Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-29-2020

Perth Amboy Evening News, May 29, 1920:

There is a funny little streak of human nature cropping out around the ball parks this year. It’s the stealing of baseballs for souvenirs…Fellows, who, in the ordinary grind of life, are too “New England” honest to take a single thing that doesn’t belong to them, pocket baseballs with enthusiasm at a ball game.

So many balls are being lost this year that managers are actually worrying over the expense of the thing as well as the nuisance of trying to have a supply on hand to keep the game going.

If they had a time machine and watched Brandon Belt’s 16 foul ball, 21-pitch at-bat, all the souvenirs would have melted their brains.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-28-2020

New York Tribune, May 28, 1920:

Bob Shawkey In Fist Fight With Umpire

Shawkey and Umpire Hildebrand got into an altercation after the end of the fourth inning. Shawkey finally made a pass or two at the arbiter, who retaliated in kind with his mask, opening a nasty scalp wound.

This scrap was the climax of general protest on the part of the New York players over Hildebrand’s rulings on balls pitched to Wallie Schang. The catcher, up with the bases filled and two out, was finally given his base on balls, forcing in Boston’s only run and taking a chance for a shutout from Shawkey. Two of these pitches, the New York players insisted, were perfect strikes.

As Shawkey passed Hildebrand, on his way to the bench after he had fanned Harper for the third out, the Yankee pitcher tipped his cap mockingly at the official. Hildebrand promptly ordered Shawkey from the game. This precipitated an argument; the argument precipitated the bout of fisticuffs.

Also in that Yankees-Red Sox game, Babe Ruth went deep twice, tying the all-time record with four home runs in three days. The Babe also had five home runs in five days at this point. It’s almost enough to forgive the guy for not running out pop flies.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-27-2020

Toledo News-Bee, May 27, 1920:

Pat Duncan pulled a prize stunt Wednesday. As a result the Reds lost to the Cards 10 to 8.

Cincinnati tied the score in the first of the eighth. The Cards came in in their half, and Stock tripled. Hornsby singled to left and the ball got away from Duncan. Instead of chasing it, Pat must have thought it was the last of the ninth, and dashed for the club house, thinking the game over.

They had to chase after Pat and call him back to finish the game.

I couldn’t believe this actually happened, but it sure seems like it did. From the BBRef play-by-play:STL Rogers Hornsby Hod Eller Single to LF; Stock Scores; Hornsby Scores/Adv on E7/No RBI

Single and a three-base error, presumably. As far as I know, there’s no code for “dude just ran off the field in the middle of the play.”

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-22-2020

[Indianapolis] Indiana Daily Times, May 22, 1920:

Announcement that the New York Yankees will be permitted to continue playing at the Polo grounds next season and probably for some seasons to come, was received with satisfaction by New York today.

In a recent statement issued by the owners of the New York Giants, it was said that the Yankees would have to seek a new playing field after this season.

[National Commission Chairman] Garry Herrmann, [American League President] Ban Johnson and others then conferred and evidently were able to reach a satisfactory agreement with the Giants which will permit the Yankees to remain.

...until the next time the Giants try to boot them, which if the pattern holds, should be right around mid-July.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-19-2020

Prescott [Arizona] Weekly Journal-Miner, May 19, 1920:

Good Kids to See Ball Game Two Days Each Month

The [Sacramento] board of education today accepted an offer of the Sacramento baseball club owners and agreed to dismiss the elementary schools early twice a month during the baseball season. On those days all “good children” will be admitted free to the games.

If I recall correctly, they did a similar thing in Cleveland in the 1980s, but it was actually a punishment for children who misbehaved.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-18-2020

Rock Island Argus, May 18, 1920:

Gambling’s grip on the major American sports is being loosened by a general pressure on the wrist.

War on the baseball gamblers is working up a good sized casualty list and moans are being heard from several of the big race tracks where the shots of stewards are finding a mark.

Following a policy adopted during the winter when tales of the “fixed” world series were being passed around, the major league club owners are enlisting the aid of city police and private detectives against the professional grand stand gamblers.

Sounds like a good plan. I imagine that by the end of the 1920 season, nobody will even be thinking about allegations of a fixed 1919 Series.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-15-2020

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 15, 1920:

The New York American League baseball club will have to hunt for a new home next season. A statement to this effect was made at Forbes Field yesterday by John J. McGraw, manager of the New York Giants…The Yankees’ leads on the Polo Grounds expires with this season and the Giants are not inclined to renew it.
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[McGraw:] “The money is secondary…We wish the Polo Grounds to be known exclusively as the home ground of the Giants and therefore must ask the Yankees to get grounds somewhere else.”
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[Yankees president Jacob Ruppert:] “If the Giants do not want us any longer on the Polo Grounds, there is no use staying around where one is not wanted. I do not know how successful the Yankees will be this season, but we probably will be able to find a home somewhere for 1921.”

This is approximately the keleventh time the Giants had attempted to become chuckers of their Polo Grounds tenants, and once again it didn’t take right away. The new stadium in the Bronx didn’t open until 1923.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-14-2020

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 14, 1920:

Construction of a sport stadium at Two Hundred and Twenty-fifth street and Broadway which will have a seating capacity of 30,000 was begun [yesterday].

The enclosure will have a six-lap bicycle track, and also will contain a cinder patch for track events. Work on the stadium is being rushed, the owners said, to permit its use for the final tryouts for bicycle racers who will represent the United States at the Olympic games.

This is in Marble Hill, just across the river from Manhattan Island. The Yankees had been talking about building a stadium on this site for about a decade, but it obviously didn’t happen for them. I don’t even think this stadium happened, though I admit I haven’t done exhaustive research.

Things turned out okay for New York’s American League club, even if it was still stranded at the Polo Grounds for a couple more years.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-13-2020

Norwich Bulletin, May 13, 1920:

A drive to eliminate gambling on baseball games in Pacific Coast league parks has been begun by President William M. McCarthy, who issues a statement saying that three “known gamblers” would be denied admission to league parks.

The action has no direct connection with the unconditional release Friday of Pitchers Tom Seaton and “Casey” Smith of the San Francisco club, the statement said, but added “indirectly it has.”

Is the PCL changing policies because its players were throwing games? William McCarthy says “Well, yes, but actually no.”

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-12-2020

Pittsburgh Press, May 12, 1920:

WASHINGTON LAUGHS AT RUTH

In the Yankees’ recent series in Washington, Ruth, for whom the Gotham “kernels” are reported to have paid $125,000 or more, amassed a magnificent batting average of .167 for five games. He didn’t make a single home run, and got only three bingles in 18 times at bat.
...
One Capitol City scribe remarks that, unless Babe shows some improvement, opposing pitchers will be passing ordinary batsmen in the pinches to bring him to the plate.

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 12, 1920:

Ruth’s spectacular hitting featured New York’s 6-5 victory over Chicago [in New York yesterday]. In four times up, Ruth hit two home runs, a triple and drew a base on balls. One of Ruth’s home runs went into the right field bleachers, it being only the second ball hit into this bleacher in the history of the present stand.

You’re playing a dangerous game if you’re laughing at Babe Ruth. Do not poke the bear.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-11-2020

Pittsburgh Press, May 11, 1920:

CAN RUTH REACH CRAVATH’S MARK?

While it is true that Babe Ruth last season set a new world’s record for home runs in a single season, the Yankee slugger still has a long distance to go before he will equal the lifetime record of Gavvy Cravath, manager of the Phillies, who has been hitting homers and other extra drives since away back in 1903.

His biggest season was 1911 with Minneapolis, when he clouted 29 circuit smashes. With the Phillies in 1915 he made 24…Ruth has been playing professional ball for five seasons, and in that time he has made 49 circuit smashes, including his record, 29 last season. His record was not particularly impressive until 1919, and it remains to be seen just what he will do this year.

1919 was a fluke. There’s no way Ruth will last long enough to catch Cravath. If you include the PCL and American Association, Gavvy has 217 career home runs!

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-7-2020

Some grade A snark in the New York Evening World, May 7, 1920:

The reason the Braves aren’t so bad as we thought they’d be is because we thought they’d be terribly bad.

Hughie Jennings of baseball and William Jennings Bryan of politics hold the world’s record for consecutive beatings.

The Tigers would have a better chance of winning if they were playing roulette.

On the evening of May 7, 1920, the Braves were 8-5 and the Tigers were 3-15.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-5-2020

[Juneau] Alaska Daily Empire, May 5, 1920:

BLIND MAN THANKFUL HE COULD NOT SEE BASEBALL MASSACRED

A sightless fan sat in the press box listening to the crack of wood on leather as Sacramento won from Vernon, 14 to 4. About the seventh inning he muttered, “thank heaven, I’m blind,” and tapped his way to the outer world.

The only feature of the game was the nerve of Mollwitz, Sacramento first baseman, who was knocked unconscious by a pitched ball but revived and trotted to first, scoring before he retired from the game.

If you can’t see what’s happening, the thunk of a ball against a skull and the resulting groan from the crowd must be incredibly unnerving.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-4-2020

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 4, 1920:

Boston and Brooklyn went into the nineteenth inning [yesterday] before Boeckel’s single scored Sullivan with the run which gave Boston a 2 to 1 victory. Fillingim and Smith pitched all the way and honors were practically even until Smith weakened in the nineteenth.

[Yesterday’s] game, following the 26-inning tie between Brooklyn and Boston on Saturday and Brooklyn’s 13-inning game with Philadelphia yesterday gave Brooklyn the new major league record of 58 innings played in three successive games. The previous record was 45 innings played by Pittsburgh and Brooklyn in 1917.

I guess I knew the Dodgers had set this record, but I was today years old when I learned that there was a one-game series against Philadelphia in the middle of the three games.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-30-2020

Associated Press via the Pittsburgh Gazette Times, April 30, 1920:

[Walter] Johnson was knocked unconscious on a queer play in the fifth inning. In trying to throw out Bodie at first Third Baseman Shannon hit Johnson on the head with the ball, but the pitcher continued the game.

New York Tribune, April 30, 1920:

In the Yanks’ half of the fifth inning it looked as though Johnson might have to be carried off. Ping Bodie scratched one over to third and River Shannon after making a difficult pick-up tried to get the ball to first by bouncing it off Johnson’s hip. The blow flattened the pitcher for a moment or two but he went back to work.

The second account comes from a reporter who appears to have been at the game, so I’m inclined to believe the Big Train didn’t get domed by a throw from third. Regardless, it’s an interesting reminder of how wildly different accounts of the same play could be in the days before easily accessible video.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-28-2020

Hal Chase on his future in baseball, Wilmington [Delaware] Evening Journal, April 28, 1920:

“I’m through with baseball as far as the east is concerned. New York sent me a contract for this season. It was a better contract than I had last year. Last season, however, I took a cut of $2000.
...
A chance came to get into business, so I took it…Yes, I might play ball a little on the coast, but I don’t like the idea of playing every day, maybe a couple of times a week. I want to look at baseball more as a recreation than a business in the future.”

“I definitely haven’t been kicked out of Organized Baseball or anything, but I don’t plan to be a full-time baseball player anymore and that just happened to take place at the same time gambling and match-fixing rumors began to heat up.”

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-27-2020

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, April 27, 1920:

Everett Scott, Boston shortstop, celebrated his new record for consecutive games participated in by hitting a home run with M’Innis on first, culminating a batting onslaught which decided [yesterday’s] game with Philadelphia in the fourth inning. The final score was 9 to 0.
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Scott [yesterday] played his five hundred and thirty-fourth consecutive game starting June 20, 1916. The previous record of 533 games straight was held by Luderus, first baseman of the Philadelphia Nationals.

Meanwhile, a 16-year-old Henry Louis Gehrig bides his time.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-23-2020

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, April 23, 1920:

The New York Americans opened their home season [in New York yesterday] by defeating Philadelphia, 8 to 6, in a loosely played game…The game was marred by an accident to George Ruth, New York’s $125,000 batsman, who was making his first local appearance with the Yankees. Ruth injured himself in batting practice before the game, pulling a cartilage out of place. He struck out in the first inning, but was in great pain and had to be assisted off the field.

Mark my words: This whole Babe Ruth thing isn’t going to work out well for the Yankees. It’s already looking like a disaster.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-21-2020

Pittsburgh Press, April 21, 1920:

Pitcher Carl Mays has been accused of experimenting with the “bean ball.” A lot of American league performers do not care much for the Yankee twirler, who was formerly with the Redsox, and it may be that these accusations are the result of spitework. At any rate, Ed Barrow, his former manager, comes to the pitcher’s defense as follows:

“Mays is a good fellow, and I don’t believe he would try to hit a batsman any more than would Walter Johnson. Nobody ever questions Johnson’s fast ball, although sometimes it speeds so close to the batsman’s head that it looks intentional. It’s unfair to charge Mays with such unsportsmanlike and cowardly tactics. He is a great pitcher, and doesn’t have to resort to intimidation.”

Let’s put a pin in that thought.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-20-2020

Bemidji Daily Pioneer, April 20, 1920:

Here’s indisputable evidence that the Filipino people have been Americanized! The great American game of baseball is the rage in the islands. This [linked] photograph shows a parade which preceded one of the big games in Manila. Baseball is played from one end of the archipelago to the other and, as in branches of athletic sports, some classy players have been developed.

In 1996, Bobby Chouinard became the first MLB player born in the Philippines. A second Filipino-born player made it to AAA ball last year, but didn’t play particularly well there. Tim Lincecum is half-Filipino but was born and raised in suburban Seattle.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-16-2020

Red Sox manager Ed Barrow on Babe Ruth’s quiet Spring, Toledo News-Bee, April 16, 1920:

Says Babe Ruth Smokes Too Much

“That boy will clout the ball any time it comes near him “just as soon as hits begin to count in the record book. There is no ball he cannot hit, and there is not a time that he cannot slam it.

“I would say, however, that Ruth smokes altogether too much for a batsman who hopes to continue at the top for a number of years. You know if is only 26 and has his best years before him.

“He smokes incessantly. He starts ‘puffing’ when he rises and he will be found with a cigar between his teeth when he falls asleep. But he is young and strong, a veritable bull. Let there be no worry about his hitting.”

The good news is that the smoking didn’t negatively affect the Babe’s career - or, if it did, I can’t even imagine what kind of numbers he would have had. The bad news is that smoking is a major risk factor for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

There wasn’t a pitcher or a pitch Babe couldn’t crush, but cancer was a different beast altogether.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-13-2020

Toledo News-Bee, April 13, 1920:

Some of the Washington players claim that their ball lot registers more on a thermometer than any of them, but Slim Sallee of the Reds begs to differ. Slim says: “Cincinnati’s park is the hottest of all. Get down there in the hole in July and August and you’ll find out what real heat is. The only park that compares with it is the one at Kansas City.”

“That diamond is down in a hollow. The grandstand roof is about even with the street. It can be blowing a hurricane and there won’t be enough of a breeze in that Blue park to breeze a mosquito.”

My mom was born and raised in Cleveland, and she used to insist that it was always 15 degrees colder inside Cleveland Stadium than it was anywhere else in town. The wind whipping off the lake was absolutely brutal in April and September, not to mention for Browns games.

Elsewhere on the same page, Duster Mails tells a possibly (probably? almost certainly?) apocryphal story about Seattle owner Dan Dugdale costing him an extra-innings no-hitter by being too cheap to have the outfield grass mowed. One thing’s for sure: Doug Dimmadome wouldn’t have made that mistake.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-7-2020

Toledo News-Bee, April 7, 1920:

[Pitcher] Tommy Long joined the Louisville club at the beginning of last season and performed so well that the scouts began bidding for “that kid southpaw.” They are still bidding, but Long wants to stay in the minors another year. Here’s his logic:

“Last season was my first real year in baseball. No one is more alive to my greenness, to my shortcomings, to my lack of polish, than I. Nearly anyone can get a trial with the majors, but only a comparative few can stick. Those who are not fit can’t survive. I don’t want to go up until I feel sure I can stick, and I know it will be much easier for me to make good in 1921 than in 1920.”

That’s remarkably self-aware and admirable of him. I wish I could tell you that Tom Long made it to the big leagues in 1921 and spent a decade mowing down big leaguers, but he didn’t. Long’s MLB career consists of one game for the ‘24 Dodgers in which he allowed two hits, two walks, and two runs in two innings. He spent most of 1924 in the Southern League, getting knocked around as a member of the Mobile Bears. Long disappears from the record in 1925 and 1926 before making one final professional cameo with Lincoln in the Western League in 1927. I don’t know what happened - maybe he blew out his arm or something.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-6-2020

Rock Island Argus, April 6, 1920:

The White Sox goofs were scheduled to play at Okmulgee, Okla., today and left [Oklahoma City] with a defeat of 11 to 5 handed to then by the local club yesterday. The game was a free hitting affair. Recruit Pitchers Stewart and Tesar did the hurling for the big leaguers and were hit hard.

I don’t know which would be more embarrassing: Being a member of the White Sox Goofs or trying to earn a big league job and getting whomped by a local amateur team.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 3-30-2020

Washington Times, March 30, 1920:

NEW YORK PLAYERS THREATEN A STRIKE

As a result of a threatened strike on the part of some of the New York Yankees, who demanded more money as their share of the world’s series melon, several may be sold or traded. Derrill Pratt, Bob Shawkey and Roger Peckinpaugh, acting a committee for the players, voiced the demand to Colonel Ruppert and Lieutenant-Colonel Huston, who will make their formal answer tomorrow. It is generally thought that Pratt’s days as a Yankee are ended.

The Yankees received $13,000 from the world’s series profits. This was divided among the players, some of whom now say they should have received $70 apiece more. The committee wanted an immediate answer from the Yankee magnates.

$70 in 1920 is worth around $900 in today’s money. That’s not nothing, but it’s sure a weird hill to die on.

Anyway, Pratt was traded to the Red Sox in the Waite Hoyt deal after the 1920 season. Peckinpaugh got exiled to Boston almost exactly a year to the day after Pratt in a deal for Joe Bush, Sad Sam Jones, and Everett Scott. Shawkey spent the rest of his career with the Yankees, so ownership must have forgiven his involvement.