How did the 2012 World Series end? It was Game Four in Detroit. The San Francisco Giants, up three games to none, scored a run in the top of the tenth on a single by Marco Scutaro to take a 4–3 lead. In the bottom of the tenth, closer Sergio Romo entered the game to face the Tigers. Austin Jackson struck out, pinch-hitter Don Kelly struck out, and then Miguel Cabrera came to the plate: strike one, ball one, strike two, ball two, foul, and then strike three looking. It was over. Cabrera, arguably the best player in the American League last year, made the final out.

Now, go back to the beginning. How did the World Series in 1903 end? It was Game Eight in Boston. Remember, this Series was best-of-nine. The Americans led the Pittsburgh Pirates, four games to three, and 3–0 after eight innings. In the top of the ninth, Bill Dinneen was on the mound. Fred Clarke flied to left, Tommy Leach flied to right, and then Honus Wagner struck out, swinging or looking, we do not know. (Sources disagree.) It, too, was over. The best player in the National League had made the final out.

We all know that baseball games lack an arbitrary end. No clock means that the participants determine not only when the game will end but also when it will not end. Sabermetrics recognizes this: “Don’t squander outs.” Kids know it, too: “Save me a time at bat.” Roger Angell perhaps put it best in The Summer Game, “Since baseball is measured in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young.”

We all remember that some of baseball’s greatest moments have come with one swing of the bat. Indeed, the term “walk-off” has fast become a cliché, having been applied not only to homers but also to singles, sacrifice flies, and even walks. Conversely, there are obviously thousands of instances when the offense fails and the game ends, maybe dramatically and maybe not, with a strikeout, a fly ball, a line drive, or a mesmerizing fielder’s choice at second.

But what about those times when the game doesn’t end, when the guy in the on-deck circle yells “Save me a lick,” and the batter does just that, when the announcer says, “They’re down to their final out,” and yet the game goes on? What about those at-bats that might end the entire World Series, but don’t? Cabrera could have tied Game Seven last year with one swing of the bat. Wagner’s task was more prosaic—keep the game going—and that’s what we’re studying here, those at-bats when one more out would be the final out of the World Series. Just how often have batters succeeded when failure would usher in the start of the off-season?

This essay was inspired not by the quick and surprising triumph of the Giants last fall—the only time that the final half-inning of the World Series included three straight strikeouts—but by the performance of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011. They were down to their final out three times over two innings in Game Six against the Texas Rangers, and yet they survived and ultimately prevailed. In the ninth, they were down two runs with two on and two out when David Freese tripled to tie the score, 7–7. In the tenth, again down two runs, there were two on and two out before Texas walked Albert Pujols intentionally, and Lance Berkman singled to tie the score again. And, then, of course, Freese led off the eleventh with a walk-off home run. In fact, the Cards were not only down to their final out three times; they were down to their final strike three times, once in the ninth and twice in the tenth. And then they went on to win Game Seven, 6–2, making it look comparatively easy.

The 2011 Series was so dramatic that fans were forced to look back to 1986 when the New York Mets were also down to their final out three times in Game Six against the Boston Red Sox and to their final strike once. And they won, too. In that fateful Game Six, the Red Sox scored twice in the top of the tenth to take a 5–3 lead. In the bottom half of the inning, Wally Backman and Keith Hernandez made out before Gary Carter staved off elimination with a single. Kevin Mitchell, pinch-hitting for Rick Aguilera, also singled. Ray Knight singled, too, scoring Carter and sending Mitchell to third. Bob Stanley then threw a wild pitch that scored Mitchell and sent Knight to second. And then Mookie Wilson’s grounder got past Bill Buckner, and Knight scampered home with the winning run.

No other team has matched this brinkmanship. In fact, only four other teams have been three outs from elimination and come back to win the Series, but none went down to the final out. In Game Eight of the 1912 Series (Game Two was a 6–6 tie), the Red Sox scored two runs in the bottom of the tenth to defeat the New York Giants. In 1985 (the infamous Denkinger game), the Kansas City Royals scored twice in the bottom of the ninth against the Cardinals to win Game Six, 3–2, and went on to win Game Seven, 11–0. In 1997, the Florida Marlins tied the Cleveland Indians in the bottom of the ninth of Game Seven and won the Series with a run in the bottom of the eleventh. And in Game Seven in 2001, the Arizona Diamondbacks scored the tying run and the winning run in the bottom of the ninth against the New York Yankees. (See Table 1 for details.)

Those are the heroics, the “bangs,” if you will. Much more prevalent, naturally, are the “whimpers.” The composite batting average for all players in all World Series is .242, but faced with elimination, batters have hit only .211. Yogi Berra, fount of wisdom that he is, is a bit off: when a World Series elimination game reaches the ninth inning, it is almost always over before it’s over.

Points of interest. The four extra-inning Game Sevens occurred in 1912, the Red Sox over the Giants; 1924, the Washington Nationals over the Giants; 1991, the Minnesota Twins over the Braves; and 1997, the Marlins over the Indians.

FINAL THOUGHTS

STEVEN P. GIETSCHIER has been a SABR member since 1987. He joined the staff of The Sporting News in 1986 to take charge of the company’s archives. He turned a chaotic collection of books, periodicals, photographs, index cards, clippings, and other materials into The Sporting News Research Center and wrote the annual “Year in Review” essay in the Baseball Guide and edited the Complete Baseball Record Book for five years. When TSN moved its editorial offices from St. Louis to Charlotte, North Carolina, in July 2008, the Research Center was dismantled, its holdings boxed up, and its staff discharged. He is now the curator at the Margaret Leggat Butler Library at Lindenwood University.

Dickson’s take: the story is true.

His evidence:

1. Several sources testify that Veeck told them of his plans at the time.
2. Veeck told the story in numerous interviews before the book was published.
3. Veeck was not a liar.

We’re still skeptical — not that Veeck didn’t consider or even inquire into buying the Phillies, and not that he didn’t think and talk about and desire to integrate baseball — but that Ford Frick or Judge Landis was responsible for stopping him.

First, some background.

In the 1998 issue of The National Pastime, Larry Gerlach, David Jordan, and John P. Rossi wrote an article debunking Veeck’s story of trying to buy the Phillies and use all Negro players, only to be blocked by Frick or Landis or both. The authors claim that nothing about the story had appeared in print until Veeck told it in Veeck — as in Wreck, concluding that Veeck made it up to enliven the book. But evidence emerged that the story had been written about well before 1962. Critics therefore consigned the entire article to the bunk bin. But the nagging question remained unanswered: Was the story itself true?

Historian Jules Tygiel, while charging (correctly) that Gerlach and the others had erred in accusing Veeck of concocting the story “at the time of the writing of his book,” admitted, “The story may still be untrue and the source may still ultimately be Veeck himself.”

We agree.

What follows is the result of our independent research and conclusions subsequent to the publication of Dickson’s book.

*****

The story begins in late 1942 with the perennially last-place Phillies, milked dry by club owner Gerry Nugent for ten years, broke and in hock to the National League. Bill Veeck was operating the Milwaukee Brewers in the American Association at the time. The National League, headed by Ford Frick, was looking for somebody to rescue the Phillies.

In a 1986 interview, John Carmichael of the Chicago Daily News told of encountering Veeck carrying a suitcase one day in the winter of 1942.

“Where you going?” asked Carmichael.

Veeck said he was going to Philadelphia to buy the Phillies. “And do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to put a whole black team on the field.”

As Dickson tells it, after revealing his plans to Carmichael and before leaving Chicago, Veeck and his friend Abe Saperstein — a sports promoter who was supposed to line up the black players — went to see Judge Landis. Veeck told Shirley Povich in 1960, “[W]e told Judge Landis we wanted to field an entire team of Negroes.”

There is no evidence to corroborate this story. In fact, there is testimony from Veeck and Saperstein that contradicts it. But we’ll get to that.

Bill Veeck was an intelligent man. He was aware of the campaigning by some baseball writers to give black players a chance in Major League Baseball, and he knew of the resistance from big league owners. Veeck was also familiar with the racial climate of the time, defined by segregation of the armed forces, defense plants, the nation’s capital, and the American mindset.

So it’s difficult to believe that Bill Veeck would have advertised such radical intentions so openly. If he seriously expected to buy the Phillies (the rest of the Carmichael interview includes the writer’s saying that Veeck “didn’t have the money”) and field an all-Negro team, he wouldn’t broadcast it to a newspaperman, then go out of his way to tip off the commissioner of baseball that he was about to detonate a hundred years of baseball tradition by setting loose a social tsunami — and expect it to remain a secret.

It was also out of character for a man who, four years later, checked into a Cleveland hotel under an assumed name to keep secret his efforts to buy the Indians.

Veeck loved to tweak and nettle stodgy baseball officials. If Carmichael’s memory was accurate 44 years later (not a sure bet), what better way for Veeck to put their knickers in a twist than to make brash statements about fielding an all-Negro team?

Dickson writes that Veeck and Saperstein left Landis’s office and Veeck headed for Philadelphia believing he “had a major league ball club.”

What made him believe that?

Dickson cites an October 22, 1942, article in The Sporting News as early evidence that “Veeck was involved in some kind of attempt to buy the Phillies,” and relies on subsequent mentions of Veeck having been “a prospective buyer” as supporting the Landis/Frick story, which they do not. What’s more, the full text of the October 22 item, datelined Milwaukee, suggests otherwise:

That he was a serious bidder for the Philadelphia National League club was revealed here by Bill Veeck, president of the Milwaukee Brewers. He went to Boston [why Boston?] after the World’s Series for what he said was just a visit but instead he and General Manager Rudie Shaffer conferred with Gerry Nugent, president of the Phils. Previously, a story had been circulated [by whom isn’t said] that Veeck, manager Charlie Grimm and their Milwaukee colleagues would buy the NL club.

Veeck, of course, denied the rumor, but admits it gave him an idea. ‘So I called on Nugent and we talked about his club,’ the Brewers’ head man told Sam Levy of the Milwaukee Journal. ‘He quoted some large figures, of course, but that was all.’

Had he closed the deal, Sport Shirt Bill would have remained in Milwaukee and Grimm would have moved to Philadelphia, Veeck said.

On November 4 Gerry Nugent acknowledged that Veeck had visited him after the World Series and inquired about buying the Phillies, but he said he hadn’t heard from Veeck since then. Veeck had no basis to believe he had bought a ball club; he had made no offer that had been accepted. Dickson never claims that Veeck and Nugent had come to an agreement. And even if they had, Veeck knew he would still need the approval of a majority of the National League owners, who would certainly have learned of his not-so-secret plans — if the visit to Landis’s office had actually occurred.

Dickson writes, “Before reaching Nugent’s office, however, Veeck discovered that the Phillies had been officially taken over by the National League the night before and that a new owner was being sought.”

That didn’t happen until February 9, 1943, four months after Veeck’s first and — as far as is known — only meeting with Nugent.

Veeck maintained in later interviews that “I always will believe Landis leaked our plans to Frick. Frick wouldn’t talk business with us.”

But reading on we discover that Dickson himself provides compelling evidence to refute this version of the story that blames Landis and Frick for stopping Veeck. Dickson references quotations by Veeck in the September 1948 issue of Baseball Digest that clash with his supposedly telling Carmichael and Landis in advance what he planned to do if he bought the Phillies: It was really intended to be a big surprise to everybody, including Landis and Frick.

Dickson writes, “[Veeck] is quoted as saying he had not thought about buying the Phillies until he read in the papers that he was rumored to be interested in the ailing franchise and that he was one of the likely buyers.” (This testifies to the pitfalls of historians relying on the speculative or fabricated rumors from “reliable authorities” or “knowledgeable insiders” that fill many a column on a slow news day.)

Dickson goes on, “[Veeck] explained that he had a leading promoter of Negro baseball [Abe Saperstein] compile a list of Negro All-Stars, who he had planned to recruit, train, and spring on the world [italics added] on Opening Day 1943. ‘What could they have done,’ Veeck asked? ‘They would have had to play my team or forfeit the game.’”

Dickson adds a statement by Abe Saperstein from a 1954 Associated Negro Press story that also contradicts the tip-off to Landis version:

“Do you know what Veeck planned to do? He was going to take the Phils to spring training in Florida and then — on the day the season opened — dispose of the entire team. Meanwhile, with a team composed entirely of Negroes, who would have trained separately, he could have opened the National League season.”

This assertion also makes little sense to us. It was the middle of World War II, and spring training was limited to northern states east of the Mississippi. We’re asked to believe that Veeck could have spirited away such players as Satchel Paige, Willard Brown, and Buck O’Neil from the Kansas City Monarchs, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, and Buck Leonard from the Homestead Grays, Leon Day from the Newark Eagles, and a dozen more players, sequester them in a secret training camp (while simultaneously running the Phillies’ camp) — and nobody would notice? And then on Opening Day sign them all and release or “dispose of” the entire Phillies’ roster.

Fanciful minds yield fantastical plots, and the complexities and difficulties associated with Veeck’s claim, regardless of whether it could be kept secret, makes it implausible in our view. It might have been fun to speculate about the plot over a case of beer, but there is no corroborating evidence — convincing, verifiable, independent, and reliable — that the alleged scheme ever became anything more than that.

We judge it more likely that Landis and Frick were set up as fall guys for preventing Veeck from doing something he thought about, talked about, and wished he had done but never seriously attempted. Why? It’s impossible to know exactly Veeck’s motivations in making the claims he did. Aware of the praise and exalted place in history Branch Rickey had gained by integrating major league baseball in 1947 — the same year Dickson says Veeck first talked about his plan in print — Veeck may have wished to portray himself as baseball’s first true visionary in breaking the major leagues’ color barrier by resurrecting and embellishing his 1942 flirtation with the notion of buying the Phillies and fielding an all-Negro roster. Veeck needed villains to explain his failure and still remain a hero for at least trying, and casting Landis and Frick as the bad guys in thwarting his noble endeavor was a convenient way to do that.

Dickson points out that Frick, who died in 1978, never denied Veeck’s version of the story about telling Judge Landis of his intentions after seeing John Carmichael. It is not surprising that Frick declined to comment because replying risked being dragged publicly into a feckless “did-so”–“did-not” mud puddle with Veeck. The lack of a retort is not a tacit admission that a charge is true. In all likelihood, Frick adopted the diplomatic stance of silence, as people often do in refusing to dignify an unfounded accusation with a response.

*****

Memory changes as a man ages, becoming more an act of imagination than recollection. Details are added or forgotten. Selective editing takes place. It is said that hindsight is 20–20. But as we age it becomes 20–40, then 20–60. The older we get, the more clearly we remember things that never happened. None of this makes anybody a liar, any more than an old Texan who recollects hunting jackrabbits as big as buffalo when he was a youngster.

Baseball lore is full of phony stories that have metamorphosed into accepted truths through repetition. As authors we have heard plenty of them while interviewing over a hundred old ballplayers. The stories include exaggeration, events heard of or read about but not personally witnessed, and plain old wishful thinking. As Babe Ruth purportedly said about his called shot, “It makes a good story.” Lefty Gomez made a living out of such good stories on the rubber-chicken circuit.

Dickson admits that Veeck was capable of elaborating or repeating made-up stories, thus validating them as fact in perpetuity thereafter. On page 129 he cites a dramatic but fallacious 1949 account by Shirley Povich “that fall[s] apart under scrutiny” about Larry Doby’s first big league at-bat.

The “story circulated for years after Veeck himself repeated the tale on a New York radio station in 1961,” even unto Doby’s Sports Illustrated obituary in 2007.

In Veeck — as in Wreck there’s a story in which Veeck describes negotiating over a party line from his farm outside Milwaukee with Connie Mack for the sale of outfielder Hal Peck. As the story goes, listeners on the party line kept telling Veeck he was asking for too little while Mr. Mack complained that the line was noisy. Veeck upped the asking price and Mack agreed. Veeck rewarded his kibitzers with a case of whisky. But the Peck deal took place in the middle of the 1944 season, at a time when Veeck was with the Marines in the South Pacific. Mack dealt with Mickey Heath, who was left in charge of the Brewers by Veeck.

When this was mentioned to Dickson as an example of Veeck’s stretching the truth for the sake of a good story, he conceded, “That is a problem.”

People believe what they want to believe. As researchers and historians we believe what the evidence allows us to believe.

NORMAN L. MACHT has recently completed Volume 3 — the last — of his multivolume work on the life of Connie Mack. It will be published February 2015.

ROBERT D. WARRINGTON is a Philadelphia baseball historian and author.

U.S. All-Star outfield from the 1962 game have their bats locked and loaded. The players are (L–R) Tony Conigliaro, Ron Swoboda, and James Huenemeier. Conigliaro and Swoboda starred for the Red Sox and Mets, respectively. Huenemeier signed with the White Sox, but never got beyond Class A. (HARRY RANSOM CENTER/JOURNAL-AMERICAN ARCHIVES)

Set against the backdrop of a country emerging from war, and entering into a period of prosperity, the Hearst Sandlot Classic, over 20 years offered a showcase for young baseball talent. Many of those who participated signed professional contracts and others were able to obtain scholarships to further their education. Everyone who participated gained memories to last a lifetime.

In 1946, sportswriter Max Kase of the New York Journal-American was instrumental in creating the Hearst Sandlot Classic. The game featured the New York All-Stars against the U.S. All-Stars. The annual event was held at the Polo Grounds in New York through 1958, and was moved to Yankee Stadium in 1959. The program had the backing of media magnate William Randolph Hearst who, early on, stressed the goals of the program. “This program will be conducted in all Hearst cities from coast to coast. The purpose of the program will not be to develop players for organized baseball, but will be designed to further the spirit of athletic competition among the youth of America.”1

Of the young men who appeared in the games, 89 advanced to the major leagues, but the story is incomplete without a mention of those behind the game, and those whose lives were touched by the experience. From Hall of Famers to those whose careers consisted of the proverbial cup of coffee, to those who gained success outside of organized baseball—it all started when they were young.

Getting into the game was no easy task. Hearst Newspapers throughout the country sponsored tournaments, All-Star contests, and elections to determine candidates for the game in New York. Newspapers that sponsored events included the Milwaukee Sentinel, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald-Express, Baltimore News-Post, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Detroit Times, Albany Times-Union, Chicago Herald-American, and the Oakland Tribune.2

The New York team was selected from tryouts held in the leagues that comprised the Journal-American City Sandlot Alliance. Hall-of-Famer Walter James Vincent “Rabbit” Maranville headed up the program and managed the New York team.

Maranville was truly one of the game’s legends. He began his major league career in 1912 with the Boston Braves and played in the majors for 23 years. He arranged clinics for youngsters in the New York area under the tutelage of players, coaches, and managers from the three New York major league squads. In the weeks leading up to the 1946 event, he contributed a daily column in the Journal-American extolling the talents of his 20-man roster. Although sentiment did play a role in his election to the Hall of Fame in 1954, (he had died just prior to the voting), his work with the youth program and his stellar fielding during 23 major league seasons were also significant factors.

George Vecsey of The New York Times stated, in 1989, that Maranville’s two greatest attributes were longevity and good deeds as the sandlot ambassador for a newspaper chain with many Hall of Fame Electors.3

An exceptional middle infielder, Maranville still holds the career record for assists with 8,967. As his career wound down, his fielding skills were as good as ever. In 1930, at the age of 38, he led the league’s shortstops in fielding percentage and two years later he moved to second base and duplicated the feat. Not noted for his batting, he nevertheless ranks 19th all-time with 177 triples.

Arthur Daley of The New York Times was an ardent supporter of Maranville, voting for him on several occasions before he gained entrance to the Hall of Fame. Maranville had been named on 62.1% of the ballots in 1953. Noting Maranville’s off-the-field escapades (he definitely enjoyed a good time), Daley stated that “there was a certain amount of irony in the fact that the Rabbit’s later years were spent in doing an extraordinarily fine job in promoting sandlot baseball for the Journal-American. He was helping and inspiring the kids, although he would have shuddered in horror if any of them had ever followed his (off-the-field) example. But maybe there was not so much irony in his job at that. The Rabbit was always a kid himself, a Peter Pan who didn’t want to grow up.”4

The Rabbit managed the New York team for the first eight years of the event. Al Simmons took over in 1954. Simmons, a Hall-of-Famer, got his start playing sandlot ball in Milwaukee as a youngster, and managed in the Classic for two years until his untimely death in 1956.5 George Stirnweiss took over in 1956 and Tommy Holmes in 1959.

Ray Schalk and Oscar Vitt led the U.S. All-Stars. Schalk managed the team through 1948. He stepped aside after three years, as his contract as baseball coach at Purdue did not allow him to engage in any outside activities. At the time he left, he said that he “liked being around the kids and the biggest kid of all, Rabbit Maranville.”6 Vitt took over the head job, ably assisted by such greats as Charlie Gehringer and Lefty Gomez, and stayed with the program until illness forced him to step aside in 1962. Vitt was a veteran of the game. He played with the Detroit Tigers from 1912 through 1918, and the Red Sox from 1919 through 1921. He managed the Cleveland Indians from 1938 through 1940. He retired in 1942 after a two-year stint in the Pacific Coast League, and became headmaster at a school near San Rafael, California.

The Brooklyn Eagle competed with the Journal-American and got into the act with its “Brooklyn Against the World” games at Ebbets Field from 1946 through 1950. The main forces behind the game were Branch Rickey of the Dodgers and Lou Niss, the sports editor of the Eagle. One player for the 1946 “World” team was sent east by the Los Angeles Times. Vic Marasco had the time of his life. “Those people from the Brooklyn Eagle and the Brooklyn Dodgers didn’t spare the horses when it came to taking us around.” He summed it all up by saying “I think I learned more on this trip than all the time I was in Fremont High and I just want to congratulate the kid who makes it next year. He’s in for the biggest treat of his life.”7 Marasco signed with Brooklyn and spent 10 seasons in the minor leagues, putting up some pretty good numbers. But Triple A was as far as he would get.

Brooklyn Against the World contests had top flight managers. In 1946 the Brooklyn team was managed by Leo Durocher and the World team by Hall of Famer George Sisler. It was a three-game series, played August 7–9. Playing right field in the second game was Ed Ford of Astoria, Queens and Aviation High School. It was his only appearance in the series. His natural position was pitcher, but others were lined up ahead of him in 1946. Prior to the first game of the series, Brooklyn legend Gladys Gooding performed the National Anthem.8

Durocher used six pitchers during the three games. Several signed on to contracts with big league teams, but none made it to the majors. Ed Fordsigned with the Yankees. Along the line, he became known as “Whitey” Ford and had a Hall-of-Fame career with the Bronx Bombers.

The inaugural Hearst game was played on August 15, and set the bar as to the visitors having a lifetime memory. A trip around Manhattan Island by boat, a Broadway show—that year it was “Showboat,” a trip to West Point, dinner at the Bear Mountain Inn, accommodations at the Hotel New Yorker, and an opportunity to perform in front of major league scouts and meet with major league players. Nine players from the inaugural teams went on to play in the big leagues. The game was won 8–7 in eleven innings by the New Yorkers in front of 15,269 fans.

Umpiring that first game was the dean of umpires and reigning National League Umpire-in-Chief, Hall of Famer Bill Klem. He was assisted by Butch Henline and Dolly Stark. Klem and Henline had also, along with Jim Druggoole, umpired the inaugural Brooklyn Against the World games earlier in August.

Billy Harrell, who appeared in the 1947 game, holds the distinction of being the first player of color to appear in the Hearst Classic and make it to the majors. Harrell grew up in Troy, New York, and after playing in the Classic, attended Siena College, where he also played basketball. He signed with the Indians in 1952. He played with the Tribe in 1955, 1957, and 1958, and finished up his major league career with Boston in 1961. Harrell’s appearance was even more historical in that, when he played in the Hearst Classic for the first time, Major League Baseball was not integrated. In light of Harrell’s appearance, heavyweight champion Joe Lewis bought 1,000 tickets for the game, and these tickets were distributed by The Amsterdam News to children in Harlem.9

The MVP of the very first game was Dimitrios Speros “Jim” Baxes of San Francisco, who could easily be mistaken for Joe DiMaggio, to whom he bore an uncanny physical resemblance. Not only did he come from the same city as the Yankee Clipper, but he also adopted Joe’s batting style.10 He tore things up in the Classic, going 3-for-6 with a double, and contributing to the three rallies that generated all of his team’s runs. Baxes was signed by the Dodgers in 1947, and made it to the majors in 1959. That would be his only major league season. He got into 11 games with the LA Dodgers before being traded to Cleveland. In 280 major league at bats he batted .246 with 17 homers and 39 runs batted in.

Of the players in the 1946 Hearst Classic who made it to the majors, the best success was enjoyed by Billy Loes. Loes was signed by the Dodgers prior to the 1949 season for a bonus estimated at $22,000. Under the bonus rule in effect at the time, Loes could spend one year in the minors, after which he had to be placed on the major league roster or exposed to the Rule 5 draft. He split the 1949 season between Class B Nashua (NH) and Class AA Fort Worth, posting a 16–5 record. In 1950, with the Dodgers, he saw very little activity, getting into 10 games and pitching a total of 12²⁄3 innings. After a year in the military, he returned to Brooklyn and posted a 50–25 record over the next four seasons.

Earl Smith signed with the Pirates in 1949, but found himself stuck in their minor league system for far too long. In 1955, he finally got to the big club and wore number 21 for five games, garnering one hit in 16 at-bats. On April 29 he played his last game, and number 21 was reassigned for the last time—to Roberto Clemente.

The career of Paul Schramka was even shorter. He signed with the Cubs in 1949. After a good spring training in 1953, he started the season with the big club assigned uniform number 14. He got into two games, one as a pinch runner and the other as a defensive replacement. He never came to the plate. His last game was on April 16, 1953. A few days later, he was sent to the minors and number 14 was reassigned for the last time—to Ernie Banks.

The Class of 1947 produced the most major leaguers—10 in all—in the history of the Hearst Classic. Playing for the U.S. team, which won a lopsided 13–2 decision, were three men who would be reunited in the 1960 World Series: Gino Cimoli, Dick Groat, and Bill Skowron. An all-time record 31,232 fans attended the game which featured a Golf and Baseball exhibition by Babe Didrikson Zaharias and a performance by the Clown Prince of Baseball, Al Schacht. The icing on the cake was one of the last appearances by the game’s honorary chairman, Babe Ruth.

Harry Agganis, who made it to the majors with the Red Sox in 1954–55, represented Boston on the 1947 U.S. team, and signed with the Red Sox organization in 1952 after completing his studies at Boston University. He was en route to the most promising of careers, batting .313 in his second major league season, when he was hospitalized with what was diagnosed as a massive pulmonary embolism. He died six weeks later at the age of 26.

One of the New York pitchers on the short end of the thrashing was Bob Grim, who went on to success with the Yankees, winning the Rookie of the Year Award in 1954 with a 20–6 record.

The center fielder for the U.S. team in 1947 was only 15 years old at the time and still in high school. Billy Hoeft signed with Detroit in 1950 as a pitcher, and two years later made his debut with the Tigers. In 1955 he went 16–7 with a 2.99 ERA and was named to the All-Star team. The following year, he went 20–14 for his only 20-win season.

At Ebbets Field, San Francisco’s Gus Triandos caught in Brooklyn Against the World. He was signed by the Yankees and saw limited experience with the Bombers during the 1953 and 1954 seasons. Prior to the 1955 season, he was part of a deal with Baltimore involving 17 players. He spent eight years with Baltimore, banged 142 homers, and was named to four All-Star teams.

Baseball lost Babe Ruth on August 16, 1948, and the 1948 Hearst game was played in his memory. One tribute featured Al Schacht doing his pantomime of the Babe’s called shot in the third game of the 1932 World Series, and Robert Merrill brought tears to everyone’s eyes with his rendition of “My Buddy.”11 The tributes were many. Also on hand was Johnny Sylvester, who was eleven years old when the Babe made his fabled hospital visit in 1926—a visit which was said to have saved the young man’s life.12 To the end, The Babe was devoted to his young fans, and on his deathbed, made provisions in his will that 10 percent of this estate was bequeathed “to the interests of the kids of America.”13

Tom Morgan represented Los Angeles, started in centerfield for the U.S. All Stars, and went 2-for-3. After the game, he made a decision. “Right then and there I decided I had to play in New York, if I ever could prove myself good enough and that I had to do it as a Yankee. So when I got back home, I didn’t waste any time fooling. Five or six other scouts had been talking to my folks about me, but I signed right up with Joe Devine of the Yankees.”14 He signed in the spring of 1949, and went 29–17 during his first two minor league seasons. That earned him a rapid promotion to the majors and he went 9–3 for the 1951 World Champions. He stayed with the Yanks through 1956 and spent the next seven seasons with four different American League clubs. He finished up with the Angels in 1963. For his career, he went 67–47.

The 1948 U.S. squad included a player who became the first round draft pick of the Mets in the expansion draft after the 1961 season: Hobie Landrith. Landrith was one of seven catchers to play for the Mets in 1962. Early in the season, he was the “player to be named later” when the Mets traded him to Baltimore for Marv Throneberry.

Mike Baxes, Jim’s brother, ventured to the game from San Francisco’s Mission High School, and signed with the Phoenix Senators of the Class C Arizona-Texas League in 1949. By 1951 he was playing at Class B Yakima where he batted .318 with 37 doubles. Eventually he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics and made his major league debut in 1956. In parts of two major league seasons, he got into 146 games and batted .217.

Brooklyn Against the World took on a new look in 1948. After hosting a team from Washington, D.C., the Brooklyn forces hit the road for games in Washington, Montreal, Toronto, Providence, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Brooklyn aggregation was led by Billy Loes, who won two games during the trip and signed with the Dodgers after completing the trip.15

Loes was one of two players to play in both the Hearst game and Brooklyn Against the World and make it to the majors. Chris Kitsos of Brooklyn’s James Madison High School was the other. He appeared in both games in the inaugural year of 1946, signed with the Dodgers and spent five seasons in their minor league system before being drafted by the Chicago Cubs after the 1951 season. The Cubs called the shortstop up in 1954, and on April 21, he was inserted as a defensive replacement in the eighth inning. He handled two ground balls flawlessly, returned to the dugout, and never re-emerged. His major league career was over.

Loes’s battery mate in the 1948 BAW series also was signed by the Dodgers, but did not perform particularly well behind the plate in limited activity at his first minor league stops. In fact, the Dodgers released him. But he persevered, worked on his fielding with the help of George Sisler, and returned to the Dodger organization.16 After eight minor league stops and a two year stint in the military, Joe Pignatano played eight games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957. He played all nine innings on September 29, 1957, in the last game played by the Brooklyn Dodgers. His major league career lasted through 1962 when he finished with the Mets. After a short trip back in the minors, he coached for twenty years with the Senators, Mets, and Braves.

In its final two years, 1949 and 1950, “Brooklyn Against the World” was scaled down, and it became a home and home series between the Brooklyn lads and a team representing Montreal, Canada. In 1949, the first game was played in Brooklyn on July 26 and won 9–7 by Montreal in eleven innings. The next game, in Montreal, was won by Brooklyn. In 1950, Brooklyn swept the two games by 10–4 and 11–1 margins.

Both the winning and losing pitchers in the 1949 Hearst game advanced to the majors. Representing Seattle in the 1949 game was a tall kid from Richland, Washington. He had just completed his freshman year at Washington State College. In the 1949 game, he entered the game in the fourth inning, and in three innings, allowed no hits, struck out six, and was credited with the win as the U.S. All Stars came back from a 0–5 deficit to defeat the New York squad 7–6.17 At WSC, he excelled in both baseball and basketball.

Gene Conley left WSC after two years and was signed by the Boston Braves. After going 20–9 at Hartford in 1951, he began the 1952 season with the Braves in Boston, but had limited success until the team moved to Milwaukee. In his first two years in Milwaukee, he went 25–16 and was named to two All-Star teams. His major league career ended with the Red Sox in 1963.

New York’s losing pitcher also signed with the Braves prior to the 1951 season. Frank Torre signed as a first baseman. He played, along with Conley, on the Braves pennant winners in 1957–58, and hit .300 as the Braves defeated the Yankees in the 1957 World Series. Torre shared first base duties with Joe Adcock through 1960.

In 1950 Pittsburgh’s representative played first base in the Hearst Classic. The Pirates signed him to a contract and Tony Bartirome was in the majors two years later, playing 124 games for the last-place Bucs. It would be his only major league season. After the season, he was drafted and spent two years in the Army. When he returned, he played in the minors and then spent 22 years as a trainer, 19 of them as head trainer for the Pirates from 1967 through 1985.

The 1951 game included Jersey Joe Walcott giving a two-round boxing exhibition as part of the pre-game festivities. Not only did Walcott appear, but he donated $500 to the cause after winning the money on a television quiz show, “Break the Bank.” His donation was matched by Yankee great Phil Rizzuto, and Walcott, himself, purchased 1,000 tickets to the game, to be used by area youngsters.18

John “Tito” Francona, who represented New Brighton High School and Pittsburgh, signed with the St. Louis Browns and went on to play 15 years in the big leagues.

That was quite modest compared to the fellow who was the MVP in the Hearst Classic that year. He hailed from Baltimore and had just completed his sophomore year of high school. His performance came as no surprise. As a high school freshman, he had been named to the All-State team. He went 2-for-4 in the Hearst Classic with a double and an inside-the-park homer that sailed over the center fielder’s head. In the field, he was equally adept, making five good plays and gunning down a runner at third base. He signed for a bonus when he completed high school in 1953 and, due to the bonus rule in effect at the time, went straight to the Tigers. Al Kaline played 22 years with the Tigers and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980.

Kaline was one of five Hearst alumni to sign for bonuses and go directly to the major leagues. His success far exceeded that of the four other “Bonus Babies” who had played in the Hearst game.

Although many kids who signed for bonuses during this time were given hostile receptions, Kaline was embraced by his teammates and the Tiger organization. It was obvious that he was a superlative fielder, and his hitting came around. Fate intervened and gave Kaline his big chance. An off-season injury to regular right fielder Steve Souchock kept him out of the lineup and Kaline was the only right fielder left. The Tigers were going no place and manager Fred Hutchinson played Kaline. As Don Lund said, “Although he started slowly, he gained confidence, enhanced his skills, and finished with a fine year. Al used the bonus rule to his advantage and had a minor league experience in the major leagues. The rest is history.”19

Milwaukee was represented, in 1952, by a shortstop whose father had played some minor league ball. He did not sign right away, as he was only 16 when the game was played in 1952. One of his highlights was having his picture taken with Yogi Berra.20 It wouldn’t be the last time. He went back to high school in Wisconsin and signed with the New York Yankees in 1954. Tony Kubek made his debut with the Yankees in 1957 and spent nine years in the Bronx. He was named American League Rookie of the Year in 1957, was named to All-Star teams in 1958, 1959, and 1961, and played in two All-Star games. He pinch hit in 1959 and started the first game in 1961.

The bonus rule of 1953 attached a player signing for a bonus and salary in excess of $4,000 to the major league team for two years. There were four Hearst players signed in 1953 who were tied to their teams. The experience did not prove beneficial to most of the young men involved.

One such player came from Holyoke, Massachusetts, and represented Boston in the 1953 Classic. A scholar-athlete, he stood 6’4″ and weighed 210 pounds. As a high school senior, Frank Leja hit safely in each of his team’s 21 games and batted .432. After graduating, he was courted by several teams. The Giants, Braves, and Indians were cited for tampering.

Eventually, he signed with the Yankees for an estimated $60,000. For two years, Leja sat on the bench. He got into only 19 games, and had one hit in seven at-bats. He spent the next six seasons in the minors and returned to the majors with the Angels for a brief stay in 1962, going hitless in 16 at-bats. At the time of his death, his age (55) was higher than his career batting average (.043).

Leja’s feeling was that he had never gotten a fair shot. His first season with the Yankees was 1954. It was the only time in a 10-year span that they did not win the American League pennant and the players felt that his presence on the roster denied an opportunity to a player stuck in the minors. Manager Casey Stengel, with the pennant on the line, was not about to play an unproven talent. So Leja sat.21

The 1954 game was played in some chilly weather in front of 9,143 spectators and Bill Monbouquette, representing Boston, won MVP honors, as the U.S. team won 5–3. Monbo, celebrating his 18th birthday, struck out five of the six batters he faced, and went on to a successful career with the Red Sox.

Barry Latman, from Los Angeles, was signed by the White Sox. He pitched 11 years in the majors and compiled a 59–68 record. He went 8–5 for the 1959 White Sox when they won the American League pennant, and was named to the All-Star team when he went 13–5 for Cleveland in 1961.

Fred Van Dusen is not known by many fans of the game. He played first base for the New York Stars in the 1954 game and went 0-for-2. At the tender age of 18, he was signed by the Phillies on August 20, 1955, and made his major league debut on September 11, 1955. At Milwaukee, he came up as a pinch hitter in the top of the ninth with one out and the Phillies trailing the Braves by a 9–1 count. In his only major league appearance, he was hit by a pitch.

Gary Bell was the first San Antonio player to make it all the way to the big leagues. He was signed by the Cleveland Indians and made it to the majors in 1958. Over the course of twelve major league seasons, he pitched to a 121–117 record and was named to four All-Star teams.

One of the participants on the New York squad in 1955 was Herman Davis. This fellow could hit and was snapped up by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but never got to play in Brooklyn. By the time he was ready for the big leagues, the Dodgers were in Los Angeles, and Tommy Davis made his first big league appearance on September 22, 1959. He went on to win batting championships in 1962 and 1963, and was selected to the National League All-Star team in each of those years. A knee injury in 1965 set him back, but he reemerged as a designated hitter in the 1970s with Baltimore. Over the course of his 18-year career, he batted .294 and amassed 2,121 base hits.

The California player of the year was named the MVP of the 1956 Hearst game, pitching the last two innings and striking out each of the six batters he faced. Mike McCormick signed for a bonus of $65,000 with the Giants. Since the bonus rule was still in effect, he went directly from the Polo Grounds to the Polo Grounds.22 During his first two years with the Giants, he had only seven starts, but saw more action when the team moved to San Francisco. He led the National League with a 2.70 ERA in 1960, and was named to the All-Star teams in 1960 and 1961. After the 1962 season, he was traded to Baltimore and then Washington before returning to the Giants in 1967 for his best year ever. He went 22–10 with a 2.85 ERA and was selected as the National League Cy Young Award winner. His 134–128 major league career ended in 1971.

McCormick was accepted well by his Giant teammates when he joined the club at the end of the 1956 season. However, the youngster did combat loneliness in the early days. He remembers that “I really valued my time at the ballpark, because that was the only time I was able to feel like I was part of something. When the game ended, because of the age discrepancy, guys would go drinking or something, and I didn’t know what alcohol was. This was on the road. Then at home they had families, so I spent an inordinate amount of time by myself. I ate by myself, went to a lot of movies, just did things to keep busy, looking forward to going to the park.”23

The other Los Angeles representative in 1956 went back to college after competing in the Hearst Classic. After two years at USC, Ron Fairly signed with the Dodgers for $75,000. Since the bonus rule was no longer in effect, he was sent to the minors for a brief spell before coming up to the Dodgers late in the 1958 season. He batted .238 in 1959 and spent most of 1960 at Triple A Spokane, batting .303. Fairly was up to stay in 1961. Over the course of his 20-year career, he batted .266 with 1,913 hits, and was named to two All-Star teams.

San Antonio had been sending players to the Hearst Classic for 10 years with only Gary Bell making the big time. Their 1956 representative would change that. Joe Horlen attended Oklahoma State University before signing with the White Sox in 1959. He made it to the show in 1961 and spent 12 years in the majors, 11 with the White Sox. His best season was 1967 when he went 19–7, led the league with a 2.06 ERA, and finished second in the Cy Young balloting.

The 1958 game featured two players who would make it to the major leagues in a very big way. Ron Santo, the starting catcher for the U.S. team, signed with the Cubs, was converted to third base in his Texas League days, and had a Hall-of-Fame career in the Windy City. Joe Torre, who started the game on the bench for the New York team, went on to stardom with the Braves and Cardinals, and managed the New York Yankees to six pennants and four World Championships.

Of those players from the 1959 game who made it to the majors, pitcher Wilbur Wood and infielder Glenn Beckert were named to All-Star teams during the course of their careers.

The U.S. Stars won the 1960 game 6–5. The pitcher who closed the deal had entered the game in the sixth inning to play right field, and went to the mound in the bottom of the eighth to pitch the last four outs. It wouldn’t be the last time he finished up a game in relief. He was with his fourth major league team, the Montreal Expos, when he achieved success. Mike Marshall was moved permanently to the bullpen and saved 23 games in 1971. In four seasons in Montreal, he saved 75 games and posted a 2.94 ERA. Then it was on to Los Angeles and a share of immortality. In 1974, he appeared in 106 games, posted a 2.42 ERA, was credited with 21 saves, made the All-Star team, and won the National League Cy Young Award.

The starting catcher for the U.S. Stars represented Detroit. Bill Freehan was signed by the Tigers prior to the 1961 season and saw action in Detroit as a late season call-up. After a solid 1962 at Denver in the American Association, Freehan returned to Detroit to stay in 1963. In 14 full seasons with the Tigers, he was named to 11 All-Star teams, including 10 in succession from 1964 through 1973. He was also awarded five consecutive Gold Gloves (1965–69).

The 1961 game produced still more future major leaguers. The most notable pair represented San Antonio.

The second baseman was actually a catcher. He signed with Houston in 1962. In two years with the Colt 45’s, he batted only .182. He was sent back to the minors and, after the 1965 season, was traded to the New York Mets. Jerry Grote appeared in his first game with the Mets on April 15, 1966, and went on to play 12 seasons in Queens. He was named to two All-Star teams, and has a rightful place in the Mets Hall of Fame.

The shortstop switched to second base and signed with the Baltimore Orioles in 1962. He was very highly thought of by assistant manager Buddy Hassett who commented, “I like his wrist action and the way he whips the bat around so fast.” Two long homers, one of which sailed to the upper deck at the Bronx ballpark, were particularly impressive.24 He signed with Baltimore and joined the Orioles in 1965. During the course of his playing career Davey Johnson was named to four All-Star teams and won three Gold Glove Awards. After his playing days, he managed the Mets to the 1986 World Championship, and won divisional championships with the Mets, Reds, Orioles, and Nationals.

The 1962 game was tied 4–4 and stopped by curfew after four hours and 11 innings. Three players from the U.S. team made it all the way to the big leagues, including two slugging outfielders. The right fielder represented Boston and had a “can’t miss” label. Tony Conigliaro went 1-for-3 in the game and enjoyed a fine, but shortened, career with the Red Sox. Ron Swoboda played left field in the 1962 game but was more noted for his play in right field with the Mets.

One player who caught everybody’s eye in 1963 was San Antonio’s Freddie Patek. He stood only 5’5″ but packed a wallop. Patek was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates with their 22nd pick (434th overall) in the first amateur draft in 1965 and made it to the majors in 1968 with the Bucs. After three years with the Pirates, he was traded to the Kansas City Royals. With the Royals, he was named to three All-Star teams and was part of three consecutive divisional champions that lost in the League Championship Series to the Yankees.

The U.S. Stars lineup featured a Maryland slugger who was drafted in the first round in 1965. He first appeared with the Angels in 1968, but traveled often during his 15-year major league career. Jim Spencer was chosen to the American League All-Star team in 1973 and received two Gold Glove awards during the course of his career. In 1978, he returned to Yankee Stadium as a member of the Yankees and once again was on the same field with Patek in the Bronx for the League Championship Series.

The 1965 game was the last Hearst Sandlot Classic played in New York. The demise of the game was hastened by two New York City newspaper strikes. The first extended from December 8, 1962, through March 31, 1963. The second lasted for 23 days between September 16 and October 8, 1965. The losses from this strike were such that it effectively shut down the New York Journal-American which was the force behind the game. The Journal-American ceased publication on April 24, 1966.

Sandlot All-Star games, however, continued in New York through 1970, as the Yankees Juniors and Mets Juniors faced each other in the Greater New York Sandlot Alliance All-Star Game.

In the 1970 game at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees Kids beat the Mets kids 8–5, and the MVP was Edward Ford. His father, Whitey, had played in the first Brooklyn Against the World Series in 1946. In 1974 the younger Ford was the number one draft pick of the Boston Red Sox. The shortstop made it as far as Triple A Pawtucket, but reality set in in 1977.

Two years earlier, in 1968 at Shea Stadium, the experience of 18-year-old Ruben Ramirez showed that the game’s mission had been fulfilled. He had two triples, drove in five runs, and was selected as the MVP in a game won by the Yankees Juniors, 6–2. It was beyond the ball field that the full impact of the game was felt. Ramirez, never played Organized Baseball, but, based on his performance in the game, he was offered a scholarship to Long Island University and went on to a successful career as an educator. Thirty-one years later, in an interview with the New York Daily News, he said, “That game was the most important day of my life. If it wasn’t for that day, I don’t know if I would have graduated college, let alone be where I am today.”25

Note: This article has been modified from its original version.

ALAN COHEN is a retired insurance underwriter who is spending his retirement doing baseball research. A native of Long Island, he continues to root for the Mets from his home in West Hartford, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife Frances and assorted pets. He did a presentation on “Baseball’s Longest Day: May 31, 1964” at the 50th Anniversary of the New York Mets Conference in April 2012. His biographies of Gino Cimoli, whose career was launched in the Hearst Sandlot Classic, and R C Stevens appear in “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates.”

(Click image to enlarge)

Sources

“15th Hearst Sandlot Classic in August,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 22, 1960. Part 2, 6.

1960 Annual Hearst Classic: U.S. All Stars vs. NY All Stars: Official Program 

“Alex, Knutson Named for Trip to Hearst Sandlot Classic,” San Antonio Light, July 22, 1959: 46.

“Corbo to Start for U.S. Stars,” San Antonio Light, August 28, 1958: 27.

“Hearst Stars Return Home Today,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 13, 1954: Part 2, 4.

“Joost Subs for Vitt as All-Star Skipper,” San Antonio Light, June 24, 1962: 5-C.

“Cleveland Indians Sign Russ Peck to Contract,” Altamont Enterprise, August 15, 1958: 1.

“Kase, New York Sports Editor Retires,” The Sporting News, May 7, 1966.

“New Yorkers Defeat U.S. Stars,” San Antonio Light, August 11, 1955: 12.

“Ruth to Aid Hearst Star Game,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 25, 1947: B–3.

“Texan Frazier starts for U.S. All-Stars,” San Antonio Light, August 14, 1963: 73.

“Week of Thrills for Stars,” San Antonio Light, August 28, 1958: 27.

Hugh Bradley. “All-Star Yankee: Sandlot Classic set goal for Morgan,” New York Journal American, August 7, 1951, 18.

Lester Bromberg. “Yankees ‘Bonus baby’ Star in Four Sports in High School,” The Sporting News, February 10, 1954, 5-6.

Lou Chapman. “Five Hearst Contest Judges Named,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 3, 1949. B–3.

Arthur Daley. “Sports of the Times: The Rabbit,” The New York Times, January 7, 1954, 34.

Frank Graham. “Graham’s Corner: Morning at Stadium,” New York Journal-American, August 23, 1961, 33.

Don Hayes. “Two South Texas Baseball Stars Ready for Hearst Sandlot Classic,” San Antonio Light, August 13, 1958, 33.

Al Jonas. “Lefty Gomez to Help Vitt Prepare Hearst All-Stars,” San Antonio Light, August 13, 1950. Section D, 3.

Al Jonas. “U.S. Stars Defeat New York Team in Sandlot Classic,” The Sporting News, August 15, 1951, 28.

Brent P. Kelly. Baseball’s Biggest Blunder: The Bonus Rule of 1953–57. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, 1997.

Dylan Kitts. “Dormant Summer Sandlot Showcase is revitalized on Brooklyn Diamonds,” New York Daily News, August 10, 2009.

Barney Kremenko. “U.S. Stars Win Classic,” New York Journal-American, August 22, 1965, 33.

Stanley Levine. “Harrell to Start for Stars; Fitzgerald is Reserve,” Albany Times Union, August 16, 1946.

Max P. Milians. “Hearst Classic Majors’ Bonanza,” Boston Record American, August 11, 1965.

Morrey Rokeach. “Hearst Grads could make All-Star Nine,” San Antonio Light, August 17, 1958, 4-C.

Murray Robinson. “Uniformed, Will Travel,” New York Journal-American, August 22, 1965, 35.

Harry H. Schlact. “The Hearst Sandlot Classic—A Living Memorial to Babe Ruth,” The Milwaukee Sentinel, August 25, 1948, 14.

Dennis Snelling. Glimpse of Fame, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 1993.

Notes

1. Jack Conway, Jr., Boston Daily Record, July 14, 1953, 33.

2. San Antonio Light, March 31, 1957, 2-C.

3. George Vecsey, The New York Times, January 11, 1989, D25.

4. Daley, The New York Times, January 7, 1954, 34.

5. “Al Simmons Funeral Held at Church of his Boyhood,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 29, 1956, part 2, 1.

6. Boston Traveler, August 6, 1949, 7.

7. Al Wolf, “Sportraits,” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1946, 9.

8. James J. Murphy, Brooklyn Eagle, August 8, 1946, 1, 15–16.

9. The Amsterdam News, August 3, 1946, 10.

10. Barney Kremenko, New York Journal-American, August 16, 1946, 14.

11. Tommy Kouzmanoff, Milwaukee Sentinel, August 27, 1948, part 2, 3.

12. Al Jonas, New York Journal-American, August 22, 1948, L 27.

13. New York Journal-American, August 23, 1948, 1.

14. Hugh Bradley, New York Journal-American, August 7, 1951, 18.

15. James J. Murphy, Brooklyn Eagle, July 26, 1949, 1, 13.

16. Ben Gould, Brooklyn Eagle, July 21, 1950, 13.

17. Walla Walla Union Bulletin, August 19, 1949, 13.

18. The Syracuse Post-Standard, July 27, 1951, 25.

19. Kelly, 34-37.

20. Bob Lassanske, Milwaukee Sentinel, August 24, 1952 Section B, 5.

21. Kelly, 41–45.

22. “Giants pay $50,000 for L. A. Prep Hurler,” San Diego Union, August 30, 1956, b–4.

23. Kelly, 122–26.

24. Maury Rokeach, New York Journal-American, August 19, 1961, 15.

25. Dylan Kitts, New York Daily News, August 10, 2009.

“War is the Province of Chance.”

— Count Carl von Clausewitz

THE FOG OF WAR

Even a bloodless, but nonetheless bitter “war,” such as the two-year (1914–15) battle between the outlaw Federal League and Organized Baseball proves Clausewitz’s point.1

For years, the convention has been to view the Federal League, the last challenger to actually take the field against Organized Baseball, as having been doomed from the start, ultimately suffering an “inevitable collapse.”2 After all, there is no immediately recognizable vestige of the Federal League in modern baseball, no “Federal Division,” no long-simmering rivalry between the Chicago Whales and the Saint Louis Terriers.3

Upon closer examination, however, the events of the Federal League war demonstrate once again that certainty is most expertly determined in hindsight. For while the distance of a century cloaks the demise of the Federal League with an air of dreary predictability, its struggle against the baseball establishment was, like so many other “wars,” determined to a significant extent by chance and circumstance.

The Federal League’s impending centennial has already generated renewed interest in and re-evaluation of the outlaw league’s rise, its downfall and its subsequent disappearance. Both Robert Peyton Wiggins, winner of the 2010 Larry Ritter Book Award, and Daniel R. Levitt, the 2013 Ritter awardee, add substantially to the depth and quality of modern understanding of the Federal League.4,5 Each of these entertaining works builds upon the pioneering effort of Marc Okkonen.6 Contrary to the conventional wisdom, these recent analyses acknowledge that the magnates of the Federal League gave it a pretty good go, presenting a well-organized and well-financed challenge to Organized Baseball. Even such generally favorable assessments as these, however, may understate both how close the Federals came to leaving a much more visible imprint on the face of the national pastime and the extent to which sheer fate played a role in the demise of the Federal League.

Three critical events described below—two involving mortality, and one based in morality—were instrumental in barring the path to success for the Federals. Quite naturally, the war between the Federal League and Organized Baseball must properly be viewed as a drawn-out and complicated affair with many significant chapters. A number of these inputs may, in retrospect, be seen as potential “pivot points” in that struggle, each with its own set of intricacies. For example, many important skirmishes were fought in the courts and were characterized by the well-established processes and finely honed reasoning that characterize high stakes litigation. Other events, in closed rooms and at the negotiating table, were marked by the strategic imperatives of complex business decision-making.

The three events described below are not like that. Each one was attributable solely to human frailty. The deaths of two men and the change of heart of another were simple but crucial events occurring in the midst of a sea of complexity.

These three events also eerily demarcate the phases of the Federal League war, occurring as they did, just after Opening Day of the outlaws’ inaugural major league season (the death of Charles C. Spink, publisher of The Sporting News); second, during the offseason between the league’s two years of operation as a major league (the vacillation of legendary pitcher Walter Johnson); and, third, only after the final thrilling Federal League pennant race had been concluded (the passing of Federal League vice president Robert B. Ward).

It is, of course, impossible to argue that, had these misfortunes not occurred, the Federal League would have triumphed, perhaps because it is so fundamentally difficult to determine what “winning” would have meant and what form of victory would have been acceptable to whom. Nonetheless, because the Federal League challenge to Organized Baseball was so substantial, it merits a closer examination of how these three wholly unexpected twists of fate derailed an alternative outcome.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MUSHROOM

Part of the difficulty facing the Federal League lay in the failures of its immediate predecessors. Noted baseball chroniclers Professor Harold Seymour and his wife Dorothy documented the de-fanging, defeat or disappearance of no less than six minor league “outlaws” in the years between 1903 and 1912.7

Subsequently, two higher profile but nonetheless failed ventures had the effect of pushing the dramatic success of Ban Johnson’s American League further back in time than a look at the calendar might suggest.8 In 1912 John Powers organized the Columbian League outside the purview of the National Agreement. The venture was suspended after early financial backers pulled out. Thereafter, the United States League, an outfit that placed a number of its eight teams in major league cities, managed to get off the ground, but faltered in less than two months. Efforts to revive that venture in 1913 swiftly ran to ground.9

After the failure of his Columbian League venture, John Powers redoubled his efforts and launched the Federal League, initially operating in six cities in 1913. The Seymours observed that, in view of more than a decade strewn with failures, Organized Baseball had “no reason to assume that the Federal League would do anything except disappear, like so many of its ‘mushroom league’ predecessors;” consequently, the magnates of Organized Baseball initially “adopted a passive policy toward it.”10 In August 1913, the Federal League declared its intention to compete as a “Major League” after less than a full year as an outlaw, albeit minor, league.11 By the time the 1914 season opened, the Federal League consisted of franchises in four major league cities—New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Chicago—and four cities with established minor league franchises operating in the International League and the American Association: Buffalo, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Baltimore.

In the run-up to the 1914 season, the Federal League had already proven itself to be a more formidable challenger. Some in Organized Baseball still did not get the message. Perhaps the most colorful example of this occurred when Charles W. Murphy, the erratic owner of the Chicago Cubs, declared before spring training: “Why my corns are giving me more trouble than the Federal League. I fail to see where they will ever be able to open the season.”12 Had Murphy paid less attention to his corns, he may have observed that Charles “Lucky Charlie” Weeghman and his partner William Walker were planning a first class baseball plant on his city’s North Side that would later be described as “an Edifice of Beauty.”13 Not surprisingly, a sale of Murphy’s Cubs to Charles Taft (half brother of the former President) was successfully engineered before the month of February was out. While Murphy now had ample time and money to address his corns, American League President Ban Johnson and his allies were already implementing further counter-measures against the outlaws.

ACT ONE: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

Public perception at the time of the Federal League challenge was shaped on a national basis by three sporting publications focusing on baseball. Two were weeklies, The Sporting News—self-identified as the “Organ of Organized Baseball” and operated by the Spink family out of St. Louis, and Francis Richter’s Philadelphia-based The Sporting Life—“Devoted to Baseball and Trap Shooting.” Baseball Magazine, headed by F.C. Lane, was published on a monthly basis. These national publications augmented the highly competitive general circulation newspaper industry that operated on a scale that was several orders of magnitude larger than what we know today.

The Sporting News had been instrumental in the rise and survival of the American League; indeed Ban Johnson “always acknowledged his debt to the Spink family, admitting he would have been unable to establish the American League if the paper had not been on his side.”14 With respect to the Federals, the established view of these three publications is that The Sporting Life was “fair” if not actively pro-outlaw, Baseball Magazine, which cherished its independence from organized baseball prided itself on a more considered, generally neutral analysis, and The Sporting News was vehemently opposed to the Federal insurgents.15,16

As one might expect, the truth was substantially more complicated than that. While The Sporting Life took on a pro-Federal League slant over time, initially it was entirely skeptical of the new enterprise. Indeed, it editorialized in November 1913 that there was “no public or press demand for a third major league… [nor] enough players of major league caliber to equip such a league… [nor enough] first class cities available to form a balanced circuit….” The Sporting Life concluded that for these and other reasons it saw “in the Federal League movement not one element of success,” predicting that “should it reach the stage of actual expansion its ultimate failure will be only a matter of time, contingent upon the depth of the purses of the promoters of the venture.”17

The monthly Baseball Magazine was necessarily a more detached observer of larger trends, but it, too, seemed to move over time. In the early days after the Federals announced their plan to “go major,” an article in Baseball Magazine caustically dismissed the boasts of the Federals. William A. Phelon sarcastically denigrated grandiose Federal predictions of the collapse of the established leagues: “Too bad, too bad— we have always liked those older leagues, and we will weep bitterly as they are trodden underfoot and the remnants sold for old brass at the junk yard.”18 By the following Spring, however, Baseball Magazine’s pages were already allowing that, “This season it is safe to say, the Federal League and its work will be watched with keen interest.”19 While Baseball Magazine would continue to publish neutral fact-based pieces (such as “Who’s Who in the Federal League?”) by early 1915 it had gravitated toward publishing more openly pro-Federal pieces such as “Eventually There Will Be A Third Big League Why Not Now?”20,21

The most interesting case by far, however, is the attitude of the acknowledged industry leader, The Sporting News (The Sporting Life was, after all, devoted to both “Baseball and Trap Shooting”). Much of that fascination stems from the timing of the first of our three unpredictable events. On April 16, 1914, Charles Spink attended the Federal League’s opening day festivities at Handlan’s Park in St. Louis. He fell ill shortly thereafter and never again returned to his office, dying some days later.22

Charles Spink’s sudden passing warrants close attention because of the accepted notion that the father and his son, J.G. Taylor Spink, broke over the issue of the Federals.23 In 1942, the New York Post’s Stanley Frank endorsed that view in The Saturday Evening Post when he wrote that “[m]ounting differences between father and son came to an angry boil in 1914 with the formation of the Federal League. Old Charlie Spink believed baseball was ready to embrace a third major circuit. Taylor opposed the Federals….”24 While this thesis supports the view of this article, it actually seriously overstates and oversimplifies the case.

The pages of The Sporting News in early 1914 hardly ring with an endorsement of a third major league. In February, The Sporting News editorialized that “[t]he Federal League may exist for a day, a month or a season but it is built on a foundation of sand and neither it nor what it stands for will have any permanency.”25 Similarly in April, just before the season opened, it declared: “The Federals can proceed on [their way]—as moral and legal outlaws, and by no means should there ever be any other status accorded them. It is our opinion still that their way will be brief and that its end will be disaster.”26

These and other similar editorial views expressed in early 1914 do much to refute the notion that father and son were diametrically opposed in their views of the Federal League. Despite this record, however, there is nonetheless strong support for the proposition that the loss of Charles Spink and the passing of baseball’s pre-eminent weekly news organ to his son dealt a considerable blow to the fortunes of the Federal League.

While Charles Spink’s editorial criticisms of the Federals were indeed numerous, at 51 he was a fully formed man, one capable of seeing subtlety and secure enough to criticize his allies. For example, The Sporting News blasted the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Braves for suing the Federals, decrying their decision to fight the new league “in the law courts instead of at the turnstiles.”27 Despite the anti-Federal League views The Sporting News expressed, Spink would still accept an invitation from his friends to attend the Federal League opener, being shrewd enough to jest that he was doing so because “they [were] paying for the box.”

Taylor Spink, still in his mid-twenties, was on the other hand “enthusiastic to a fault”28 and his relationship with American League President Ban Johnson “practically amounted to idolatry.”29 Charles Spink, the father, had on the occasion of his final professional game, “complimented the Federals on their neat park,” had spoken of “the crowd and the men he had noted in it,” and had like a true fan lamented the fact that the home team lost. Even his son had to remark in his father’s obituary, that his father “could enjoy the Federal’s game on the field because deeper than all thoughts of policy or politics or base ball, he was a lover of the game for the game’s sake.”30 The son, while a lover of the game to be sure, was not as idealistically imbued.

Further evidence that Charles Spink’s death made a significant difference in the editorial path of The Sporting News is garnered from a more nuanced reading of some of his criticisms of the new venture. Many of them evidence a classic Missouri “show me” attitude. For example, early on in the Federal League war, the weekly declared: “In Saint Louis, the Federals are honest enough to admit that there is but one chance for the League—a park that will be as attractive as those of the major league clubs and a team that will include players known to the public as major leaguers—and there is no prospect of either.”31

A few months later came the editorial pronouncement: “[I]t is an undeniable fact that the fan is going to see the game where the best ball is exhibited, and as President Johnson aptly remarked, the battle with the Federals will simmer down to a fight of the turnstiles.”32 As we have seen, one of Charles Spink’s last mortal impressions was a favorable one relating to Handlan’s Park, the home of the St. Louis Terriers. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the 1915 Federal League pennant race, nor did he have the chance to assess its impact upon the “fight of the turnstiles.”

While Terriers attendance sagged badly as the 1914 campaign turned bleak, the team’s fortunes improved the following year. Indeed, Baseball Magazine pointed out that the “habit of winning has been responsible for the firm establishment of Federal League baseball in St. Louis.”33 One July doubleheader between St. Louis and Baltimore featuring a matchup of Eddie Plank and Chief Bender drew some 9,000 fans while a mere 300 attended the competing game between the Browns and the Yankees.34 Baseball Magazine believed such support proved “St. Louis fans [would] rally to the support of the deserving, whether it be Federal or other League baseball.”35 The Browns were found to be particularly undeserving, as their attendance dropped from 244,714 in 1914 to 150,358 in 1915.36

The Federal League pennant race went down to a last thrilling weekend while the Cardinals and the Browns both sank well below .500.37 Given the civic pressure in a city starved for on-field success and the fact that the Terriers had successfully met at least some of the challenges that Charles Spink had issued to them, there is ample reason to conclude that, had he lived, The Sporting News would have, like The Sporting Life and Baseball Magazine before it, migrated towards a more favorable view of the Federal League. With Taylor Spink, Ban Johnson’s leading fan at the helm, no such possibility existed.

The negative (to the Federals) reverberations caused by the ascension of the younger Spink were further compounded by the biting prose of correspondent Joe Vila of the New York Daily Sun. While working for his father, Taylor Spink had originated the idea of recruiting correspondents in every vital location. Joe Vila was among his correspondent corps. After Charles Spink’s death, his son was inclined to lean heavily on the fruits of this innovation. Vila, for his part, had been given a bad tip by a Federal League source in the early days of the new league and when the information proved bogus, a natural skeptic was transformed into an obsessed critic. Vila embraced that role, telling an Organized Baseball magnate that he “intended to roast the Federal League from hell to breakfast hereafter.”38 The breakfast reference was particularly appropriate, as Vila incessantly referred to the Feds as the “Flap Jack Circuit” or the “Lunchroom League.”39 This insult was Vila’s “clever” way of reminding folks that Chicago Federals owner Charles Weeghman had made his money largely by operating a number of lunchtime restaurants in the Chicago area.40

Much of Vila’s writing can only be characterized as shrill, and even then only if one is kind-hearted. Take, for example, the November 19, 1914, issue of The Sporting News in which Vila (incorrectly) trumpeted the collapse of the Federal League. He advised Federal supporters that if there were a “big hole” near at hand “these misguided individuals [should] crawl in without further delay.” He of course had predicted, based on his 25 years of experience, that “the third league could not succeed.” Vila then declared: “[b]ecause I told the truth about this crazy baseball scheme, pin heads who didn’t know what they were talking about wrote me in bitter terms….”41 Presumably, some if not all of these “pin heads” were readers of the Daily Sun and The Sporting News.

The incessant pounding provided by Taylor Spink, who bought ink by the barrel, and Vila, who possessed enough venom to stop a regiment in its tracks, constantly whittled away at the credibility of the Federals. Money was unquestionably the most decisive factor in recruiting players from Organized Baseball, but the source of that money also had to be—and be perceived as—stable, durable, and professional: a real “Major” League. The virulent antipathy of The Sporting News could not help but undermine the Federal League’s efforts to sway players as they assessed their options. Had Charles Spink survived, he would likely have been unable to restrain Vila from his chosen course; nonetheless, his maturity and his professionalism suggest that he would have declined to bash the upstarts in such a frankly reckless manner.

ACT TWO: “A HUMILIATING POSITION TO BE IN”

Battered by the unrelenting hostility of The Sporting News, the Federals continued to struggle in their effort to sign true marquee talents despite the skills of Joe Tinker, Fielder Jones, and others as salesmen, the deep pockets of Federal League ownership, and that ownership’s willingness to spend money. The Federals were also plagued by a recurring habit of sending mixed, if not blatantly contradictory, messages to the press. As Daniel Levitt noted, “several leading executives did not know when it was best to keep their mouths shut.”42 Amongst the Federal League executives afflicted in this manner was league president James Gilmore. In November 1914, Gilmore proclaimed that the Federals “would no longer go after the higher-priced stars of Organized Baseball” and would instead adopt an approach of upgrading the overall level of talent playing for their teams.43

Notwithstanding this pronouncement, after peace talks with the magnates of Organized Baseball faltered, the Federals renewed their efforts to sign new talent.

The first few days of December 1914 may be seen as a high water mark in this regard. Connie Mack, stung by bitterness after being swept by the upstart Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series, and under the pressure of increasing salaries, decided to waive the leading lights of his pitching staff: Jack Coombs, Chief Bender, and Eddie Plank.44 Coombs joined the Brooklyn Nationals, but the Federals were able to sign both Bender and Plank to contracts for the 1915 season. In New York, meanwhile, the well-financed Brooklyn “Tip Tops” obtained the signature of Rube Marquard of the New York Giants on both an affidavit certifying that he was indeed a free agent and a new Federal League contract. But the real triumph for the outlaws came when Walter Johnson, the pre-eminent American League pitcher of the day, put pen to paper at player-manager Joe Tinker’s urging and joined the Chicago Federals (soon to be known as the Whales).

Johnson’s decision to sign with the Federals rocked the baseball world, although The Sporting Life insisted that the signing of Johnson (and Plank) did not “create the sensation that the signing of Marquard did” because of the longstanding rumors that “these two would eventually line up with the new league.”45 Johnson, however, was exactly the kind of superstar drawing card that the newcomers had sought for so long. In the view of the Boston Herald as re-presented in The Sporting Life: “[t]he securing of Johnson is about the biggest card that the Federals could have played at this time…. Getting Johnson means several things to all hands at interest. It means, primarily, that the Federals are not yet down and out as Organized Ball has so everlastingly proclaimed…. The fact that Johnson has been willing to make the jump will probably make it easier for the Federals to get other men whom they are after…. And in addition to everything else, Johnson will not only prove a drawing card, as he always has been, but should also win a lot of games for his new employers.”46 The prospect of rising gate receipts thus also provided at least some hope for undercapitalized Federal teams in Buffalo, Baltimore, and Kansas City.

Unfortunately for the Federals, the high tide of early December soon receded. Marquard, after some wrangling, was returned to the Giants to complete the two years that did, in fact, remain on his contract. Marquard’s reputation as a bit of a risky proposition had been presaged by his wooing of fellow vaudeville star Blossom Seeley, much to the dismay of Blossom’s then-husband, Joseph Kane. According to press accounts, Mr. Kane, accompanied by two detectives, had on one occasion arrived too late (at 2:00AM) to his wife’s hotel room because “by that time the two occupants had gone out walking. They left at a brisk, athletic pace by way of the fire escape.”47 Walter Johnson, by contrast, was a paragon of American baseball virtue, whose decision to execute a “double flop,” renounce his Chicago contract, and return to Washington, had to have come as a complete shock to the Federals.

The long wooing of Walter Johnson, the momentary triumph of his signing, and Johnson’s rapid change of heart stands out as the premier human drama of the Federal League war, one so richly textured that it would be difficult to do it justice in a mere few paragraphs. What matters most for the purposes of this account is that Johnson succumbed to the pleas of Fred Clarke, the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, to return to the fold of Organized Baseball. Clarke was acting as an emissary for Clark Griffith, a man who had developed a strong bond with Johnson over the years. One Johnson biographer described their bond as “part father-son relationship, part mutual professional admiration, and the rest genuine friendship.”48 Griffith hurried from the nation’s capital to Kansas City to follow up on Clarke’s breakthrough and return Johnson to Washington’s roster.

The re-signing of Johnson capped a series of mounting frustrations for the Federals. Those frustrations, coupled with the passage of sterner federal antitrust legislation in late 1914, led to the Federals’ decision to sue Organized Baseball in the court of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in January 1915. Landis famously delayed taking any action for the duration of the calendar year. While Landis dithered, purposefully, the Federal League withered.

Many of Johnson’s contemporaries also changed their minds and executed a reverse jump, and still others had their private decisions upended in a court of law. It can safely be said, however, that none of these other vacillators possessed as talented a right arm. Neither were they as roundly respected, nor as capable of drawing customers to the park. The final crucial aspect of Johnson’s change of heart was its timing.

Had Walter Johnson not committed his famous “double flop,” the potential for a vastly different outcome of the war comes into view. The Federals may have restrained their litigious instincts, preferring instead to fight on at the contract negotiating table rather than the plaintiff’s table in court. Even allowing that such a suit was inevitable, as the Seymours would have us believe, Judge Landis would have been hard-pressed to simply take no action in light of the prospect of Walter Johnson regularly taking to the mound before large crowds for Weeghman’s Chicago Whales.49

For his part, Johnson seemed genuinely distraught by the entire affair. In a lengthy piece appearing in Baseball Magazine under his name entitled “Why I Signed With The Federal League,” Johnson said he struggled with the choice between “doing an injury to the Federal League” and having “to injure Washington instead.” He conceded: “[i]t is a humiliating position to be in, and has no doubt hurt me with the public.”50 Johnson had been blasted even before his initial signing by the Federals under such headlines as “Almighty Dollar Johnson’s Ideal.”51 Then, upon his “double flop” The Sporting Life criticized him for his “very elastic conscience,” surmising that “his moral sense [was] not a mate to his wonderfully strong right arm.”52 Johnson was concerned enough about his future to attend the opening session in Landis’s court, inconspicuously clad in a sweater and cap.53

When no ruling from Judge Landis was forthcoming, he reported, late, to Washington’s spring training camp, prompting one reporter to note that the “Big Train” that carried Johnson was arriving behind schedule. This was the first reported usage of the Hall of Famer’s most enduring nickname.54

How did Johnson’s reputation fare? The Big Train, it appears, need not have been so concerned. The public rapidly forgave him this transgression, a testament to both his overall character and his enormous talent. How forgiving was the public? Well, one recent book refers to Johnson as a “divine” hero, and one Johnson biography echoed a columnist’s conclusion (written at the time of Johnson’s death) that “the only man of the past to whom Walter Johnson could be compared was Abraham Lincoln.”55,56 Apparently, none of the former Federal League magnates were asked to comment.

ACT THREE: THE PIOUS MASTER BAKER PASSES

While many figures in Organized Baseball knew enough to respect the business acumen of Robert B. Ward, the owner of the Brooklyn “Tip Tops” Federal League franchise and the League’s vice-president, they did question one thing: “What the h— does he know about baseball?” This complaint, expressed in Baseball Magazine by an unnamed American League magnate, raised the fundamental objection that Ward had made his fortune elsewhere, and not in baseball.

Ward had risen from humble beginnings to head the “Greatest Bread Manufacturing Company in the World.”57 He was a devout Methodist who steadfastly eschewed Sunday baseball, despite its promise of financial gain. While Ward would have deplored the language of the anonymous magnate he was completely unintimidated by the sentiments, stating in reply, “I never knew there was any black art about baseball. Judging from some of the men I have met in the profession and the success they have made, I would not say that intelligence of the first order was necessary to a rather complete mastery of the game.”58,59

Ward brought both his incisive analytical abilities and his bankroll to the aid of the Federal League cause. Even some of the most prominent figures in Organized Baseball were not shy about expressing admiration for what he brought to the table.

“I don’t know how he did it, but when [Federal League President James] Gilmore interested R.B. Ward in his schemes, he made a ten strike. He is the kind of man any league would go a long way to get,” remarked Charles Somers, a substantial financial backer of the American League at the time of its birth, and one who would be counted among the many financial casualties of the Federal League war. Even Ban Johnson, who was reported to have refused to discuss a possible peace proposal when Gilmore was in the same room, was willing to hold a “friendly conference” with the powerful master baker.60

Once President Gilmore had Ward and his brother George within the Federal camp, he proceeded to maximize the financial draws made upon the Ward fortune in support of the fledgling league. Ward, and Ward’s money, seemed to be everywhere. Not only did he support his own team financially, he made substantial loans to the league for the purpose of keeping other franchises afloat “including untold thousands that were never properly documented.”61 Ward also financed an entire minor league (the Colonial League) virtually singlehandedly for the benefit of the outlaws as a whole.62

By that time, Ward had already proven to be a steadying influence on the enterprise, particularly (in conjunction with St. Louis Terrier owner Phil Ball) in restraining the always rambunctious Charlie Weeghman of Chicago. When peace negotiations began after the 1914 season, the disparate interests of the Federal League’s ownership became readily apparent. Buffalo managing partner William Robertson spoke of a peace agreement which would “necessitate recognition of a third major league.”63 For their part, the backers of the Baltimore franchise were, from the beginning, determined to return that city to the ranks of the Major Leagues.64

Lucky Charlie was more parochial. He was major league material in his own mind. He certainly was not opposed to gaining admittance to Organized Baseball for the Federal League’s “big three” (himself included), but beyond that, he was less concerned. The bigger two of this threesome (Ball and Ward) “were not yet willing to abandon their fellow owners.”65 The 1914 peace talks collapsed, leaving Joe Vila, as we have seen, once again on the wrong side of accuracy in the media.

The peace negotiations resumed in earnest at the end of the Federal’s second season. With another season of financial losses behind them, the outlaws were more than willing to talk. All around them lay the carnage of the baseball war, exacerbated by the challenges of a fragile national economy. Most tellingly, the ranks of the minor leagues that had already been thinned from 40 at the start of 1914 down to 29 on opening day in 1915, seemed destined for another downsizing.66 Ban Johnson might have been resolute, but a number of National League owners were wavering, as were the minor league owners, some of whom were in danger of bleeding out. Still, the National Leaguers had not yet felt enough pain to accept the Federals’ proposal of October, which envisioned the major leagues expanding to ten teams each by adding the Federal franchises in Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Buffalo or Kansas City, while also allowing Weeghman and Newark owner Harry Sinclair (later of Teapot Dome scandal fame) to purchase two franchises in the established leagues.67

With the proposal deadlocked, fate played its final card in favor of Organized Baseball. On October 18, 1915, Robert B. Ward, who had been diagnosed with pneumonia the week before, died at his Homewood estate in New Rochelle, New York from heart complications at age 63.68 Rational contemporaries were generous in observing the import of his passing. With Ward’s death, The Sporting Life noted, “the Federal League, is deprived of its most powerful and yet most loved individual factor….”69 Baseball Magazine said that “men like Mr. Ward are very, very few in baseball and their loss can hardly be replaced.”70 The New York Times observed: “The death of Robert B. Ward removes from the Federal League one of its staunch supporters. He was ever an active force in promoting the welfare of the league….”71

The best that Joe Vila at The Sporting News could manage, however, was more tweak than teary-eyed tribute. Under a headline reading in part: “Death of Outlaw’s Angel Stiffens BackBone of Certain O.B. Men Who Were Inclined to Wobble,” Vila could only manage to concede that: “the chief owner of the Brookfeds was a game sportsman, a big-hearted, good-natured citizen who went into baseball with a limited knowledge of the business end of the game.”72

Ban Johnson proved to be even more petty, acknowledging that “[Ward] was the backbone of the Federal League” but then going on to say that “the blow is likely to prove fatal to the organization…. I think it was the Federal League that put him under the sod, as he could not stand the strain of worries and losses.” Federal League President James Gilmore fumed in response: “Mr. Johnson has intruded his personality into every true sportsman’s hour of sorrow,” going on to charge that “by his selfish impulses” Johnson was “slowly but surely ruining the national sport.”73

Gilmore’s righteous indignation did not save the outlaws, however, and within two months time peace had been reached. The peace was “far from a total victory” for Organized Baseball, however the peace terms were substantially less generous than the Federals’ October proposal.74 Weeghman was allowed to purchase the Cubs and Phil Ball purchased the Browns. A large financial settlement ($600,000) was offered to many of the remaining franchises, but unlike both the ending of the American League war, as well as the resolution of more modern challenges in football, hockey, and basketball, there was no wholesale acceptance of an operating league, nor the migration of even a handful of rebel franchises into the established ranks.

The modern chroniclers agree that Ward’s untimely demise was pivotal to this ultimate result. Levitt noted that “there can be no exaggerating the impact of Ward’s death.”75 Wiggins concluded that when Ward passed, “much of the heart and fight of the Federal League died with him.”76

CONCLUSION

It would be foolhardy to argue that but for the three twists of fate described above, the Federal League would have survived and, much like the American League before it, been organically integrated into Organized Baseball and be instantly recognizable a century later. Yet, each of these wrenching events altered, in a substantial way, the events that followed. The waging of the “war” was thus impacted by chance to a non-trivial extent. Even the peace agreement was impacted.

In 1989, Marc Okkonen commented with admiration on the “fascinating gamble” that was the Federal League. That gamble is made all the more fascinating when one considers that it could have ended far differently had only the fates been a little kinder.

BOB RUZZO is a Boston lawyer with considerable affordable housing and transportation policy experience. He is hopelessly obsessed with both the Federal League and how Jewel Box ballparks wove themselves into the fabric of their host cities. He has previously authored an article on Braves Field for the BRJ and is working on an article on the South End Grounds for inclusion in an upcoming book on the 1914 Miracle Braves.

Notes

1. For the purposes of this article, the term “outlaw” or “outlaw league” is intended to refer to a baseball enterprise operating outside of the National Agreement that encompassed the American League, the National League and minor league operations, commonly known as “Organized Baseball.”

2. Jack Kavanaugh, Walter Johnson: A Life (South Bend: Diamond Communications, Inc., 1995), 106.

3. While Wrigley Field is certainly recognizable, its Federal League roots are not; indeed, if not for its upcoming centennial, the park’s original incarnation as “Weeghman Park” would, for non-Cubs fans, qualify as the answer to a moderately challenging trivia question.

4. Daniel R. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball (Lanham, Maryland: Ivan R. Dee, 2012).

5. Robert Peyton Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2009).

6. Marc Okkonen, The Federal League of 1914–1915 (Garrett Park, MD: SABR, 1989).

7. Harold Seymour and Dorothy Seymour Mills, Baseball: The Golden Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 197–99.

8. Johnson’s gambit had been greatly aided by the National League’s own incompetence, particularly its dramatic contraction that left a number of rapidly growing cities hungering for a return to “major league” status.

9. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 6; Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 34–35.

10. Seymour and Mills, Baseball: The Golden Age, 199–200.

11. “Federals For A Fight,” The Sporting Life (August 9, 1913): 1.

12. The New York Times, February 10, 1914: 7.

13. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 84.

14. J.G. Taylor Spink, Judge Landis and Twenty-Five Years of Baseball (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1947), 258 (the Spink book republishes in its entirety a June 20, 1942 Saturday Evening Post article by New York Post sportswriter Stanley Frank entitled “Bible of Baseball” from which this quote and other material in this article is derived).

15. Henry W. Thomas, Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 138.

16. Seymour and Mills, Baseball: The Golden Age, 216; Okkonen viewed The Sporting Life as “more objective and fair in its coverage.” Baseball Magazine was “neutral” and The Sporting News presented the Federals as “a bad joke.” Okkonen, The Federal League of 1914-1915, 7. Wiggins shares a generally similar assessment. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 4–5.

17. The Sporting Life (November 8, 1913): 4.

18. Wm. A. Phelon, “Changing Styles in Baseball,” Baseball Magazine (October 1913): 37.

19. James A. Ross, “The Champion Club of the Federal League,” Baseball Magazine (May 1914): 21–22.

20. Baseball Magazine (June 1915): 63.

21. Baseball Magazine (April 1915): 25.

22. Steve Gietshier, “Famous Firsts,” The Sporting News (April 24, 1995): 8.

23. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 4; Seymour and Mills, Baseball: The Golden Age, 216.

24. Spink, 261. Levitt, on the other hand, postulates that Charles Spink saw the war as an opportunity to “augment his status with Organized Baseball.” Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 111.

25. The Sporting News (February 5, 1914): 4.

26. The Sporting News (April 16, 1914): 4.

27. The Sporting News (April 22, 1914): 4.

28. Steve Gietshier, The Sporting News, The Baseball Biography Project, http://bioproj.sabr.org.

29. Spink, 259.

30. The Sporting News (April 30, 1914): 1.

31. The Sporting News (November 13, 1913): 4.

32. The Sporting News (January 15, 1914): 4.

33. Howard B. Tyler, “The Federal League Race,” Baseball Magazine

(September 1915): 28.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., at 100.

36. www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SLB/1915.shtml (retrieved 9/7/13). Cardinals attendance dipped slightly by some 3,433 fans, dropping the team’s attendance ranking from third (of eight teams) to fifth. www.baseball-reference.com/teams/STL/attend.shtml (retrieved 9/7/13).

37. In the end, the Chicago Whales benefited from two rainouts that were not made up to win the pennant race by .00854 percentage points. Wiggins, Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 274–5.

38. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 111.

39. Wiggins notes with some irony that Organized Baseball’s “voracious campaign” against the Federal League in the press (and the courts) “gave credibility to the newcomers.” Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 7. This author believes that, however much the level of curiosity among members of the general public may have increased initially because of such insults, the long-term effect of this press pounding was ultimately corrosive.

40. Wiggins also states that this was intended as an insult to the Ward brothers, owners of the Brooklyn Federal franchise. The Wards had made their fortune as bakers. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 92.

41. The Sporting News (November 19, 1914): 1.

42. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 170–71.

43. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 168.

44. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 171.

45. The Sporting Life (December 12, 1914): 9.

46. The Sporting Life (December 19, 1914): 12.

47. The New York Times, November 9, 1912: 11.

48. Thomas, Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train, 108–9.

49. Seymour and Mills, Baseball: The Golden Age, 203. The Seymours relate that as early as the 1913 signing of Joe Tinker, Federal League attorney Edward E. Gates was proclaiming that an antitrust action would be brought against Organized Baseball.

50. Baseball Magazine (April 1915): 62.

51. Seymour and Mills, Baseball: The Golden Age, 207.

52. William G. Weart, “One More Hurt to Base Ball,” The Sporting Life (January 21, 1915): 9.

53. The New York Times, January 20, 1915: 10.

54. Ted Leavengood, Clark Griffith: The Old Fox of Washington Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011), 110.

55. Ira Berkow, Beyond the Dream: Occasional Heroes of Sports (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), 45.

56. Kavanaugh, Walter Johnson: A Life, 287.

57. Baseball Magazine devoted a truly disproportionate amount of its profile of the Ward brothers to the unique antiseptic bread manufacturing process they had developed. F.C. Lane, “Famous Magnates of the Federal League,” Baseball Magazine (July 1915): 24.

58. The unnamed American League magnate insisted on anonymity; however, it should be noted that due to a typographical error, the second page of the Ward profile contains the header “The Real Comiskey.” Comiskey had been profiled under that title in the February 1914 issue.

59. Lane, “Famous Magnates of the Federal League,” 110.

60. Ibid., at 26, 110.

61. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 221.

62. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 228–31.

63. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 157.

64. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 68.

65. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 159.

66. Ibid., at 157.

67. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 277.

68. The Sporting Life (October 23, 1918): 8.

69. The Sporting Life (October 30, 1915): 4.

70. Baseball Magazine (December 1915): 15.

71. The New York Times, October 20, 1915: 13.

72. The Sporting News (October 28, 1915): 1.

73. The Sporting Life (October 30, 1915): 11.

74. Seymour and Mills, Baseball: The Golden Age, 233.

75. Levitt, The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball, 222

76. Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, 277.

In the 2011 postseason, David Freese made a name for himself with his spectacular and timely hitting and won both the National League Championship Series and World Series MVP awards. It cannot be denied: Freese hit well in the clutch that October. But would it have been reasonable to expect the same from him in the future? Is he in fact a “clutch hitter”? Do clutch hitters even exist?

Sabermetricians have been arguing about the reality of clutch hitting for quite some time now (see, for example, the special section of the 2008 issue of Baseball Research Journal). At this point, an impressive group of sophisticated researchers has carefully analyzed large data sets using a variety of statistical methods to test the hypothesis that some players consistently outperform others in high-pressure situations. For example, Phil Birnbaum analyzed batting data from the years 1974 through 1990 to test for the consistency of players’ clutch hitting from one season to the next.¹ A clutch hit was defined as one occurring in the “seventh inning or later, tied or down by three runs or less, unless the bases are loaded, in which case down by four runs.” For all players with at least 50 at-bats in clutch situations, batting averages in clutch situations (corrected for batting averages in non-clutch situations) were calculated, and consistency across consecutive seasons was assessed with a simple linear regression analysis.

Needless to say, however one defines and measures clutch hitting, for any given season, some players will have higher scores than others. Those players can without argument be said to have hit better in the clutch during that baseball season. But if clutch hitting is not just subject to random variation, and if some individual players are truly more “clutch” than others, then those players should consistently perform well in the clutch relative to other players—just as extroverted people are consistently more extroverted than introverts, and honest people are consistently more honest than dishonest people. But Birnbaum found no evidence for that sort of consistency.

Although there is some disagreement about the correct interpretation of these and related findings, the following would arguably be a consensus statement: Clutch hitting either does not exist or is a marginal, difficult-to-detect phenomenon that accounts for only a tiny amount of the variance in batting performance.² Birnbaum’s samples, for example, were large enough so that even correlations as low as approximately .17 would have reached conventional levels of statistical significance. Relationships of that magnitude are not very impressive, and are typically not “perceptible on the basis of casual observation.”³

Note that even if compelling evidence were presented for the existence of clutch hitting, that would not necessarily mean that what observers perceive to be clutch hitting is real, and not an illusion. The effects of being “clutch” on performance could be so tiny that they would not necessarily even correlate with people’s subjective assessments of individual players’ clutch hitting abilities. People’s intuitions about both the presence and meaning of patterns in athletic performance are often flawed. For example, ample research has demonstrated that the “hot hand” in basketball—the increased likelihood of players making a successful shot if their previous shot was successful—is more illusory than real.⁴

However, two aspects of the debate over the existence of clutch hitting, while they might seem to go without saying, arguably have important ramifications for the question “does clutch hitting exist?”—

1. The question “does clutch hitting exist?” can essentially be rephrased as “do some hitters have psychological characteristics that enhance their performance in high pressure situations?”
2. Published research on the topic has actually addressed the question “does clutch hitting exist at the major-league level?” That might in fact be the question of most interest to researchers, but SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research) is not SAMLBR (the Society for American Major League Baseball Research)

In tandem, those two observations highlight the fact that existing research has, for all intents and purposes, been based on the assumption that major-league ballplayers vary significantly in the psychological characteristics associated with clutch hitting. What might those characteristics be? And is it reasonable to expect major leaguers to represent different levels of those characteristics? If not, what are the implications for the search to find convincing and replicable evidence for clutch hitting?

The psychological characteristics of clutch performers

What traits (that is, stable dispositions) might be especially pronounced in players who perform exceptionally well in the clutch? The following is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all possible personal characteristics, but the three I focus on here represent three general ways in which clutch hitters might stand out from others specifically, in terms of their affective, cognitive, and/or motivational qualities.

Trait anxiety. Anxiety, of course, is a state that certain experiences trigger in people. Everyone has encountered situations that that are threatening, challenging, and unpredictable enough to at least temporarily trigger somatic effects like increased heart rate and perspiration, trembling, or even, in extreme cases, nausea. Situations in which a person’s social reputation and self-esteem are at stake are especially potent sources of anxiety—situations like those involving publicly observable athletic performances taking place when the outcome of a contest is at stake.

Some people, though, are less prone to experiencing anxiety than others; such people are said to be low in trait anxiety.⁵ These individuals have been found to be less susceptible than others to stress-induced deterioration of performance. Relative to athletes high in trait anxiety, those low in trait anxiety should thus consistently perform better in clutch situations. Although direct evidence involving baseball players is lacking, this hypothesis has been supported in the context of other sports, such as basketball.^6,7

Self-consciousness. In high-pressure athletic situations, your attention should of course be focused on the task at hand (e.g., hitting the pitched ball). You could, though, attend to other things, such as whether or not other people are observing you, and what they might be thinking about you. In addition, you could carefully monitor your own internal states to determine how confident you are feeling or how you are reacting physiologically to the situation. You might also pay careful attention to the positions of your limbs (for example, focusing on your batting stance and how you are gripping the bat).

People high in self-consciousness are those who are most prone to let their attention drift to those other things and to become acutely self-aware in high-pressure situations. Unfortunately, becoming preoccupied with one’s physical, psychological, and/or social self can undermine one’s performance. Indeed, dispositional self-consciousness has been found be negatively correlated with performance under pressure.8 Relative to baseball players high in self-consciousness, those low in self-consciousness should consistently perform better in clutch situations.

Achievement motivation. Coming through in the clutch and playing a central role in your team’s victory is a major accomplishment, and ballplayers who hit walk-off home runs are more respected and celebrated than those who hit home runs in the ninth inning of a 13-1 blowout. When Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner tagged Dave Winfield “Mister May” the nature of the criticism—by comparing him to “Mister October” Reggie Jackson—was clear to everyone. Similarly, most baseball fans remember Francisco Cabrera’s two-out pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game Seven of the 1992 National League Championship Series; the two runs he knocked in won the game, the series, and the pennant. Fewer fans, it can be assumed, remember that that was his only hit of the series, and it is unlikely that many could identify the Braves’ leading hitter for the series: Mark Lemke, with a .333 batting average. He knocked in two runs also—but one was in the Braves’ 5-1 victory in Game One and the other in their 13-5 victory in Game Two.

But people differ in terms of how strongly they desire to overcome challenges, outperform others, and stand out from their peers. In other words, there are individual differences in achievement motivation.9 According to an influential definition of this personal characteristic, it is associated with “intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult,” having “the determination to win,” enjoying competition, and being “stimulated to excel by the presence of others.”¹⁰ Relative to baseball players low in achievement motivation, those high in achievement motivation should consistently perform better in clutch situations.

Major-league baseball players: An extreme population

If clutch hitting is related to the personality traits described above (and related ones), and if major league ballplayers vary in terms of their consistent ability to hit in the clutch, then it follows that major league ballplayers must also vary in terms of those traits. Is that a reasonable expectation? Data from a battery of personality tests administered to major leaguers would answer that question. Such data, alas, do not exist. But an educated guess is still possible.

Consider, for example, what one can learn from SABR’s Biography Project (BioProject) website (http://bioproj.sabr.org/). There is, of course, no shortage of sources of information about Hall of Fame-caliber ballplayers or other perennial All-Stars. But the BioProject is notable for its exhaustively researched stories about players who might be memorable to passionate baseball fans, but who are far from household names. Consider, if you will, the following quartet: Ken Frailing, Duffy Dyer, Dalton Jones, and Jerry Adair (selected for, among other things, being prominent in the baseball card collections of my youth). Collectively, they represent 41 years of major-league service—and also, a grand total of zero All-Star Game appearances. None ever led the league in a significant batting or pitching category (although Adair grounded into the most double plays in the American League in 1965). With the exception of Adair, none ever received a single MVP award vote.

Of course, all had one other distinguishing characteristic: they were extraordinarily talented athletes. Frailing, for example, had an eye-popping 13-0 record with an ERA of 0.17 during his senior year in high school. That same school later selected him as their “Athlete of the Century.” Dyer, when he was in high school in Arizona, was recognized “as one of the state’s top ballplayers,” and he led his team to a state championship in 1963. Dalton Jones also led his high school team to the state championship game (in Louisiana)—but scouts had already started “flocking around” him when he was 14 years old. As for Adair, “no athlete from Oklahoma had a more storied pre-professional career than Adair, not even Mickey Mantle.” A sportswriter in Oklahoma describes him as “the best athlete to come out of the Tulsa area in his lifetime.”¹¹

In short, even unremarkable major-league baseball players are elite performers. To reach the major leagues, players undergo an extremely rigorous selection process. In fact, given the number of people who would find a career in professional sports to be appealing, the reference group used to evaluate their aptitude for the game is essentially most of the male population of the United States (and increasingly, a number of other countries as well).

It could conceivably be the case that once a player reaches the majors, the level of pressure and the stakes involved rise to levels that players have not previously experienced, and so the threshold at which different psychological limitations and vulnerabilities might matter are reached for the first time. Nonetheless, anyone with characteristics that inhibit top-flight performance—either physical or psychological ones—will be weeded out well before the call-up to the majors. Although no direct evidence is available, high levels of trait anxiety and low levels of achievement motivation are unlikely to be found among men on major-league rosters. The same is true of high levels of self-consciousness; indeed, the rare exceptions to that rule are notable enough to have become legendary, as in the “Steve Blass Disease,” or the “Steve Sax Syndrome.” Professional ballplayers who suddenly become incapable of completing routine plays report that their problems are associated with excruciating self-awareness. As Dale Murphy put it, “Your mind interferes, and you start thinking, Where am I throwing? What am I doing? instead of just throwing. Your mind starts working against you.”¹²

Statistical implications

To ask “Do some hitters have psychological characteristics that enhance their performance in high pressure situations?” is to ask the question “Is the relationship between game situation (high stakes, low stakes) and batting performance (hitting safely, knocking in runs) moderated by psychological variables?” Moderator variables are variables that affect the relationship between two other variables (in this case, game situation and performance); in other words, moderation is in evidence when the relationship between two variables depends on a third variable. But if that third variable hardly varies, it is not much of a variable, and it cannot be a moderator.

That point can probably be understood intuitively, but it can also be formalized in statistical terms. Moderation is typically assessed with a multiple regression analysis. Essentially, one tries to predict or estimate a dependent variable, Y (e.g., performance), on the basis of an independent variable or variables, X (e.g., game situation), a moderating variable, M (e.g., trait anxiety, self-consciousness, achievement motivation), and most crucially, the interaction of X and M (XM). One or more of the predictor variables might account for statistically significant variance in the dependent variable.

However, a variable that itself has little or no variance cannot account for variance in another one. Thus, if M does not vary across observations, it (and the interaction term, XM) drops out of the equation, and there can be no moderation effect. All that would be left in the statistical model would be a general estimate of how well batters in general perform in clutch versus non-clutch situations.

Looking for clutch hitting in the right places: A challenge and prediction

An implication of this analysis is that clutch hitting is unlikely to be detected in data from the major leagues; major league batters simply do not vary enough in terms of the personal qualities that would lead some to perform better and some to perform worse in the clutch. Unmotivated, highly self-conscious men with trouble controlling anxiety are unlikely to be found on the rosters of teams in the American and National Leagues.

There is, however, no reason clutch hitting should not exist in populations of baseball players for whom the relevant moderating variables are associated with a significant amount of variance. In other words, clutch hitting should be detectable at lower levels of competition, among players who have not undergone the rigorous selection process experienced by major leaguers. Among such players one could reasonably expect to find people with relatively high levels of anxiety and self-consciousness and low levels of achievement motivation.

Assembling an appropriate data set, however, could be quite a challenge. To assess consistency in clutch hitting at a particular level of competition in a manner consistent with past investigations of the phenomenon, one must find a reasonably large group of batters who (1) stay at that level for more than one year, and (2) accrue enough plate appearances during each of those years to provide a reliable and valid performance measure. Minor-league rosters, however, are quite unstable from year to year. In addition, those players who stay mired at a particular level might differ in systematic ways from those who do not, and thus might not be a representative sample of ballplayers. Another possible source of data might be high school baseball, but high school teams do not play enough games in a given year to satisfy the second criterion.

More promising would be college baseball. Players in college have multi-year careers, and their teams play dozens of games—enough so that players end seasons with hundreds of at-bats. In addition, although most people would not have a realistic chance of making the cut for a college team, it is still the case that the physical skills and psychological attributes required at this level are not what they have to be at the major-league level.

As a result, with a fair amount of confidence, I end this essay with the following prediction: if anyone can construct a data set involving a large number of college players who had substantial amounts of playing time across multiple seasons, and conducts a “Cramer test ” of the kind conducted by Birnbaum, evidence for stable levels of clutch hitting will be detected.¹³ A failure to find such evidence would not, of course, provide definitive evidence that the phenomenon of clutch hitting is nonexistent. It could instead suggest that the standard criteria for distinguishing between high-pressure batting situations and less pressured ones do not correspond closely enough to how batters directly experience those situations. In other words, faced with null data (that is, a failure to detect the existence of consistent clutch hitting), one might choose to re-examine standard definitions of clutch hitting. But the odds of finding straightforward, unambiguous evidence for clutch hitting would seem to be much more favorable for almost any other sample of batters other than major leaguers.

LEONARD S. NEWMAN is Associate Professor of Psychology at Syracuse University, where he is the director of the social psychology program. He is also the editor of the journal “Basic and Applied Social Psychology.” His father grew up in Manhattan rooting for the Giants, and his mother is from Brooklyn—so needless to say, he’s a Mets fan.

Notes

1 Phil Birnbaum, “Clutch Hitting and the Cramer Test,” Baseball Research Journal 37 (2008): 71-75.

2 Bill James (2008), “Mapping the fog,” Baseball Research Journal 37, 76-81; P. Birnbaum, “Response to ‘Mapping the fog,’” Baseball Research Journal 37, 82-84.

3 Jacob Cohen, Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (New York: Academic Press, 1977), 79.

4 Thomas Gilovich, Robert Vallone, and Amos Tversky, “The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences,” Cognitive Psychology 3 (1985), 295–314; Alan Reifman, Hot Hand: The Statistics Behind Sports Greatest Streaks (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012).

5 Michael W. Eysenck, Anxiety and Cognition: A Unified Theory (East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press, 1997).

6 Sian L. Beilock & Rob Gray, “Why Do Athletes Choke Under Pressure?” in Gershon Tenenbaum & Robert C. Eklund (eds.), Handbook of Sport Psychology (3rd Ed.) (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2007), 425-444.

7 Guiying Hu, Baihua Xu, & QI Xu, “An experimental study on the ‘choking’ psychological mechanism of adolescent basketball players,” Psychological Science 31 (China ,2008): 528-531; J. Wang, D. Marchant, T. Morris, & P. Gibbs, “Self–consciousness and Trait Anxiety as Predictors of Choking in Sport,” Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 7 (2004): 174-185.

8 Sian L. Beilock & Rob Gray, “Why Do Athletes Choke Under Pressure?” in Gershon Tenenbaum & Robert C. Eklund, 425-444; Georgia Panayiotou, “Chronic Self-Consciousness and Its Effects on Cognitive Performance, Physiology, and Self-Reported Anxiety,” Representative Research In Social Psychology 28 (2005): 21-34; J. Wang, D. Marchant, T. Morris, & P. Gibbs, 174-185.

9 Joan L. Duda, “Motivation in Sport: The Relevance of Competence and Achievement Goals,” in Andrew J. Elliot, & Carol S. Dweck (eds.), Handbook of Competence and Motivation (New York: Guilford Publications, 2005), 318-335; Andrew J. Elliot & Holly A. McGregor, ”A 2×2 Achievement Goal Framework,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80 (2001): 501-519.

10 Henry A. Murray, Explorations in Personality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938), 164.

11 All quotations and information about the players discussed in this paragraph were retrieved from the SABR Baseball Biography Project at http://sabr.org/bioproject

12 Richard Demak, “Mysterious Malady,” Sports Illustrated, April 8, 1991.

13 Richard D. Cramer, “Do Clutch Hitters Exist?,” Baseball Research Journal, 6 (1977), 74-79.

INTRODUCTION

The World Series is tied at three games apiece. Going into the decisive seventh game, which players would you prefer to have in the lineup? If it is the bottom of the ninth inning, the score is tied 2–2, and the bases are loaded, do you stick to the lineup or put in a pinch-hitter? This question had to be answered by Bob Brenly, the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, in the 2001 World Series against the New York Yankees. Brenly stuck to the lineup, and fortunately for the Diamondbacks, despite his 11 strikeouts and a .231 batting average (6 for 26) in the series, Luis Gonzalez came through with a single to center to win the series.

Many major league baseball games are decided in the final innings or outs of a game. For that reason, it would be beneficial for team managers to know which player on their team has the highest probability of getting on base or getting the game-winning hit. The probability, however, will differ depending on whether the player is hot or cold. Previous studies have addressed streakiness in hitting (Albert, 2004; Albright, 1993), yet data did not support a pattern of streakiness across all players. The goal of this study is to use hidden Markov models to determine when players are hot or cold and to determine how their batting averages differ between these two states.

MARKOV CHAIN

To understand the concept of a Markov chain, consider the following example. During a seven-day time period, the weather can be observed and classified as sunny, cloudy, or rainy. These three classifications are called the observable states, and the probabilities of moving from one state to another are known. These probabilities, called transition probabilities, are the only parameters in a regular Markov model because the state is directly visible to the observer. In addition, the probability of observing a certain weather condition today is based only on the previous day’s weather. In addition, the probability of observing a certain weather condition today is based only on the previous day’s weather rather than the observed weather state two, three, four, etc. days ago. When these conditions are satisfied, the process can be described as a Markov chain.
By definition, a Markov chain, denoted by {X_n}, is a process with a countable number of states and discrete units of time t = (0, 1, 2 …, n) such that at each time the system is in exactly one of the states. Furthermore, a Markov chain contains known transition probabilities. Following the notation used by Karlin (1969, pp. 27), the transition probability of being in state j at time period n+1 given that the process is in state i at time n is denoted by:

P_ij = P(X_n+1 = j | X_n = i)

As mentioned above, these transition probabilities rely exclusively on the current state of the process. Therefore, knowledge regarding its past behavior does not influence the probability of any future behavior. In more formal terms,

P(X_n+1 | X₁, X₂, …, X_n) = P(X_n+1 | X_n)

where the value of X_n is the state at time t = n. In a Markov chain, the probability of the system beginning in each of the states must also be defined. Let p0i denote this transition probability from the beginning state (state 0) to state i or the probability of starting in state i.
Now any sequence from a Markov chain can be written as X₁, X₂,X₃, X₄, . . . X_n, and the probability of this sequence is as follows:

This proof is based on the definition of a conditional probability and by applying the property that probability of each state depends only on value of preceding state.

In this study, a Markov chain is used to model the hitting of major league baseball players over the course of a season. The Markov chain has two possible states (hot and cold), and the transition probabilities model the chance that a player will transition from one type of hitting to another.
Will this chain satisfy the Markov property? In other words, is the future hitting type dependent only on the current hitting type? It is clear that previous states might lend some information about the next transition. For example, if the previous few states are cold, the batter may be in a series against a team with a tough pitching staff, and it will be more likely for the next state to be a cold. However, this situation might be uncommon because of the large amount of variation in throwing style among pitchers. Although thinking about whether or not this chain satisfies the Markov property is important, a model can still be useful even if it is not exact.

HIDDEN MARKOV MODEL

According to Durbin, Eddy, Krogh, and Mitchison (1998), a hidden Markov model (HMM) is a “probabilistic model for sequences of symbols” (p. 46). Unlike a regular Markov model, the state is not directly visible. However, variables influenced by the state are visible, and the challenge is to determine the hidden states from an observable variable.

In major league baseball, the type of hitting is not directly visible. Thus, we will be using a hidden Markov model with the number of successful plate appearances per game as the visible variable.

The three main components of a HMM include an initial distribution, an emission matrix, and a transition matrix. The initial distribution defines the probability of the model being in each hidden state at time t = 0. The emission matrix contains the probabilities of each observable variable given that the model is in a particular hidden state, denoted

e_i(b) = P(x_k=b|X_k=i)

Lastly, the transition matrix contains the probabilities of being in each hidden state at time t = n given the hidden state at time t = n-1.

DATA

This study is based on detailed information about each player’s plate appearances over the course of their career (Baseball-Reference.com, Forman, 2000). For this analysis, the 1978 season of Pete Rose will be contrasted to the 1997 season of Rey Ordonez. During the 1978 season, Rose had 731 plate appearances and at least one hit in 44 consecutive games. In 1997 Rey Ordonez had 391 plate appearances and went 37 consecutive plate appearances without a hit.

Using the outcome of each plate appearance, the number of successful plate appearances per game was calculated for each player. The criterion for a successful plate appearance was reaching base on a single, double, triple, home run, base on balls, intentional base on balls, or by being hit by pitch. Never reaching base and reaching base on an error or a fielder’s choice were considered unsuccessful plate appearances. Using the number of successful plate appearances in a game, three observable states were formed. The first state is defined as 0 successful plate appearances in a game, the second state is 1 successful plate appearance, and the third state is greater than or equal to 2 successful plate appearances in a game.

EXAMPLE

During each major league baseball game, there is a certain chance that each player will have 0, 1, or “2 or more” successful plate appearances. The probability of each observable variable is determined exclusively by the type of hitting the player is in. The two types of hitting represent our hidden states and will be denoted by “HOT” for a hot and “COLD” for a cold. No definite information about the hitting type is known, but we will try to determine the type based on the number of successful plate appearances per game.

The initial transition matrix was created based on knowledge that one game of plate appearances does not constitute a hitting type. For that reason, a probability of .95 was chosen for staying within a state and .05 was chosen for the probability of changing states. The starting values for the emission matrices are based on the percentage of times each observable variable appears in the sequence. The average of the hot probability and cold probability for each observable outcome is approximately equal to the percentage of times it occurs in the sequence. The sequence of observable outcomes and the initial transition and emission matrices for Rose and Ordonez are given in Table 1.

(Click image to enlarge)

MODELING METHOD

Three functions in the hmm.discnp package of R were utilized in this study (Turner, 2006). First, a hidden Markov model was fit to the sequence of successful plate appearances using the Expectation-Maximization algorithm. This algorithm finds the most likely set of transition and emission matrices based on the data and by using the initial values of the matrices as the starting point. The most probable hidden state (HOT and COLD) underlying each observation was then found based on the sequence and the resulting hidden Markov model. Finally, the Viterbi algorithm (Viterbi, 1967) was used to determine the most likely sequence of hidden states (HOT and COLD) that could have generated the sequence. It is important to realize that the sequence of most probable states will not in general be the most likely sequence of states. The results from these three functions are given in Table 2.

(Click image to enlarge)

INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS

There is a large difference between the hot and cold emission probabilities for Pete Rose. He had approximately a 4% chance of having 0 successful plate appearances during a game, a 43% chance of having 1 successful plate appearance, and a 53% chance of having 2 or more successful plate appearances given he was hot. However, he had approximately a 60% chance of having 0 successful plate appearances, a 0% chance of having 1 successful plate appearance, and a 40% chance of having 2 or more successful plate appearances given he was cold. Furthermore, the probability of staying in a hot is .9390 while the probability of staying in a cold is .6360.

Based on the resulting most probable states and most probable sequence of states, Rose was hot for the majority of the 1978 season. These results are not shocking because it was one of his most successful hitting seasons, although not one of his most successful total offensive seasons. The longest he was cold of the season lasted 13 games. In this 13 game stretch, there were 7 games when he had 0 successful plate appearances.

On the other hand, there is a small difference in the emission probabilities for Ordonez indicating that the model failed to find two different states. He had approximately a 40% chance of having 0 successful plate appearances during a game, a 35% chance of having 1 successful plate appearance, and a 26% chance of having 2 or more successful plate appearances given he was hot. In addition, he had approximately a 41% chance of having 0 successful plate appearances, a 34% chance of having 1 successful plate appearance, and a 25% chance of having 2 or more successful plate appearances given he was cold. Furthermore, the probability of staying in a hot is .8937 while the probability of staying in a cold is .8999.

Based on the most probable sequence of states, Ordonez was in a cold state for the entire 1997 season. However, the most probable was a hot state for 13 consecutive games. This occurred when Ordonez successfully reached base in 12 of the 13 games. 

CONCLUSION

Going into Game Seven of the World Series, should the manager put Pete Rose or Rey Ordonez in the lineup? It depends! Based on the model, the probability that Rose will have 0 successful plate appearances given that he came into the game in a cold state is,

P(0_n+1|COLD_n) = 0.64(0.60) + 0.36(0.04) = 0.4.

Likewise, for Ordonez,

P(0_n+1|COLD_n) = 0.90(0.41) + 0.10(0.40) = 0.4.

Therefore, if both players come into the game in a cold state, they have the same probability of having an unsuccessful game.

However, based on the model, the probability that Rose will have 0 successful plate appearances given that he came into the game in a hot state is,

P(0_n+1|HOT_n) = 0.94(0.04) + 0.07(0.60) = 0.08.

Likewise, for Ordonez,

P(0_n+1|HOT_n) = 0.89(0.40) + 0.11(0.41) = 0.40.

Therefore, if Rose is in a hot state, he has a much lower probability of having an unsuccessful game and he is the player you want in the lineup.

MEGAN LIEDTKE TESAR is taking time away from her career as a statistics professor to be at home with her son Eli. She received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was also a postseason-honor-winning college softball player and has great respect for the catcher position.

ANNE C. MARX is Assistant Professor of Sport Management at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. She earned her Master’s Degree from Arizona State University and doctorate degree from the University of Arkansas. She is an avid athlete and can be seen in the evenings playing baseball with her son, Adam, in the back yard.

DAVID B. MARX is Professor of Statistics at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska. He works in the area of spatial statistics as well as in sports statistics. His Ph.D. is from the University of Kentucky and he was previously employed at the University of Arizona and University of Arkansas. He is a member of the American Statistical Association’s section of Statistics in Sports.

REFERENCES

Albert, J. (2008). Streaky hitting in baseball. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 4(1). Retrieved August 2013 from http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/albert_streaky.pdf.

Albright, S. (1993). A statistical analysis of hitting streaks in baseball. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 88, 1,175–83.

Durbin, R., Eddy, S., Krogh, A., & Mitchison, G. (1998). Biological Sequence Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Forman, S. L. (2000). Baseball-Reference.com–Major League StatistiCOLD and Information, Retrieved June, 2007 from http://www.baseball-reference.com.

Karlin, S. (1969). A First Course in Stochastic Processes, New York, NY: Academic Press, Inc.

Turner, R. (2006). The hmm.discnp Package, Retrieved June 2007 from http://www.math.unb.ca/~rolf.

Viterbi, A. J. (1967). Error bounds for convolutional codes and an asymptotically optimum decoding algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 13 (2), 260–69

The story of how Frank Baker, the Philadelphia Athletics star third baseman, earned the nickname of “Home Run” is well known to even casual fans of baseball. As his Hall of Fame plaque states, he “won two World Series games from [the] Giants in 1911 with home-runs thus getting name ‘Home Run’ Baker.” Baker’s two home runs would understandably gain attention. In the seven World Series beginning in 1903, there had been a combined total of nine home runs hit in 41 games and the highest total in any single series had occurred in 1909 when there were four.1 Only two players, Patsy Dougherty of Boston against Pittsburgh in 1903 and Fred Clarke for Pittsburgh against Detroit in 1909, had hit more than one home run in a twentieth-century series.2

Baker’s home runs would also be important in the outcome of the two games in which they occurred. His first home run, off Rube Marquard in the sixth inning of a 1–1 tie, supplied the two-run margin of victory in the second game of the series. His homer the next day would be even more dramatic, coming off Christy Mathewson in the ninth inning to tie the score at 1–1 in a game the Athletics went on to win 3–2 in 11 innings. Baker might have even added to his home run total in the rest of the Series if not for his being severely spiked in the arm and leg by Fred Snodgrass in the tenth inning of that game. Although Baker did stay in that game and play in the rest of the games in the Series one can only wonder if the injury might have reduced some of his power.3

Although this story of how Baker’s famous nickname came about has become a well accepted piece of baseball lore, it isn’t quite accurate. In fact, Baker was tagged with his famous sobriquet even before he had hit his first regular season major league home run and at least as early as spring training of his rookie year with the Athletics.

On March 28, 1909, an article on the Athletics appeared in the Philadelphia North American describing how Connie Mack was going to split his team, then in spring training, into two squads. One, consisting primarily of rookie players called in the parlance of the time the “Yannigans” or the “Colts,” would be led by Mack on a barnstorming tour and arrive in Philadelphia just before the opening of the regular season. The second team, made up mostly of veteran players and led by team captain Harry Davis, would go to Philadelphia to begin a series of exhibition games against their National League cross-town rivals, the Phillies.

Lest fans feel they would be deprived of seeing any of the Athletics’ new talent, the article noted that the split “does not mean that Philadelphians will not have a chance to see at least some of his [Mack’s] new men in the series. Confident in their ability to make good, Mack assigned [Heinie] Heitmuller, the big California outfielder, “Home-run” Baker, his sensational third sacker, and catcher [Jack] Lapp, who has shown ability, to the veteran combination.”4

What had earned Baker his nickname? The North American article continued, “All of these men have played impressively in the South [the Athletics had trained in New Orleans]. Baker’s work has possibly been the most spectacular. On three occasions he has won close games with home runs, while his fielding inspires the belief that Mack will have the best man at the corner since the days when Lave Cross was good.”

Baker had already displayed his power during his first full season in professional baseball when he played for the Reading Pretzels of the Class B Tri-State League in 1908. According to Baseball-Reference.com, he hit six home runs—leading his team in that category while Charlie Johnson of the Johnstown Johnnies led the league with nine. One player hit eight, three hit seven, and two others besides Baker hit six that season.

Although Baker had failed to homer during his brief initial appearance with the Athletics at the end of the 1908 season, he quickly displayed his power in spring training, hitting a home run in the Athletics’ first practice session in New Orleans on March 11. Heitmuller matched his feat that day but from then on no one on the team, with one exception, came close to Baker with regard to power.

Demonstrating that his practice achievement was no fluke, Baker homered in the Athletics’ first exhibition game on March 17 versus New Orleans of the Southern League. He would do it again on March 23 and March 25 against Mobile. Three home runs during so few games would be an impressive display for any rookie even now but was especially extraordinary in the deadball era. That it wasn’t simply a case of major leaguers taking advantage of minor league pitchers is demonstrated by the fact that through March 28 when Baker was given his nickname, no other Athletics player hit a home run during either of the five exhibition games the team played against minor league teams or the four intrasquad games of regulars versus the “Yannigans” and the one played by former collegians on the team versus those who lacked higher education. For the rest of spring training, only one other member of the Athletics regulars team would hit a home run; on April 4 Topsy Hartsel did so against Newark.

The only other Athletics player besides Baker who demonstrated home run hitting ability was a member of the Yannigan team, a promising young outfielder who would far exceed Baker’s talents as an all around hitter and, while never winning a home run title, become one of the top sluggers in the American League: Joe Jackson. In a game against Louisville on March 29, Jackson hit the ball over the right field fence which also scored a man who would prove to be the second greatest hitter then on the Yannigans, Eddie Collins. The ball Jackson hit was reported to be one of the longest ever recorded in Louisville history, sailing over the right field fence and striking the roof of a street car before landing on a house.5

Baker had no problem staying with the Athletics but his chance to prove that he deserved his recently given nickname was delayed at the beginning of the season. He suffered a knee sprain resulting from a collision at third base with Sherry Magee of the Phillies in an exhibition game on April 7, forcing him to miss the Athletics first five games before making his debut on April 21. However, he quickly made up for lost time, hitting a grand slam in Boston on April 24, the Athletics’ first home run of the season, accounting for all the team’s runs in their victory.6

The next month, Baker would do something even more impressive that would solidify his reputation as a slugger. It had been predicted that due to the vast dimensions of the new Shibe Park it was “improbable that any batsman, even a stalwart hitter like [Ty] Cobb, [Sam] Crawford or [Harry] Davis will be able to drive the ball over the fence.”7 Baker would quickly give lie to this prediction when, on May 29, he hit a ball over the right field wall, the first regular season home run in the history of the park.8 The ball, which traveled an estimated 350 feet before landing on the porch of a house on 20th Street just beyond the right field wall, was described by Connie Mack as the longest and hardest he had ever seen hit.9 For good measure, Baker repeated his feat of hitting a ball out of Shibe Park once again that season on August 9.10

Baker would hit only two more home runs the rest of the season but his total of four was still good enough for sixth place in the American League.11 This tied Harry Davis for second place on the Athletics behind Danny Murphy’s five. Baker’s homer output would fall off the next season to only two before rebounding in 1911 to begin a streak of four straight years when he would lead the league in homers, the second man to accomplish this after Davis.12

And, of course, he did hit those two famous home runs in the 1911 World Series.

STEVEN A. KING is a physician and Clinical Professor at the New York University School of Medicine. He is the editor of the pain management section of “ConsultantLive,” an online journal for physicians, and a member of the board of editors of the journal “Pain Medicine.” The primary focus of his baseball research is New York City baseball at the beginning of the twentieth century and he is writing a book on the interaction between baseball and politics in the city at that time. His most recent baseball articles are on the myth of the Amos Rusie–Christy Mathewson trade that appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game” and on why Rube Waddell missed the 1905 World Series in the 2013 issue of “The National Pastime.”

Notes

1. In comparison, in the seven World Series from 2006 to 2012, there were 76 home runs hit in 36 games.

2. No player would hit more than two home runs in a single World Series until Babe Ruth did it for the Yankees in 1923 against the Giants.

3. Baker would homer again against Marquard in the first game of the 1913 series, his only other World Series home run in the six series in which he played.

4. Unlike Baker, Heitmuller and Lapp would never make a significant impact. Heitmuller would play a total of 95 games for the Athletics in 1909 and 1910 before falling back into the minor leagues and dying at the age of 29 in 1912. Lapp would be back in the minors for part of 1909 before finally sticking with the Athletics for six seasons and the White Sox for one as a back-up catcher. Mack did take with him one player who, having played the full 1908 season with the Athletics, was somewhat out of place with the Yannigans, Eddie Collins. Although Collins’ ability as a major leaguer hitter was already apparent, Mack was unsure if his fielding was at a level for him to be the Athletics regular second baseman and wanted the opportunity to observe him more closely. In contrast, Mack was already certain that Baker would be his third baseman.

5. Philadelphia Inquirer, March 30, 1909; Charlotte Observer, April 1, 1909.

6. According to his biographer, this first home run of his major league career was the only grand slam Baker would ever hit in the majors. Barry Sparks, Frank “Home Run” Baker (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006), 27.

7. Philadelphia North American, February 22, 1909.

8. David W. Vincent, Home Runs in the Old Ballparks (SABR, Cleveland, 1995), 37.

9. Philadelphia North American, May 30, 1909. Curiously, Connie Mack in a 1946 interview would similarly describe the home run hit by Joe Jackson in Louisville for the Yannigan team as “the longest hit I ever saw in my life.”Jackson’s hit may have grown in Mack’s memory as he recalled it as going over the center field fence instead of the right field fence as reported in contemporary accounts. The New York Times, March 11, 1946.

10. Philadelphia North American, August 10, 1909.

11. Ty Cobb would win the American League home run title in 1909, the only time in his career he would do so. Baker did lead the American League with 19 triples, an impressive five more than the second place finishers, Cobb’s Detroit teammate Sam Crawford and Baker’s teammate Danny Murphy who had been moved to the outfield after losing out to Eddie Collins in the competition to be the Athletics second baseman.

12. Since Baker did it, only Babe Ruth and Ralph Kiner have joined him and Davis in leading their leagues in home runs for four or more straight years. Baker would miss his chance to extend his streak to five straight seasons when he sat out the 1915 season due to a salary dispute with Connie Mack. He did come back to finish second in the league in 1916 after he’d been traded to the Yankees.

Baseball is a male-dominated sport. Softball is often considered to be the “female counterpart” to baseball. Despite limited playing opportunities, girls and women are playing baseball. The purpose of the present study was to explore the preferences of female baseball players regarding the differences between baseball and fastpitch softball. Female baseball players (N=49) participating in an international baseball tournament for women completed a two-page questionnaire on their preferences between fastpitch and baseball. The results indicate the majority of baseball players preferred baseball to fastpitch and did not consider the two sports to be equivalent. Players preferred the following baseball traits to softball: ball size, overhand pitching, baserunning, distance of pitching mound/circle, bat, and field dimensions. Implications of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The impetus for this study grew from one of the researchers’ personal experience. As a girl growing up playing baseball, Justine Siegal often wondered why other girls were not playing alongside her and it seemed that girls played softball and boys played baseball. While a Doctoral student at Springfield College (MA), Siegal decided to study female baseball players and quantify the differences between softball and baseball in terms of player perception and preference. Very little research has been done on the motivations of women playing baseball or softball. In the course of her research, Siegal did find work exploring the relationship between America, baseball, and gender, and this became the foundation of the study.

American culture claims softball as the female counterpart to baseball.1 Men often participate in baseball as players, coaches, and umpires, but the female experience in baseball is usually as spectators and consumers, wives and groupies, and parents of male players.2,3,4,5,6 The auxiliary roles that women are often confined to in baseball serve to emphasize the power of the male baseball player.7

In the United States women have been playing baseball longer than they have had the right to vote. Women played regulation baseball until the 1890s when softball and baseball were distinguished into two sports and categorized as “exclusively male” and “co-ed.”8 Historically, baseball is a proving ground for masculine prowess.9 Disapproval of women playing baseball is an ongoing theme in American culture.

As Jennifer Ring explains in her book Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball, “…because women have shown that they can play baseball, and want to play, a culture of exclusion must be enforced institutionally to ensure that the national game remains a man’s game.”10 Baseball has had more lawsuits on whether or not girls can play than any other sport in America.11 In 1973, Little League was forced by law to allow girls to play. In 1974, instead of creating baseball leagues for girls, Little League formed a softball division for girls.

Prior to girls being siphoned into softball programs, interest in baseball leagues was apparent. Before the law forced gender integration within Little League, the mothers of three banned girls formed a girls’ baseball program in Wallkill, New York, for 45 interested girls. In Hoboken, New Jersey, 50 girls tried out to play with the boys. Girls were interested in playing baseball but the leaders of Little League chose not to grow baseball opportunities for both boys and girls but instead to separate the two sexes, and make baseball for boys and softball for girls.12 Legally girls are allowed to play Little League baseball but culturally girls are told to play softball.

Today girls can argue the right to play baseball in schools and public youth leagues under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment resolves that, “no state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”13 Female baseball players who allege gender discrimination may challenge foes on three grounds: 1) violation of Title IX (if in an educational setting); 2) breach of equal rights under the 14th amendment; and 3) violation of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. 1983.14

In Israel v. West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission (1989), a high school female baseball player brought a sex discrimination case against the school commission after she was denied an opportunity to play on the boy’s baseball team. School policy was that softball and baseball were comparable sports, and therefore a girl was to play softball and not baseball with the boys. However the court ruled that softball and baseball are not equivalent sports as they use different equipment and rules. In addition the court felt that more skill was required in baseball than in softball.15

Women now play baseball worldwide. The International Baseball Federation has held a Women’s Baseball World Cup every two years since 2004. The International Baseball Federation now has a Women’s Commission that is charged with developing baseball for girls and women around the world.16 Some of the countries where baseball leagues for women exist include the following: Australia, Canada, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Netherlands, Pakistan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. While baseball for women is growing worldwide, the sport is still struggling for legitimacy and stability.17

The purpose of the present study was to explore the preferences of female baseball players on the differences between baseball and fastpitch softball. The hypotheses in the present study were twofold: 1) Baseball players will consider fastpitch a distinct sport from baseball; and 2) Baseball players will prefer playing baseball to fastpitch. The struggle of the twenty-first century female ball player, caught between the legal right to play and the cultural fight against it, is not well documented. Examining the motivations and the perceptions of baseball players will help better understand participation patterns between baseball and fastpitch and explore at large why women play baseball when society pushes them towards fastpitch.

METHOD

The present study explored how the perception of baseball and fastpitch softball relates to participation amongst female baseball players. A self-administered questionnaire was the testing instrument.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants (N=49) were players from an international women’s baseball tournament; study participants represented players from: United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia. The average age of the participants (N=49) was 25.14 years (SD=7.23). Not all tournament players participated. Participants were asked to fill out the questionnaire while waiting for transportation to the tournament gala. All participants signed an informed consent with regards to procedures approved by the Institutional Review Board. Underage players had their parents sign a consent form in addition to signing the form themselves. (See page 55 for the questionnaire.) The tournament organizers approved the study.

TESTNG INSTRUMENT

The testing instrument is a self-administered, Likert scale-based questionnaire. The questions were designed by the author, and reviewed by several professors. The questionnaire has three main themes: (1) background information, including demographics and player information, (2) questions regarding perceptions of fastpitch softball and baseball; and (3) player preferences on the physical differences in fastpitch softball and baseball. The physical differences of fastpitch softball and baseball were derived from a list of differences between the two sports that the court determined in their ruling of the legal case Israel v. West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission. The questionnaire was available only in English. (The researcher did observe a handful of players, fewer than 10, have the questionnaire translated to them by teammates.)

RESULTS

The average age of the participants (N=49) was 25.14 years (SD=7.23). Participants represented five countries: Australia (n=13); Canada (n=4); Japan (n=11); Taiwan (n=11); and United States (n=4). Significant difference was found on whether participants felt baseball and fastpitch were “equivalent” sports; 12 participants reported “not at all,” 13 reported “a little bit,” 19 reported “somewhat,” 3 reported “a lot,” and 2 reported “very much,” X₂(4)=2.03, p<.05. Significant difference was found on whether participants preferred baseball or fastpitch; 45 participants reported “baseball,” 1 reported “fastpitch,” and 3 reported “the same,” X₂(2)=.684, p<.05. Just over half the players had never played fastpitch (n=26). The findings support both hypotheses: 1) Baseball players did not consider fastpitch and baseball equivalent sports; and 2) Baseball players preferred baseball to fastpitch.

Participants marked what traits they preferred between baseball and softball. Players preferred the size of a baseball over a softball, X₂(1)=.230, p<.05. Players preferred overhand pitching to underhand pitching, X₂(2)=.684, p<.05. Players preferred baserunning in baseball (i.e. leadoffs) to baserunning in fastpitch, X₂(2)=.720, p<.05. Players preferred the longer distance of the pitching mound in baseball to the shorter pitching distance in fastpitch, X₂(2)=.758, p<.05. Players preferred using a baseball bat more than a softball bat, X₂(2)=3.19, p<.05. Players preferred the larger baseball field to the smaller fastpitch field, X₂(2)=.599, p<.05. The majority of the participants felt baseball and fastpitch required the same amount of skills while 20 players felt baseball was more difficult, X₂(2)=.488, p<.05.

DISCUSSION

Baseball players participating in the present study overall preferred baseball to fastpitch and did not consider the sports to be equivalent. Players preferred the following baseball traits to softball: ball size, overhand pitching, baserunning, distance of pitching mound, bat, and field dimensions. Just over half of the participants had some fastpitch experience.

The results of the present study support the decision reached in Israel v. West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission. The Israel court ruled that softball and baseball are not equivalent sports because they use different equipment and rules. The court also claimed baseball required more skill than softball.18 A major difference between the Israel case and the context of the present study is the Israel case was about slow pitch softball not fastpitch. Softball includes a slow looping pitch while fastpitch has a quick underhand pitch. The differences between softball and fastpitch are meaningful when comparing skill level but less so when comparing the differences between softball and fastpitch to the differences between fastpitch and baseball; size of ball, field, bat, stealing, and pitching are all still different. Culturally the terms “softball” and “fastpitch” are often used interchangeably.

The present study has limitations and is best used as a primer for future research on girls and women playing baseball or fastpitch. Due to a low sample size the results cannot be generalized to the general public. The questionnaire is successful in gaining data on sport preferences but does not provide an outlet to explain why participants preferred one sport trait to another. For full representation the survey should also be given to softball players.

While women have been playing baseball for over 150 years in America, female baseball players still receive various forms of disapproval from administrators, coaches, and the law.19 Despite the challenges of playing baseball and the push to instead play softball, the majority of the participants in the present study had never played fastpitch. Future research could question what sport baseball players played if it is not fastpitch and if it was baseball, what struggles, if any, did they have trying to play the game. A qualitative analysis on motivation of softball and baseball players would provide a fuller look into the topic.

Many female baseball players play alongside the men because it is their only playing option. Ila Borders played college baseball and received verbal assaults from opponents and physical abuse from teammates. Borders had baseball shaped welts on her back from “accidental” throws that disgruntled teammates threw at her, as they stood behind her.20 Players from the current study were participating in one of the few international club tournaments for women in the world. Future research could examine how female baseball players perceive playing baseball with other women. Does the stigma of being “struck out by a girl” still exist when women compete against women or is there an emotional or physical relief to play alongside other females? Further exploration would provide greater insight into the dynamics of playing mixed-sex sports and same-sex sports.

A phenomenological examination into the experiences of girls and women playing baseball would provide greater depth to future research. The significance of researching women and girls playing baseball is that gender stereotypes hurt both males and females. Without access to all sports, girls and boys learn that they are not equal, and that discrimination is acceptable. Participants in the present study preferred baseball to fastpitch yet society tells them that fastpitch is for girls and baseball is for boys; thus baseball opportunities for girls are limited and opportunities for boys abound. The understanding of the unique relationship between males, females, and baseball will enhance knowledge of opportunities in baseball and positions in society.

In conclusion, the majority of baseball players participating in the present study preferred baseball to fastpitch. Most of the participants did not consider fastpitch and baseball to be equivalent sports. Baseball is America’s national pastime and a global game both men and women deserve the chance to participate. The significance of the present study can be simplified to one thought: If you tell a girl she can not play baseball, what else will she believe she can not do; but if you give her a chance to play baseball what else will she believe she can do?

(Survey of Baseball & Fastpitch Experience)

DR. JUSTINE SIEGAL is the Director of Sport Partnerships at Sport in Society, a Center at Northeastern University. She received her master’s degree from Kent State University in Sport Studies and her Ph.D. in Physical Education from Springfield College. She is the Founder of Baseball For All, an organization the providing meaningful opportunities for girls in baseball. In 2011, Dr. Siegal became the first woman to throw batting practice to a major league team.

DR. ANDY LI-AN HO is currently the assistant professor as well as the strength and conditioning coach of Chinese Culture University in Taiwan. Dr. Ho has a master degree in sport coaching science from Chinese Culture University, a second master degree in strength and conditioning from Springfield College and earned his Ph.D. in Physical Education from Springfield College. He is currently teaching exercise science courses in undergrad and graduate level and coaching intercollegiate athletes. Besides teaching and coaching, Dr. Ho also conducts research and has published research articles in national and international peer-reviewed journals.

Notes

1. Merrie A Fidler, “The establishment of softball as a sport for American women, 1900–1940,” In Howell, R. (Ed.), Her Story on Sport: A Historical Anthology of Women in Sports. West Point: Leisure Press, 1982, 527–40.

2. Ron Briley, Class at Bat, Gender on Deck and Race in the Hole. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2003.

3. Karlene Ferrante, “Baseball and the social construction of gender,” In Creedon, P. J. (Ed.), Women, Media and Sport: Challenging Gender Values, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994, 238–56.

4. Jean Ardell, “Baseball Annies, Jack Johnson, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis: How groupies influenced the lengthy ban on blacks in organized baseball,” Nine: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture, 13(2), 2005, 103–9.

5. George Gmelch & Patricia M. San Antonio, “Groupies and American baseball,” Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 22(1), 1988, 32–45.

6. J.S. Chafetz & J.A. Kotarba, “Son worshippers: The role of Little League mothers in recreating gender,” Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 18, 1995, 217–41.

7. Gmelch & San Antonio.

8. Jennifer Ring, Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

9. Michael S. Kimmel, “Baseball and the reconstitution of American masculinity, 1880–1920,” Sport, Men, and the Gender Order, Messner, M.A. and Sabo, D.F. (Eds.) Human Kinetics Publishers, Champaign, IL, 1989.

10. Ring, 383.

11. Sarah K. Fields, “Cultural identity, law, and baseball,” Culture, Sport, Society, 4(2), 2001, 23–42.

12. Ring, 2009.

13. Fields, 2001, 27.

14. Matthew J. McPhillips, “‘Girls of summer’: A comprehensive analysis of the past, present, and future of women in baseball and roadmap to litigating a successful gender discrimination case,” Seton Hall Journal of Sport Law, 6, 1996, 301–39.

15. McPhillips, 1996, 324.

16. Justine Siegal is the Chair of this Commission.

17. Ring, 2009.

18. McPhillips, 1996.

19. Ardell, 2005a; Fields, 2001; Reaves, 2001; Ring, 2009.

20. Ardell, Breaking Into Baseball.

Ted Williams, who had sat atop the league’s hitters for most of the season, had been held hitless earlier in the day by Vic Raschi, while his arch-rivals the Yankees clinched the American League pennant. The “Splendid Splinter” had started the month of September with a 12-point lead and seemed certain to win his fifth batting championship.1 Kell, who had been hampered by injuries in September and was down seven points in late September, had been on a hitting tear that brought him within three points of Williams on the season’s final day.

Word filtered down from the press box to the Detroit dugout that Kell was now ahead of Williams in the race. If his lead held he would be the first third sacker ever to win the American League batting championship. (Debs Garms led the NL in hitting in 1940 with a .355 average but split time at third and the outfield.)

The slick-fielding third baseman knew in the eighth inning that he was leading Williams by a threadlike margin. He had already banged out two hits on the day against the tough Bob Lemon, a double his first time up and a line-drive single to left on his second trip to the plate. Lemon walked Kell to lead off the sixth, coughed up three runs, and was replaced by the Indians’ other fireballer, Bob Feller. Kell flied out to left in the seventh against Feller. With the score tied 4–4, there was a chance that Kell would bat again. He didn’t want to, but he also didn’t want to come out of the game and win the batting crown by sitting on a stool in the clubhouse.2 Another hit would secure his edge over Williams. A base-on-balls would leave things unchanged. If Feller retired him, then Kell would drop behind Williams.3 When the home half of the ninth inning opened, the Tigers were leading 8–4, and three batters were ahead of Kell. Johnny Lipon, batting for Neil Berry, grounded out. Dick Wakefield, batting for Hal White, smashed a single to first off Mickey Vernon’s glove.

Next to bat was Eddie Lake. Lake ended up hitting a two-hopper to Ray Boone at short, for a game-ending double play. An elated Kell threw the three bats he was holding in his hand “as high into the air as I could.”4 He had won the batting title by a couple of decimal points. It was one of the closest batting races in baseball history. The Tigers star had thwarted a bid by Williams for his fifth batting crown by two ten-thousandths of a point—.34291 to .34276. If Williams had managed one more hit or one fewer at-bat, he would have his third Triple Crown—a feat never achieved in the game.5

George Kell was already one of the American League’s best players when the 1949 season began, a rare accomplishment in an era when the men who played his position were known primarily for their glovework.6 Establishing himself as a star, though, did not come easily. The sandy-haired third baseman from Swifton, Arkansas, got his start in baseball in 1940 with Newport, a Class D team affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers, only eighteen miles from Kell’s hometown. When the team found itself in need of a shortstop late in the season, the local postmaster in Swifton, who attended almost all of Newport’s games, talked the general manager into giving Kell a try.

Kell had demonstrated his skills locally in American Legion ball, but found playing in the minors harder than he expected. He batted a mere .160 in 48 games and wasn’t much better in the field. He was invited back to Newport the next year and led the league with 143 hits. His .310 average was third in the league and he was the top fielder at his position.7 At the end of 1941, Newport sold his contract to Durham, a Class B club in the Dodgers organization. The team had plenty of third basemen, so when the manager asked if anyone could play short, Kell volunteered. Kell recalled in his autobiography that he got half a dozen hits, but committed the same number of errors. Brooklyn general manager Larry MacPhail saw Kell play and demanded the club get rid of him, saying, “He’ll never be a ballplayer.”8

Kell was heartbroken when he was released and came within a “rabbit’s hair” of quitting baseball.9 But he caught a break with Lancaster, which needed a second baseman. Kell found manager Tom Oliver and talked his way on to the team. He batted .299 for Lancaster and was voted the team’s most valuable player. Kell returned for the 1943 season and opened the eyes of Connie Mack by hitting a phenomenal .396 in 138 games for Lancaster, which was the highest average in all of baseball. His 220 hits were also tops in the league and Kell was again voted MVP. Lancaster had an agreement with Mack and the Athletics, giving the A’s their pick of any three players, and an eager Mack made a special trip to scout him. Kell recalled: “He had watched us play a double-header. And in the clubhouse afterwards he came over to me and asked, ‘Young man, how would you like to come to Philadelphia?’ That’s all there was to it.”10

The A’s brought Kell up at the end of the 1943 season to play one game at third base. He hit a triple his first at-bat on September 28, 1943, to drive in a run. “I tried to act very calmly, like it was just another time atbat for me,” Kell wrote in his autobiography, Hello Everybody, I’m George Kell. “But I was dying to pinch myself to make sure this was really happening.”11

Kell became the team’s regular third baseman in 1944, batting a respectable .268 in 139 games, and helped the Athletics post their second-best record in ten years with a fifth-place showing and a 72–82 win-loss record. Mack exercised patience while the rookie worked out his rough spots. Kell improved on those numbers in 1945, batting .272 and more than doubled his output of extra base hits including 30 doubles and four home runs. Kell also established himself as the league’s top defensive third baseman, leading the league in assists, putouts, and fielding average, and along with Dick Siebert at first and Ed Busch at shortstop gave the Athletics a solid and consistent infield.12

Although the same infield performed admirably in 1945, the Athletics fell to 52–98. Kell banged out 154 hits and had 56 runs batted in. But with the war over, Mack knew that veterans would be returning to their former teams. His war-years players would be unknown quantities against returning pitchers like Bob Feller.13 (Kell was rejected for military service because of bad knees.) Kell worked hard in 1946 to prove he could play at the All-Star level, but in early 1946 Mack made a move. Kell was batting .299 when he unexpectedly found himself traded to the Detroit Tigers. The A’s were in desperate need of an outfielder who could hit, while the Tigers were looking to replace their aging third baseman, Pinky Higgins, who had not played in 1945 and was 37, older than they would have liked. Third base was a weak spot for the Tigers, who had no promising recruit coming up.14

Kell led the American League third basemen in fielding that season. Several American League clubs were interested in trading for Kell. Tigers Manager Steve O’Neill had tried to make a deal to acquire Kell the year before, but Connie Mack had refused every offer. This time, O’Neill offered Mack his choice of eight players. Mack chose Barney McCosky, a proven veteran and solid hitter. It was a straight trade with no cash involved.

Kell had just finished breakfast in the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit where the A’s were staying when Mack got on the elevator with him and told him that he had been traded to the Tigers. Kell was shocked and didn’t want to go. He was playing every day. He hustled. And Mack seemed to like him. He felt like an orphan, like nobody in the world wanted him to play baseball for them. “It was such a shock and felt like a rejection,” Kell recalled. “But Mr. Mack told me, ‘George, you’re going to be a good ballplayer, and I’m sending you to a team that will pay you the kind of money that I can’t.’ As it turns out, it was the greatest day in my life.”15

Kell figured the Tigers must have wanted him to trade away an established star like McCosky. The 29-year-old McCosky was a fan favorite who had helped the Tigers win the pennant in 1940. From 1939 through 1942, McCosky had hit .311, .340, .324, and .293. He joined the Navy in 1943 and rejoined the Tigers in 1946, but at the time of the trade was in a bad batting slump, batting only .198, and had been benched recently with a leg ailment that had bothered him for weeks.16 Kell was batting right around .300 and in 16 times at the plate against Detroit pitching had hit safely seven times (.438).17 Weeks before the trade while the Tigers were playing in Philadelphia, O’Neill told sportswriters that “Kell is the best third baseman in the majors.”18

Fans at the time were left wondering if the Tigers knew what they were doing by trading one of their favorite players for a third baseman they had never heard of. “I felt like Cinderella being traded for the Queen of the Ball,” Kell wrote in his autobiography.19 H.G. Salsinger, a sports writer for The Detroit News, urged the fans to relax. “Kell, at the age of 23, faces a future that should establish him as one of the game’s best third basemen,” Salsinger wrote in his column. “He is fast, quick, alert, aggressive. He has an excellent throwing arm. He is intelligent. In a day when good shortstops are plentiful and good third basemen a rarity, Kell stands out. He may stand out even more with added experience.”20 And the way he figured it, the Tigers picked up Kell just in time. According to his sources, the Red Sox had been on the verge of getting Kell before the Tigers completed the deal. Boston had offered Mack his choice of any outfielder with the exception of Ted Williams.21

Kell didn’t let the talk affect his play. In his first appearance with his new team, he got a hit in both games of a doubleheader against Boston and contributed at least two spectacular fielding plays. After the initial nervousness wore off, Kell came to love playing in Detroit and hit .327 the rest of the year as a Tiger. “It was an excellent place to play ball,” Kell wrote. “And the city was a beautiful place in which to live. There wasn’t a day I didn’t enjoy playing in Detroit.”22 The fans, too, soon warmed to Kell and it was the beginning of a great romance. By August, Kell found his groove and made Detroit fans forget McCosky. It didn’t hurt that there were a lot of fans in the stands from Arkansas—including what seemed to Kell like half the population of Jackson County, where Swifton was located—who had come to work in the automobile factories following the great migration from the South after the war. He finished the year with a .322 average and would go on to hit over .300 in each of the next five seasons as a Tiger. Kell was also an All-Star in every one of those seasons and led American League third basemen in fielding average in 1946, 1950, and 1951.

The trade to the Tigers had been the best thing to happen to his career. “Every time I would see Mr. Mack after that I would thank him for what he had done for my career. Mr. Mack had done me a favor,” Kell recalled.23 The Tigers had found the man they so desperately needed to shore up the hot corner. Tigers center fielder Doc Cramer once pointed to Kell and told a reporter who was looking for a story, “Nobody seems to know it, but he’s the best third baseman in the American League. Look up his record.” Coach Frank Shellenback, who overheard the conversation, agreed. “You’re right about that, Doc,” Shellenback added. “I’ll tell you one thing about Kell; he has a great pair of hands and a fine arm. Why, I have yet to see him make a real bad throw across the diamond, either to first base or second. And he’s getting to be a real good hitter too.”24

In 1947, Kell hit .320 with 93 RBIs, which he said “was pretty good for a second place hitter.” Despite being a .300 hitter, Kell developed a reputation as a “bad ball” hitter. He sprayed hits all over the field and, according to writers Mark Stewart and Mike Kennedy, “changed his stance and swing depending on the pitcher and situation. He inside-outed pitches to the opposite field, but could also turn on inside deliveries and pull them down the left-field line” and was a good drag bunter.25 “I don’t have a particular pitch I like,” Kell said in a 1950 profile. “I just go up to the plate and the first good one I see I swing at it. It doesn’t have to be in the strike zone to hit.”26 Tigers manager Red Rolfe said Kell was all brains at the plate. He studied pitchers’ tendencies, often outguessing them and setting them up to throw the pitch he was looking for. “He hits all kinds of pitching—fast or slow,” Rolfe said. “He’s the steady kind that managers like.”27 Four-time batting champ Harry Heilmann praised his hitting style, saying, “instead of swinging blindly at the ball, [Kell] is always looking for weak spots in the defense and punching a hit through them.”28

Kell entered the 1949 season with something to prove, after 1948 had turned out to be what he considered the worst season of his career. While he kept his string of .300 alive with a .304 mark, Kell was limited to only 92 games that year because of two major injuries—both suffered at the hands of the New York Yankees. Kell broke his wrist in early May on a fastball by Vic Raschi and was out of the line-up for nearly four weeks. Then, any hope of salvaging the season ended in late August when a grounder from Joe DiMaggio took a high bounce and struck Kell in the face, breaking his jaw. Kell instinctively scrambled for the ball and forced the runner at third then passed out. “I had to prove I could bounce back from a few bad breaks and still be the same player I had worked so hard to become,” Kell wrote in his autobiography.29

Although already an established major league hitter, Kell picked up “one of the greatest batting tips I ever learned in my life” while on his way to spring training in 1949. In March Kell and his wife and kids spent the night at the Tuscaloosa Hotel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In those days, players drove down to Florida for spring training. Tuscaloosa was the halfway point to Lakeland from Kell’s home in Swifton and he liked to stop there for a night before finishing the journey to camp. Also staying at the hotel was Boston Braves star pitcher Johnny Sain, who was from Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, not too far from Swifton. Kell had told Sain about the hotel and he began to stop there as well. After spending the night, Kell decided to run downstairs for a quick cup of coffee and some toast before hitting the road. When he got to the coffee shop, Sain was sitting at a table with St. Louis Cardinals’ stars Red Schoendienst and Stan Musial, who were on their way to the Cardinals camp in St. Petersburg. Kell was delighted when they motioned him over to join them.30

After some small talk about what they did over the winter and what they hoped to accomplish during the season, Musial began talking about hitting. He told Kell that he went into spring training every year knowing that he was going to hit somewhere between .320 and .340 for the season. Musial was at a point in his career where his confidence in himself would not let him fall short of his goals. Kell went back up to his room thinking that Musial’s advice “was the most amazing thing about hitting that I had ever heard in my life. He was talking about confidence. A player simply cannot become a good hitter without it.”31 Kell made up his mind that from them on that he would hit somewhere between .310 and .325 every year.

While he realized he would never be a great hitter like Musial, Williams, or Joe DiMaggio, Kell figured that if he concentrated hard enough he knew he could post solid numbers at the plate and make the All-Star team every year. It wasn’t until after the season was over and he realized that he had won the batting championship that he fully appreciated what Musial had said.

In 1949, Ted Williams was having one of the most dominant offensive seasons in baseball history. Williams had already won four batting titles, including the last two, and Kell had said all along that Williams would be the man to beat for the batting crown. Kell was fairly consistent through the 1949 season, but never gave much thought to winning the batting title because Williams always looked like he was on the verge of piling up ten hits in his next 15 at-bats to make a joke out of the batting race. It wasn’t until the All-Star break that anybody mentioned Kell’s name in the same breath as the batting title. Kell hit .348 in April, .330 in May, and .392 for the month of June and his overall batting average hovered in the low .350s. Williams, by comparison, hit .306 in April, .343 in May, and .304 in June and was batting around .320.

With a .341 average and a league-high 63 hits in 185 times at the plate, Kell took over the AL batting lead from Gus Zernial after the hard-charging Chicago rookie was sidelined by an injury. Zernial was hitting .355 in 138 times at bat when he injured his right shoulder in a game in Cleveland on May 28 while diving to catch a sinking line drive hit by Thurman Tucker. He landed on his shoulder and cracked a bone in five places. Williams was batting .317 and leading the league with 14 home runs and 48 runs batted in. Kell would also lose time to an injury when he broke his right foot on June 21 in a 7–1 loss to the Red Sox in Boston, and wouldn’t return to the Tigers lineup until July 2. Kell was batting .353 to Williams’s .315 at the time of the injury.

Williams garnered 88 hits in July and August, hitting a torrid .387 and .405. and took over the batting lead from Bob Dillinger on August 2 with a .348 average. By the end of August, Kell trailed Williams .344 to .356. Williams cooled off though in September, hitting only .279 for the month. From September 1 to September 13, Kell had 12 hits, but missed the next seven games as a result of a broken thumb. “In the last couple of weeks of the season, I got hot and piled up a carload of hits to make the race tight,” Kell recalled.32

On September 18, Williams smacked two home runs and drove in six—and held a ten-point lead over Kell with ten games left in the season. Kell returned on September 23 and went 2-for-3 to raise his average to .342. That same weekend against the Yankees in Fenway Park, Williams belted two home runs and remained ahead of Kell at .349 as Boston and New York battled for the pennant. Kell’s Tigers had four days off leading up to the final weekend of the season while Williams and the Red Sox played three games in Washington and two games in New York. Williams went 1-for-10 in Washington and 1-for-3 in the first game in New York to drop his average to .346. Kell then went 1-for-5 in the next two games against Cleveland, while Williams went 1-for-6 with one game to play. Going into the final day of the season, Kell trailed Williams .341 to .344.

The pennant would be decided by the final game of the season. At Yankee Stadium, Williams walked twice and was held hitless in two official at-bats that day by 20-game winner Vic Raschi, as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 5–3 to capture the pennant. The Tigers, meanwhile, were playing Cleveland where Indians starter Bob Lemon squared off against Detroit’s Virgil Trucks. Kell recalled in his autobiography that he got a call that Sunday from his wife, Charlene, who was already back at their Swifton home, with some words of encouragement. “You’re going to lead the league in hitting,” she said. “I know you can.” Kell told teammate Hoot Evers what his wife had said. “She’s right,” Evers replied.33

Evers told Kell that if he got two hits that day that he would win the title. Kell, however, was skeptical that he could beat out Williams. He figured that Williams would likely get a couple of hits on the day. “I remember answering that Williams would probably get it,” Kell recalled.34 Getting two hits off Bob Lemon wouldn’t be easy. Evers told Kell to go out there and get them his first times up. In his first at-bat, Kell rifled a double to center. His next time up, Kell lined a single to left.

Cleveland held a 4–0 lead in the sixth, but the real drama was focused on Kell. Lemon walked Kell, then gave up three runs before being relieved by Feller. Cleveland was trying to finish in third place which was worth another $1,200 to $1,500 per player. Feller was the last guy Kell wanted to see. “I always felt that Bob Feller was the toughest pitcher I ever faced. Lemon was a close second. Together, they were a one-two knockout punch that floored almost every American League hitter,” Kell recalled. Facing Feller was “always as much fun as getting a tooth pulled without any pain killer.”35 Kell flied out to left against Feller in the seventh, but there was still a possibility that he would have to face Feller again. Kell was scheduled to bat fourth in the ninth inning.

Lynn Smith, a baseball writer for the Detroit Free Press, had called New York and found out that Ted Williams had gone hitless against the Yankees. He called down to the dugout to let manager Red Rolfe know that Kell was ahead of Williams in the batting race and that if he didn’t bat again, he would win the batting title. Lipon grounded out to third and was followed by Wakefield, who singled to bring up Eddie Lake. As Lake settled into the batter’s box, Kell heard catcher Joe Ginsberg yelling to him from the dugout. Rolfe wanted to put Ginsberg in to bat for Kell to make sure he would win the batting title, and was trying to let him know that he was going to hit for him.

Kell had no idea what Williams had done on the day, but remembered that Williams had not sat out the last day of the 1941 season when he was hitting at .400, and insisted on batting. In 1941 Williams had a .399955 batting average which would have been rounded up to .400 if he had chosen to sit out a season-ending doubleheader. Williams ended up banging out six hits in the two games.

Kell was sitting on a 2-for-3 day. He decided he was going to win it or lose it right there. “I said, ‘I’m not going to sit on a stool and win the batting title,’” Kell recalled. “I didn’t want to bat again. I felt I had to. I wasn’t about to back into a batting title against him.”36 With Kell kneeling in the on-deck circle, Eddie Lake hit the first pitch up the middle to shortstop Ray Boone, grounding into a double play and ending the game. Kell celebrated by throwing his bats in the air. The batting title was his, with honor.

“I don’t think I could have faced Williams or anybody else walking into the clubhouse and saying, ‘No, I’m not going to hit,’” Kell remembered.37 Feller told Kell at the 2005 Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony in Cooperstown, New York, that he was aware that Kell was on the cusp of winning the batting crown. “I knew what was going on,” Feller said. “I would have walked you or hit you.”38

The race was so close that in order to decide who won the batting title it was necessary to figure their averages down to the ten-thousandths of a point. Baseball had seen close batting titles before. In 1945, Snuffy Stirnweiss of the New York Yankees beat Tony Cuccinello of the White Sox by .00009. The 1949 title marked the third time that a batting championship ended in a virtual tie. The other one was in 1931 when three players, Chick Hafey (.3489), Bill Terry (.3486), and Jim Bottomley (.3482) finished less than a point apart in the National League. Kell was declared the winner by virtue of outhitting Williams .3429 to .3428 and was the first third baseman to win the batting crown since Heinie Zimmerman in the NL in 1912.

Kell not only edged out Williams, but his 13 strikeouts that year was the lowest total for a batting champion since Willie Keeler in 1898, who had struck out only four times. Kell was also second in the AL in doubles (38), fourth in triples (9), and ranked in the top ten in twelve other categories, including on-base percentage and slugging, and came in eighth in MVP voting. Kell had achieved something he had dreamed about for seven years. It was also the twentieth time that a Tigers player had led the league in hitting. Ty Cobb won 11 titles between 1907 and 1919. Harry Heilmann won it four times in the 1920s. Sam Dungan (1899 Class A Western League), Heinie Manush (1926) and Charlie Gehringer (1937) each won a single batting title.

“I’ve had my eye on that title ever since I broke into the majors,” Kell said, when notified he had officially been certified as the American League batting champion for 1949. “And I don’t think anything could make me happier.”39 Kell reflected in his autobiography: “I can’t express how I felt when the news finally sunk in. Winning the American League batting title is one thing. Beating out Ted Williams to do it made it even more special.”40

He now felt that he had earned his place among the league’s best. Actually, the league’s top hitter might have been neither Kell nor Williams, but Joe DiMaggio. The “Yankee Clipper” finished with a .346 average but illness and injuries limited his play to 76 games and only 272 times at bat, far shy of the 400 at-bats then required to be eligible for the batting title.

For Williams, losing the batting title and Triple Crown was a disappointment. However, while he missed winning his fifth title by less than a point, the slugger still led the league with 43 home runs and tied for the lead in RBIs with 159. Williams also led the league in on-base percentage (.490), slugging (.650), plate appearances (730), runs scored (150), total bases (368), doubles (39), and walks (162). He was also voted the American League’s Most Valuable Player. The following season Williams walked across the field when the Tigers and Red Sox met for the first time and shook Kell’s hand. “You won the batting title,” Williams said. “So I’m coming to your dugout.”41

Kell set out next season to prove that 1949 was no fluke. “One thing I really want to do is lead the league again in hitting,” Kell said. “So many people criticized me and called me a cheese champion last year. I want to prove I can do it again.”42 He would go on to have an even better season at the plate in 1950, almost winning a second batting title, finishing second to Billy Goodman of the Boston Red Sox. Goodman was a parttime player who filled in for Williams when he ran into the left-field fence and broke his elbow in the All-Star game. Goodman proceeded to belt the ball at a good clip.43 The 24-year-old Goodman finished with a .354 average and 150 hits in 424 at bats in 110 games. Kell batted .340, but led the league with 218 hits and 56 doubles and a career high 114 runs and 101 RBIs.

In a 1950 profile, sportswriter Ted Smits commented that Kell had gone from being a “brilliant fielder, but no great shakes as a major league hitter,” to a player who “all he does is field flawlessly and hit any kind of pitch.”44 Manager Red Rolfe added, “He came up the hard way. A lot of supposedly good judges of talent thought he would never make the grade. But Kell has proved that major league baseball takes just average ability plus a lot of determination and ambition.”45

Although Kell would go on to hit .319 in 1951 and again lead the league in hits (191) and doubles (36), he was surprised when he found himself traded to the Red Sox in 1952 in one of baseball’s biggest post-war trades. The deal was a whopper—baseball’s first million-dollar swap.46 The Tigers shipped Kell and outfielder Hoot Evers, along with regular shortstop Johnny Lipon, and relief pitcher Dizzy Trout, to Boston for slugging first baseman Walt Dropo, outfielder Don Lenhardt, infielder Johnny Pesky, Bill Wight, and Fred Hatfield.

The biggest surprise was Kell’s departure. Tigers General Manager Charlie Gehringer didn’t want to trade Kell, but Boston insisted he be part of any deal. “There is no way we wanted to move you,” Gehringer told Kell. “But every time we got close to a trade [Boston General Manager Joe] Cronin said there’s no deal if Kell isn’t a part of it.”47 The Tigers were in last place and headed nowhere. Gehringer wanted to do something to shake up the club. “He hadn’t been helping us enough while we were in the cellar, so we gave him up to get some long ball punch in Dropo and Lenhardt,” Gehringer explained to the press. Detroit had offered the star third baseman to Boston in 1951 in exchange for Ted Williams, but the Red Sox turned the deal down.48

Kell was just as shocked by the news as the rest of the baseball world. He loved playing in Detroit and the trade had left him more confused than the one that had sent him there six years earlier. “I wasn’t angry,” Kell wrote in his autobiography. “By this time I realized that anything was possible in baseball. I just couldn’t figure out why it happened. I was in the lineup every day. I hit .300 and made the All-Star team every year. What does a player have to do to make himself secure in this city?”49

But if he had to be traded, he was glad it was to Boston. Boston was in the thick of a pennant race. In his nine years in the majors, Kell had never played on a pennant winner and he was going to make the most of it. He characterized the swap as a “record climb,” telling reporters, “I jumped from a last place club to one in first place. In a single day I made a gain of 10 1/2 games in the standings. That’s hard to beat.”50 While he never wanted to leave Detroit, he was getting the Green Monster, Ted Williams, and all the charms of New England. “I sure didn’t want to leave Detroit,” Kell said. “But the only thing that made it better was going to Boston because that’s the other great baseball town in the American League.”51

The ex-Tigers made an immediate impact, helping to lead Boston to a 13–11 victory over Cleveland. Kell and Evers each hit home runs and drove in three runs apiece. Kell reached base 18 times in his first 30 plate appearances with the Red Sox, and finished the year with a .311 batting average.

Kell had hoped to finish his career in Detroit, but at least the trade to Boston gave him the chance to play alongside Ted Williams, the best hitter he had ever seen. “There was nothing Ted Williams could not do with a bat,” Kell wrote in his autobiography. “He had the most beautiful swing that God ever gave one man. Every time he went to the plate he put on a clinic for hitting. He was always thinking hitting. He knew exactly what a pitcher was going to throw in every situation. He was never intimidated. He was the intimidator.”52

Kell was a little concerned that Williams might be upset with him for costing him the Triple Crown in 1949, but Williams welcomed him. “You’re going to love this park,” Williams said. “It’s a great place to play and you should have been here all the time.”53 Kell said in 2005, “we were primarily a young ball club and he was an elder and I was past 30, so we hit it off real good.”54 Williams was a tough man on the outside, but according to Kell, was a gentleman and “was always quick to give credit to players. If he was your friend, he was behind you all the way.”55

In fact, Williams admired Kell. When asked in 1951 who he thought the most dangerous batter was as a rival for the batting title and as a threat to pitchers, Williams, without a pause answered: “Kell, of course. He just goes along hitting steadily all the time. Take a look at his averages. There may be players getting more publicity for their hitting, like Gus Zernial, but Kell always is up there right near the top, and he’ll stay there. He’s a good hitter for he moves around in the box, pulling and punching the ball.”56

At the National Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony in 1997, Williams joked with Kell about their batting race 48 years earlier. “Here’s the man who beat me out of the Triple Crown in 1949,” Williams said to their fellow Hall of Famers.57

Kell told Williams that for a long time he didn’t realize that he had cost Williams the Triple Crown. Williams reassured him that, far from being upset, he admired the way Kell battled with him the whole season. “Hell no,” Williams said. “You beat me fair and square, the way you’re supposed to. It was a great race. I loved it. That’s the way the game is supposed to be played. I’m glad I got a chance to play with you.”58

MARK RANDALL has been an award-winning journalist for the past 15 years. He has covered a number of beats for newspapers in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Florida, Utah, Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Northeastern University, a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Syracuse University, and a second master’s degree in history from Arkansas State University, where he has also taught undergraduate history courses.

Photo credit

George Kell, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Notes

1 H.G. Salsinger, “First A.L. Batting King at Third Base.” Detroit News, December 23, 1949.

2 David Hammer, “Cooperstown Brings Back Memories For Hall of Famer Kell.” Associated Press, August 3, 2005.

3 Sam Greene, “Kell King By .0002.” Detroit News, October 3, 1949.

4 Tom Gagne, “Quick Question & Answer with Hall of Famer George Kell,” Baseball Digest, September 2001, 54.

5 Harold Friend, “If Ted Williams Had Only Gotten One More Hit.” Bleacher Report. June 2, 2010. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/400159-if-ted-williams-had-only-gotten-one-more-hit.

6 “George Kell: Man with a Plan.” http://www.jockbio.com/Classic/Kell/Kell_bio.html.

7 Jockbio.com.

8 Jockbio.com.

9 Kell, 22.

10 Ed Rumill, “AL Best 3rd Baseman? K-E-Double L. And Here’s Y.” Baseball Digest, October 6, 1946, 48.

11 George Kell and Dan Ewald, Hello Everybody, I’m George Kell. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub., 1998. 42.

12 Dale Smith, “George Kell: A Tiger in A’s Clothing.” Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society. July 10, 2004. http://philadelphiaathletics.org/george-kell-a-tiger-in-as-clothing/.

13 Smith, “George Kell: A Tiger in A’s Clothing.”

14 H.G. Salsinger, “Makes Debut Today.” Detroit News, May 19, 1946.

15 Bill Dow, “Hall of Famer George Kell a Fan Favorite in Detroit.” Baseball Digest, July 2006, 65.

16 “A’s Swap Kell for McCosky.” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 19, 1946.

17 “A’s Swap Kell for McCosky.”

18 “A’s Swap Kell for McCosky.”

19 Kell, 43.

20 H.G. Salsinger, “With Youthful Kell at Third, There’s No Room for Pinky.” Detroit News, May 20, 1946.

21 Kell, 46.

22 Kell, 50.

23 Kell, 47.

24 Rumill, 46.

25 Jockbio.com.

26 Ted Smits, “Heilmann calls Kell ‘Quarterback’ at the Plate.” Associated Press, September 12, 1950.

27 Smits, “Heilmann calls Kell ‘Quarterback’ at the Plate.”

28 Smits, “Heilmann calls Kell ‘Quarterback’ at the Plate.”

29 Kell, 55.

30 Kell, 68.

31 Kell, 68.

32 Kell, 69.

33 Kell, 70.

34 Gagne, 54.

35 Kell, 70.

36 David Hammer, “Cooperstown Brings Back Memories For Hall of Famer Kell.” Associated Press, August 3, 2005.

37 Harry King, “Kell Back Home After Fire, Remembering Hall of Fame Career.” Associated Press, June 3, 2002.

38 King, “Kell Back Home After Fire, Remembering Hall of Fame Career.”

39 “Kell Batting Champ of American League.” Associated Press, December 23, 1949.

40 Kell, 72.

41 Jockbio.com.

42 Ted Smits, “Shot at Series Kell’s Big Goal.” Associated Press, September 14, 1950.

43 Associated Press. “Kell-Hatton Trade Puts Goodman In Infield Lineup.” June 4, 1952

44 Ted Smits, “George Kell determined to be a ballplayer.” Associated Press, September 11, 1950.

45 Ted Smits, Associated Press, September 14, 1950.

46 “May Go down as Baseball’s First Million Dollar Deal.” Associated Press, June 4, 1952.

47 Kell, 76.

48 “Sox Reject Kell Trade For Ted.” Associated Press, October 10, 1951.

49 Kell, 76.

50 Tommy Devine, “Switch to Red Sox Delights Kell: ‘I Expect to Hit Plenty Off It’”. Boston Globe, June 4, 1952.

51 Bill Dow, “Hall of Famer George Kell A Fan Favorite in Detroit.” Baseball Digest, July 2006, 65.

52 Kell, 79.

53 Kell, 80.

54 Baseball History Podcast. http://baseballhistorypodcast.com/2011/11/29/baseball-hp-1147-george-kell/.

55 Kell, 80.

56 “Ted Williams Believes Kell Is Most Feared Batsman.” Associated Press, May 28, 1951.

57 Kell, 80.

58 Kell, 80.

While there have not been many players in history like Davis, a few come to mind: Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds, Ken Williams, and Alfonso Soriano. Soriano in particular resembled Davis and had the advantage of batting leadoff on a very powerful team (2002). One might expect all of them to rank high on the list of runs scored per time reaching base in a season; none of them are in the top 50. In fact, the list of players ranking highest in runs scored per time on base is peppered with players one would never expect. It is scattered with fast and slow players, leadoff hitters and middle of the order hitters, 1930s singles hitters and 1930s power hitters, modern players and players from the 1900s, and players one would simply never expect for any reason (Rex Hudler, Jose Valentin, Bob Brower, David Hulse, and Billy Zitzmann).

Table 1 lists the 50 highest percentages of runs scored per time on base (including reaching via an error) since 1900. This list will serve to give some idea of the variety of player types that score frequently in a season.

Table 1: Highest percentage of runs scored per times on base

The interesting thing about this list is that as one attempts to explain a player’s presence on the list, that explanation invariably fails to jibe with other explanations. Jake Wood (14th) was fast, but the 1962 Tigers were not a great hitting team—one might have expected Wood to score more frequently on the 1961 Tigers hitting in front of Norm Cash (.361, 41, 132). Curtis Granderson seems like a logical choice because of his unusual combination of power and speed, but Doc Casey (33rd) played in the deadball era on an average team (the 1901 Tigers) whose best hitter hit .308 with 76 RBI.

More interestingly, Al Simmons appears on the list twice, Joe DiMaggio twice, and no one else appears more than once except Jack Smith, who appears five times. And not just five times—five times in the top 21! Virtually every player on this list is here apparently by chance—how else does one explain Curtis Granderson and Robin Yount once each, the same as Thurman Tucker, Ethan Allen, Otis Clymer, Bob Brower, and Jose Valentin? And yet Jack Smith is here five consecutive seasons.

Explanations are hard to come by. Smith did not hit many home runs—26 in the five seasons in question—so he had to score on the base paths. He averaged only 21 stolen bases and eight caught stealing—hardly numbers that put him in scoring position often. He didn’t even have a lot of doubles, averaging fewer than 20 per season 1921–25. However, he did hit in front of Rogers Hornsby during Hornsby’s amazing five-year stretch in which he hit .402.

It is difficult to fathom that Hornsby could be responsible for placing Smith on this list five consecutive seasons—after all, Earle Combs hit at the top of some of the best hitting teams ever from 1927 until 1932 and he didn’t make the top 50 even once. Even though it’s hard to imagine, we must consider the possibility that Hornsby was responsible. We must also look at the possibility that there was something about the way that the Cardinals played that assisted Smith in scoring, such as an unusual number of sacrifice hits to advance him. If those environmental factors don’t explain Smith’s prowess, we need to look at Smith’s base running to see if there was something unusual about the way that he advanced on hits that could account for his ability to score frequently.

For the seasons in question, we have only limited play-by-play data. In 1921, Retrosheet publishes play-by-play for 47 of Smith’s 116 games; in 1922, we have 74 of 143 games with play-by-play descriptions. We currently have no play-by-play data for 1923–25. These limited accounts (121 of 259 possible games) allow us to see some details that help answer the questions posed in the previous paragraph regarding possible explanations for Smith’s high percent of runs scored per times on base during these seasons.

In 1921–22, Jack Smith scored 203 runs; we have play-by-play accounts of 89 of these runs. He scored eight of these 89 runs by hitting home runs. Of the remaining 81 runs, Rogers Hornsby scored Smith 22 times (27.1%); Jack Fournier drove in Smith 19 times (23.5%). During the 1921 season, Hornsby drove home Smith seven times, Fournier did it 10 times, and Milt Stock drove Smith home 12 times. These data indicate that, while Hornsby drove in Smith more than his teammates did, his RBIs were not unusual since others topped Hornsby in 1921 and Fournier had only three fewer RBI of Smith. We should, therefore, reject the hypothesis that Hornsby’s exceptionally high batting average over the five seasons in question was responsible for Smith’s high run percentage.

Regarding the possibility that St. Louis opted to use the sacrifice bunt to advance Smith frequently, this does not appear to have been a strategy that was deployed unusually frequently. Of the 89 times in question that Smith scored, he was bunted to second on three occasions and to third on three others. In fact, the play-by-play files show that Smith reached base 197 times (not counting home runs) over these two seasons (again, only in the records we have PBP files for) and was advanced via a sacrifice only eight times. Four of these instances occurred within the first six records that we have (April 30–May 27, 1921), suggesting the possibility that manager Branch Rickey began to use the outdated strategy less as he realized how well his team hit.

Since it does not seem from this limited sample that we can attribute Smith’s high scoring rate solely to Hornsby’s batting or to a particular strategy to advance Smith, we must look elsewhere for explanations. The most obvious is his speed. Judging from his base-stealing numbers and his triples totals, one would not guess that Smith was exceptionally fast. However, a careful look at his base running numbers tells a different story.

Because of the PBP files that we have for the 1921–22 seasons, we can look at every opportunity that Smith had to advance extra bases on the base paths. I count “opportunities” as any situation in which Smith was on first or second when a batter singled and a runner in front of him did not stop at the base in front of Smith or when Smith was on first when a batter doubled. We can discount infield singles as opportunities for obvious reasons. I do not count sacrifice flies as opportunities for extra bases; however, being thrown out attempting to advance on a hit counts as a failed attempt, just like stopping at a base without advancing.

In 1921, Smith had 14 opportunities to advance an extra base and did so 12 times, for an 85.7% success rate. This is a rather limited sample, but luckily we have more data from 1922. In 1922, Smith had 29 opportunities to advance an extra base and did so 26 times for an 89.6% success rate. His total for the two seasons was 38 successes out of 43 opportunities for an 88.4% success rate.

These opportunities come over 121 games, which include pinch-hitting and pinch-running duties. Extrapolated to 162 games, Smith would have 51 successes in 58 attempts. Because we are unaccustomed to speaking of base-running statistics, we need some point of comparison to judge whether this is a large number of attempts and whether this is a good success rate.

As a point of comparison, we can look at data that began to be published in 2007 in The Bill James Handbook. The data presented there show opportunities for base-running advances and successes. In 2006, a number of players had more opportunities than Smith:

Table 2: Opportunities for base-running advances, 2006

And there are, of course, many others. This shows that Smith’s projected 58 opportunities is not an unusually high number.

However, the percentage of times that he advanced on hits is very unusual by comparison with modern standards. Using the same data, here are some players who, like Smith, are fast and batted high in the batting order:

Table 3: Percentage of successful base-running advances, 2006

The average among these players, some of whom are exceptionally fast, indicates one of several things: that Jack Smith was extraordinarily fast (unlikely), that he was a very daring base runner (probable), or that it was more common in his era to advance extra bases on hits (possible). To test the last hypothesis, we need to look at data from players with profiles similar to Smith’s.

George Burns, the center fielder for the New York Giants, makes for a good comparison because, like Smith, he batted leadoff for a good hitting team and was fairly fast. We also have a significant percentage of the play-by-play files for Burns for the 1921 season: 133 of the 149 games he played in 1921. This compares nicely with Smith’s 121 games over two seasons.

During those 131 games, Burns had 63 opportunities to advance an extra base on a hit; he took an extra base only 30 times for a 47.6% success rate, about 40 percentage points below Smith’s 1921–22 base advance rate. This indicates that not everyone was advancing at the rate that Smith advanced on hits. However, Burns’s low base advance rate cannot lead us to reject the hypothesis that it was more common in the early 1920s to advance extra bases than it is today. To better test that hypothesis, we need data from more players.

The Giants sent Burns to Cincinnati before the 1922 season and placed Dave Bancroft in the leadoff position. Since we have 135 of Bancroft’s games from 1922 and since Bancroft played in the same park as Burns with essentially the same lineup behind him, Bancroft’s 1922 season makes for another interesting comparison. Bancroft had 61 chances to advance extra bases on hits. He was not, however, much better than Burns at taking the extra base. In his 62 opportunities to take an extra base on a hit, he succeeded only 33 times (53.2%). Interestingly, Bancroft had six chances to score from first base on a double in 1922 and did so only once.

Another interesting player is Max Carey, one of the fastest players of his age. Carey led his league in stolen bases 10 times, and from reading the play-by-play accounts, it is obvious that he was a very aggressive base runner. The sense one gets from these accounts is that Carey constantly sought opportunities to advance bases; we find him advancing from second to third on ground balls to third base, taking second base on throws home and to third, and being picked off too many times—a sign that he was trying to get a good jump on a pitch or batted ball. And yet, despite his speed and daring, he does not approach Jack Smith’s success in advancing extra bases. We have 140 play-by-play accounts for Carey during the 1921 season; he had 53 opportunities to advance an extra base on a hit and he did so 36 times for a success rate of 67.9%. We have 154 play-by-play accounts for Carey’s 1922 season; he had 76 opportunities to advance an extra base on a hit and he did so 51 times for a success rate of 67.1%. These percentages rank favorably with the best modern players, but still remain about 20 percentage points behind Jack Smith.

From this small amount of data, it is not unreasonable to make a few conclusions. First, it does not appear that players in the early 1920s were generally more aggressive on the base paths than are players today; season totals from these few players seem to align with data from contemporary players. Second, Jack Smith seems to have been truly extraordinary in his ability to advance extra bases on hits—we may some day find out that he was the best ever. Third, it is likely that few base runners of this era were more aggressive than Max Carey; he was, after all, renowned for his speed and used it well and often. This being so, it is unlikely that we will turn up many instances from the 1920s that have a chance of reaching Jack Smith’s standard of nearly 90% of base opportunities taken. Finally, these data suggest that Jack Smith’s ability to score runs comes to some degree from his extraordinary ability to take the extra base on hits. Certainly, this ability does not entirely explain his high ratio of runs scored to times on base—every runner needs to be driven in. But it is likely that the unusual coincidence of outstanding batters like Rogers Hornsby and Jim Bottomley (.402 and .350 batting averages 1921–25) hitting behind Smith with his speed and base running skill goes a long way toward explaining how he scored such a high percentage of the times that he reached base. However, even if we attribute a portion of Smith’s “ability” to score runs to hitting in front of Hornsby and Bottomley, we must admit that Smith’s unusual base running ability contributed significantly to his ability to score.

DR. JOHN D. EIGENAUER is Professor of Philosophy at Taft College in California. He is an avid Reds fan, having fallen in love with Pete Rose’s style of play in the late 1960s. He is also a basketball enthusiast and continues to play basketball competitively. He received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University. He and his wife, Ceceilia, live in Bakersfield, California.