“Think quick, act quickly, claim everything in sight and watch every point. Run out every hit, take any kind of chances on the bases, make the other side throw.”\
“That is the way to win in baseball.”
Said George Davis, as part of a series of syndicated articles by Chicago journalist Joseph B. Bowles which asked some of baseball’s biggest stars to talk about “How I Win.”
George Davis
Davis’ 20-year major league career had come to an end the previous season, and he was preparing to manage and play for the Des Moines Boosters in the Western League in 1910.
He said forcing the pace was key.
“(Making) the other club to give ground, assumes the aggressive end of the game and throws the other team on the defensive right at the start.”
He said during his time with the 1906 world champions, people “used to call the White Stockings ‘lucky’” because the team won close games:
“To one outside the game it really did look as if we were lucky, but the ‘luck’ was of our own making. We attacked so hard and steadily that the other teams threw away the game to us. That was one of the main reasons they called us the ‘Hitless Wonders.’ We did not rely so much on making base hits as we did upon forcing the other side to blunder.”
That, and pitching:
“One of the principal causes of victory to a pennant winning team is in the selection of pitchers to work against certain teams on certain days. The condition of the sky is studied, the lights and shadows on the grounds, the condition of the grounds and the force and direction of the wind before a final selection is made.”
David said he thought he understood “inside baseball and teamwork” before joining Chicago in 1904 and having the chance to “work with two such generals and (Charlie) Comisky and (Fielder) Jones.”
By 1906, he said:
“I do not think there ever was a team as perfect in defensive and aggressive teamwork as the White Stockings were under Jones. Our system of signals was perfect, and besides that we had men with wonderfully acute powers of observation, and everyone worked together. It would be betray secrets to tell how much our men knew of the opposing team. Everything we know was either from experience or from observation and the study of men.”
Yet, it could all be attributed to chance:
“And, after that is all done, and the manager has thought and worried gray hairs into his head, an umpire may miscall one strike and turn the entire game, which shows how much anyone really knows about how to win.”
Davis might have been presaging his tenure in Des Moines. The 39-year-old hit just .192 and led the club to a 72-96, seventh place finish. He never played or managed again.
Perry Werden had a reputation as an umpire baiter during his more than 20 years a professional player
His penchant for hurling obscenities at umpires was so well know that in 1895 The St. Paul Globe, in noting that the Minneapolis Millers had issued free season tickets for all the town’s clergy members said:
“Perry Werden will give them food enough for sermons to last the rest of the summer.”
In 1899, he was thrown out of a game before it began because, The Globe said, “Perry threw the ball at (Jack) Sheridan, swiftly.” That was the culmination of a several-year struggle with Sheridan, who tossed him out of many Western League games. In 1895 The Milwaukee Journal said that during one game in which Sheridan ejected him:
“(T)he actions of Werden and others were so objectionable that 200 spectators left the grounds in a body and stated they would never patronize another game as long as base ball was so conducted in their city.”
On that occasion Werden was fined $50 and escorted from the grounds by two Milwaukee police officers.
While playing for the Memphis Egyptians in 1903, Werden and teammate Al Miller were fined $25 in a Birmingham police court for assaulting an umpire; he was escorted from the field by police on at least two other occasions that season.
Jack Brennan—born Gottlieb Doering—and Werden were teammates as rookies with the St. Louis Maroons in the Union Association in 1884 and remained friends. When Werden played for the Minneapolis Millers in the Western League and Brennan umpired in the circuit, The Globe said:
“They are great friends, but Brennan puts Perry out of the game whenever he gets a chance. When Perry hurt his knee…the umpire sent the following telegram of condolence to the big first baseman: ‘I hope that you will have to saw your leg off,” To this Werden replied” ‘I sincerely hope a foul takes your head off.”’
By 1906, well past his prime at 44, Werden joined the Vicksburg Hill Billies in the Cotton States League. He had played in the same league the previous season with the Hattiesburg Tar Heels and coached the Mississippi College baseball team in the spring.
He signed with Vicksburg–who were off to a 2-14 start under manager Billy Earle–along with Jeff Clarke, who had been the ace of his Mississippi College pitching staff as soon as the season ended on May 10.
Werden was immediately popular, as he had been in every city he played.
The Jackson Daily News said he, “has made many friends,” and was rumored to be in line to replace Earle and manager.
The Vicksburg Herald said:
“The old man has a good supply of ginger left and held down the initial sack in fine form. His coaching was calculated to put life into the youngsters, and he showed as much enthusiasm as a boy. There is no doubt that his presence on the team will add materially to its strength.”
The Vicksburg American reported that Werden and teammate Tom Toner “now have a bachelor’s quarters at the ballpark.” The two lived in a tent, where “Perry is cook and woodchopper and Tommie does other chores. Both are well pleased with the outing.”
And it took only four games for Werden to be “put out of the game and fined $5 for something said to the umpire.” He was tossed from at least two more games in next six weeks.
But, after hitting .328 in the same league the previous season, Werden, who injured a leg in June, hit just .141 in 49 games for Vicksburg.
Werden
On July 8, with the team 23-43, Earle resigned as manager and Werden was released. The American said:
“Perry today stands as one of the grand old ruins of what was once a gilt-edged celebrity, and with due respect to his age and feelings he certainly may be relegated to that realm called ‘has been.’”
The Vicksburg Evening Post was less kind, claiming Earle’s resignation was because “internal dissentions caused principally by Werden made it impossible for him to get good work out of his men.”
The Herald remained in Werden’s corner, saying the club’s directors:
“(F)or some occult reason, regarded him as a disturber. Just how these gentlemen arrived at that conclusion is a mystery. If the matter were left to the patrons of the game—the persons who make baseball a possibility—Werden would have been retained.”
For his part, The Herald said Werden was “grieved because the report circulated that his is a disorganizer…he says he has played ball for twenty-three years and the charge was never made before.”
Less than a week after his release, Joe O’Brien, president of the American Association asked him to become what he hated most: an umpire.
Werden accepted, but never said a good word about his new career despite immediately receiving positive reviews:
The Columbus (OH) Dispatch said after his first game there:
“Perry Werden is a good umpire. That’s the verdict that must be rendered on his first appearance at Neil Park. He permits no idle coaching and has good judgment on balls and strikes. Pitchers get the corner of the plate when they put them there. Fans liked his work.”
The Indianapolis Sun recounted some highlights from “genial jolly Perry’s” first weeks on the job:
“Werden’s tongue bids fair to be as cutting as that of the Hibernian Tim Hurst. He has umpired but a few games, but he has already won a reputation for being a wit and a master of repartee.”
Werden was quick to return questioned call with insults—during one game in Toledo, Fred Odwell, just sent to the Toledo Mud Hens from the Cincinnati Reds suggested Werden “open his eyes,” after a call, the umpire responded:
“What are you trying to do? Kick yourself back into the big league?”
He ordered Toledo’s Otto Knabe back to his position during an argument before Toledo manager Ed Grillo, “gets next to what a four-flusher you are.”
When Mud Hens third baseman Otto Krueger objected to a call, Werden chastised him for an earlier misplay:
“No, you are a nice bone head. Anybody that don’t know how many men are out and stands like a dummy with the ball at third base while a man runs down to first, has got no business to talk to me. Skidoo.”
When Indianapolis Indians catcher Ducky Holmes questioned a call, Werden responded:
“Little boy, every ball I call you say is a strike, and every strike you say is a ball. Shut up or I’ll have an amateur catching in your place.”
Dick Padden, whose major league career had ended the previous season, and was player-manager of the St. Paul Saints had his value to his club dismissed by Werden during an argument:
“Padden, you can kick all you want to. You dead ones don’t count. When I chase a man, I’ll put out someone who can weaken the team. Stick in Dick. I know you’re tired, but I am not going to put you out.”
Having served well for a few weeks, Werden parodied his well-known umpire hatred when he told The Sun:
“There ain’t any good umpires. There never was an umpire in the history of baseball that knew anything about the rules…there never was an umpire that could tell whether a curve broke over the plate or not…All that an umpire is out there for is to make a bluff at giving the decisions.”
After his many years as a player, Werden said he was “taking the rest cure,” as an umpire:
“The rottener you are the better you get by.”
And he endeared himself to every fan who swore they could see a play better than the umpire on the field:
“I’ve often wondered how the loud-faced fellow, in the stands, at 100 yards off from the play, can see exactly what comes off, But it’s so; he can. He never makes a mistake. I’ll admit sometimes it’s pretty hard for the umpire to see when he’s right on the spot. Where the runner and the ball and the baseman are. That’s the difference between the umpire and the fan. The umpire is always rotten and a dud, while the fan is always wise, just, and correct.”
At the close of his first half season, The Minneapolis Journal said of the new umpire:
“Perry as an umpire is getting away with it in great shape. He is a popular idol around the circuit and gets along well with the players.”
The reluctant umpire was hired back for the 1907 season.
Werden, top left, with the 1907 Western League umpire staff. Standing front l to, r. S.J. Kane and Gerald Hayes tope row, Werden, W.J. Sullivan, Jack Kerwin, and John Egan.
Early in in 1907 season, The Indianapolis News, likened Werden to a mythical wise king, and asked “the Nestor of the umpires,” about his newly chosen career: among the questions and answers:
“What is the future of umpiring? Was asked.
“A fool or a martyr is born every minute.”
“Can you recommend it to the American youth?
“Has he not a friend?”
“Would you advise umpiring as a profession?
“It is more exciting that the South American revolutions and the climate is better.”
“How did you come to be an umpire?”
“I was sent up for life, but the governor changed the sentence.”
Werden’s transformation from umpire attacker to umpire came full circle during a June 11, 1907 game in Louisville, after what The Courier-Journal called a “raw mistake” by the umpire calling a runner safe at second–a call Colonels pitcher Jim “Bull” Durham objected to. The Times said:
“Werden was forced to stand abusive language and as a climax Durham struck Werden with his glove.”
Durham was suspended for a week for the attack.
Late in his second season, Werden told The Minneapolis Journal he couldn’t “get used to umpiring,” Hugh Edmund (Hek) Keough responded in The Chicago Tribune:
“Possibly it is because umpiring can’t get used to him.”
The Minneapolis Star Tribune summed up Werden’s tenure:
“The big fellow makes his mistakes, but he is honest and fair, and this is all the fans want.”
William Henry Watkins, owner of the Indianapolis Indians, rescued Werden from umpiring after it was reported that he had already signed to move from the American Association to the Western League.
The Minneapolis Journal said:
“Werden will go to Indianapolis to act as assistant manager, coach, and advisor general of the Indianapolis baseball club.”
The Indianapolis News called him “The official coacher and trainer” of the club.
Caricature of Werden as Indianapolis “Coach”
Werden was ejected for the first time as Indians’ “coacher,” during the season’s eighth game by Stephen Kane—his frequent umpiring partner the previous season.
The Indians won their first pennant since 1902 and the coach received much of the credit in the Indianapolis press and was brought back for a second season.
Werden didn’t return in 1910, though he was apparently asked back. He went home to Minneapolis to organized a semi-pro team; Werden’s All-Stars that played for several seasons in Minneapolis’ City League..
He returned to umpiring in the Northern League in 1913—he was the league’s chief umpire– and the Dakota League in 1920 and 21.
Werden was also responsible for one rule change as an umpire. The Toledo Blade told the story:
“One day last summer a couple of fans shied some cushions at the venerable pate of Perry Werden. Perry immediately hied himself to the office of President Joe (O’Brien) and reported that he had been hanged, strangled, and flayed by the Milwaukee bugs.
“O’Brien was required to obey the rule and a $100 penalty was plastered on to Harry Clark, the supposition being that Clark was field captain of the Brewers. Clark denied that he was the leader of the team, and as he produced an affidavit swearing to his statement, O’Brien was powerless to collect the fine. He allowed the matter to drop but was thoughtful enough to bring it up at the annual meeting. Under the new rule the club and not the captain will be liable.”
When Rube Waddell was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates before the 1900 season, The New York Telegram presented some “interesting facts” about the “serio-comic pitcher.”
The paper said:
“He is greatly desirous of spreading his circle of acquaintances, and it is not an uncommon thing for him to walk over to the grandstand and shake hands with all the front row after he has pitched a good inning.”
Rube
Tom Loftus, who briefly managed Waddell with Columbus in the Western League in 1899, and would again be his manager in Chicago in 1901, said “he has as much speed” as any pitcher in baseball.
Loftus also told a story about Waddell:
“When he first joined the Columbus nine, he purchased a revolver and took it out to the grounds with him. He practiced with the fence for a target and was severely reprimanded by the captain of the club, George Tebeau, who told him that he might shoot some passerby.
“When they entered the dressing room the argument was resumed again, and Tebeau, losing his temper, slapped Waddell’s mouth. The youngster may have deserved it, but didn’t see it that way, and promptly laid the irate Tebeau in a heap in the corner with a left hander that would have knocked a hole in a stone wall.
“Waddell immediately fled to his hotel, frightened at the possibility of punishment that awaited him. He expected to be expelled from the league”
Tebeau
Loftus “solemnly lectured” Rube on “the enormity of his offense,” and told the pitcher “all would be forgiven,” if he won the next day’s game.
“Waddell promised to do his best and succeeded in holding the other nine down to two hits. “Tebeau complimented Waddell on his good work, and then the eccentric pitcher journeyed through the league telling all the other players how badly he had whipped his captain.”
It was a barroom fight at Soren’s Saloon on Broadway in Denver that ended with a shooting. It probably would not have been news anywhere beyond The Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News had the shooter not been the son of a fairly prominent businessman, and had the victim not spent the last several months trying to pass himself off as the brother of John ‘Chief’ Meyers, catcher for the New York Giants.
Chief Meyers
A man arrived in Denver in the spring of 1913, having just failed a tryout with the Sioux City Packers in the Western League. Some knew him as George Meyers, Native American from Riverside, California with a famous brother—his real name was Phillip Sandoval.
Sandoval was, according to his brother, “a full-blooded Spaniard,” who was born and raised in New Mexico, had been convicted of forgery in 1910, and served at least three years in the state penitentiary in Santa Fe.
Also said to have boxed professionally, Sandoval married a local woman within weeks of arriving in Denver. He was in a bar on September 11 when he had an altercation with another patron—witnesses said it was over a dice game, the shooter said it was because Sandoval, “insulted (the) American flag and no Indian can do that.”
The shooter, Samuel L. Long Jr., “son of a wealthy Kansas City businessman,” was arrested immediately.
The news of the shooting spread quickly across the country, and while most of the articles clarified that the dead man was Sandoval, and that Meyers was an alias, many headlines said Chief Meyers’ brother had been killed.
With the Giants on the verge of securing their third straight National League pennant, Meyers was inundated with questions in the days following the shooting. In order to put any rumors to bed, he issued a statement to the press while the team was in Chicago for a series with the Cubs:
“A newspaper item has just been sent me which states that a George Meyers, a brother of Chief Meyers was shot while engaged in a quarrel with one Sam Lang [sic]. I wish to obtain as wide publicity as possible for one or two corrections which I trust will be permanent.
“I have one brother, but he is not and has not been in Denver and furthermore his name is not George. His first name could not, even by a deaf man be twisted into any sound which would in the slightest resemble George. My brother is a quiet chap and so far as I know has never been shot and killed in his whole life.
“This is the third time that a brother of mine has been reported as dying a violent death and in consideration of this fact I wish to beg all correspondents to respect my affliction and shoot up somebody else’s family for a while.
“You can readily see it is also unsettling for my mother and my brother to have the latter wounded and killed so frequently. Seriously, it is far from pleasant to receive telegrams which state that a member of one’s family has been shot and requesting information as to what to do with the remains.”
Sandoval
Meyers seems to have avoided having additional “brothers” shot.
Samuel Long’s defense attorney put several witnesses on the stand who portrayed Sandoval as “a worthless wretch, crazed with Whiskey and with murder on his mind.”
Less than three months after the killing, a jury acquitted Long of murder.
Harry Davis thought he was about to make the biggest off-season acquisition in the American League before taking the reins of the Cleveland Naps in 1912. He had been given the job, as The Cleveland News said, “over the objection” of many. George Stovall had replaced Deacon McGuire after a 6-11 start in 1911 and led the team to an 80-73 third place finish.
Davis
Davis was, according to The Chicago Inter Ocean about to steal Joe Magero from the Chicago Cubs as “the official hoodoo chaser of the Cleveland team.”
Magero had been the Cubs mascot since 1907, and several times a season “donned the White Sox of the South Side athletes.”
The paper said:
“Davis wanted Magero on account of his resemblance to (Louis) Van Zeldt, a hunchback who is the mascot of the world’s champion Philadelphia Athletics, the club with which Davis had been connected.”
Magero was “discovered” while working for Albert R. Tearney—Tearney was President of Chicago’s Amateur Baseball Manager’s League, the governing body of city’s amateur and industry clubs, of which there were more than 400. Tearney would later become president of the Three-I League and was elected to Chicago’s city council. Tearney, it was said, got Magero in “the professional mascot business” after seeing him selling gum on a street corner.
Magero first appeared as a mascot for Nixey Callahan’s Logan Squares in the Chicago City League in 1906. After the Logan Squares defeated both World Series participants—the Cubs and the White Sox—in exhibition games after the 1906 season, Magero having “brought luck” to Callahan’s club became a hot commodity and joined the Cubs in 1907.
Except for his occasional paid forays to the Southside and a brief stint in August of 1911 as “hoodoo chaser” for the Lincoln Railsplitters in the Western League, Magero was a fixture at West Side Park. He was popular enough at one point that The Chicago Tribune said he and Germany Schaefer “are considering an offer to go on stage this fall with a skit entitled ‘What are we?’”
The Inter Ocean said:
“It was while acting as ‘jinx wrecker’ for Comiskey’s clan that Joe met Schaefer, the witty and able player of the Washington American League club. A warm friendship sprung up between the two and Joe and ‘Germany’ made it a point to be with each other as much as possible when Schaefer’s team was in Chicago.”
The 21-year-old Magero, who stood just three feet tall and immigrated from Italy in 1900, was ready to join Davis and the Naps for the opening of the 1912 season, but said The Inter Ocean, “The Grim Reaper intervened.”
Magero died of pneumonia at Chicago’s St. Joseph hospital on March 14.
The paper said:
“News of the death…was received with sorrow by the veteran members of Chance’s team at New Orleans, according to word received here yesterday by members of the little mascot’s family. Mordecai Brown, Joe Tinker, John Evers, and the Peerless Leader were particularly affected by the tidings.”
The Chicago Daily News said:
“Joe, bent of frame and physically a weakling, nevertheless played his part in bringing victory to the Cubs. He twirled no games like Brownie, he slammed no home runs like Schulte, neither did his inside work win games as did that of Evers. But he was the mascot of the team, and as a mascot his services proved as valuable as did the work of those upon whom nature had bestowed more generous gifts…There is sorrow in all of belldom, for a loyal little rooter has gone to his long rest.”
Without his mascot, Davis was 54-71 and resigned on September 2. The Cleveland News said:
“The team’s poor showing and the fact that he had been subject to severe criticism by the public and the press are given as Davis’ reasons.”
Ed McKean had played 12 years in Cleveland before being part of the mass player transfer to the St. Louis Perfectos before the 1899 season. The career .302 hitter was struggling, and according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, he requested his release:
“Ed is very sensitive to criticism, and the papers have been roasting him lately, until he got into such a nervous state that he couldn’t play ball a little bit.”
Buck Ewing said he was “forced out of the game,” and “one of the greatest shortstops the game has ever known.”
McKean’s release opened the door for Hall of Famer Bobby Wallace’s switch to shortstop.
Edward [sic Edwin] J. McKean
McKean, like his former teammate Cupid Childs had a large build, and according to the St. Louis papers needed to shed a few pounds to get back into playing shape.
The St. Louis Republic said McKean intended to spend the next several months preparing to “play in Cleveland” the following season.
McKean, said The Buffalo Courier, had a “peculiar stand at the bat,” which “often balked” pitchers
“Instead of striking the conventional side or profile position in the batman’s box. McKean gave the twirler a three-quarter view of his burly figure.”
The paper also said before becoming a ballplayer McKean had made a name for himself as a wrestler—contemporary news accounts occasionally referred to him as “Sandow,” because of his physique; a reference to Eugen Sandow the “father of modern bodybuilding”
McKean filled his time away from baseball by becoming a wrestling and boxing referee in Cleveland—if he was looking for a job that shielded him from criticism, he chose wrong. McKean served as referee for at Cleveland’s Business Men’s Gym, between Art Simms and Tommy White in December on 1899. The St. Louis Republic described the situation:
“Sandow Ed McKean, the burly grounder-copper, who secured a divorce from St. Louis on the ground of incompatibility of temperament, finds life as a referee of pugilistic encounters no less a bed of roses than playing short before a critical local crowd…Experts and common spectators asseverate that White was a winner by a mile, but Sandow fumbled the points of the game, let the strikes registered by White go over without calling them, and said it was a draw. The people yelled for a rope, and McKean thought he was again staggering at short in League Park…It was not the hated yet harmless ‘Take him out!’ that was heard, but ‘Hang the robbing rascal.’”
McKean was accused of “being in cahoots” with Simms’ manager, who the paper said was a former Boston sportswriter who McKean knew from his playing days.
White hailed from Chicago, and one of his hometown papers The Inter Ocean was even harsher in their assessment of McKean. The paper claimed:
“(White) took Mr. Art Simms in hand and administered probably the most terrific beating that had been handed out to a pretentious lightweight in recent years…(but) McKean, who used to be a fair sort of infielder, under Patsy Tebeau, called the bout a draw.”
The Chicago paper not only questioned McKean’s integrity but claimed that three of the four recent fights he had refereed “have been marked by decisions almost as ludicrous.”
Curiously, both papers failed to mention that Simms had participated in three of the four fights in question—coming away with a 2-0-1 record for the three bouts (Simms was 33-14-9 for his career and 5-0-1 in fights officiated by McKean.)
Throughout the 1900 season McKean’s imminent return was reported—usually bound for the Cleveland Lake Shores in the American League. The Sporting News said in June:
“McKean is hard at work practicing to get into the game. He goes to League Park every day, and the way that he works indicates that he is not out there for fun.”
Cleveland used six different shortstops during the 1900 season, but McKean was never signed. Published reports that he would sign with the New York Giants never materialized either.
McKean
His sitting out the entire season might have saved a life—while working at his bar The Short Stop Inn on St. Clair Avenue and Seneca (present day Third Street) in Cleveland in August of 1900, he, according to press reports, stop a potential lynching.
The Cleveland News said a news boy threw a rock at a black man, and when the man confronted the rock thrower:
“(Twenty) news boys took up the trouble. They followed the negro threatening him until he turned on them (near McKean’s saloon).”
Another confrontation took place in front of the saloon and “a volley of stones were fired at” the man who then ran into McKean’s business.
“Other newsies joined their companions until 150 boys were standing in front of the place. Their noise attracted a crowd of men and all became excited when they explained that a negro had attacked them.
“’It’s nothing but a boys fight,’ said McKean, trying to quiet the crowd. But he did not succeed. Men and boys collected stones and clubs, and the situation was becoming dangerous when McKean took the negro out the back way while employees guarded the front entrance. McKean boosted the man over the back fence and he made his escape through Noble Street.”
McKean spent all of 1901 managing his bar, working as a referee—without any further charges of crookedness—and training wrestlers; Although The Cleveland Leader reported in the spring that McKean was again working out at League Park and had “many offers from the American League.”
He finally returned to baseball in 1902, signing to manage and play first base for the Rochester Bronchos in the Eastern League.
McKean hit .314 but the club struggled all season and The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle said McKean had for some time “wanted to be released from the team” to attend to his bar. His wish was granted on August 18—with the team in sixth place with a 42-53 record, he was replaced by Hal O’Hagan—the team went 15-21 under O’Hagan.
McKean returned to his bar, managing wrestlers, and umpiring amateur games in 1903 and 1904, all the while, promising another comeback. Several newspapers reported he was either considering, or on the verge of joining various minor league clubs as manager.
He returned again in 1905. McKean signed to manage and play shortstop for the Colorado Springs Millionaires in the Western League. He struggled at the plate—hitting .191 in 22 games–and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said his arm was gone and he was “slated for the junk pile.” Released by Colorado Springs in June, McKean appeared with seven more teams through the 1908 season: the 44-year-old called it quits for at the end of the 1908 season.
McKean refereed the occasional fight, organized semi-pro teams around Cleveland, and maintained his bar, which was the meeting place for baseball, boxing, and wrestling fans. At some point he appears to have closed his bar and gone to work for Cleveland boxing promoter
When he died in 1919, The New York Sun noted that McKean was:
“(O)ne of four big league shortstops who had a life’s average batting .300 or better. Jack Glasscock, Hughie Jennings, and Honus Wagner were the others, and it might be added that this quartet were classed as the greatest shortstops in the game.”
Frank Isbell of the Chicago White Sox started hitting in 1905—having never hit better than .257, and after batting just .210 the previous season, Isbell posted a .296 average in 351 at bats in ’05.
Frank Isbell
Hugh Fullerton of The Chicago Tribune suggested it was due to his bat, “Big Betsy.” Fullerton said:
“The early history of the bat is unknown, but it was believed Issy discovered Betsy in a lot of bats purchased by the club. He fell in love with her and was always ready when hits were needed.”
In 1906, Isbell led the Hitless Wonders’ regulars with a .279 average, and hit .308 in the World Series versus the Chicago Cubs, including four doubles in his first four at bats in game 5.
Publishers Press News Service said:
“Big Isbell was a tower of strength with the stick. Four crashing doubles the lanky Swede tore off and besides scoring three runs himself, he drove in three more.”
Isbell added three more hits in game 6, and according to The Chicago Record-Herald, Isbell told Sox owner Charles Comiskey he was going to retire Betsy:
“That grand old bat has seen its last hard work on the ball field. It’s going to pass the rest of its days in peace. That stick helped skin the Cubs…Oh, it’s a great bat, but you’ll never see it on a ball field again. That’s the souvenir I prize above all the rest.”
Isbell changed his mind during the off season.
Isbell
Charles Dryden of The Tribune told the story of Big Betsy’s debut in 1907:
“By far the most important arrival of (opening) day was Big Betsy, which traveled by registered letter from Wichita, Kansas. She is too priceless to be risked any other way. Big Betsy is the bat from which the talented Mr. Isbell fired four two-baggers in the fifth game of the World’s Series. News that Betsy had reported sent some high grade chills chasing up and down the spine of the (St. Louis) Browns.”
Isbell, Dryden said, had brought the bat to Mexico City where the Sox trained in 1907, and when he later took a train from New Orleans home to Wichita, “Izzy took a top berth and let Betsy have the lower.” Isbell then shipped the bat to St. Louis for the opener because, “He had two grips, one in either hand, and there was no secure place for Betsy. He would not trust the porter.”
Dryden said the bat arrived the Southern Hotel in St. Louis at 11 o’clock on the morning of the game:
“Oozy Ed Walsh helped Izzy receive the stick and together they fondled it with loving hands. It was Oozy Ed who trained Big Betsy, using her to hit fungoes with in practice.
“The same tarred tape is sticking to the handle, and across the butt end of the weapon Izzy had carved lifelike portraits of the love doubles he smote on that fearful West Side day.”
Four days later with Isbell slightly hobbled by a leg injury, tragedy struck Big Betsy in Detroit. Dryden said in The Tribune:
“Izzy is in a bad way mentally and physically. Big Betsy, the fat bat that brought fame and dollars, is no more. Her shattered fragments wound about with crepe and forget me nots now are in the baggage coach ahead, bound for Wichita, Kansas. The remains will be framed and hung up in Izzy’s boudoir for future generations to rubber. It was G. (Sox Shortstop, George) Davis who put Big Betsy in the morgue. He borrowed her yesterday when Izzy was not looking and busted Betsy wide open hitting into a double play.”
Without Big Betsy and hampered by a season-ending hand injury in August, Isbell hit just .243 in 1907, he hit .247 in 1908 after holding out until June, and .224 in 1909. Isbell requested, and was granted, his release by Comiskey before the 1910 season in order to accept an offer to become player-manager of his hometown Wichita Jobbers in the Western League.
The Arizona State League was formed in 1928—the four-team league had teams in Bisbee, Miami, Tucson, and Phoenix.
There seemed to be little information about Phoenix Senators second baseman Roy Counts in local papers. Counts had spent the previous two years in the outlaw Copper League with the Fort Bayard (NM) Veterans where he was a teammate of banned White Sox pitcher Claude “Lefty” Williams, but otherwise little was written about Counts.
The Fort Bayard Veterans in Juarez, Mexico after a 1926 game, Claude “Lefty” Williams is sixth from left, Roy Counts is 14th (with arms crossed)
The Arizona Republic said after an April exhibition game with the barnstorming House of David club, that Counts and third baseman Henry Doll:
“(H)ave been working out in good style and appear in perfect condition. Both are fast fielders and have wicked pegs to the initial sack.”
On May 20, the Senators beat the Tucson Waddies 11-0. Counts was 1 for 4 with no errors in five chances at second—it was his final professional game.
Roy Counts, 1928
Roy Counts it turned out was not really Roy Counts.
Roy Counts was actually Laster Fisher—an Arkansas born fugitive who had previously played professional baseball under his given name.
Fisher—his unusual first name a result of his mother’s maiden name, Lasater—was born in Mulberry, Arkansas on October 8, 1901, and broke into professional ball with the Salina (KS) Millers in the Southwestern League in 1922. Fisher played third base and shortstop, he hit .269. In October, the Minneapolis Millers purchased his contract.
That same month, Fisher was arrested in Salina for passing a bad check for $10.50 at a local restaurant. Whether he was only charged with the writing the one bad check was unclear, but The Salina Evening Journal said his father, “Settled all claims against his son.”
Despite the brush with the law, Fisher spent the spring of 1923 with Minneapolis but was farmed out to the Clarksdale Cubs in the Cotton States League before the season began. In mid July, he joined Minneapolis, he appeared in 69 games—67 at shortstop—he hit 273 and committed 34 errors in 365 total chances.
The Minneapolis Star said of Fisher’s performance he was, “not of the double A caliber yet.”
He was let go by Minneapolis and signed by the Tulsa Oilers in the Western League—according to The Houston Post he was the first player to arrive at Tulsa’s spring training camp in Marlin, Texas—Fisher appears to have been let go before the season started.
In May, The St. Joseph (MO) News-Press said:
“Lester [sic] Fisher, former Tulsa Western League shortstop, who was reported missing a while back with a drive-it-yourself car…(was) returned to Tulsa and sentenced to five years in the penitentiary. Fisher is only twenty-two years old and gave promise of being one of the best shortstops in the Western League. He told the judge who sentenced him that at the time he stole the car he was drunk, and when he got sober he was afraid to return it.”
Fisher had driven the rented Maxwell automobile to Greenwood, Mississippi, and according to The Greenwood Commonwealth left the car in that town; he was later arrested in Leland, Mississippi and returned to Oklahoma.
After entering the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester, Fisher joined the prison baseball team. On May 13, 1925, according to The Associated Press, Fisher “Kept running after a game in Holdenville.”
His three year run over, Fisher was returned to prison in Oklahoma. He never returned to pro ball.
He moved to Texas after his release and was working as a maintenance man at the Victory Baptist Church when he died of congestive heart failure on July 5, 1959.
Joe Slattery believed he was jinxed by an entire city.
Joseph Patrick Slattery was born on March 15 in 1888 or 1889—his WWI and WWII draft registrations give the 1889 date, early census data and his death certificate say 1888—in St. Louis.
He played with semi-pro teams in Mount Vernon and Kewanee, Illinois before playing his first professional game with the Dallas Giants in the Texas League in 1908. Described by The St. Louis Globe as an excellent fielding first basemen with a weak bat, he lived up to that label during his first two seasons as a pro—hitting .125 and .199 with Dallas, the Brockton Tigers in the New England League.
In 1910, he joined the Rock Island Islanders in the Three-I League and began to hit. He was hitting .300 in June when The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said:
Joe Slattery, Rock Island, 1910
“(Slattery) may obtain a trial with the Browns. Early this week, owner (Robert) Hedges dispatched Harry Howell, one of his scouts, to look over Slattery. It is said that Howell made a favorable report.
“Hedges is not the only club owner who has been tipped off about Slattery. The Pittsburgh Club has had a scout looking over Slattery while it is understood that the Brooklyn Club has made an offer for his release.”
Slattery immediately went into a slump and finished the season with a .216 average. With Rock Island again in 1911, Slattery hit .280 and was sold to the Syracuse Stars in The New York State League (NYSL). Slattery played for three teams in the NYSL from 1912 to 1915, hitting in the .290s.
Then he had his best season as a professional—one that has been incorrectly credited to another player with the same last name.
Slattery was sold to the Montreal Royals in the International League in 1916. He hit .298 and led the league’s first basemen with a .991 fielding percentage, but most sources incorrectly credit those statistics to John Thomas “Jack” Slattery—who actually played his last professional game in 1911.
Near the end of the 1916 season, The Washington Herald reported in October that Slattery’s contract was purchased by the Senators, but later the same day Clark Griffith told The Washington Times that the report was untrue.
Slattery hit .252 in 1917 for Montreal. Before the 1918 season, he was sold to the Memphis Chickasaws the Southern Association and went to the city that “jinxed” him.
The (Memphis) Commercial-Appeal reported before the season opened that the Chickasaws would “have their new first sacker longer than expected.” It had been expected that Slattery would be drafted before the season began, but the paper said his draft board in St. Louis now said he wouldn’t be entering the military until later in the summer.
All involved later wished the delay never happened.
Slattery with Memphis, 1918
as the season progressed, The Memphis News-Scimitar said:
“Slattery is the greatest fielding first baser in the Southern today and he made stops and throws that would have done credit to Hal Chase…But Joe can’t get started hitting.”
Slattery appeared in 59 games for Memphis. He hit .197 in 208 at bats and quickly became the most unpopular man in town
As he struggled, the paper said he was “the target for all verbal bricks the lower end of the stands could hurl.” His “hitting fell off almost to nothing,” but the paper said it was “due for the most part to the panning the bugs handed him.”
Slattery thought he was jinxed and the newspaper agreed:
“The story of Slattery is the story of a jinx that has been camping on the big fellow’s trail…one of the niftiest first basemen in the game; Slattery from the outset has been handicapped by his inability to hit the ball.”
Slattery blamed the city:
“It’s a fact that I am absolutely jinxed in Memphis, I can hit the ball anywhere else in the world but Memphis, it seems.”
After being drafted, Slattery played first base for the Tenth Training Battalion at Camp Pike in Arkansas. He returned to Memphis in the spring of 1919 and immediately stopped hitting again during exhibition games.
He told The New-Scimitar:
“When I was in camp at Camp Pike I hit for an average well in the .300 class, and I was hitting against good pitching, too. But in Memphis, I’m helpless with the stick. I guess I am too anxious to hit…Last season the jinx was astride my neck all year…I couldn’t hit at all like I used to…the jinx came back and got with me, and I have not been able to hit at all.”
Sold to the Tulsa Oilers in the Western League, he hit.263. In July, Slattery was playing well in Tulsa, and The News-Scimitar reminded fans that his “jinx” was their fault. The paper said from July 13 through July 17 Slattery was 8 for 23:
“Which goes to show that in the proper environment when he is not being ridden by the bugs as he was here, Slattery is a good hitter.”
He finished his professional career in 1920 where he started it in 1908, with Dallas in the Texas League.
Never to return to Memphis, he headed west.
He played semi-pro ball for the next decade, primarily with Brigham City Peaches in Utah.
Slattery with the Brigham City Peaches, 1922
The once “jinxed” Slattery settled in Idaho where he died on June 14, 1970.
There have been several incarnations of the Interstate League, the first began in 1885 and the final one played its last game in 1952. None was more precarious than the one that operated in the 1890s, which newspapers annually announced was on the verge of collapse. One Interstate League franchise, in particular, was always a little closer to collapse than the rest.
Frank J. Torreyson became the owner of the Wheeling (WV) Nailers in 1897. He had been part owner of the Dayton franchise but just as that partnership was disintegrating the Wheeling team went on strike because they hadn’t been paid. The league solved two problems by awarding the Nailers to Torreyson.
Torreyson had been a semi-pro player in Pennsylvania and managed teams in the Tri-State League. His first effort at team ownership involved starting a Pittsburgh franchise in the Pennsylvania State League in 1892. By July He moved the team to Wilkes-Barre citing poor attendance.
His brother, Thayer “Heavy” Torreyson, was a 2nd baseman who had some excellent seasons in the Pennsylvania State and Atlantic Leagues; but by 1897 Thayer had literally grown into his nickname, and his best playing days were behind him.
Thayer joined Frank in the ownership of the team and continued to play and serve as captain.
In 1898, the Torreyson brothers moved the Wheeling franchise to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Frank had necessitated the move when, immediately upon acquiring the franchise, he sold off the best players and alienated the Wheeling fans–he also played the two towns against each other. While he was already aware he had worn out his welcome in Wheeling, he told The Grand Rapids Herald:
“I would very much like to have charge of an Interstate team here though Wheeling is a pretty good ball town. We can’t play Sunday there, though, unless we get the grounds outside of the town which we expect to have if we stay there.”
He managed to get the city of Grand Rapids’ “West Side businessmen to bear half the expense “of readying two ballparks for the season—the team played most of their games at Recreation Park, but Sunday games were played at nearby Alger Park
The first home Sunday game was a harbinger of what was ahead for Torreyson in Grand Rapids.
Despite each person who “Patronized the grandstand” receiving “‘The Art Gallery of Prominent Baseball Players of America,” fans stayed away in droves. Bad weather limited the crowd to “a few hundred,” and “stern luck was ‘agin’ the Cabinetmakers,” Grand Rapids lost the game 6 to 5, and their record for the young season slipped to 2-5.
Things never really improved.
Throughout the 1898 season, Torreyson complained about the lack of support from the Grand Rapids community and threatened to move the team.
For their part, the citizens of Grand Rapids, while not actually coming out to games in great numbers, seemed to appreciate Torreyson’s effort. In August, with the team in fourth place, The Herald announced that a benefit—whereby blocks of tickets would be purchased by the city’s leaders—would be organized to try to get the owner out of the red:
“Torreyson has given the city the best team it has ever had and this being a bad season f0r the game, there has been no money in it for him.”
There was no report of how much the August 19 benefit raised, but Torreyson, at least for the moment, expressed his gratitude in a letter to the people of the city he was desperately attempting to flee:
“The results show that Grand Rapids people appreciate honest endeavors for clean baseball. Hoping to continue to please all, I am, respectfully yours, Frank W. Torreyson.”
Frank Torreyson
Over the next twelve months, he visited a number of cities in Ohio and Indiana soliciting the best offer to relocate the team. Attendance in Grand Rapids decreased further in 1899—while Torreyson’s club had hovered near .500 throughout the 1898 season, they were wire-to-wire doormats, mired in last place for all of 1899– and the already struggling Interstate League was in danger of having a team fold during the season.
In order to keep the eight-team league intact, an unusual trade was made. The Columbus Buckeyes in the Western League would move to Grand Rapids and Torreyson would take his team to Columbus, Ohio. The move would benefit both leagues by reducing travel costs.
In mid-July of 1899, the move was made official. Fans, thrilled to be rid of the cellar-dwelling Interstate League club, filled the ballpark for the first home game of the Grand Rapids Furniture Makers of the Western League. Newspapers estimated the crowd between 1600 and 2000; at least double the best crowd Torreyson’s team had ever drawn.
Columbus fans were less enthusiastic; 167 attended the first home game of the Columbus Senators of the Interstate League, a 4 to 1 loss to the first place New Castle Quakers. The Herald said of Grand Rapids’ former club’s first game in their new town:
“That same old story comes from Torreyson’s team.”
The low attendance—they drew just 288 fans for their first Sunday home game– and not very friendly reception from the city of Columbus made Frank restless again. Less than two weeks later, he relocated once more, this time to Springfield, Ohio, where his team was appropriately dubbed The Wanderers. The team finished the season 49-91, 38 games out of first place.
In less than two years, Torreyson had incurred the wrath of the league and each member city. The Fort Wayne News called for the league to take the franchise away from him. The Toledo Bee said Torreyson was “Ruining the Interstate.” The Mansfield (OH) News said the transfer of the teams would have been better for the league “If Torreyson had been lost in the trade.”
The Cincinnati Enquirer said:
“The managers of the various other teams in the league say that Torreyson has done more to injure baseball in the Interstate League since he got into it than all other drawbacks combined. The say that if Torreyson is permitted to wander about the country with a club in Columbus this week, in Kalamazoo next week, Erie the following week, Saginaw of Bay City the week after, and God only knows where after that, the league might as well disband.”
Early in 1900, a deal was struck to buy him out of the franchise. TheYoungstown Vindicator said the league had contributed to the purchase price in order to rid them of Torreyson, who they called “The Nomad of the Interstate League.” Torreyson, The Vindicator said, “(M)ilked at least three towns as dry as tinder. But then the fan is the legitimate prey of the magnet. Torreyson is now running a billiard hall in Braddock (PA).”
That wasn’t the end of Torreyson’s story.
He did, along with “Heavy,” open a billiard hall in Braddock—then two more in Homestead and McKeesport. But Frank also became a successful thoroughbred owner and managed dozens of boxers out of a gym in Braddock.
Thayer “Heavy” Torreyson
Both made headlines one more time.
In October of 1911, The Pittsburgh Dispatch said Thayer was on his way to New York and, “He took with him $21,000. He will wager this amount that the Philadelphia Athletics will defeat the New York Giants for the world’s championship.”
In 1912, The Pittsburgh Gazette-Times said Frank paid passage for two boxers from Whales to come fight for him in Pennsylvania. Leslie Williams and David John Bowen never made it to the United States; they went down with the Titanic on April 14.
Frank Torreyson died on April 10, 1918.
Thayer “Heavy” Torreyson continued to operate the billiard halls—and as The Pittsburgh Press said he was known to sell “horse race pools and (make) book on races.” He also remained active in Pittsburgh area amateur baseball until his death on May 7, 1939.
A shorter version of this post appeared in September of 2012.
Baseball History Daily 