland, home of the second half champion Spiders, was the only town where Caylor said the “national game is appreciated.”   But even that, he said was temporary and favorable financial conditions were “a question of considerable doubt.”

The 1892 season was a disaster for Chicago—on and off the field—they finished 70-76, in seventh place, and attendance dropped by more than 72,000 from the previous season.

While Cincinnati led the National League in attendance, the club lost money.

But, contrary to Caylor’s gloomy outlook, the league—after dropping the spilt-season format—bounced back well in 1893.

In Chicago, where Anson put an even worse product on the field—the Colts were 56-71—predictions that the Columbian Exhibition would destroy attendance were wrong.  Aided by the opening of a new ballpark in May, the club drew the fourth-largest attendance in the league—223,500—more than doubling their 1892 numbers.

Cincinnati’s attendance dropped by just 2200 fans despite a disappointing season where the team hovered near .500 all year and finished sixth.

National league attendance increased by nearly half a million from 1892 to 1893.

While baseball was not on a long-term decline, Tony Mullane was.

He returned to the Reds in 1893, but the 34-year-old was never the same–259-187 with a career ERA below 3.00 before his departure, he was 25-33 with a 5.74 ERA after.

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“Radbourn would only Accept the Money on Condition that the Money be bet on him”

28 Feb

Like most 19th-Century players, Arthur Irwin was convinced the game didn’t get any better after he played.  He talked to a reporter from The Buffalo Times in 1906 and said there still had never been a pitcher who was better than one of his former teammates.

Arthur Irwin

Arthur Irwin

Irwin said:

“In my opinion (Charles “Old Hoss”) Radbourn was the greatest pitcher the world ever saw and I doubt if his equal will appear.  He had a spit ball and worked it to perfection, only it was not known under that name.”

Irwin’s recollections of Radbourn highlight how open gambling was in 19th Century baseball:

“I remember on one occasion when we (the Providence Grays) were playing the Boston team one of our stockholders came to the hotel the night before the game and said he had wagered $6,000 on the Providence club.  Then he told Rad that he would give him $500 if he would pitch.  Radbourn would only accept the money on condition that the money be bet on him and the $500 was so placed.  The afternoon of the game found Radbourn in grand form and he made the Boston players look like a bunch of minor leaguers, not one of them scoring.”

If the story is not apocryphal, it could refer to Radbourn’s 4-0 shutout of the Beaneaters on August 12, 1884 in Boston—it was his only shutout there while he and Irwin were teammates.

"Old Hoss" Radbourn

“Old Hoss” Radbourn

Irwin also told the reporter about an exhibition game in 1884 against the Toledo Blue Stocking in the American Association:

“When we arrived the night before the game we found that they were betting $10 to $7 against us.  That same evening the mayor of a small town some few miles away drifted into the hotel and during the conversation remarked that he guessed we were not very anxious to win the game.  Naturally, we asked why he said that and he said the odds were against us, with no Providence money in sight, but he was willing to bet $2,500 on us if Radbourn pitched.  It was not Radbourn’s turn, but when the mayor supplemented his remarks by offering to give Rad $100 if he went into the box, the offer was snapped up.  Toledo had such stars as Curt Welch and (Tony) Mullane.  Welch, who was the first man up, got to first base.  After that there was nothing to it and not another man reached first during the entire game.”

Not only were no current pitchers as good as Radbourn, Irwin said no current catcher was nearly as tough as another of his teammates with the Worcester Ruby Legs in 1880:

“One of the most remarkable exhibitions of catching I ever saw was performed by Charles Bennett…As you know, we did not use gloves in those days and the pitcher was allowed to take a hop and step before throwing the ball from the box, which was only 45 feet from the batter.  On three successive days Bennett caught 14, 15 and 16-inning games without any protection.  The following day we were booked to play New York and Bennett went in to catch.  After half a dozen balls had been pitched , Charley suddenly dropped his hands and walked away from the plate.  I at once ran over to him and a glance at his hands told me all I wanted to know.  Both hands were black and blue from the base of the fingers almost to the wrist and the bruises went clear through the hands.  Of course it was impossible for him to continue, but imagine the torture he must have suffered before he was forced to quit.  I don’t believe you could find a catcher today who would go through that experience.”

Charlie Bennett

Charlie Bennett

Irwin also didn’t have much use for the belief that the game had progressed in terms of strategy since his playing days:

“It is amusing to hear (John) McGraw and other talk about the wonderful progress made in playing scientific baseball.  I am sure we put up just as clever a game in the 80s as they do today, but we did not have fancy names for our plays.  We worked the squeeze, hit and run and other tricks.  When I first came to the Philadelphia club (1886) I worked the trap play and got away with it.  There were men on first and second and the ball was hit into short left field.  I yelled for (George) Wood to let me have it, although it was his ball.  Then I let it drop through my hands and the bleachers let out an unearthly holler.  I picked up the ball; shot it to second in time to tag the man there and then the other man was easy.  We had taken our places on the bench before the crowd got wise to the play and then the cheers more than made up for their hisses.”

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Alternate Realities

26 Feb

Philip “Leather Fisted Phil” Powers went from respected major league catcher to one of the National League’s most controversial and disliked umpires.

Phil Powers

Phil Powers

One of his most explosive episodes of his umpiring career involved a run in with Reds pitcher Tony Mullane in Cincinnati. The incident took place at the end of a 7 to 4 loss to the Chicago White Stockings on April 30, 1891; Mullane walked ten batters.

The Cincinnati Enquirer saw it this way:

 “Phil Powers’ Very Yellow Umpiring “

The Chicago Tribune:

“Mullane’s Cowardly Assault”

The Tribune said Cincinnati had turned on a local hero:

“That either baseball cranks are devoid of memory or that gratitude does not enter into their composition was amply demonstrated today at the Cincinnati ball park.  Back in 1882 a sallow-complexioned youth wore a Queen City uniform, and by his clever work behind the bat aided in no small way to bringing the only championship banner that ever waved over the Queen City.  That youth was Phil Powers.  Today that same man, grown gray in active service on the ball field in various capacities, was assaulted by Tony Mullane on the ball field after the game and 700 brutes in the stands urged the curly-headed twirler on in his dastardly work, and all because of fancied wrongs at Powers’ hand in today’s game.”

The Enquirer said Mullane was the aggrieved party:

“Phil Powers’ umpiring was something awful.  Mistakes were not the exception; they were the rule.  He gave Tony Mullane a terrible roast.  His miserable work was enough to rob any pitcher of his nerve, but it did not rattle Tony.  He stood up like a hero under Powers’ Jesse James tactics, and pitched ball that would have been a winner under ordinary circumstances.  The Chicagos owe their victory to Mr. Powers, not their own efforts.”

Tony Mullane

Tony Mullane

The papers couldn’t even agree on how much Mullane was fined during the game The Tribune said $75, The Enquirer said $150; the  altercation after was also given a local spin.

The Tribune version:

“After the game was over Powers started across the field with Mullane at his heels pouring out a tirade of abuse which made the air in the vicinity assume a sulfurous odor.  Powers with an expression of scorn on his face walked on towards the clubhouse.

“Mullane, like a tiger lashing itself into a fury, grew more and more angry, until finally he lost all self-control, and drawing back struck Powers in the face with a clenched fist.  The latter immediately increased Mullane’s fine to $250…The scene attracted the attention of the crowd, which, be it said to the shame of Cincinnati, encouraged Mullane’s ruffianly conduct.”

The Enquirer saw it differently:

“Tony Mullane and Umpire Powers had some trouble near the clubhouse.  Powers was to blame for the controversy.  He gave Mullane an awful deal while the game was in progress and then soaked him $150 in fines simply because Tony grumbled and asked him to come closer to the bat and pay more attention to his delivery.  On the way down to the clubhouse Powers said to Mullane in a sort of apologetic manner:  “I couldn’t rob the Chicagos to please you.’

“’Oh, get out,’ said Mullane.  ‘No one asked you to rob them.  I only wanted what belonged to me, and you robbed me bald-headed.’

“Powers said something in return and Mullane replied angrily.  Then Powers put on another fine of $100.  This so incensed Mullane that he drew back as if to assault Powers.  The latter in a most exasperating way put his face right up against Tony and said: ‘I dare you to strike me.’  It was a cowardly act on the part of Powers, for he well knew that if Mullane hit him it would mean disgrace…Mullane almost forgot himself.  It was all he could do to restrain himself.  He simply pushed Powers’ face away.  Then other players separated them.”

The papers did agree on the final total of Mullane’s fines: $250.  Mullane beat the Cleveland Spiders 7 to 4 two days later with Powers as umpire.  The game went off without incident.

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“Three or four Men who looked like Wonders in the Big Leagues Disappeared”

13 Jan

In 1912 The Cincinnati Times- Star‘s Sports Editor William A. Phelon questioned why professional baseball had not become integrated:

“The prejudice against the Negro ballplayer is a strange and a deep-rooted thing in baseball circles, and all through the country, little leagues and big, from Maine to Mexico, the prejudice holds sway.  The African is barred from the places where the Indian is royally welcome and the athlete of negro blood must not presume to mingle in white baseball society.

“Strange to say, the white ball players, even the haughty southerners like (Ty) Cobb and (George) Suggs will gladly play games against Cuban clubs, composed mostly of black men.  They will play exhibition games against Negro teams, treating the black men with the utmost cordiality and fairness, but will not tolerate Negros in their own crowds or in the white clubs of the same circuits.”

Phelon said Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker’s short stay with the Toledo Blue Stockings demonstrated that even the most bigoted of teammates could manage to work with a good player—even if they treated him unreasonably:

 “Formerly there were a few clever Negro ball players in the big leagues, one of the best being Walker, a black catcher who was as good behind the bat as any white man of his time.  It was said of Walker that when he was catching Tony Mullane, the latter refused to stand for a Negro giving him battery signs.  Walker then agreed to work without a battery sign of any kind, and the battery of Mullane and Walker proved one of the most successful of the season.”

Walker and James “Deacon” McGuire were the team’s two primary catchers, each playing 41 games behind the plate.  Mullane was 36-26 in 67 games (the team was 10-32 in games Mullane did not figure in the decision).

Moses Fleetwood Walker

Moses Fleetwood Walker

Thirty-five years later Mullane told The New York Age that Walker was the “best catcher I ever worked with.” He said:

“I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used to pitch anything I wanted without looking at his signals.  One day he signaled me for a curve and I shot a fast ball at him.  He caught it and walked down to me.

“’Mr. Mullane,’ he said, ‘I’ll catch you without signals, but I won’t catch you if you are going to cross me when I give you signal.’

“And all the rest of that season he caught me and caught anything I pitched without knowing what was coming.”

tonymullane

Tony Mullane

Phelon also suggested that more than one player since Walker had managed to pass for a short period of time before being found out:

 “Now and then a Negro man has slipped over the bars, passing himself off as a suntanned white man or Indian, but sooner or later he has been unmasked and quietly vanished from the game, doubtless to turn up under some different name, with one of the strong Negro teams that tour the country.

“Three or four men who, for a little while, looked like wonders in the big leagues disappeared in that way and to this day fans marvel why such clever athletes should have quit and left no word behind.  Some of these players were so near white that they fooled the Northern athletes completely, but almost every ball club now contains two or three sons of Dixie, and you can barely deceive them on a Negro.”

Phelon also told the story of a first baseman who “broke into one of the major clubs, and he was a corker.  He could hit and run and field like a demon.”  He claimed that during a game in Washington a Virginia congressman recognized the player as a “black scoundrel” trying to pass as white, thus ending his career.

Unfortunately, Phelon left no clues about the players he claimed briefly “slipped over the bars” and there’s no way to verify whether his claims were legitimate or simply apocrypha indented to make a point.

The idea of players “passing” has intrigued historians.  Claims have been made about several players, including George Treadway and George Herman “Babe” Ruth.  None have been verified.

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Sam Barkley and the Mobster

29 Oct

Samuel W. Barkley’s brief career on the diamond was highlighted by two legal disputes over his services; his life off the field was more complicated and interesting.

Barkley rose from amateur and semi-pro teams around Wheeling, West Virginia, to a solid season (.306, league-leading 39 doubles) as a 26-year-old rookie with the Toledo Blue Stockings in the American Association in 1884. Among his teammates in Toledo were Fleetwood and Welday Walker.

Toledo was only a major league franchise in 1884—The Toledo Blade said the team had lost “nearly $10,000–and disbanded,” selling five players, including Barkley, to the St. Louis Browns—the sale included pitcher Tony Mullane, who attempted to sign with Cincinnati after agreeing to sign with St. Louis, leading to his year-long suspension. By the time all the legal wrangling was done, only Barkley and Curt Welch reported to the Browns.

After a .268 season in St. Louis, owner Chris Von der Ahe sold him to the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, but Barkley had already signed a contract with the Baltimore Orioles. The American Association suspended and fined Barkley; Barkley sued. The dispute was settled with Barkley being reinstated and Pittsburgh paying the fine on his behalf.

Sam Barkley

Sam Barkley

After two years in Pittsburgh, he was purchased by the Kansas City Cowboys, and that’s when his life got more interesting.

In Chicago, he met an 18-year-old woman named Dora Feldman, who followed him to Kansas City, where as The Toledo News-Bee said, “most of his money was thrown at the feet of the young woman.”

The Chicago Inter Ocean said Barkley claimed, that the day before he married Dora, “she went to her room in a Kansas City hotel and took poison, fearing he would not marry her.”

Despite the suicide attempt, the two married.

He hit just .216 in 1888 but was hitting .284 the following year when he was sold to the Toledo Black Pirates in the International League. After just 50 games there his career was over. At some point during the 1888 season he suffered a knee injury he said ended his career:

“I knocked a safe one to left field, and was dancing around between first and second bags when (Mike) Mattimore, the Philadelphia (Athletics) pitcher attempted to catch me napping. He ran to the base line, and as I attempted to slide back to the first bag he unintentionally gave me the ‘knee’ and it injured severely the knee cap on my left leg.”

With his playing days behind him, Barkley, who was reported to have made as much as $1,800 a season with the Alleghenys, returned to Pittsburgh with a young wife who had aspirations to be an actress and opened a cigar store.

It didn’t end well.

After just more than a year in business, The Pittsburgh Press said Barkley’s store on Smithfield Street closed by order of the sheriff, due to “claims aggregating $3,600.”

The couple moved to Chicago.

Initially, things went better there.

Barkley opened a tavern at 292 West Madison Street, and he and Dora had a son who was born around 1895.

Shortly after they returned to Chicago Dora met Chicago’s first crime boss Michael Cassius “Mike” McDonald.

Richard Henry Little of The Chicago Tribune said McDonald, “never held office but ruled the city with an iron hand.”

McDonald built a gambling and protection syndicate, controlled the Garfield Park racetrack, and solidified his control of the city as leader of the local Democratic Party. He was also heavily involved in legitimate businesses—he owned The Chicago Globe newspaper and financed the building of Chicago’s first elevated rail line.

Mike McDonald

Mike McDonald

Years later Barkley told The Inter Ocean about his wife’s first meeting with McDonald:

“She was introduced to him at a box party in McVicker’s Theater shortly after the close of the big fair (World’s Columbia Exposition), in 1893…I remember the night distinctly. Dora came home to our place at 319 Washington Boulevard and told me that she had met a very fascinating old man (McDonald was 44), who was reputed to have a lot of money.

“’Watch me get a piece of that money,’ Dora said to me, jestingly, and fool that I was I laughed at the supposed joke.”

Dora Feldman Barkley McDonald

Dora Feldman Barkley McDonald

There are several versions of what happened next. One involves an elaborate (seemingly too elaborate) story that suggested Barkley was lured by a friend of McDonald into a compromising position involving women and drugs—only to be “caught” by his wife. The more likely version was that he was simply paid off—The Inter Ocean said he received $30,000 to divorce Dora.

Barkley never acknowledged receiving the money and only said:

“(Dora and McDonald) had planned between them to oust me, and no matter what I might have done, it would have been all the same in the long run. With his money and his influence, McDonald could put it over me any time he wanted.”

Dora eventually became McDonald’s second wife in 1898, (his first wife, who once shot a police officer—she was acquitted—had eloped to Europe with a soon to be former priest).

By 1897, Barkley had opened a new tavern at 15 North Clark Street, which was frequently in the news.

Sam Barkley

Sam Barkley

The Chicago Tribune called it a “notorious saloon,” and The Chicago Daily News reported on several occasions that the bar had its license revoked temporarily for various criminal activities and violations; in 1900 The Inter Ocean said a grand jury report was “almost an indictment of the city administration for its toleration of the dives, all-night saloons, and resorts for thieves and the depraved.” Of Barkley’s location the grand jury said:

“Men and women drinking, swearing and carousing, with music; open after midnight in the past. Several murders have been committed in front of this door.”

As with all such “clean-up” drives during that era in Chicago, nothing came of the grand jury report.

Dora again made headlines in 1907—and as a result so did her ex-husband.

The Inter Ocean said:

‘Mike ‘ M’Donald’s Wife Kills Artist in His Studio

“Dora McDonald, wife of Michael C. McDonald, millionaire, politician, traction man, and ex-gambler, shot and killed Webster S. Guerin, an artist, behind the locked doors of his studio in the Omaha Building, LaSalle and Van Buren Streets yesterday.”

Barkley was quickly contacted by reporters and told his sad story of how Dora had left him. The paper said:

“The story that Sam Barkley slowly grieved his life away over the loss of his pretty wife is disproved by the discovery of Sam Barkley alive and prosperous in Chicago today.”

Dora McDonald was eventually acquitted, but Mike McDonald did not live to see it, he died during her trial.

Barkley fell on hard times in Chicago soon after the killing. In August of 1908 a six-inning benefit baseball game was played at Comiskey Park between two Chicago City League teams–“Nixey” Callahan‘s Logan Squares and the Rogers Parks–“to raise enough money to start him in the cigar business.”

The Chicago Examiner said, “A fair-sized crowd turned out.”

Fred Pfeffer played first base for the Rogers Parks and “was the hero of the game with two hits besides fielding in grand style,” another former big leaguer, Emil Gross, served as umpire.

Shortly after that Barkley was operating a cigar store in his hometown, Wheeling, West Virginia.

There was one last chapter in the Barkley story. Soon after he returned to West Virginia he was living in poverty and became ill, and died on April 20, 1912. The Chicago Daily News said several days before his death a former baseball acquaintance was summoned to his side:

“Billy Sunday called on him. He talked baseball for a while and then religion. At the end Sam liked both equally well.”

Billy Sunday

Billy Sunday

Dora McDonald was contacted for a comment:

“It is a closed incident—it’s so long ago that I knew him. But I’m sorry.”

She eventually married a doctor, moved to California and died in 1930.

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Elton Chamberlain

17 Dec

Elton Chamberlain (for the last thirty years always referred to by the nickname “Icebox,” but that name was not in common use for him contemporaneously; although he was called Iceberg fairly often.) was primarily known for two things: A righthander, he pitched ambidextrously in at least one game, and on May 30, 1894 he gave up four home runs and a single to Bobby “Link” Lowe—17 total bases, a record which stood for 60 years.

He was also embroiled in one of the early controversies over gambling while playing for the Cincinnati Reds in 1893 when he was accused by his manager, Charles Comiskey, of throwing the first game of a July 4 doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Cincinnati Enquirer said:

“Pitcher Elton Chamberlain of the Cincinnatis is accused of throwing the game to the Philadelphias yesterday morning. He is charged with being in league with Joe Brill, a local gambler.”

The story said Comiskey, notified of the allegation:

“(D)ecided to investigate (and) after a consultation with a club official, put Chamberlain in for three innings to watch him. Chamberlain’s pitching was very bad and be was taken out of the game in the third inning.”

Chamberlain’s teammates Jim Canavan and Silver King quickly came to his defense. King said he thought he would be the starting pitcher, not Chamberlain, until just before the game started; therefore Brill and Chamberlain could not have conspired.

Chamberlain said of the story:

“It was cruel and cowardly to try to ruin a man like that.”

The Sporting Life ripped The Enquirer and Comiskey:

“This is not the first time The Enquirer has accused ball players of dishonesty, and once it got into and lost a libel suit with Tony Mullane for accusing him of crookedness. Comiskey in his time has also made similar charges and Insinuations against guiltless players.”

The New York Herald said “The whole affair was so silly,” and seemed to have Comiskey in mind with this statement:

“The club official who suspends a player on the charge of dishonesty should be made to prove his charges or himself be forever barred from further connection with any club.”

The Herald also recommended that steps be taken to officially clear Chamberlain and punish those who accused him:

“The National Board should at once take up pitcher Chamberlain’s case and investigate it beyond the limit of doubt and when they reach the facts, whatever the facts; someone should be made to suffer.”

Cincinnati’s management, Comiskey included, quickly repudiated the charges that appeared in The Enquirer, although from all indications they were directly responsible for the charges being reported in the first place.

Elton Chamberlain

Elton Chamberlain

The headlines of July faded by August; there was no official investigation and no one was “made to suffer.”

Charles Comiskey

Charles Comiskey

Chamberlain finished the season with a 16-12 record and his 3.73 ERA led the Reds’ pitching staff. The following year was his last full season in the Major Leagues.

In 1895 he played for the Warren (PA) franchise in the Iron and Oil League. The team won the pennant behind the pitching of Chamberlain and another former Major Leaguer, Tom Vickery.

They also had a 21-year-old shortstop named Honus Wagner.

No statistics survive for that season, but forty years later Wagner, writing for The Pittsburgh Press, said Chamberlain “Seldom lost a ballgame for us,” and that Chamberlain and Vickery “gave out plenty of their knowledge to us youngsters.”

Chamberlain bounced around minor and semi-pro leagues after one last Major League trial with the Cleveland Spiders in 1896. In 1898 he accepted, then rejected, an offer to serve as a National League umpire. After turning down the umpire job Chamberlain, a Buffalo native, said he would become a professional boxer and challenged a local middleweight named Jack Baty to a fight that would include a $500 side bet. Baty’s fight record indicates the bout did not take place.

Chamberlain attempted to resume his baseball career with the Buffalo Bisons in the Western League in 1899—by July he was released and The Sporting Life reported that Chamberlain, a rabid horse player “is once more following the races.”

Chamberlain Died in Baltimore in 1929.

Chamberlain and Comiskey as teammates with the St. Louis Browns. Chamberlain is 5, Comiskey 8.

Chamberlain and Comiskey were also teammates with the St. Louis Browns. Chamberlain is 5, Comiskey 8.

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