Notes #485 — Notes from Home and Away

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

#485                                                                                                                       APRIL 30, 2009
                                 NOTES FROM HOME AND AWAY
 

            This issue has been put together between and after a couple of road trips. Most of the notes from “home” arrive via the internet these days, but I still frequent my local library, too. In any case, this has been a fun issue to write, and that usually means it will be a fun read, too.
 

            Maybe the most fun I had was with the totally unexpected item below, Eighteen Men Out , on the Ty Cobb “strike” game. It has no B-Sox connection, except that Billy Maharg played in it and maybe Sleepy Bill Burns cheered him on. But it’s a fascinating event about ballplayers going on strike, without actually bothering to organize a union first. Read some of the details, then imagine what a feeding frenzy the media today would have with the story.
 

            Lots more below, too. Enjoy.
 

TESTING A THEORY  
 

            In recent years, I’ve said or written many times that anyone can find new info on the B-Sox trail, simply by going to their local library, and looking at the microfilm of old newspapers — specifically, at the coverage of the scandal breaking on September 29-30, 1920. Many papers were carrying coverage of the Cook County grand jury hearings that started a week before then, but even if they were not, they found space for the scandal after Eddie Cicotte’s statement (the morning of September 28), often on their front page.
 

            On my recent road trip to the northwest, I visited two terrific libraries, in Seattle and Vancouver. Both are ultra-modern and deserve a review of their own, but suffice to say here, they both had several newspapers from 1920 on microfilm.
 

            A look at the Seattle Times taught me something — that the scandal broke first out west, in the late editions of September 28. (Some papers back east might have carried it in late editions, too, but I haven’t seen any.)  The main story was pretty much the familiar wire service version. But a couple sidebars caught my eye, and I’m not sure I’d seen them before. In one, Eddie Cicotte’s wife was interviewed, and Mrs. C. said that she wouldn’t believe it until she heard it from Eddie himself.
 

            In another short piece, with Babe Ruth’s by-line, the Babe hoped out loud that the eight players named were the only ones involved. The grand jury had voted true bills already and the players had been indicted, but — the Times said — only after the foreman (Harry H. Brigham) consulted with Sox lawyer Alfred Austrian and Hartley Replogle, the Assistant State’s Attorney. I think the only question was when to indict, not if ; the grand jury had been on record as not wishing to disrupt the pennant races by calling on the White Sox players to testify. We can only wonder what might have happened, if Cicotte, Jackson and Williams had slipped in and out of the grand jury hearing undetected, and their testimony kept confidential. The Sox might have won another pennant; then the grand jury would have been faced with the disruption of a World Series.
 

            By the next day or two, the Times had found some local angles on the story, but nothing really of interest.
 

            In Vancouver, I was told that I could search the 1920 Globe and Mail at its web site. [This was not quite the case — the .com archive has the G & M in searchable format, but only goes back to January 2000. I am thus reminded that today, many librarians are challenged to know their own territory, let alone cyberspace.]  So I dug into The British Columbian , out of New Westminster. On September 29, “Ball Scandal Comes to Head” had to push mightily to find front-page space, because, well, The Fair was in progress. The indictments did make page one a day earlier in the Vancouver Daily World . Press reports said that Cicotte “is said to have signed” an immunity waiver, and I’ve seen that elsewhere — it was widely assumed that the players had exchanged their testimony for something .
 

            The scandal news on page one appeared the same day as the World’s coverage of Billy Maharg’s story, which appeared on page ten, in the sports section. There, “Eddie Cicotte, when shown the statement by Billy Maharg, declared it not true, and expressed it vigorously.” On page 11, the front page story continued, and there it was noted that “the details of the Cicotte confession follow closely the story told in Philadelphia last night by Billy Maharg, former prize fighter, it was stated.” Whoever leaked the grand jury info remained anonymous.
 

            By the next day, September 29, the World story had an interesting sub-head: “‘Pay or I Play Ball’ Was Cicotte’s Ultimatum to Clique Who Paid Him to Throw World Series.”  The story also contained this statement, which was actually in his grand jury testimony, and I’m not sure I’ve seen it elsewhere any earlier: “I pitched the best ball I knew after that” [after hitting the first batter he faced in Game One].
 

            By October 1, Judge McDonald was squelching those rumors about the players having immunity: None have immunity, and each has “specifically waived it.” [This would take up a lot of time in the 1921 trial, McDonald sticking to his guns and the players, with their own lawyers this time, firing theirs in coordination.] “Of course it will be natural for the prosecutors to take into consideration services which the indicted men have performed for the state.”  I think we see in that statement a hint of what McDonald said to get the players to open up. They were being of service in the hunt for the real villains, the bribing, fixing gamblers who were ruining the clean sport of baseball.
 

            I had gone to the Great Northwest carrying a scrap of paper that reminded me that Swede Risberg played some ball in Virden, Manitoba, in 1929. I found no microfilm where I could go fishing for some of Swede’s post-scandal reflections. But I was not at all disappointed with the catches I made.
 

ONE FOR TWO  
 

            I recently looked at a couple books that cover some of the legal aspects of the B-Sox story. The account of the 1921 trial in The Press on Trial (by Lloyd Chiasson, 1997) is not very well done, and has some errors, so I don’t recommend it. But some of the other chapters are pretty good, including the Chicago Seven trial to O.J.
 

            Baseball and the American Legal Mind (by Waller & Cohen, 1995) is a great source book for almost all things involving baseball and the law, with lots of documents. Not much on the B-Sox, but I found the 1914 Hal Chase lawsuit interesting. Chase had jumped to the Federal League and was sued for breech of contract (he had been with the White Sox). The top first sacker of the day, Chase dutifully gave the Sox ten days written notice, and signed with Buffalo. He was slapped with an injunction, but a judge (Herbert Bissell) vacated it and gave an opinion that was “blistering” (Harold Seymour’s word) to baseball and its monopolistic structure. Imagine Prince Hal losing the case and staying with the Comiskey club in Chicago!  No Gandil, no Scandal?  Perhaps, but more likely, just a different man out.
 

            Has anyone out there seen the account of the B-Sox trial in Crimes and Trials of the Century (Chermak, 2007)?  My library tells me that I might be able to see a copy (it’s not in their system) by August.
 

ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM    
 

            As the late Harry Caray might put it — Holy Cow. My Pirates, with a win on Sunday, April 26, clinched a month in which they will not finish below .500. It was so unexpected that I didn’t realize it till a couple days later. (They were a giddy +4 at that time, but promptly lost three games in Milwaukee, all tough losses, all winnable.) I have always suspected that most readers of Notes have been relieved that the Pirates have never had a winning season, since I’ve been doing this, starting in 1993. That is, relieved that they have been spared the rooting and emotional essays that pennant races inevitably evoke in fans.
 

            I have consistently picked the Pirates to go all the way during this stretch. But then, I have picked them to win it all since 1958, so the past sixteen years just followed the pattern. I hasten to point out that I was right three times, and in 1960 had a pretty good average.
 

            Do I expect their pitching to remain the best in baseball?  Their offense to pick up?  No — I never expect. I hope, I root . It’s lots more fun, and never disappointing. We Pirate fans are the easiest in the world to please — a .500 finish will be just fine, thanks. However , if our Pirates (and Penguins) rise to the level of our Stillers, we have no objections.
 

            I have written often here about pennant races, of course, and included “journals” from stretch runs, from playoffs, or from various World Series. The Pirates have played a role in none of these diaries. If the impossible happens — again — I will likely write more about the Pirates in future issues, and then forget about attempting to be “objective” in my post-season coverage. Actually, it’s kind of fun just thinking about it.
 

FOR YOU BILLY MAHARG FANS  
 

            Billy Maharg got his fifteen minutes of national fame, and more, when he knocked on the door of the Philadelphia North American one September day in 1920. Reporter James Isaminger saw to that, splashing headlines across the country with Billy’s tale of intrigue and double-crossing; the story may have jarred loose the tongue of Eddie Cicotte, ending the fiction that the Series of 1919 had been played fair and square, without any bribe money exchanging hands.
 

            By now, I may have written more about Billy Maharg than his mother. So many Notes readers know that Billy was not just a former boxer (qualifying him to act as protection for Sleepy Bill Burns — much like Abe Attell acted for Arnold Rothstein) — but he also played some baseball. His “debut” in MLB was May 18, 1912, a game that lives in infamy, but still counts in the record books. The Detroit team went on strike in support of their suspended star, Ty Cobb, forcing Detroit to scrape up a bunch of replacement players — “scabs” is an unkinder word — in order to avoid a forfeit. They should have taken the forfeit, the game was no contest.
 

            I got to wondering what Billy Maharg was paid for that hard day’s work, so I tried to look up his contract info in the National Baseball Library. But it wasn’t there, which makes me think that in the emergency situation, Detroit was allowed to hire fill-ins and pay them for their efforts after the game.
 

EIGHTEEN MEN OUT  
 

            After writing the above, I got curious about that 1912 game, and visited ProQuest . There I found at least fifty articles, enough for a small book, one I have no intention of writing. Here are some of the highlights of my findings.
 

            The crisis was partly the result of timing. Cobb had assaulted a fan in New York, giving Claude Lucker (or Lueker) his fifteen minutes of fame. Claude, as it happened, was a “cripple” — anatomically challenged? — having lost one hand and three fingers of the other “while engaged as a pressman” a few years before this incident. I’m not sure if that meant he operated some kind of pressing (or newspaper) machine, or was a reporter; I’d guess the former. Mr Lucker was also an assistant in “Big Tom” Foley’s law office, Foley being a former Sheriff of NY County and Tammany leader of the Second Assembly District. 
 

            Of course, a lawsuit was threatened. Lucker was under a doctor’s care. Among his injuries were spike wounds, which today would be worth a lot on e-bay. Ty Cobb spike wounds, y’know?
 

            Naturally, there are different accounts of who provoked the attack by Cobb — the Peach, or Lucker. Cobb argued that this was not the first time that this particular NY fan had taunted him, using X-rated language, which — for Cobb — must have been vulgar indeed. In Lucker’s account, half a dozen Tiger players, all armed with bats, were following Cobb when he vaulted over the fence and attacked Lucker, who was three rows back.
 

            The timing problem was that when Cobb was suspended by ban Johnson, he appealed at once; Johnson had not heard his side of the matter. His teammates sent the Czar a letter, threatening to strike — not just in sympathy, but in protest of the league’s lack of protection from fan abuse. The Tigers tried to get other teams to go on strike at the same time, but did not gain any more support. Their manager, Hughie Jennings, took the side of his team, but did not strike with them. But communications being what they were, Johnson heard about the letter from the press, before it ever reached him. He was traveling, and he also had not heard anything from the Detroit manager yet. When Johnson finally issued a statement, from Cincinnati, it was this: “I have nothing to say. Let them walk out if they want to. I am interested in the Cincinnati-New York game now. That’s all.” 
 

            After the Cincy game, and probably a few beers, Johnson had more to say. He was amazed at “the attitude of Player Cobb” (he knew how to put the Peach in his place) and his team mates. He was defensive about their accusations that the AL had not been providing adequate protection from fans. He said any players bothered need only to ask for help from the umpires or the local police.
 

            Cobb fired back, saying Johnson considered himself infallible. “He suspends a man first and investigates afterward. It should be the reverse.”  Pete Rose learned the same lesson later, when you make authority the issue, you lose. Cobb’s stature and popularity just made it worse — no one was above the game. Ban Johnson was in charge here, just as Judge Landis was in charge when he suspended Babe Ruth. No one’s bigger than baseball, and by that, I mean the guy at the top!
 

            It wasn’t quite as simple as Cobb put it. Ban Johnson said that he had been present at the game in New York when the incident took place, and “witnessed the affair.”  Johnson had curbed “rowdyism” and made the AL, then all MLB ballparks, much more fan-friendly places. Cobb had attacked not just a fan, but Johnson’s ideal image of what baseball should be.
 

            The press sensationalized the story at once, making it not just a case of players asking for better working conditions, but a question of their right to ask for any concessions from MLB. If Johnson granted them anything, who knows where it might lead? The Brotherhood League revolt of 1890 was splashed into the news. So was a feeble attempt to unionize in 1910. Was this event the catalyst that might bring a Marvin Miller to the game?
 

            Editors waxed as eloquently as they could. This was juicy stuff. “Cobb punches fan” was as good as “man bites dog.” If men under contract could stop in protest of their working conditions, was anybody safe? What if bankers or soldiers followed suit? This was a threat to the order of society, to discipline everywhere. And this was Ty Cobb , not just any player, beating up on a cripple , not just Joe the Fan. Editors lectured players on their responsibility to fulfill their binding contracts. No one doubted that Cobb had been provoked, but … no one doubted that Johnson had the authority to suspend him, but still … this event today would light up the blogosphere and dominate talk radio & TV. Thankfully, it happened in 1912.
 

            One editor in the NY Times used an interesting Biblical image that I had to look up. He suggested that the eighteen Detroiter strikers “were sulking in the cave of Adullam” while the game was played. This was a fancy way of saying that they were like bandits in a hideout, political dissidents, outsiders plotting a comeback. So now, if you read somewhere that the Repulicans have changed their name to Adullamites, you’ll get it.
 

            Detroit owner Frank Navin, caught in the middle, between his disgruntled employees and the AL Prez (whom he tended to support with genuine loyalty), intervened. He coaxed the players to “go back to work” after that one-day sitdown. It appears that the players did not want to see Navin “suffer for their action.”
 

            The team would be fined $5,000 for any game forfeited. That may not seem like much today, but in 1912, $5,000 would cover the annual income for two or three players; so if the team owner that he’d offset the fine by trimming the payroll — well, you can see why the players hustled back to work after a session with Navin. They would return to the field (their next game was in Washington) but “continue to fight for their principle.”  Navin pledged to do all he could, not just to have Cobb reinstated, but to better protect players from fans. A special meeting of AL owners was held; Cobb was a big box office draw, and that was no doubt a factor in determining the length of his suspension. Navin also pledged to pay any fines imposed on the striking players, and when Johnson docked them all $100, it cost Navin $1,800.
 

            “The Strike Game,” played May 18, 1912, in Philadelphia, was a 24-2 rout. Connie Mack used three pitchers but just two substitutes, both outfielders, in an A’s lineup that included Eddie Collins (5 for 6, 4 SB), Home Run Baker (2 for 5 with a triple, no HR), and Amos Strunk (4 for 5). The A’s got 26 hits, the fill-ins four singles. Midway thru the game, it was just 6-2, but an 8-run fifth inning put it out of reach; four more runs in both the sixth and seventh made it a laugher. Despite all the scoring, the game took just 105 minutes.
 

            Billy Maharg, according to the box score, started the game at third base, handling two chances without making an error, and going 0-for-1 at bat, before turning over the hot corner and to either a fellow named Irwin (who also did some catching that day) or Smith, it’s not clear. One account has the A’s beating out a lot of bunts that day; maybe that did Maharg in.
 

            Do we know anything about the others in that lineup?  The names are McGarr 2b; McGarvey lf; Linhauser cf; Sugden 1b; McGuire c; Meaney ss; and Ward rf. A poor lad named Al Travers pitched the entire game, yielding 26 hits (although both box scores I found said 25), and giving him what turned out to be a lifetime ERA of 15.75; he walked seven and fanned one. Oh well, at least he could point to the CG and that one K.
 

            Manager Hughie Jennings took a swing that day, too, in the ninth inning, hoping to rally his men, I guess. His 0-for-1 was the only plate appearance he made that season. The Washington Post account said the team “masquerading under the name of the Detroits” was given a “classic beating. Few of those in the lineup could play, and those that could were too frightened to do anything.”
 

            The Chicago Daily Tribune said that 20,000 fans showed up for the farce, but they may have expected to see Cobb and Company. Johnson’s refusal of the players’ request for Cobb’s reinstatement did not reach Jennings until his players had taken the field for practice. When it arrived, he removed the team to the locker room, where they handed over their uniforms to the gang that Jennings had recruited, just in case. Some, the Trib noted, were amateur players; some were members of the nearby St Joseph’s college team. James Thomas “Deacon” McGuire, one of the catchers for Jennings, ended a 26-season career that day, with a 1-for-2; not bad, for a 48-year-old guy. Joe Sugden had not played in the bigs since 1905, having put in twelve years in MLB as a catcher; his 1-for-4 must have delighted Sugden, who would turn 42 soon. Al Travers, the pitcher, was just 20. Both McGuire and Sugden were Detroit scouts in 1912.
 

            We do not know how Hughie Jennings found Billy Maharg. Maybe he was running bets to the track that day. Sleepy Bill Burns pitched his last games for the Detroit team in 1912. I don’t know if he was in Philly that day. But I like to think he was, and when Billy Maharg left the game, I like to think he was greeted in the locker room by the retiring pitcher. “Burnsy, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”
 

SEYMOUR CONFERENCE NOTES  
 

            Last year, because the SABR national convention was in Cleveland, the annual Seymour Conference was shrunk to a Sunday morning panel. This time around, it returned to its full-weekend form, but I think some momentum was lost. The conference, started up in 1999 to make the presentation of the annual Seymour Medal (for best baseball book of the previous year) a truly special event, had come a long way, in my view, attracting both more writers and more editors, and becoming an attractive crossroads for both. It featured keynote speakers and presentations that were on a par with any at the bigger conventions, but I think the draw was the chance for writers to meet with agents of publishers, and even with potential agents. Book vendors added to the literary atmosphere. This year, there was just one (Visible Voice Bookstore), at the Friday PM reception.
 

            The Seymour winner was Tom Swift, who wrote Chief Bender’s Burden (University of Nebraska Press), a book I read and enjoyed as a Ritter Award judge. (The Ritter Award, for the best Deadball Era book, involves about ten judges; the Seymour, just three. I’m not sure, but I don’t think any book has won both awards yet.) Tom gave a fine talk and read some to the attendees on Friday, and his acceptance speech ended with a line that I wish I’d have thought of, that while with this award, SABR honors Tom, it should be the other way around. I’m sure many authors feel that way toward SABR, a terrific network and resource for research.
 

            I was lead-off presenter Saturday morning, and gave an update on B-Sox research and events since my last update, at the 2007 Seymour. Then there was an account of the 1926 season; a look at the games played by the Brooklyn Dodgers in Jersey City; a suggested way to evaluate managers (I remain skeptical about quantifying all the skills needed); and a fantasy trip back to 1994, where the Montreal Expos won the World Series. The keynote address was by Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star , and was a real highlight of the weekend. I’m looking forward to reading Joe’s book The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America .
 

            Susan Petrone was the rookie SABR staff coordinator, and I think has the Seymour headed in the right direction. It remains the best thing SABR has going for authors, apart from the convention. I think authors will attract editors, and vice-versa, and if the Seymour becomes an annual oasis for them all to meet, and pick up some contacts along with some baseball knowledge and refreshments, then I, for one, will be delighted.
 

B-SOX BAT BOY TELLS ALL  
 

            In 1959, as the White Sox played in a World Series for the first time since that year , 53-year-old eye doctor Morrie Lebin of Wheeling, West Virginia was interviewed in the Chicago Daily Defender . Morrie was rooting for the Sox to wipe out the disillusionment brought on by the B-Sox scandal.
 

            In 1919, Morrie lived in an apartment building next to the Chicago home of Eddie Cicotte, and through Knuckles, Morrie became associated with the team. As a bat boy, he got to know the 1919 Sox, seeing them not just on the diamond, but in the clubhouse. I would guess that a 13-year-old kid would remember being on the inside of a World Series, his whole life.
 

            Morrie recalled nothing that suggested that the Sox were doing anything except trying to beat the Reds. “The players in the clubhouse kept yelling about beating Cincinnati in five straight games, and there was no hint on the field that everything wasn’t as it should be. But only eight players were in on the fix and they, of course, weren’t about to give anything away.”  Morrie speculated that low salaries was probably the reason that some players accepted bribes. Despite the scandal, he remained a Sox fan.
 

            I’ve read a lot of views of the 1919 Series, from reporters, players, umpires, managers, and fans. And now we know what the bat boy of the Sox saw. Just baseball.
 

ON THE SCREEN OF SPORT  
 

            For a seventh straight issue, I turn it over to the man who launched me onto the B-Sox trail, Hugh Fullerton. Last time, we looked at the details of Hughie’s “doping” of the 1919 World Series. Fullerton is more famous for what he wrote on the eve of the Series — ugly rumors afloat — and right after: There are seven men on the [White Sox] team who will not be there when the gong sounds next spring. That last sentence was in his October 10 column, right after Game Eight, a column also known for his dire prediction that There will be a great deal written and talked about this world’s series. There will be lots of inside stuff that never will be printed. Oh yeah, he also called on Baseball to make the 1919 Series the last . (OK, one more thing: Hughie also noted that Game Eight was played on the anniversary of the day that Mrs O’Leary’s cow “kicked Chicago over.”)
 

            Much overlooked, even by me, I think, is a column that appeared the very next day, October 11. I’m looking at the Atlanta Constitution version. I thought Hughie took off for a long vacation, so maybe this one was in the can already. In this essay, he notes how the World Series seems to bring out a peculiar brand of baseball each October. The two best teams almost always perform “a pretty poor brand of ball.”
 

            They are stiff in the first game, feeling each other out. Game two is a bit less formal. The thrills come from the final games. He saw an exception in 1908, when all eyes were on the fantastic finish in the NL and the playoff game, won by the Cubs. The writers who covered that amazing end game had no idea where to go next, so they all stayed in Buffalo. That series (won by the Cubs over Detroit, where the Series started) was played freely by a team still celebrating its triumph over McGraw.
 

            Hughie then talks about Dickie Kerr’s heroics in the Series just ended — so it’s not a canned essay. And then he writes this: Now that the world’s series is all cleaned up, excepting the remnants of the annual scalping and other scandals connected with the event, it is evident that the powers of baseball face a tough situation. Oh, boy — is he going to talk about the bribery?  No. First, he wants a stop put to the trading or selling of ballplayers between clubs of the same league during the playing season. Hughie thought such stuff made the fans disgusted and suspicious, as if someone was trying to buy a pennant. The other change needed, he thought, was to return the Series to best-of-seven — that is, if you just can’t abolish the damn thing. Hughie really thought dropping it was the better idea. It’s only harmed the game. But he knows it’s unlikely, because it has become such a money-maker for the magnates.
 

            His last prediction was right on. Reforms this winter, however, are not likely with so many factional fights among the owners and officials . On October 11, we wonder who was reading Hughie’s column. The Series was over, Baseball was counting up its receipts and divvying up the pot. Oh. those fix rumors will go away — they always do.
 

NEXT ISSUE:More from Fullerton, something from Wendell Smith in the Pittsburgh Courier (on the Black Sox), and some post-scandal comments by one of the silent men of the Fix, Swede Risberg. The Swede, we think, was a hard guy — to interview. But in 1934, he opened up some in San Francisco, and we’ll read two accounts, from Lincoln, NE, and from San Antonio. And I found a great quote from the Swede’s wife, who sued Swede for a divorce in 1922.