On August 26, 1914, the Battle of Tannenberg, one of the most destructive early battles of the Great War, involving the German and Russian Empires, began. The date also marks the birth of Heinz Reinhard Becker in Berlin, the fourth and youngest child of Reinhard and Amanda Becker.ii The Great War (World War I), which had started just four weeks before Heinz was born, had far-reaching consequences for the Beckers. When it ended, in 1918, Berlin, the capital of the German Empire, was in chaos. The Kaiser had abdicated, leaving a political vacuum that democrats, communists, monarchists, and a host of other extremists attempted to fill, with violent consequences for Germans, and a civil war ensued. Reinhard Becker, a well-established brewer in Berlin, had a difficult choice: face the unknown or emigrate. In 1921 the Beckers and their four boys (Harry, Kurt, Hans, and Heinz) left Germany and settled in Venezuela, where Reinhard attempted to start a cattle ranch. Encountering financial problems and the collapse of the ranch, the Beckers migrated to the United States in 1924 (before the passing of the Reed-Johnson Immigration Act, which limited the number of immigrants to the US) and were settled in Dallas by 1925.

Heinz (whom his parents called Reinhard) was an athletic youngster. “As soon as I got to school [in the U.S.],” he recalled, “baseball fascinated me.”iii A natural right-hander, Heinz learned to bat from both sides of the plate and preferred to play first base “because you’re close to the action.”iv Agile, quick, and versatile, he was also an accomplished soccer player, an amateur boxer with at least 50 bouts, an avid ice skater, and a fan of roque, an American version of croquet played with a mallet on a hard surface. With a muscular physique, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Becker was an excellent basketball player and played on local semipro championship teams in 1938 and 1939. But baseball was his passion and by the age of 16 he was a regular sight at local sandlots. After the end of Prohibition in December 1933, Heinz followed his father and began working at a local brewery and also playing outfield and first base for a semipro team the brewery sponsored.

In 1937 Becker caught the attention of scouts from the Chicago White Sox (in all likelihood the legendary scouting duo Roy and Bessie Largent) who signed him to his first professional contract. He was assigned to the Rayne (Louisiana) Rice Birds in the Class D Evangeline League to start the 1938 season. Becker was among the league leaders in several batting categories (second in doubles and fourth in home runs and slugging), but his campaign came to a curious and abrupt end in August. Commissioner Kenesaw M. Landis informed Rice Birds manager John Fitzpatrick that the White Sox had made an error in filing Becker’s contract and he was a free agent effectively immediately. “The judge’s wire was handed to me while our club was on the field,” recalled Becker. “I thought it would be wise to quit then and there.”v He signed with the Oklahoma City Indians in the Texas League, where he played the final week of the season.

George Schepps, president and scout for the Dallas Rebels of the Texas League, bought Becker’s contract in the offseason. Farmed out to the Tyler Trojans and the Palestine Pals of the Class C East Texas League in 1939 and to the Longview Texans of the same league in 1940, Becker developed into a dependable line-drive hitter, batting .328 and .319 respectively while playing the outfield and first base in 1939 and exclusively at first in 1940.

Promoted to Dallas in 1941, Becker responded with a fine season. Described by the Associated Press as a “promising, improving player, whose work for Dallas in 1941 has been scintillating,” Becker batted .319 (second-best in the league) and rapped 35 doubles and nine triples among his 180 hits for the Rebels in the highly competitive Texas League.vi The fourth-place Rebels won the Texas League playoffs, but were swept by the Nashville Vols of the Southern Association in the Dixie Series. The postseason tournament brought additional national exposure to the 26-year-old Becker.

In the offseason, Becker lived in Dallas with his wife, Hattie Lee (Brumley) Becker, a native Texan whom he had married in 1934. The Beckers raised two children, Betty and Bobby. Once described by the Chicago Daily Tribune as “more Texan than a Berliner,” Heinz often complained throughout his playing career about leaving his adopted hometown and especially his family.vii

Bill Veeck, who (along with minority owner and former big leaguer Charlie Grimm) had recently purchased the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association, bought Becker’s contract for a reported $6,250 in November 1941.viii “I scouted Becker … during the Texas League playoffs on the strength of his batting. I realized that he was a crude first sacker, but I overlooked the fault because I figured Grimm would improve his fielding,” Veeck said.ix Under the tutelage of Jolly Cholly, Becker worked to develop his fielding but suffered from limited mobility, the result of his rapidly deteriorating feet. Hampered by a sore right shoulder affecting his hitting for the first half of the 1942 season, Becker was benched. “I was thinking about quitting,” he recalled. “I hated to leave Texas. But the wife insisted that I spend a year with the Brewers.”x Despite homesickness, Becker found his line-drive stroke in the second half of the season and was the American Association’s hottest hitter, finishing as runner-up to teammate Eddie Stanky for the batting title, .342 to .340, as the Brewers lost the league flag on the last day of the season. Among Becker’s 170 hits were 30 doubles, 12 triples, and 6 home runs; he drove in 94 runs, third best in the league. Shortly after the season, his contract was purchased by the Cubs.xi

First base was a mess for the Cubs. An experiment with the aging Jimmie Foxx was a disaster (he batted .205) in 1942. At spring training in French Lick, Indiana, in 1943, Becker beat out Phil Cavaretta, Ed Waitkus, and Rip Russell for the job. On Opening Day, April 21 at Wrigley Field, Becker made his major-league debut. Batting cleanup against the Pittsburgh Pirates, he went 0-for-4. He started the first 15 games of the season, but struggled mightily, hitting just .155 (9-for-64) with no extra-base hits and just two runs batted in. In early June, his average down to .145, Becker was reassigned to Milwaukee. He made another of his seemingly annual threats to quit baseball and return to his family, but eventually reported to the Brewers. Cubs beat reporter John Hoffman noted that the big first baseman was too hard on himself. “He was just perplexed over his failure to hit and field in accordance to his own appraisal of himself,” Hoffman wrote.xii

At Milwaukee Becker was reunited with Charlie Grimm. Milwaukee’s Borchert Field was ideally suited to Becker’s line drives. It resembled the Polo Grounds in New York and had football-field-like dimensions with short foul lines (approximately 267 feet), deep power alleys (about 435), and a center field measuring approximately 400 feet (though dimensions periodically changed).xiii Becker batted .326 in 101 games for the first-place Brewers.

After his second spring training with the Cubs and manager Jimmie Wilson in 1944, the 30-year-old Becker was returned to Milwaukee, where he enjoyed another typical season. He batted .346 and set career highs with 115 runs scored and 115 runs batted in for new Brewers manager Casey Stengel. The Brewers led the league with a team batting average of .307 and won their third consecutive regular-season title.

In 1945 Becker arrived at his third consecutive Cubs spring training with his mentor, Charlie Grimm, at the helm. (Grimm had been named manager in May of the season before.) Grimm had an innate understanding of Becker’s “sensitive” personality and recognized that he was a player who needed kidding and cajoling to play well.xiv He decided to give Becker another shot at the first-base job.xv Grimm knew that Becker and former Cubs skipper Jimmie Wilson didn’t get along, and suggested that Wilson had given up on the switch-hitter too early in 1943. “He can hit,” said Grimm of Becker. “He’ll be a lot of protection.”xvi

Becker suffered from excruciating pain in both feet caused by bunions (enlarged bone around the joint of the big toe) and arthritis in both ankles, the result of a broken bone in childhood. He walked with a pronounced limp. He also had arthritis in his wrists. Becker’s gait had worsened noticeably in the three years since the Cubs acquired him from Dallas. Cubs trainer Andy Lotshaw taped Becker’s toes, feet, and ankles just so he could slip on his spikes. After games, whether he had played or not, Becker soaked his feet to reduce the massive swelling. In games he had difficulty moving around the first-base bag and breaking on sharply hit balls, and looked clumsy in the field; consequently, he was considered a defensive liability for his entire career. Despite his hitting abilities, Becker often fell when swinging the bat. His painful grimaces in the batter’s box became one of his trademarks. Though sportswriters referred to Becker occasionally as “Bunions,” his teammates were taken aback by his willingness to play despite his pain. “How the hell that guy ever stands up is beyond me,” said a Cubs player in 1945.xvii

After 16 consecutive pinch-hit appearances, Becker replaced Cavaretta at first base and made ten consecutive starts from June 3 to 14. He hit .333 (12-for-36), scored eight runs, knocked in nine, and cranked his first big-league home run, a two-run shot off the Reds’ Ed Heusser on June 10. Just when it appeared as though he had won the first-base job, he was called to Dallas for military induction on June 18. After an examination he was rejected because of his flat feet, bunions, and bad ankles. Cavaretta meanwhile was back at first base, went 12-for-17 (.706) during Becker’s absence, and regained the position.

“Heinz-a-poodle,” Jolly Cholly’s nickname for Becker, got his second chance to start when Cavaretta was sidelined with a shoulder injury in August.xviii The Cubs, who had taken over first place on July 8, were in a tight pennant race with the St. Louis Cardinals. From August 12 to September 3, Becker made 15 starts at first base (and three pinch-hit appearances), batted .322 (19-for-54), scored 14 runs, knocked in seven, and hit his second (and final) big-league home run, a two-run blast off Brooklyn’s Art Herring in a 20-6 Cubs victory. “Heinz Becker Proving Big Help to Cubs in Batting” read a headline over a United Press story about the switch-hitter.xix The media often had a field day with Becker, the only German-born player in the major leagues during World War II. (As of 2013 there had been 39 German-born players in the major leagues, including children born to US servicemen stationed in the country.) “Dogs Bark, but Heinz Becker Keep Going to Town. Cubs’ Berlin-Born Slugger proves Value Despite Misery in Pins,” announced The Sporting News.xx Like many players with German ancestry before him, Becker was sometimes referred to as Dutch in newspapers; however, his teammates did not call him that.xxi Other articles reported (what is sure to be a far-fetched tale ostensibly to underscore Becker’s loyalty to the US) that he turned down a personal offer from Adolf Hitler to return to Germany.

With his feet worsening, Becker made only three pinch-hit appearances in the final 27 games of the 1945 season. He finished with a .286 average (38-for-133) and 27 runs batted in. Grimm led the Cubs to their first pennant since 1938 and the team faced the Detroit Tigers, the overwhelming favorites, in the World Series. Becker pinch-hit three times in the Series: He struck out in the Game Two loss, singled off Dizzy Trout in the Game Four loss, and was intentionally walked in the Cubs’ Game Six victory. The Cubs lost the Series in seven games.

Immediately after World Series, Becker underwent operations on both feet. Dr. Walter R. Fischer at the Illinois Masonic Hospital removed bones at the joint of the big toes to reduce swelling and pain, and attempted to change the placement of existing bones.xxii Considered a medical success, the operation enabled Becker to continue playing baseball, but he never had full mobility in his feet and required regular medical treatment for the remainder of his playing career.

Five months after his operation, Becker began spring training at Catalina Island, California, but his feet were so weak and still swollen from the surgery that he could not wear baseball shoes and practiced in athletic socks.xxiii As if his foot problems were not bad enough, he was diagnosed with color blindness during camp.xxiv Once the 1946 season began, Becker, unable to play first base, made just nine pinch-hit appearances in the first 21 games. Frustrated by his health and lack of playing time, he demanded to be released or sold. “I’m through with baseball unless I can play regularly, regardless of whether as a major, minor, or semipro,” he said.xxv The Cubs granted Becker his wish and sold him to the Nashville Vols of the Southern Association. In his first at-bat for the Vols, on May 29, Becker hit a home run.xxvi

One of the hottest hitters in the Southern Association, Becker (.379 average in 51 games) was purchased by Bill Veeck, new owner of the Cleveland Indians on June 26 (first baseman Mickey Rocco was later sent to the Cubs to complete the deal). Describing Becker as a “stadium hitter,” Veeck thought his former Brewers first baseman was ideally suited for the deep power alleys in Cleveland Stadium. “He hits line drives between outfielders,” said Veeck.xxvii Taking over for Les Fleming at first base, Becker went 3-for-4 with two doubles and two runs scored in his debut on July 16. Off to a blistering start (15-for-34 in his first ten games), he hit a walk-off single in a 9-8 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics on July 25. Batting well over.300 for most of the season, Becker injured his hand in late August, and started only five games in September. In less than a half-season with the sixth-place Indians, Becker hit .299 (44-for-147).

Becker was released by the Indians on May 14, 1947, after just two at-bats. Given his age (31), his limited mobility at first base, and the fact that the Indians thought they had their first-sacker for the future (Eddie Robinson) and a capable backup (Les Fleming), they felt no need to keep Becker on the roster. Becker was signed by the Boston Braves two days later. His stroke of luck came when the Braves assigned him to the team he had enjoyed his most success with, the Milwaukee Brewers, now affiliated with the Braves. With Milwaukee’s large German community, Becker was a fan favorite. Teammates and sportswriters began calling him Der Schlager (the slugger).xxviii Back in the friendly confines of Borchert Field, Becker led the American Association with a .363 average (166-for-457), slugged a career-best .521 and knocked in 90 runs for the third-place Brewers. In the playoffs he hit a three-run home run to defeat the Louisville Colonels, 5-4, giving the Brewers their first American Association championship since 1936. Then Becker went 11-for-28 and scored eight runs to help lead Milwaukee to the Junior World Series title over the International League’s Syracuse Chiefs.xxix

As if on cue, Becker hit .321 for the second-place Brewers in 1948, barely missing out on a second consecutive batting title when he slumped at the end of the season. He still suffered from foot miseries and had limited range around first base, but he became adept at digging out bad throws to first, which earned him the nickname “The Claw” from manager Nick Cullop. In light of rumors that the Braves would soon call him up, Becker responded, “I want to play as a regular and I’m sure of that in the American Association.”xxx In fact, he never made it back to the big leagues. In December 1948 he was traded to the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League.

After playing in a career-high 155 games for Seattle and batting a robust .313 with a personal-best 16 home runs and 101 runs batted in, the 33-year-old Becker was released after the season. Despite his gaudy offensive numbers, he was a defensive liability at first base (the only position he could play).  Paul Richards, the Rainers’ new manager, insisted on fundamentally sound baseball and good defense, and thus Becker was released. He returned to Dallas anticipating retirement from baseball, but was lured back to the diamond by Charlie Grimm, now the manager of the Dallas Eagles in the Texas League. The 35-year-old Becker hit .267 in 92 games and retired again at the conclusion of the season. In 1953 he made an abbreviated comeback. He signed with the Corpus Christi Aces of the Class B Gulf Coast League in midseason and batted .331 in 118 at-bats. His season came to an unexpected close when he seriously injured his shoulder trying to catch a boy who had fallen from the grandstand.xxxi

Der Schlager played in 152 big-league games and batted .263 (94-for-358) in parts of four seasons. In his 13-year minor-league career, he played in 1,538 games and batted.325.

On December 4, 1953, Becker was involved in an altercation with a man outside a Dallas tavern. Newspapers reported that Becker hit B.B. Sanders, who fell and fractured his skull, and died four days later. Becker was charged with murder, but the charges were dropped in March 1954 after a grand-jury investigation.xxxii

Becker remained a lifelong baseball fan in retirement. He participated in reunion games in Dallas and Milwaukee. Always competitive, he suffered a separated shoulder in an old-timer’s game that pitted former Milwaukee Brewers against the Braves in 1960.xxxiii

On November 11, 1991, on the 73rd anniversary of the armistice that ending the fighting in World War I, Heinz Reinhard Becker died at the age of 77 in Dallas. He was buried at the Restland Memorial Gardens. On March 22, 2001, his wife of 57 years, Hattie Lee Becker, joined him.

Sources

Chicago Daily Tribune 

New York Times 

The Sporting News 

Ancestry.com.

BaseballLibrary.com.

Baseball-Reference.com.

Retrosheet.com.

SABR BioPoject: http://sabr.org/bioproj/park/7d552f91 (Borchert Field).

Notes

Frederick William Alexander Buelow was born February 13, 1876, in Berlin, Germany, the first of four sons born to Carl and Ernestine (Timm) Buelow. The family emigrated to America in 1881 and settled in Cleveland where his two youngest brothers were born. His father worked as a laborer. The 1900 census lists him as an iron ore dock worker for the huge ore carriers that populated the Great Lakes. The children all attended school although the exact duration is unknown.

Buelow learned his baseball on the sandlots; in 1895 he was recruited to play for Columbus in the unclassified Interstate League. It started as an eight-team league and slowly dwindled down to four franchises before disbanding. Buelow caught and usually batted eighth. The Columbus franchise folded in mid-July and he joined an independent team in Columbus.

The following spring, he went east and joined Brockton, Massachusetts, in the eight-team Class B New England League. The league was a hitter’s paradise with young Nap Lajoie of Fall River leading the way with his .429 batting average and .726 slugging average. The Brockton Shoemakers were paced by Ed Breckenridge, who smashed a league-record 25 home runs and hit .402.

Buelow spent much of the season batting in the middle of the lineup. His best performance came on June 23 against Pawtucket when he slammed two triples and two singles. His .256 batting average seems impressive compared to his major-league stats, but his catching partner Nap Shea batted .344. Indeed. Buelow’s average placed him 76th in the league in hitting. Six teams survived the season with Bangor winning the pennant and Brockton coming in third.

Buelow returned east in 1897 but joined manager Phenomenal Smith with the Pawtucket Phenoms. Batting seventh, he opened the season with his bat ablaze. Pawtucket won the first game of the year, 19-3; Buelow had four hits, including a double, and stole two bases. Ten days into the season he had two doubles and three home runs. By the end of July, he had poled 13 dingers.4 He moved up to sixth in the batting order. The Phenoms ended the year in third and Buelow was passed in the home run race by teammate Tom News, who hit 17 to Buelow’s 14.

Buelow batted .324 which put him 18th in the league. He was still a spry 21; injuries and illness had not sapped his strength, and he stole a career high 18 bases. Judging from box scores he struck out more frequently than his teammates. Strikeouts would be an issue for him and even led him to once bet on a race horse named “Strike Out” at the Windsor race track. Upon losing he remarked, “I have struck out a million (sic) times in my life; I wish I had done so just once more.”5Fielding statistics are not available, but his bat overshadowed his biggest fault, which was inconsistency behind the plate.

The Phenoms returned five regulars including Buelow in 1898.The league floundered, then collapsed. On July 17 he joined Detroit in the Class A Western League. The Tigers had some up and coming pitchers in Noodles Hahn and Rube Waddell, but very little offense. Catching hard throwers was tough on catchers, so Detroit carried three. This would be the norm for the remainder of Buelow’s career. Because of his quickness, he was also used in the outfield in eight games. His batting average fell to a more characteristic .206 as the Tigers finished well off the pace.

George Stallings had taken over the Tiger leadership partway through the previous year and returned in 1899. Buelow was teamed with Al Shaw and utility man Jack Ryan behind the plate. Shaw batted .294 while Buelow hit .267 according to league statistics published after the season.6 Buelow’s fielding frustrated Stallings. Detroit’s catching was the worst in the league and he was the worst of the trio. Buelow led the circuit in passed balls and was second in errors, making 24 in only 52 games, many of them on wild throws. He tied Shaw for team leadership with 60 assists but fielded .907 (the league leader fielded .982). The Tigers led the league in batting, but finished well behind Indianapolis.

Late in the season, Buelow was left behind when the team went east. Stallings fined him $25 and suspended him for not being in top playing condition. Upon their return, he was reinstated and even pitched in an exhibition game in Portland, Michigan. He won, 11-8. There had been rumors that Cincinnati and Boston wanted him, but Stallings sold him, pitcher Tom Thomas and third sacker Pat Dillard to St. Louis for “more than the drafting price.”7

St. Louis put him in the lineup versus Louisville and Rube Waddell on September 28. Having caught Waddell and then played against him, Buelow knew what to expect in his debut. He smacked a single and a triple in the 7-3 victory. That performance earned him a start on September 30 versus the road weary Cleveland Orphans. He went three-for-four and helped Tom Thomas earn his first big league win, 10-3. Buelow appeared in seven games: four as catcher, twice in left field and once as pinch-hitter. He batted .467 and fielded flawlessly although he did have trouble with base stealers; he caught only one of four.

Buelow went to spring training with St. Louis in 1900 as one of three catchers. In mid-March after some exhibition appearances, he became seriously ill with a sore throat. It caused him to lose sleep and to have little appetite.8 His tonsils were removed, and he was back in action by April 2.

With his health improving, Buelow returned to action and inked a contract for $1,350.9 He saw his first action on May 28 when regular Lou Criger came down with boils. Buelow played poorly in the 11-4 loss to Philadelphia, making an error and a passed ball. After that he languished on the bench, seeing the field as a pinch-hitter and base coach. He made one brief appearance in the outfield. The press reported in July that he and pitcher Tom Thomas had been given a “leave of absence” from the team and were touring the Midwest appearing for semi-pro or amateur teams.10 The writers also pointed out that playing a youngster one day a month would not prepare him to play when needed.

Manager Oliver (Patsy) Tebeau of St. Louis finally optioned Buelow to Denver in the Western League, which was managed by George Tebeau, Oliver’s brother. Buelow had enjoyed his “leave” because it allowed him to spend time in Detroit courting a Canadian named Agnes Miller. He complained about the assignment, but went west and played 35 games with Denver, batting .312. When Denver’s season concluded, Buelow joined St. Louis in Boston, making a spectacular return on September 11. He singled and scored and threw out three base stealers. The joy ended soon after when the team returned home and Buelow was suspended. He was fined $50 for an unrevealed violation of team rules.

When the season ended, Buelow gladly returned to Detroit and the “girl with flaxen hair, sweet blue eyes” and a “fair and peachy” complexion.11The couple were wed and honeymooned in Canada. Sadly, Agnes would have medical issues most of the marriage, brought on by chronic intestinal obstruction. She died on August 4, 1918. The couple was childless.

The American (formerly Western) League went from minor-league status to major-league for the 1901 season. There was a considerable amount of raiding for talent and St. Louis lost catchers Criger and Wilbert Robinson. Buelow was not anxious to play in St. Louis after the late season suspension and a characterization in the newspapers that he was irresponsible and unreliable. But the Perfectos were anxious to hold on to him. He returned unsigned contracts forcing business manager Louis Heilbronner to pay him a visit. Heilbronner had levied the fine the previous year and Buelow had no intention of being an easy signee. Heilbronner’s offer climbed from $1,500 to $2,000 and then $2,100. Buelow refused to budge. He signed with Detroit soon after.12

The Tigers used Buelow, Al Shaw and utilityman Sport McAllister at catcher on their third-place team. The season opener against Milwaukee found the Tigers losing, 13-3, going into their last at bat. The team rallied for 10 runs, Buelow walked and scored in the rally. On April 29 he launched the first triple at the newly rebuilt South Side Park in Chicago. Buelow fielded brilliantly. His .967 fielding percentage was tops for any catcher with over 500 innings of work. He threw out more than half of the base stealers he faced. In an era of low batting averages his .225 was acceptable. He caught 69 games but the workload took its toll on him. He was left behind when the team went east in mid-September because of his battered condition.

Buelow was hard-working but inconsistent. His next three seasons in Detroit are indicative. His batting average dropped each season, bottoming out at .110 when he was sold in 1904. His defense was tops in 1901, dropped to .927 (nearly the worst), then jumped back to .961 (slightly below average) in 1903.

Detroit sold Buelow’s contract to Cleveland on July 27, 1904. The Naps were desperate for a catcher because of injuries to Harry Bemis and Fred Abbott. He played 42 games the rest of the way and batted .176. Buelow remained with the team through 1906 showing occasional signs of defensive brilliance and very little offense. Just before spring training in 1907, Cleveland swapped him for infielder Pete O’Brien of the Browns. Buelow closed out his major league career with the Browns that year. He posted a .983 fielding mark, but hit a lowly .147 and struck out 15 times in 75 at bats.

After the Browns released him, he played 25 games with the Minneapolis Millers. That winter he got into an altercation with the driver of a Detroit streetcar. The normally amiable Buelow swatted the man in the jaw and was arrested.13 He paid a five-dollar fine. In 1908 he teamed with Bruno Block and Boileryard Clarke behind the plate with the third-place Millers. He moved on to Montreal of the Eastern League in 1909. He was injured early in the season and had to be hospitalized. When he was activated he played 10 more games before being released. In mid-August he was coaxed from his home to manage the Bay City team in the Class D Southern Michigan League. He took the job and proclaimed, “This is my first attempt as a manager. A place in the first division is all that has been asked of me. I believe the team can land that.”14The team briefly reached the first division but closed out the season in fifth.

Buelow hung up his spikes and grabbed a lunch pail. He worked in a Chalmers Auto factory until his physical issues became too much. He was well loved by Detroit fans and teammates, who organized a benefit game for him. The Tigers took on an all-star team composed of minor-leaguers from across the Midwest and former big-leaguers Frank Owen and Ed Siever. The Tigers won, 10-3, and Ty Cobb had some fun taking the mound in relief. The benefit netted $1,000 (possibly more — accounts vary) towards visits to a specialist in Chicago.15

When Buelow’s condition precluded him from doing factory work, he was given a job at Navin Field. Even on days he was not working, he was in attendance and had scores of friends. Eventually paralysis hit his legs, but he retained his sense of humor through the pain, the death of Agnes and his infirmities. He passed away on December 27, 1933, in Grace Hospital. He was buried in Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery. His lone survivor was his younger brother Carl.16 Players who lived in the Detroit-area like Frank Owen, Doc Casey, Davy Jones and Joe Yeager were in attendance for the funeral.17

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Norman Macht and checked for accuracy by the BioProject fact-checking team.

Notes

Otto Charles “Pep” Deininger crossed the Atlantic on the steamship Oder, arriving in New York from Bremen via Southampton on May 25, 1883, with his mother, Caroline, and his father, Josef. The family wound up in the Boston area and, like many young men of the day, turned to baseball for pleasure. In the 1890s, Otto pitched for a team from Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, the Eliots. After Deininger’s passing at midcentury, Eliots second baseman Carl Mittell recalled, “Otto was perhaps the best all-around ballplayer raised around Jamaica Plan. He pitched for the Eliots of J.P. in the mid-Nineties. His brother Charley – shot by Herman Barney in a gas-station holdup, was our right fielder.” Mittell said that the 16-year-olds played together for four years until their final game, in 1896 at Franklin Field. It ended in spectacular fashion, with a triple play in the ninth inning. Mittell remembered his “curly mop of hair, his quick smile and lovable personality.”[1]

Though he had begun his career playing on the same 1902 staff as 32-game-winner Cy Young and 21-game-winner Bill Dinneen, Pep threw only 12 innings for Boston. He never pitched again.

Deininger’s debut was in Washington on April 26, the fifth game of the 1902 season and Dinneen’s second start. He had been signed by the Americans late in 1901, and reported to Augusta, Georgia, for spring training at the end of March, described as a “Boston boy” and considered “promising material.”[2] He played a little center field at times during the few exhibition games that spring. Dinneen saw four runs score in the bottom of the first inning, and manager Jimmy Collins asked Otto to pitch starting in the second. The Boston Globe was blunt in its remarks: “The boy was wilder than a catbird, and lost his speed as he faced the music.” He walked seven, hit a batter, and threw a wild pitch, giving up 11 runs on 12 hits, including two home runs by Bill Keister. The only thing promising about Deininger’s outing was his work in the batter’s box; he hit a double and a triple in four at-bats. The Globe continued: “As a pitcher, he needs considerable coaching and several pounds more of steam pressure, for the day of ‘dinky dink’ slow ones has passed in the big league.”[3]

Just over a month later, Deininger got his first and only big-league start. It was on Boston’s home field, the Huntington Avenue Grounds in the first game of the May 30 doubleheader hosting the Detroit Tigers. The Globe was less than kind: “Young Deininger was given a tryout in the morning game for five innings, after which [Fred] Mitchell relieved him. Both were far from the real thing, having no control and little knowledge of the fine art of pitching.”[4] The newspaper’s notes to the game said that he was “very nervous,” playing in front of his local fans from Boston’s Roxbury section. He gave up five runs. A few days later, he was loaned to Manchester, New Hampshire for a New England League game while Boston was on a Western road trip.[5] By the end of the month Deininger was playing for Haverhill (not Manchester), pitching a bit and playing outfield for the Hustlers. On more than a couple of occasions, the word “great” cropped up in Globe accounts of his pitching. Yet the only statistics we have are his batting stats: He hit .237 in 177 at-bats.

Haverhill manager Billy Hamilton signed Deininger again for 1903 – as a pitcher.[6] Once more we have his batting average (an improved .281 in 263 at-bats), but we don’t know just how he fared on the mound. After the season he simply said he didn’t want to pitch any more.[7]

Something happened – quite possibly a sale of his contract to Toledo – that resulted in dissatisfaction, and Deininger was reported to have jumped the team, never playing for Toledo. With a wife and three children at the time, he didn’t want to play that far west. He claimed he’d been offered a share of the purchase money, but apparently that wasn’t forthcoming from Haverhill.[8] Instead, he played in the “outlaw Vermont League,” where he was offered a fairly good deal – explaining the absence of the years 1904 and 1905 from his official record in baseball.[9] In early 1906 the National Commission reviewed his case and upheld the decision to ban him from baseball, but something was worked out with the Altoona Mountaineers after he was recommended to manager Arthur Irwin by pitcher Jimmy Wiggs; the Washington Post wrote, “Deininger was one of the players awarded Altoona last year when the Tri-State [League] agreed to seek the protection of organized baseball.”[10]

Otto played the outfield for Altoona and, after struggling in some 24 games in 1906, had a very successful 1907. He was said to have been “one of the most popular and valuable players of the Altoona club ever since he joined the team. He is considered of unusual promise by veteran players in the Tri-State.” Harry Wolverton, the manager of the Williamsport team, made an offer to buy him, and “several major-league blues made offers for his release.” On August 22 the Philadelphia Phillies purchased his contract.[11] One of the teams that took an interest was the White Sox. Altoona took on the Chicago White Sox in mid-1907 – and beat them, 6-4, with five of the six runs batted in by Deininger.[12]

Purchasing Deininger’s contract didn’t guarantee that he would be permitted to play, as the Washington Post noted a few weeks later: “Outfielder Otto Deininger of the Altoona club is ineligible to play with the Philadelphia club. He is one of the contract jumpers that were condemned to the Tri-State League for life.”[13] He had to wait most of another year, but contented himself with hitting .293 for Altoona in 113 games in 1907. After the season, the National Commission ruled that if Deininger paid a $300 fine, he would be allowed to play for Philadelphia provided that he himself paid the fine. If the Phillies were found to have slipped him the money to do so, his reinstatement would be reversed.[14]

Deininger was seen as a candidate to play first base for the Phillies, but appeared in only one game for the Phillies in 1908, leaving no trace in the statistical record, and was released back to Altoona in the first half of May. He played in 114 games for Altoona, batting .330 and becoming someone who wasn’t going to be denied come 1909. The Phils booked him to play center field.

He played in the early season but broke a finger on May 8 and then injured his leg so badly, chasing after a wild throw that flew into center during a July 3 game against the visiting Boston Doves that he had to be carried off the field and originally was expected to be out for the season. Deininger did reappear at the end of August but didn’t play much. By season’s end, he had appeared in 55 games, batting .260 in 169 at-bats. He was a stocky ballplayer, standing 5-feet-8½ inches tall and weighing 180 pounds.

The 1910 season began with Deininger on the club right through the springtime, but on April 18 he was placed on waivers with the intent to place him with the Jersey City Skeeters. He joined the Class A Eastern League team and acquitted himself well, appearing in 154 games (including some early games with Rochester) while hitting .295. Meanwhile, he was keeping his eyes open for other work and put himself forward as a candidate for head coach of Harvard’s baseball team that fall. He didn’t get the gig, but was hired for a couple of weeks in March to pitch batting practice to the Harvard batters.[15] The work finished in time for him to get in another full season (.274 in 155 games) with Jersey City. In 1912 he split time with Jersey City and Buffalo, hitting a combined .291.

Deininger positioned himself to become an owner in 1913, when the Fall River club in the New England League offered its shares for sale. He and two others obtained an option to buy the shares, thinking to move the club to Portland, Maine.[16] There is no indication that he was successful in his quest to become a magnate.

He played again for Buffalo in 1913. There was a time when it looked as though Otto might get back in the majors. Manager George Stallings of the Boston Braves got involved in negotiations to buy his contract in early April, but it didn’t come to pass. On May 23 he faced his former team in an exhibition game when the Boston Red Sox played against Buffalo and Deininger was the star of the game (in a losing effort), cracking out three consecutive doubles and then a single. He played for Buffalo and, later in the season, Montreal, hitting a combined .259.

In 1914 it was Montreal and a .276 average. That year Deininger was named to the board of directors of the Baseball Players’ Fraternity, an early effort to organize players.[17]

Otto played for Syracuse in 1915 (.268 in 116 games), but it was his brother, Boston police patrolman Charles, who made the news more than once, collaring men involved in shootings, stabbings, and holdups.

In 1916 Otto was tapped to return to Syracuse but refused to report and talked about retiring. Instead, Bridgeport made a deal for him, and he played there, now 38 years old. He appeared in 107 games, hit .241, and was named field captain of the Eastern League team in July. An article his daughter-in-law found in his scrapbook years later said that even though Bridgeport was in last place almost all year, “Deininger was at all times playing first division ball. The opposing pitchers used to sarcastically remark that Otto was the only man on the team they had to pitch to.”[18] The article declared that the 1909 leg injury with the Phillies had been more serious than perhaps known at the time, and was the main thing that had prevented Deininger from a long-term major-league career.

Over the winter of 1916-17, he applied for the position of manager at Bridgeport but didn’t land the job. His last games as a ballplayer were in 1917, playing for Bridgeport, then Portland, and finally New London, hitting .247 in 328 at-bats for the three Eastern League teams. One obituary at the time of his death claimed he’d been the highest-paid player in the International League.

Charles Deininger was shot and killed at point-blank range by a car thief in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in February 1919. Herman L. Barney of Arlington was charged with murder. Barney escaped from prison in May; after he was recaptured, a couple of women were arrested for aiding his escape. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 to 20 years. He escaped from prison again in May 1920. After five weeks of freedom, working on a farm in Vermont, he was found and surrendered to police.

Otto played semipro baseball around the Boston area, for the St. Ambrose Base Ball Club of Dorchester and other nines. The most notable of his games came on July 8, 1922, when he came to the plate as a pinch-hitter for the Boston Blues. It was the bottom of the ninth and the Blues were trailing the Roxbury Red Sox, 7-3. Pep put some pop in his bat and hit a grand slam to tie the game, 7-7. Four innings later, the game was called after 13 innings on account of darkness.

After baseball, Otto took up work as a foreman in a shoe factory, married to German immigrant Anna Voegele (in February 1900) and with three sons and four daughters. Ten years later the 1930 Census found him as a printer working in a shoe factory. He did do some work as a groundkeeper. In fact, Deininger became “staunch friends” with Eddie Collins, according to Otto’s sister Caroline in a 1963 letter to the Hall of Fame. This may have helped him get the position he held for a number of years, as night watchman at Fenway Park. His daughter-in-law Ruth wrote that he was a “rather modest man” and there were not that many personal articles in his scrapbook. He died on September 25, 1950, in Boston of pulmonary asthma and kidney failure.

Sources

In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Deininger’s player file from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the online SABR Encyclopedia, Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball.

In an issue published a few days after the grand opening of Forbes Field, Sporting Life extolled Pittsburgh team owner Barney Dreyfuss: “[he] had the mind to conceive and the courage to execute the plans which have given the world the grandest and most costly ball park in existence, deserves the greatest credit, highest praise, and utmost good fortune for his stupendous enterprise, which has ennobled the National League and enriched the city of Pittsburg.”1 Not bad press for a man who just twenty-four years before had arrived from Freiburg, Germany with just a few dollars in his pocket, knowing very little English, with an invitation to work in his cousins’ bourbon distillery in Paducah, Kentucky.

Barney Dreyfuss was the embodiment of the American dream. Immediately after his arrival, Dreyfuss was motivated and focused. He managed the books for his cousins Isaac W. Bernheim and Bernard Bernheim. The Bernheim brothers sailed to America shortly after the Civil War beginning as peddlers but soon found themselves in Kentucky selling distilled spirits. Eventually they began processing their own Kentucky bourbon, I.W. Harper, and their business became a huge success. The Bernheims created opportunities for family members and they recruited Barney, who was clerking for a bank in Karlsruhe, Germany.2

The 19-year-old needed no incentive to leave his family and board a ship to America in 1885. His parents had a taste of the American dream when they developed a successful mercantile business in Kentucky in 1849 but were forced to return to Germany at the outbreak of the Civil War.3 Dreyfuss was also encouraged to avoid conscription in the German Army, which could be harsh for Jewish youth. Barney would also be reuniting with his older sister Rosa who had married Bernard Bernheim and was living in Paducah.

Always the workaholic, Dreyfuss toiled six long days at the distillery and studied English at night. When a physician told Dreyfuss that his schedule would impact his health, Barney took his suggestion to develop a recreational pursuit. His business associates persuaded him that running a baseball club would give him that opportunity.4 Barney had begun an appreciation of baseball almost since his arrival in Kentucky.5 He began by organizing teams using distillery workers as players. As much as he enjoyed the game, Dreyfuss found greater fulfillment in organizing and managing local amateur teams.

The success of the Bernheim Brothers distillery forced the company to expand its operations and they moved to larger quarters in Louisville in 1888. Dreyfuss was convinced that baseball as a business enterprise had the potential of enormous profit. He convinced his cousins as well and with their backing, Dreyfuss joined with some other local distillers and invested in the Louisville Colonels of the American Association. Mordecai Davidson owned the team but he surrendered the club to the league in 1889, following a disastrous season.6 In 1892, as Dreyfuss increased his investment, Louisville was admitted into the National League after a merger with the American Association.7 By 1899, Dreyfuss was the sole owner of the club.

Barney Dreyfuss was aware that major changes were being proposed to restructure the National League. Some owners wanted to restrict cross ownership of teams while others wanted to create a syndication of clubs operated by one group that would distribute equity shares to club owners in return for absolute control. After much discussion, the magnates of the National League addressed this issue by contracting to an eight-team league and folded the Louisville, Cleveland, Washington and Baltimore franchises. Anticipating that Louisville was headed towards extinction, Dreyfuss brokered a deal that allowed him to purchase a half interest in the Pittsburgh Pirates and, by taking a smaller settlement from the National League ($10,000), he negotiated the transfer of the best players from Louisville to Pittsburgh. These players included Fred Clarke, Charles “Deacon” Phillippe, Tommy Leach, Rube Waddell and the great Honus Wagner. Such shrewd transactions quickly earned Dreyfuss recognition as “one of the greatest men connected with the game” whose passion was “dope” [e.g., player information] as he kept his offices “filled with volume after volume of statistics and records.”8

Within a year, and again borrowing from his cousins, Dreyfuss bought out his partners and operated the Pirates as sole owner for the next 32 years. On the horizon, however, was a competing major league led by Bancroft Johnson, who organized and transformed the minor Western League to challenge the supremacy of the National League. Skillfully, Dreyfuss kept the American League out of Pittsburgh, and lost only two players to the raiding Americans. He was also in the middle of the 1903 agreement that ended the war between the leagues. It was Dreyfuss who cemented the peace when he challenged the Boston Americans to a best of nine series between the pennant winners in October 1903, the first modern World Series.

When Barney Dreyfuss arrived in Pittsburgh in 1900, the Pirates played their home games at Exposition Park. Built in 1882, Exposition Park, “so-named because circuses and other big tent shows camped there when in town, occupied ground less than 50 yards from the Allegheny River”9 near the former site of Three Rivers Stadium. Dreyfuss remarked, “The game was growing up, and patrons were no longer willing to put up with nineteenth century conditions.”10

Dreyfuss contemplated a move away from the river because when “the Allegheny River overflowed its banks, Exposition Park went under.”11 It was common, especially during Dreyfuss’ presidency, to play a game even if the field conditions were unsuitable but the advance sale of tickets was large. After one such game, during which the outfield was flooded and players stood knee deep in water, the press nicknamed centerfield “Lake Dreyfuss.” Other reasons for considering a move included the inability of Dreyfuss to obtain a stadium lease in order to make repairs, his need to prevent other leagues from installing a team in Pittsburgh, and also importantly, the fact that Dreyfuss considered Exposition Park to be in “the wrong neighborhood.”12

Daniel Bonk wrote that “Dreyfuss saw the game as an entertainment vehicle that would need to attract citizens more affluent than the working class.”13 Dreyfuss was ahead of his time when he realized that increasing attendance and increasing the profit per ticket would result in financial success. His search for a sight for a new ball park began in 1903: “When President Dreyfuss came to Pittsburg bringing with him Harry Pulliam as secretary of the Pittsburgh club the fans and the public in general here were content to see the plucky little magnate bring a winning combination to Pittsburgh. Exposition Park looked good enough to them but President Dreyfuss had hardly become a fixture at the head of the Pirate team before he had begun to seek new grounds.”14 As the popularity of the Pirates increased over the years, Dreyfuss began to cultivate friends in high places. One such friend, the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, was instrumental in the development of Forbes Field.

The search for land to build a ballpark that met Dreyfuss’ needs coincided with the development of the Oakland section of Pittsburgh by Carnegie. The area was located about three miles from downtown and well connected by trolleys to various neighbor-hoods, and was dominated by an estate owned by Mary Schenley who had graciously donated 300 acres to Carnegie for a public park.15 Carnegie later began a movement to develop Oakland as a cultural center of Pittsburgh. Eventually he endowed the Carnegie Institute there.

Guided by Carnegie, a Schenley estate trustee, Dreyfuss purchased seven acres of land from the Schenley estate after Mary’s death. Located adjacent to Schenley Park, the land purchase was one of the largest real estate deals in Pittsburgh history.16 The trustees agreed to allow a ball park to be built as long as Dreyfuss agreed to a contract under which he “was required to spend a large sum of money to make the ball park fireproof and of a design that would harmonize with the other structures in the Schenley Park district.”17

Dreyfuss liked to gamble on horses and he frequented racetracks in the Northeast like New York’s Belmont Park. Belmont’s grandstand was designed by landscape architect Charles W. Leavitt, Jr. Dreyfuss presented his architectural requirements for the construction of a ball park and invited Leavitt to submit a plan.

A short obituary of Charles Wellford Leavitt, Jr., who died in 1928, described him as a “landscape engineer, designer of many public parks, country clubs, racetracks and large private estates.”18 Leavitt designed such race tracks as Belmont Park and Saratoga, and he was instrumental in the town designs of Camden, NJ and Garden City, NY. He designed cemeteries as well, including the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Valhalla, NY, where Babe Ruth is buried.19 Leavitt was born in 1871 in Riverton, NJ and was trained as a civil engineer, holding several positions until he opened his own engineering and landscape architecture firm in 1897. Although he was experienced in designing steel and concrete grandstands for several racetracks and had designed college campuses and several estates, Leavitt’s only baseball park was to be Forbes Field.20

Work on the tract of land began on January 1, 1909 and construction of the stadium began on March 1, 1909, by the Nicola Building Company. According to William Benswanger, Dreyfuss’ son-in-law who later served as club President after Dreyfuss died in 1932, “The actual work on Forbes Field was a record breaking achievement. It required just four months to build. Construction started March 1, 1909 and the first game was played June 30, 1909. This included not only erecting the vast steel stands but also filling in some thirty feet of right field, which was partial hollow, before the ground was leveled. Thirty one years later, when the decision was made to play night ball games, it took four months just to install the light standards.”21

Pirate manager Fred Clarke was deeply involved in the construction and design of the playing field. The Pittsburgh Post reported on May 1, 1909: “he [Clarke] paid a visit to Forbes Field and gave the groundkeeper at the new baseball park some further instructions about the diamond which is now progressing rapidly toward completion.”22 On June 23, the paper reported “before starting west with the team, Clarke put in a busy day at the new park testing the apparatus which he devised and patented, for spreading the great canvas rain cover and removing it from the diamond. The experiments yesterday were highly satisfactory, and nothing less than hard rains that commence at game time, are likely now to cause postponements on the Pittsburgh Baseball program.”23

At a cost of about $2 million dollars, Forbes Field was erected and named for “General John Forbes, a British general in the French and Indian War, who captured Fort Duquesne from the French Army and renamed it Fort Pitt in 1758.”24 Forbes Field opened its gates for the first time on the afternoon of June 30, 1909 for a game with the Chicago Cubs. The Pirates defeated the Cubs 8-1 the day before at the last National League game played at Exposition Park.

Initially, Dreyfuss was criticized for building Forbes Field. Benswanger reported that “many thought Mr. Dreyfuss was making a mistake. He was called ‘crazy’ for taking such a step and was told ‘the park will never be filled’. It was filled the first day.”25 Dan Bonk and Len Martin added that “his critics labeled Forbes Field ‘Dreyfuss’ Folly’ because it was too big, too fancy, and too far from downtown Pittsburgh. Characteristically, Dreyfuss never doubted his decision to build it. On opening day, as he stood inside the main gate, he shook the hands of those who came to congratulate him and told a local reporter, ‘this is the happiest day of my life.'”26

Donald Lancaster wrote that “opening day, June 30, 1909, was a beautiful day for a ball game.”27 The game time was set for 3:30 p.m. against the World Champion Cubs, but fans began arriving at the ball bark as early as 9:00 a.m. to get a 25 cent bleacher seat. A discounted train fare was offered to fans going to the game. Streetcar workers had staged a strike at midnight on June 27, but it was quickly settled and service was restored to the stadium by game time.28

The Pittsburgh Post ran a special “preview” of Forbes Field on June 27. “The humble bleacherite will be as welcome at Forbes Field on opening day as the most austere box-holder.”29 Dreyfuss stated that he would charge the same for opening day as he would for the entire season to encourage the loyalty of the fans of Pittsburgh.30 Seat prices included $10 for a box of eight seats, $8.75 for roof boxes, $1 reserved seats, 75 cent general admission, 50 cent bleachers, and 25 cents for the temporary bleachers. Permanent capacity was about 25,000 (the largest in the major leagues), but on opening day 30,388 fans crammed into the park.31

Dedication ceremonies began at 1:30 p.m. culminating in the first pitch being thrown out by Pittsburgh Mayor William Magee. Many baseball dignitaries attended including Harry Pulliam, President of the National League and a former Pirate official (and who, tragically, would commit suicide less than one month later); Ban Johnson, President of the American League; and Civil War veteran Al Pratt who had managed the first professional team in Pittsburgh in 1882.32

Forbes Field was designed by Leavitt to be “fan friendly.” There were ramps instead of steps between decks and elevators (which were removed in 1947) took fans from the entrance to roof top boxes.” Leavitt’s most innovative feature, however, was the spacious promenade beneath the grandstands at street level. This feature made Forbes Field the only ball park in the league where everyone in the main grandstand could find cover to wait out rain showers.”33

The Pirates starting pitcher Vic Willis gave up a run in the first when Frank Chance singled home Johnny Evers. There was no scoring until the sixth as Willis and Cub hurler Ed Reulbach were locked in a pitching duel.34 In the bottom of the sixth, Honus Wagner lead off with a single, Bill Abstein sacrificed “The Flying Dutchman” to second and Dots Miller knocked Wagner in with a single. The Cubs scored twice in the top of the eighth and Pittsburgh scored once in the bottom of the ninth.

With the Cubs leading 3-2, the Pirates mounted a rally in the ninth but Fred Clarke hit a ground ball to shortstop Joe Tinker with two on and two out and Jap Barbeau was forced out at second to end the game.35 Though the Cubs spoiled opening day at Forbes Field, the Pirates went on win 110 games that season to beat out the Cubs for the 1909 National League pennant by 6½ games.

Barney Dreyfuss was on a roll and so was his team. Led by Honus Wagner’s seventh batting title and 66 victories from pitchers Howie Camnitz, Vic Willis, and Lefty Leifield, the Pirates marched into the first World Series played in Forbes Field. They were to meet a very successful team, the Detroit Tigers, making its third consecutive trip to the World Series after having won American League pennants but losing in 1907 and 1908 to the Cubs. The 1909 World Series highlighted the only meeting between deadball era superstars Wagner and Ty Cobb, the great outfielder for the Tigers and the American League. By the end of the series, the Pittsburg Dispatch would proclaim that Wagner outclassed Cobb on the field leaving “no doubt as to who is the best baseball player in the world.”36

The 1909 World Series opened on Friday, October 8, after Barney Dreyfuss had won a coin toss to host the first two games. The record crowd at Forbes Field expected to see their ace, Howie Camnitz (25-6) take the mound but he had succumbed to a sore throat and fever and was unable to pitch. “If all Pittsburgh acclaimed Babe Adams after the Series, many Pirate fans were not so sanguine when they saw their Babe march out to warm up against George Mullin, the big twenty-nine game winner of the American League champions. ‘What’s Fred [Clarke] doing sending a boy on a man’s errand?’ they asked.”37

The rookie Charles “Babe” Adams outpitched Mullin before a World Series record crowd of 29,264. Although Adams gave up an early run to Detroit, Manager Clarke tied the game with home run in the fourth inning and Pittsburgh added three more runs on Tiger errors in the fifth and sixth for a 4-1 victory.

“Rosebud” Camnitz may not have fully recovered from his bout of quinsy and the record crowd of 30,915 watched as Ty Cobb stole home and the Tigers even-up the Series with a 7-2 victory. Camnitz was relieved in the third by Willis and on Vic’s first pitch, Cobb made his dash to the plate. A controversial call occurred in the first inning of Game Two in which the two umpires on the field lost sight of a ball hit into a crowd of spectators. Beginning with the 1910 World Series, four umpires began working each game.38

The Series shifted to Detroit for Monday and Tuesday games October 11 and 12. The teams split the games with the Pirates outlasting Detroit 8-6 on Monday and George Mullin shutting out the Pirates on Tuesday 5-0. The series was tied two games all as the teams headed back to Pittsburgh for Game Five on Wednesday.

The Pirates and Tigers were greeted with raw weather and crowd of 21,706 at Forbes Field. Babe Adams won his second game although he gave up two homers. Dreyfuss had erected temporary bleachers39 in center field and while the Tigers took early advantage of it, a three-run shot by Fred Clarke in the seventh inning to those same bleachers sealed the victory for Pittsburgh, 8-4.

Game Six was back in Detroit and George Mullin held on and won 5-4 despite a furious rally in the ninth inning by the Pirates. The series was now tied three games all. Dreyfuss and Detroit President Frank Navin were again subjected to a coin toss40 to determine the site of Game Seven. Navin won and on October 16, the Tigers drew their biggest Series attendance of 17,562. The Detroit fans went home disappointed as Series hero Babe Adams pitched an 8-0 shut out. Barney Dreyfuss had his first World Championship. Pittsburgh Mayor William Magee began preparations for a holiday honoring the team: “The national game exemplifies the spirit of the American people as well or better than anything else. Today we are the envy of the entire country. Pittsburg [sic] during the past two weeks has excited the interest of the entire civilized world.”41

The Pirates did not win another pennant until 1925. Wagner had retired in 1917 and the team was outmatched for the next several seasons. In 1921, Dreyfuss acquired the flaky star shortstop Rabbit Maranville, who, along with first baseman Charlie Grimm, became fan favorites at Forbes Field. Because of his guitar playing and broad grin, Charley Grimm “worked his way into the hearts of Forbes Field patrons.”42

Still, Dreyfuss could not field a pennant winner. The New York Giants had won the NL flag four straight years starting in 1921. Dreyfuss engineered a pre-season trade in 1925 sending Grimm, Maranville and pitcher Wilbur Cooper to the Cubs for pitcher Vic Aldridge, infielder George Grantham and minor league first baseman Al Niehaus.43

The reorganized 1925 Pirates were packed with talented players including second year player Kiki Cuyler who put together a career year batting .357 with 18 homers and 102 RBIs. Pie Traynor, who was later to be voted the best third baseman of the first 50 years of the 20th century, batted .320 and knocked in 106 runs.44 Base-stealer Max Carey and shortstop Glenn Wright (121 RBIs in 1925) also contributed as the Pirates finished 8 ½ games ahead of the Giants and prepared to face the Washington Senators with two of the greatest pitchers of the era, Walter “Big Train” Johnson and Stan Coveleski.

Years later, Traynor was asked to compare his 1925 Pirates team with the 1960 Pirates that had won the National League pennant. “Our team was like the present in one respect. We always expected to win and never were licked until the last man was out. In the final game of the Series, we handed Walter Johnson a four run lead in the first inning but we won, 9 to 7.”45

Babe Adams, the hero of the 1909 World Series, was still in a Pirate uniform for Game One of the 1925 Series.46 Dreyfuss had built temporary grandstands in the outfield bringing the capacity of Forbes Field to over 40,000 customers.47

Game One featured Walter Johnson who struck out 10 Pirates on his way to a 4-1 victory. Prior to Game Two Christy Mathewson, the great pitcher for the New York Giants died at the age of 45. The players wore black armbands in his memory. Cuyler and Wright led the Pirates to even up the series by defeating Coveleski, 3-2.

The third game of the Series, won by Washington 4-3 had a very interesting twist to the game. The game was played in Griffith Stadium in Washington and with the Senators leading by one in the eighth, reliever Firpo Marberry had struck out Glenn Wright and Boots Grantham. Next up was catcher Earl Smith, who lined a drive to right center. Edgar “Sam” Rice leaped up, apparently catching the ball as he fell over the fence and into the stands. The Pirates claimed he dropped the ball and a fan placed it in his glove. Barney Dreyfuss led the charge onto the field to protest the out call. The controversy eventually made its way to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis who questioned Rice. He had in his possession several affidavits claiming that Rice never caught the ball and several who said he did. Rice held firm, insisting he had caught the ball.48

This issue of Rice’s catch mushroomed for years. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1963 and he was always asked about his catch in the years he visited Cooperstown. He wrote a letter to the Hall of Fame in which he instructed the Hall to open it after his death. Rice died in 1974 at the age of 84 and his letter was opened. In it he maintained that he had made the catch.49

The “Big Train” came on to pitch a 4-0 shut out in game 4 and the Pirates had their backs to the wall going into Game Five down 3-1. Pittsburgh manager Bill McKechnie handed the ball to Vic Aldridge, the winner of Game Two. Adridge beat Coveleski again with the backing of Carey, Traynor, and Cuyler.

The series now returned to Forbes Field for Game Six on October 13, 1925. Before 43,810 fans, Pirate second baseman Eddie Moore socked a fifth inning home run breaking a 2-2 tie and forcing a seventh game. For the first time, a World Series Champion was to be decided at Forbes Field.50

Game Seven of the 1925 World Series was played in nasty, wet weather51 but before a large crowd of almost 43,000. Walter Johnson took the mound for the third time and faced Vic Aldridge. Johnson had won Games One and Four, Aldridge Two and Five. On three days rest, Aldridge was wild and McKechnie yanked him in favor of Johnny Morrison with one out in the top of the first. Johnson had a 4-0 lead after one, and 6-3 after four, but he too may have succumbed to fatigue as he gave up 15 hits and 9 runs in eight innings. “The Big Train had jumped the tracks. And the Senators crashed with him, falling 9-7 and losing a series they seemingly had locked up a few days earlier. The Pirates’ comeback marked the first time a team had rallied from a 3-1 deficit to win a best of seven series.”52

Pittsburgh sportswriter Fred Alger eloquently described the wild celebration in the Pirates’ Forbes Field clubhouse. He witnessed “hardened ball players bronzed by the sunshine of seven months of labor on the ball field, supposed to have no feelings, no nerves and no sense of conscience, falling upon each other’s neck – some crying from pure joy, others in fond embrace with a brother ball player.”53 National League President John Heydler called the team the “gamest ball club”54 he had ever seen, and Pirate manager Bill McKechnie understated the outcome when he told reporters that “we had a pretty good ball club after all.”55

In 1926, dissension on the team and petty power struggles56 caused the Pirates to slip to third place behind St. Louis and Cincinnati. For the 1927 season, Dreyfuss cleaned house again and installed Donie Bush as manager. In a very close National League pennant race, three teams—the Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, and the New York Giants—were within two games of the flag as the season ended, with the Pirates on top.57

On the strength of the Waner brothers, Paul and Lloyd, and the pitching of Ray Kremer, Lee Meadows and Carmen Hill the Pirates prevailed. Unfortunately, they were to meet the most feared lineup in baseball, the New York Yankees in the Series. Forbes Field hosted the first game of the 1927 World Series between the Pirates and the New York Yankees.

Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver has called the 1927 season “more than just a year in baseball. It as a year in which a legendary ball club was assembled, a club that has become the standard for measuring the best a team could be.”58 The ’27 Yankee team had earned the moniker, Murderers Row. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs that season, a record that stood for 34 years. With stars like Lou Gehrig and Earle Combs, the Yankees won 110 games and finished 19 games ahead of the Philadelphia A’s. The Yankees had won their second straight pennant and were looking to avenge a tough seventh game loss to the Cardinals the previous October.59

In 1948 sportswriter Fred Lieb noted the 1927 World Series was “a bad memory for Pirate fans.”60 During batting practice before the first game, the Yankee sluggers hit tremendous drives over the walls in Forbes Field. “It was said that they already won the series in batting practice, intimidating the Pirates before Game One began.”61 A contemporary account by Richards Vidmer of the New York Times described “the Yankees final practice yesterday [October 4, 1927] was a rather hilarious affair. Babe Ruth left the field in good spirits and five balls somewhere in Schenley Park. The Babe’s batting spree left interested onlookers, including the Pirates, open-mouthed in wonder. Most of them had never seen his majesty the ball mauler in action before.”62 The Pirates got swept in four games.

The first two games were held in Pittsburgh. The Forbes Field faithful witnessed poor play by the Pirates including a misplayed fly ball by Paul Waner that led to a run scoring triple by Lou Gehrig in Game One. The costly errors multiplied throughout the Series. Following the defeat by the Yankees, a rumor surfaced that Dreyfuss was ready to sell the team. “Barney Dreyfuss never got over the humiliation.”63

After Game Four of the 1927 Series, Dreyfuss had marched into the gloomy Pirate clubhouse inside Yankee Stadium. While he felt the “crushing setback of his team,”64 he tried in vain to lift up the spirits of his team after a wild pitch had cost Pittsburgh the game and the series. Donie Bush highly complimented the Yankees, but he also noted his team might have “cracked” under the strain of a tight pennant race.65 “It is no reflection on the courage of the Pirates,” commented sportswriter Frank Graham of the New York Sun, “to say that one factor of their World Series defeat was a decided inferiority complex. They weren’t afraid of the Yanks; they simply were abashed by them.”66

Fred Leib reported that Dreyfuss “never reconciled himself to the four straight defeats suffered by his team in the 1927 World Series. His mortification was so great that he had tears in his eyes as he tried to congratulate Col. Jake Ruppert, President of the winning club.”67

Meanwhile, although Dreyfuss was angry and humiliated by the loss to New York, he began denying rumors that he was about to unload the team. Attending the World Series was Oklahoma oilman Lew Wentz accompanied by former Pirate manager Fred Clarke.68 Wentz had an understanding with Dreyfuss that if the Pirates were ever for sale, he was interested. Thinking about selling his team after a downturn in events was characteristic of Dreyfuss who took losing very hard. In 1916, for example, after the National Commission ruled against Dreyfuss in his attempt to obtain the services of George Sisler, Dreyfuss held negotiations with former Boston Braves owner James E. Gaffney and Johnny Evers.69

Dreyfuss did not get his price in 1916 and surely wasn’t going to sell out in 1927. He wanted to retire and hand over the club to his son, Sam. In fact, Dreyfuss’ son had to issue a very strong statement to the press denying that the club was being sold even though “it had been persistently reported in both baseball and business circles that the deal had gone through.”70 Barney Dreyfuss had taught his son well in the business of baseball, so much so that in his obituary, the New York Times called the Princeton graduate “one of the best informed executives in the baseball world.”71

When Barney Dreyfuss died February 5, 1932, at the age of 66 of pneumonia and prostatitis, he was still in charge of the Pirates. He had retired in 1930 from day-to-day activities and had turned the Presidency over to Sam. But before the 1931 season commenced, Sam died of pneumonia. Although Dreyfuss returned for one more season, his heart was not in it as he was emotionally spent by Sam’s death.72 After Dreyfuss died, Barney’s widow, Florence, delegated the operation of the Pirates to son-in-law William Benswanger until the family sold the team in 1946.73

In his obituary, it was noted that Barney Dreyfuss had gained “the distinction of being the most thoroughly schooled baseball man to be found among club owners.”74 John Heydler, President of the National League, claimed that Dreyfuss “discovered more great players than any man in the game and his advice and counsel always were sought by his associates.”75 Several of the leading baseball men echoed Heydler’s sentiment, including Commissioner Landis, Jacob Ruppert, Charles Stoneham, and William Harridge.

He was one of the most innovative owners and considered an outstanding judge of baseball talent. Branch Rickey told Lee Allen, historian at the Baseball Hall of Fame, that “Dreyfuss was the best judge of players he had ever seen.76

The legacy of Barney Dreyfuss is enormous. He was a peacemaker, helping to settle the conflict between the National and American Leagues. He was a builder and the construction of Forbes Field is a testament to his innovation and resourcefulness. He was a facilitator so that when conflicts of interest arose that threatened to tear the political structure of the game apart, Barney Dreyfuss was there to mediate the important issues by creating a path towards resolution. Between 1895 and 1932, Dreyfuss was in the middle of every important decision facing professional baseball including syndication, contraction, league conflicts, the Federal League, schedules, and of course, the scandal arising out of the 1919 World Series.

Ralph Davis called Dreyfuss “a whole soul”77 not only because he was a cool and calculating baseball magnate, the “father” of the World Series, and prime mover behind the construction of Forbes Field, but also because he remained until his death “a rooter, a dyed-in-the-wool baseball enthusiast.”78

Forbes Field, called The House of Thrills by radio announcer Bob Prince79, continued as the home of the Pirates until 1970 when it was replaced by Three Rivers Stadium. His widow, Florence, resisted a movement to re-name the park as Dreyfuss Field, but in 1934 a monument was erected in the outfield at Forbes Field to commemorate his contributions to Pittsburgh. The Dreyfuss family sold the team in 1946 to a group headed by John W. Galbreath.

One last World Series was played in Forbes Field in 1960. Barney Dreyfuss finally got his long awaited revenge, albeit posthumously, as the Pirates defeated the New York Yankees in seven games.

Notes

1 Sporting Life, July 3, 1909: 4.

2 Isaac Wolfe Bernheim, The Story of the Bernheim Family (Louisville: John P. Morton & Co., 1910) 64-65.

3 Bernheim, 6.

4 John Kieran, “The Passing of Barney Dreyfuss,” New York Times, February 6, 1932: 22.

5 Dennis DeValeria and Jeanne Burke DeValeria, Honus Wagner: A Biography (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995) 61.

6 Bob Bailey, “The Louisville Colonels of 1890,” The National Pastime #13 (Cleveland, Ohio: SABR, 1993): 66.

7 A.K. “Rosey” Rowswell, Pittsburgh Baseball Thru the Years (Pittsburgh: Fort Pitt Brewing Company, 1952) 11-12.

8 Ralph S. Davis, “Barney Dreyfuss — the Man,” Baseball Magazine, July 1908: 27.

9 Daniel L Bonk, “Ball Park Figures: The Story of Forbes Field,” Pittsburgh History, Summer 1993: 55.

10 Bonk, 55.

11 Michael Benson, Ball Parks of North America (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1989) 310.

12 Bonk, 55.

13 Bonk, 55.

14 Pittsburgh Post, July 1, 1909: 10.

15 Bonk, 55.

16 Donald G. Lancaster, “Forbes Field Praised as a Gem When It Opened,” Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 15 (SABR, 1986): 26.

17 Lancaster, 26.

18 New York Times, April 24, 1928: 25.

19 Bonk, 57.

20 Bonk, 57.

21 Forbes Field 60th Birthday (Pittsburgh: Century Printing Co., n.d.) 1.

22 Pittsburgh Post, May 1, 1909: 9.

23 Pittsburgh Post, June 23, 1909: 12.

24 Philip Lowry, Green Cathedrals (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992), 217.

25 Forbes Field 60th Birthday, 1.

26 Len Martin and Dan Bonk, Forbes Field: Build-it-Yourself (Pittsburgh: Point Four Ltd., 1995), 64.

27 Lancaster, 28.

28 Pittsburgh Post, June 29, 1909: 1.

29 Pittsburgh Post, June 27, 1909: 6.

30 Pittsburgh Post, June 27, 1909: 6.

31 Bonk, 56.

32 Bonk, 57.

33 Bonk, 64.

34 Lancaster, 28.

35 Lancaster, 29.

36 Pittsburg Dispatch, October 17, 1909: 2.

37 Fred Lieb, The Story of the World Series: An Informal History (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949), 64.

38 Lieb, 65.

39 John Thorn et al., Total Baseball, 6th Ed. (New York: Total Sports Publishing, 1999), 326.

40 Lieb, 68.

41 Pittsburg Dispatch, October 17, 1909: 1.

42 Fred Lieb, “The Pittsburgh Pirates,” The National League ed. Ed Fitzgerald (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1959), 63.

43 Lieb, “The Pittsburgh Pirates,” 65.

44 David Nemec et al., 20th Century Baseball Chronicle: A Year by Year History of Major League Baseball (Illinois: Publications International Ltd., 1992), 113.

45 The Sporting News, October 5, 1960: 10.

46 Adams pitched one scoreless inning in relief in Game 4 of the 1925 World Series. He was 43 years old.

47 Abby Mendelson, “1925 World Series.” [Available at www.pirateball.com].

48 Steve Wulf and Amy Guip, “The Secrets of Sam,” Sports Illustrated, July 19, 1993: 58.

49 Wulf and Guip, 58.

50 The next time was in 1960.

51 Mendelson [Available at www.pirateball.com].

52 The Sporting News, “History of the World Series: 1925.” [Available at www.sportingnews.com

53 Pittsburgh Post, October 16, 1925: 14.

54 Pittsburgh Post, October 16, 1925: 14.

55 Pittsburgh Post, October 16, 1925: 1.

56 Lieb, “The Pittsburgh Pirates,” 66-67.

57 Nemec, 122.

58 Tom Seaver with Marty Appel, Great Moments in Baseball (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1992), 88.

59 Nemec, 126.

60 Lieb, “The Pittsburgh Pirates,” 68.

61 Seaver, 94.

62 G.H. Fleming, Murderers Row (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1985), 370.

63 Lieb, “The Pittsburgh Pirates,” 68.

64 New York Times, October 9, 1927: 5.

65 New York Times, October 9, 1927: 5.

66 Fleming, 387.

67 The Sporting News, October 5, 1960: 11.

68 New York Times, October 11, 1927: 38.

69 New York Times, December 15, 1916: 14.

70 New York Times, October 11, 1927: 38.

71 New York Times, February 23, 1931: 21.

72 New York Times, February 6, 1932: 21.

73 New York Times, January 17, 1972: 34.

74 New York Times, February 6, 1932: 21.

75 New York Times, February 6, 1932: 21.

76 Lee Allen, Cooperstown Corner: Columns from The Sporting News (Cleveland, OH: SABR, 1990), 164.

77 Davis, 28.

78 Davis, 27.

79 Curt Smith, Storied Stadiums (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002), 71.

Born October 14, 1871, in Berlin, Germany, to Carl Heinrich and Augusta (Baisenberg) Eiteljorg, Edward Henry was the third of the farmer and his wife’s four sons. The fourth was born in Greencastle, where Carl took up shoemaking. His children all appear to have finished high school, save for one. Albert became a dentist in Indianapolis; Charles was a respected businessman.1 The youngest son, Henry, died as a toddler in 1880.2

After high school, Ed Eiteljorg enrolled at DePauw University in Greencastle. He was a student there when he began pitching for Terre Haute in the Interstate League in 1889.3 This team won 20 of 25 games – and one paper said his name alone was intimidating. “Terre Haute has a pitcher named Eiteljorg. Printed in big letters on the scoreboard, it alone gives rival teams the horrors.”4 In the photo of the 1889 Terre Haute team below, Ed is seated at the lower right. Joe Cantillon, years before his days as a manager, sits behind Eiteljorg’s right shoulder.

At the end of the season, Eiteljorg earned a tryout with the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the National League, with whom he would eventually sign a contract for 1890. He defeated both Kansas City and Columbus in exhibition games. After beating Kansas City, an Indianapolis reporter wrote, “He is only eighteen years of age, but he pitched like a veteran, and after he had finished the game he could have put his name to a contract with either Manager (Jack) Glasscock or (Bill) Watkins.”5 However, Indianapolis closed up shop as 1890 began and sold off player rights and other assets.6

The Chicago Colts purchased the rights to Eiteljorg and brought him to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for spring training. The Chicago Tribune observed, “He is a big, strapping fellow and comes with a great reputation secured with several good semi-professional teams. … He is big and heavy and needs considerable work to get him in shape.”7 Baseball-Reference.com lists Eiteljorg at 6-feet-2 and 190 pounds. When he first pitched for the Cubs, however, the Chicago Inter Ocean gave his height as just 5-feet-10, though the gap in weight was minor (the story showed 186 pounds).8

As for his mound technique, a later article in the Kansas City Times noted that the righthander “has a very rapid and very quick delivery and fields his position passably well.”9 He was a pretty fair athlete – he won a 100-yard dash while with Kansas City in 1892.10

After easy wins over Pittsburgh in an early series, Cap Anson decided to give Eiteljorg a start against the Pirates on May 2, 1890. Eiteljorg got through the first inning without a scratch, but the second inning got out of hand quickly. Pittsburgh scored five runs, with John Kelty’s triple being the big hit of the inning. When Eiteljorg gave up a single and a walk to open the third, Anson pulled him for a reliever. (Eiteljorg is given credit for having faced 12 batters on Baseball-Reference.com, but it’s actually 14.)11

Within days, Eiteljorg was sent out for more professional experience. The Colts farmed him to Evansville of the Interstate League – which caused a little disturbance because some teams felt it was unfair for a player who’d signed a contract with a major league team to play for a minor league club.12 Eiteljorg pitched remarkably well for Evansville, winning 22 of 30 decisions, completing all 30 of his starts, and pitching in relief three other times.

As the season ended in the Interstate League, Eiteljorg didn’t return to the Colts. Rather, he signed with the Omaha Lambs of the Western Association. In one of his first starts for Omaha, he was pitching in Minneapolis when the crowd called him “Idle George” and asked the youthful-looking hurler if his mother knew he was out playing. Minneapolis took an early lead, but Eiteljorg settled in. While his teammates rallied to take the lead (Ed himself had two hits), he fanned eight batters in the last five innings to earn the win.13

Later that month, on September 28, he participated in a rare tripleheader between Omaha and St. Paul. In the first game, Eiteljorg played center field and got a hit in a 7-5 Omaha win. In the second game he pitched a complete (albeit sloppy) game in a 15-7 win. He added a hit and a run to his batting totals in that game, too. Then, in the third contest, he had four hits including a home run. He started in right field before taking the mound and earning the win in relief of a game called by darkness with Omaha leading 16-11.14

Overall, Eiteljorg pitched well enough in a handful of starts to get a contract for the 1891 season. An odd story of his playing days, which likely dates from 1891, was told in 1922. According to lore, during a tie game with a runner at third base, Eiteljorg chose to give a pass to John Pickett. Pickett had a reputation as a hard hitter; with the winning run on third, he worked the count such that Eiteljorg thought he had a better chance to pick him off first base than get him out with a pitch. So, Pickett drew the walk. Eiteljorg had a good move to first, but not good enough this game, and Pickett realized he was in Eiteljorg’s head. So, he started yelling things at Eiteljorg and eventually walked toward him as if to fight. Eiteljorg left the mound toward Pickett – and at some point, he calmly tagged Pickett out.

Pickett started laughing. The catcher had been yelling, “Throw the ball home!” With Eiteljorg not paying attention, the runner at third started running and easily scored the winning run.15 (John Pickett played for Kansas City in the Western Association in 1891, the same year Eiteljorg pitched for Omaha. It’s the only season where it was possible for the two to face each other.  In going through box scores of Omaha-Kansas City games, a game meeting this description could not be identified.)

Eiteljorg pitched well for Omaha, winning 18 of 26 decisions with an excellent 1.68 ERA. Eiteljorg knew how well he was doing; in June he and two others threatened to leave Omaha for Louisville of the American Association.16  Perhaps those three knew that Omaha, despite a league-leading record, was having financial issues.  Many players, including Eiteljorg, left the club in mid-July for other teams right as executives had supposedly found a way to fund operations for the remainder of the season.17  Yet Omaha (along with five other teams) didn’t finish the 1891 season and the Western Association folded that fall.18 

Upon leaving Omaha, Eiteljorg signed with the Washington Statesmen, a poor club near the bottom of the American Association standings – but which had come to be managed by Dan Shannon, the former skipper of the Omaha Lambs.

There, the husky righthander struggled along with his team. He won just once, losing five other decisions, in his eight appearances (seven starts) with Washington. His 6.16 ERA was bad enough, but the dreadful fielding behind him meant that he allowed 67 total runs in his 61.1 innings. Also fueling this tally was control; he walked 41 batters, nearly twice as many as he struck out. Eiteljorg’s explanation for his poor pitching was that he was immediately discouraged by watching Washington lose. “I was there a week before I went in the box and a week’s watching of the kind of baseball the ‘senators’ played was enough for me. It was something awful. They gave a pitcher no support at all. When I went into the box I had no heart, knew I couldn’t win and, as a rule, I didn’t.”19

He did have one successful start, however. On August 22, 1891, he beat Baltimore in 11 innings, 3-2. In that game, he allowed but five hits, though he walked seven. Unfortunately, only 648 fans witnessed Eiteljorg’s lone major league victory.20

Omaha reorganized for the 1892 season with an entry in the Western League and demanded that all the players return to the franchise for that season. Eiteljorg was one of many players who refused to go to Omaha – so, at least for a short period of time, he was blacklisted.21 At some point, his ability to play was restored and he landed with another Western League club, Kansas City.

When the locals first met Eiteljorg, he made a wonderful impression. “Eddie Eiteljorg, the young man who is expected to be Kansas City’s mainstay in the box, is perhaps the nicest looking ball player who steps on a Western League diamond… He is a tall well-formed fellow and looks rather young. He has great speed and is the master of an excellent set of curves… It is pleasant to hear that he thinks Kansas City is the best town in the Western League, and that he would rather play here than in any of the western cities.”22

Here, Eiteljorg was good but not good enough on a poor team, finishing with a 7-13 record in 20 starts and one relief appearance, despite a 2.33 ERA. Most of his problems were tied to his wildness. In one start against Toledo, for example, he walked a dozen batters.23 A few weeks later, the Kansas City Star said, “Eiteljorg was as erratic in his delivery as usual, and when he did get the balls over the plate, the Toledos rapped him hard… Eiteljorg was expected to be the star pitcher of the Blues, but his work has been very disappointing of late, and a little lay off without pay would probably have a good effect in putting into pitching form.”24 In that game, he walked 11 batters and served up two homers.

At that point, he was moved to left field. “And, by the way, that’s where Eiteljorg ought to play whenever it is convenient,” wrote the Kansas City Times a couple of weeks later. “The way he used his bat yesterday showed what a desirable man he is to have about. He made a two bagger and a home run. His home run hit was a terrific drive over the left field fence between left and center field. He made two other long drives which were caught. It certainly cannot hurt the outfield to let Eiteljorg play there, for, as constituted now, Kansas City has the worst outfield on the face of the earth, bar none. (Art) Sunday alone plays the game.”25

For what it’s worth, the right-handed-hitting Eiteljorg tied for the team lead in home runs with three on the season (he batted .243 with the fourth-highest slugging percentage on the team), and his control got better in the final weeks of the season. He even pitched a four-hit shutout to beat Omaha in June.26 However, Kansas City folded in July and Eiteljorg didn’t sign with another team for the remainder of the season.27 For the near future, Eiteljorg’s pitching would be on low-level minor-league or amateur teams.

The summer of 1893 saw Eiteljorg pitching with Muncie in the Indiana-Illinois League, despite rumors of his signing to pitch in the South or the East.28 However, for the most part Eiteljorg spent much of 1893 and 1894 playing some amateur baseball and working a family farm. On August 9, 1893, Ed married Virginia Richmond Hammond.

In 1895, Eiteljorg started the season playing for Terre Haute – either pitching or playing in the outfield.29 By midsummer, he was pitching for an amateur team in the small town of Kansas, Illinois – which happens to be about the same distance west of Terre Haute as Greencastle is east of Terre Haute. “Eiteljorg… has had a little League experience, but at the time he was tried out by the major organization was a raw, green, undeveloped boy. Since then he has developed into a splendid specimen of the strong, trim, clean-built athlete. Under the tutelage of an intelligent manager he would undoubtably blossom into a fine pitcher.” That Kansas team went undefeated with Eiteljorg pitching in every game, leading to a brief resurgence of his professional career.30

Eiteljorg was picked up by Grand Rapids of the Western League. He didn’t impress in his first start, a loss to Columbus where Eiteljorg was removed in the third inning.31 That led to comments that he wouldn’t last the season in the Western League.32 Again, erratic control was the problem. On a May 14, 1896, start against Minneapolis, Eiteljorg walked a dozen batters – even though the game was called in the seventh inning because of rain.33 When not on the mound, he would play right field as needed.

By late May, his arm was bothering him.34 By late June, predictions of Eiteljorg’s demise were correct. He was released and signed to pitch for Terre Haute in the Indiana-Illinois League. He hurled there on and off between 1896 and 1899.35 With that, his days as a professional ended – he would pitch or play in amateur games and make a living as a farmer. He and Virginia had three children: Charlotte, Charles, and Edward. At some point around the turn of the century he also worked as a salesman at a local store.

Starting in 1902, Eiteljorg – who had umpired games as early as his late teens in local events – started umpiring collegiate baseball. He appeared behind the plate for games between many of the Indiana-based universities, including Notre Dame, Purdue, Indiana, and his hometown DePauw.36 He had to take a brief break in 1903, however, when Purdue hired him as an assistant coach to help turn around a losing streak.37

Somewhere after his baseball days were over, Eiteljorg became Eiteljorge. His brother, Albert, used Eiteljorge in advertisements for his dental practice. Charles also changed his name during his adulthood. Perhaps Ed followed suit when he became more active in civic matters. He served as a Greencastle township trustee and secretary of the library board.38 More importantly, he served as a deputy and later the sheriff of Putnam County for a handful of years (and then deputy for a second time). In one story, his wife Virginia heard the scratching of a key along the floor. She caught a prisoner trying to use an improvised hook to steal the jail key – requiring that her husband find a new location to hang the extra key.39

Late in 1942 Eiteljorge began showing signs of decline due to arteriosclerosis. On December 5, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage; he passed to the next league that afternoon. He is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Greencastle next to his wife, Virginia, who preceded him in death in 1936.40

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Ray Danner.

Sources

1880, 1900, 1910, 1930, 1940 US Census
Ellis Island Arrivals and Crew Lists
Indiana Death Certificates (Edward, Augusta)
Indiana Marriage Index

Baseball-Reference.com

FindaGrave.com – Ed Eiteljorge

Facebook.com – This video shows the Terre Haute team image used here with names of players.

Ebay.com – This is the source of the 1889 Terre Haute team image.

Notes

1 C. S. Eiteljorge, Indianapolis News, September 18, 1947: 12. Advertisements for Albert’s dental practice can be found in various Indianapolis newspapers over a 40-year period.  While this is covered later in the article, the three Eiteljorg sons all changed the spelling of their names to Eiteljorge at some point in the early 1900s.

2 Henry’s final resting place can be found on FindaGrave.com.

3 “Diamond Dust,” University Kansan, November 15, 1889: 4.

4 “In the World of Sport,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 30, 1889: 2.

5 “A Coming Young Pitcher,” Indianapolis News, October 17, 1889: 2.

6 A brief note about this is included here: Bill Lamb, “Indianapolis Hoosiers team ownership history,” https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/indianapolis-hoosiers-federal-league-team-ownership-history/ accessed December 29, 2023.

7 “Eiteljorg Reports,” Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1890: 6.

8 “Hecker Slightly Happy,” Chicago Inter Ocean, May 3, 1890: 3.

9 “Composition of the Teams,” Kansas City Times, March 18, 1892: 5.

10 “Eiteljorg the Fastest Man,” Kansas City Times, July 18, 1892: 3.

11 “Hecker Slightly Happy,” Chicago Inter Ocean, May 3, 1890: 3. Also, “Won the Last of the Series,” Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1890: 6.

12 “The Quincys Downed,” Evansville (Indiana) Courier, May 14, 1890: 4.

13 “Not So Green as He Looked,” Omaha Evening World-Herald, September 6, 1890: 5.

14 “Omaha, 7-15-16; St. Paul, 5-7-11,” Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, September 29, 1890: 2.

15 E. J. Bartley, “Baseball Freak Plays,” Pittsburgh Post, December 10, 1922: Section 3, Page 9.

16 “Jumped the Club,” Omaha World-Herald, June 7, 1891: 6.

17 “Omaha Will Play Big Ball,” Omaha World-Herald, July 21, 1891: 5.

18 Reach’s Official 1892 Base Ball Guide (1989 Reprint), Horton Publishing Company, 26-27. 

19 Kansas City Times, April 1, 1892: 2. (Article title is not visible thanks to age at time of image capture.)

20 “Made It Three Straight,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 23, 1891: 3.

21 “Will Not Take Chances,” Boston Globe, January 24, 1892: 16.

22 Kansas City Times, April 1, 1892: 2.

23 “Warm Welcome for Pears,” Kansas City Times, April 28, 1892: 2.

24 “A Game in Rain and Mud,” Kansas City Star, May 14, 1892: 3.

25 “Won By Very Hard Hitting,” Kansas City Times, May 27, 1892: 2.

26 “Two Games from Omaha,” Kansas City Times, June 4, 1892: 2.

27 “The Blues Scattering,” Kansas City Star, July 25, 1892: 3.

28 “Retrieved,” Muncie (Indiana) Morning News, June 21, 1893: 8.

29 “The Pitcher Was Amusing,” Indianapolis Journal, April 13, 1895: 3.

30 “A Tip for Diddlebock,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 19, 1896: 5.

31 “Baseball,” Muncie Evening Press, April 23, 1896: 3.

32 “Baseball Notes,” Indianapolis Journal, April 24, 1896: 3.

33 “Too Soft to Miss,” St. Paul Globe, May 15, 1896: 6.

34 “Blues Batted Out Victory,” Kansas City Times, May 24, 1896: 3.

35 “An Error Saved Shut-Out for Muncie,” Indianapolis Journal, June 23, 1899: 6.

36 “Depauw Gets Game by Forfeit,” Chicago Tribune, June 7, 1904: 8.  Also, “Could Not Stop Them, Indianapolis Journal, May 3, 1902: 2, and “Aided by Errors, I. U. Defeated Purdue,” Indianapolis Journal, May 24, 1904: 8.

37 “New Coach at Purdue,” Indianapolis Journal, May 23, 1903: 2.

38 “Legal Status of Board Is Questioned,” Daily Reporter (Martinsville, Indiana), March 19, 1937: 1.  Also, “Rites Held for Mary Morgan,” Indianapolis News, October 10, 1936: 9.

39 “Prisoners Try to Hook Key,” Indianapolis Times, May 24, 1929: 36.

40 “Rites Held for Mary Morgan,” Indianapolis News, October 10, 1936: 9.

His passion didn’t lead to financial success, however. Fuchs was a fan first and was beloved by the Boston community as a caring philanthropist and man of integrity while his team was an annual disappointment. He certainly tried, marketing the game to female fans and children, tapping into the new medium of radio, fighting for Sunday baseball against New England’s Puritan culture, and saving money by naming himself manager. Fuchs operated in the shadow of Tom Yawkey, the wealthy owner of the Red Sox across town, who had gobs of money to acquire superstars and renovate Fenway Park. “Fuchs was a fan who tried hard to be an owner…to be a manager, a financier, and a public-relations man,” wrote Harold Kaese. “He was successful as a public-relations man.”3

Emil Edwin Fuchs was born on April 17, 1878, in Bromberg, Germany, to Hermann and Henrietta (Wollenberg) Fuchs, Orthodox Jews who immigrated to New York City. Hermann arrived in 1883 and worked as a chemist for the Eimer & Amend Company and later ran his own syrup manufacturing business.4 Henrietta and her five sons joined him a year later. Emil had four brothers: Berthold, Oscar, Benjamin, and William. The family lived on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in University Settlement housing, a place where the swelling immigrant population could find refuge.5

Fuchs first learned to play baseball as a boy at Maspeth Park in Queens. At 13 he became the catcher on the University Settlement House team. He later played for the City College of New York, then minor league ball in the short-lived New Jersey State League in 1897. An injury ended his playing career.6 Fuchs attended evening classes at New York University Law School, passed the bar exam, and began his law practice in 1899.

Fuchs worked his way up to prominence through public service in New York City, clerking for the Deputy Attorney General before holding that position himself from 1902 to 1906.7 His political connections included prominent Democrats, such as future mayors Al Smith, Jimmy Walker, and Fiorello LaGuardia. Fuchs’s title of “judge” came from his one term of service as New York City Magistrate 1917-1918.8

Fuchs married Aurelia “Oretta” Marcovich on June 15, 1909. Oretta was the daughter of Henry and Rose (Trauber) Marcovich, immigrants from Jassy (also called Lassi or Lasi), a city in eastern Romania.

Fuchs operated an office on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan and was involved in many prominent law cases. He gained the reputation as an expert in election law. At one time Fuchs even represented humorist Will Rogers when the legend worked for the Ziegfeld Follies. The Judge allegedly wrote up the contract when Rogers purchased his first horse. In 1919 he defended legendary gambler and mob kingpin Arnold Rothstein, who held a high-stakes poker game with 19 other gamblers. When the police knocked at the door, Rothstein fired bullets, injuring officers, then fled to the fire escape. He was apprehended but, no surprise, the other gamblers claimed he was never there. Rothstein paid bail for all 20 of them. With no witnesses or other evidence that Rothstein fired the gun, Fuchs called for dismissal. “The record is barren of any evidence tending directly or indirectly to connect the defendant with the commission of any crime” he said.9 Rothstein was freed, and Fuchs never lived down the fact that he had successfully defended the man who fixed the 1919 World Series, dubbed the “Black Sox Scandal.”

Fuchs represented New York Governor Charles S. Whitman in a failed ballot recount in his re-election bid.10 “The Judge represented the powerful and the powerless,” his son, Robert, wrote in 1998. “Saints and sinners, millionaires and misfits, toting up an enviable record. He was one of the world’s most cosmopolitan men in the most cosmopolitan city on the face of the earth.”11 Fuchs also represented the New York Giants, including outfielder Benny Kauff in an automobile theft case, and a drunken close friend, John McGraw, who was guilty of connecting with a right cross.12

McGraw and Fuchs were socializing at the Lambs Club in New York City, a popular city attraction.13 Also present were actor and songwriter George M. Cohan, famous for the WWI song “Over There,” and noted concessions operator Harry M. Stevens, who made a fortune when he realized a hotdog at a ballgame was a winning idea.

“Why, there’s George Washington Grant,” McGraw exclaimed, pointing out the owner of the Boston Braves. “Did you know you can buy his ball club for half a million dollars?”14 Grant was the “derby-wearing, cane-carrying,” prosperous cinema owner who had owned the Braves since 1919 and was another friend of McGraw.15 Grant, a successful promoter of theaters and motion pictures, had been losing money since he had purchased the club. Once asked about selling the club, he remarked, “I will sell anything I have but my family, if I got my price.”16 McGraw, turning to Fuchs, asked, “Judge, why don’t you buy it?” Fuchs showed interest, with one condition.

“John, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Fuchs said. “One of my friends and idols is Christy Mathewson, in whom I have not only admiration but every confidence.” Matthewson, the legendary Giants pitching ace, won a remarkable 373 games and compiled a 0.97 ERA in 11 World Series games. At that time, Matty was retired from the game and suffering from tuberculosis due to his service in World War I. He lived at Saranac Lake in upstate New York under the care of physicians. “I’d buy the Braves if I could continue my law practice and he’d be general manager and president.”17 Mathewson accepted the position of club president and treasurer despite his doctor’s warnings that it would cut short his life expectancy.18 James MacDonough, a New York banker, and Albert H. Powell, a millionaire through coal and real estate, also joined the duo in purchasing the Braves for a reported $300,000.19 Fuchs became vice president. Not much changed on the field, however, as the Braves finished 1923 at 54-100, 41½ games behind the Giants.

Fuchs and Mathewson sought a more entertaining product to increase revenue. They signed a contract with Marcus Loew, motion picture entrepreneur and vaudeville magnate. The Boston Herald reported that Loew was to “stage night motion pictures, band concerts, fireworks and vaudeville at Braves Field this summer.”20 On June 25, a crowd of 8,000 came to enjoy the dancing, the stars of stage and screen, and the movie Trifling with Honor shown on two large screens. The events continued throughout the summer of 1923, but then suddenly stopped, likely due to financial reasons.21 The 1923 season was also the beginning of Ladies’ Day at Braves Field, when women could enter the ballpark free of charge.22 This would become a regular feature at both Braves Field and Fenway Park for years to come.

The 1924 Braves finished 53-100, but the team improved in 1925 to 70-83, their most wins in four years. The inaugural baseball game broadcast from Boston was heard on WBZ from Braves Field on Opening Day, April 14.23 While many club owners hesitated at the new technology, Fuchs saw the medium’s great potential, and was willing to pay for the broadcasts out of his own pocket.24

Fuchs was in Pittsburgh for the 1925 World Series when he learned Mathewson had died.25 The Boston Board of Directors met on October 21 and officially installed Fuchs as club president.26 The club suffered two awful seasons in 1926-27 (66-86 and 60-94).

In August 1926, Fuchs bought out the stock holdings of Powell. “The Boston Braves franchise is now considered to be worth a million dollars,” the Boston Herald reported.27 In May of 1927, Fuchs sold his extra shares to Charles F. Adams, V.C. Bruce Wetmore, and Charles F. Farnsworth, with Adams being the major shareholder. Adams was well known in the Boston area for success in the grocery business and as president of the Boston Bruins hockey club.28 His success would one day lead to his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.29

The new ownership was committed to spending money, but no one expected the shocking trade in which the Braves acquired six-time National League batting champion Rogers Hornsby. His reported $35,000 salary was “more money than any two non-managing Boston players ever received,” according to Herald sportswriter Burt Whitman.30 Fuchs and Adams needed to “dig down deeply as a result of the trade. But they are living up to their promises to strengthen the Braves when they could see a means of doing it, regardless of the cost.”31 Hornsby also became the player-manager early in the season, replacing Jack Slattery.32

Fuchs moved in the fences at Braves Field, hopefully to provide more home runs for the Braves. He said Braves Field was “where the outfielders needed motorcycles to retrieve drives between the outfielders.”33 Soon, however, the opponents were the ones slamming the home runs, causing Fuchs to add a wire netting.34 The anonymous writer of the “Bob Dunbar” column in the Boston Herald joked the new slogan of Braves Field should be “Buy a 75-cent left field bleacher seat and get a baseball free.”35 In June, a 30-foot canvas was erected above the left-field fence.36 In July the fences were moved back again.37

Hornsby won another batting title, but the Braves finished 50-103. Needing cash more than a legend, Fuchs sold Hornsby in November to the Cubs for $200,000, the most money ever spent in baseball history at the time, and “five machine-guns from Chicago,” the witty Will Rogers joked.38

November 1928 was quite the month. On the ballot in Massachusetts was a referendum on allowing professional sports to be played on Sunday. Massachusetts law dating from 1692 restricted recreation on Sunday.39 In 1920, the law was tweaked to allow amateur sports to be held on Sundays with some restrictions.40 Local towns were also free to make their own laws concerning Sunday sports.41 Fuchs and Adams supported a grassroots movement to collect signatures to get the issue on the ballot.42 The plan failed on a clerical error in 1926, but voters approved the measure in 1928.43 The plan now had to pass the Boston City Council, and Fuchs and Adams claimed they had been solicited for bribes by the council for favorable votes.44 The Boston Finance Commission also discovered that the Outdoor Recreation League, which supported Sunday sports and to which Fuchs contributed, had illegally spent $30,000 on campaigning, with all or most of the money coming from Fuchs while questionable donor names were listed. Around 5,000 tickets to Braves games were found to have an advertisement on the back for a political candidate who favored the Sunday bill.45 The Braves were fined $1,000 in municipal court for “charging the expenditure of money to influence the vote of a question submitted to the voters.”46 Adams sought to salvage the Judge’s reputation before the Boston Finance Committee by submitting letters from notable politicians, baseball icons, and others who are household names even today, such as Charles Schwab and Robert Guggenheim.47 Fuchs did later admit he probably contributed $200,000 of his own money towards the Sunday bill.48 But, Sunday baseball was now a reality in Boston.

Fuchs could put his mind to other matters, like becoming manager of the Braves. “These are the ingredients of the most sensational and most unusual baseball story which has broken in Boston in many and many a year,” Burt Whitman wrote in the Boston Herald.49 Fuchs figured if the Braves were going to have another losing season, “I can do it a lot more cheaply.”50 He surrounded himself with knowledgeable baseball people such as coach Johnny Evers. “If I don’t make good,” Fuchs reportedly said, “no one will realize it quicker than I, and it will be perfectly simple for me to remove myself as manager.”51 It wasn’t that simple. While the Braves started 9-4, they quickly fell apart. But it was surely memorable. When Evers asked what his manager thought a batter should do on a 3-1 count, take or swing, Fuchs responded, “Tell him to hit a home run.”52 The Braves finished 56-98, their sixth straight losing season since Fuchs took primary ownership. Attendance improved to 372,351, thanks in part to the Sunday games, which accounted for a quarter of the attendance.53

As 1930 rolled around, according to the census that year, the Fuchs family lived in an apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. The family included Oretta, sons Robert S. and Job E, daughter Helen, and a servant named Elizabeth Turpin. Fuchs also decided he had enough of managing and brought in veteran Bill McKechnie, who had prior success in Pittsburgh and St. Louis.54 The team improved to 70-84, helped by rookie slugger Wally Berger, then fell to 64-90 in 1931 but saw a franchise-best 464,835 fans pour into Braves Field, helped by a 2-for-1 Sunday doubleheader deal.

The team finished 77-77 in 1932, their best record since 1921. The 507,606 fans, half of which attended Sunday games, saw the Braves in the pennant hunt into August. Fuchs also held a “Jobless Carnival” to raise money for the unemployed.55 The barnstorming bearded men of the House of David visited for an exhibition game, bringing their portable lighting system. It was the first baseball game played by artificial light in Boston.56 According to Robert Fuchs, the success of the Braves attracted the interest of automobile tycoon Henry Ford, who visited a Braves-Tigers exhibition game and made the Judge an offer to buy the Braves. “My father would not have sold his then first-division team to Henry Ford when that industrial titan personally scouted the Braves,” Robert recalled, citing his father’s love of Boston. “Ford would have moved the Braves to Detroit.”57 Fuchs was also once approached with an offer by Joseph Kennedy, father of future President John F. Kennedy.58

Fuchs increased the number of lowest-priced seats at Braves Field in 1933 and extended the 1,500-seat 50-cent “Jury Box” section in right field to 5,200 seats. The Judge also changed the regular Ladies’ Day Games from Friday to Saturday, since many women were working on the weekdays.59 He also changed the times of Saturday games to 2 PM “out of consideration of women employed in offices and department stores, and who have a week-end half-holiday.”60 Fuchs had another reason for the time change: stockbrokers. “They come into town to watch the tickers from 10 to 12 on Saturday,” he said. “If they could grab a quick lunch at that time and come to the ballpark, they would. Rather than wait around until three o’clock for the game to start, they go home to lunch. Once they get home, they can’t find an excuse to come back into the city. They get nailed to mow the lawn or hoe the weeds out of the garden.”61

The Braves broke their attendance record again in 1933 (517,803) and hung around the pennant race until late August. On August 31 fans packed Braves Field for a six-game series with the Giants, who had a six-game lead. A Friday doubleheader on September 1 saw 60,000 pennant-starved fans pack Braves Field while another 15,000 were turned away.62 The Braves’ 83 wins in 1933 were their most since 1916. But their attendance would not reach such heights again until 1946, the last season in which the Braves would outdraw the Red Sox. The Red Sox’ millionaire owner Tom Yawkey was renovating Fenway Park and buying star players such as Lefty Grove, Joe Cronin, and Jimmie Foxx. The Judge had new competition in his own city. The Braves continued to struggle. NL owners met on June 20 to discuss details of the first annual All-Star game and also discussed Fuchs and the Braves’ finances.

On July 8, James C. O’Leary of the Boston Globe reported that the Braves were in financial turmoil and a shakeup in ownership was inevitable. “Some time ago,” O’Leary wrote, “according to the best available unofficial information, Judge Fuchs, needing ready money — as who hasn’t in these times? — borrowed it and put up as security part of his Braves stock.”63 Fuchs had borrowed money from Adams, the figures of which varied from report to report, but were around $250,000. Adams loaned Fuchs the money in cash, not even writing up any paperwork until later. “If I didn’t have confidence in you, I wouldn’t join with you,” Adams said.64 Fuchs put his own stock up as collateral.65 The first payment due was reported by both the Globe and the Herald to be $100,000.66

The Braves of 1934 finished in fourth place at 78-73 but attendance dropped to 303,205, a 214,598 decline. Fuchs reported the Braves had made $500,000 between 1929 and 1933, but most of the revenue had been put right back into the club. The team was a financial disaster by the end of 1934.67

Horse- and dog-racing were a growing craze around the country at the time. Both Rockingham Park in Salem, New Hampshire, and Narragansett Park in Rhode Island were attracting massive crowds. Massachusetts voters passed a referendum allowing pari-mutuel betting on both horses and greyhounds.68 Fuchs envisioned using Braves Field to host greyhound racing.69 A five-sixteenths of a mile portable track would run along the outer edges of the field. “It would not interfere with baseball at all,” Fuchs said.70 The Braves would continue to play baseball during the day and a separate organization would host the dog races at night. Although no horse racing track could come within a 15-mile radius of the Boston city limits, entrepreneurs were seeking greyhound racing permits. Fuchs and the Braves Board of Directors submitted the application.71

Fuchs had previously spoken with Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis concerning the greyhounds. Landis replied that he would “look into it.”72 Fuchs considered Landis to be open to the idea and not opposed. When Fuchs’s plans were revealed to the press, however, Landis changed his tune and threatened to quit if such a thing became a reality.73

“Absolutely preposterous,” was the similar response from Ford C. Frick, the NL President-elect.74 “It is entirely at variance with the principles for which baseball has battled so strenuously…Organized baseball has outlawed players for gambling and it is ridiculous to conceive that baseball now could permit a sport founded on gambling to move into the same premises with it.”75 The Associated Press reported that sentiments from club owners were also negative toward the plan.76

“It looks as though I’ve already talked too much,” Fuchs said upon arriving in New York City for baseball’s winter meetings. “I am not combating anybody. In Boston we have a proposition that looks very good to us and one that will in no way cast any reflections on baseball. But I am still confident that when other owners have heard my complete story they will take another view of the situation.”77 Another issue was the lease on Braves Field. The club paid $40,000 per year in rent to the estate of former team owner James Gaffney. The Braves would have to sub-lease the field, adding another complication to the plan.78

Sensing the opposition, Fuchs never let the owners even vote on his proposal. “Nothing will be done by me which will embarrass baseball or the National League,” he said after meeting with NL club owners. “Under the constitution of the National League, betting, legal or otherwise, is prohibited in its ballparks, where baseball is played. I have and always will abide by the constitution of the National League.”79

Soon after the winter meetings, Fuchs revealed that he owed $289,000 to Adams but had paid off $210,000 of it.80 But the issue of dog racing didn’t go away. In January 1935, the Boston Kennel Club submitted an application for a license to run the dog races at Braves Field, ignoring the negative opinions from the National League.81 The Commonwealth Realty Trust, the holding company of the Gaffney estate and the current landlords of Braves Field, even told Ford Frick that the league had no authority in such matters and believed dog racing was “a better investment in the way of a lease than baseball.”82 Commonwealth Realty also revealed that the Braves had violated their lease through late rental payments. “We no longer consider the Braves as our tenant,” said Arthur C. Wise, treasurer. “They have not lived up to the terms of their lease and we have declared it broken. We are now negotiating with the Boston Kennel Club, Inc., and a lease is in the process of being written.”83 If such were true, the Braves would be homeless.

Rumors then began that Fuchs could work out a deal with Yawkey to use Fenway Park when the Red Sox were idle or on the road. Yawkey had no such intentions. “Fenway Park is not available as a place of refuge,” he affirmed.84 Baltimore and Montreal were both mentioned as cities longing for a major-league franchise that would gladly welcome the Braves. 85 Frick called an emergency meeting of National League club owners on January 18. After a long session, a resolution was reached. “We believe that the Boston baseball public will be entirely satisfied with the solution to the problem,” read the statement from Frick, Fuchs, and Adams.86

Frick announced the National League had acquired the 11-year lease on Braves Field from the Gaffney Estate.87 Frick now desperately sought new ownership for the Braves and Fuchs was cooperative. “I am willing to sacrifice my equity in the Boston club if by so doing I can save the other stockholders from any loss through their investment in the club since I have been connected with it,” he said. “I am willing to lose everything I have to insure my associates against loss.”88 “If it is deemed necessary or advisable to get somebody else to run the Braves, who can do it better than I can, I’ll help in every way possible. I want it understood that there is no bitterness on my part and no malice.”89

Fuchs’s financial obligations to Adams were due by February 5 for him to retain control of the team. Financial shortfalls meant there was not enough money to even begin spring training. His friend and Massachusetts governor, James Michael Curley, promised “to use his influence with Boston bankers on behalf of the judge to get an extension of the notes that fall due next week.”90 “It is generally recognized,” wrote the report in the Herald, “that the morale of the players is at a low ebb, and that former patrons of the Braves have turned to the popular Red Sox for their baseball entertainment.”91 Fuchs and Adams met at the Massachusetts State House with Curley, Boston Mayor Frederick Mansfield, and Attorney General Paul A. Dever to discuss financial options for the club.92 The plan agreed upon was to encourage fans to buy advanced sales of tickets and provide cash for the club to get on its feet.93

The plan was an immediate success, with $30,000 raised by February 1 through fans purchasing five-game block tickets. Curley himself bought 100 books, and the Plymouth Rubber Company bought 1000 tickets for Opening Day.94 Additional revenue was planned with opera performances being held at Braves Field in July and August.95

National League owners met again on February 5 and agreed to allow Fuchs to remain as Braves owner. The $43,400 raised at that point in ticket sales and an additional $10,000 in cash was enough money to keep the team afloat. “The judge painted a picture of New England fandom rallying to the support of his Braves,” wrote Whitman. “It is now up to him [Fuchs] to see if he can keep things going.”96 Then, Colonel Jacob Ruppert of the Yankees came calling. Rumors had been floating around the baseball world since at least 1933 that Babe Ruth wanted to become a manager. Ruth had recently managed the team of all-stars that toured the Orient, under the guidance of Connie Mack. Some saw this as a managerial trial for Ruth.97 Ruppert couldn’t afford to jettison the greatest icon in the history of the game and bear the brunt of an unforgiving public. Fuchs’s situation was a gift to Ruppert, who would gladly give Ruth an opportunity to manage. Fuchs was not willing to commit to such an agreement, being content with Bill McKechnie, but was willing to give him the titles of assistant manager and vice president.98 “The contract was a last hurrah in the face of extinction,” Wayne Soini and Robert Fuchs wrote. “It had been years since Ruth could command such a salary and years since the Judge could pay for it, but none of this mattered to either of them. Both looked for a second wind, a rebirth, a miracle at Braves Field in 1935.”99

The Bambino was cheered as a heroic native son returning home. “Boston Fans Hail Ruth’s Return: Babe is Coming to Braves for Three Years as Player and Official,” was the front-page headline in the Boston Globe.100 “It looks like a masterful stroke of business for the Boston club,” O’Leary praised.101 The Herald declared it one of the greatest events in American history. “The old colony has seen many an important paper signed in its 300-odd years history, beginning with the Mayflower Pact, and last night another joined that great list when the Babe signed for three years.”102 The euphoria over the Babe’s return quickly gave way to a still unsustainable financial situation. The farfetched hopes of Ruth saving the franchise were already remote in early May. Fuchs owed payments to Adams on May 13 and August 1. By the time Fuchs gave the Braves a “fight talk” on May 14, threatening major changes unless play improved, the team was already 6-14 and Ruth was hitting .171 with two home runs.103 Ruth felt obligated to try to help Fuchs and the team through his presence as a box office attraction, but confided in friends that he should just retire.

Ruth sought permission from Fuchs to attend a reception on the French luxury liner Normandie, on its maiden voyage, when it docked in New York City. Fuchs refused, saying Ruth’s place was with the team. “I do not have to put up with this sort of treatment,” Ruth blasted. He called a press conference while a game was in progress on June 2. “I will not return to the Braves so long as Fuchs remains in control of the club,” he promised.104 Fuchs had actually informed Ruth of his release on June 1. “I am very sorry that Babe is not more of a sportsman and is not putting the blame where it belongs,” Fuchs said. “He can do his most for baseball right out there on the playing field.”105 The Braves finished the season 38-115 with a .248 winning percentage, the second-lowest percentage of any team in the 20th century.

The end of Ruth also spelled doom for the Judge. Fuchs acknowledged the team was nearly bankrupt. “So far as I am concerned,” he confessed, “I am unable to provide such capital, as I have exhausted every personal financial means. My heart and soul is for Boston and New England. They deserve the best, and it occurred to me that it may be my situation, just described, that is handicapping the course. I am willing to sacrifice the large equity I have in the Braves.”106

The August 1 deadline was approaching and Fuchs hurriedly tried to find a buyer for the Braves. He failed and resigned on that date, turning over full control of the club to Adams. Fuchs’s equity in the club was listed at $400,000.107 The reorganized Braves, briefly called the Bees, would survive in Boston for another 18 years and make it to the 1948 World Series. The franchise would relocate to Milwaukee in 1953 and later Atlanta.

Fuchs was named by Governor Curley as chairman of the Unemployment Compensation Commission of Massachusetts, a role in which he served until 1938. Fuchs made $6,500 a year.108 His expertise in law led him to host a program on WNAC radio entitled “The Social Security Act and How it Affects New England.”109 “I’m in a position which holds open the door to give a little consolation to the fellow who is out of work,” Fuchs said in 1938.”110

Financial problems were still a reality for Fuchs — he filed for bankruptcy in September 1938, reporteing$263,299 in liabilities and no assets.111 In 1939 Fuchs and son Robert opened a law practice together on Beacon Street.112 They practiced together until Robert joined the National Labor Relations Board in 1948 (whether the Judge retired or maintained a practice part-time is unknown). Both the 1940 census and Fuchs’s WWII draft card listed the family living at the Hotel Victoria on Dartmouth Street. In the winter of 1942, Fuchs wrote a column in the Boston Globe entitled, “The Judge on the Bench,” a series of “First-told tales of the diamond…the inside story of big deals…humor, pathos of the great game.”113

Fuchs was still a regular sight at Braves home games until the club was moved to Milwaukee, as well as Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, and the Suffolk Downs racetrack. “Although his legs were tender,” wrote Hy Hurwitz of the Boston Globe in 1961, “the Judge climbed to the press box roof at Fenway Park last summer. He cherished the privileges extended him by the Red Sox, although he had been a rival club owner at one time.”114

“The Judge,” remembered Murray Kramer of the Boston Record American, “sitting in a corner of the press box with his inevitable cigar and cane, was a familiar figure to every sports writer. His memory was amazing. Any time a situation called for facts out of the past, everybody went to the Judge and he had them stored away in his mind as though he had a filing system there.”115 Fuchs made his way to the Red Sox clubhouse on September 28, 1960, to shake the hand of Ted Williams, who closed out his legendary career with a home run in his final at-bat.116

Judge Fuchs died in Boston of coronary thrombosis on December 5, 1961, after a 10-week illness.117 He is buried at Sharon Memorial Park in Sharon, Massachusetts.118 Oretta was a semi-invalid in their later years and the Judge “was noted for his devotion to her,” the Herald wrote.119 “He was the greatest fan of baseball,” wrote Fuchs biographer Wayne Soini. “He was the Walter Mitty of baseball,” he said, referring to the daydreaming literary character. “Every fan’s fantasy of being the owner or manager of a major-league team became his life, without regret.”120

The Sporting News summarized Fuchs’s legacy well: “His career was not a bright one. There is this, though, to be said. With his own resources, he kept alive a franchise that would have collapsed. He kept it in Boston, where the Braves lasted for almost two more decades before the franchise was moved to Milwaukee. For these efforts, baseball should be grateful to Emil Fuchs, though futile and unrewarding was his role.”121

Each year the Boston Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) awards the Judge Emil Fuchs Memorial Award to a recipient for “long and meritorious service to baseball.”122

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Norman Macht and verified for accuracy by the BioProject fact-checking team.

Sources

Special thanks to Cassidy Lent, Reference Librarian at A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center, Cooperstown, New York, who provided the file on Judge Fuchs, and to Bob Brady of the Boston Braves Historical Association.

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author benefited from the following:

Baseball-reference.com

Bob LeMoine, “1934: The Reds Go Under The Lights While the Braves Go to the Dogs,” in Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings, Volume I: 1901-1957. Ed. Steve Weingarden & Bill Nowlin. (Phoenix: SABR, 2016), 232-239.

Bob LeMoine, “Boston Braves Ownership History,” SABR Team Ownership History Project.

Retrosheet.org

Notes

1 Harold Kaese. The Boston Braves 1871-1953. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1954), 193.

2 Carolyn Fuchs, interview with the author, March 25, 2019, April 2, 2019.

3 Kaese, 192.

4 “Hermann Fuchs,” New York Times, June 22, 1917: 12; Immigration year is according to the 1910 census.

5 Established in 1886, University Settlement was “a physical, psychological and spiritual haven where people of all ages, from all countries and every walk of life could seek advice, assistance, education or a simple respite from the harsh realities of everyday life,” according to the University Settlement website. Date accessed: July 5, 2018. https://universitysettlement.org/us/about/history/

6 No records seem to exist of the New Jersey State League, which lasted May-June of 1897 and other than some exhibition games listed, no championship games were played. Other sources say Fuchs played on a Morristown team, but no such team is listed in newspaper accounts of the league, which list Elizabeth, Trenton, Milville, Bridgeton, Asbury Park, and Atlantic City. New York Sun, April 13, 1897: 4; A later account said Fuchs sustained a broken bone in his shoulder from a wild pitch, but indicated this was on the sandlot and not in a professional game. “Judge Fuchs of Braves Fame Dies,” Boston Traveler, December 5, 1961: 62.

7 Letter by Fuchs’ son Robert S. Fuchs, addressed to the Baseball Hall of Fame, dated July 24, 1962; “Capt. Herlihy’s Trial,” New York Times, January 10, 1901: 2; “Supt. M’Cullagh’s Charge,” New York Times, February 6, 1902: 16; “Mathot Looks up a Case,” New York Times, August 11, 1906: 9.

8 “Curran Made a Magistrate,” New York Sun, May 4, 1917: 8.

9 Cited in David Pietrusza’s Rothstein: The Life, Times and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series. (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 140-145; “Man Accused of Shooting Two Detectives is Freed,” New York Tribune, July 25, 1919: 18.

10 “Whitman Case Goes to Highest Court,” Ithaca Journal, December 6, 1918: 1.

11 Robert S. Fuchs & Wayne Soini. Judge Fuchs and the Boston Braves. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1998), 11.

12 “Kauff Released on Bail,” New York Tribune, February 21, 1920: 8; David Jones, “Benny Kauff,” SABR BioProject. Date accessed, June 30, 2018. sabr.org/bioproj/person/4a224847; “Swann Summons M’Graw in Investigation to Learn Cause of Injury to Slavin,” The Evening World, August 10, 1920: 1; Bill Lamb, “New York Giants Ownership History.” SABR Team Ownership Histories Project. Retrieved June 30, 2018.

13 Harold Kaese, 190.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid, 181; Although never proven, the rumor was that Grant had received $100,000 from Giants owner Charles A. Stoneham to purchase the Braves. Grant was close with Stoneham, both having offices on Wall Street and private boxes next to each other at the Polo Grounds. This was one instance among many at the time in which there was an intimate familiarity between the upper managements of the Braves and Giants. Trades between the two teams did little to squash those conspiracy theories, since they always seemed to heavily favor the Giants.

16 G.W. Grant Buys Braves,” New York Times, January 31, 1919: 12; Gus Rooney, “Boston Fans Sorry at Passing of Grant,” The Sporting News, March 1, 1923: 1.

17 Fuchs & Soini, 21.

18 Fuchs & Soini, 24.

19 Some reports had $350,000, while the Associated Press reported MacDonough stated $500,000 (“Sale of Boston Team Involves Over $500,000,” Springfield Republican, February 22, 1923: 10). No official figure was given, but Grant said he “got his price to the last penny of his demands,” Hartford Courant, February 21, 1923: 12; Macdonough’s name is sometimes spelled without the “a.” His divorce proceedings in the 1933 New York Supreme Court minutes omit the “a.” https://tinyurl.com/y85gx9qj

20 “Marcus Loew Shows Matty the Dotted Line,” Boston Herald, May 1, 1923: 23; “Will Utilize Braves Field Summer Nights,” Boston Herald, June 3, 1923: 15.

21 “Electric Layout for Show is Vast. Lighting Loew Entertainment at Braves Field Big Task,” Boston Herald, July 15, 1923: 45.

22 “Women Have a Chance to See Braves Free Today,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1923: 10.

23 “WBZ Will Put Major League Game on Air Today, New Departure,” Springfield Republican, April 14, 1925: 1.

24 Wayne Soini, interview with the author.

25 Michael Hartley. Christy Mathewson: A Biography. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Press, 2004), 168.

26 “Judge Fuchs is Elected President of Braves to Fill Mathewson Vacancy,” Boston Herald, October 22, 1925: 13.

27 “Judge Fuchs Buys Out Powell’s One-Third Interest in Braves,” Boston Herald, September 1, 1926: 10.

28 Ibid, 12.

29 “Charles F. Adams: Historical Pioneer.” Vermont Sports Hall of Fame. https://vermontsportshall.com/2013adams.html (retrieved November 15, 2015); Bob Doherty, “The Somerville Times Historical Fact of the Week — January 22,” Somerville Times, January 22, 2014. Accessed July 7, 2018. https://thesomervilletimes.com/archives/46039;

30 Burt Whitman, “Braves Get Hornsby from Giants in Trade for Hogan and Welsh,” Boston Herald, January 11, 1928: 1.

31 Ibid.

32 Burt Whitman, “Hornsby New Manager of Braves. Jack Slattery Resigns From Tribal Berth,” Boston Herald, May 24, 1928: 1.

33 Burt Whitman, “Johnny Cooney Will Begin His Comeback Campaign at the Braves Camp After New Year,” Boston Herald, December 22, 1927: 15.

34 Burt Whitman, “Braves to Put High Wire Net on New Bleachers; Unwise to Move Stands This Year,” Boston Herald, April 29, 1928: 23.

35 “Bob Dunbar” column, Boston Herald April 23, 1928: 9.

36 “Braves to Erect 30-foot Canvas Screen on Top of New Bleachers,” Boston Herald, June 14, 1928: 15.

37 While dimensions varied in the accounts of the time, the left field fence was moved from 402.5 to 320 feet, center field from 461 to 387, and right field from 365 to 310. See Philip J. Lowry’s Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks. (New York: Walker & Company, 2006), 32. Kaese, 205, notes the changes but gives slightly different dimensions.

38 Fuchs & Soini, 54.

39 Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I. (Boston: Wright & Porter, 1869), 58; The law stated, “No tradesman, artificer, labourer or other person whatsoever, shall, upon the land or water, do or exercise any labour, business or work of their ordinary callings, nor use any game, sport, play or recreation on the Lord’s Day.”

40 No admission could be charged, events could not be held within 1000 feet of a church building, and games could only be played between 2 and 6 PM.

41 Charlie Bevis. Red Sox vs. Braves in Boston: The Battle for Fans’ Hearts, 1901-1952. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017), 101.

42 Ibid, 107.

43 “Sunday Sports Vote Ban Asked,” Boston Globe, June 9, 1926: 1; “Sunday Sports Law not to Appear on Ballot,” Boston Globe, September 18, 1926: 1; Bevis, Red Sox vs. Braves, 111; “Hot Talk Banded on Sunday Sports,” Boston Globe, February 1, 1928: 1; “Red Sox and Braves May Play in Boston Sundays,” Boston Globe, March 4, 1928: B56; “Sunday Pro Sports Approved by the State,” Boston Globe, November 8, 1928: 21.

44 “Fuchs Declares Lynch Asked 13 $5000 Bribes,” Boston Globe, January 3, 1929: 1; Bevis, red Sox vs. Braves, 116.

45 “Parts of ‘Sports’ Testimony ‘Look Bad’ to Atty Gen Warner,” Boston Globe, January 5, 1929: 1, 3.

46 “Braves Pay Fine of $1000,” Boston Globe, May 13, 1929: 10.

47 Fuchs & Soini, 131-138; “Vice President Adams in Defense of Judge Fuchs’ Reputation,” Boston Globe, January 23, 1929: 1, 15.

48 Kaese, 207.

49 Burt Whitman, “Hornsby Sold to Cubs for 5 Men and Cash,” Boston Herald, November 8, 1928: 1.

50 David F. Egan, “Rumor Says Fuchs to Quit as Manager,” Boston Globe, June 13, 1929: 28.

51 Kaese, 209.

52 “Judge Fuchs of Braves Fame Dies,”

53 Bevis, 121.

54 Burt Whitman, “McKechnie Signs Four-Year Contract to Manage Braves, Fuchs Announces at Chicago,” Boston Herald, October 8, 1929: 31.

55 James C. O’Leary, “Red Sox’ Big Eighth Defeats Braves, 6-3,” Boston Globe, June 30, 1932: 22.

56 See Bill Nowlin, “The Beards Versus the Braves,” in Braves Field: Memorable Moments at Boston’s Lost Diamond. (Phoenix: SABR, 2015), 124-126.

57 Fuchs & Soini, 6.

58 Ibid, 120; International News Service, “Movie Star in Mood to Buy Boston Braves,” Lincoln (NE) Star , June 24, 1935: 8.

59 James C. O’Leary, “Braves and Red Sox Announce ‘Ladies’ Day’ Will Be Held at Both Parks on Saturday,” Boston Globe, January 7, 1933: 10.

60 James C. O’Leary, “Boston National League Club to Have 5200 Bleacher Seats at Lowest Admission Price,” Boston Globe, January 25, 1933: 21.

61 Arthur Sampson, “Fuchs Most Rabid Boston Fan,” Boston Herald, December 6, 1961: 49; At the time, the New York Stock Exchange allowed trading from 10am to noon. William Watts, “A Brief History of Trading Hours on Wall Street,” https://marketwatch.com/story/a-brief-history-of-trading-hours-on-wall-street-2015-05-29 Retrieved March 17, 2019.

62 Victor O. Jones, “Boston’s Biggest Crowd Sees Braves Lose Two,” Boston Globe, September 2, 1933: 1.

63 James C. O’Leary, “Roosevelt Aids Fuchs in New Deal on Braves,” Boston Globe, July 8, 1933: 1.

64 Fuchs & Soini, 58.

65 “Buying Interests of Adams, Wetmore,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1933: 10. In his statement to the press, Fuchs said:

I have just made the first payment under an agreement with Charles F. Adams which will enable me to pay off my financial obligation to Mr. Adams and to purchase the stock of the Boston National League Baseball Club, which is now held by both Mr. Adams and V.C. Bruce Wetmore, providing I meet the terms and payments specified in that agreement.

The first time I ever met Mr. Adams was in 1927. No one but a good sportsman would have handed me $200,000 without a receipt or an agreement, and said: ‘When you return with the ball club in three or four weeks, we can get together on the legal documents.’ His object in taking up the interest of one of my former colleagues was his desire to give Boston a winning ball club.

During my entire association with Mr. Adams, he has given me every encouragement, cooperation and financial assistance toward this end. Any statement to the contrary is unfair and untrue. Mr. Adams has personally loaned me money and took over a loan that I had in New York, stating that he desired to have all the Boston baseball stock in Boston. His investment, through his purchase of stock and his loan to me, is very large and substantial. He has drawn neither salary nor expenses.

Now- let’s forget the commercial end of the great game of baseball; let’s endeavor to excel, so that New England may not be neglected nor slighted in having the best in sports, and let Braves Field be the stadium for honest, attractive and wholesome recreation for our people.

66 “Tribal Control to Judge Fuchs,” Boston Globe, July 21, 1933: 20; “Fuchs, in First Payment of $100,000, Moves to Regain Control of Braves,” Boston Herald, July 20, 1933: 20.

67 Burt Whitman, “Fuchs Confident League Will Approve His Carrying Out of its Assignments,” Boston Herald, February 3, 1935: 31.

68 “Pari-Mutuel Betting on Horse Races Wins,” Boston Globe, November 7, 1934: 21.

69 James C. O’Leary, “Braves Head Disclaims Attempt to Land Ruth,” Boston Globe, November 12, 1934: 9.

70 “Fuchs Plans Dog Racing at Wigwam; Will Not Interfere With Baseball,” Boston Herald, November 17, 1934: 11.

71 James C. O’Leary, “Braves Directors to Apply For License to Race Dogs,” Boston Globe, November 17, 1934: 5.

72 Wayne Soini, interview with the author; Soini has in his files a letter from Landis to Fuchs which provides this information.

73 Bill Corum, “Landis Intends Quit if Dog-Racing Gets Foothold in Boston,” Lincoln Star, December 1, 1934: 8.

74 Victor O. Jones, “Frick Opposes Fuchs’ Action. Would Bar Dog Racing in Baseball Parks,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1934: 1.

75 “Braves President Plans to Conduct Dog-Racing Track,” Christian Science Monitor, December 8, 1934: 8.

76 “National League Won’t Allow Braves to use Park for Ball Games and Dog Racing,” Associated Press story printed in the Hartford Courant, December 8, 1934: 13.

77 John Drebinger, “Major Problems Confront Baseball Magnates at Conventions Opening Today,” New York Times, December 11, 1934: 30.

78 Burt Whitman, “Red Sox Certain to Make Trades,” Boston Herald, December 9, 1934: 34.

79 Edward Burns, “Night Games Approved by National League,” Chicago Tribune, December 13, 1934: 25.

80 “Fuchs Attacks Rumors He’s Out as Braves Head,” Boston Herald, December 18, 1934: 1.

81 “Seek License to Hold Dog Races,” Boston Globe, January 13, 1935: A29.

82 “Braves’ Lease on Ballpark Broken; ‘Hands Off,’ Frick is Told on Racing,” Boston Herald, January 14, 1935: 1.

83 “Braves Lose Field, Sox Will Not Rent Fenway,” Springfield Republican, January 15, 1935: 13.

84 Burt Whitman, “National League Has Four Options in Braves Case––Seven-Club League, All Games Away, Franchise Sale, Dogs,” Boston Herald, January 16, 1935: 27.

85 James C. O’Leary, “Homeless Braves are Awaiting the Decision,” Boston Globe, January 17, 1935: 1.

86 “N.L. President Calls Meeting of Club Owners,” Boston Herald, January 15, 1935: 1; Burt Whitman, “Owners Agreed on Braves Case,” Boston Herald, January 19, 1935: 1.

87 “Frick Says a Lease is Soon to be Signed,” Boston Globe, January 30, 1935: 16.

88 James C. O’Leary, “National League to Save Boston Braves,” Boston Globe, January 30, 1935: 16.

89 Burt Whitman, “Fuchs Confident League Will Approve His Carrying Out of its Assignments,” Boston Herald, February 3, 1935: 31.

90 “League Takes Long Lease on Braves Field,” Boston Herald, January 29, 1935: 1.

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid, 16.

93 James C. O’Leary, “Braves to Keep Their Ball Park,” Boston Globe, January 29, 1935: 1.

94 Burt Whitman, “Fuchs Confident League Will Approve His Carrying Out of its Assignments,” Boston Herald, February 3, 1935: 31.

95 Burt Whitman, “Fuchs Confident League Will Approve His Carrying Out of its Assignments,” Boston Herald, February 3, 1935: 31.

96 Burt Whitman, “Fuchs Remains Head of Braves,” Boston Herald, February 6, 1935: 22.

97 Burt Whitman, “Adams Admits Seeking Ruth Interview,” Boston Herald, December 14, 1934: 1.

98 James C. O’Leary, “Boston Fan’s Hail Ruth’s Return,” Boston Globe, February 27, 1935: 1.

99 Fuchs & Soini, 105.

100 Boston Globe front page, February 27, 1935.

101 Ibid.

102 “Another Important Massachusetts Bay Document,” Boston Herald, May 1, 1935: 40.

103 Burt Whitman, “Fuchs Gives Braves Squad Fight Talk; Threatens Major Changes Unless Team Shows Marked Improvement on Road,” Boston Herald, May 15, 1935: 14.

104 Burt Whitman, “Fuchs Releases Ruth After Row,” Boston Herald, June 3, 1935: 1.

105 Ibid, 14.

106 “Fuchs Will Sell Equity in Braves if Team, Stockholders Do Not Suffer,” Boston Herald, June 3, 1935: 14.

107 “Fuchs Resigns as Braves Head,” Boston Herald, August 1, 1935: 1.

108 “Heads New State Board,” Boston Globe, September 11, 1935: 1.

109 “Radio Program News,” Boston Herald, January 25, 1936: 9.

110 “600 Gather to Honor Judge Emil E. Fuchs at Testimonial Dinner on 60th Birthday,” Boston Globe, April 25, 1938: 10.

111 “Emil E. Fuchs Files Petition in Bankruptcy,” Boston Globe, September 3, 1938: 3.

112 “223 Pass Bar Examination; 20 Women Included in Group,” Boston Globe, September 15, 1939: 33.

113 Boston Globe, December 11, 1942: 1; The last column was on January 27.

114 Hy Hurwitz, “Judge Fuchs’ Devotion to Game Great, Lasting,” Boston Globe, December 6, 1961: 43.

115 Murray Kramer, “Judge Emil Fuchs Passes Away, 83,” Boston Record American, December 6, 1961: 48.

116 Boston Daily Record, September 29, 1960: 21.

117 Letter by Robert S. Fuchs.

118 “Judge Fuchs, Owner of Braves, Dies,” Boston Globe, December 5, 1961: 47.

119 “Judge Fuchs, Owned Braves,” Boston Herald, December 6, 1961: 52.

120 Wayne Soini, interview with the author.

121 “Fuchs Lost Heavily, Kept Braves Afloat,” The Sporting News, December 20, 1961: 10.

122 Sam Galanis, “Pedro Martinez Wins Boston BBWAA’s Judge Emil Fuchs Memorial Award,” December 22, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2019. https://nesn.com/2014/12/pedro-martinez-wins-boston-bbwaas-judge-emil-fuchs-memorial-award/

Charles Friedrich Ludwig Getzien was born on February 14, 1864, to Carl and Wilhelmine Getzien. The Getziens had lived in the small north Prussian village of Kletzin1 (today this is northeastern Germany) before coming to the United States. Both Carl and Wilhelmine (known to the family as Mina) were born in 1836 in Prussia. The family emigrated from Germany when Charles was a boy, although the exact year is unknown. According to the 1880 US Census, the family was living at 173 Cornell Street in Chicago.2 Carl (he had changed his name to Charles upon arrival in America) was working as a day laborer. Mina stayed at home to care for their three children, Charles, aged 16 and employed as an errand boy; daughter Mina, 12, and Sophia, 8. Sophia was listed as being born in Illinois.

Getzien’s professional baseball career started with the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Baseball Club in 1883. A right-handed pitcher, he was 14-12 in his inaugural season. A year later he was the pitching star of the team, producing a won-lost record of 27-4,3 and that led him to sign with the Detroit Wolverines later in the 1884 season. On August 13, 1884, Getzien made his major-league debut. Facing the Cleveland Blues, Getzien struck out six of the first eight batters he faced, but picked up 1-0 loss, falling to a former Grand Rapids teammate, John Henry, who was also making his NL debut. Cleveland scored an unearned run in the fifth inning when third baseman Joe Farrell muffed a popup.4 Getzien came up short in his first eight decisions before finally gaining a victory on September 20 for the last-place Wolverines. Another of his Grand Rapids teammates was Edward Gastfield. Gastfield, a catcher, who also started in the Chicago City League and became Getzien’s batterymate with Detroit.

Getzien earned the nickname Pretzels because of his “puzzling twisters.”5 According to Sporting Life, batters “describe the course of the ball from his hand to their bats as a ‘pretzel curve.’ In delivering his ‘pretzels’ ‘Getz’ faces third base with one foot in either corner of the lower end of the box. Bending the left knee slightly, he draws his right arm well back.Then, straightening up quickly, he slides the left foot forward with a characteristic little skip, and, bringing his arm around with a swift overhand swing, drives the ball in at a lively pace.”6

The high point of Getzien’s 1884 season occurred on October 1, when the 20-year-old hurler pitched a six-inning no-hit game.7 In a game played at Detroit’s Recreation Park, Getzien struck out 10 of the 19 batters he faced. He helped his own cause with a single in the seventh before rain forced the game to be called. In the second inning, Getzien walked Tom Lynch and Charlie Ferguson reached on an error. Lynch was erased on a double play, giving Ferguson, the Quakers’ pitcher, “the honor of having been left on base.”8 Detroit won the contest, 1-0. Overall, Getzien’s rookie season was a success. In 147⅓ innings, he allowed 118 hits while striking out 107. Although his record was 5-12 (Detroit’s record was 28-84), Getzien’s earned-run average was 1.95, third lowest in the National League.9

Getzien continued with the Wolverines for the next four seasons. In 1885 he completed all 37 of his starts, pitching 330 innings, but his ERA shot up to 3.03. He won only 12 games and lost 25. The next season, 1886, he posted an identical 3.03 ERA while winning 30 games and losing 11. Only 111 of the 222 runs he allowed were earned. In an article in September the Detroit Free Press detailed the success of Getzien’s pretzel curves. Under the subheadline of “Our Sturdy German Twirler Does Good Work at Kansas City,” readers discovered that “The Pretzel is all right. He went into the box to-day and pitched one of his finest, his curves circling around in the form of the delicious pastry from which Getz takes his sobriquet; all of which brings to the front the pleasing fact that the pot of Grand Rapids will do good work for the Detroit Club for the remainder of the season.”10

In an article in 1915, Baseball Magazine described an 1886 game between the Wolverines and Washington Nationals:

“The Nationals got onto Getzein in the fourth inning and batted him all over the field. In the fifth inning they kept up the slugging until Getzein said he was ill, and Manager [Ned] Hanlon wanted the Nationals to allow Getzein to retire, claiming that he was too sick to play. Phil] Baker, captaining the home club, said he would call a doctor and have him examine Getzein, and if the latter was really sick he would probably allow the change to be made. Dr. Bond, who happened to be present, was called on, and he examined the pitcher, while the crowd guyed Getzein terribly. The doctor announced that he did not consider Getzein sick, only discouraged at the pounding he had received, and that he would be able to finish the game.”11

In 1887 Getzien led the National League with a .690 winning percentage (29-13) with 41 complete games. He tied for the league lead (with Egyptian Healy) by yielding 24 home runs. At the beginning of September, Sporting Life wrote, “A surprise is in store for Charlie Getzien. His magnificent work for the club has excited the admiration of Detroiters to a high degree and they intend to express their feelings in a substantial manner. … An elegant two hundred dollar gold watch and chain [was] purchased, which will be presented to the sturdy twirler.”12 Another example of his prowess on the mound came in a game at Sportsman’s Park against the St. Louis Browns of the American Association. This was Game 10 of the postseason series between the two teams. Getzien toyed with another no-hitter. According to the Detroit Free Press, “Up to and including the eighth inning only twenty-seven men went to the bat and not a clean hit had been scored. Not till the ninth did the world beaters succeed in getting a hit, and then they failed to score the much desired run.”13 A crowd of 10,000 “seemed to enjoy the way in which the Browns were larruped”14 as Getzien and the Wolverines defeated the Browns, 9-0, enroute to winning the series, 10 games to 5.

Getzien’s career with the Wolverines ended after the 1888 season. He pitched in 46 games, winning 19 and losing 25. Pete Conway became the ace of the pitching staff. Getzien posted a career-best 202 strikeouts, but the right-hander, now 24 years old, served up a career-high 411 hits in 404 innings. Stories appeared in the newspapers about a possible feud between Getzien and Wolverines manager Bill Watkins. After he gave up 21 hits to the Boston Beaneaters in a game in June, Sporting Life suggested that he may have lost his desire to pitch:

The Getzein episode makes Detroiters weary. The Bostons have no license to make 21 hits off the Pretzel when he pitches his game. Either he was not in condition to pitch or he didn’t try to. If the former was the case he is entitled to sympathy. If the latter, and he repeated his performance against the Kansas Citys a few years ago, when he deliberately tossed the balls to the plate and permitted the Cowboys to make 13 runs in one inning, why no one here [in Detroit] would mourn much if he was fined to the limit. What the merits of his quarrel with Watkins are of course are not known here. But Getzein is inclined to be very free with his tongue. Considering his fine treatment here it is time for him to get over his childish humors and do the best he knows how whenever called on.15

In any event, the so-called childish and free-tongued Getzien parted ways with Detroit before the next season began. He was sold to the Indianapolis Hoosiers on March 5, 1889. The Free Press predicted, “When Getz loses his head among the Hoosiers, a circus with six rings will ensue.”16

Two months before the sale, on January 17, 1889, Getzien married Rose Dibble of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was the daughter of John and Lottie Dibble. The new couple had been living in Grand Rapids at the time of the marriage. In five seasons with the Wolverines, Getzien had pitched in 186 games, starting 185 of them and pitching 182 complete games. With the Hoosiers, he pitched in 45 games in 1889, starting all but one, but completed only 36. His earned-run average was 4.54. (The National League average was 4.02.) The Hoosiers ended the campaign in seventh place, 28 games behind the New York Giants, and 16 games under .500. The Indianapolis team folded after the 1889 season, and its players were placed “under league control.”17

The Boston Beaneaters were the next club to sign Getzien, adding him to their roster on March 22, 1890. According to Sporting Life, “The Boston triumvirs got tired of negotiating with Detroit for Pitcher [Frank] Knauss, and settled the question by signing Getzein, late of Indianapolis.”18 Getzien put together a 10-game winning streak that season for the Beaneaters and had a 23-17 record. He shared the starting rotation with rookie sensation Kid Nichols and veteran John Clarkson. The trio won all of fifth-place Boston’s 76 wins that season.

The next season, Getzien lost his spot in the Beaneaters’ rotation, and Boston released the 27-year-old on July 16, 1891. He signed with the Cleveland Spiders in August and pitched in one game for them, allowing nine runs (eight earned) on 12 hits. He gave up one home run and four walks in the loss.

In 1892 Getzien began the season with the St. Louis Browns. He appeared in 13 games, pitching 108 innings. His control was gone. He allowed 159 hits and 31 walks, threw four wild pitches, and hit six batters. Getzien played his final major-league game on July 19. His record that season was a dismal 5-8, with an ERA of 5.67. In nine seasons in the National League, Getzien won 145 games and lost 139. He pitched 2,539 innings in 296 games, and finished his career with 277 complete games. Pretzels Getzien was out of major-league baseball before he celebrated his 29th birthday.

Getzien became a naturalized US citizen on October 12, 1892.19 In 1894 Sporting Life reported, “‘Pretzel’ Getzein, the old League pitcher, is playing first base for a Chicago City League team.”20 He was still just 30 years old, but he never made it back to the National League.

After his playing days were over, Getzien and his wife moved to Chicago. According to the 1900 Census, he was working as an assistant grain-elevator inspector.21 Census documents claim that he had come to the United States in 1865. Ten years later, according to the 1910 Census, Charlie and Rose had a nephew, Fred, living with them.22 His immigration date was now listed as 1866, and he was still employed as an inspector of grain elevators in Chicago. By 1920, Getzien was now an “Inspector for the Board of Trade.”23 Some time after this, he took a job as a typesetter with the Chicago Tribune.24

Charles Getzien suffered a heart attack in 1932, at the age of 68, and died shortly thereafter, on June 19. He was buried at Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. His 145 wins still are a record for a pitcher born in Germany.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 As of December 31, 2015, the population of Kletzin was 809. See “Bevölkerungsstand der Kreise, Ämter und Gemeinden in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 31.12.2015”. Statistisches Amt Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (in German), July 2016.

2 Year:1880; Census Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois; Roll: 196; Family History Film: 1254196; Page: 211A; Enumeration District: 142; Image: 0062.

3 https://baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Charlie_Getzien.

4 “Sporting Matters: Detroit’s Weak Batting Team Shut Out by the Cleveland Team,” Detroit Free Press, August 14, 1884: 3.

5 “Notes and Comments: Chas. H. Getzein,” Sporting Life, November 2, 1887: 3.

6 Ibid.

7 In 1991 major-league baseball clarified its definition of a no-hitter as “a game in which a pitcher, or pitchers, gives up no hits while pitching at least nine innings. A pitcher may give up a run or runs so long as he pitches nine innings or more and does not give up a hit.” Before this clarification, Getzien’s feat was considered a no-hitter.

8 “Sporting Matters: Getzien and Gastfield, With a Little Aid, Play a Wonderful Game,” Detroit Free Press, October 2, 1884: 7.

9 Old Hoss Radbourn led the NL with an ERA of 1.38.

10 “Getzien Goes In: Our Sturdy German Twirler Does Good Work at Kansas City,” Detroit Free Press, September 15, 1886: 8.

11 Wm. A. Phelon, “Baseball Customs Past and Present,” Baseball Magazine, October 1915: 56.

12 “Getzien in Luck,” Sporting Life, September 3, 1887: 1.

13 “The Browns Whitewashed: Getzien Holds the World Beaters Down to Three Actual Hits,” Detroit Free Press, October 17, 1887: 5.

14 Ibid.

15 “Detroit Speculations,” Sporting Life, June 20, 1888: 1.

16 “Sporting Notes,” Detroit Free Press, March 12, 1889: 3.

17 “Transactions,” https://baseball-reference.com/players/g/getzich01.shtml.

18 “Notes and Gossip,” Sporting Life, April 5, 1890: 3.

19 Ancestry.com. Accessed January 18, 2017.

20 “Editorial Views, Notes, Comment,” Sporting Life, May 19, 1894: 3.

21 Census document found on ancestry.com. Year: 1900; Census Place: Chicago Ward 15, Cook, Illinois; Roll: 262; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0429; FHL microfilm: 1240262.

22 Census document found on ancestry.com. Year: 1910; Census Place: Chicago Ward 15, Cook, Illinois; Roll: T624_257; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 0724; FHL microfilm: 1374270.

23 Census document found on Ancestry.com. Year: 1920; Census Place: Chicago Ward 15, Cook (Chicago), Illinois; Roll: T625_324; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 873; Image: 813.

24 baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Charlie_Getzien.

Though overshadowed by Manny Trillo and then Ryne Sandberg, he was also one of the more talented fielders among NL second basemen during the decade of the 1980s. Hubbard was a born fighter who never let his small stature – listed at 5-feet-9 (though some media accounts sometimes referred to him as closer to 5-feet-7) – impede his success on the baseball diamond.

Glenn Dee Hubbard was born on September 25, 1957, at the US Air Force Base in Hahn, Germany, to Harry Hubbard, a member of the Air Force, and his wife, Nancy. The family also included four brothers (Steven, Bart, Keven, and Brad) and a sister (Cathy).

The Air Force life led the Hubbard family to reside in 12 different cities before settling down in Ogden, Utah, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City.1 Young Glenn first played baseball in Taiwan when his father was stationed there. Though he didn’t play in the renowned Taiwan Little League, he did play games against some of their teams and noticed how seriously those teams took the game.2

His father had a strong influence over the way Glenn played. “I’ve never had to overcompensate because of my size, but playing hard is just always the way I was taught to play,” Hubbard said in 1983. “My dad always taught me to give it all I’ve got and I’ve always kept that in mind. I’ve seen guys with twice my ability in the minor leagues and they didn’t give enough and they’re not around anymore.”3

Hubbard was also influenced early in baseball by the play of Cincinnati Reds All-Star Pete Rose.

“Rose is my kind of player,” said Hubbard in 1977. “I try to pattern my playing style after him. But after all, there is only one Pete Rose.”4

While at Ben Lomond High School in Ogden, Utah, Hubbard played football, basketball, and baseball and was on the wrestling squad. He excelled in basketball and baseball. He was twice named MVP of the baseball team and was extremely competitive in the Utah State Wrestling Tournament at the 145-pound weight class. As a senior in 1975 he batted. 461.5

In high school Hubbard played shortstop, but felt that the major-league scouts didn’t see a future for him at that position. “When I signed, I was moved to second base because of my size. I really don’t think size has too much to do with becoming a major leaguer,” said Hubbard three years after being drafted.6

In the June 1975 amateur draft, Hubbard was selected out of high school in the 20th round (pick number 473) by the Atlanta Braves – 11 picks ahead of southpaw pitcher John Tudor, who would play 12 seasons (1979-1990) in the big leagues. Out of all the Braves’ draft picks in 1975, only two would play more than 100 games with Atlanta: Hubbard and their second-round pick, outfielder Larry Whisenton. In the 22nd round in 1975, the Braves drafted pitcher Nate Snell, who would pitch in 104 games from 1984 to 1987 with the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers.

Hubbard’s first stop in his professional baseball journey was in rookie ball with the Kingsport (Tennessee) Braves during the summer of 1975. In 53 games he batted. 287 and led the team with a .421 on-base percentage.

Hubbard started the 1976 season with Kingsport, and after hitting .294 in 37 games, he was promoted to the Greenwood (South Carolina) Braves of the Western Carolina League (Class A). His bat stayed hot in Greenwood: he batted .318, with a .404 on-base percentage and a .492 slugging average.

The young prospect had some major struggles in his personal life very early in his minor-league career. Hubbard’s first marriage ended by the time he was 19. In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel in February 1984, he admitted this was one of the most difficult moments of his life. However, things got better while he was playing at Greenwood. He started chatting casually with Lynn Wells, a waitress at a local Pizza Hut. On their first date she read him verses from the Bible. They were married in 1978 and she influenced him to become a born-again Christian. They had three sons: Jeremy, Matthew, and Daniel,7 and as of 2022 resided in Stone Mountain, Georgia since the mid-1980s.

In 1977 Hubbard got off to a hot start in Greenwood, batting .385 over 45 games. That led to a promotion to Double-A Savannah. He finished out the season there but hit only .225. Despite his struggles at Double A, the Braves promoted him again; he started the 1978 season with the Richmond Braves in Triple A.

Very early in his minor-league career, coaches recognized Hubbard’s fielding skills, including former Yankees and Braves third baseman Clete Boyer. A renowned glove man in his playing days, Boyer was then a minor-league fielding instructor for the Braves. “First time I saw him in the Instructional League … I knew the kid was a natural,” said Boyer. “No one can take credit for teaching Hubbard to field. God gave him all the tools. I played eight years with Bobby Richardson with the New York Yankees, and Hubbard reminds me very much of him. He wants to learn everything there is to know about this game, and you find few players with his attitude today.”8

Another minor-league coach who helped Hubbard to develop in the minors was Forrest “Smoky” Burgess. At that time Burgess held the major-league record for career pinch hits with 145.9 Burgess tried to help Hubbard become more patient at the plate. “He’s a good hitter, got good power, great desire and is a good glove man. … His size (5-foot-7) may be against him but his attitude tells me he’s a prospect,” said Burgess about Hubbard.10

Once Hubbard reached Triple A, his bat exploded. For the first few months of the 1978 season, he led the International League in batting average and home runs. Future Boston Red Sox manager Joe Morgan, who was managing at Richmond rival Pawtucket in 1978, was very impressed by Hubbard’s skills. “The best player in the league. He can hit and he’s a great competitor. He fields the ball kinda funny, but so far this year I haven’t seen him miss anything. He’s got a great future,” said Morgan in an interview with The Sporting News.11

Hubbard’s production at Richmond led to a big-league call-up in the second week of July. He replaced shortstop Pat Rockett, who was struggling at the plate with a .141 average. At the time of his summons, Hubbard was batting .336 with 14 home runs with Richmond.

He made his big-league-debut on July 14, 1978, against the Philadelphia Phillies. The game featured starting pitchers who would go on to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Steve Carlton and Phil Niekro. On this day, the knuckleballer Niekro would get the better of Lefty, throwing a four-hitter and leading the Braves to a 7-2 win. Hubbard singled off Carlton in his first major-league plate appearance.

Things did not progress smoothly for Hubbard. About a week after his debut, he injured his elbow and missed a month of action. When he came off the disabled list, though, he really began to hit as he had in Richmond. His batting average peaked at .311 on September 3. However, he went 1-for-21 during the Braves’ last five games of the season, and his batting average dipped over 30 points; he finished his debut season batting .258.

In 1979 Hubbard struggled at the plate. He was batting around .220 at the end of July, and was demoted to Richmond on July 31. By then the Braves had handed the second-base duties to utility player Jerry Royster. At Richmond, Hubbard batted .336 in 34 games before being recalled to Atlanta in the middle of September. After returning to the Braves, he finished the season going 8-for-20.

Hubbard never let one bad game or season get him down. “If you sit down after each game and try to figure out why something is happening, you’d go crazy,” he said. “You can go from goat to hero fast.”12

The next season, 1980, manager Bobby Cox and the Braves brain trust decided to stay with Royster (whom they had given a five-year contract) at second base. Hubbard returned to Richmond for the third time in three years. Despite the nice contract, Royster proved to be a liability for the Braves at second base, committing 13 errors during the first two months of the season. This led the Braves to recall Hubbard from Richmond on May 31. At the time, Hubbard was hitting .315 at Triple A. He would never play in the minor leagues again.

From that point, the Braves committed to making Hubbard their second baseman. In June 1980 he batted .310 with 3 home runs and a .531 slugging average. More importantly, the Braves went 64-54 over the rest of the season, posting a 60-53 record when Hubbard started at second base.

Hubbard set a Braves record in 1981. His .991 fielding percentage broke the previous single season record at second base set by Frank Bolling (.989) in 1962,13 when the team still played in Milwaukee. Hubbard made only 5 errors in 537 chances during the strike-shortened ’81 season.

In 1982 Joe Torre (who’d managed the New York Mets from 1977 to 1981) replaced the fired Bobby Cox. The Braves won their first 13 games to start the season, a new major-league record.14 This hot start helped them win their first NL West Division title since 1969. Hubbard also got off to a strong start at the plate. When he went 11-for-23 during the first five days in May, his batting average for the season peaked at .297. Though his bat cooled off later, he went on to tie his career high in home runs to that point with nine. His 59 RBIs were also a new personal best, which he would top the following season. He scored 75 runs, a mark he would never equal. He also led all NL batters and all major-league second basemen in double plays turned and sacrifice hits in 1982.

But the Braves couldn’t get past the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, getting swept in three games. In his first postseason appearance, Hubbard went 2-for-9 at the plate.

The Braves rewarded Hubbard’s efforts in the offseason with a five-year contract worth close to $4 million. His teammates also recognized how valuable he was to their success on the field and how he gave so much of himself every day – especially his ability to play through injuries.

“You can’t measure a guy’s value when he’s doing all those things and he’s playing with nagging injuries,” said Braves captain and third baseman Bob Horner in 1983. “You take Hub out of our lineup and who knows what we would have done.”15

“People don’t realize when a guy is playing with all the injuries,” center fielder Dale Murphy said. “But when you watch a guy put a shoe on over a sore toe or when he lifts his arm with a sore shoulder, you see the pain on his face. He’s invaluable.”16

In 1983 Hubbard remained successful with the bat. During a strong first half of the season, he hit .300 with 5 home runs and 37 runs batted in. This earned him selection as a reserve in the All-Star Game at Comiskey Park. During the game he singled in his only plate appearance after coming on for Steve Sax.

Hubbard finished the 1983 season with career-best totals in homers (12) and RBIs (70). The Braves won 88 games in 1983 but finished in second place in the division, three games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Hubbard’s playing career peaked during the 1982 and 1983 seasons. After that, he hit a few bumps. In 1984 he suffered a significant shoulder injury during a bench-clearing brawl with the San Diego Padres, in which he scuffled with their third baseman, Graig Nettles.

The Braves had a new manager in 1985, Eddie Haas, who replaced the fired Torre. Haas didn’t really give Hubbard a fair shot when he took over; he tried to replace him at second with Paul Zuvella, who had played for Haas in the minors. Luckily for Hubbard, Haas didn’t last a full season as Atlanta’s skipper. He was fired after 121 games and was replaced by Bobby Wine on an interim basis.

Former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Chuck Tanner was hired to manage the Braves in 1986. Tanner was a much more positive leader and communicator than Haas, but over the next two years a pattern developed: he started Hubbard consistently but often pinch-hit for him later in the game in 1986 and 1987.

“Although I played a lot, whenever the game was on the line they took me out,” Hubbard said. “They pinch-hit for me 40 times with men either on base or in scoring position. Things like that just made me feel like I wasn’t part of the team. I developed a bad attitude.”17 This frustrated Hubbard and he welcomed becoming a free agent after the 1987 season.

In January 1988 Hubbard signed with the Oakland Athletics, who also traded for starting pitcher Bob Welch and power-hitting outfielder Dave Parker that offseason. Hubbard’s tenure with the A’s got off to a rough start when he was hit by a pitch in the face during a spring-training game, which caused him to start the 1988 season on the disabled list.

Hubbard made his debut with the Athletics on April 15, batting eighth, ahead of shortstop Walt Weiss. He collected a single in four at-bats in an 11-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox. One of the reasons Hubbard was signed by Oakland was to help their defense up the middle. However, his 1988 season was hampered by a hamstring injury, which caused him to miss over 50 games, including the American League Championship Series vs. the Boston Red Sox.

His hamstring healed enough to allow Hubbard to play in four World Series games against the Dodgers. In Game One, he went 2-for-4 before Kirk Gibson hit his legendary home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to lead the Dodgers to a 5-4 victory. Hubbard went 3-for-12 in the four Series games he played.

Coming into spring training in 1989, Hubbard wasn’t guaranteed a starting spot. He was in a tough battle for his position with Mike Gallego and Tony Phillips, both of whom were considered better hitters than Hubbard but not in his class when it came to fielding. Hubbard ending up winning the job, but A’s manager Tony La Russa kept using different lineups that meant inconsistent playing time. Hubbard started to hit efficiently in late May and early June, getting his average up to .270, but that was the best it would get. Oakland released Hubbard on July 31, when he was hitting .198.

After his playing days were over, Hubbard went into coaching. He was a hitting coach in the minor leagues for the Braves between 1991 and 1998. From 1999 to 2010, he was called back up to the Braves to become the first-base coach for Bobby Cox. Starting in 2014 he has been a bench coach in Single-A ball, most recently with the Columbia Fireflies, a Kansas City Royals affiliate in the Carolina League.

For many people, Hubbard is best remembered for having one of the most renowned baseball cards in history. His 1984 Fleer card has him posing on the field at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium with a large boa constrictor around his neck and a smile on his face. The snake was at the ballpark that day as part of a pregame ceremony in 1983 for a birthday celebration for the Phillies mascot, the Phillie Phanatic.

In 2021, an article on MLB.com by Michael Clair, “The True Story Behind Glenn Hubbard’s Snake Card,” detailed the history of the card and Hubbard’s personal feelings about it – which weren’t always positive.

“A guy had a snake on the field. And I grabbed a photographer and I said, ‘Hey can I get my picture taken with this snake?’ So I put it around my neck. Get the picture taken. He sent me an 8 by 10. And that’s all I know about it,” said Hubbard about the famous picture.18

What Hubbard didn’t know was the photographer was a freelancer who did some work for the Fleer Corporation. In spring training 1984 he was shocked when a asked him to sign a Fleer card with the snake around his neck. It took Hubbard many years before he was comfortable with his image on that popular item.

In 2016, while he was a coach with the Lexington Legends of the South Atlantic League, the team did a promotion at the ballpark commemorating that Fleer card. The Legends had a “Glenn Hubbard Bobblehead Giveaway,” with him in a Legends uniform and a snake around his neck.

Looking back at posing for the picture with the snake, Hubbard didn’t express any regrets.

“I would, I’d do it again,” Hubbard said. “A lot of people like that card. I look at it, look at my long hair, look at the beard. I mean, it was just really full and oh, man, the card is perfect.”19

Last revised: August 12, 2022

Acknowledgments

This story was reviewed by Rory Costello and Len Levin and fact-checked by Larry DeFillipo.

Sources

Websites

www.baseball-reference.com

www.thebaseballcube.com

www.mlb.com

www.facebook.com/Benlomondalumniassociation/

Newspapers

The Sporting News

Birmingham (Alabama) Post-Herald

Kingsport (Tennessee) Times

Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel

Atlanta Constitution

Boston Globe

Charlotte Observer

Greenwood (South Carolina) Index-Journal

Macon (Georgia) News

Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning Call

Ogden (Utah) Standard Examiner

West Palm Beach Post

Notes

1 Bill Carter, “Hubbard: ‘Little Big Man on Ball Field’” Alexandria (Louisiana) Town Talk, March 16, 1984: B1.

2 Bill Bank, “Little Big Man – Glenn Hubbard Ace at Second Base Keeps the Braves’ Competitive Fire Burning with His True Grit,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 7, 1982: 1C.

3 Jay Lawrence, “Hubbard Wants to Be Bigger Hit with Braves,” West Palm Beach Post, March 6, 1983: 417.

4 “Former Ben Lomond Star Hubbard Called Up by Atlanta Braves,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, December 21, 1977: 51.

5 Bill Lane, “Meet the Braves,” Kingsport (Tennessee) Times, June 29, 1976: 3B.

6 John Cargile, “Want to Go Pro? Top Skills a Must,” Birmingham Post-Herald, August 11, 1978: 16.

7 Joseph Person, “Home Has New Meaning to Hubbard,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, February 25, 1999: 1C.

8 Jesse Outlar, “Glenn Hubbard Blossoms into All-Star Player,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 13, 1982: D1.

9 As of 2022 Lenny Harris held the record with 212 pinch hits.

10 Whitey Kelley, “Smoky Burgess ‘Best Pinch-Hitter in History,’” Charlotte Observer, June 13, 1977: 12A.

11 Int. League Items, The Sporting News, July 22, 1978: 42.

12 Dave Kindred, “Novel on Braves Season Still in the Early Chapters,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 26, 1984: E1.

13 2021 Atlanta Braves Media Guide, 359. Mark Lemke in 1994 had a .994 fielding percentage to break Hubbard’s 1981 record.

14 The 1981 Oakland A’s under Billy Martin won 11 straight games. In the NL, the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and the 1962 Pittsburgh Pirates each won their first 10 games.

15 Lawrence, “Hubbard Wants to Be Bigger Hit with Braves.”

16 Lawrence.

17 Ed Grisamore, “For the Braves, Hubbard’s Been an Answered Prayer,” Macon Telegraph, June 20, 1987: S-1.

18 Michael Clair, “The True Story Behind Glenn Hubbard’s Snake Card.” https://www.mlb.com/news/glenn-hubbard-s-fleer-snake-card-story-revealed.

19 Clair.

Kuehne was a barrel-chested 24-year-old rookie born in Leipzig, Germany, on October 14, 1858, whom Phillips had imported from Chicago semipro circles on the recommendations of Joe Straub and Rudy Kemmler, two earlier Buckeye signees who were also Chicagoans of Germanic extraction. According to the May 28, 1883, Ohio State Journal, Kuehne thus far had so badly failed to live up to Phillips’s expectations that Phillips purportedly was taking a salary kickback from him just to keep him on the roster. The Journal’s accusation, though denied by Phillips, may have been true, for Phillips, rather than release Kuehne, put him at Smith’s old station on third base for the lack of anyone better. The change so agreed with Kuehne that he went on to play nearly 800 of his 1,085 major league games at the hot corner.

Little more than a month before he switched places with Smith, Kuehne had made his major league debut at second base on May 1, 1883, at Columbus by collecting 1 hit in 4 at bats in a 6-5 loss to Louisville’s Guy Hecker. The hit was a single. Not until his 11th game did Kuehne produce the first of what would become his signature type of hit when he tripled in the Buckeyes’ 13-2 win over Hecker at Louisville. In the course of his 10 major league seasons Kuehne would set a record (tied in 1897 by Willie Keeler) for the most triples in a season without hitting a home run—19 in 1885—and another record ( broken by Tommy Corcoran) for the lowest slugging average (.337) by a player with at least 100 career triples. In 1886, as Kuehne was assembling a record fourth consecutive season in which he collected more triples than doubles, The Sporting News nicknamed him “Three Bagger” or “Dreisocker,” the German word for triple, in its June 7 edition. How the stocky 5-foot-eight and 185-pound right-handed batter and thrower managed to accumulate 115 triples, the most of any player in history in fewer than 4,500 plate appearances, remains a mystery that may never be solved, for he was not a particularly good base runner and had only 993 hits altogether, linking him with Bill Joyce a prolific power hitter with good speed as the only two men to amass as many as 100 career triples while tabulating fewer than 1,000 hits. Perhaps the explanation for Kuehne’s extraordinary penchant for tripling lay in the very fact that he was not a swift runner and, like Dave Orr, another burly sort who compiled an inordinate number of triples, simply could not leg out many of what for a faster man would have been inside-the-park home runs. But that explanation falters inasmuch as Orr was an exceptional hitter with a .342 career batting average whose blasts traveled so swiftly they readily became gappers whereas Kuehne was a career .232 hitter.

In 1887, while he was on his way to his best season (.299), the August 3 issue of Sporting Life observed: “Kuehne has the sympathy of his many friends in his trouble with his wife. The good-natured player made an unfortunate choice. As yet no testimony in the case has been taken. No ball players are mixed up in the affair as reported. It is said that the woman several times invited members of the [Pittsburgh] club there during her husband’s absence, but none of them accepted the invitation. The woman came from Columbus [Ohio]. She is very homely. It is reported that she has left the city. An officer hunted high and low for her a day or so ago to serve a subpoena, but she could not be found. He will no doubt get his divorce.” Through it all, Kuehne remained at his post every day with Pittsburgh and suffered not a whit in popularity. His closest friend on the club, pitcher Ed Morris who had accompanied him to Pittsburgh when the Allegheny club bought out the Columbus franchise and its best players after the 1884 season, remained his partner in a Pittsburgh billiard hall the two ran together during the winter months after Kuehne left his wife and his Chicago home to settle in Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, he resumed his quest to spawn some of the weirdest and most paradoxical stat combinations in ML history along with several significant firsts. On May 24, 1889, at Washington, Kuehne set a major league record (since tied) when he handled the most errorless chances by a third baseman in a nine-inning game, 13, including 10 putouts and three assists. That same season he also became the first Pittsburgh player to play every position in a season except pitcher and catcher. According to some sources, Kuehne at some point in the early 1890s added to his dossier of firsts by devising a rudimentary pitching machine that operated with an adjustable spring fastened to a length of timber.

His popularity still at a peak at the close of the 1889 season even though he had become little more than a marginal regular by then, Kuehne was invited the join Morris, Ned Hanlon, Fred Carroll, Pud Galvin and other Pittsburgh mainstays on the Smoke City Players League entry in 1890 but slipped to .239 in the hitter-dominated PL and was released to Louisville of the American Association in the spring of 1891. A model of fidelity in that he remained with each of his teams for the full season in his first eight ML campaigns, Kuehne then proceeded to switch clubs five times in his final two big league seasons, finishing on closing day in 1892 with the St. Louis Browns on October 15 by going 0-for-4 in a 1-0 loss to Chicago’s Bill Hutchison that had been transferred from St. Louis to Kansas City.

Though nearly 34, he was hardly ready to leave the game. After never previously spending a single day anywhere but in the majors as a professional, Kuehne played in the minors until the end of the century. Beginning in 1893, he again became Mr. Fidelity, spending two full seasons with Erie of the Class A Eastern League, followed by three with Minneapolis of the Class A Western League. His skein ended in 1898 when he played a handful of games with four different teams in two different leagues before being disabled toward the end of the season by a severe case of blood poisoning according to the February 22, 1899, issue of The Sporting News. After recovering, he worked that winter at a woven wire factory in the St. Louis. Kuehne then signed with Fort Wayne of the Class B Inter-State League but was released in June 1899 while facing steep medical bills for the treatment of a cancerous growth under his left eye that had spread to the left nostril. The July 15, 1899, issue of The Sporting News confided that to pay for his surgery he was forced to raffle off a treasured double barrel shotgun at 50¢ a chance.

Kuehne was able to return to the game he loved the following spring, joining the St. Louis-based Hargadine-McKittrick Dry Goods Company, as per the May 26, 1900, issue of The Sporting News, so that he could play on its semipro industrial league team with former major leaguer Paul McSweeney whom he had befriended while a member of the St. Louis Browns earlier in the decade. He eventually left St. Louis for Sulphur Springs, Ohio, where he died on October 27, 1921, at age 63. According to baseball historian Joe Santry, when Kuehne was asked his occupation on his deathbed, though he’d had many in his life, he instantly replied in the thick German accent that his teammates could never quite imitate: “I am a ballplayer.”

Sources

This biography is an expanded version of one that appeared in David Nemec’s Major League Baseball Profiles: 1871-1900, Volume 1 (Bison Books, 2011), with Nemec as the principal writer assisted by David Ball.

In assembling this biography I made extensive use of the Ohio State Journal, Sporting Life and The Sporting News for details not only of Kuehne’s professional baseball career but also of his life after he left baseball. In addition, I received a valuable bit of information regarding Kuehne’s deathbed statement from historian Joe Santry, an authority on early-day Pittsburgh teams. Kuehne’s major and minor league statistics came from www.baseball-reference.com.

Craig Lindsay Lefferts was born on September 29, 1957, in Munich, West Germany.1 His father, Ed, was stationed there as a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force. Ed took his wife, Bobbie, and five children across the world on various assignments. Craig lived in half a dozen cities before the family settled in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he attended high school.

As a child Lefferts suffered from asthma, as did his sister, Lynn. They took medicine to control the condition. Craig’s asthma improved enough under medication that he was able to play football and later baseball, dealing with the smell of the grass that exacerbated the condition. “In the grass … I couldn’t breathe, and then I’d quit,” he said. “I caught a lot of flak from the players. If I couldn’t practice, they didn’t want me to play.”2

Lefferts played American Legion ball, but was twice cut for being too small before making the team. At Northeast High School he was cut as a sophomore, but made the team as a junior, playing outfield. He bugged coach Larry Rudisill to give him a chance to pitch. Finally he was given the opportunity against Sarasota, the previous season’s state champion. He was so nervous that his father told him to quit. The reverse psychology worked; he said, “Dad, I can’t do that.” His father replied, “Well, then make up your mind and just go out there and do your best.” Lefferts threw a one-hitter and beat Sarasota 1-0, kick-starting his pitching career.3

After high school Lefferts tried to follow his father into the Air Force, but failed the physical. He had graduated at 5-feet-10 and 140 pounds, but it was his lazy right eye that caused the failure. Instead, his father reached out to his alma mater, the University of Arizona, to see if Craig could walk on to the team.

He was given the chance to walk on, but was cut, just as he had been in high school. “He was skinny, slight, and didn’t throw hard,” coach Jerry Kendall said. “I cut him and said, ‘Get stronger and we’ll take another look.”4 “It happened a lot to me when I was young,” Lefferts later said. “It’s been the story of my life, everybody telling me I’m not good enough, but inside I knew that if I got the opportunity I could pitch and pitch well.”5

Trying out again in 1979, Lefferts made the team, and turned out to be one of its best pitchers. While he was a junior, his sister, Lynn, died from an asthma attack. Craig had seemed to grow out of the condition, but Lynn had suffered all her life. Scheduled to pitch the following day, he told his parents that Lynn would want him to. He threw 11 innings over two games, giving up just three hits and two runs. He thought about his sister throughout the game, and believed that was the point that drove him to focus on baseball. “We were close. We both had asthma together. We suffered together,” he said. “I know what it’s like not to breathe. She’s free from it now. … I felt an inner peace because she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.”6 He later became a fundraiser for asthma and cystic fibrosis research.

Lefferts was selected and pitched for the United States in the 1979 Pan American Games in Puerto Rico, but the team failed to win a medal for the first time ever. He was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the seventh round that year, but chose to return to school. Lefferts led the team to the 1980 College World Series, where he threw a shutout against Michigan and was the winning pitcher in the title game against Hawaii. He was named to the All-Tournament team, and later to the 1980s All-Decade team. He was drafted once more, this time by the Chicago Cubs in the ninth round, and signed a contract.

Lefferts was assigned to Geneva in the short-season New York-Penn league in 1980, and pitched well, going 9-1 with a 2.78 ERA, including a four-hit shutout in July. At the end of the season he was named to the league’s all-star team. He had another complete game in the first game of the playoffs, winning 2-1, but Geneva lost the series two games to one to Oneonta.

Things weren’t as easy at Midland of the Double-A Texas League the following year, where Lefferts was 12-12 with a 4.14 ERA, but he was still one of the best starters on the team. He threw another four-hitter in July, shutting out Jackson as he retired the last 17 hitters.

At Triple-A Iowa in 1982, Lefferts was 8-5 with a 3.05 ERA, and continued to step up the ladder. His July gem that season was a three-hit shutout of Oklahoma City.

Despite having almost exclusively been a starter in the minor leagues, Lefferts made the Cubs bullpen out of spring training in 1983. “He was one of those guys who wasn’t overpowering, but he always seemed to get you out,” manager Lee Elia said.7 He only made the team because regular long man Mike Proly opened the season on the disabled list. Switching to the bullpen didn’t faze Lefferts. “It will be an adjustment, but it shouldn’t be too difficult,” he said.8

Lefferts made his major-league debut on April 7, 1983, in the team’s second game of the season. Coming on in the eighth inning with the Cubs down 6-2 to the Montreal Expos, Lefferts pitched the last two innings of the game, giving up a solo home run to Jim Wohlford in the ninth. “It was my fault. It was a nothing fastball,” he said.9

Lefferts pitched well early in the season, but put this down to the players not being familiar with him. “The hitters haven’t seen me before. They’re not sure what I throw,” he said. “Once they get to know me, I’ll have to trick ’em a little bit.”10 He got a spot start on May 25 in Houston, and scattered six hits over seven innings, but a passed ball in the second led to the game’s only run. He got three more starts in June, but after giving up five runs in five innings on June 20, he was sent back to the bullpen for the rest of the season. “I know I’m not a starter on this club. My role is in the bullpen. I’ll probably be there all year, which is all right with me,” Lefferts said.11 Despite one more spot start, in a doubleheader in August, his bullpen future was settled, and he did not make another start until 1992.

Having pitched well in 1983, with a 3.13 ERA in 89 innings, Lefferts was surprised to be dealt to the San Diego Padres in a three-team trade.12 For the Cubs, the desire was to obtain Scott Sanderson at any cost, as they believed he could become their top pitcher. Padres GM Jack McKeon was looking to stockpile young talent, and Lefferts’ success in the bullpen was enough for San Diego to want him included in the deal. The Padres had included Gary Lucas and his team-leading 17 saves in the trade, and expected Lefferts to take up some of that slack. “Lefferts throws strikes and we feel like he’ll develop into a good one,” McKeon said.13

While in Puerto Rico pitching winter ball for Ponce over the offseason, Lefferts learned how to throw a screwball from teammate Gil Rondon, and it gave him an extra dimension. “I think I’ve just about mastered it,” he said. “I can throw it for strikes. I can throw a hard screwball and I can throw it as a changeup. It has helped me a lot against righthanded hitters.”14

As others fell by the wayside through the season, Lefferts moved up in the pecking order. He ended the season with a 2.13 ERA in 105⅔ innings, and his 10 saves trailed only Rich Gossage on the team. The team had a magical season, winning its division by 12 games. One game, on August 12, has entered into baseball lore as the Battle of Atlanta. When Braves pitcher Pascual Perez hit the Padres’ Alan Wiggins to lead off the game, the Padres vowed revenge. After several attempts to retaliate (and already multiple ejections), it was Lefferts in the eighth inning who managed to hit Perez. First baseman Steve Garvey said, “When Lefferts finally hit him, I ran right to the mound and kind of held my arms out to try to help my pitcher, and about 20 guys blew right on by me after Lefferts, who by that time had hit the dirt at shortstop and was running toward left field.”15 Lefferts was one of seven players ejected after a 10-minute brawl; another six players were ejected after another hit-by-pitch in the ninth.

Down two games to none in the NLCS, the Padres came back to win the last three games and beat Lefferts’ former team, the Cubs. Lefferts got the win in each of the final two games. The World Series was a letdown though; the Padres lost to the Detroit Tigers in five games. Lefferts had personal success, though, throwing six shutout innings in three appearances, including three innings with five strikeouts as he earned the save in Game Two. “Any way you want to look at it, this game was won by (Andy) Hawkins and Lefferts —they stopped us cold,” Tigers manager Sparky Anderson said.16

An incident during 1984 was later related by Padres outfielder Tony Gwynn, which showed how valuable Lefferts quickly became to the team. In explaining the difference between a winning and losing team, Gwynn said that winning teams will ignore the little things that come up during the long season, such as a fight between Lefferts and fellow pitcher Ed Whitson:

“We’re coming back from the East somewhere, and the guys are playing blackjack and sucking down a few brewskis,” Gwynn [said]. “Eddie is dealing, and he’s kind of toasted and not really paying attention to the card game. Whit had like 19, and Lefferts had 18, but Lefferts takes the money and Whit doesn’t notice.

But somebody must have told him, because Whit goes ballistic on the bus. He starts screaming and yelling. He gets up and grabs Lefferts by the top of his hair and —pow! —just slaps the crap out of him. Guys had to get up out of their seats and grab Whitson to stop him. The quote I remember that day is, “Hey, man, you’re messing with our money. He’s going to help us get to where we want to go.”17

Lefferts quickly cashed in on his postseason performance, signing a two-year contract with the Padres. A desire to start was never in the cards though. “I wouldn’t turn it down if the chance came to move into the starting rotation,” he said. “But for the time being, it looks like my job here is to pitch middle and late relief.”18

Things didn’t go as well in 1985, with the Padres falling to a third-place tie and Lefferts’ ERA jumping to 3.35. He suffered from elbow problems, which continued into the following season. But he got off to a good start in 1986. “That confidence snowballs, and it’s building right now,” he said.19 He had his career batting highlight on April 25, hitting a walk-off home run off the Giants’ Greg Minton in the 12th inning. (As of 2018 he remained the last pitcher to hit a walk-off homer.) By the end of the year he’d pitched in a league-leading 83 games, but wasn’t feeling good. “I’m pleased with the effort, but disappointed in a lot of other ways,” he said. “I know there have been a lot of times in crucial situations when I haven’t been effective.” He didn’t use his arm as an excuse. “My arm has been pretty good all year,” he said. “I’ve had a sore elbow that’s needed ice and treatment continually, but that doesn’t keep me out of pitching.”20

After Lefferts struggled to a 4.38 ERA in the first half of 1987, the Padres traded him to the Giants.21 The Giants still thought highly of him. “The way he gets the left-handed hitters out, he might be finishing a lot of games for us,” manager Roger Craig said.22 Lefferts later said he was pleased with the trade. “It was definitely a great break getting traded out of San Diego the way things were going there and to San Francisco, the way things have happened here.”23

At the time of the trade the Giants were in third place, and moved up over the rest of the season to win the NL West. Lefferts pitched just two innings in the NLCS as the Giants lost the series to the Cardinals in seven games. Once again his efforts were rewarded; he signed a new two-year deal with the Giants. He started 1988 well, and wasn’t worried about his lack of publicity. “I think I could be a stopper on other teams,” he said. “I don’t get the saves, but the guys come up to me and tell me I’ve done a good job. That’s good enough for me.”24

In early 1989 Lefferts had a streak in which he retired 29 consecutive batters over six games (with two double plays on inherited runners making it 31 consecutive outs). That was part of a streak of 26 innings without giving up a run, going back to the previous season. He had a 2.69 ERA and led the bullpen with 20 saves, although he shared the closer role with Steve Bedrosian after the Giants added him in June. The Giants won their division, then beat the Cubs in the NLCS, with Lefferts finally giving up a run in the only inning he pitched, having not surrendered a run in the first 12 innings of his postseason career. They went on to be swept by Oakland in the World Series, with Lefferts pitching in three games.

Others noticed big improvements by Lefferts during the season. “He’s a better pitcher now than he was in 1984,” Rich Gossage said. “He’s more aggressive, and he’s pitching with a lot more confidence. When you’re young and don’t have the experience, there’s always doubt in your mind.” Catcher Terry Kennedy noted that Lefferts had pitched with just a fastball and screwball in his early career, but had added a slider. “Lefty’s slider is much better now. … He throws the screwball for strikes better than average, and his slider is above average. He’s also smarter now,” Kennedy said.25 Lefferts himself was happy in his new role. “I feel like I have more of an impact on a game. It’s easy to get into a rut when you’re a middle reliever or a set-up guy,” he said.26

A free agent after the 1989 season, Lefferts returned to the Padres on a three-year, $5.35 million contract. He replaced NL Cy Young Award winner Mark Davis, who had demanded too much money from the Padres after a 44-save season. Ironically Davis had gone from the Giants to the Padres in the deal that took Lefferts in the other direction. The trade for Bedrosian was the reason for Lefferts to leave San Francisco, and the closer role in San Diego was reason for him to return. “If there was no Bedrosian deal, I probably wouldn’t have filed for free agency,” he said. “The biggest motivation for signing with the Padres was the opportunity to be a stopper. The timing couldn’t have been better for me.”27

Lefferts faced two big questions on his return to San Diego: How could he replace Davis, and how would his arm hold up? On the first question, he wasn’t worried about replacing Davis and his 44 saves. “How many people have done that?” Lefferts said. Noting that Davis was a power pitcher while he was a finesse pitcher, Lefferts said, “Both styles can be equally as effective. And I think I’ve proven that over the years.”28

The arm, meanwhile, was a different question. Lefferts had pitched through tendinitis and a sore shoulder for years, and teams were surprised he had gotten the contract he did. The Giants thought his arm was “fragile,” which is why they didn’t bring him back. Lefferts pointed to his history in response. “Except for the end of last year and a brief period in ‘87, I’ve pitched 100 percent of the time. … I’ve pitched in more games (472) than any other pitcher in the last seven years. So how can anyone make that type of argument?”29

The Padres stumbled in 1990, though, from preseason contenders to a 75-win team. Lefferts did his part, notching 23 saves and a 2.52 ERA despite a “dead arm.”30 The team improved by nine games the next season, and Lefferts matched his save total although his ERA jumped to 3.91. In both offseasons his name came up in trade talks, but he remained with the Padres. They even put him into the rotation to start 1992, and he exceeded expectations, going 13-9 with a 3.69 ERA in 27 starts.

With his contract approaching its end, Lefferts was traded to Baltimore on August 31,31 where he went 1-3 as the Orioles fell out of contention. The trade to the Orioles upset the Padres. On the day of the trade they were 8½ games back in their division, but still felt they were in the pennant race. The owners were looking to cut costs and ordered general manager Joe McIlvaine to make deals. The team collapsed after that, ending up 16 games behind, and many blamed the Lefferts trade. “That was one of the hardest trades, emotionally, I ever had to make,” McIlvaine later said. “My gut was telling me, ‘This isn’t the right thing to do.’ … I pleased one group (owners) and I alienated two others (players and fans).”32

At the end of the season the Orioles declined to offer Lefferts arbitration, making him a free agent once more. He signed a one-year, $1.1 million deal with the Texas Rangers for 1993. Lefferts was in contention for the fifth starter role, or potentially moving to the bullpen. He began as the fifth starter but was poor, pitching to a 1-5 record with an 8.12 ERA by mid-May, when he went on the disabled list with a sore neck. When he returned, he went into the bullpen for the rest of the season, but his 4.04 ERA the rest of the way dropped his combined season ERA to 6.05, by far the worst of his career. The Rangers set him free again at the end of the season, choosing a $175,000 buyout instead of a $1.3 million option.

Lefferts signed another one-year deal, this time for $400,000 with the California Angels. He didn’t pitch well, running to a 4.67 ERA before the All-Star break, when the Angels released him to avoid paying appearance incentives in his contract that could have brought him $1 million. Although naturally disappointed that his career was over, he looked back with pride. “For me, I had a wonderful career. I played 12 years in the major leagues. I couldn’t have done more,” he said.33

Lefferts had married Wendy LeBar, and they had five children. He spent a few years at home with them before Wendy encouraged him to try coaching. He reached out to Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s general manager. Oakland did not have a position available, but Beane put him in touch with the Toronto Blue Jays. He was a pitching coach in the Jays system from 1999 to 2002, then in the Oakland system in 2003-14. Most of his coaching was at the lower levels; he spent 2000-03 at Double A. He was also the pitching coach for the South Africa national team at the 2013 World Baseball Classic.

In 2015 Lefferts became the A’s minor-league pitching rehab coordinator in Mesa, Arizona, dealing with players recovering from injury. The team sent its injured players to live in Arizona, where they could get specialist physical and mental training. Lefferts’ role expanded from being a pitching coach. “I’m a rehab coach. I’m a pitching coach. I’m a mental coach. I’m a psychologist,” he said. He worked with each player on the field, ensuring that they have a plan for recovery and are following it. Although he pitched through arm problems himself, he acknowledged the changes in the modern game. “I’ve had to learn in these last few years that effort level is really the key initial component to having a positive rehab,” he said.34

Lefferts himself struggled with health issues in recent years. He had spinal fusion surgery in 2016 to deal with a ruptured disk in his back. He also had ongoing issues with his eyes, having two failed surgeries to correct lifelong vision problems. Those problems helped him in working with rehabbing pitchers. “I’ve been through. I’ve dealt with that most of my life,” he said.35

All in all, Lefferts said in 2017, he was pleased with his career and life in baseball. “I have already done my career. I’m the luckiest man around and I still get to put a uniform on and do this for a living. How about that? Couldn’t be better.”36

Sources

In addition to the sources in the notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Before the fall of communism and the reunification of Germany, West Germany was the non-Communist area.

2 Tom Friend, “Padre Reliever Has Met Many Challenges on His Way to Becoming a Major Leaguer,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1985.

3 Dennis Georgatos, “Lefferts Faces Pressure,” Trenton (New Jersey) Evening Times, April 8, 1990: C10.

4 Friend.

5 Georgatos.

6 Friend.

7 Ibid.

8 Joe Goddard, “Bullpen Very Deep; Cubs Will Need It,” The Sporting News, April 18, 1983: 14.

9 Joe Goddard, “Rookie Lefferts Becomes a Starter,” The Sporting News, May 2, 1983: 22.

10 Ibid.

11 Joe Goddard, “Buckner, Sandberg, Durham Halt Skids,” The Sporting News, June 13, 1983: 16.

12 The Cubs sent Lefferts, third baseman Fritzie Connally and left fielder Carmelo Martinez to the Padres. The Padres sent pitcher Gary Lucas to the Montreal Expos. The Expos sent infielder Al Newman to the Padres, and pitcher Scott Sanderson to the Cubs.

13 Phil Collier, “Lefferts to Work in Padres’ Pen,” The Sporting News, December 26, 1983: 43.

14 Phil Collier, “Padres’ Bargain: Reliever Lefferts,” The Sporting News, June 11, 1984: 19.

15 Michael Knisley, “A Career Year,” The Sporting News, May 23, 1994: 14.

16 “Dirty Kurt, Handy Andy Tame Tigers,” The Sporting News, October 22, 1984: 13.

17 Michael Knisley, “It Was in the Cards,” The Sporting News, May 23, 1994: 13.

18 Phil Collier, “Padres Still Need Lefferts in Bullpen,” The Sporting News, March 18, 1985: 32.

19 “Padres,” The Sporting News, June 9, 1986: 16.

20 Mark Kreidler, “So-So Results From Lefferts’ Efforts,” The Sporting News, October 13, 1986: 27.

21 The Padres sent Lefferts, pitcher Dave Dravecky, and outfielder Kevin Mitchell to the Giants for third baseman Chris Brown and pitchers Keith Comstock, Mark Davis, and Mark Grant.

22 “Giants,” The Sporting News, July 20, 1987: 21.

23 Casey Tefertiller, “Lefferts’ Career Gets New Impetus,” San Francisco Examiner, June 5, 1988: C6.

24 Nick Peters, “He’s Caught in the Middle,” The Sporting News, May 23, 1988: 20.

25 Nick Peters, “From Set-Ups to Saves,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1989: 16.

26 Ibid.

27 “Giants,” The Sporting News, January 1, 1990: 52.

28 Barry Bloom, “Lefferts Operates Under Davis’ Shadow,” The Sporting News, May 7, 1990: 16.

29 Ibid.

30 Barry Bloom, “Padres Stumble Through Ungodly Year,” The Sporting News, August 20, 1990: 10.

31 In return for Lefferts, the Padres got pitcher Erik Schullstrom and infielder Ricky Gutierrez from the Orioles.

32 Chris De Luca, “San Diego Padres,” The Sporting News, March 15, 1993: 18.

33 Melissa Lockard, “Former Big Leaguer Craig Lefferts Helping to Get A’s Players Back on the Field,” The Athletic, October 6, 2017. theathletic.com/117735/2017/10/06/former-big-leaguer-craig-lefferts-helping-to-get-as-players-back-on-the-field.

34 Ibid.

35 Daniel Brown, “A’s Coach Craig Lefferts Recalls Memorable Blast from Giants’ Past,” San Jose (California) Mercury News, March 14, 2017. mercurynews.com/2017/03/14/as-coach-craig-lefferts-recalls-memorable-blast-from-the-past/.

36 Lockard.