Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-10-2012

Pittsburgh Press, February 10, 1912:

“Tub” Spencer, for a time a backstop with the Phillies after Dooin was injured last year…is now under bail for $1,000 to appear in court.

The charge against Spencer is that he tried to break into a restaurant at Eighth and Dauphin sts.

Spencer, when given his hearing, did not argue that it was unsatisfied hunger that drove him to dive through the window into the cafe. The rotund catcher, who weighs 200 pounds frankly admitted…even a plate glass barrier didn’t deter his efforts to get into the food shop.

What’s the opposite of defenestration?

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-9-2012

El Paso Herald, February 9, 1912:

After signing his contract and promising to hit nothing but pitchers, Sherwood N. Magee, the Philadelphia outfielder, chirped as follows: “We’ll cop the gonfalon this year sure. The Phils would have won last year had it not been for Titus’s and Dooin’s broken legs. I have always tried to be a modest youth, but it might be asserted that my 33-day suspension was scarcely a boon to the club. We will never have tough luck like that another year.

Yes, Sherry, it was horrible luck that you decided to punch an umpire in the face and knock him unconscious.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-8-2012

Toledo News-Bee, February 8, 1912:

Vean Gregg of the Naps says that Eugene Krapp is also a holdout. He said that he hoped his former teammate would make a go of it. “Without Krapp and myself, the Senators will finish higher than the Naps. With us, there will be a new world’s champion baseball team next year,” said Gregg.

Gregg may have been boasting, but he was right. He and Krapp both signed, Cleveland finished 16.5 games behind Washington, and the Red Sox won it all.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-7-2012

Pittsburgh Press, February 7, 1912:

Bugs Raymond, the once great pitcher of the New York Giants, appears to be down and out as a major leaguer. This time last year he was taking the Keeley cure. It didn’t touch him…He still stands—or falls—suspended by the New York club and is ineligible to play with any club in organized baseball. He will not be traded.
...

Bugs was a great starter but a poor finisher. He seldom finished anything but a drink. He began three seasons with the Giants full of hope, promises and temperance vows and ended them full of dope, remorse and bad booze.

Ouch. For his part, Bugs was still doing his best to be a good citizen. 100 years ago today in the New York Tribune:

“Bugs” Raymond is still on the map. A day or two ago he rescued a man from three thugs who tried to hold up their victim in one of the suburbs of Chicago. Raymond responded to the call to arms and put all three to flight…“Bugs” found the victim of the assault slightly injured and took him to a police station, where he received medical assistance.

As you might imagine, the Bugs Raymond saga ended very badly. Washed up, he spent the 1912 season in the outlaw United States League until it folded. Raymond’s five-year-old daughter died of influenza, he separated from his wife, and he died September 7 of complications from a fractured skull he suffered in a brawl.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-6-2012

El Paso Herald, February 6, 1912:

Somebody told Hans Wagner that it required lots of nerve to play football, but that almost any chap could play baseball. This roused Honus to oratory. He is a football fan himself…[and] likes to watch a football game more than he does a baseball game. But he refused to admit that football requires more nerve than baseball.
...

“Doesn’t it take a little nerve to stand up to the plate and have the terrible speed of a hard ball whizzing past your forehead? Doesn’t it take nerve to step in when you don’t know what’s coming? Doesn’t it require nerve to slide into a bag when the ball is coming at you like a bullet and you don’t know but that it’s going to bound off your head?”

Obligatory.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-3-2012

Toledo News-Bee, February 3, 1912:

Vean Gregg, Nap twirler, who is holding out for a $5,000 salary, declared Saturday he was about ready to close negotiations to play with an eastern outlaw league.

It is easy to see that Vean Gregg has been in the majors only one season. Now his argument to force the Cleveland club into paying him more money, has taken the form of a threat to sign an outlaw contract. O, peanut butter.

Bye bye, Vean! Have fun storming the castle! (“Think it will work?”  “It would take a miracle.”)

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-2-2012

El Paso Herald, February 2, 1912:

Big league magnates almost universally cry out against the idea of having their players numbered with numerals on their shirt sleeves. This is considered good form in some minor leagues but the better players resent being placarded like a bunch of horses.

Yeah, I don’t see how this whole “numbers on the uniforms” thing will ever fly.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 2-1-2012

New York Tribune, February 1, 1912:

James Doyle, of Syracuse, third baseman of the Chicago [National League] club last season, who was stricken with appendicitis on Monday, was reported as being in a critical condition last night.

Doyle died 100 years ago today.

His was a really improbable, if brief, success story. The Cubs’ third baseman, Harry Steinfeldt, held out to start the 1911 season. In response, Frank Chance (completely rationally) waived Steinfeldt and gave the hot corner to Heinie Zimmerman, previously a utilityman. A month or so into the season, Johnny Evers broke down due to “Fudge Orgies and Nicotine Sprees”, so Zim slid over to second and Doyle, a 29-year-old rookie, became the third baseman.  He played well in 1911; hit .282, 40 extra-base hits, OPS+ of 110, 3.5 BB-Ref WAR.  Not bad for a guy who never would have seen a regular job if not for holdouts, nicotine, and fudge.

Less than four months after the 1911 season ended, Doyle was dead.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-31-2012

El Paso Herald, January 31, 1912:

Since the recent visit of the New York Giants to Cuba there has been some revision of opinion on the island concerning the overpowering greatness of one Jose Mendez...A record of three straight defeats at the hands of the Giants changed things.
...

A recent issue of La Lucha of Havana says: “Especially will the resident Americans in Cuba be grateful to Mr. Mathewson for the operation that he has performed, greatly assisted by his teammates. He has perceptibly reduced the swelling from the upper headpiece of one Senor Mendez, which ailment was about to ruin a really good pitcher.
...

A big black bear in white uniform strode majestically to the center of the diamond. Cuban fans bared their heads in the tropic sun—‘twas the great Mendez…[McGraw] cocked his head to one side, glanced over the kneeling multitude, his eye caught the black figure standing in silent majesty, and he broke the stillness of the Havana park by blurting out in his best Broadway English: “Who’s that guy?”

He’s just amazin’!

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-30-2012

San Francisco Call, January 30, 1912:

If Joe Cohn can obtain the release of Ralph Frink from the Mavericks, as the state penitentiary squad is known, the Spokane manager will give the jail bird a contract with the Indians in the Northwestern league. Cohn wants Frink because he is a good pitcher.
...

While in Chehalis and after the season closed, he tried to rob a store while drunk, and the trick landed him in the penitentiary.

GIMME ALL YOUR FLAVIN, OR I’LL SHOOT YOU IN THE HOYVIN-GLAVIN!

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-27-2012

Toledo News-Bee, January 27, 1912:

Charley White, who has been granted the New York city franchise in the proposed new United States league, has the biggest and most unique scheme on hand that baseball has ever produced. A baseball field of immense size, sodded with turf and all the conveniences of an up-to-date ball grounds on a roof, is the gigantic undertaking that White has in view, and claims that he has the necessary backing to carry the plan along.
...
The roof of the new Grand Central station…is the possible location of the proposed ball field.

That would have been SO COOL.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-26-2012

100 years ago today, the [New York] Evening World checks in with Victory Faust, who’s still hoping the Giants will bring him back for another season:

“I ain’t exactly certain what I’m goin’ to do. If McGraw don’t come after me pretty soon I’m apt to jump to another club…I’ve got two other clubs in mind and I might let my brother go with the Giants. He’s better’n I am.”
...

“Waal, they ain’t exactly after me, but I kin go to the Highlanders or the Chicago Cubs and could be a big help to them. Joe Tinker talked to me about pitching for the Cubs last fall.”
...
During the winter Faust has been living at the Braddock Hotel, and is paying his bills, too. Just where he gets the money nobody knows, but he gets it just the same. Every night he takes a turn at skating at St. Nicholas Rink. His awkward, gangling figure is a familiar sight as it wobbles around the rink. To get Charles right you should see him on his skates, with his hat pulled down over his eyes and a big black cigar between his teeth.

By sheer force of will, Faust managed to attach himself to the Giants for the first half of the 1912 season before John McGraw finally got sick of him and got Faust to leave.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-25-2012

El Paso Herald, January 25, 1912:

Here we have been priding ourselves on the American national game of baseball and how scientific it has become in its development in the last quarter of a century and right in the face of it all, two learned highbrow archaeologists of London and Berlin…try to show that a game similar to our baseball existed in 1800, B.C.
...

This must have been before Jim McGuire and Cy Young broke into the game.

...but just after Jamie Moyer debuted.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-24-2012

Washington Herald, January 24, 1912:

A professor who had a big seal act had bought a walrus, not with any idea of training the creature, but simply for the oddity of the monster.
...

[Rube] Waddell visited the show one afternoon, and at once declared that he was going to educate the walrus—teach him to clown the act, as it were. Throwing off his coat and vest, Rube hopped into the tank and introduced himself to the walrus. You couldn’t see anything for a moment except a big whirl in the water. Then Rube came out very fast. He had shed his coat and vest when he went in, and the walrus had his pants, so we had to wrap him in a horse blanket to get him home.

That’s no walrus! That’s Tim Stoddard!

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-23-2012

San Francisco Call, January 23, 1912:

Elmer Stricklett, who deserted the Brooklyn club in the National League in 1909 and who has been ranching at Mountain View and playing outlaw ball ever since, has just received notification of his reinstatement in organized baseball, provided he pays a fine of $100. Stricklett’s unique plea that his wife refused to allow him to go back…evidently won the sympathy of the national commission.
...

In extenuation he said that his wife had insisted upon him remaining in California, that the real head of the family needed tailored suits and picture hats and he was forced to play ball on the coast.

Elmer Stricklett: Alleged inventor of the spitball, now the inventor of the revolutionary “it’s my wife’s fault” excuse.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-20-2012

Providence Evening Tribune, January 20, 1912:

Organized baseball will be fought under the Sherman Anti-trust law if it attacks the new Columbian Baseball League, according to John T. Powers, President of the new organization.

“We are not fighting capital with capital and do not seek a fight with any person or combination,” said Powers. “But we have the statutory right to exist and compete with the ‘Baseball Trust.’”

There is more in the threat of the new outlaw league in the west to fight organized baseball under the Sherman Anti-trust law than appears on the surface, or the average fan believes.
...

The fly in the ointment lies in the fact that the trust law was designed to prevent restriction of business and commercial activities, and did not refer to amusement enterprizes [sic], such as baseball and theatricals.

As it turns out, organized baseball did exactly what it should have done with regard to the Columbian League: They sat back and watched it collapse all by itself before it ever played a game. The postscript, though, is that John T. Powers spent the next offseason getting the Federal League off the ground. The Federal League, of course, eventually led to Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which indeed revolved around baseball and the Sherman Act.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-19-2012

Connie Mack, quoted in the Mansfield Daily Shield 100 years ago today:

Jack Crooks, playing third for the Browns, was escorting a bunt that way one afternoon, and saw that it was surely safe. He knelt beside the slow-rolling ball, and blew it out of the line. There was some yowl, believe me but what could they do? He hadn’t touched the ball with hand or foot, and the umpire had to call it foul.

Lenny Randle approves.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-18-2012

St. Joseph News-Press, January 18, 1912:

A bill that will cause much excitement in the ranks of baseball men is to be introduced in the New York state legislature by Senator James J. Frawley…It is Senator Frawley’s plan to tax the gross receipts of baseball clubs exceeding a certain limit, the money thus collected to be turned over to the playgrounds in the leading cities and towns.
...

The officials of the major league clubs have never made public the amount of their gross rceipts, expenditures and profits. There is no doubt, however, that the returns are enormous.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-17-2012

Baseball notes from the Pittsburgh Press, January 17, 1912:

About the slowest way to get a ball player in trade is to go after him…We will give the [recently announced outlaw leagues, the Columbian League and United States League] this: They may land Bugs Raymond and Rube Waddell…Pres. Witman, of the United States league, says his league season will be short. Yes, probably two weeks…Keokuk club of the Central association, has signed 56 players for next season. The contract to finish the Panama canal must have been sublet to this team…Pres. John M. Ward is against his Boston team playing baseball on Sunday. Last year Boston didn’t play baseball Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays…Frank Smith, the piano mover, reports he is having the time of his life in Europe. “Smitty” admits he never had much use for dukes and earls, but he simply wanted to see what they looked like at close range.

You know what else Smitty never had much use for?  Pants.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-16-2012

Mansfield Daily Shield, January 16, 1912:

Edmund Lamy, who played right field and who will occupy the same position on the Mansfield club in the Ohio State league this season, may become the world’s champion skater this winter. He must win from Morris Wood in a series of matches which has been arranged between the two, to be held at Saranac Lake, N.Y., January 30 and 31. Wood is the present holder of the championship.
...

Lamy has always been prominent as a skater. He was holder of the amateur championship until he entered professional ball and played in this city.

Lamy won. He was a pretty good ballplayer - hit .320 with doubles power in Class B ball as a 23-year-old, but his baseball career ended with a broken collarbone.

After his baseball career and a stint in the military during World War I, Lamy went on to become a legendary speed skater and barrel jumper.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-13-2012

Pittsburgh Press, January 13, 1912:

When the Giants go to their camp at Marlin Springs next month they will be without their mascot, Charley Faust. Manager McGraw has decided, after careful consideration, that he is a jinx, and therefore he will not be allowed to be a member of the band of New York national players next season.

McGraw has already waived claim on this freakiest of freak ball players, and any club that would like a combination of mascot and pitcher had better hurry up and claim Charley.

League offices all around North America were undoubtedly flooded with claims for Faust.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-12-2012

In the Calgary Daily Herald, January 12, 1912, an account of the Western Canada League discussing ways to compile and disseminate statistics more quickly:

[Edmonton outfielder] Chesty Cox then threw out his chest, and after splattering a quart of Pay Roll juice on the office floor and muttering a few words about the benefit of cuspidors in all churches, he glued his eye on the writer he said…“It is not [league president] Eckstrom’s fault in most cases that the averages are not on deck at eight bells. The big leagues suffer from cramps over the averages and all presidents have their own troubles getting them out, but it is mostly the fault of the scorers. They neglect to send in the scores and the dope sheet is put on the hummer, and there is war in the camp.
...

“If you guys want to get the candy kids to send in their dope sheets right on the lick…you just provide each of them with a swell dame as an assistant. She could perch on his kneelers and tell him how ‘dear Chesty made home on a homer three times each game’ and how ‘Chan broke a hickory by beating the pill to the Macleod trail.” She could then accompany him to a swell hash at the Chink’s and in the gloaming warm up a chair at his desk, filling in the manuscript while the dub scorer slung out the necessary.”

I get the impression Chesty Cox would have been a fun guy to hang out with, just so you could hear him talk like this all the time.

Yes, there was actually a person named Chesty Cox. I looked it up, and I made sure not to do so from my work computer. I didn’t want to be responsible for what Google found.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-11-2012

Ty Cobb on the future of baseball, as reported in the January 11, 1912 edition of the Milwaukee Journal:

“Baseball will continue to increase in popularity…Every major league club will have a plant costing from $500,000 to $1,000,000. Many minor league parks will rival those in major league cities. Another major league will be formed within the next five years. Competition will become more keen, and star ball players will be paid fabulous sums. Ball players will be smarter. Unless conditions are satisfactory they will organize and force the magnates to recognize their rights. Players will also be faster. A more dashing style of play will prevail. This, together with the improvements in parks will attract monster crowds and the club owners’ coffers will be filled with gold.

Ty Cobb may have been a jerk, he may have been a racist, and he might just be the least likeable superstar in the history of the sport.

He was also prescient.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-9-2012

Pittsburgh Press, January 9, 1912:

Gordon Mackay, the Philadelphia sport writer has compiled a list of The Twenty Greatest Suckers in History. His list is fair, but he omitted a few names. Here is a list of suckers hard to beat—The King of Denmark…William Jennings Bryan…the Man Who Bought the Boston Nationals, Clark Griffith…the Minor Leaguer Who Thinks He’s Worth $10,000 Because the St. Louis Browns Drafted Him, the Mutt Who Bet on the Giants in the 1911 World’s Series

Bryan got crushed in the presidential election of 1908. Griffith had left the Reds over the offseason of 1911-12 to become the manager of the hapless Senators.

Not sure what Mackay’s beef was with King Frederick VIII. As kings go, he seems to have been reasonably okay. Is that a Hamlet reference?

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-6-2012

Milwaukee Journal, January 6, 1912:

Ed Ashenbach, minor league manager for many years and rated the best clown in baseball, may lose his mind. He is seriously ill of paresis at his home here today. Ashenbach managed the Syracuse club last season until he suffered a nervous breakdown in July.

Ashenbach died a little over a year later. He was a rarity in the early 20th century: A well-respected and successful minor league manager who appears not to have played pro baseball. He owned two teams in the South Atlantic League and, unless some sort of early 20th century comedy style eludes me, was also a bowler.

Alas, I can’t find specific examples of his clowning.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-5-2012

Milwaukee Journal, January 5, 1912:

Frank Bowerman, Romeo, Mich., famous as the inventor of the only method of eating peas with a knife and without the loss of a pea…will quit baseball unless he gets his release from Kansas City.
...
Bowerman’s invention for eating peas was to dump an order of mashed potatoes and an equally large order of green peas on the same plate. He would mix them well, then apply his trusty knife.
...
When it came to dessert Bowerman always threw away his knife and often refused the aid of a spoon. He preferred to use his fingers in thrusting pie and ice cream into his face. Bowerman realized that fingers were made for personal use and he wanted to get all the possible use out of his.

That’s the sort of stuff you just don’t get in newspapers anymore.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-4-2012

Milwaukee Journal, January 4, 1912:

HISTORICAL POINTS OF 1911.
Indiana didn’t secede from the Union.
Kaiser Wilhelm was not seen on the vaudeville circuit.
Vienna was refused admittance to the Tri-State league.
Shibe Park was not converted into a moving picture show.
Connie Mack did not unconditionally release Eddie Collins.
...
Count Leo Tolstoy neglected to write a musical comedy.

...and it’s a damn shame he didn’t.  I’d pay big bucks to see the singing, dancing grand finale of War and Peace: The Musical when [WAR AND PEACE SPOILER ALERT!] Princess Helene overdoses on abortion medication and dies.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-3-2012

Pittsburgh Press, January 3, 1912:

It will be good news to the friends of Larry McLean, and especially President Herrmann and Manager Hank O’Day, to know that the big fellow swore off drinking for a year and will go in training at once to help the Reds win the pennant in 1912.
...

“I have spent thousands of dollars being a good fellow,” said Larry, “and here’s where I cut it out.”

It wouldn’t be the offseason without a story about Larry McLean refusing to take a tumble off the aqua aeroplane.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 1-2-2012

Toledo News-Bee, January 2, 1912:

Mordecai Brown, premier pitcher of the Cubs and one of the highest class players who ever participated in the national pastime, is through with baseball.
...

“I do not want anyone to construe my assertion that I am going to quit baseball into the usual ‘hold out’ talk of a player whose contract has expired and who is looking for more money.”

Brown got a 27% raise and was back with the Cubs by April.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 12-30-2011

Pittsburgh Press, December 30, 1911:

McGraw says Cubans won’t be real fans until they quit betting on games…

Connie Mack diplomatically refused to pick the “greatest twenty.” Mack has less trouble than any other manager in the world, and doesn’t purpose borrowing any.

Ty Cobb denies there was friction between him and George Moriarity last season, but adds Moriarity overestimated himself as captain. If there wasn’t friction there may be after that.

The mind boggles at the thought of the conversations Mack and Cobb had when Ty was an Athletic.