Notes #457 — Down the Stretch

                             NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
                                           Observations from Outside the Lines
                                     By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
 

#457                                                                                                           SEPTEMBER 4, 2008
                                                         DOWN THE STRETCH
 

            I’m starting this issue on September 3, as one more time baseball teams head down the homestretch, having made the final turn of the summer on Labor Day. My horse, the Pirates, have tumbled back, with a ten-game losing streak, almost seeming anxious to clinch that 16th straight losing season. So I can take my usual place down by the finish line and watch the bigger, faster horses hurtle down the stretch , with eight to be rewarded with post-season play — and money, of course.
 

            September 3 is the anniversary, as some of you know, of Kid Elberfeld’s attack on umpire Silk O’Laughlin in 1906; of the Angels’ 7-0 win in 1990, as their right-fielder Dave Winfield, traded the previous May, is cheered, even though he’s a visitor; and of the Oakland extra-inning win in 1995 (a Rickey Henderson HR off John Wetteland), despite giving up 18 hits. That last game was exactly five years after manager Stump Merrill said, “We stunk the joint up in all phases of the game — offense, defense and pitching. Ugly is what it was.”
 

            The common thread in all of the games above was that the team having a bad day was the New York Yankees. And I know this because of the book/calendar now available to all fans, This BAD Day in Yankees History , hot off the press, by Gabriel Schechter. You can look it up and read the intro at www.charlesapril.com, and if recalling bad things that happened to the Yankees makes your day , you can order a copy there, too. A perfect stocking-stuffer for your Red Sox fan friends, or just about anyone, except Yankee fans without a sense of humor.
 

            I say that because if Gabriel had written This BAD Day in Pirates History , I think I’d buy it. It would be consoling. See, finishing under .500 ain’t so bad.
 

 

TWO DOUBLEHEADERS IN TWO MONTHS!  
 

            As a Pirate fan back in the late fifties and early sixties, my family attended quite a few doubleheaders at Forbes Field. We sometimes packed sandwiches and ate in between games, and I think we took a thermos bottle or two along, too. (Thermos bottles were big, everyone had one, they were carried to work or school, along with your brown bag or lunchbox.)  The doubleheader was baseball’s “two-fer” attraction, often capping a weekend series begun on Thursday or Friday night, and continued Saturday afternoon. In 1959, for example, the Pirates scheduled three DHs in May, two in June, two in July, and two in August. They were scheduled against all of the other seven NL teams except the Braves and Giants, who drew big crowds without the bonus games. I loved doubleheaders, even if we didn’t stay for the whole nightcap .
 

            A glance at the Dickson BB Dictionary reminds me that the baseball double-dip had a parallel in the theaters, where two films were sometimes shown back-to-back, double features . Of course, both ball games and movies were shorter then, on the average, so it wasn’t as much sitting as it would be today.
 

            As we all know, the doubleheader today is a rarity, and “DH” now stands mostly for Designated Hitter. If a DH is played, it is usually the result of an earlier rainout.
 

            But I can report that this summer, I attended two DHs in a row, although about three weeks apart. First, the DH in Jamestown (see NOTES #455 ), and then, on Sunday, August 31, another DH, this time in Syracuse, the Chiefs (a Toronto farm) taking on Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (of Yankee lineage). I guess both twin-packs rate an asterisk, though; I gave a talk during the action in Jamestown, and sold/signed books in Syracuse.
 

            This was the third year in a row that the Chiefs have set up a table for me, and let me chat about Burying the Black Sox with fans (I had A Baseball Family Album along this time, too, but poetry cannot compete with scandal). In 2006, it was just me, and I sold out (all 14 hardcovers I had along) before the first pitch. Last year, several other authors (all SABR members) joined me. This time, the SABR Authors numbered seven: myself, Gabriel Schechter (see above), Scott Fiesthumel, Tim Wiles, Jeff Katz, Rob Edelman, and Bruce Markusen. Denny McLain (see NOTES #453 ) was a no-show. The weather was perfect, and for those who stayed thru the nightcap, there were fireworks.
 

            I mention this mostly to encourage other SABR Authors (or any baseball authors, I guess) to give this a try at your local ballpark, or any park within driving range. It’s a chance to let more fans know about SABR (we all had brochures to hand out), to get out with the crowd , and to talk with other authors, in the best setting imaginable — watching a ball game. Or two.
 

 

GOTTA-HAVE-HEART DEPT.  
 

            Every so often I mention my health here in NOTES . It has been mostly good, since I had triple bypass back in 1992. Bypass was a very positive experience for me, and as I recall, when it was over, I wrote that I felt not like I had gained a few extra innings, but that it was a whole new ballgame; maybe more like a nightcap of a doubleheader.
 

            For about a dozen years after that, I had annual stress tests, which were usually around Opening Day, and I looked forward to that annual reassurance, as well as the chance to catch the first games of each new season on TV, having taken the day off. But I was knocked out of that rhythm after some angioplasty in 2004; I’ve had no more surgery, only a couple of catherizations; it seems that I’m growing my own bypasses these days (collateral arteries), so that even though one of the old bypasses (and maybe a stent) are no longer working, my heart is getting enough blood anyway. My hunch is that the medicine men know how to make these natural bypasses happen, but they won’t tell, because it would put a lot of cardiologists out of work. Just kidding, Doc!
 

            Anyway, this time around, I passed my (echo-)stress test just after Labor Day. Just in time for the stretch runs. Being a Pirate fan, my heart will not be taxed by the pennant races (again). But if they ever do get in another one, and I stay in the routine of having my checks around Labor Day — well, you can see how fitting this would be.
 

 

From the NOTES Archive: Notes #144, August 17, 1996
And this was written mostly from memory, of course. I reprint this here for those whose teams ARE in the pennant races.
 

FEVER
 

            Pennant Fever has been with us as long as pennants, I suppose, and there is no reason to doubt that the virus has mutated much over the last century or so.
 

            The Fever infects fans who have been following their team for decades, as well as rookie rooters. Cases can be just as serious for those infected in August or September, as for those who have carried the bug since spring training. Why medical journals have ignored The Fever is a mystery.
 

            One symptom is an insatiable appetite for scores. Not all scores, but scores with a bearing on the races . A mild fever will manifest itself by a pajama-clad scan of the sports page (before the other sections are touched), or suspiciously casual conversation at work. What did they do last night?   Full-blown, the fever drives the afflicted to go out of their way not only for scores that will determine the playoff picture in October, but for scores from that other league: Might meet ’em in the Series, y’know?
 

            Pennant Fever, as it runs its course, either fades away (as the victim’s team slides slowly out of it ), or intensifies as the end of summer nears. In the latter case, as the fever peaks, the hunger for scores becomes increasingly urgent. Waiting for the morning paper or news at work is impossible. Insomnia can be a problem when the crucial scores are three time zones away.
 

            Some astute historians credit The Fever with inspiring the technology that resulted in the invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, and the space program (satellite communications).  Waiting for homing pigeons to bring home the scores was maddening for Morse, and Bell was known to suffer fits of agony waiting for dots and dashes to be decoded. Edison, of course, was possessed with a vision of night baseball. None of these (and other) geniuses ever paid public homage to The Fever, but their journals all make its role clear.
 

            Pennant Fever can be highly contagious, infecting whole cities. Ordinary citizens who previously could not tell a baseball from a golf ball, find themselves reciting tonight’s starting lineup, and the records of the opposing pitchers. This secular form of glossolalia (speaking in strange tongues) is well-documented, with the best examples seen annually in taxi drivers, waitresses and cashiers.
 

            The most dangerous symptom of The Fever is delirium, which can lead to a wide variety of irrational behaviors. At the ballparks, painted people arrive regularly, while others are possessed to bring wildly-worded banners, brooms, outlandish headgear, large styrofoam objects, and often “charms” suggested by broadcasters. This mass hysteria can spread via television. The Center for Disease Control has been searching in vain for an antidote for fans who imagine their arms have become tomahawks, and find themselves unable to speak in anything but a moan.
 

            Jobs have been lost due to this peculiar insanity, marriages broken, productive lives disrupted. Fortunately, the late-stage madness is normally confined to only a few cities each year, affecting a limited number of industries, and sparing the national economy.
 

            To the unaffected, The Fever seems superficial, no more serious than an ingrown toenail. But this is hardly the case. The pains of losses down the stretch, especially when coupled with victories by the team nearest in the standings, are quite real and sometimes debilitating. In most Fever victims, the pains are sharp and wincing, most comparable to hunger pangs or bee stings. In extreme cases, the pains can cause loss of interest in food, sex, and TV sitcoms.
 

            The “Magic Number,” mesmerizing the afflicted and often appearing prominently in their dreams, functions as a kind of thermometer for The Fever. When the Number at last vanishes, leaving Fever victims with sweaty palms and a shortness of breath, The Fever has broken. Survivors are either cured, or euphoric. The cured will do best to rest at least six months, if they are to fully recuperate before another season begins. The Fever remains present in the bloodstream, like malaria, and may recur in future summers without any warning signs.
 

            For the euphoric, The Fever has simply been a prelude to Octoberitis, another virus in the same family, and a disease only slightly less consuming. Octoberitis often passes briefly, as we saw last fall in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Denver; the virus may have some affinity for larger metropolitan areas.
 

            Octoberitis, as its name suggests, will run its course by Halloween. Its symptoms are very similar to The Fever, but can be much more intense, although less suspenseful. The pain of defeats for those with Octoberitis is somewhat softened by the euphoria which is the residue of The Fever. This good feeling practically immunizes Fever victims against the more virulent and vicious strains of Octoberitis, which are strong enough to drive the unprotected to suicidal tendencies and self-destructive actions.
 

            In the days before expansion, those wishing to avoid The Fever (or return bouts) often fled the northeast, moving to Arizona or Florida, often under the guise of retirement. Some Fever victims complain for years about the loss of interest in anything except the pennant races, or the absence of any memories unrelated to baseball, while they were in The Fever’s grip. A lingering heartache can be misdiagnosed as heartburn. But most Fever victims recall their illness with a distinct pleasure. The experience is commonly remembered as, in the words of one of the songs inspired by The Fever, “a lovely way to burn.”
 

 

CAREFUL-WHAT-YOU-WISH-FOR DEPT.  
 

            After I wrapped up Burying the Black Sox and started talking about the book to groups, I was often asked, “What’s next?”  And my reply was, that my research suggested the need for at least two books: one, a biography of Hugh Fullerton, who is not exactly a hero in the B-Sox story, but maybe he came closer than anyone else; the other book would be a dual/duel biography of Charles Comiskey, the Sox owner, and his nemesis Ban Johnson, baseball’s czar for the first two decades of the last century.
 

            I’m currently reading a book by Mike Lynch that just might fill the gap of that second suggestion. Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League (McFarland, 2008) covers a lot of the same ground that a dual biography of Commy & Ban (or Ban & Commy — sounds like a sitcom, either way) would cover.
 

            In researching and writing Burying — and especially in editing it into something digestible — I was, at times, bothered that I was skimming so much. I know it may not look that way, but it’s true, I really did summarize and skim a lot. If you read Mike Lynch’s book, you must agree, because he treats in much more depth, events I mention only briefly, then refer readers to the Seymours’ history or some other source. I tried to cover all the bases, but did not stay on any of them as long as I might have.
 

            It’s an odd feeling, sitting at my old computer, and looking at the B-Sox library on the shelves just above the monitor. When I started, there was no library, just the books scattered among all my other baseball books, with more or less info on the B-Sox. Then I became a collector, filling a shelf and spilling the B-Sox fiction over onto another. Adding Burying the Black Sox to the shelf was gratifying. But now, I’m finding books that refer to Burying , or build on it, and that is even more satisfying. I think that’s because I see Burying as not at all the final word on the B-Sox, as Eight Men Out seemed to be for so long, but the first words in a new stage of B-Sox research, a sketch of a blueprint, one more guidebook on the trail. I hope Mike Lynch’s book is the first of many more, forcing me to add a new shelf.
 

 

ANOTHER NUGGET  
 

            Before my B-Sox addiction, when NOTES roamed all over the country of baseball in almost every issue (you can look it up, go back in the archive to any Notes before #268 ), I could always find new topics to visit by browsing in my baseball books. The four Fireside Books — libraries all by themselves — never let me down. Open any one, to any page, and voila! — you have a subject for further research or for current commentary.
 

            I feel the same way, on the B-Sox trail, about the collection of articles built up over the years by Mike Nola, virtual curator of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame, at blackbetsy.com — easy to google. Mike has posted much of his material (not just articles, but legal documents, photos, and other stuff) at his web site, but he’s always finding more. His haystack, I must conclude, runneth over with needles.
 

            Recently, he posted a link in the Yahoo B-Sox digest to an article from the Oakland Tribune . If that newspaper rings a bell, maybe you recall it from NOTES #359 — the Oakland Trib is where Mike unearthed “The Eighth Obenshain” — an elusive article in a series of ten by Earl O. on Ban Johnson, in 1929, which had been on the B-Sox “Most Wanted List” for some time.
 

            Anyway, the “new” Trib article is from October 1, 1920. And that date might ring a bell, too. Because it is now a familiar saying, for B-Sox buffs, that you can pick up a newspaper (OK, visit in microfilm, then) from anywhere in the country, from September 28, 1920, and the week that followed — in other words, from the days that “the Black Sox scandal” broke — and find something of interest. Often it is something that appeared nowhere else. The assumption is that once Cicotte confirmed to the Cook County grand jury that “the fix was in,” editors across the land unleashed their reporters. No more fear of a libel suit, go ahead, write your recollections from October 1919, and everything you’ve found out since. Spin control and more cover-ups would take over soon enough, but for a few days, at least, Amerifans could read some less-filtered text.
 

            GIANTS HIT BY NEW BRIBE ACCUSATIONSis the Oakland Trib page one headline, and beneath it: “Christy Mathewson and Others Make Affidavits Charging a $20,000 Corruption Fund to Throw ’19 Series”; and, “Hal Chase Implicated by the Charge, Report; Hoyne Before Graft Jury, Tells of Probe Conducted Year Ago.”
 

            Luther A. Houston, and International News Service (INS) Staff Correspondent, has the by-line, and who can resist imagining that when he phoned this in, he might have heard this reply from his editor: “Houston, we have a problem — can you verify all this stuff?”
 

            Houston was not himself imagining, however, he was simply reporting on the latest breaking news out of Chicago. The lid was off, Cicotte, Jackson and Williams had all corroborated the main lines of the story told September 27 by Billy Maharg in Philadelphia: ballplayers had made a pact with gamblers to toss the 1919 Series, and bribe money had exchanged hands. We are still filling in the blanks, of course.
 

            Garry Herrmann, chair of the National Commission in 1919, was a “former chairman” by 10/1/20, when he had taken the stand and made the grand jury “plunge into an investigation of alleged dishonesty and connivance with gamblers by players in the National League.”  Say it ain’t so, Garry!  But it was. Herrmann made the “startling charge” that a slush fund of $20,000 had been used to bribe the NY Giants to toss the NL championship to the Reds. Yes, Mr Houston reported that Garry, the first witness that day, had handed over no less than four affidavits — from pitcher Pat Hagen [that’s a typo, I’m pretty sure it was Mike Regan], Jimmy Ring, Earl (Greasy) Neale, and Christy Mathewson. Details were not divulged, but Herrmann was expected to provide more information on the charges lodged against Hal Chase in 1918, too. (Chase had been exonerated of those charges early in 1919, and dismissed from the Reds; he played the 1919 season, his last in MLB, with the NY Giants. Chase’s role in the Big Fix of October 1919 is not clear — he may have been a “mastermind” in on the ground floor, or a bystander who simply cashed in on his guilty knowledge, along with Rube Benton, and probably other Giants.)
 

            Since little was reported elsewhere, as far as I know, about the Giants laying down for the Reds in 1919, I have to wonder if the affidavits Herrmann carried to the courtroom in 1920 were really those related to the Chase case — because I believe the four players named were precisely the ones who spoke up in 1918. (For those interested — Collyer’s Eye reproduced all four of the affidavits — see NOTES #409 especially.)
 

            Houston may have been off-base in his linking affidavits to the charges that the Giants accepted bribes. And in his speculation that State’s Atty Maclay Hoyne was in New York gathering even more info to implicate the Giants of McGraw. So we also need to wonder how credible his next item was: Did Mrs Henrietta D. Kelley, “the mystery woman” of the grand jury witnesses (known to be Cicotte’s landlady, but not yet his sister), tell the Chicago police that gamblers were threatening her life?  She had apparently received “menacing letters” from all over the country, and asked for protection. Well, the fans were upset, and no doubt some wanted to hear from her that it was not so. Especially upset, I’m imagining again, would be fans who had bet on the Reds and won big. Give it back?  No way!
 

            Following Houston’s report — the Trib coverage continues on Page Two — are these items:
 

            * “Shady” baseball from the 1920 season will be “put under the X-ray” of the grand jury next.
            * Wives of the accused ballplayers (the B-Sox) might be quizzed, to see what sums of money their hubbies received. Lefty’s wife denied knowing anything. Happy Felsch was accused by a teammate of betting his $5,000 during the Series and winning, and presenting Mrs F. with $15,000 when she arrived in Chicago from Milwaukee. At first she was upset, “but later the couple were reconciled.” 
            * Gamblers from Kansas City, Des Moines, and other cities where wagering was considerable may be subpoenaed.
            * Hoyne Bringing Two Men Into N.Y. End.Their names, that is, not the actual men.
            * Evidence of Graft Said to Be Uncovered. Dr J. B. Prettyman, a dentist, and movieman Clyde Elliott were poised to testify to the grand jury.
            * Lewis Backs Away from NY Charges.A King’s County DA had been checking out the Brooklyn Dodgers, NL reps in the 1920 WS.
 

            * HOYNE KNEW OF DEAL YEAR AGO.Tacked on at the end of this lineup of updates, rumors and gossip, it this little story from the Chicago DA. Back from his NY trip — he was there when the scandal broke — Hoyne denied that he tried to halt the grand jury (keeping the cover-up going): “I simply asked them to allow me to be advised as to the facts which have developed.”  He went on to say that he had spoken with Comiskey right after the 1919 Series — Commy had asked him to investigate, which he did, “for three or four days.”  They were then satisfied “that the series was crooked” but “we did not obtain sufficient evidence to act.”
 

            Charles Comiskey was too respected a magnate in 1920, for this report to do as much damage as it might have otherwise. A number of editors did take Commy to task, but most were sympathetic — after all, his team had just been gutted. That he should have done the gutting, a year sooner, was downplayed.
 

            An exception was that maverick publication Collyer’s Eye , and their reaction is detailed in NOTES #409 . The Eye found that three or four days was not nearly enough, they kept at it, and had all kinds of evidence back in the fall of 1919, which they offered to Comiskey. Publicly, Commy was begging for evidence, offering a $10,000 reward. But he refused to look at what the Eye had discovered. Hey, it could ruin his dynasty!
 

            So it goes, another nugget on the B-Sox trail.