Sherry Magee: Psychopathic Slugger

Back in the Deadball Era, Sherry Magee was called “one of the greatest and most neglected of sluggers,” “a born dynamiter with the bat,” and “a genuine murderer of the pill.” Today we’d call him a five-tool player: he could hit, run, field, throw, and hit with power. We might also call him a psychopath.

For more than a decade Magee was the Philadelphia Phillies’ left fielder, clean-up hitter, and greatest star, setting the twentieth-century team record in stolen bases (387) and ranking among the top ten in almost every other offensive category. He was undoubtedly the National League’s most valuable player in 1910, and either he or Chalmers Award-winner Johnny Evers deserved the appellation in 1914. That season one Philadelphia writer called Magee “probably the best all-around ball player in the National League,” and a Cincinnati reporter went a step further: “To my mind Sherwood Magee is one of the best all-around players the game has ever seen.” John J. Ward of Baseball Magazine called him “a greater slugger than Cobb, Jackson, Lajoie or any of a score of stars whose names are a synonym for Hit.”

Today, however, Magee is best-remembered for his 1911 attack on umpire Bill Finneran, one of the most flagrant ever committed — the recent transgressions of Roberto Alomar and Carl Everett pale in comparison, even though most Deadball Era commentators simply chalked up Magee’s actions to fighting spirit. “There was that episode, not forgotten by any means, when Magee suffered a lengthy vacation for mussing up an umpire,” wrote Ed McGrath in the Boston Sunday Post four years after the incident. “That wasn’t very nice of Sherwood, but it emphasized his determination to have nothing interfere with his idea of what was coming to his crew.”

Irish charm … and temper

The son of an oilfield worker, Sherwood Robert Magee was born on August 6, 1884, in Clarendon, Pennsylvania. “The Irish traits of quick wittedness, a hot temper and an aggressive love of fighting are his by birthright,” wrote Ward, who obviously wasn’t too concerned about perpetuating ethnic stereotypes. Regarding Magee’s off-field personality, one Philadelphia reporter called him “as gentle and good-natured as an old woman. You couldn’t find a more sociable and companionable fellow anywhere.” Another said that Magee was “a care-free, fun-loving, ever-smiling type.” But Ward described him as “a man for whom it is easy to conceive a great liking or a passionate hatred.”

As for Sherry’s appearance, one reporter called him ”dashing.” Though he stood only 5-foot-11 and weighed 179 pounds, he was physically imposing­ “husky” and “burly” were adjectives commonly used to describe him. Magee was a crackerjack bowler and basketball player, but football was his favorite sport. He sometimes worked out with the Lafayette College team, and during his years in Philadelphia he spent almost every fall day watching the Penn gridiron squad practice at Franklin Field.

Like his Phillies teammate Grover Cleveland Alexander, Magee may have suffered from epilepsy. Hans Lobert mentioned it in The Glory of Their Times, and some have surmised that a heavily reported episode in which Magee fell through an open French window on the second floor of his Philadelphia home, supposedly while sleepwalking, was probably an epileptic fit. “Poor soul! Little did they know that the fellow was an epileptic,” states an unattributed clipping in Magee’s file at the National Baseball Library. “I knew this, and found it out one day while playing against Philadelphia. He fell into a fit and I called one of the Philadelphia players to help me revive him. It was this player who told me the secret. Magee, himself, would never admit that he was an epileptic, and was sensitive about that fact.”

As spirited as Evers, and as crabby

After playing for independent teams in eastern Pennsylvania, 19-year-old Sherry Magee jumped directly to the majors, joining the Phillies in the midst of their dismal 1904 season. Philadelphia’s strength was its outfield — Shad Barry in left, Roy Thomas in center, and John Titus in right — but an injury to Titus caused Barry to fill his position, opening up left field for Magee. Making his debut in an 8-6 loss to Brooklyn on June 29, the nervous rookie misjudged two fly balls, both of which led to Superba runs, but he hit the ball hard in each of his four at-bats (though he had only one hit to show for it). “Magee overcame his unfamiliarity with the Philadelphia grounds and soon learned to field as became a big leaguer,” wrote Ward.

Three weeks later, when Titus was able to return to the lineup, Sherry was so firmly entrenched in left field that the Phillies traded Barry to Chicago. Magee batted .277 for the season and led the team with 12 triples despite playing in just 95 games.

Over the next several years Sherry Magee rarely missed a game, establishing himself as one of baseball’s young stars. In 1905, his first full season, he was the biggest factor in Philadelphia’s gain of 31 victories over the previous year, scoring an even 100 runs, stealing 48 bases, and batting .299 with 24 doubles, 1 7 triples, and five homers. The next year he was just as good, hitting .282 with 36 doubles, eight triples, and six homers and finishing second in the NL in stolen bases with 55, a modern Phillies record chat stood until Juan Samuel swiped 72 in 1984.

In 1907 Magee had his best season yet, leading the NL with 85 RBIs and placing second to perennial batting champion Honus Wagner with a .328 mark. Magee’s average would have been even higher if he hadn’t been charged with times at bat for his many long flies that scored runners from third base, inspiring Phillies manager Billy Murray to lead the fight for the sacrifice fly rule, which was implemented the following season. The manager was so impressed with his young slugger chat he turned down the Chicago Cubs’ offer of $12,000 and three players for Magee, said to be the largest ever made for one player. Murray told The Sporting News that “no offer of any kind for Magee would be considered.”

But as he reached stardom, Sherry also developed a reputation as a troublemaker. “On the ball field Magee is so fussy most of the time that people who do not know him naturally form the opinion from his actions that he is a born grouch,” wrote the Philadelphia Times after the 1908 season. “That he is one of the most hoc-headed players in either big league is admitted; it couldn’t be denied, because the records, showing how often he has been suspended for scrapping with the umpires, speak for themselves.”

Off the field, the young slugger could be just as difficult. The captain of the Phillies during Magee’s early years was Kid Gleason, who kept an old leather belt in his locker chat he used on young players who misbehaved, and on several occasions Magee literally felt the captain’s wrath. Sherry also became known for “crabbing” at teammates. “Magee, like Evers, has an unusual amount of base ball gray matter and spirit,” explained one reporter. “This spirit plays for victories and is easily upset when ‘bones’ are pulled. Both men are continually ‘bawling out’ their fellow players for bad plays. They just can’t help it.”

In 1909 Magee slumped to .270 (still 26 points above the league average) and played with “marked indifference,” prompting rumors chat he would be traded to the New York Giants for holdout slugger Mike Donlin. The Phils refused the deal because of the age difference between the two players (Donlin was six years older), and their patience was rewarded when Magee put together his finest season in 1910. Playing in all 154 games, he broke Wagner’s tenure on the batting throne by hitting .331, and also led the NL with career highs in runs (110), RBIs (123), and on-base percentage (.445). He walloped 39 doubles, 17 triples, and six homers to give him a league-leading .507 slugging percentage, and his 49 stolen bases ranked fourth in the league. Still, fans blamed Magee for chasing the Phillies’ second-best hitter, center fielder Johnny Bates, out of Philadelphia by “continual crabbing.”

The Finneran incident

Sherry was enjoying another banner year in 1911, but his season — and career — were marred by his actions in the third inning of a game in St. Louis on July 10. To set the scene, after sitting atop the NL standings on the Fourth of July, the Phillies were engaged in a tight pennant race with the Giants, Cubs, Pirates, and Cardinals. Years later, Hans Lobert claimed that Magee was suffering from a hangover. He had been ejected the day before, and in the first inning he had protested vehemently when he was called out trying to steal. With the Phils leading, 2-1, Magee came to bat with two runners on base and one out. With two strikes, rookie umpire Bill Finneran called Magee out on what appeared to be a high pitch, prompting Magee to turn away in disgust and throw his bat high in the air. Finneran yanked off his mask and threw Sherry out of the game.

Magee, who had been heading to the bench, turned and attacked the umpire, hitting him flush in the face with his fist. With blood spurting from his face, Finneran fell on his back, apparently unconscious. St.Louis catcher Roger Bresnahan grabbed hold of Magee, and the other umpire, Cy Rigler, and other players hustled him away. When Finneran came to and realized what had happened, he broke away from the group at the plate and tried to reach the Philadelphia bench, only to be intercepted by Phillies players and the police.

After he calmed down, Finneran was removed to a hospital for treatment to his badly-lacerated face. The game continued with Rigler behind the plate, and the Phillies won, 4-2, after which Magee expressed regret for the incident, offering as an excuse that Finneran had called him a vile name. Manager Red Dooin added that the rookie umpire had been too aggressive all season, often bragging about his ability as a fighter and threatening to lick players, including Dooin himself during a late-June series in Boston. On that occasion, only two weeks earlier, Magee had served as peacemaker when Finneran invited Dooin under the stands for a fist fight.

Unsympathetic to the Phillies’ pleas, National League President Thomas Lynch, himself a former umpire, announced that Magee had been fined $200 and suspended for the balance of the season — reportedly the most drastic punishment meted out since 1877, when four players were barred for dishonesty. The Phillies appealed to the NL board of directors, arguing that Lynch had been too severe, especially since one regular outfielder, Titus, was already out with an injury and the club was fighting for its first pennant. The directors declined to overturn the suspension, and the Phillies went 13-16 while Magee was out of action, tumbling to fourth place, 6.5 games behind the Cubs.

At that point Lynch issued a statement to Magee: “After very careful consideration of your case, I have decided to lift your suspension temporarily and return you to good standing. This reinstatement will date from the time your club returns home, namely Wednesday, Aug. 16, and it will depend solely on your good behavior whether or not this reinstatement shall be permanent. I trust you will see to it that it is.”

Injuries … and an attitude adjustment

Magee remained hot through the rest of the 1911 season, hitting seven of his 15 home runs after his reinstatement. But in the following year’s city series against the Athletics he was hit by a pitch during batting practice that broke his right wrist and forearm, putting him out for the first month of the season. Magee was scarcely back when he went out again following an outfield collision with Dode Paskert. (The Phillies’ left and center fielders collided off the field, as well, and even their families got into it one afternoon: Paskert hit a home run into the left-field bleachers, and as he rounded third, Magee’s two sons booed so loud that Dode heard them, causing a run-in with Magee when he reached the bench.) Overcoming his injuries to bat .306 in both 1912 and 1913, Sherry combined with Gavy Cravath to give the Phillies what Ward called “the greatest ‘team’ of extra-base specialists in existence.”

Despite all he had accomplished in his decade with the Phillies, Magee remained unpopular with the fans of the City of Brotherly Love. “For five years, prior to 1914, the local fans have roasted Sherwood Magee,” wrote a Philadelphia reporter. “They cheered his long swats as all fans do, but still they shouted for his release.” According to that reporter, “it is a cinch that no ball player ever played as brilliantly on the home field under such adverse circumstances.” Ward agreed, attributing Magee’s lack of popularity to the generally held belief that he was “a man who played for his own personal record and not for the good of the team.”

That all changed, however, when Magee was named captain of the Phillies in 1914. “When he was given the captaincy everyone looked at affairs from a different viewpoint,” said one veteran teammate. “Now he could talk all he liked and there would be no resentment, for that was all a part of his job. And it gave the added stimulus to Magee that made him the greatest teamworker we had.”

After opening the season at his usual position in left field, Sherry demanded an opportunity to play shortstop in mid-May when it became apparent that none of the players attempting to replace the departed Mickey Doolan was adequate. “I can’t do any worse than some of the men that have been in there,” he cold manager Doolan. (That comment may have instigated his fight with 23-year-old shortstop Milt Reed, who reportedly “draped the great Magee over the clubhouse pool table.”) Before the Phillies acquired Jack Martin in July, Magee played 39 games at Doolan’s old spot, performing surprisingly well for a career outfielder. With characteristic immodesty, he even declared himself among the best shortstops in the business. “Others were more conservative in their estimate of his ability,” wrote one reporter, who nonetheless acknowledged that he was not the worst of Doolan’s replacements.

That September, “Cap” Magee wrote an article in the Philadelphia Public Ledger describing his (mis)adventures at shortstop. “I pulled a play in Brooklyn one day which I am sure never happened before on any ball field,” he wrote. “I ran over past second, picked up a grounder and threw to first. The ball hit the runner on the leg and bounded into right field. I was on my way there, so I kept right on going and recovered the ball. Did anybody ever hear of a shortstop recovering his own wild throw to first before?” Making plays like chat, Magee had to withstand a lot of kidding from rival players-and sometimes their profanity. “One day I dug up a low throw with my gloved hand and slapped the ball on Heine Zimmerman,” Sherry wrote. ‘”You lucky dog’ and a column or two of language I wouldn’t dare put down was my reward for getting the Dutchman. Of course, if Doolan had done it that would have been different.”

Due to injuries to other players, Magee also played a significant number of games at second base, center field, and first base in 1914. “In spite of the constant shifting of position on a hopelessly demoralized team, he proved himself the most valuable batsman in the league,” wrote Ward. Magee batted .314 (sixth in the NL) and led the league in hits (171), doubles (39), RBIs (103), and slugging percentage (.509). After that kind of season, he was shocked when the Phillies passed him over and appointed Pat Moran manager to succeed Oooin. Magee negotiated half-heartedly with the Federal League’s Baltimore Terrapins, whose players included Doolan and several other former Phillies, but what he really wanted was to be traded to a winning team. “This great ball player has been hitched to losing teams for so long that with each season the desire to be with a champion has grown stronger,” wrote one reporter.

Be careful what you wish for

On December 26, 1914, Magee thought he had received a belated Christmas present when the Phillies dealt him to the world champion Boston Braves for cash and two players to be named later. The trade had its critics in both cities. Braves manager George Stallings, who already had one crab on his hands in Evers, now had to contend with a second one in Magee. He became further dismayed when one of the Boston players in the deal turned out to be Possum Whitted, a hustling center fielder who had been one of his favorites. And in Philadelphia, one reporter wrote, “Just when Magee becomes popular with the fans, and is playing the game of his life, the club makes another mistake by permitting him to go to a rival club.” But some Philadelphians had long believed that Magee was the ”jinx” that had been following the Phillies, and they were happy to see him go. What happened to Sherry in 1915 — when the Phillies won their first-ever pennant — would lend evidence to their suspicions.

Reporting to spring training in Macon, Georgia, Magee was in a Braves uniform no more than fifteen minutes when he stepped in a hole while shagging a flyball. He fell and injured his shoulder. Weeks later, when it failed to improve, he finally saw a doctor and learned that his collarbone was broken. Magee was only thirty but would never again be the same player. He had batted over .300 three years in succession and had hit 15 homers in 1914, but in 1915 he batted just .280 with only two homers. Sherry was even worse in 1916, batting a meager .241. In his 1948 team history, The Boston Braves, Harold Kaese wrote, “An injured shoulder bothered Magee, but probably not so much as the loss of Baker Bowl’s handy fences.”

Magee’s detractors have long pointed out his park-inflated hitting statistics. True enough, Baker Bowl was the best hitters’ park of the Deadball Era, with its tin 40-foot right field fence only 272 feet from home plate. Still, as a right-handed hitter, Magee did not benefit nearly as much as lefties. Before 1910, when the left field bleachers were built, Baker Bowl measured 390 feet down the left field line; thereafter it was still a legitimate 335 feet. Magee hit only 42 of his lifetime 83 homers at Baker Bowl.

Compare that to a contemporary left-handed hitter like Fred Luderus, who hit 62 of his 84 in that bandbox. Baker Bowl’s tiny dimensions also explain Magee’s apparent lack of fielding range: with the short right field, many right-handed hitters tried to go the other way. When he moved in 1915 to cavernous Braves Field, with dimensions of 402 feet down the lines and 550 to straightaway center, Magee, playing center field, handled a league-leading 2.68 total chances per game.

The 1917 Boston Braves resembled an all-star team, circa 1912. Among the Braves enjoying their last (or nearly last) hurrahs were Johnny Evers, Larry Doyle, and the three Eds: Konetchy, Reulbach, and Walsh. Then there was Magee, who again performed poorly for Boston-in 72 games he batted .256 with only one homer-but turned around his career when the Cincinnati Reds picked him up on waivers in August. Filling in for the injured Greasy Neale, Magee batted .321 over the rest of the season. His revitalization continued during the war-shortened 1918 season, after which he worked as a foreman in a Philadelphia shipyard. Magee batted .298 and drove in a league leading 76 runs, becoming the only non-Hall of Farner to lead the league in RBIs four times.

The next season, pneumonia forced Magee out of action for two months, causing him to lose his regular position to rookie Pat Duncan. Though he batted a career-low .215, Sherry finally realized his long-held ambition of playing for a pennant winning team. Appearing twice as a pinch hitter in the 1919 World Series, he picked up one hit and was released after Cincinnati’s victory, marking the end of his sixteen year career as a major league player.

Umpire-baiter turned umpire

Though he had skipped the minors on his way up, Magee played seven years in the bushes on his way down, six of them in the American Association. His best full season came with Minneapolis in 1922, when he batted .358 in 257 at-bats, and set a record that August by reaching base in 20 consecutive pinch-hitting appearances. During the streak Sherry hit two home runs and a single, drew 11 walks, and was hit by four pitched balls, but what made it truly amazing is chat he had a broken thumb at the time, which is why he was out of the regular lineup. Three years later he was hitting .464 in 28 at-bats when Milwaukee released him in June after losing 16 of 18 games. In desperation, Magee begged for work from his last major league employer, Reds owner Garry Herrmann. His letter remains on file at the National Baseball Library:

I think I could be of some use to your club as the fans were always for me there and maybe I could improve the hitting of some of the players. I have turned out some one every year for [Milwaukee owner Otto] Borchert …. My Wife was sick all Winter so I am about down. [Former Milwaukee teammate Chuck] Dressen [then playing for the Reds] can tell you about my ability with that bat. Maybe l can help pep up your club on the coaching lines also. You know I never drank Whiskey and don’t to-day and have a lot more sense than I had there before.

But when no job from Herrmann was forthcoming, Magee signed on as player-coach with Jack Dunn’s Baltimore Orioles. He held on for one more season, finally retiring as an active player at the age of 42.

Unlike many players of his era, Sherry had no trade to fall back on; for years he had spent the winter with his in-laws in Fulton, New York, “living a life of ease and pleasure from the close of one season to the opening of another.” He was ill-prepared for the next phase of his life, but an inspiration had come to him while presiding over exhibition games at the Orioles’ 1926 training camp: he would become an umpire.

In 1927 Magee served as an arbiter in the New York-Penn League. His work attracted so much positive comment that he was named to the National League staff for the coming season by John Heydler, who had been an assistant to President Lynch at the time of the Finneran incident in 1911. Picking up on the irony of umpire-baiter turned umpire, many veteran reporters expected Magee to be a disaster. “His appointment at the time brought a reflective smile to the fans and players that recalled his ancient feuds with the umpires,” wrote one scribe after the 1928 season, “but Sherry surprised the old timers by his cool decisions on the field, the manner in which he ran his ball games and the cleverness of his work.” Heydler commented that Magee had made good in his first year and was destined to become one of the game’s leading umpires.

An untimely demise

Sherry spent the 1928-29 offseason at his Philadelphia home at 1152 North 65th Street, working as the overseer of a large string of restaurants. In early March he came home from work complaining of a headache and fever. A physician diagnosed that he was suffering from pneumonia, the same disease that had plagued him in 1919. His condition worsened over the ensuing week.

At the age of 44, Sherry Magee died at 8:45 p.m. on March 13, 1929, with his wife, Eda, and three grown children at his bedside. He is buried in the Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill. The obituary that went out over the AP wire described Magee as “one of baseball’s most colorful figures,” “one of the greatest natural batsmen in the game,” and “a master in judging fly balls, a fine base runner and full of so-called ‘inside baseball.””

Hall of Fame voters virtually ignored Magee, casting only eleven combined votes for him in the eight elections of 1937-51, and he has received no serious consideration from the Veterans Committee. Some have attributed his lack of support co his erroneous inclusion on a list of ineligible players in the 1969 edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia (the list should have included Lee Magee, a contemporary NL outfielder who was no relation).

More likely explanations are his failure to play a significant role on any championship team and his lack of any organized lobbying effort. Sherry Magee’s twenty-first century devotees can take some solace, however: he was the highest ranking non-Hall of Famer — aside from Joe Jackson, of course — on the Deadball Honor Roll, as selected by SABR’s Deadball Era Committee in 2001.