Louis Van Zelst In the Age of Magic

The band struck up “Hail the Conquering Heroes Come,” and cheering Philadelphia fans opened a gauntlet at the depot October 24, 1910, to let their victorious Athletics pass through. The A’s had just arrived from Chicago, where they had whipped the Cubs four games to one to win the baseball championship of the world.

At the head of the line of players marched the manager, lanky, kindly Connie Mack, in his black derby hat and starched collar. Beside him, barely reaching to Connie’s belt buckle, limped hunchback Louis Van Zelst. It was Connie’s first world championship ever, and, wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer, “little did they [the fans] know that away down in that corner where superstition is safely locked up, many of the players felt that the diminutive chap who walked beside the great Connie Mack had a lot to do with the humbling of the Cubs. Connie himself thinks so.”

The story of Louis Van Zelst is played against the backdrop of an age when many players accorded superstition a weight equal to talent in the formula for pennant success. . . an age when the best teams often maintained rituals of dress, habit, and conduct designed to foster good luck, and when several went so far as to carry “lucky mascots.” Did Louis fulfill his mission-was he an amulet of good fortune?

“Indeed he was,” wrote veteran sports writer Fred Lieb. “Nothing but good luck followed in his wake.”

Mack has long been considered one of the top managers of all time. But until he met Louis, late in the 1909 season, his record had been spotty. In twelve years, including three directing Pittsburgh’s National League club in the 1890s, Mack had finished seventh twice, sixth twice, fifth once, fourth twice, second three times, and first twice—in 1902 and 1905.

Louis was born in 1895, making him only six years older than the A’s franchise, which was founded in 1901 with the traditional Philadelphia name. His body was misshapen from the age of eight, according to his younger brother, T.P. Van Zelst, now seventy-eight and a retired Philadelphia beer distributor. The boy had hitched a ride on a wagon and fallen off. The accident collapsed his lung and almost killed him, but he recovered, remaining a tiny, stunted boy with a twisted torso much too short for his legs.

Yet his happy smile “seemed to light up one’s heart, no matter how trouble or defeat pressed on it,” as one sportswriter later put it. He was “an exceptionally bright chap, winsome and clever,” another commented.

In September of 1909, The A’s, trailing Detroit and the Tigers’ legendary star, Ty Cobb, by 3.5 games, played a crucial four-game series with the league leaders in Shibe Park. The clubs split the first two games,and the stadium was packed for the third. Little Louis Van Zelst hobbled toward the gate as soon as school was over:

Louis had apparently struck up a friendship with Rube Oldring, the A’s center fielder, who later claimed he got the hunchback the job as batboy. Another story says that Louis, lacking a ticket, flashed a picture of Rube. taken from a cigarette pack and an indulgent ticket taker smilingly waved him in.

When Mack spotted the hunchback he called to him, “How’d you like to tend bats for us today?” How would he like it? Louis limped eagerly onto the field and took up his duties.

The A’s got a lucky break in the fourth inning. With Eddie Collins on third, Detroit ace Wild Bill Donovan caught Collins flat-footed but threw wildly and Collins dashed home with a run. A second gift followed in the eighth. With A’s rookie Heinie Heitmuller on second by an error, Collins hit a ground ball and was safe at first on a close play. Donovan, thinking Collins was out, held the ball while Heitmuller raced home; the A’s won 2-0. They won the next game, too, and were now only 1.5 games behind. With Louis remaining on the job, the A’s won six of eight, but they couldn’t catch the Tigers, who won six straight to capture the flag.

The following spring Mack signed Louis to a full-time contract. Little Van Zelst was in his glory, wearing a regular A’s uniform and making all the road trips. A’s shortstop Jack Barry and pitcher Jack Coombs acted as his guardians and made sure he went to Mass every Sunday. Travel was an ordeal, since Louis was subject to spasms of pain. But he never complained. “He had the courage of a Spartan,” a reporter wrote.

Louis “won the hearts of our players,” Mack said. Even enemy players loved him, including Cobb, a man who didn’t make,many friends. Louis was a good comic, too. Detroit manager Hughie Jennings had once dived into an empty pool at night, and Louis used to get his dander up with a pantomime of a swan dive.

Louis discovered “lucky holes” in the turf. At every game he dug his spikes into the charmed spots and carefully stepped in the same place thereafter. If a hitter was in a slump, Louis would say in his weak, quavering voice, “better rub my back for a hit this time.”

It must have worked in 1910. Outfielder Danny Murphy raised his average 19 points to an even .300. Shortstop Jack Barry improved 44 points. Oldring jumped 78 points to .308, the best year of his career. And Collins led the league in stolen bases, beating out the great Cobb.

The pitchers, meanwhile, cut their earned run average to an amazing 1.79. Bender won 22 games, the first 20-victory season of his life, and Coombs won 31. In all, the A’s won 102 times, the most in the young history of the American League, and trotted to the pennant.

But their World Series foes, the Chicago Cubs, had done even better, with 104 victories. What’s more, they had whipped the Tigers in each of their last two Series appearances, in 1907 and 1908. When Plank reported a sore arm and Oldring broke his leg, Philadelphia went into the Series a distinct underdog.

But the A’s laughed at the odds. In the first game, Bender pitched a three-hitter to win 4-1. Next Coombs faced Chicago’s ace, 25-game winner Mordecai “Three Fingered” Brown. In the last ofthe seventh, the Cubs were holding a slim 3-2 lead. Louis’ luck must have rubbed off, because they erupted for six runs, the biggest inning to that date in World Series history, and went ahead in the Series two games to none.

Moving to Chicago, Mack called on Coombs again with only one day’s rest. He coasted to a 15-5 victory.

After the A’s lost the fourth game, 4-3, Coombs came back to pitch his third complete game in five days. He was protecting a 2-1 lead when the A’s, merrily rubbing Louis’ back, scored five runs in the eighth to clinch the world championship.

As a team, the Athletics hit .316, a record that would stand for 50 years until the 1960 Yankees of Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra broke it. Collins hit .429, third baseman Frank Baker .409.

In 1911 Mack added Stuffy McInnis at first base and the famous “$100,000 infield” was complete: McInnis, Collins, Barry, and Baker. Coombs had another splendid year on the mound with 29 victories. Plank won 22 and the A’s easily won the pennant again.

This time their foes in the World Series were the New York Giants, who themselves carried one of the most famous good luck charms in the annals of baseball, a lunatic Kansas hayseed named Charles Victor Faust.

Victory Faust had dreamed that he would pitch the Giants to a pennant: he went to a gypsy fortune teller who confirmed the vision; then, when a telegram arrived offering him a job with the Giants, he dashed to see John McGraw. The telegram was a hoax perpetrated by a local joker, but Faust convinced McGraw that he was indeed a lucky charm. After he joined them, the Giants played some of the hottest ball of any team in major league history. For the last two months of the season, with Faust “warming up” to pitch before each ballgame and then taking his place on the bench, the Giants won 39 games and lost only 7 for a winning percentage of .830; not the Miracle Braves of1914, the 1951 Giants, the Amazin’ Mets of1969, or the ’78 Yankees could equal that pace down the stretch. (Only the record-setting 1906 Cubs performed better at the finish, winning 50 of their final 57, an .877 percentage.) From third place, 4.5 games behind Chicago, the Giants charged into first to win by 8.5 in October. They stole 347 bases, an all-time record. Their legendary pitchers, Christy Mathewson and Rube Marquard, won 24 and 25 games respectively—Marquard going 11-1 after the arrival of the aptly named Faust. Relief specialist Otis “Doc” Crandall was 8-0 with Charlie on the job.

Leon “Red” Ames was considered a hoodoo pitcher, the unluckiest man in baseball, until an actress gave him a lucky necktie soon after Faust joined the team; helped by both Faust and the tie, Ames won five of his last six games.

The Giants were red-hot, and the A’s again entered the Series with a heavy handicap. McInnis, a .321 hitter, hurt his hand and was replaced by Harry Davis, at .197.

With Mathewson facing Bender in the opener, the Giants surprised the crowd by walking out in black uniforms, like those they wore when they beat the A’s in 1905. Perhaps these brought good luck: the Giants won 2-1.

In Game 2, Frank Baker lined a Marquard pitch over the wall for a Philadelphia victory. The next day he lined another off Mathewson in the ninth to tie it (and was forever after known as Home Run Baker). New York’s Chief Meyers replied in the eleventh with a long blow that curved foul at the last second, then the A’s pushed across a run to win. After a week’s rain delay, Philadelphia came from behind to defeat Mathewson for a third straight victory.

Game 5. Charlie Faust, still predicting a Giant victory, entertained the pregame crowd by leading the band. The attempt was not too successful, the band finding it hard to play and laugh at the same time. Coombs went against Marquard. This time the A’s struck first. Oldring, who had hit only three home runs all year, hit one with two men on base to give Van Zelst’s heroes a three-run lead.

Then it seemed as if the Faust magic took hold. Collins’ error let in one Giant run. Two more scored in the ninth to tie it up. In the tenth, Coombs pulled a groin muscle and had to leave the game, so Mack hurriedly called on Plank to pitch. He yielded a double to Larry Doyle, then fielded a bunt but threw too late to third to nip Doyle. Fred Merkle flied to right, and Doyle slid home with the winning run. It was now three games to two, the A’s still ahead.

In Game 6, Bender went up against Ames, who had foolishly thrown away his lucky tie. In the fourth inning, the Giants fell apart, allowing four runs, three on errors, including one fumble by Ames.

The A’s were champs again.

Why did Philadelphia win? Mathewson, a Bucknell graduate (Class of ’99) and hardly an uneducated, superstitious ballplayer, pointed the finger at Louis Van Zelst, claiming he out-jinxed Faust. The A’s voted Louis half a share of their World Series winnings. “He deserved it,” Matty said, ”because he has won two world’s pennants for them.”

In 1912 the A’s dropped to third (although Faust’s Giants finished first again in the National League). In 1913 Coombs was taken ill, winning only one game, yet Philadelphia regained the American League pennant. While Louis went faithfully to the hospital, talking or reading to big Jack by the hour, the other pitchers took up the slack. Bender won 21, Plank 18, Boardwalk Brown 17, and newcomers Bullet Joe Bush and Bob Shawkey 14 and 7, respectively. The World Series would be an A’s-Giants rematch Louis against Charles once again.

Once more the little hunchback prevailed, as the A’s beat the Giants four games to one.

In 1914, lefties Herb Pennock and Rube Bressler joined the starting rotation, and the A’s easily won the pennant again. Louis was 4-for-5.

Over in the National League, the Giants had “released” Charlie Faust after three straight flags. Starting out 1914 strong, they led the league on July 4, then ran into trouble. From the back of the pack, the last-place Braves began stirring to life at the same time.

The Braves were led by George Stallings, a former medical student from Georgia who was the cussingest—and probably the most superstitious—man ever to manage in the major leagues. He had so many lucky charms that he kept them in a trunk which the equipment manager lugged from city to city.

According to Lieb, he prized one charm above all others-a lucky 10-cent piece blessed by a Cuban witch doctor known as “the black pope.” A friend brought it back that summer and gave it to Stallings, saying, “Here, this may bring your team luck.”

Sure enough, the Braves began an amazing drive. They won 59 of their last 75 games for a percentage of .787. Three pitchers virtually carried the team: George Tyler won 11 and lost six in the stretch, Dick Rudolph went 17-1 after July 4, and Big Bill James posted a still more incredible 19-1.

But in the World Series the A’s were heavy favorites to whip the cocky upstarts from Boston. When Mack ordered his pitchers to check out the Braves, Bender airily replied, “there’s no need to scout a bush league team like that.”

Stallings’ faith was unshakable, however. He told the Braves they could beat the A’s in four straight, something that had never been done in World Series history. He ordered his players not to talk to the A’s, and picked a fight with Connie Mack, loudly calling him several “pet names,” and threatening to punch him in the nose. (“You . . . you. . . you. . . DUB!” Connie sputtered, though he apologized later for his intemperance.)

On the morning of the final day of the regular season, Braves president Jim Gaffney woke up with a premonition of trouble and phoned Stallings to urge his players to be careful. In the first game of the doubleheader with Brooklyn, Boston’s best hitter, third baseman Red Smith, broke his leg. Still Stallings refused to be discouraged. He named Charlie Deal, a .210 hitter, to replace Smith and insisted that the change wouldn’t weaken the team at all.

Mack named Bender to start the Series against Rudolph. The Chief complained that he had vertigo and gall bladder trouble, but Mack scoffed. Bender was soundly beaten, 7-1.

It was Plank against James in the second game, and the two dueled for eight innings 0-0. In the Boston ninth, Deal lofted a fly ball to center which the A’s Amos Strunk lost in the sun. A moment later Deal was caught off base, but Wally Schang threw high and Deal raced to third.

Then Les Mann, a .247 hitter, stroked a clean single just off Collins’ fingers as Deal scored to win the game 1-0.

Game 3 pitted Bush against Tyler. Van Zelst’s luck seemed to have returned when Murphy opened with a double and scored after Boston’s Joe Connolly muffed Collins’ fly. Collins stole second and it looked as if another run might come in, but Eddie was picked off the bag to end the threat. At the end of nine innings the two teams were tied 2-2.

In the Philadelphia tenth, Schang singled and Tyler muffed a sure double play ball. Collins hit a long ball into the stands foul, then stepped back in and drew a walk to load the bases. Baker hit another into the stands, foul again. Was Stallings’ magic medal jinxing everything the A’s did? No, Baker bounced a ball to Boston’s great second baseman, Johnny Evers, but the ball took a hop over his shoulder and two runs scored. It seemed Van Zelst had overcome Stallings’ voodoo.

Or had he? Hank Gowdy was first up for the Braves in the bottom of the tenth. A’s scouts had told the pitchers to work Gowdy high and tight. Bush did and Hank hit it over the fence. A walk, a single and a fly ball tied the game.

As darkness settled,James came in to pitch for Boston. The A’s threatened in the twelfth. Murphy walked with the heart of the batting order coming up—Oldring, Collins, and Baker. They must all have furiously rubbed Louis’ back, but none could get the ball out of the infield. In the last of the twelfth, Gowdy doubled into the crowd, Herbie Moran bunted, and then Bush threw wildly to third. The winning run crossed the plate.

Shawkey was the A’s last hope, pitted against Rudolph in Game4. In the fourth the Braves scored without a hit on a walk, two ground balls, and Collins’ error. In the fifth the A’s tied as Barry beat out a hit to shortstop and scored on Shawkey’s double.

But Stallings must have rubbed his coin extra hard in the bottom of the same inning. With two outs Rudolph singled, Moran doubled, the pesky Evers singled both men in, and the Braves were world champions. Baseball’s most incredible season, by the game’s most incredible team, had come to an end.

Louis Van Zelst was crushed by the Series loss. One reporter described it as “like a Waterloo to him.”

That winter Plank and Bender jumped to the outlaw Federal League. Baker said he’d sit out the 1915 season, unless he got more money. The financially strapped Mack sold Collins to the White Sox. Still, it was a strong team that he took to spring training in March. He still had Pennock, Bush, and Bressler on the pitching staff. His World Series outfield remained intact, and half of his $100,000 infield—Barry and McInnis—was with him. Not a championship club, Connie conceded, but a good first division team, nonetheless.

Van Zelst did not go to spring training that year. On Wednesday, March 19, he Came horne from a Penn baseball game and was suddenly taken gravely ill with heart trouble and Bright’s Disease. The next day he knew he was going to die, and on Friday, March 21, the sad father wired Connie Mack that Louis was gone. The whole team sent heartfelt condolences to the family of”the little chap who had magicked the team to championships.”

When the 1915 season opened, nothing went right for the A’s, who lost 7 of their first 10 games. By May 1 they were in seventh place. By June 1, they were last.

Then Mack seemed to come apart completely. He sold Barry and Murphy for pittances. He let Pennock and Shawkey go on waivers. At season’s end, the A’s were last, 48.5 games behind the champion Red Sox.

The conventional theory is that the A’s finished eighth because Mack broke up the team. Actually, they were last before the final break-up began.

How did Louis’ two nemeses, the Giants and Braves, do in 1915?

Barely two months after Louis’ sudden death, Charles Victor Faust also passed away, in Fort Steilacoom, Washington, at age thirty-five, vainly begging McGraw to take him back. Like the A’s without Louis, the Giants without Faust skidded all the way to last place in 1915.

Stallings looked ahead euphorically to another victory in 1915, but his coin’s magic power, if that’s what it was, would not work a second time. James won only five times in 1915, hurt his arm, and never won another major league game. The Braves fell to second,then third in 1916, sixth in 1917 and finally seventh in 1918. They did not win another pennant until 1948.

Without Van Zelst Connie Mack’s A’s finished last for seven years, 1915-21. He won only three more pennants. With Van Zelst he had won four flags in five years; without him he won only five in forty-eight.

Yet curiously, from 1915 through 1928, every American League champion save one would owe its pennant, at least in part, to stars who had played with Mack and Van Zelst in the A’s halcyon years. Barry, sent to the Boston Red Sox, helped them win pennants in 1915 and 1916. In 1918, Stuffy McInnis joined the club and Boston won again. Collins, assisted by Eddie Murphy, sparked the Chicago White Sox to the 1917 and 1919 championships. They were aided in the latter season by little Eddie Bennett, another hunchback and good-luck charm who tended the team’s bats.

The 1920 Indians featured pitching star Stanley Coveleski, a 20-game winner and veteran of the 1913 A’s.

Prior to the 1921 season, the Yankees signed Baker and Shawkey and went on to win. Three more ex-A’s joined the team in later years as New York won six pennants between 1921 and 1928.

The Washington Senators defeated New York in 1925, thanks in part to the acquisition of Coveleski from Cleveland. The 1924 Senator champions were the only ones to possess no direct link to the Mack-Van Zelst years.

In the long interim between championships, Connie tried his luck with another hunchback, Lou McLone. It was a brief and tragic experiment. McLone fell in with bootleggers and was gunned to death in a gangland war.

Today, only one veteran of those miracle teams, the A’s, the Giants, and the Braves, remains alive.

I wrote Stanley Coveleski, now 94 years old, and asked him about Louis Van Zelst. What was the true story on how he was hired? Did he really bring the team good luck?

“Rube Oldring did ask Connie Mack to hire him,” Coveleski replied in careful penmanship. “And we did regard him as lucky. It is all true, every word of it.”