Scottie Slayback

With Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch blocking your path in one year, and Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby the next, your prospects of sticking in the major leagues are dim. Such was the conundrum facing rookie second baseman Elbert “Scottie” Slayback of the 1926 New York Giants. So, all he got was one day. September 26, 1926. On the last day of a forgettable fifth-place Giants season. Eight at-bats. Zero hits. One error. This was the extent of the Kentuckian’s major-league career; then back to the bushes Scottie went.

Elbert D. Slayback1 was born on October 5, 1901, in Paducah, Kentucky, a town located in the western finger of the state, at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, near the Illinois border. Elbert was the first child born to Montreville (Mont) Slayback, a farmer and county truck driver, and Minnie Ann Craig Slayback, the couple having wed three years prior. Elbert had a sister, Lottie, 11 years younger. The sandy-haired Elbert, who gained a nickname early on of “Scout,”2 grew up in nearby Burlington and was still there as of 1920 working as a clerk at a general store. He played baseball for an American Oaken Leather Company semipro team out of Cincinnati, then with the All-Italians (later renamed the All-Americans), also in Cincy. One of his early coaches was Charley Grant, a Black man, who moved Slayback to second base from shortstop.3

Slayback, standing 5-feet-8 and weighing 165 pounds, left the All-Americans in July 1921, for a semipro team in Maysville, Kentucky, later being identified as their “star second baseman.”4 Maysville defeated Winchester for the Kentucky semipro championship. “Scotty,” or “Scottie,” as he was regularly referred to by this time, returned to the Maysville Cardinals for 1922, by which time they had joined the new Class D Blue Grass League.5 Maysville won the league championship, with Slayback hitting .301. During this time, he lived in Aurora, Indiana, about 30 miles west of Cincinnati.

Slayback returned to Maysville in 1923, batting mostly cleanup. The Blue Grass League didn’t aggregate any individual stats. Maysville finished in third place; the club lost to Bellevue, winners of the K.I.O. League, in two straight mid-September games for the mythical northern Kentucky championship.6

Previously, on a mid-May morning before a Maysville game, Elbert married a Maysville girl, Frances Thomas (who was a twin and daughter of a tobacco man), in West Union, Ohio.7 The couple would later settle in Cincinnati.

Slayback moved to the Morristown (Tennessee) Roosters of the Class D Appalachian League for 1924, where he hit .323. He paced the circuit with 13 home runs and set an APPY League record with 31 doubles.8

In January 1925, Scottie signed with the Norfolk Tars of the Class B Virginia League. He was introduced locally as “the kitten’s earmuffs in the Appalachian league. He cost the locals a nice pile of iron, but they feel that the lad’s worth the money.”9 He wasn’t…at least early on. By mid-April, he was already “proven one of the most monumental disappointments of the spring season.”10 He also allegedly got into hot water with Norfolk’s secretary.11

Slayback was sent down two levels, to the Hanover (Pennsylvania) Raiders of the Class D Blue Ridge League. As of the end of May, he was batting over .300 for Hanover. Although he slumped later, he was recalled in mid-June by Norfolk. Slayback caught fire for the Tars in the summer, hitting over .350 upon his return and ending the season with a .323 batting average for the team. By mid-July, New York Giants scout Johnny Evers swung through Kentucky and checked out the infielder.12 Completing the turnaround, Slayback was sold to the Giants in September for next season.13

Invited to the Giants’ 1926 training camp in Sarasota, Florida, “Bert,” as the New York press called him, roomed with another rookie, a young catcher-turned-outfielder from Louisiana named Mel Ott.14 Slayback was introduced as “a broad shouldered youth found in Norfolk – a youth with a queer, gangling way of covering the ground and most satisfying way of coming up with the ball and getting it away from him.”15 The New York Evening Journal commented that Slayback “may be just a morning glory, but how he can ramble around that second base is nobody’s business. He thumps them some, too, and is the modest, likeable sort of a lad that everybody likes to see make good.”16 He had three hits including a triple on March 10.

Nonetheless, considering that Frankie Frisch held down the keystone, Slayback was blocked. Even decades later, he lamented, “Who would have had a chance with Frisch ahead of you?”17 In mid-March, Slayback was optioned back to Norfolk,18 as Giants manager John McGraw kept only three rookies from camp on the team, including the 17-year-old Ott.19

For Norfolk in 1926, Slayback hit .321, tied for the league lead with 42 doubles, tied for second in RBIs with 125, and was fourth in home runs with 26.20 In September, the Giants, firmly entrenched in fifth place, again acquired Slayback. On the same day, Irish Meusel bought out his release from the club and veteran Jimmy Johnston was released.21

McGraw finally inserted Slayback into the lineup for the season-ending doubleheader on September 26 against the last-place Philadelphia Phillies. Batting second in each game, Scottie went 0-for-8 (albeit with no strikeouts) and committed an error, as the Giants swept with identical 3-2 scores. The “rookie second baseman went hitless in each contest and did not measure up to the standard set for rookie infielders by [second baseman Fresco] Thompson [who had three hits] on Saturday.”22 The Daily News commented that “Fred (sic) Slayback, recalled from Norfolk, was tried by McGraw at second, but failed to hit.”23

With the Giants’ huge off-season trade of Frisch to the St. Louis Cardinals for Rogers Hornsby, Slayback again had no chance at second base with the Giants for 1927. Therefore, the Giants optioned Slayback to the Baltimore Orioles of the Class AA International League.24 By late April, he was returned to the Giants, with the comment that he “proved to be a good hitter, but didn’t have the necessary speed around second base. He was rather awkward afoot and missed too many double play opportunities.”25 He was quickly jettisoned to Buffalo, also in the IL, but after five games with Buffalo, was again returned to the Giants. By early June, he was with the Waterbury (Connecticut) Brasscos of the Class A Eastern League. He led that league with a .983 fielding percentage.

In February 1928, Slayback signed with Hartford, also in the Eastern League. Reports indicated the “short infielder is socking the apple.”26 His ninth-inning grand slam won an April contest for Hartford against Providence.27 He hit .292 with 39 doubles that season.

Hartford sold Slayback in early 1929 to the Bridgeport (Connecticut) Bears of the EL.28 He played one game with Bridgeport before being shipped to the Manchester (New Hampshire) Blue Sox of the Class B New England League. The Blue Sox won the league, with Slayback topping the .300 mark (.304) over 132 games.

Scottie and Frances divorced in the spring of 1930. Slayback returned to bat cleanup and play second base with Manchester in 1930, but the league disbanded in late June. The same week, he married Ruth Reynolds, a 24-year-old hairdresser from Portland, Maine, in Manchester.29 His best man was former St. Louis Browns outfielder Bill Whaley of Indianapolis. Slayback played for Tom Whelan’s independent Lynn (Massachusetts) Cornets in July, then for the Portland Gas Company in the semipro Mercantile League the rest of the summer.

Returning to Organized Ball, Slayback signed with the High Point (North Carolina) Pointers of the Class C Piedmont League in February 1931.30 Cut in late May, he slid over to the Winston-Salem Twins, then the Durham Bulls of the same league by July. Collectively, Slayback hit .2996 (83-for-277), rounded up to .300, in the Piedmont. The year ended poorly, however, as wife Ruth filed for divorce in October, “alleging cruel and abusive treatment as well as nonsupport.”31

That was also Slayback’s final professional season. Moving back to Aurora, Indiana, he began playing for local teams starting in 1932, including the Old Quakers of the Tristate Semipro League. He later played for Morristown of the non-affiliated Appalachian League in 1935.32 He worked at Stedman’s Foundry and Machine Works in town.

Slayback lost most of his baseball mementos in a 1937 flood, whereafter he moved to Miami, Florida, working “in the laundry business there, his place of business being known as ‘Gay Paree.’”33 He served in the army in 1942, although his role is unclear.

By 1947, back in Aurora, he managed the local American Legion team. Later, he worked at the Seagram’s Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, until he retired in 1964. Scottie also became a dog breeder who trained beagles in field trials.

Elbert (Scottie) Slayback, 78, died on November 30, 1979, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is buried at Oakdale Cemetery in Dillsboro, Indiana. He left a niece and three nephews.34 The family even received a note from Yankees pitching great Waite Hoyt.35

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Gregory H. Wolf and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Terry Bohn.

Photo credit: Scottie Slayback, Baseball-Reference.com.

Sources

In addition to the endnotes below, the author utilized Baseball-Reference.com, StatsCrew.com, and MyHeritage.com.

Notes

1 No middle name was found during ancestry research.

2 Henry DeCoursey Adams, “Recalls Early Burlington…,” Boone County Recorder (Burlington, Kentucky), March 9, 1978: 10.

3 Bill Robinson, “Slayback Recalls Baseball Days,” Cincinnati Post, September 8, 1978: 9.

4 “Scout to Look at Slayback,” Public Ledger (Maysville, Kentucky), October 1, 1921: 4.

5 “Bluegrass to Open Season at Maysville,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), April 20, 1922: 12.

6 “First Game is Taken by Bellevue,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 16, 1923: 21; Bellevue Makes It Two Straight by Winning Yesterday,” Public Ledger, September 17, 1923: 1.

7 “Thomas-Slayback,” Public Ledger, May 14, 1923: 1.

8 This surpassed the 30 of John Cochran of Rome (Georgia) in 1913.

9 “Norfolk Hope for Good Club This Season; Looks to Dave for a Champion,” Daily Press (Newport News, Virginia), March 8, 1925: 6.

10 Tom Hanes, “Pitching is Robertson’s Chief Worry; Norfolk Team Can Hit,” Times Dispatch, April 16, 1925: 7.

11 “Scotty Slayback is Purchased by New York Giants,” Public Ledger, September 15, 1925: 1.

12 Tom Hanes, “Second Guesses,” Ledger-Star (Norfolk, Virginia), July 16, 1925: 18; “Slayback Being Watched by Big League Scouts,” Public Ledger, July 24, 1925: 1.

13 “Scotty Slayback is Sold to Giants,” Ledger-Star, September 12, 1925: 16. No dollar amount for the signing was found in newspapers during that time; however, a reference years later stated the price was $7,500. See Win Clark, “1894-to-1932 Era Recalled by Win Clark,” Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, June 26, 1940: 155.

14 Bill Robinson, “Slayback Recalls Baseball Days,” above.

15 Ralph Davis, “Sport Chat,” Pittsburgh Press, March 6, 1926: 11.

16 M.W. Corum, “Little Chance for Rookies in Camp of McGraw,” New York Evening Journal, March 5, 1926: 36.

17 Bill Robinson, “Slayback Recalls Baseball Days,” above.

18 “Dawson in Florida Seeking Players,” Daily Press (Newport News, Virginia), March 16, 1926: 5.

19 M.W. Corum, “Only 3 Giants Rookies Will Be Put on Payroll,” New York Evening Journal, March 15, 1926: 18.

20 “Attreau Leading Offensive Player,” Ledger-Star (Norfolk, Virginia), February 3, 1927: 21.

21 “Irish Meusel Buys Release,” Star-Gazette (Elmira, New York), September 18, 1926: 8.

22 Frank Kearns, “Kelly Plays Safe While Fans Burn,” Times Union (Brooklyn), September 27, 1926: 4.

23 “Giants Trim Phils Twice, 3 to 2, as Season Ends,” Daily News (New York), September 27, 1926: 30.

24 “Orioles Get Slayback from Giants’ Club,” Baltimore Sun, January 21, 1927: 11; Will Murphy, “Giants Contribute Infielder in Orioles’ Reconstruction,” Daily News (New York), January 21, 1927: 94.

25 “Dunn Reduces Oriole Force; Second Baseman Slayback is Returned to New York Giants,” Baltimore Sun, April 24, 1927: 23.

26 “Former B.R. Men Making Good,” News Chronicle (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania), May 1, 1928: 10.

27 Albert W Keane, “’Scotty’ Slayback’s Home Run in Ninth with Bases Crowded Wins for Senators,” Hartford Courant, April 27, 1928: 12.

28 Albert W. Keane, “Hartford Senators Sell Elbert Slayback and Catcher Grube to Bridgeport,” Hartford Courant, January 13, 1929: 33.

29 Elbert’s first wife, Frances, had remarried even sooner, in May 1930 to a Mr. Patrick Hill of Manchester.

30 “Slayback Signed to Play for Boone Club,” News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), February 22, 1931: 17.

31 “Forty-Nine Divorce Libels Filed for Superior Court,” Portland (Maine) Evening Express, October 6, 1931: 24. Also, see Lewiston (Maine) Evening Journal, October 14, 1931: 9 and “Roberts Says Wife Constantly Nagging,” Portland (Maine) Press Herald, November 6, 1931: 11.

32 League Standing: Appalachian League,” Morristown (Tennessee) Gazette and Mail, October 10, 1935: 4.

33 “Met Friends in Florida,” Lawrenceburg (Indiana) Press, November 12, 1937: 5.

34 “Elbert Slayback,” Cincinnati Post, December 3, 1979: 3. Sister Lottie (Slayback) Kinnett passed away in 1954 in Aurora.

35 “A Card of Thanks,” Journal-Press (Aurora, Indiana), December 13, 1979: 9.