Notes #487 — Pennsylvania Digging

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

#487                                                                                                                          MAY 17, 2009
                                       PENNSYLVANIA DIGGING
 

BUT FIRST, THIS JUST IN:
  The documents purchased by the Chicago History Museum in December 2007 at auction for about $100,000 are now accessible!  If this is news to you, see NOTES #425-426. I am planning to travel to Chicago to spend some time with them, May 26-29. I suspect they will provide material for many future issues of NOTES — and with some luck, Chapter One of my next B-Sox book.
 

            It’s been a funny month, May 2009, so far. My Pirates, over .500 in April, started a nosedive at the end of that month and continued in May until they were well below .500, and fighting their way back to the surface. Well, hey, they have all season to make it up — not to panic. And how about those Steelers — oops, I mean Penguins!?   Which is what Pirate fans reply, when asked how the Bucs are doing. Keep “the Penguin Factor” in mind — all the rooting energy focused on the rinks, until the Stanley Cup games are over, will return to the Pirates, one of these days.
 

            I attended a Little League game recently. It’s been a while, but there’s nothing like a LL game to remind you of how terribly difficult a game baseball really is. Of how hard it can be to throw strikes, to make contact with the bat, to hang onto a thrown or a batted ball. It is also fun to watch a game where none of the players are getting paid a penny (altho I recall one LLer who hit a homer and was greeted at home plate by an uncle or maybe a grandpa, who pressed a couple dollar bills into his hands). To be honest, I would have probably enjoyed more watching a game where there were no adults on the field or in the dugouts, where the kids chose up sides (tossing the bat to see who picks first), then just played , making up rules and policing themselves, and having a ball. Little Leaguers seem too serious , because they are in games that count in the standings , and there are all these adults and siblings watching, and the coaches are shouting a constant stream of advice. Did I say probably ?  No, there is no doubt that I’d have enjoyed watching “sandlot ball” more … but at least these kids are learning the game.
 

            IN THIS ISSUEare a number of items, but the main two inspired (?) the headline about Pennsylvania. After a brief look back at two early B-Sox authors, and a brief detour into an old exhibition game that might have been billed as “The Babe in the ‘Burgh,” we go Digging Up Old Stuff (there will be dinosaurs, for the kids in us), and then (after a few more detours), we look at Buck Weaver , from Pottstown, PA, a fellow Pennsylvanian for whom I have advocated only lightly since I’ve been at this B-Sox thing. I’m sure that I’ve written about Buck’s appeals for reinstatement here before, especially the one in 1927, but in this issue I try to bring them all together and take a new look at Buck, and if anyone wants to send a copy to Bud Selig, you have my permission. But don’t get your hopes up. When Bob Dylan coined the phrase the blind Commissioner , he was talkin’ baseball. Enough intro, enjoy #487; I think there might be one more issue before I head off to Chicago, but — you never know.
 

EARLY ENCOUNTERS ON THE TRAIL  
 

            Back in NOTES #478 , I wrote about several meetings between two of the writers who stayed on the B-Sox trail long enough to be considered guides. Both were youngsters in 1919, and White Sox fans. Nelson Algren had adopted Swede Risberg as his hero, while James T. Farrell became a friend of Buck Weaver, and interviewed Buck toward the end of his (Buck’s life).
 

            In An Honest Writer: The Life & Times of James T. Farrell (Encounter Books, San Fran, 2004) we can finally read more about the meetings between Farrell and Eliot Asinof, to whom Farrell gave a strong shove down the trail — as well as everything he had collected while trying to write a Black Sox novel. We can read Asinof’s side of their relationship in Bleeding Between the Lines (1979), which is kind of a “The Making of 8MO .”
 

            Asinof had signed a contract to write a B-Sox book when he heard that Farrell, a more established writer in 1961, already had a book in the works. Asinof was about to drop his project, when Farrell said:
 

“I’ll tell you what. My book is no good at all. Besides, it’s a novel. I will give you my book, and you can use anything in it that you wish, and what’s more, I’m going to tell you everything that I know. Now, get out your damn pencil and let’s go to work.”  And it was the damndest thing I ever had been through in my life.
 

            Farrell then poured out from his memory, for about 90 minutes, everything he could recall from the 1919 Series and its shrouded aftermath. He also told Asinof whom to interview — “sensational helps.” Asinof continued to meet with Farrell, he was “a constant help throughout the book.” I suspect someone will eventually write their thesis, using the papers of Asinof now being preserved at the Chicago History Museum, on just how much Asinof relied on Farrell for the main outline of 8MO .
 

            The great Black Sox novel remained elusive for Farrell, and we can only guess at its final shape from Dreaming Baseball , edited by Ron Briley and others and published in 2007. Eliot Asinof wrote the three-page Foreword for that novel, supplying, at least for now, the last word about their “partnership.”
 

DOUBLE TAKE  
 

            It was September 8, 1920, and while a grand jury was warming up in Cook County, Illinois, fans in Pittsburgh were excited about an exhibition game at Forbes Field. The Yankees — no, make that the Yankees of Babe Ruth — were taking a job on their way to Cleveland. Pittsburgh papers were ready to turn out in big numbers to see “the Son of Swat,” the “King of Willow-Wielders,” the big guy who was pulling in big crowds all over that other league.
 

            About 25,000 saw the Yanks top the home team Pirates, 7-3, and they did not go home disappointed. Ruth whacked a ball in the ninth inning — grooved for the occasion, perhaps — “over the right field bleachers.” One account said that Ham Hyatt was the only player who had accomplished that feat before the Bambino. Max Carey saw both, and said Ruth’s was longer.
 

            Wait a minute. I grew up believing that the first ball hit over the right field roof at Forbes Field was hit by Babe Ruth, all right, but that was in 1935, when Ruth played for Boston in the NL. It happened to be Ruth’s third homer of the game — and #714, the last of his career. Ham Hyatt?  Ham played for the 1909 World Champion Pirates his rookie year, but only hit ten HRs in his seven MLB seasons (five as a Pirate).
 

            Well, here’s the story, I think. The roof that Ruth cleared in 1935 was not added to Forbes Field until 1925. In 1920, any clout that went for a HR to right field was a truly long ball, as the bleachers were 382 feet away, down the RF line. In 1925, the double-deck grandstand was extended into RF, and it was an imposing 86 feet high, but now it was just a 300′ poke down the line, where the batter had to clear a tall screen.
 

            So Ruth’s HR on 9/8/1920 may indeed have cleared the bleachers, but the grandstand that he cleared in 1935 was not there yet. About Ham Hyatt, I don’t know when he poled his long HR at Forbes, but I did find a note on the internet that Hyatt was believed to have hit the only ball out of Forbes’ immediate predecessor, Exhibition Park III — a poke of 380 if it went down the line, where it had to clear a ten-foot wall and, apparently, some bleachers. But maybe that was in an exhibition game, too — because 1909 is the only year Hyatt could have played at that park (Forbes opened at the end of June), and Hyatt’s record shows zero HRs in his rookie season.
 

            Incidentally, after the 9/8/20 game, the Yankees boarded a train and were off to Cleveland. Suddenly there were rumors that the train had wrecked — Ruth was injured, other players killed. The rumors caused a sensation on Wall Street , where there was much betting; brokers used wire services, like those who gambled on baseball. It didn’t take long to prove the rumors false, and everyone’s best guess was that someone made up the story to change the odds on the Cleveland-New York series.
 

DIGGING UP OLD STUFF  
 

            I grew up in Pittsburgh (my wife disputes this, and would say instead that I spent my youth there), and visited many times the Carnegie Museum out in Oakland. You can see the building in many old photos of Forbes Field, they were that close . I also visited the attached library, which, like the museum, was an grand building, impressive, massive, monumental, and pass the thesaurus, please. No, make that a bronto saurus. The dinosaurs at Carnegie were infinitely more interesting than the books in the library, and besides, I knew the Carnegie Library on the North Side, where I lived, much better; I was at home there.
 

            But I knew the museum pretty well, too, and when I wrote a poem about Ty Cobb, I recalled it some:
 

GEORGIA PEACH
 

Like all kids
I was fascinated by dinosaurs:
No family visit to the museum
Was without its long pause
In their Hall
Where the fiercest of all
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Towering over cowering crowds
Commanding fear and respect
Ruled
 

Like all kids
I was impressed by big numbers
And another Ty’s stats towered
As tall over the sport
As that museum reptile’s skeleton over me
Over all but the Babe
 

Later I learned 
Ruth had won the hearts of all America
While Cobb won hardly a friend
As if his file-sharpened spikes
Had gashed the ankles of the nation
Who thought they were in it for fun
 

They said he played like a man possessed
And maybe this Georgian was
Haunted by his father’s ghost
To excel at any cost
And it cost him dearly
 

I imagine the last tyrannosaurus
Facing extinction
Got little sympathy
From those once terrorized
Their scars reminders
That some breeds
Need to rule
Their own cruel league
At any cost
 

            For some reason, I failed to mention in that old poem that Ty Cobb played near Carnegie Museum, in the 1909 World Series, won by the Pirates of Honus Wagner — and, that October, of Babe Adams — in seven games.  I’m not sure the museum was up and running in 1909, their web site is vague about that. The Carnegie Institute is 113 years old, but that museum, trust me, was not built in four months, like Forbes Field — a feat all the more amazing because beer was never sold in that ballpark.
 

            Anyway, I like to imagine that something was there for Cobb to visit while he paced between those Series games in 1909, and wouldn’t a photo of one ferocious Ty standing beside a giant T-Rex make a great postcard?
 

            Ten years before the Georgia Peach faced off with the Flying Dutchman, in 1899, folks connected to the museum — I hesitate to use the word “archaeologists,” but maybe some were — digging in Wyoming, found a huge skeleton. It was named diplodocus carnegii after the fellow who paid for the dig, and the big bones eventually made their way back to the museum, where they were copied by many other museums over time. Today, the Carnegie in Oakland has added something else — in 1999, they erected a statue of “Dippy” (the nickname was irresistible, I’m sure), where it cannot be missed, out near Forbes Avenue, right where you turn to go to the library. The statue is black and realistic, not a skeleton at all. Had he taken better care of himself, Cobb could have proudly posed with this landmark.
 

            Imagine, a dinosaur from the days when giants (or giant beasts) ruled the world … and this year, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of a World Series from the days when giants like Cobb and Wagner towered over the fledgling sport of baseball.
 

            High above the doors to the library are etched the words “Free to the People” and indeed the Carnegie remains free. (If you want to park your car, that’s a different story, but I paid a modest $5 for the 3-5 hour range; much less than ballpark fees.) I had contacted the Research Department and after a brief tour, I was immersed in microfilm. Like many large cities in 1920, there were no less than ten newspapers in business, and I could only look at a few of them. This time.
 

            I was looking for more information about the Pittsburghers who were either the best syndicate at covering up their links to the Fox of the 1919 World Series, or the syndicate most wrongly linked by the grand jury testimony. According to one source, “rumors all season [1919] pointed to a Pittsburgh syndicate … as being the main engine for almost daily corruption in both leagues.”  The grand jury leaks suggested that Pittsburgh gamblers would be indicted. Sport Sullivan was said to have made calls to Pittsburgh. Could my hometown have been the hotbed of crime behind the bribe money that ended up under Cicotte’s pillow, and in the dirty envelopes given to Lefty Williams? I had to at least give it a quick look.
 

            So I started with September 8, when the Cook County grand jury started to make news.  That’s where I found the item about Babe Ruth, in the Pittsburg (the “H” was lost for a while) Press . But things didn’t get interesting till September 24. Rube Benton made headlines with his revelation that there had been bribery in the 1919 Series, $100,000 worth. The sub-head: Local Gamblers Figured in Plot . (Ruth hit #50 that day, too.) What?  Players “blackmailed” into losing the Series? With Pittsburgh involved? Say it ain’t so, Honus!
 

            Curiously, the local press did not say more about the local ties. They reported that Comiskey had held up the WS checks of four players; Ban Johnson said eight, and revealed that Cicotte, Gandil and McMullin had all asked him (Johnson) to intervene, six weeks after the WS ended. Benton named that betting commissioner in Cincinnati, “Hahn,” as a source; Hahn had visited Rube in Clinton, NC. Benton cleared Buck Weaver, Ray Schalk, Eddie Collins, Joe Jackson, and Shano Collins; he named Cicotte, Williams, Gandil, Felsch, and “one other” as folks worth having as grand jury guests.
 

            September 25 — does the local press follow up with interviews of known gamblers?  They do not. We instead read about John McGraw denying another scuffle at the Lamb’s Club (he had a few); “Ponzi Crash Closes 4th Boston Bank” (nothing new); and the names of Rothstein, Attell, Chase and Burns were in the news.
 

            The big Sunday paper of September 26 mentioned a “gamblers’ war” in the 1919 Series. “Wine and women” were used against the Reds, while good old American money took care of the Sox. I have only seen one other reference to the “W & W” factor, and that was in the Boston Globe , the same day, 9/26/1920: the Globe learned “that the ramifications of the clique which engineered the deal [the Fix] included the use of blackmail tactics, wine, and women lures.”  The Pittsburg Press added the detail that “beautiful women were brought in from Detroit,” which is sort of a slam at the gals in Chicago and Cincy, isn’t it? Oh yeah, the Reds also lost “shooting craps.”  The Press did not give their sources.
 

            But they did sprinkle their coverage of the grand jury with names that would become familiar. Charles Weeghman heard about seven Sox on the take from Chicago gambler Monte Tennes. Fred McMullin, a “pal of Attell,” was said to have distributed mysterious packages. Clyde Elliott, of the Greater Stars Production Company, was somehow involved. Juicier it was getting.
 

            On Monday, Press readers were greeted with a huge bold headline, NEW BASEBALL SCANDAL, which would have been offensive if the Press had been the morning paper (it wasn’t). Who wants to wake up to THAT?  More charges about October 1919, and good grief, the 1920 Series was already fixed , even before the opponents were known! John Heydler was beating the drums for a third National Commission member now , someone impartial. Grand jury foreman Harry Brigham hinted that players on all sixteen teams are involved in the evidence collected so far. (Brigham was a bit of a loose cannon, maybe an early Joe Biden, not always tuned in to the way those in power wanted the story to unfold. Harry, not 16 teams … maybe just eight players, OK?
 

            Tuesday, 9/28, the jig was up: INDICT 8 WHITE SOX. Eddie Cicotte had told the grand jury that morning — in time to make the evening papers — that the fix had been in. The Press also stated that the players had been “blackmailed” in the current season to tilt the pennant to Cleveland.
 

            The next day, INDICT GAMBLERSwas the head, and the sub-head said that two more White Sox players had confessed — Williams and Felsch. Sport Sullivan — who may have had a Pittsburgh link, although the Press doesn’t confirm or deny that — was called the “King of Boston Gamblers”; he lived wife his wife and child in Sharon, MA. Joe Jackson denied that there was any tampering done in 1920 and Felsch did, too. “Maharg Seeks Pay for Scandal Expose” was one sidebar. I might be wrong, but if the Press was the only paper you were reading in 1920, you might not know about Joe Jackson’s role until September 29.
 

            On Thursday, the 29th, the Press reported that gamblers would be indicted in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St Louis, Detroit, Des Moines, and other cities — but no mention of Pittsburgh. Judge Landis — not yet the Commish — was asked his views of the growing scandal, but he had no comment.
 

            WILL NOT HALT BALL PROBEblared the headline on the 30th. Hoyne had decided there was no legal basis for the indictments against the players (no law in Illinois forbade tossing games or taking bribes), and he ordered the grand jury to stop, but Judge McDonald said that things would continue. Hoyne added that there was no con game here, the players had carried out their part of the bargain (!)  Other names in the news: Billy Sunday chimed in with his dim view of things. Swede Risberg had nothing to confess — “And if anybody squeals on me I’ll put them out of business” (!!)  Abe Attell, it was reported, had been banned from ball games in NY, thanks to the late Harry Sparrow. And umpire Brick Owens charged Cicotte with laying down in an August series against Boston; another ump, unnamed, said the Sox tossed a game against Cleveland just “last week.”  Once your reputation is questioned, the saying goes, it is gone; looking back, everything looks suspicious, every error or pitching mistake, intentional.
 

            I had time to take a peek at another Pittsburgh newspaper and chose the Gazette Times , an ancestor, I think, of the current surviving Post-Gazette . Their coverage was similar, but seemed to have a few more human interest (baseball) items. On September 24, alum Babe Ruth gave $2,500 (roughly Lefty Williams’ salary in 1919) to St Mary’s Industrial School, which had suffered a fire. Ban Johnson said he’d heard rumors that the Sox would not win the pennant again (possibly in reply, the Sox trimmed Cleveland 10-3). The next day, Duster Mails shut out the Sox, 2-0; Mails was a “Pirate castoff” and this game was reported in unbelievable detail, an expanded play-by-play that I have rarely seen in any newspaper, any game. This prompts me to suggest that the Pittsburg Gazette Times might be a great source for accounts of the 1919 World Series — it might have details not seen elsewhere.
 

            I could not help but notice, in the Press , a huge amount of advertising by the department stores, in particular Rosenbaums, which was celebrating its 52nd anniversary. Another was Frank and Seder, a name I had not thought about since I was a kid. In the Gazette , Rosenbaums took the entire front page of the September 27 edition — that’s right, whatever was newsworthy, whether fire or earthquake or assassination or baseball scandal — had to wait till page two. Inside the Gazette , nothing new on the B-Sox, but did you know that Babe Ruth presented the supporting cast of Headin’ Home , a film he had made, with fifteen dogs (from the local pound — they were “extras” in the film). What a guy!
 

            The Gazette was a morning paper, and on September 28, they quoted Replogle denying Brigham’s claim that every team was involved. No, it was “just a few players” and just one or two teams (!!!)
 

            On the 29th, the Gazette mentioned all those cities listed in the Press , but added “as well as the Pittsburghers implicated” — but they gave no names. Thus ended my quick search for the Pittsburgh connection. They remain phantoms, ever elusive, and if I was a gambler myself, I’d bet they controlled the Pittsburgh newspapers — the Press more than the Gazette . But my hunting was fun and I think that I shall return .
 

NOOKS AND CRANNIES  
 

            When I started sifting through hundreds more newspapers, via NewspaperArchive.com , I had better luck than in Pittsburgh itself. Before the Chicago grand jury got going, on September 15, there was a fine article in the New Castle News (right near Pittsburgh), “Much Talk But No Real Action Against Gamblers.” One of its sub-heads: “No Headquarters in Pittsburgh.” The story was out of Pittsburgh, and looking back, perhaps the Pittsburgh gamblers were going on the offensive before they were attacked.
 

            The NCN thought baseball fans were wearying of all this talk about gambling corrupting the sport, from the magnates. Why do they never name names? I think the message was “put up or shut up.”  Pittsburgh, according to the NCN , was
 

often mentioned as being the headquarters of a coterie of gamblers who make bets on the ball games. And it has been intimated that fixing, if there was fixing, was instigated here. A diligent inquiry among the professional betting fraternity of this city [Pittsburgh], fails to disclose any such headquarters. That there is bookmaking on the ball games here there is no disputing, but the headquarters are not here. Detroit, Buffalo and Cleveland are the places where the bets on the game are laid.
 

            Pittsburgh, the NCN was sure, was merely a follower.
 

            The Oakland Tribune (CA) of 9/26/1920 was one more paper that reported the grand jury leak about the wine and women.
 

The clique betting on the Sox did not try to reach the Reds through the direct offers of money … but entertained them with ‘heavy’ parties during the [1919] series, weakening them physically. One or two members of the Reds were said to have lost considerable money gambling on dice games and cards during the series, putting them under obligations to the winners.
 

            A separate box in the Trib had the juicy headline: “Wine and Women Figured in the Gamblers’ Plan.” The Trib also had a United Press story that the grand jury had heard evidence that the 1919 WS had been fixed — this is two days before Cicotte appeared before them. Abe Attell, Hal Chase, Fred McMullin (!), Bill Burns and Arnold Rothstein were the names in the Trib story “as among those who might have some knowledge.”
 

            In a different world, we might have seen the media (the press, in 1920), come down harder on the Reds, than the Sox, since at least the Sox players were sober and faithful to their wives when they took the bribes. Well, we don’t know that for sure. But how about those Reds , rolling dice and playing with cards — and remember, this was long before APBA baseball.
 

            The Ironwood, MI, Daily Globe reported on October 1, 1920, that State’s Attorney Hoyne — who had argued a few days earlier that the grand jury should be shut down — had changed his tune, and was now trying to make some hay. He’d been in New York, digging around, and announced he had lots of “new evidence” for the grand jury to ponder. What this was, we do not know, but Hoyne looked good at the time.
 

            The Daily Globe also gave a little more detail than I’ve seen elsewhere on that stabbing of a Chicago infielder, nicknamed Buck, whose name had come up in the hearings. This was Buck Herzog of the Cubs, of course, accused of tossing games by Rube Benton — Rube was not aware that NL Prez Heydler had already cleared this Buck. The Cubs had played an exhibition game in Joliet, Il, and Herzog was in a car, when someone shouted, “There goes the crooked Chicago ball players” and “jumped up on the running board of the car and slashed Herzog on the right hand and left arm and leg. The wounds were not serious.”
 

            The big bold page one headline in the Globe that day was POLES SMASH SOVIET ARMY— that was striking. And a side item noted that September 1920 had set a “new warmth record” in Ironwood, with the average daily temps ranging from 54 to 69. They might have added that the month also saw a record set for the hottest month ever — for baseball.
 

            OK, one more. The Winona (Minn) Republican-Herald of February 20, 1947, carried a column by Joe Reichler (AP) that recalled the “Famed ‘Black Sox’ Scandal of 1919” — without explaining why.  That is, why now, in 1947?
 

            Reichler starts in 1877 and rapidly skims ahead to 1919, giving a very brief chronology of the B-Sox story. Here’s what got my attention. Reichler says that in the alleged fixed game between the Cubs and Phils — he has Sept 7, but it was August 31 — a group of betting men from Pittsburgh had bet big on the Cubs. This group then suspected rival gamblers of “fixing” a certain Cub pitcher, because the odds on the Phils to win shot upward. “They began a quiet investigation of their own with the result that the expected ‘killing’ was discovered. Incensed at what they termed a ‘double-cross,’ they wired frantic appeals….”  And we know the rest of the story.
 

            That’s right  — the Pittsburgh gamblers were not only not involved in the Big Fix of 1919, but they were heroes in getting the ball rolling that eventually brought that fix to light!  Reichler says they hinted that the August 31 fix was not the first, and they could gives names and dates of other fixes, “if necessary.”  Hmm, sounds like they were fishing for hush money. Yes, if Reichler is correct, credit the Pittsburgh gamblers with pointing the Chicago authorities toward a big syndicate in NY which had “fixed” a recent “important series.”
 

            I better stop there. I have this feeling that if I keep looking, I will find evidence that the Pittsburgh gamblers put Judge Landis into office as Commish, arranged for the majority of Babe Ruth’s home runs, and saved baseball without taking or asking for any of the credit.
 

A NOTE ON PEG  
 

            From time to time, I’ve written here about Westbrook Pegler, a fellow who was a young sports reporter in 1919, and who went on to do pretty well for himself as a national syndicated columnist, who wrote more about politics than sports. “Peg’s” contribution to the B-Sox story consists of his latter-day commentary about how the press was part of the problem in 1919 (Hugh Fullerton being an exception); and his round of interviews, in 1956, of some of the surviving B-Sox players. Notes #391 has a summary of that series, and his success in getting players like Cicotte and Risberg to talk shows that it could be managed, with an approach that evidently was different than Eliot Asinof’s, a bit later.
 

            For those interested in reading Pegler’s whole series, all five articles, NewspaperArchive.com can deliver it. I found it, for example, in the Lebanon Daily News (Lebanon, PA), starting on September 22; the lead article has the headline, “World Series Between White Sox and Cincinnati Reds Was Clumsy Fake.”  By that time, Jackson, McMullin and Weaver had died. “American public opinion buried them in a quick-lime of moralistic scorn,” Pegler writes, adding that Weaver had “beaten his way back to a certain level of public respect”; Ray Schalk had been one of his pallbearers.
 

            I mention this here yet again because sometimes a series like this, which appeared in numerous places, sometimes has more or less information, depending on where you read it. Editors may edit out whole paragraphs, sometimes clumsily, creating mystifying sentences and confusing readers. So if anyone decides to browse thru Pegler’s 1956 series, and comes up with material that seems significant for our records — something I missed in Notes #391 — please let me know.
 

BUCK WEAVER VERSUS BASEBALL  
 

            I have written a short book about Buck Weaver here in Notes by now, perhaps not as much as about Cicotte or Jackson. Weaver was interesting to me long before I ever stepped onto the B-Sox trail; “Who Mourns for Buck?” appeared in Notes #157 , back in April 1998. When I started finding out more about Buck’s case in my research, I summed it up once in “Defending Buck,” which was in Notes #345 , and is easy to find in the Notes Archive . But to be honest, while Buck seemed to be the most sympathetic of the 8MO, the easiest to defend, he seemed to have plenty of supporters; defending Gandil , now there’s a challenge. So my writing about Buck tended to be more abstract — linked with the Landis Edict. Banning Buck in 1921 for what was not against any rule in 1919 seemed unfair, especially if (and this is arguable) Buck sat in on those meetings to do his damndest to talk his teammates back into their senses; and maybe he succeeded , so that only a few actually did anything to help the Reds win. Buck stood for a principle, he refused to accuse without certain knowledge; precisely what Comiskey did, when he withheld the WS checks of players he suspected, then went ahead and signed up all but Gandil, giving generous raises to boot. Ironically, Buck never seemed like the other seven, yet Landis condemned him, because “birds of a feather flock together.”
 

            But lately, I’ve become interested in Buck Weaver all over again. And here is what I’ve found lately.
 

            So far, I’ve documented four formal appeals that Buck made to Baseball, and one other appeal that I’m not sure was filed. The first three involved Judge Landis; the second, Landis’ successor, Happy Chandler; and the last appeal was made to Ford Frick. Each time Buck knocked on Baseball’s door, he was refused re-entry. But each time, I think he gained new supporters — he always had some.
 

            The “Black Sox trial” in the summer of 1921 had found Buck and everyone else “not guilty” of conspiring to toss games, etc. But “regardless of the verdict of juries,” Judge Landis banished the players involved. This sent the right message to ballplayers and to fans. But on further review, the edict also insured that this story would stay in the news a long time. So here we are nearly nine decades later, debating that sentence and arguing over whether that punishment really fit the crime — whatever the crime was!  And was it harshest on Weaver?
 

            Buck had reason to be hopeful when he appealed to Landis the first time, in January 1922. He had powerful men supporting him, from Charles Comiskey to John McGraw, who really wanted to see Buck playing third for his NY Giants. Buck was thought to be “clean as a hound’s tooth” by the investigator on the staff of Collyer’s Eye , soon after the 1919 Series ended, and as late as the B-Sox trial, Rube Benton classified Buck among the clean Sox, with Schalk and Eddie Collins. Few thought Buck had given less than 100% effort in the 1919 Series; few thought him capable of playing without an intense competitiveness. And Buck had been honest, it seemed, admitting he had some knowledge of the bribery, but not enough to say for sure that the Fix was in, and, if it was, who was in and who was not. All he knew for sure was that he was not. No one accused him of taking a penny of bribe money, not even Gandil or Abe Attell. Buck had been ultra-loyal, not just to his teammates, and his team, but to his manager and to Comiskey, who may have known more than Buck. Weaver never said that Kid Gleason spoke to the team early on about a possible Fix, that could put the Kid on the spot. So Kid Gleason was in Weaver’s corner, too. His appeal looked — promising.
 

            Landis sat on it for nearly a year, then, on December 11, 1922, turned Buck down. The Judge, who should have known better, said Buck should have spoken up at the 1921 trial, to clear his name; Buck may have wanted to testify, but his lawyers chose a different strategy, one which, to Landis’ dismay, no doubt, had succeeded. Maybe Buck was philosophical about the response: maybe it’s just too soon … I’ll try again later.
 

            The next opportunity Buck took to beg entry from Landis, was at the 1927 hearing. Risberg and Gandil had opened that can of worms, vintage 1917, and Landis responded with a hearing in Chicago, gathering over thirty people to testify. Again, Buck had reason to be optimistic — he sided with the majority, against Swede and Chick. He was welcomed warmly by Ty Cobb and others. The press coverage was thick, and Weaver’s plea was dramatic — he had “begged” for a separate trial, he didn’t testify in ’21 because his lawyers wouldn’t let him. Apparently after the hearing, Buck and his lawyer met with Landis.
 

            This time it took the Commish less than three months to say No. Landis referred back to his 1922 call. He underlined Buck’s “guilty knowledge” of the possible bribery — as if Buck alone knew something rotten was afoot.
 

            In this 1927 reply — easiest to look up in the Chicago Tribune of March 13 — Landis mentions that Buck testified that he had been approached during the 1920 season by a teammate (not Cicotte, but someone saying that Eddie had sent him), about his interest in throwing some games. Buck said no, but again kept quiet about it. “Buck Weaver to Play Ball in Chicago” went the teasing Trib headline two weeks later — but no, not with the Sox; Buck had signed to play semi-pro ball. He was signed by William Niesen, a longtime club owner and apostle of “clean baseball.”  This set up a showdown with Landis. The Judge had just cleared Cobb and Speaker, icons too popular to be turned out. Why not Weaver, a Chicago icon?  Weaver was ecstatic: “I’m goin’ to play the best game I can for old Bill Niesen, and the lily whites who kicked me out of the racket are going to be the most jealous birds around town.” (This Trib account also notes that after the January hearing, Buck found himself “outlawed by the outlaws” — he’d not be invited to play with Risberg and Gandil.)
 

            I have to mention that one of the Trib’s columnists, Don Maxwell (“Speaking of Sports”) noted in his March 16, 1927, column, the inconsistency of Landis — who reinstated Cobb and Speaker (and tossed out the 1917 charges) because he doubted the word of Risberg and Gandil, calling them confessed framers of games; but now he refuses Weaver, based on stories told by Eddie Cicotte. Maxwell: “Baseball law is a bit thick.”
 

            Then in May 1930, Buck was in the news again, and this is the time when it’s not clear if he ever made a formal appeal for reinstatement. What is certain is that he and his lawyer, Louis J. Rosenthal, were prepared to make a “new plea” — based on “new evidence.”  [Attention, Chicagoans: Rosenthal’s old files on Buck just might be sitting around in some archive.]  As near as I can tell, the “new evidence” was that Buck had settled with the White Sox on his old claim for his 1921 salary. Buck had signed a three-year contract, for 1919-20-21, for $7,250 per season. Suspended at the end of 1920, Buck could (and did) sue for that 1921 money, since in the eyes of the law he was innocent and did nothing to deserve being released. In 1930, he settled for $3,500. Buck contended that if he was guilty of conspiracy, the Sox never would have settled with him. One place you can look this up is in the Valparaiso, IN, Vidette-Messenger of May 7, 1930.
 

            I have not found a response by Landis, if he gave any, which makes me wonder if this appeal went any farther than the newspapers. I have the same feeling about an appeal Weaver made soon after Judge Landis passed away. In May 1946, Happy Chandler was Commish, and I think Buck appealed then.
 

            What was certainly Buck’s last formal appeal, while he was alive, was made in 1953. Ford Frick was now on baseball’s throne.
            Buck took a simple 9″ x 6″ piece of paper, and a pencil, and began: “Mr Commission[er]  Dear Sir.”  It was January 29. Buck would not mail the letter until February 15; when it arrived at Frick’s desk, it was stamped Received February 21, morning. Buck had filled both sides of the letter with his own handwriting. He assumed Frick knew nothing of his case. He noted his three-year contract, his 1920 suspension “for doing some thing wrong. Which I [k]new nothing about.”  He had played “a perfect” WS in 1919, had stood trial and was acquitted.
 

            “You know Commission the only thing we have left in this world is our judge and the 12 jurors and they found me not guilty. They do some funny things in base ball.”
 

            Buck again argued, as he had in 1930, that his settlement with the Sox for his 1921 pay — “that makes me right and Comiskey wrong. So Commission I am asking for reinstatement into organized Base Ball. Yours Very Truly, George Buck Weaver.”
 

            In December 1953, Buck was still waiting for a reply. At 63, he had just a few years left, although he did not know it at the time. “All I want out of life now is to eat, and take care of my folks — and clear my name,” he told Jack Mabley, a Chicago Daily News sports writer. (I read the account in the Oakland (CA) Tribune , December 28, 1953.)  Buck was ever hopeful. Reinstated, maybe he could scout, or teach some kids how to play third base.
 

            “Even if I knew something — my God, why punish a man this long. Even a murderer serves his time. I got life. It hurts.”
 

            “I had no evidence. Suppose I thought you were doing something wrong, and I told somebody about it. And suppose I was wrong. What have I done to you! I’m the worst —- in the world I didn’t have any evidence.”
 

            “Judge Landis would call me and try to get me to talk. He was nice to me as anybody could be. Said ‘Come in, Buck. Sit down. Have a plug of tobacco.’ Then he’d try to get me to tell him what went on. How could I tell him when I didn’t know.”
 

            “Then they made the decision. The Judge wouldn’t even look me in the eye. He said, ‘I’ve sent the decision by letter.’ Didn’t have the nerve to tell me to my face. I would have grabbed him by the throat, and he knew it.”
 

            “And they call baseball a sport. Why — —- them! Well I’ll tell you this. I’ve got more friends than all of them put together.You’d think Frick would at least answer my letter. I done nothing in my life that wasn’t for the good of baseball.”
 

            After Buck passed away, on January 31, 1956, many sports columnists paid him tribute. Many people recalled him as the best defensive third baseman they ever saw. History, if not Landis, refused to lump him together with the other B-Sox. He was the one who had consistently protested his innocence. Bob Considine repeated in his column of February 5 for INS (I’m reading  the Charleston (WVa) Gazette ), the words of Jim Kilgallen: “Buck Weaver had a code of his own…. Judge Landis had a different conception of integrity than Buck — and Buck paid the price.”
 

            That is at the core of Buck’s story — his code, versus that of Landis, who became Baseball.
 

            Let me end with this. In 1917, there was an exhibition game played in Boston, a benefit for the family of baseball writer Tim Murnane. This game is considered by some as the first All Star Game, although the Addie Joss benefit in 1911 is competition. Joe Jackson played in both, as did Cobb and Speaker and others. On the 1917 squad, at third base, was Buck Weaver. It must have been a peak experience for Buck — to be out there with Babe Ruth (he pitched), Walter Johnson, and the rest. Buck went 0-for-3 and the hometown Red Sox beat the AL Stars, 2-0, but somehow, I see Buck smiling all day long. Birds of a feather , indeed.