Comiskey’s Misfits Were Magic in 1906

This was not a great team. Until the legendary 19 game winning streak began on August 2, it wasn’t even a very good team.

What Charles Comiskey’s 1906 White Sox had, in the words of Frank Sinatra, was “high hopes” – with a generous dose of character thrown in for good measure.

“I think I have one of the best pitching staffs in the business, and now I have Lou Fiene who will be one of the best ever,” gushed Charles Comiskey, as he watched the southbound Illnois Central train carry his ballclub to spring training from the platform of the old Dearborn Street Station. “I predict that the Sox will win the pennant this year, barring injuries to Jones, Isbell, or Davis.”

Comiskey the seer was on the mark — almost. Lou Fiene, the “Big Finn,” posted an unremarkable 3-8 career record, and at various times during the 1906 season, Jones, Isbell, and Davis all missed games due to a variety of injuries.

Indeed, this was a very unsettled ballclub that headed for spring training in New Orleans. Three key members of the 1905 squad which had challenged Connie Mack’s A’s down to the last week of the season were noticeably absent. Jimmy Callahan, the wayfaring pitcher/outfielder whom the “Old Roman” regarded as a mischievous son, was now part owner of a semi-pro team known as the Logan Squares.

“Ducky” Holmes and Danny Green, two-thirds of the 1905 outfield were out of the major leagues. The brawling Holmes had been suspended by the league for his altercations with umpire “Silk” O’Loughlin; an affair that further strained the relations between Comiskey and American League President Ban Johnson.

But Comiskey always had a warm spot in his heart for players who were considered troublesome by other ballclubs. The “Old Roman” purchased the contract of”Rube” Vinson, a part-time outfielder who had been suspended by the Cleveland Naps in 1905 for fighting with Nap Lajoie. Garry Herrmann of the National Commission attempted to block the transaction on the grounds that Cleveland had not properly reinstated Vinson.

Patsy Dougherty, a star outfielder of the New York Highlanders, was another Comiskey reclamation project. Dougherty was a close friend of Fielder Jones, and when he was put on waivers by owner Frank Ferrell, following some fisticuffs with Clark Griffith, well, who else but the White Sox would claim him? However, Dougherty was barred from joining the Sox until July. When all the details were finally ironed out, it was his inspired play which proved to be the pennant catalyst.

When the Sox arrived in the state of Louisiana, they found themselves barred from using the clubhouse of the Young Men’s Gymnastic Club because the Philadelphia A’s had shown “ungentlemanly conduct” by wearing their uniforms in the front parlor, and by their “roughhousing” behavior. The Sox found themselves without bathing facilities. If the truth be known, the Sox had really arrived in a state of confusion.

Where was Frank Smith? The star right hander who fashioned a no-hitter and a pair of one-hitters in 1905 was a holdout, of course. This was nothing unusual for Smith, the part time “piano mover” who hated Fielder Jones and begged for his release. Comiskey would not oblige, and Smith finally came to terms.

The scholarly, pious Doc White was coaching the Georgetown nine when he informed Jones in no uncertain terms, that he would not be ready for duty until after the season started. This was not an auspicious start for a team destined to upset the odds, and their hated cross-town rivals.

Bad weather, the unsettled outfield, and the split-squad schedule doomed the manager’s best efforts. But as the Sox traveled to Detroit for the league opener on April 17, Jones expressed guarded optimism. “We are far from right, but a lot better than I feared we would be at one time during the trip.”

Fielder Allison Jones. He was kicked out of the opener by umpire Tim Hurst in the sixth inning. Nothing unusual about that. Since joining the Sox as a contract jumper from the National League in 1901,Jones had terrorized umpires with his fiery vocabulary. As a manager, he was ahead of his time. An early champion of player rights, Fielder Jones schooled his players with a heads up, daring style of play. He taught his runners the body twist slide, now known as the hook slide. The “motion infield” is also credited to the Sox manager. Jones was never one to tolerate laziness or complacency. In the two years prior to 1906, he had left a trail of damaged egos big enough to fill someone’s roster.

Eddie McFarland was suspended without pay in 1904 for drinking problems. Danny Green was suspended for being out of condition in 1905. Holmes was benched for muffing two fly balls in one game. Callahan, a close friend of Jones, was suspended that same year for failing to stay in condition. And the list goes on. Jones was fair — but uncompromising. He was blessed with a superb pitching staff and little else. Without him, it is unlikely that the White Sox would have won the pennant in 1906, and remained in contention till the last week of the season in the other years of his stewardship. After he was gone, the Sox were just not the same ballclub. Mount Vesuvius and the San Francisco Earthquake were two tragedies that occupied the public attention in the spring of ’06. The White Sox injury list was another. The Jones men checked in with a miserable 15-20 record when June rolled around. They were mired in sixth place, seven-and-a-half out.

Ed Walsh, the “Big Reel,” pitched the first of a pair of one hitters on May 6 against Cleveland, but George Davis’ shoulder came up lame. Jones twisted an ankle, Gus Dundon was ill, and catcher Billy Sullivan was poisoned after eating too much peach shortcake. Frustrated with their various physical ailments, Comiskey went out and hired a specialist in physical conditioning. Hiram “Doc” Connibear, one of the unsung heroes of the 1906 season, came to the Sox well advertised. As the trainer for the University of Chicago, Connibear’s regimens kept their football team in shape and in the thick of things.

By mid-season the Sox were restored to working order by the “Bear.” He had little use for alcoholic spirits. During an August game in Boston, Billy Sullivan was spiked at the plate by Freddie Parent. A Boston rooter ran on the field to offer the Sox catcher a swig of gin, but the Bear took the man’s flask and flung it into the far reaches of center field. The players were devoted to the Doc’s program, but he left the team in early September for a coaching job at the University of Washington — some say over a salary quarrel with Comiskey. They made him the rowing coach, but it was a sport he professed to know nothing about it. Yet the history books credit him with perfecting a new and revolutionary inter-collegiate stroke.

The White Sox never really had a set lineup. Comiskey funneled players to Jones to plug the hole created by injuries and inconsistent performance. The players who respond well to “situation” roles can never be underestimated. They win pennants you see. And in 1906, there was a parade of situation players.

When Clark Griffith had a spat with one of his players, the Sox took notice. First it was Dougherty, and then on May 6, they picked up Eddie Hahn on waivers. The former street car painter from Vicksburg, Mississippi, went on to lead the team in hitting during the middle months of the season. Little Eddie saved the Sox from being no-hit on July 4 with a lead off-single that kept Barney Pelty out of the history books. Griffith, who had abandoned the Sox for New York in 1903, repaid his former benefactor’s kindness in more ways than one.

Jay Towne, a hard hitting catcher from the Des Moines club of the Western League, and “Hub” Hart proved to be capable replacements during Sullivan’s extended absences.

By slow degrees, the Sox improved. The worm really turned on May 31, which was when the club was seemingly at its lowest point. The Sox were in Detroit for a doubleheader, and were losing badly. Frank Smith was in constant trouble in the second game, and when Jones sent him to the bench, the player and manager engaged in a fist fight. Comiskey, whose meddling was never appreciated by a series of Sox managers before and after Jones, investigated the matter. Reports of wide-spread dissension on the Sox were discounted by the owner.

It was about this time that the White Sox earned the reputation of “Hitless Wonders.” In a game against the Highlanders on June 10, the Sox almost won a game without benefit of a hit. They scored a run off of Al Orth on a hit batsman, a muffed double play, and an error. Fielder Jones collected the only single three innings later.

“With a game team, you’re never out of a pennant race,” Comiskey beamed as his club climbed to within four games of the top on July 14. On that day, the Chicago Tribune ran a headline that contained the first known reference to the “Hitless Wonders.” No one knows for sure, but it may have been Charles Dryden of the Tribune who coined the phrase. “Hitless Wonders Rally & Turn An Apparent New York Victory Into Defeat.”

Collectively, the Sox batted .230 as a team — last in the league. Official accounts credit them with six home runs; but they actually hit seven. The missing homer belonged to Billy Sullivan, but with or without it, the Sox were last in that category also.

August first in Chicago. The Cubs lead the National League by a light year and then some. The baseball cranks are fired up by Frank Chance and company, so much so, that in a recent game with the A’s, the crowd is yelling for some news of the Giants and Cubs.

Then, magic. Doc White shuts down the Boston club on August 2, with just three hits. Sox are in fourth, but trail by nine games. The next day Ed Walsh baffles the Pilgrims with his mysterious “eel ball.” With one out in the ninth inning, Jack Hayden raps out a single — which was Boston’s collective offense for the day. The shutout string was continued the next day, as Roy (no longer a “Boy Wonder”) Patterson defeats Bill Dinneen, 1-0.

It didn’t end there, not by a long shot. The Sox sweep a five game set with the dangerous A’s. Connie Mack’s team is held to just six runs. The Highlanders arrive in Chicago, and are lucky to eke out a tie on the thirteenth, after dropping three straight. The White Sox take to the road with eleven straight wins under the belt, and in first by a half-game. In just eleven days they had wiped out a nine game deficit.

Another three game sweep in Boston, and then it’s on to New York to protect a two game lead from their closest pursuers. In anticipation of their arrival, Clark Griffith saves Jack Chesbro for the opening clash. No matter. The Sox shed the “Hitless Wonder” label temporarily by scoring nine runs in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game. Who says this team can’t hit? In four games with New York, the Sox score 31 runs.

It’s eighteen straight now, and it’s off to Washington to set a record. Roy Patterson wins again on August 23, for 19 in a row. Suddenly the Cubs are pushed off the front page. This imperfect, patchwork quilt team with such names as Hahn, Vinson, Rohe, Tannehill, and Sullivan, had set the odds makers on their ears.

And they nearly made it twenty straight, if not for a last minute rally by the Senators on the twenty-fifth. Blame it on Ban Johnson. The American League president was a loud, excited supporter of the Washington club this day. Johnson and Comiskey had some irreconcilable differences that were magnified when Comiskey moved out of the American League offices for more spacious quarters down the street, earlier in the year.

There was an inevitable slump after this, hastened by a rookie umpire named Billy Evans. In a rain delayed game in Philadelphia, on August 29, Evans called off the proceedings after the Sox pushed across the go-ahead runs in the sixth. A few minutes after this, the sun came out.

Billy Evans may or may not have been a Ban Johnson “agent.” When Evans turned up in Chicago on September 9 to officiate a game, the fans with long memories threw soda pop bottles at him. It was worse the next day. After he called George Davis out at first on a play that he had apparently beaten out, the fans mobbed the field. Following another bottle throwing episode the police escorted Evans off the field.

Good sense dictated that Johnson should have replaced Evans for the remainder of the series. But he showed up the next day, and made even more of a spectacle of himself. His decisions gave the Browns a pair of tainted runs that spelled another defeat. Comiskey stopped the sale of soda pop in the first inning, and recruited an army of detectives to wander about the crowd. Evans, whom many people believed was instructed by Johnson to thwart the White Sox, was merely the culmination of series of bottle throwing episodes at the 39th Street Grounds.

Even with the Billy Evans subterfuge, the Sox could not be denied. Not this year anyway. Gnome-like Nick Altrock, a pitcher bought for a song in 1903, won games on successive days to give the Sox the lead for good. The pennant was clinched in St. Louis on October 3, as the New York Highlanders dropped a game to the A’s. Drinks all around.

Adversity overcome. Only once during the nineteen game streak were the Sox able to field a healthy team. With a restructured outfield, a pitcher who didn’t want to pitch, and a collection of castoffs and trouble makers, the White Sox beat out the Naps and Highlanders. Fielder Jones had placed his stamp on this team, and the Sox responded in kind. Only they didn’t know that the best was yet to come.