The Cleveland Forest Citys of 1912

During early 1912 two proposed leagues struggled to gain a foothold outside Organized Baseball.  In the middle west the Columbian League failed for lack of enough capital and quickly dissolved, a disappointment to its prime sponsor, John T. Powers of Chicago, who would launch the Federal League a year later.  The other upstart, the United States League did attract sufficient money and backing to begin a 126-game schedule on May 1 with Eastern clubs at New York, Reading, Pa. (home of USL founder William Abbot Witman, Jr.), Richmond Va., and Washington DC., and Western teams at Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, absorbing elements of the defunct Columbian circuit.  

The USL elected Witman president-treasurer, Pittsburgher Marshall Henderson secretary, and adopted an 38-player roster limit, the lively Goldsmith baseball, and OB’s playing and administrative rules, except as they concerned territorial rights.  The League called itself an “independent”, not an “outlaw” because it pledged itself to respect existing OB player contracts and sign free agents only.  Nevertheless the OB establishment never failed to refer to the USL as an “outlaw”.

Most USL clubs signed their players during April.  Their rosters included mainly out-of-work minor leaguers, local semipros, amateurs, and some “has-been” major leaguers, both of the “cup of coffee” short stay variety and of the ex-regulars like George Brown(OF 1901-12), Jack Cronin (P 1895-l904), Hemus McFarland (OF 1896-1903), Frank Owen (P 1901-09), Big Jeff Pfeffer (P 1905-11), Deacon Phillippe (P 1899-1922), Bugs Raymond (P 1904-11), Claude Ritchey (2B 1897-1909), and Socks Seybold (OF 1899-1908).  A few little-known youngsters would make the majors later, like Ernie Johnson (SS 1912-25) and Frank Bruggy (C 1921-25).  Altogether about thirty-five of the 206 USL active players reached the bigs before or afterwards.  Browne and Phillippe were playing managers for Washington and Pittsburgh, USL.  (Cleveland’s players will be identified further below.)

The season began May 1 with high hopes, good crowds, and apparently sound and efficient administration, yet three weeks later, with Western clubs about to make their first Eastern swing, the USL started to flounder.  During May extremely inclement weather wiped out many games and made enduring others miserable business.  Lost revenues hurt both the majors and the minors and some smaller leagues failed.  The weather problem, combined with growing public indifference to Class B grade ball in big league cities sunk the USL.  Expenses could not be met by 50 cent admissions from 300 to 400 attendees and capital reserves quickly disappeared.  On May 21 Washington gave up when unpaid players quit.  Within two weeks New York, Richmond, and Cincinnati followed suit.  After the last regularly scheduled games were conducted on June 1, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Reading, and reformed Richmond and Cincinnati teams played intermittently until June23 when Pittsburgh and Chicago concluded a three-game series at Chicago.  All attempts to revive individual clubs and the league failed.

Preseason prospects for the Cleveland club, the Forest Citys (sometimes the Forest Cities), seemed promising.  Franchise president W.L. Murphy secured as manager Rowdy Jack O’Connor, 21-year major leaguer and a most popular Cleveland NL player from 1892 through 1898, available because he had been dismissed as St. Louis AL. manager after the 1910 incident intended to give Nap Lajoie the batting title over Ty Cobb.  O’Connor arrived at Cleveland on April 10 and setup headquarters at the Gillsy Hotel, preparatory to signing players and initiating practices.  Murphy contracted for home games to be played on the grounds of Luna Park, a well known amusement resort since 1906, located at Woodland Avenue and Woodhill Road, about four miles east of Public Square.  Hurriedly during the last two weeks of April, a grandstand, a pavilion, and bleachers were erected to seat 4,600 spectators at a cost of $15,000.  Murphy announced that ticket prices, ranging from 25 cents to 50 cents would also entitle holders to enter the Park’s amusement area free; and that Mondays and Thursdays would be Ladies’ Days.

The team O’Connor assembled in April included former big leaguers: Joe Delahanty (1907-09), OF; Jerry Freeman (1908-09) 1B; Howard Wakefleld (1905-07),C-OF; Doc Moyer (l910), P;and others: George Ort (Pacific Coast veteran), RF; Roy Kirby (Youngstown 1911), SS; Green (Fort Worth 1911), C; Bill Britten. 3B, M. Hobart, 2B, and C. Hobart, P (Cleveland semipros); Selig, 2B and Stringer, LF (probably semipros); Clay Blanke (Duluth 1911), P; Rube Walters (Canton, OH), P; and Bill Rafferty (Western Reserve University), P.  Later acquisitions included Harry Kirsch (AL 1910), P; Sandy Murray (Wheeling 1911), 2B; Orendorff, (who may have been Jesse Orndorff NL 1907); and “Schack” (Erie 1912), P.

The Forest Citys lost their opener at Luna Park to the Pittsburgh Filipinos (so called for Phillippe), 7-11, before 3,697 people, then dropped the balance of the series, 5-6 and 4-l2, with attendance falling to 562 and 423.  The record evened at 3-3 when Cleveland swept a series with the Chicago Green Sox.  From then on the Forest Cities lost more than they won and reached totals of eight wins, thirteen losses, through June 1 when the league’s tottering status terminated Cleveland’s play.  Attempts were made to transfer the club to St. Louis to be backed by Otto Stiefel, a brewing executive there.  O’Connor kept the team together until it became obvious the transfer possibility was dead.  Playing only against the other Western clubs, the Forest Citys were 1-8 versus Pittsburgh, easily the USL’s strongest team, but 4-3 and 3-2 against Chicago and Cincinnati.  Like all franchises except Pittsburgh, Cleveland lost money despite a few crowds exceeding 1 000.  During the first three weeks of the season the team played ten homes dates, including two doubleheaders, and four away dates, but lost six others to the weather, including three Sundays, two being at home.

The usual Cleveland batting order went Britten, Freeman, Ort, Delahanty, Selig or later Murray, Stringer, Kirby, Green, pitcher.  Delahanty was the offensive star, hitting .414 and tallying three of the club’s seven homers.  Occasionally the newspapers praised Kirby’s fielding and Ort’s catches.  When O’Connor missed a couple games attending his mother’s funeral in St. Louis, Freeman became acting manager.

The Forest Citys’ high point had to be the May 8 game at Chicago.  Cleveland trailed 8-3 with bases full of Green Sox and none out in the bottom of the sixth when O’Connor yanked ineffective Doc Moyer (and released him shortly afterwards) and sent in a recruit just arrived from Erie called “Shack” by the newspapers.  The 19-year old right hander immediately struck out the side and the next five hitters in the seventh and eighth.  In his four innings, he gave no runs, no hits, two walks and struck out eleven.  Cleveland scored ten times in the eighth and won, 15-8, with “Shack” scoring twice and even stealing a base.  This remarkable young man was Al Schacht (AL 1919-21), the future famous comedian-coach.  Dubbed “Wonder Boy” by the press, he subsequently pitched twice more, winning and losing complete games for a 2-1 record, not 5-0 as he said in his autobiography, “My Own Particular Screwball” (1955).  Al furnished a reasonably accurate version of his brilliant relief appearance, however, and remembered with warmth the friendly encouragement he received from Howard Wakefield when the lonely newcomer first joined the club.  The final standings shown below includes all games between USL teams up through June 23 and consequently differs from the standing which appeared in the Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1913:

 

Team	G	W	L	T	Pct	Home Field	Manager	President	Last game
Pittsburgh	44	27	17	–	.614	Exposition Park	Deacon Phillippe	W.J. McCullough	June 23
Richmond	35	21	14	–	.600	Lee Park	Alf Newman	E.C. Landgraf	June 19
Chicago	33	17	15	1	.531	Gunther Park	Burt Keely	William C. Niesen	June 23
Cincinnati	28	14	13	1	.519	Gilberts Park	Jimmy Barton	John J. Ryan	June 18
Reading	26	12	12	2	.500	Circus Maximus	Leo Groom	William Witman Jr.	June 5
Washington	15	6	8	1	.429	Union League Park	George Brown	Kohley Miller/ Kid Carsey	May 26
Cleveland	21	8	13	–	.381	Luna Park	Jack O’Connor	W.L. Murphy	June 1
New York	18	2	15	1	.118	Bronx Oval	William Jordan	William Jordan	May 26

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CLEVELAND USL 1912 BATTING AND PITCHING

The statistics below are compiled from newspaper accounts and box scores.  For a few games ABs and BBs have been estimated because papers omitted ABs or box scores failed to prove.

(Click image to enlarge)