Connie Mack was in the latter category. The patterns of his Athletics’ fortunes both on and off the field as well as his personal income resemble the blueprint of a theme park roller coaster.

At the end of the 1932 season, in which every major league team lost money, Mack said, “I feel that I’ve been a failure, not in playing results but financially… Any man who can’t make ends meet must be a failure. And I didn’t make ends meet for the Athletics.”

Was Mack a financial failure? In this excerpt from The Grand Old Man of Baseball, the third and final volume of my Mack biography, I tried to assess his record as a businessman through 1932, and his personal finances for his lifetime.

* * *

Accurate information about the early days of the business of baseball is hard to pin down. Newspaper accounts were often estimates—or just guesses. Recently discovered A’s ledgers—found since the publication of the first two volumes in this trilogy— give us what seems to be an accurate, authentic source. But the profit and loss figures, for example, differ—sometimes drastically—from other sources such as the official report of the congressional Organized Baseball Hearings of 1951, the so-called Celler Committee. Maybe different bookkeeping methods account for the differences. So a researcher seeking accuracy has to make choices.

I have chosen to go with the unaudited entries made by longtime A’s secretary Bob Schroeder in the ledgers that begin in 1910. Where other sources are used, I identify them.

Was Connie Mack a financial failure?

Not when you consider that every American League team operated at a loss in 1932. Only the sale of Simmons, Haas, and Dykes enabled the A’s to show a profit.

Measured by the preceding thirty-one years, Mr. Mack was a very successful businessman.

When Connie Mack rode into Philadelphia in 1901, he was staking a claim on a gold mine richer than anything the forty-niners had found in California. Big league baseball was a very profitable business, a fact that led tycoons in other businesses to invest in the Federal League. Baseball was the only form of professional sports entertainment for the masses. Horse racing ran a distant second, and prize fighting was far behind in the competition for the dimes of the sporting crowd.

As much as he scoffed at writers’ estimates of how much money he had taken out of the business, by the standards of the time—especially the pre-World War I time—Mack was a wealthy man.

He did not become wealthy on his salary, which was never more than $20,000 a year. He started in Philadelphia at $3,500. In 1902 his partners raised him to $5,000. Club ledgers show his salary at $10,000 in 1910, remaining there until 1922, when it was doubled. (He later took a cut in pay from 1934 through 1936 and again in 1943.)

The bulk of his early income probably came from dividends declared by the club’s board of directors. A 1907 Sporting News article signed “Veteran” estimated that in the first six years of their existence, 1901–06, the Athletics earned over $100,000 in each of their pennant-winning years, 1902 and 1905, and “big profits” in the other years. At that time Mack owned 25 percent of the stock; therefore his share of the dividends “must total over $100,000.” This is guesswork and assumes that all the profits were paid out in dividends, an assumption for which we have no confirmation. The A’s were probably just as profitable in 1907 and 1909, when they finished second, but they may have lost money in 1908, when they finished sixth and attendance fell almost 30 percent.

In 1912 Ben Shibe loaned Mack $113,000 to buy out the newspapermen who had been given a 25 percent interest in the team in 1901. After giving five shares each to his sons, Roy and Earle, Mack now owned just under 50 percent of the stock.

The ledgers show profits totaling about $250,000 for 1910 through 1914 but do not show any dividends paid until November 1914, when $12,000 was distributed. Another dividend of $50,000 was paid on January 2, 1915.

From 1914 through January 12, 1931, Connie Mack received $255,011 in dividends, most of them in the 1920s. None were paid thereafter.

Mack also profited from outside investments. He opened a bowling alley in 1903 and sold it at a profit a few years later. He and John Shibe bought five acres in the exclusive Bala neighborhood of Philadelphia in 1906 and built twelve homes.

Owning a piece of the Athletics provided another source of income. The sale of food and drinks and scorecards, advertising in scorecards and on outfield fences, and the renting of cushions was an important part of the baseball business from the beginning. In the nineteenth century the ballgame was sometimes an incidental attraction to lure patrons to an adjacent beer garden. As early as the 1880s a club could earn a thousand dollars for scorecard rights alone. Even minor league teams received offers every spring for scorecard and refreshment privileges.

Some clubs ran their own concessions operations; some leased the scorecard and concessions privileges to pioneers in the catering business, such as Harry M. Stevens, Ed Barrow, and the Jacobs brothers (Marvin, Charles, and Louis), who went on to create Sportservice, for a percentage of the gross or a fee based on attendance.

The Athletics may have been unique: they did both. Connie Mack and the Shibes formed a separate partnership to manage the concessions and paid the club a pittance to lease the privileges. There is no record of when the Athletics’ owners decided to take this direction. They may have started the business that way in 1901. It might have coincided with the opening of Shibe Park in 1909.

The 1910 club entries show $3,000 in income from the sale of privileges, two-thirds for refreshments and one-third for scorecard advertising. The same annual payments were made by John Shibe, who ran the catering business until his death in 1937, when a new Shibe Park Concessions Company was formed. While the Pirates might earn $35,000 a year from concessions privileges at seven cents a head in the 1930s and the Yankees $159,000 at eighteen cents a head in the 1940s, the new partnership of the Macks and Shibes paid the same $3,000 a year to the Athletics until 1939, when they raised it to $5,000. In 1941 it was raised to $5,500 and remained there through 1945, when it went up to $20,000.

A 1929 survey estimated that 5.5 percent of major league revenue came from concessions; for some clubs they were the most profitable part of the business. Those profits never appeared on the Athletics’ profit and loss statements. They were distributed to the Athletics’ stockholders on a per-share basis. Prior to 1914 Connie Mack owned 25 percent; after that, 50 percent, until his distribution of stock to his sons in 1946, when he was left with 20 percent.

What did Connie Mack’s share of those concessions profits amount to from 1910 through 1950? We can only estimate based on various bits of information from occasional Sporting News articles on this side of the business, a 1937 Fortune article, and citations from the work of Steven A. Reiss in Baseball in America and America in Baseball.

To begin, it’s necessary to understand that the Athletics never sold outfield fence signs, which were worth as much as $25,000 in some cities. They gave away scorecards for many years, and they never sold beer. A 1959 Inquirer story (when there was talk of the Phillies’ building a new park in New Jersey because of Pennsylvania’s Sunday curfew law and ban on the selling of beer in ballparks) cited “recent figures” that the average fan spent seventy-five cents during a game. “In Philadelphia it’s only twenty-five cents. The difference is beer.”

So the anecdotal figures—the reported 1929 Cubs’ sales of sixteen cents a head and profits per head of more than twenty cents in 1946; the 1937 Fortune estimate that on a hot day sales might be eighteen cents a head; the fifty or fifty-five cents a head reported sales at big doubleheaders in the 1940s; the 1949 Cardinals reporting sales of sixty-three cents a head—must be discounted for the A’s.

From the day the Phillies moved into Shibe Park in August 1938, the concessions company split the profits from sales at the Phillies’ games with their tenants. It kept all the receipts from the Eagles and Villanova football games played at Shibe Park and catered events at other venues.

So what figures should we use? We’re talking about a long-ago world of nickels and dimes. Hot dogs, sodas, and peanuts sold for ten cents until the 1940s, when Durk’s hot dogs went up to fifteen cents. A 1940 Shibe Park menu lists sandwiches at fifteen and twenty cents, a hot plate of ham or steak with two vegetables for forty cents.

Let’s go with an average gross of eight cents a head from 1910 to 1920, twelve cents in the 1920s, ten cents in the 1930s, and twenty cents in the 1940s, with a 50 percent profit margin.

For 1910–19 Connie Mack would have received an average of $4,700 a year. For the 1920s the average would have been $17,400 a year. For the 1930s the average would have been $10,000 a year. For 1940 through 1945 Connie Mack would receive $34,000 a year; in 1946, $49,000. After he gave shares to his sons in 1946, Mack held 302 shares. In the postwar boom years, 1947–49, he received 20 percent of $135,000 or $27,000 a year. Each of his sons got $90 a share on 163 shares or $14,670.

So over forty years Connie Mack received a total of about $655,000 as his share of the concessions profits. Had the total profits gone to the club, they would have added more than $1.5 million to the working capital.

In 1951 Penn Sportservice began paying $200,000 to the club for the concessions privileges.

By the 1920s Connie Mack was proud to be worth a million dollars. In a revocable trust dated April 23, 1928, Mack provided for his wife and three adult children, all from his first marriage. His wife, Katherine, had a 5 ⁄8 interest, and Roy, Earle, and daughter Marguerite, 1 ⁄8 each. Mack put into the trust his 747 shares of the Athletics. Dividends totaling almost $50,000, paid in 1928 and 1929, and Mack’s income from the concessions went into the trust. 

The farsighted trust, effective for the life of the beneficiaries, described all sorts of contingencies on the death of any of them, with the A’s stock or (if sold) the proceeds passing to grandchildren and their heirs.

Then the stock market crashed and cleaned him out. He never made back the million. Mack revoked the trust in 1930. The securities were returned to him, and all accumulated income was distributed to the four beneficiaries.

From the day he arrived in Philadelphia, Mack had supported his mother and three children, along with various relatives and in-laws. In 1910 he started a second family, which produced five children. By the end of his life he was still subsidizing some of his children and was generous with relatives, grandchildren, old-time players, and countless others. When Connie Mack died in 1956, his estate, except for the proceeds from the 1954 sale of the team, would total less than $60,000.

NORMAN L. MACHT’s thirty-year project documenting the life of Connie Mack concluded with the publication of the third and final volume on October 1. Now living in Escondido, California, at 86 he is not contemplating another thirty-year project. Maybe twenty years.

1951 Hazard Bombers. From L-R, top row: J. Ravelo, D. Hayling, E. Bobrik, J. Podres. Second row: K. Johnson, R. Coluni, L. Isert, M. Sanders, R. Torres. Third row: M. Macon, Max Smith (team owner). Fourth row: R. Dacko, J. Tondora, J. Chapman, K. Cox, E. Catlett. Bottom row: C, Crook Jr. (batboy), H. Snyder, T. Kazek, B. Mansfield (business manager). (Courtesy of the Bobby Davis Museum)

On the morning of January 6, 1920, New Yorkers awoke to a headline in The New York Times that screamed “Ruth bought by New York Americans for $125,000, highest price in baseball annals.”2 It was dramatic, albeit incorrect (the actual price was $100,000). Secondary headlines correctly predicted that Ruth would be getting a new contract, and reported that Yankees skipper Miller Huggins was already en route to California to ink the slugger to a “large salary.” The Times correctly reported that Ruth had two years remaining on a three-year contract calling for $10,000 per annum, but Ruth, reacting to the sale, had promised that he would not play for that amount, hence the urgent trip by Huggins.3 The Times gushed that “Ruth was such a sensation last season that he supplanted the great Ty Cobb as baseball’s greatest attraction,” and in obtaining the services of Ruth for next season “the New York club made a ten strike which will be received with the greatest enthusiasm by Manhattan baseball fans.”4 They went on to report that the Yankees were prepared to offer Ruth a contract of $20,000 per year, twice what he was being paid by Boston. He would prove to be worth every penny of that contract…and far more.

Curiously, the Boston and New York papers did not necessarily react in the way one might expect. The day after the purchase was announced, the Times decried the Ruth sale, complaining that “it marks another long step toward the concentration of baseball playing talent in the largest cities, which can afford to pay the highest prices for it. That is a bad thing for the game; and it is still worse to give a valuable player stranded with a weak club the idea that if he holds out for an imposing salary he can get somebody in New York or Chicago to buy his services.”5

The Boston Herald, on the other hand, urged fans to be patient and wait to see how the trade worked out. Boston had a history of selling stars, having previously parted with Cy Young and Tris Speaker, and still had five World Series titles to show for it, including three of the previous four.

The Boston Post was less optimistic, arguing that Ruth was special. “He is of a class of ball players that flashes across the firmament once in a great while and who alone bring crowds to the park, whether the team is winning or losing.”6

No less a sage than the venerable Connie Mack thought it was a good thing for baseball. “Ruth will be a more valuable man to the Yankees than he would have been to the Red Sox. As a matter of fact, New York needed him more than Boston.”7 While this is now widely recognized by economists as being true from a financial perspective, at the time Mack was focused more on the impact on the field. He felt Ruth was more valuable to the Yankees than the Red Sox because the latter was well fortified with outfielders and was a well-balanced club despite the loss of Ruth.

History would prove Mack wrong. While the Red Sox actually improved the first two years after selling Ruth, rising from a 66-win sixth-place finish in 1919 to fifth place with 72 wins in 1920 and 75 wins (good for another fifth-place finish) in 1921, that would be their high water mark for the next 13 years. After the sale of Ruth, the Red Sox would suffer through 14 consecutive losing seasons, never rising above the second division, and finishing dead last six consecutive seasons (1925–30) and eight times in a nine-year span. The Yankees, on the other hand, won seven pennants and four World Series with the Babe, and suffered through only one losing season in the 15 he was on their roster, finishing lower than third place only once. Not only did Ruth lead the Yankees to success in the standings, but he would prove to be a box office draw in his own right.

The press recognized this potential. The day after the sale was announced the Times predicted that “with Babe Ruth on the club the Yankees will become a strong attraction in Florida.”8 As if to prove the prognostication correct, a headline the next day announced that the city of Jacksonville, Florida planned to advertise the Yankees’ spring trip there “like a circus” in order to reap the benefits of the expected interest Ruth would generate. The Jacksonville Tourist and Convention bureau announced they were implementing an extensive advertising campaign to bring visitors to the city during the time the Yankees were there playing the Dodgers. The city announced they would upgrade West Side Park, where the Yankees practiced, and Sally League Park, spring home of the Dodgers. The Rotary Club of Jacksonville announced they would also help with the campaign to boost the visit of the ball clubs, and the city of Jacksonville would enjoy several holidays during the training session.9

The New York Times recognized the value of Ruth “as the super attraction in all baseball.” They correctly predicted that his popularity and impact on the team would make him “the game’s greatest drawing card, his power in this respect enhanced through that record deal, performing in the largest city of the major leagues. It will not be surprising if the Yankees of 1920 set new records for home attendance in a season, likewise for attendance on the road.” Ruth not only “brings in dollars at the gate but he helps to make the team a pennant contender, which further adds to the worth of his presence on the club…[he] would have been a “good buy” at a figure higher than the sum disbursed. He should pay for himself in a few years at best.”10 Indeed, despite commanding the highest salary in MLB for 13 of his 15 years in pinstripes, Ruth turned out to be arguably the most profitable investment the Yankees ever made.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE YANKEES

The New York Yankees, the most storied franchise in Major League Baseball history, had an inauspicious beginning. The team was moved from Baltimore in 1903 as the American League sought to establish a foothold in New York. The franchise was sold to two local owners, William Devery and Frank Farrell, who were able to accomplish something that American League President Ban Johnson had been attempting to do for two years: secure enough land in Manhattan to construct a ballpark. The rival leagues went beyond mere refusal to cooperate: they resorted to out and out war. Andrew Freedman, owner of the National League New York franchise, was a Tammany Hall insider, and he used his political connections to keep the American League at bay by preventing them from securing the necessary land to construct a stadium in which to house a team.

However, when Tammany power lapsed, Farrell and Devery were aligned with the new powers. Johnson took advantage of this connection when he sought out the pair to purchase the Baltimore team and transfer it to Manhattan.11 Their first order of business was to build a ballpark on acreage on Washington Heights overlooking the New Jersey palisades. The press dubbed the franchise with several nicknames referencing the location of their stadium, including “Hilltoppers” and “Highlanders.”

Devery and Farrell sold the franchise after the 1914 season for $460,000.12 The new owners of the Yankees were a pair of well-heeled local businessmen—Colonel Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston and Colonel Jacob Ruppert. Equally as important as their wealth was their business acumen. Ruppert had been raised in the brewery business, and Huston was a successful engineer. Both men had an interest in baseball, and more importantly, knew how to make money, recognizing that investing in a quality product might mean short term losses in order to procure long term gains.

The Yankees had been playing in the shadow of the Giants since their arrival in town. Now that men with sufficient funds owned the team, the Yankees made the necessary moves toward profitability. They began by improving the playing talent, resulting in a more competitive team, which in turn generated greater fan interest and gate revenue. After the colonels bought the team, they improved in the standings from sixth place in 1914 to consecutive third place finishes in 1919 and 1920, followed by three straight trips to the World Series.

Jacob Ruppert, Miller Huggins, Ed Barrow: Yankees front office made the deal of the century by acquiring Ruth in January 1920. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

THE RUTH PURCHASE

The Yankees were not an instant success either on or off the field. It wasn’t until the 1920s that the team consistently began to win and generate profits. Not coincidentally, it was 1920 when Babe Ruth first appeared in their lineup.

The most famous and financially successful move the Yankees made was the purchase of Babe Ruth. He contributed to a Yankee powerhouse that appeared in six World Series in the decade following his arrival in town and attracted so many patrons that the Yankees constructed a monument called Yankee Stadium to house them.13

Ruth cost the Yankees $100,000 in January of 1920. Baseball lore claims that the Boston Red Sox, owned by Broadway magnate Harry Frazee, sold Ruth because Frazee was strapped for cash after the dismal failure of one of his shows. The legend further adds that the sale price of Ruth was only part of the purchase agreement. In addition, the Yankees allegedly loaned Frazee in excess of $300,000 to shore up his theaters or pay the former owners of the Red Sox. No evidence exists in the Yankees’ account books that such a loan took place. The $100,000 purchase price (erroneously reported as $125,000 in newspapers at the time) is well documented. It took the form of $25,000 in cash plus three $25,000 promissory notes due on November 1 of 1920, 1921, and 1922. The interest rate was 6 percent, for a total cost, including interest, of $108,750.14

The matter of the loan is hard to analyze without any evidence. While it is possible the loan took place, depending on its terms it may have had no relation to the Ruth purchase. The decision to loan money to Harry Frazee appears to be a separate financial decision. The only way in which it would have an impact on the value of the Ruth purchase was if the terms of the loan were better than the market rate. For example, if a condition of the sale of Ruth to the Yankees was that Jacob Ruppert loan Harry Frazee $300,000 at zero interest over a period of ten years, then the true cost of Ruth increases by the amount of interest that Ruppert would have collected on the $300,000.

There are a couple of problems with this scenario, however. First, it is apparent from examining the Yankees’ account books that the loan, if it was ever made, was not made by the Yankees. It could only have been made by Ruppert or Huston privately. Since Ruppert was the primary negotiator in the Ruth deal, it stands to reason that if any loan was made, it would have been from Ruppert.

If the loan was made by Ruppert, then it seems unlikely that he would have made it at below market rates. The deal to secure Ruth provided revenues to the Yankees, of which Ruppert was only a fifty-percent owner. In addition, it seems even less likely that he would make such a financial arrangement given the strained relationship that existed at the time between Ruppert and Huston. The rift between the two men would eventually grow to the point where Ruppert bought out Huston in 1923, becoming sole owner of the franchise for the remainder of his life.

If a loan was made from Ruppert to Frazee as a condition of the Ruth sale, but the loan was at the market rate of interest, then it had no bearing on the value of the Ruth deal. The decision by Ruppert to loan Frazee money would have been made on the same basis that Ruppert would make any other decision regarding his personal finances: what would earn him the best return given his current financial situation?

Until such time as evidence regarding the details of the alleged loan surfaces, we cannot make a complete analysis. However, it seems reasonable to assume that the cost to the Yankees of Babe Ruth was the purchase price of $100,000 plus interest, and no more. This analysis of the return to the Yankees on the purchase of Ruth will proceed along these lines.

The purchase of Ruth returned immediate dividends for the Yankees. Yankees home attendance more than doubled from 619,000 in 1919 to almost 1.3 million in 1920. As a result, home receipts more than doubled each of the next three years. The team appeared in the World Series in 1921, 1922, and 1923, earning an additional $150,000 in revenues, and the Yankees’ share of road receipts more than doubled in Ruth’s first three seasons in New York. While attendance did increase around the league during the decade following World War I, the Yankees were an outstanding outlier. From 1920 through Ruth’s final season with the Yankees in 1934, the Yankees failed to lead the league in attendance only twice. The first instance was 1925 when Ruth played in only 98 games due to injuries and suspensions. This was the fewest number of games he would play as a Yankee. In 1934 the Yankees also failed to lead the league in attendance during Ruth’s final season in New York. Prior to Ruth’s arrival the Highlanders/Yankees had finished in the top five of MLB attendance only three times, peaking at third in 1918. After the arrival of Ruth they led the league in attendance during 13 of his 15 years with the team. After his departure the Yankees led the league only three times in the next six years.

Was $100,000 an unusual amount of money to spend for one player? Certainly it was an enormous sum, but it was not as breathtaking as it may at first seem. The purchase and sale of ballplayers was more frequent in those days than it is today. Selling players was a very common way for an owner to make ends meet when finances got tough. On more than one occasion Connie Mack settled his bills by dismantling a World Series championship team by peddling his players for cash. Mack was not the only owner to follow this path to success. In fact, the Red Sox were on the buying side of this very formula when they won the World Series in 1918. So when the Red Sox sold Ruth, the sale itself was not unusual. Even selling a future Hall of Fame player was not unusual. As mentioned earlier, the Red Sox had previously sold Cy Young and Tris Speaker. What made this sale unique was the enormous impact that Ruth had on the Yankees, both on the field and at the box office.

By way of comparison, consider another young left-hander who was sold to New York by Boston in 1919 for the princely sum of $55,000. He subsequently led New York to pennants and World Series victories. That lefty was pitcher Art Nehf, and the teams were the Braves and the Giants.15 Nehf led the National League in complete games in 1918 with 28 and won a total of 32 games in 1917 and 1918. In 1919 he won 17 games, splitting his time between the Braves and the Giants. He averaged 20 wins for the next three seasons as the Giants won two pennants and two World Series. Art Nehf was a good investment at $55,000. While Ruth cost nearly twice as much, he was an everyday player coming off a home-run record-setting season. The price may have been a stretch at the time, but it was not preposterous.16

ANALYZING THE FINANCIAL RETURN

In analyzing a financial return for Babe Ruth, we must consider the original investment (the purchase price of $100,000), the change in revenue resulting from the investment (more about this later), and the additional costs (interest on the promissory notes and salary and bonuses paid to Ruth). The return on that investment is calculated as the additional revenue Ruth generated less the additional costs to the Yankees due to Ruth as an annual percentage of the $100,000 purchase price. This is a standard return on investment calculation.

Interestingly, Ruth cost the Yankees less than his $20,000 salary and signing bonus during his first two years. According to the Yankees’ ledgers, the Red Sox paid part of Babe Ruth’s salary in 1920 and 1921. When they purchased Ruth from the Red Sox, the Yankees inherited the remaining two years of Ruth’s three-year, $10,000 per year contract. Fearing that Ruth might threaten to hold out, the Yankees negotiated with the Red Sox to have the Sox pay half of any salary increase or bonus the Yankees offered to Ruth for the duration of the two years of his contract, up to $5000 per year. Indeed, the Yankees and Ruth agreed to raise his salary to $15,000 per year for the remaining two years on his Red Sox contract, plus a bonus of $5000 each year. As a result the Yankees only had to pay $15,000 per year through 1921, while the Red Sox had to pay the remaining $5000 of his contract each of those years. The Red Sox are the first documented example of a team paying the salary of a player they had sold or traded to another team. Such arrangements are commonplace today, in an era of salary-dumping trades, but in 1920 the environment was quite different, making this arrangement ground-breaking.17

The Yankees were not always that savvy about making deals however. They did let Ruth talk them into a contract clause for 1921 which paid him $50 per home run: the same year Babe shattered the record by blasting 59. The $2,950 the Yankees paid him that year was just a hair less than twenty percent of his salary. It was the largest performance bonus the Yankees would pay for more than a quarter of a century, and the last time Ruth ever had a performance clause in his Yankees contract.

CALCULATING REVENUES GENERATED BY RUTH

A player’s value to a team is measured by his impact on team revenues. In Ruth’s day, this was primarily done through his impact on attendance. Economic research shows that the most important thing a team can control that will affect its attendance is the quality of the team, measured by winning percentage. The population of the city and its income level are also important determinants of attendance, but a team can’t alter those variables. Putting a better team on the field, however, is well within the control of the team. Research also shows that a better player will contribute more to his team’s ability to win, thereby contributing more to the total revenue of the team.18 This concept is known in the economics literature as marginal revenue. A baseball player’s marginal revenue is the additional revenue that a team earns as a result of the player being on the team.

There is a second way that a player can impact team revenues, and that is through what we call the “superstar” effect.19 Some players are so popular that fans will go out to see them just because they are in the game, regardless of how good their team actually is. LeBron James is a good example of this. When his team is on the road, games sell out, even when he visits poor teams that have plenty of empty seats for every other game. Babe Ruth may not have been the first baseball superstar, but he was arguably the trendsetter when it came to selling tickets. While there are models to estimate the superstar impact of players, I do not attempt to do so in this article because of a scarcity of necessary data.

I use Wins Above Replacement (WAR) to calculate Ruth’s impact on the Yankees winning percentage.20 WAR is a measure of the number of games a player is responsible for his team winning above a replacement player. For example, in 1929 Babe Ruth had a WAR of 8.0, meaning that the Yankees would have won eight fewer games if Ruth was removed from the roster and a typical replacement player was added in his place.

Calculating a player’s marginal revenue using WAR is a simple two-step process. First, regress ticket revenue on a series of variables, including team winning percentage.21 Then, using a player’s WAR, determine how many games the team would win without him. In the preceding case of Ruth in 1929, his WAR was 8.0, meaning that with an average replacement player in the lineup instead of Ruth, the Yankees would have won eight fewer games, thus their winning percentage would have been .519 instead of .571, a difference of .052. Multiplying this by the coefficient on winning percentage in the regression yields the marginal revenue of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1929. This actually underestimates Ruth’s contribution to the bottom line, because it assumes that his impact on the team revenues came only through his impact on the quality of the team, and not at all because of the superstar effect. Given Ruth’s talents, fame, and celebrity, his superstar impact was undoubtedly quite significant.

Team revenue in Ruth’s day was simpler to calculate than it is in the twenty-first century because there was no television revenue, and there was little if any radio revenue. However, there are still some tricky revenue sources to consider. After calculating the impact of a player on the winning percentage of his team, and the ticket revenue value of that additional winning percentage, we must then calculate his impact on other important (though far smaller) sources of revenue. In addition to winning percentage, concession revenue, revenues from road games, World Series revenues (important for the Yankees, who appeared in half the World’s Series played during Ruth’s tenure with the club), and exhibition game receipts, which became increasingly important after Ruth joined the team, are analyzed. The impact on the concession, road and exhibition game revenues is calculated by looking at the ratio of each to home revenues and taking a straight percentage impact. The idea here is that Ruth did not necessarily change the ratio of concessions to home attendance, but the increase in home attendance increased concession revenues by the same relative amount.

A quick glance at Tables 1 and 3 reveals that the financial return earned by the Yankees on the purchase of Babe Ruth was nothing less than spectacular. And Table 2 reveals that despite his status as the highest paid player in the game, the Yankees were exploiting Ruth’s ability to draw crowds and generate profits. This is demonstrated by looking at the ratio of Ruth’s salary to his marginal revenue. Economic theory predicts that in a competitive market a player will be paid his marginal revenue. Baseball in the 1920s was hardly a competitive labor market. With the reserve clause in place Ruth never had a chance to sell his skills on the open market like modern free agents do. Because of the reserve clause, the Yankees were able to keep his services while only paying him a fraction of his marginal revenue. And while Ruth was being paid only a fraction of his marginal revenue, he was being paid a considerable amount more than the average American worker in his day. Keep in mind that this is a conservative estimate of the financial impact of Ruth on the Yankees. No attempt has been made to estimate the superstar effect of Ruth.

Perhaps no better anecdotal evidence for the importance of Babe Ruth to the Yankees can be provided than the 1925 season, the worst in Ruth’s career. He played in only 98 games that season, batting .290—52 points below his career average—and hit only 25 home runs, his lowest output since before he became a full-time player in 1919, and a depth to which he would not sink again until 1934, his final year in a Yankees uniform.

The impact of his absence from the lineup was felt by the Yankees on the field and in the pocketbook. On the field, the Yankees collapsed from an 89-win season and second-place finish in 1924 to seventh place and 69 wins in 1925. It was the only year that the Yankees had a losing record in Ruth’s tenure with the team. At the box office, the absence of Ruth and the poor performance of the team was just as evident. The Yankees attendance fell 33 percent to under 700,000, the first time they failed to draw over a million fans since the arrival of Ruth and the only time except his final season with the team they would not lead the league in attendance. Overall revenue in 1925 was off 25% from the year before, dropping the Yankees below the league average in profits for the only time during the decade.22

RUTH AS A FINANCIAL INVESTMENT

So how good a financial investment was Babe Ruth? Table 1 details Ruth’s contribution to various Yankees revenue sources. Note that Ruth’s actual compensation in most years differed from his contracted salary (Table 2). The presence of frequent bonus clauses was the primary reason for this difference, but a regular series of fines levied on the Babe by the Yankee brass accounted for several instances in which Ruth actually earned less than his contract stipulated. The years from 1924–26 were particularly tough for the Babe, especially 1925, when he received nearly $10,000 less than his contracted $52,000 salary. A contributing factor to Ruth’s sizeable fines during that three year period was the appearance of a temperance clause in his contract. From 1922 through 1926 Ruth’s contract prohibited him from drinking or staying out late during the baseball season at the risk of an unspecified financial penalty. Even a cursory look at any of the Ruth biographies suggests that he ignored this clause with regular abandon.

More often than not, however, Ruth earned more than his contracted salary due to the frequent bonuses and World Series shares he earned. Sometimes Ruth was paid a signing bonus, and several times he received a bonus in the form of a percentage of the gate for his participation in exhibition games. As noted earlier, in 1921 he had a performance bonus clause in his contract, which proved quite lucrative for the Babe.

Ruth was the major draw for Yankees exhibition games, and in order to maximize the benefit of that attraction, the Yankees gave Ruth great incentive to participate in them. By the end of his career, though he was past his prime as a player, he was still a major gate attraction and the Yankees paid him 25 percent of the net proceeds from exhibition games in which he played. During the Ruth era, the team’s revenues from exhibition games exploded. Prior to 1920, the most the Yankees ever made from exhibition games was $3,800 in 1916. From 1920–34 they never earned less than $12,000, and seven times took in $20,000 or more, topping $35,000 in 1921.23

Ruth’s highest earning year for the Yankees was 1930 when he netted more than $84,000 in salary and exhibition game receipts. Relative to his salary however, Ruth’s biggest year was 1921 when he earned more than 250 percent of his $15,000 salary through a combination of a signing bonus, a home-run bonus, and receipts from exhibition games. And yet, that year he earned less than 18 percent of the revenue he generated for the Yankees. 1921 was a pretty good year for Ruth—and by extension, the Yankees. His performance that year is still the all-time high for extra base hits and total bases, and it ranks in the top five all-time for runs scored, slugging, offensive WAR, runs created, and OPS as well. He hit an amazing 12 percent of the total home runs in the league, personally out-homering five other teams. Besides home runs, he also led the league in on base percentage, slugging, OPS, runs scored, total bases, RBIs, walks and runs created. He firmly established himself as the undisputed gate attraction in the game and a goldmine for the Yankees.

PROFITING FROM THE BABE

The net profits to the Yankees from their investment in Ruth are found in Table 3. The Yankees profited from the presence of Ruth on the roster in every year, though they barely covered his salary in 1925. They more than made up for this in other years however, earning more than $100,000 in net profit on Ruth on six separate occasions. Babe was a colossal money-maker for the Yankees. During his career, they earned more than one million dollars (not adjusted for inflation) in profit on Ruth.

Over the course of his career, the total return earned by the Yankees on their investment in Babe Ruth was 1254 percent. Because of its volatility, the stock market returned a net gain of only 17 percent during the period. Bonds did much better at 205 percent, but still fell far short of Ruth. It turns out that Babe Ruth was indeed a wise investment for the Yankees. It would have been difficult for Jacob Ruppert to find any other investment that could have done nearly as well.

Despite the riches the Yankees were earning from Ruth, Yankees general manager Ed Barrow wasn’t particularly appreciative of the Babe in the waning years of his career. In a letter addressed to sportswriter F.C. Lane in March of 1933, Barrow complained that Ruth “is greatly overpaid.” Adding that he hoped “the Colonel will stand pat on his offer of $50,000 and call the big fellow’s bluff about retiring.”24 The Colonel did not stand pat, eventually offering Ruth $52,000 plus 25 percent of the net receipts from exhibition games, though ultimately only paying him $42,000. It was not one of the Babe’s better years, though he did return a nice profit of about $45,000 for the Colonel’s investment. This was certainly better than Ruppert could have done by investing in the stock market, which lost 17 percent that year. The 45 percent return also outperformed the bond market that year by a substantial amount.

The return on Ruth fell the next year, his final season in New York, to its second lowest, returning the team just over $32,000 in net profits. This was at a much reduced salary of $35,000, however. The Yankees, because they were able to reduce Ruth’s salary toward the end of his career, were able to ride him for a couple of final years of profitable employment before finally shipping him off.

When he was ingloriously dispatched to the Braves in time for the 1935 season the Yankees received nothing in return. Their records indicate that he was sold to the Braves without monetary consideration. It was indeed a quiet ending to the most famous financial investment in Yankees history.

MICHAEL HAUPERT is Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. He is an avid baseball fan and appreciates the ability to combine his hobby with his work. He has published on the economics of baseball in several academic journals, including “NINE,” “Cliometrica,” “Black Ball,” and “Base Ball.” He is currently working on a labor history of professional baseball.

Notes

1. Thanks to Ken Winter, who was my coauthor on much of the background research for this paper, and Clifford Blau for his careful fact checking. Thank you also to two anonymous referees whose careful reading and valuable comments helped to improve this article. Any remaining errors or oversights are strictly the fault of the author.

2. The New York Times, January 6, 1920, 16.

3. While the thought of retiring might strain credibility, Ruth was, in fact, in Hollywood at the time the sale was announced, making Headin’ Home, which would be released later that year by Kessell & Bauman, indicating his attraction beyond the ballfield. In fact, over the length of his career, Ruth made substantial amounts of money outside of the game, appearing on vaudeville, in movies, endorsing products, and making public appearances.

4. Ibid.

5. The New York Times, January 7, 1920, 18.

6. The New York Times, January 7, 1920, 22.

7. Ibid.

8. The New York Times, January 8, 1920, 18.

9. The New York Times, January 9, 1920, 18.

10.The New York Times, January 12, 1920, 11.

11.According to Rodney Fort (http://www.rodneyfort.com/SportsData/ BizFrame.htm) Frank Farrell purchased a 75% share of the Baltimore franchise in 1903 for $180,000. That translates into a market value of $240,000 for the team. The franchise was relocated to New York for the 1903 season and ultimately became known as the Yankees.

12.Michael Haupert and Kenneth Winter, “Pay Ball: Estimating the Profitability of the New York Yankees 1915–1937,” Essays in Economic and Business History, vol XXI, 2003, 89­102.

13.Yankee Stadium opened in 1923. Prior to that the Yankees played in their own stadium, American League Park, from 1903–12. From 1913 through 1922 they shared the Polo Grounds with the Giants.

14.New York Yankees Financial Ledgers. National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, New York.

15.The deal also brought four players to the Braves according to Baseball-Reference.com.

16.Kenneth Winter and Mike Haupert “Yankee Profits and Promise: The Purchase of Babe Ruth and the Building of Yankee Stadium,” in Wm. Simons, ed., The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2003, 197–214.

17.New York Yankees Financial Ledgers. National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, New York.

18.The seminal work on this topic was done by Gerald Scully, “Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball,” The American Economic Review, 64, no. 6 (December 1974), 915–30.

19.David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt and Stacey L. Brook, “Stars at the Gate: The Impact of Star power on NBA Gate Revenues,” Journal of Sports Economics 5:1 (February 2004), 33–50.

20.WAR values are from Baseball-Reference.com, accessed during the spring of 2015.

21.I regressed attendance x average ticket price on winning percentage, winning percentage in the previous year, games behind (or ahead) in previous year, World Series appearance in previous year, age of team, and gross domestic product (GDP). The regression covered the New York Yankees from 1903–42 (years for which I had sufficient financial data). Only winning percentage, previous year winning percentage, and GDP were significant.

22.Emanuel Celler, Hearings of the Monopoly Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, 1951.

23.New York Yankees Financial Ledgers. National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, New York.

24.Letter from Edward Barrow to F.C. Lane, March, 1933, F.C. Lane papers, BA MSS 36, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

The Brooklyn Dodgers wanted Babe Ruth for his box office drawing power, not his coaching expertise. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

Although on the surface Miller Huggins and Jacob Ruppert seemed worlds apart, the two men had striking similarities. They were the architects of the New York Yankees’ dominance in the 1920s. (BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY)

Jacob Ruppert believed that hiring Miller Huggins as his manager after the 1917 season was the first and most important step in turning the Yankees from also-rans into champions. Under Ruppert’s ownership and Huggins’s leadership, the Yankees would dominate the decade of the 1920s, winning six pennants and three World Series.

At first glance, the two could not have been more different. Ruppert, an urbane New Yorker, was a man of great wealth, which he used freely to indulge himself. He had a mansion on Fifth Avenue, a country estate, and a 113-foot yacht. He raced and bred horses and dogs, and he collected rare books, art, and jade pieces. He also was a meticulous dresser. “He commonly carries a serious expression,” wrote Damon Runyon. “He wears clothes of the latest cut, is very particular about his apparel, but never deviates from snowy white linen shirts and collars.”1

Pitcher Waite Hoyt said of Ruppert, “His Rolls Royce always looked brand new when it was 10 years old. He was that way about everything.”2 Author Jack Moore wrote, “In many ways he belonged to the world of New York society that Edith Wharton described so beautifully and devastatingly in her novels. … He relished the title [Colonel] and conducted his affairs with the Yankees as though he were their general.”3

Huggins, a no-nonsense Midwesterner, had little interest in what others thought of him, and certainly not what they thought of his appearance. He had no extravagances. His greatest joy came from fishing, smoking his pipe, and golf, which he started playing late in life.

These differences came close to dooming the Ruppert-Huggins collaboration at the start, according to Sporting News publisher J. G. Taylor Spink’s description of their first meeting. “Coupled with his gnome-like appearance, the cap accentuated his midget stature, and made Huggins look like an unemployed jockey. And Colonel Ruppert, an immaculate dresser, instinctively shied away from a cap-wearing job applicant.”4

Ruppert, especially as a younger man, was a partygoer and a member of many social clubs. As a congressman, he was a regular at White House receptions, held by his fellow New Yorker Teddy Roosevelt. Home in New York, he would often dine in one of the city’s better restaurants, like Delmonico’s, and then spend the evening socializing at the Lambs Club, the New York Athletic Club, or one of the several German societies to which he belonged.

He was also a risk-taker, especially when it came to fast cars. In 1902, he and fellow congressman Oliver Belmont were arrested in Washington for driving almost 20 miles per hour, well above the posted speed limit.5 Ten years later, Ruppert was racing his motorcycle against a garage owner driving a car. When the car slammed into a tree, the driver was killed.6

Huggins’s typical evening was spent at home with his sister, Myrtle, with whom he lived. And the only time he may have been seen in a car that was going too fast, it would have been as a passenger. He would sometimes ride along with Babe Ruth, another fast and risky driver.

Yet, in the more important matter of building winning baseball teams, Ruppert and Huggins were surprisingly alike.

1. Both had been reared by strict fathers, who had attempted to dictate their careers. Ruppert’s father had been more successful at it, dismissing his son’s early dreams of being a baseball player and later, his plan to enter West Point. “My dad, who was a brewer, said, ‘This West Point stuff, this ball playing business, is all nonsense. You go into the brewery.’”7

Huggins was less the obedient son. “The head of our family,” recalled his sister Myrtle, “was a strict Methodist who abhorred frivolity and listed baseball as such, especially baseball played on Sunday.”8 Huggins became a ball player in spite of his father’s wishes, usually under an assumed name when he began playing as a semiprofessional. And on those evenings spent at home with Myrtle, he would sometimes have a glass of wine, something which his father would have frowned on.

2. By nature, both Ruppert and Huggins were intensely private men—aloof, blunt, and not interested in their personal popularity. “Despite the fact that he is one of the smartest men that ever trod on a ball field, and is a lawyer in the bargain,” wrote a New York Sun columnist about Huggins, “he does not seem to realize what assets popularity and publicity can be to a successful manager.”9

It was much the same with Ruppert: He was a “regal mystery” said one reporter. “There was about him a reserve that made such a [close] relationship difficult.”10 The Colonel “was not one to pal around with the boys,” Rud Rennie wrote in the New York Herald-Tribune. “For the most part, he was aloof and brusque.”11 Even his fellow owners found him distant.

3. Neither man was “colorful,” someone reporters could rely on to do or say something provocative. Huggins had no more personality, wrote one New York reporter, “than a stark old oak tree against a gray winter sky.”12 Ruppert also had a bland personality. A 1934 editorial in Baseball Magazine noted, “The genial Colonel has never cared overmuch for the spotlight. … He is, first and foremost, a businessman, and showmanship is not his forte.”13

4. Both were lonely men. Damon Runyon wrote, “Huggins always struck me as rather a pathetic figure in many ways early in his managerial career. He was inconspicuous in size and personality. He seemed to be a solitary chap, with few intimates. He wasn’t much of a mixer. … But the little man ‘had something,’ no doubt of that.”14

Ruppert, too, was lonely. “He was a simple man, and direct, but he had moments of loneliness,” explained George W. Sutton Jr., who handled public relations for him. “Sometimes when he was busy he would stop and ask me about my farm, and talk like that until something turned him back into the business machine.”15

5. Being bachelors only added to their loneliness, though they had different views on marriage. Huggins told Dan Daniel, “That’s my one big regret. Married life gives a man varied interests.”16

When he was younger, Ruppert said he did not want to marry because “it was too much fun being single.”17 He later said, “There are too many attractive girls in New York to ever allow a man to be lonesome.”18

As an older man, he became close to Helen Weyant, a woman who became the informal hostess at his upstate mansion. She was much younger than Ruppert, and there is no evidence of a romantic relationship between them, or between Ruppert and any woman. He was more like a kindly old uncle; so kindly, he left Weyant a third of his estate.

Ed Barrow, seen at right with Ruppert (left) and Huggins, Barrow was a Yankees front office fixture from 1921 to 1945.

6. While Ruppert was a fan the Yankees, he still treated them as a business. “If a machine in my business wears out I replace it,” he said. “I am always looking at improved machines; improved property. I study efficiency in business. Baseball is a sport; it is a hobby, but it is a business. I want the most out of baseball.”19

Yet a similar quotation from Huggins could easily be mistaken for something Ruppert said. Operating a ball club, he believed, was “the quality of being able to look ahead and size up the future by the signs of the present. … In a way this business instinct is nothing but a keen gambling sense. It is knowing when to throw a lot of new capital into the organization.”20

7. Having control of their “business” was key to both men. To the extent possible, they wanted to control their own destinies. Ruppert couldn’t coexist with his partner, Til Huston. Ed Barrow described them as “two self-willed personalities, who by background, manner, and outlook were worlds apart.”21 Likewise, Huggins couldn’t coexist with Branch Rickey. When Rickey became his boss in St. Louis, after the 1917 season, he knew all personnel decisions would be made by Rickey and left the Cardinals for the Yankees.

8. The Colonel and “Hug” were excellent judges of personnel, who looked for the same personality traits in potential hires, which were a man’s disposition and his belief in putting the team first. Ruppert’s key hires were brilliant. In addition to Huggins, he brought in Ed Barrow as his business manager, Joe McCarthy as a successor to Huggins, and George Weiss to develop and run the farm system.22

Few men Huggins traded away went on to star elsewhere. No less an authority than John McGraw had said back in 1915, “Miller Huggins is my ideal of a real leader. … He can take a player who has shown only a mediocre supply of ability on some team and transform him into a star with his club.”23

9. Dealing with Babe Ruth’s often childish and outrageous behavior caused trials and tribulations for both, particularly Huggins. Eventually, they each would have to confront the Babe, and each would come out on top.

Ruth had repeatedly ignored his manager and violated club rules for years. In 1925, with the Yankees and the Babe in deep slumps (they were 27 games out of first place, and he was batting .266), Huggins decided it was a good time for him to crack down. With Ruppert’s backing, he suspended Ruth for two weeks and fined him $5,000. The following season, Ruth and the Yankees made stunning comebacks. The Babe led the New Yorkers to the first of three consecutive pennants, leading the league in runs, runs batted in, and the first of six consecutive home run crowns.

The ultimate Ruppert-Ruth confrontation came ten years later, in 1935. Ruppert had repeatedly refused Ruth’s request to manage the club. With the 39-year-old Babe’s aging body and on-field performance breaking down, Ruppert declared it was time for the Yankees to move on. “The success of the Yankees is no longer intertwined with, and dependent upon, the success of Ruth,” he said.24

Despite the headaches he gave them, Ruppert and Huggins benefited greatly from having Ruth on their team. He not only led them to success on the field, his popularity had helped them take away a good portion of New York’s fans from John McGraw’s Giants.

“Up to a couple of years ago, the Yanks were just the ‘other New York team.’ But the immense personal popularity of Babe Ruth and the dynamite in the rest of that Yankee batting order have made the Yanks popular with the element that loves the spectacular,” wrote Sid Mercer.25

10. Both Ruppert and Huggins understood the demands of owning and managing a team in New York. The New York fans and press were no different than they are today. Keeping them happy was a constant battle, something both men understood. “The psychology of New York is entirely different. … You’ve got to make good!” Huggins said.26 “The whole trouble is that we [the Yankees and the Giants] are New York clubs,” he said. “If we were located in Kankakee things would be different. … ‘Beat New York’ is the slogan of the land, and when it can’t be done, the boys start slinging mud.”27

“This is one city where the public demands a winner, but you can’t palm off inferior goods on them,” Ruppert had said as early as 1918.28 “Yankee fans want a winning ball club,” he explained a decade later. “They won’t support a loser.”29

11. Both men had a fierce will to win. When Huggins was a young player on the Reds, Ned Hanlon, who had managed the legendary, win-at-all-costs Baltimore Orioles of the 1890s, said of his attitude (and that of one of his teammates), “The game is everything to them. Victories make them feel as though they owned the earth; defeat makes them angry.”30

As the manager of the Yankees, Huggins said, “It is our desire to have a pennant winner each year indefinitely. New York fans want championship ball, and the Yankees can be counted on to provide it.”31

Ruppert’s approach was no different. “I want to win the pennant five more years in a row if we can. We are going ahead to get any good ball player we can. Winning pennants is the business of the New York Yankees.”32 Ruppert said, “Huggins was never content. He always felt that no matter how strong the Yankees were, they could be just a little stronger.”33

Just before he died, Ruppert revealed the winning formula. “Money alone does not bring success. You must also have brains, organization, and enterprise. Then you’ve got something.”34

12. Because of their intense desire to win, the difficulties of staying on top haunted Ruppert and Huggins, as they agonized over the Yankees’ success. W. O. McGeehan said of Ruppert, “The Colonel has an infinite capacity for mental anguish and likes to do his worrying early.”35 Ruppert said in early 1928, “A slide, a broken leg, and the finest ball player may jump into baseball oblivion. That has happened before; it may happen again. We must have replacements.”36

The 1927 Yankees had swept the World Series in four games and were already being talked about as the greatest team ever. Yet sportswriter Walter Trumbull observed at the baseball meetings that winter, “The case of Miller Huggins is almost pathetic. He is trying desperately to build up the Yankees. That is a tough job, a little perhaps, like trying to add a bit of height to Mount Everest.”37

Despite cries from around the league to break up the Yankees, both men recognized the difficulties of staying on top. Ruppert’s response to the other owners was to build up their teams, not tear down his. He compared running the team to keeping his brewery on top, where if a part or a machine broke down, he replaced it.

Huggins’s response to the “Break up the Yankees” crowd was more philosophical. In 1928, after the Yankees had again swept the Series, Huggins sounded an alarm. “Time will take care of the Yankees, as it takes care of everything else. This team, powerful as it is, will crack and break, no matter what any of us does to keep it up. The history of all great teams and all great personal fortunes is the same. They dominate the scene for a while but they don’t last. Great teams fall apart and have to be put together again.”38

Babe Ruth, right, battled fiercely with Ruppert and Huggins over the years. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

13. Each had faced substantial obstacles along the way, Huggins on the field and Ruppert with his brewery and with challenges to his ownership of the Yankees. Huggins had to deal with repeated challenges to his authority, beginning in 1913, when he took over as manager of the Cardinals. A 1922 Sporting News editorial noted, “Perhaps never in the history of the game has a manager been so flouted, reviled, and ridiculed.”39

Prohibition robbed Ruppert of his primary source of income with the brewery. And he had to take on (and take down) the president of his league, Ban Johnson, and then his co-owner, Til Huston.

14. Baseball meant the world to the two lonely bachelors and brought meaning to their lives. Ruppert told Taylor Spink in 1937, “It seems to me I never have got around to doing the things I wanted to do most. For example, when I was a youngster, I wanted to be a ball player.” He also said, “I was never able to be a major league catcher. That was my boyhood ambition.”40

In 1918, three years after purchasing the Yankees, Ruppert wrote, “I have got a lot of excitement out of this magnate business and no doubt there is much more coming to me before I am through.”41 After acquiring Ruth, Ruppert told the press that it was his “life purpose” to give New York a championship team.42 And in 1923, “Here I am deeper than ever in baseball and more in love with the game than ever.”43

Damon Runyon wrote after the 1923 championship season, “The possession of great wealth is an old story to him. There was no novelty for him, no thrill, in the buying excesses of great wealth. It was the thing that money couldn’t buy that brought him his big, bright hour.”44

Huggins once said, “I fell in love. … The object of my love, though, was no lady. It was baseball.”45 He had little outside of baseball in his life. On off days during the season, he would often go to the Yankees’ offices downtown. “Baseball is my life. I’d be lost without it. Maybe, as you say, it will get me some day—but as long as I die in harness, I’ll be happy.”46 And of course it did get him, and he did die in harness.

Unlike Ruppert, Huggins did not want recognition. Christy Walsh said, “He played his part on the ball field without giving a thought to the grandstand or the critics. As for publicity, he loathed it almost as much as he belittled so-called personal popularity.”47 Even Walsh, Huggins’s agent, said: “You know him intimately, and you don’t know him at all.”48

Ruppert told sportswriter Sid Mercer: “Take it from me, Sid, money is only a burden after you have enough for a comfortable living. It becomes a responsibility. … Here I am trying to snatch a few days with my ball team and I’ll bet you I’ll have to cut my vacation short.”49

15. Sometimes, when the pressure of managing in New York became overwhelming, Huggins would reflect on his earliest days in baseball. “I probably had the most fun in my baseball career when I captained the Fleischmann Mountaineers. … That was a joy ride that year—1900—we won about 60 out of 66 games.”50 Bob Connery, a lifelong friend who scouted for Huggins in St. Louis, said said, “Those five years with the Cardinals were happier than any five years in New York, even when Huggins was winning pennants.”51

Ruppert also longed for some of the simpler pleasures of the game, denied him by his position. He lamented to Taylor Spink in 1937, “I could not buy the liberty and the freedom of the youngster who could barely spare 50 cents that got him into the bleachers. That’s money, and that’s responsibility for you.”52

16. These were men of impeccable integrity. During the Black Sox scandal, Ruppert promised that, “for my life and yours, baseball will be kept clean.”53 Damon Runyon once wrote, “I believe Colonel Ruppert would sacrifice his entire baseball investment rather than knowingly be a party to an unsportsmanlike action.”54

His reaction to the Yankees’ sweep of the 1927 World Series sweep is instructive. “I am happier in what I believe is a great thing for baseball,” he said. “It will cost us something like $200,000, but there can be no talk now of stringing a series out. We wanted to win in four straight games and we did, because we have a wonderful team.”55

Huggins established his reputation for decency at the outset of his professional career. When St. Paul Saints owner George Lennon sold Huggins to the Cincinnati Reds, he told reporters, “He is a finer man than he is a ballplayer.”56

Along with integrity, both had a sense of duty to take care of people. Ruppert’s aide, George Perry wrote, “He was a hard-boiled man to some, but they judged him entirely from externals. The charity he gave never will be known. He never sought publicity that way.”57

During the days of the Federal League war, when St. Louis had three Major League teams and the Cardinals’ finances were shaky, Huggins covered the team’s payroll out of his own pocket. The Sporting News wrote in an editorial, “He [Huggins] was all there was to the club, practically under petticoat management even to the extent of being its financial savior.”58

17. Moreover, Ruppert and Huggins were fiercely loyal to and trusting of one another. After the 1922 World Series, the Yankees’ second consecutive Series loss to the Giants, the press again was calling for Ruppert to replace Huggins. But the colonel remained steadfast; he re-signed Huggins and said, “Maybe these people who are firing him and hiring others know more about it than I do. … This talk is ridiculous. We are for Huggins, first, last and all the time.”59 A year later, Huggins rewarded him with the Yankees’ first world championship.

Then in the disastrous summer of 1925, with Yankees on their way to a seventh-place finish, Ruppert said, “It would be shabby treatment to remove him now or at any other time. … Huggins can remain in control of my team as long as he feels like it.”60

After the 1924 season, Huggins declared, “Ruppert is a wonderful man to work with. After seven years of close association I guess two men get to understand each other pretty well. If I really want a man, he will go the limit to get him. And he never tires of winners.”61

18. Additionally, both men were visionaries. Ruppert saw the potential of Sunday baseball, building Yankee Stadium, and building up the farm system, but he was by no means perfect: he lagged in the areas of integration, night baseball, and the radio broadcasts of games.

Huggins, who had been a quintessential deadball-type player, foresaw the coming of the longball era and urged Ruppert to acquire Ruth.

Though seemingly very different, together the shared legacy of Jacob Ruppert and Miller Huggins was the establishment of an enduring winning franchise, a dynasty that lived long after they were gone. “Getting him was the first and most important step we took toward making the Yankees champions,” Ruppert said. “Him” was not Babe Ruth, but rather Miller Huggins.62

Sportswriter Warren Brown wrote: “We never have run across anyone else who stressed winning as much as Col. Jake Ruppert.”63 “Winning was a mania with him,” wrote Sid Mercer after Ruppert’s death.64

“The combination of brains and money,” wrote F. C. Lane of the two New York clubs (also John McGraw’s Giants), “is a hard pair to beat. … The attempt to divorce wealth and intelligence from all advantage has never succeeded anywhere.”65

Rupert and Huggins would have one more thing in common: perhaps fittingly, both would be long overlooked for formal recognition, which in baseball means election to the Hall of Fame. Huggins did not reach Cooperstown until 1964 and Ruppert not until 2013.

STEVE STEINBERG and LYLE SPATZ are the co-authors of “The Colonel and Hug: The Partnership that Transformed the New York Yankees,” the stories of Jacob Ruppert and Miller Huggins and how, a century ago, they laid the foundation for the future Yankees’ greatness. Steve’s and Lyle’s previous collaboration, “1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York,” was awarded the 2011 Seymour Medal. Steve has also written “Baseball in St. Louis, 1900–1925” and many articles revolving around early twentieth-century baseball, including a dozen for SABR publications. He has been a regular presenter at SABR national conventions. Lyle has recently published “Willie Keeler: From the Playgrounds of Brooklyn to the Hall of Fame.” He has also written biographies of Bill Dahlen and Dixie Walker, among other books, and has edited books on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers and the 1947 New York Yankees.

Notes

1. Damon Runyon, New York American, December 27, 1924.

2. Eugene Murdock, Baseball Players and their Times: Oral Histories of the Game (Westport, CT: Meckler Publishing, 1991), 41.

3. Jack B. Moore, Joe DiMaggio: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986), 37.

4. Spink’s account appeared years later in “Looping the Loops,” Sporting News, October 21, 1943. Spink was not present at the meeting but probably received firsthand accounts from both Ruppert and Huggins.

5. “O. H. P. Belmont, Too Speedy, Arrested,” New York Herald, March 26, 1902.

6. “John Gernon Killed Racing Mr. Ruppert,” New York Herald, June 29, 1912.

7. J. G. Taylor Spink, “Three and One,” The Sporting News, August 19, 1937.

8. Myrtle Huggins, as told to John B. Kennedy, “Mighty Midget.” Collier’s, May 24, 1930, 18. Years later, James Huggins became reconciled to his son’s playing baseball and even bragged that the skill he showed was hereditary. Henry F. Pringle, “A Small Package,” New Yorker, October 8, 1927, 25.

9. Shortstop, “Huggins Fails to Snare Popularity,” New York Sun, June 15,1919.

10.Frank Graham, The New York Yankees (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1948), 248.

11.Richard Tofel, A Legend in the Making: The New York Yankees in 1939 (Chicago: Ivan R, Dee, 2003), 8.

12.Hyatt Daab, “Timely News and Views in the World of Sport,” New York Evening Telegram, October 26, 1920.

13.Editorial, Baseball Magazine, March 1934, 434.

14.Damon Runyon, “Between You and Me,” New York American, September 27, 1929.

15.“New Owners of Yanks Recover Enough to Talk,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 22, 1939.

16.Dan Daniel, “Late Chief’s Policies to Govern New Yank Pilot,” New York Evening Telegram, September 27, 1929. Daniel revealed these comments only after Huggins’s death.

17.Fred Lieb, Baseball as I Have Known It (Lincoln: Bison Books, 1996), 228.

18.Betty Kirk, “Jacob Ruppert, ‘Born Bachelor,’ Sees Day Coming with Marriage Extinct,” New York Evening Telegram, June 13, 1928.

19.Frank F. O’Neill, “Loud Wails in Wake of Yank Deal,” New York Evening Journal, January 6, 1928.

20.Will Wedge, “Business Instinct in Baseball,” New York Sun, April 17, 1926.

21.Edward G. Barrow, with James M. Kahn, My Fifty Years in Baseball (New York: Cowan-McCann, 1951), 123.

22.Former Yankees pitcher Bob Shawkey was Huggins’s immediate successor, but Ruppert replaced him after one season.

23.“Hug May Capture Pennant, but not in 1915—Says McGraw,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 23, 1915.

24.Dan Daniel, “Ruppert Sees Boom Year and Pennant for Yanks,” New York Evening Telegram, undated article in Jacob Ruppert file, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library and Archives.

25.Sid Mercer, “Whole City Busy with ‘Dope,’” New York Evening Journal, October 3, 1921.

26.Miller Huggins, “Serial Story of his Baseball Career: Getting New York Angle Huggins’ Biggest Problem at Start of Managership,” Chapter 50, San Francisco Chronicle, March 11, 1924.

27.Joseph Gordon, “Yankee Pilot Waxes Furious at Accusation,” New York American, December 16, 1927.

28. Jacob Ruppert, “Building a Winning Club in New York: An Interview with Col. Jacob Ruppert,” Baseball Magazine, June 1918, 253.

29. Rud Rennie, “Stop Squawking!” Collier’s, March 4, 1939, 11.

30. Ned Hanlon, “Jake [Weimer] and Little Hug are Shining Examples,” Cincinnati Times-Star, April 30, 1906.

31. Miller Huggins, The Sporting News, August 4, 1927.

32. Frank F. O’Neill, “Loud Wails in Wake of Yank Deal,” New York Evening Journal, January 6, 1928.

33. Frederick G. Lieb, “Ruppert Praises Word of Huggins,” New York Evening Telegram, September 21, 1923.

34. Rud Rennie, “Stop Squawking!” 61.

35. W. O. McGeehan, “Down the Line,” New York Herald Tribune, March 11, 1925.

36. Frank F. O’Neill, “Loud Wails in Wake of Yank Deal,” New York Evening Journal, January 6, 1928.

37. Walter Trumbull, “The Listening Post,” New York Evening Post, December 13, 1927.

38. Joe Vila, “Setting the Pace,” New York Sun, December 26, 1928.

39. Editorial, The Sporting News, October 26, 1922.

40. J. G. Taylor Spink, “Three and One,” The Sporting News, August 19, 1937.

41. Jacob Ruppert, “Building a Winning Club in New York,” 254.

42. “Ruth Bought by New York Americans for $125,000, Highest Price in Baseball’s Annals,” The New York Times, January 6, 1920.

43. W. O. McGeehan, “Ruppert Lives to Learn Baseball Men Have Class,” The Sporting News, December 27, 1923.

44. Damon Runyon, “Deserved Tribute to Colonel Ruppert,” The 1924 Reach Official American League Guide, 243.

45. Miller Huggins, “How I Got that Way,” New York Evening Post, October 2, 1926.

46. Ford Frick, “Huggins Born 49 Years Ago, Starred with Cardinals,” New York Evening Journal, September 25, 1929.

47. Christy Walsh, South Bend [Indiana] News-Times, September 1929, exact date not known.

48. Warren Brown, “So They Tell Me,” Chicago Herald and Examiner, September 27, 1929.

49. Sid Mercer, “The Colonel,” New York Journal-American, January 17, 1939.

50. Miller Huggins, “Huggins Wins his Sixth Flag,” New York Sun, September 29, 1928. Future Major League stars on the Fleischmann Mountaineers team included Doc White and Red Dooin.

51. Fred Lieb, The St. Louis Cardinals (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1948), 69.

52. J. G. Taylor Spink, “Three and One,” The Sporting News, August 19, 1937.

53. William L. Chenery, “Foul Ball!” The New York Times, October 3, 1920.

54. Damon Runyon, “Runyon Says,” New York American, December 27, 1924.

55. “Ruppert Happy, Though Smile Cost $200,000 in Receipts,” The New York Times, October 9, 1927.

56. Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, “Huggins Got $1,000 of Purchase Money,” March 8, 1904.

57. George Perry, “Three and One: Looking Them Over with J. G. Taylor Spink,” The Sporting News, March 2, 1939.

58. “The Change Huggins Makes,” The Sporting News, November 1, 1917.

59. John Kieran, “Huggins Will Manage Yanks Next Season, Says Club Owner,” New York Herald Tribune, October 10, 1922.

60. Joe Vila, “Ruth May Pay Heavy Penalty for Getting Back too Quickly,” The Sporting News, July 2, 1925.

61. Frederick G. Lieb, “Huggins Will Stay with Yanks Indefinitely; No Longer has Any Thought of Retiring,” New York Telegram and Evening Mail,” December 26, 1924.

62. Jacob Ruppert, “The Ten Million Dollar Toy.” Saturday Evening Post, March 28, 1931, 18.

63. Warren Brown, “All in a Week,” Chicago Herald and Examiner, January 15, 1939.

64. Sid Mercer, “The Colonel: Victory Always his Aim,” New York Journal-American, January 20, 1939.

65. F. C. Lane, “The Shadow of New York on the Baseball Diamond,” Baseball Magazine, August 1923, 398.

I had been under the impression that Lowe’s 17 total bases was the record for an individual in a single nine-inning game, later equaled by Ed Delahanty, and wasn’t aware that someone had established the mark prior to Lowe. This led me to research the matter and upon further review, it became clear that Twitchell only had 16 bases and not 17. This explains why the major-league record for total bases in a single nine-inning game was listed for many years as being shared by Bobby Lowe and Ed Delahanty, and not by Larry Twitchell.

Larry Twitchell’s big day came on August 15, 1889, in a game between the Cleveland Spiders and the Boston Beaneaters, played at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.1 The Cleveland Leader described Cleveland native Twitchell as a “good natured and affable young man who rakes flies out of left field” and also “the same Larry who played in every vacant lot in Cleveland in his boyhood days.”

The boxscore in Figure 1 indicates that Larry Twitchell was perfect on the day with a batting average of 1.000 based on his six hits in six at bats with one base on balls for a total of seven plate appearances:

1. First Inning – single to left field scoring Stricker, left on base
2. Third Inning (led off) – triple up against the left field fence, Twitchell scored on Tebeau’s single
3. Fourth Inning – triple to center field scoring Stricker, Twitchell scored on Tebeau’s double
4. Sixth Inning (led off) – double to right-center field, Twitchell scored on Tebeau’s single
5. Seventh Inning (led off) – home run to left-center field
6. Eighth Inning – base on balls, Twitchell scored on Tebeau’s home run
7. Ninth Inning – triple to center field, left on base

Figure 1. Click image to enlarge.

When it was all said and done, Twitchell’s six hits were comprised of one single, one double, three triples and a home run for a total of 16 total bases and included hitting for the cycle.

From a team perspective, Cleveland scored in every inning, amassed 27 hits, including 11 extra base hits, and 48 total bases, none of which was an NL record at the time.2 Regarding the Cleveland team effort, The Cleveland Leader said, “Cleveland broke the League batting record for the season and made one of the best records ever made in the history of the organization. Twenty-seven hits for a total of forty-eight bases doesn’t grow on every tree and never grew in Cleveland before, that’s sure.”

The Leader further commented as follows:

“Kid” Madden, the energetic young gum-chewing pitcher of the Bean Eaters, was in the box and was kindly kept there for nine long and enthusiastic innings while the infants fattened up their batting averages, the base hit column was swollen until its own mother wouldn’t recognize it, and the total base column looks like the fat man of the dime museum.

The Twitchell performance on August 15 wasn’t simply limited to his batting and fielding exploits, he also pitched in the game. Twitchell started the game in left field but was called in to pitch in the second inning. Jersey Bakely was the starting pitcher for Cleveland but he walked the first four Boston batters in the bottom of the second and hit the next batter.3 Bakely went to right field, Radford went from right to left, and Twitchell went from left field to pitcher. The first batter that Twitchell faced was Kid Madden, the Boston pitcher, and Twitchell walked him, forcing in another run. Then a hit was muffed by Radford in left field which scored another run, Boston’s fourth in the inning. Ganzel was thrown out at the plate on Kelly’s hit to McKean and Madden was thrown out at the plate on Nash’s hit to Twitchell, who threw to Zimmer, who was also able to throw out Nash at first for a double play. Gruber started the third inning in the box for Cleveland which presumably sent Twitchell back to left field and Radford to right field.

An interesting sideline regarding Twitchell’s big day has to do with the topic of individual total bases. There was misleading information in the published accounts at the time and those after the fact. The 16 total bases registered by Twitchell surpassed the previous NL mark of 15, which was held by Dan Brouthers. In a game played on Friday September 10, 1886, Brouthers, playing for the Detroit Wolverines, had five hits against the Chicago White Stockings: three home runs, one double, and one single. The Twitchell total bases mark also surpassed the record in the American Association (AA), which was also 15, and was also established in 1886.

The AA mark was set by Guy Hecker, a pitcher for the Louisville Colonels, in the second game of a doubleheader played on Sunday August 15, 1886, against the Baltimore Orioles. The Louisville Courier-Journal reported, “Hecker broke all previous batting records for a single game, making three home runs and three singles, a total of six hits which yielded altogether fifteen bases. He was at the bat seven times and made seven scores.”

The Baltimore Sun stated, “The feature of the game was Hecker’s tremendous and unparalleled batting. He made three home runs and three singles, with a total of fifteen bases, which has never been equaled in the history of the national game. Hecker also made seven scores out of seven times at bat.” The Baltimore American agreed: “Hecker made a remarkable record out of seven times at bat. He secured seven runs and five hits, three of them being home runs, and yielding him a total of fourteen bases.”

The American coverage was very misleading because the boxscore listed Hecker with six hits, not five, as they had mentioned in their writeup, and to make matters worse they listed Hecker as having a double in the breakdown below the boxscore. Some simple math based on Hecker having had five hits, as the American stated, comprised of three home runs, a double and a single, would yield a minimum of 15 bases, not 14 as the article had stated. The Baltimore American statistical portion of their coverage is so contradictory, as it related to some of the metrics for Hecker, that it becomes hard to identify what really happened and causes one to wonder what they were basing their information on.

The game write-up in Sporting Life ran as follows: “The afternoon game was remarkable for the wonderful and unprecedented batting of Hecker, who broke the individual batting record for a single game. He was seven times at bat and made three home runs, two doubles and a single. An error gave him a base once, and he scored seven runs, thus beating the record in three different ways—home runs, total bases and number of runs.”

In the breakdown below the boxscore, Sporting Life contradicted themselves by not listing Hecker as having a single double, let alone two doubles.

Regarding Brouthers’s performance of September 10, 1886, the Sporting Life write-up read, “Both clubs hit very hard and Brouthers made a remarkable display, in five times at bat getting five hits for a total of fifteen bases, three of the hits being home runs. This leads the League record and almost equals Hecker’s record of sixteen bases.”

The mention of Hecker’s record being 16 bases is not correct as, apparently, he only had 15 bases in the August 15, 1886, game. It should be pointed out that the Hecker marks for runs scored and home runs in a game by a pitcher are also long-standing major-league records, whereas the total bases mark, while an AA record, was short lived from a major-league perspective.

The story of the total bases doesn’t end with the Hecker AA game in 1886. It actually revealed the omission of a performance by George Strief, in addition to an error in the number of total bases. The Louisville Courier-Journal stated the following:

No Association player ever before made three home runs in a championship game, or reached a total of fifteen bases. The best records were made by Orr, the big batter of the Metropolitans, and Larkin, the heavy slugger of the Athletics. These players tied for the honor, each having made a total of eleven bases last year, Orr against Caruthers, of the St. Louis Browns, and Larkin against Morris, of the Pittsburghs. Hecker’s performance is thus four points better than that of either Orr or Larkin. In the National League, Anson, of Chicago, once made three home runs in a single game, but his total number of bases did not equal Hecker’s record yesterday.

The issue with the preceding, as reported in the Louisville Courier-Journal, is threefold.

1. The total bases mark that Hecker surpassed was stated incorrectly as 11 when it was 13.
2. The 11 total bases was incorrectly implied as the previous mark. George Strief had established a mark of 14 bases in a single game after both of the Orr and Larkin performances.
3. It was incorrectly implied that Anson had the only previous three-home-run performance in a single game. There were at least two others, being Williamson and Manning, both in 1884 along with Anson.

The Orr performance was on June 12, 1885, against the St. Louis Browns at the Polo Grounds. The New York Times reported the game as follows:

The 1,500 persons who attended the Metropolitan-St. Louis game on the Polo Grounds yesterday witnessed a most remarkable feat in batting. It was performed by David Orr, the first baseman of the Mets. He went to the bat six times, and hit the ball safely on each occasion. One of his hits, a line ball to the left field, yielded him a home run; another to the centre field gave him three bases. Besides these he made two doubles and two singles—in all a total of thirteen bases.

The Larkin performance was on June 16, 1885, against the Pittsburgh Alleghenys in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Record reported it this way:

The Pittsburgh club was beaten to the tune of 14 to 1 by the Athletic nine at the Jefferson Street ground yesterday. Morris, the visiting club’s crack left-handed pitcher was batted for a total of thirtyfour bases, and Larkin, the Athletic Club’s centre fielder, equaled Orr’s great batting record. He was six times at bat and made six safe hits, with a total of thirteen. The first hit was a home run, the second a three-bagger, the third a double, and the fourth a single. Then came another double, and he completed the great record by a clean single in the ninth inning.

Figure 2. Click image to enlarge.

Both David Orr of the Metropolitans and Henry Larkin of the Athletics hit for the cycle, and had the exact same batting statistics which consequently yielded the exact same total bases.

The performance that was completely omitted from the the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper article covering the Hecker game, and at least one subsequent publication, was that of George Strief of the Athletics on June 25, 1885, in a game against the Brooklyn club in Brooklyn. The importance of the Strief game was that it superseded, from a total bases and date perspective, both the Orr and Larkin performances since Strief registered 14 bases on four triples and a double in five hits and five at bats. Not to mention the fact that the four triples was not only an AA record for the most triples in a single game by an individual, it was also a majorleague record at the time. The game write-up in Sporting Life read, “Strief and Pinckney [sic] hit safely every time they went to the bat. The former made four three baggers and a two bagger, a total of 14 hits [sic], which beats Orr’s and Larkin’s record.”

The New York Times reported as follows: “The contest at Washington Park, in Brooklyn, yesterday, between the Brooklyn and Athletic Clubs, was marked by very heavy batting. Strief, of the Athletics, led in the heavy work. He made four three-base hits and a double.”

In conclusion, the most appropriate way to emphasize the impact of the Twitchell performance on August 15, 1889, is to let the records that he set and/or equaled speak for themselves.

1. Set the NL record for most total bases by an individual in a single game with 16. (Previous NL record was 15 total bases by Dan Brouthers on September 10, 1886, with three home runs, one double, and one single in five hits.)
2. Equaled the NL record for most extra base hits by an individual in a single game with five. (George Gore, of the NL Chicago White Stockings, had five extra base hits with three doubles and two triples in five hits on July 9, 1885.)
3. Equaled the NL record for the most hits by an individual in a single game with six. (NL record was broken by Wilbert Robinson with 7 hits on June 10, 1892 {1}.)
4. At the very least equaled, if not set, the NL record for the most triples by an individual in a single game with three. (NL record was broken by Bill Joyce with four triples on May 18, 1897.)4

Honorable mention: Twitchell scored five runs which was one shy of the NL record.

BRIAN MARSHALL is an Electrical Engineering Technologist living in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, and a longtime researcher in various fields including entomology, power electronic engineering, NFL, Canadian Football, and recently MLB. Brian has written many articles, winning awards for two of them, with two baseball books on the way, one on the 1927 New York Yankees and the other on the 1897 Baltimore Orioles. Brian is a long time member of the PFRA. While growing up, Brian played many sports including foot- ball, rugby, hockey, and baseball, and participated in power lifting and arm wrestling events. He aspired to be a professional football player, but when that didn’t materialize he focused on Rugby Union and played off and on for 17 seasons in the “front row.”

Author’s notes

A progression of total bases leaders for both the NL and AA is listed in Figure 2. Team names and the spelling of player names was based on that as listed on Baseball-Reference.com.

Sources

“BOSTON VS CINCINNATI: Home Run Record Broken,” Washington Post, Thursday, May 31, 1894, 6.

“THEY HIT THE BALL: The Giant Killers Give a Wonderful Exhibition of Heavy Batting,” Cleveland Leader, Friday, August 16, 1889, page unknown.

“THEY HIT THE BALL: The Spiders Play Havoc With Kid Madden’s Curves,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Friday, August 16, 1889, 4.

“ENOUGH FOR ONE DAY: The Louisvilles Win a Game From Kilroy and Another Off Conway: Hecker Breaks the Batting Record With Three Home Runs and Three Singles: Doubling the Dose,” Louisville Courier-Journal, Monday Morning, August 16, 1886, page unknown.

“BASEBALL: The Baltimores Lose Two Games at Louisville on Sunday,” Baltimore Sun, Monday, August 16, 1886, page unknown.

“NOW WITHOUT A CATCHER: The Baltimores Lose on Sunday as Well as Any Other Day: Afternoon Game,” Baltimore American, Monday, August 16, 1886, 4.

“BASE BALL: American Association: Games Played Sunday, Aug. 18,” Sporting Life, Volume 7, Number 20, August 25, 1886, 2.

“BASE BALL: The National League: Games Played Friday, Sept. 10,” Sporting Life, Volume 7, Number 23, September 15, 1886, 4.

“A GREAT FEAT IN BATTING: Orr Hits Caruthers for Thirteen Bases,” The New York Times, Saturday, Jun 13, 1885, 2.

“PITTSBURGH OVERWHELMED: A One-Sided Slugging Game—Larkin Equals Orr’s Great Batting Record,” Philadelphia Record, Wednesday Morning, June 17, 1885, 4.

“THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION: Games Played June 25,” Sporting Life, Volume 5, Number 12, July 1, 1885, 6.

“ON THE DIAMOND FIELD,” The New York Times, Friday, Jun 26, 1885, page 2.

“BASE-BALL: Chicago 31, Buffalo 7,” Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, July 4, 1883, 7.

Bill Felber, Editor. Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century. Phoenix, AZ: Society for American Baseball Research, Inc., 2013.

John B. Foster, Editor (Compiled by Charles D. White). Spalding’s Official Base Ball Record, part of the Spalding “Red Cover” Series of Athletic Handbooks, No. 59R. New York, NY: American Sports Publishing Company, 1924.

John B. Foster, Editor (Compiled by Charles D. White). The Little Red Book: Spalding’s Official Base Ball Record, part of the Spalding’s Athletic Library, No. 59B. New York, NY: American Sports Publishing Company, 1928.

Notes

1 The day was a little cool, given the time of year, with a temperature of about 64°F, the skies were partly cloudy and there was a light breeze from the southwest.

2 There was a game played on July 3, 1883, between the Chicago White Stockings and the Buffalo Bisons in which Chicago registered 32 hits, including 16 extra base hits, 14 of which were doubles, and 50 total bases.

3 The four consecutive batters that were walked by Bakely were Brouthers, Johnston, Quinn, and Smith which forced in a run and the batter that was hit by Bakely was Ganzel which forced in another run.

4 Regarding the three triples, it may have been the NL record at the time. I was unable to find a reference that categorically stated when the single game record for triples by an individual was established prior to the Joyce performance.

Hilda Chester and her famous cowbell (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

The New York Yankees have their Bleacher Creatures. The crosstown Mets had Karl “Sign Man of Shea” Ehrhardt, while “Megaphone Lolly” Hopkins was the super-fan of the Boston Red Sox and Braves. Cleveland Indians, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, and Baltimore Orioles rooters have respectively included John “The Drummer” Adams, Ronnie “Woo Woo” Wickers, Patsy “The Human Earache” O’Toole, and “Wild Bill” Hagy. Then there are the Brooklyn Dodgers, whose off-the-field attractions included their Sym-Phony, Eddie Bottan and his police whistle—and Hilda Chester and her cowbell.

Hilda, otherwise known as “Howlin’ Hilda,” was a product of the outer-borough “woiking” classes: a dees-dem-dose, toidy-toid-‘n’-toid Brooklynite. Granted, when interviewed, she was capable of using the King’s English. More often, however, her responses were pure Brooklynese. She criticized one-and-all by pronouncing, “Eatcha heart out, ya bum,” and identified herself by declaring, “You know me. Hilda wit da bell. Ain’t it t’rillin’?” And she is as much a part of Dodgers lore as Uncle Robbie and Jackie Robinson, Pistol Pete, Pee Wee, and “Wait ‘til next year.” “I absolutely positively remember Hilda Chester because I often sat near her in the Ebbets Field bleachers,” recalled Murray Polner, the author of Branch Rickey: A Biography. “Brooklyn Dodger fans all recognized her cowbell and booming voice.” (Polner added: “There was another uber-fan who would scream, ‘Cookeee’—for Lavagetto.”)1

Hilda’s reputation even transcends the Borough of Churches. Bums author Peter Golenbock labeled this “plump, pink-faced woman with a mop of stringy gray hair” the “most famous of the Dodger fans—perhaps the most famous fan in baseball history,”2 while Bill Gallo of the New York Daily News called her “the most loyal and greatest fan to pass through the turnstiles of the Flatbush ballpark.”3 The Los Angeles Times cited her as “perhaps the greatest heckler of all time” who would “scream like a fishmonger at players and managers, or lead fans in snake dances through the aisles.”4 Seventy years earlier, The Sporting News had christened her “the undisputed Queen of the Bleachers, the Spirit of Brooklyn, the Bell of Ebbets Field, and we do mean Bell.”5

Despite these accolades, little is known about Hilda Chester outside of baseball—and this was her preference. While piecing together the facts of her life, it becomes apparent that she was the product of a hardscrabble youth and young adulthood, one that she steadfastly refused to acknowledge. Writer Thomas Oliphant, whose parents got to know Hilda in the Brooklyn ball yard, described her background as “truly the stuff of legend, much of it unverifiable…. My father…told me that behind her raucous behavior was a tough, often sad life, but that she was warm and decent under a very gruff exterior.”6 What is certain, however, is that whatever joy Hilda took from life came from her obsessive love of sports—and especially her devotion to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

So little is known about Hilda that the place of her birth cannot be confirmed. According to the United States Social Security Death Index, she was born on September 1, 1897.7 No location is listed; most sources cite her birthplace as Brooklyn, but this may be conjecture given her identity as a Dodgers fanatic. More than likely, Hilda was born and raised on the East Side of Manhattan, but no one knows the identities of her parents or the circumstances under which she settled in Brooklyn.8 In fact, in 1945 Hilda was queried as to what brought her to Brooklyn. “I liked da climate!” was her sarcastic response.9

What is certain is that Hilda was a product of urban poverty. “Home was never like this…,” she noted in a 1943 interview in The Sporting News. “I haven’t had a happy life. The Dodgers have been the one bright spot. I do not think I would want to go on without them.” The article observed, “Nothing Hilda does startles [the Brooklyn players] any more. She is one of the family.” Tellingly, the paper also reported, “Any further efforts to inquire into Hilda’s early history meet a polite ‘Skip it!’ And when Hilda says ‘Skip it,’ she means it.”10

Reportedly, Hilda played ball in her youth. “As a young girl she was willing to sock any boy who wouldn’t let her play on the baseball teams…,” noted journalist Margaret Case Harriman.11 For a while, she was an outfielder for the New York Bloomer Girls and she hoped to one day either make the majors or establish a women’s softball league. But this was not to be, and so she transformed herself into a rabid Brooklyn Dodgers booster. The story goes that, when Hilda was still in her teens, she would hang around the offices of the Brooklyn Chronicle in order to be the first to learn of the Dodgers’ on-field fate.

Various sources note that Hilda was married at one time but that her husband had passed away. A daughter, Beatrice, was a product of their union, and the child also had baseball in her blood. As “Bea Chester,” she played briefly in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. In 1943 she was with the South Bend Blue Sox, where she was the backup third baseman, appearing in 18 games and hitting .190. The following season she joined the Rockford Peaches, where she made it into 11 games. Her batting average in 42 at bats was .214.12

While playing for the Blue Sox, recalled Lucella MacLean Ross, “I had two different roommates. One was Betty McFadden, and the other was Bea Chester. She’s a lady they have never traced as an All-American girl. Her mother was quite famous.… they used to call her ‘Hilda the Bell-Ringer.’ Her name was Hilda Chester.”13

After the 1945 campaign, Bea “retired” as a professional ballplayer. In 1948 columnist Dan Parker reported that Hilda “is a grandma now and has decided to bring up young Stephen as a jockey instead of a Dodger shortstop.”14

The AAGPBL website features a photo of Bea but also reports, “This player has not been located. We have no additional information.” However, the young woman in the picture bears a marked resemblance to the photo of a Beatrice Chester that appears in the June 1939 yearbook of Thomas Jefferson High School, located in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Are the two one and the same? It certainly seems so. For one thing, this Beatrice Chester is cited as her school’s “Class Athlete.” She is dubbed “the ‘he-man’ of girls’ sports” who “bowls, plays ping pong…She possesses letters in tennis, volley ball, basketball, baseball, hockey, shuffleboard, deck tennis, badminton…she has won a trophy at Manhattan Beach for the hundred yard dash, the running broad jump, and in baseball and basketball throw.”15 (In 1945, Hilda admitted to Margaret Case Harriman that Beatrice was a “very good soft-ball player.” Harriman asked her where her daughter played. Hilda did not cite the AAGPBL. Instead, she “hastily” responded, “Oh, up at that school she don’t go to no more.”16)

Most telling of all, the Jefferson yearbook notes, “To relieve the monotony of winning awards, Beatrice plays the mandolin and banjo.” On two occasions, a younger musically-inclined Beatrice Chester was cited in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reportage of events sponsored by the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum. In February 1932, the paper covered “an afternoon entertainment staged by the boys and girls who live in the institution.” One was Beatrice Chester, who performed a mandolin solo.17 Then in December 1933, at an event sponsored by the asylum’s women’s auxiliary, Beatrice “played several selections on a mandolin…”18

What emerges here is that Hilda and Beatrice were Jewish, and Beatrice was a “half-orphan:” a child with one parent, but that parent was incapable of looking after her. Observed Montrose Morris, a historian of Brooklyn neighborhoods, “By 1933, during the Great Depression, the [asylum] estimated that 65% of their children had parents, but the parents were too poor to take care of them.”19

Given her lack of finances, one cannot begin to calculate how many Dodgers games Hilda saw during this period, nor can it be determined exactly when she became an Ebbets Field habitué. The Sporting News reported that she began regularly attending games “when a doctor told her to get out in the sunshine and exercise an arm affected by rheumatism.”20 It was not until the late 1930s, however, that Hilda was a conspicuous Ebbets Field presence. That was when Larry MacPhail, the Dodgers’ new president and general manager, inaugurated Ladies’ Day in the ballyard; one afternoon each week, for the price of a dime, women could file into the bleachers. “The price was right,” Hilda recalled years later. “I used to come to the park every Ladies’ Day. I was like any other ordinary fan. Then I started to get bored…,” and this resulted in her transformation from one of the anonymous masses into a uniquely colorful Dodgers devotee.21

Additionally, Hilda had long been unable to secure steady employment. But then the Harry M. Stevens concessionaire hired her to bag peanuts before sporting events; her job was to remove the peanuts from their 50-pound sacks and place them into the smaller bags that would be sold to fans. When she wasn’t redistributing peanuts, she could be found selling hot dogs for Stevens at New York-area racetracks, a job she kept for decades. And she relished her employment. “They’re all so good to Hilda,” she observed. “When you got no mother, no father, it’s nice to have a boss that treats you nice.”22

On game days in Brooklyn, Hilda would grab a spot at the Dodgers players’ entrance and greet them upon their arrival. She then would make her way to her seat in the center field bleachers where she loudly yelled at the players, her booming voice echoing throughout the stadium. After the game, she would situate herself along the runway beneath the stands that led to the team’s locker room and either applaud or console her boys, depending upon the final score.

Her employment with Stevens aside, sportswriters began providing Hilda with passes, which further enabled her to mark her Ebbets Field turf. Initially, she preferred the cheap seats to the grandstand. “What, go down there and sit with the shareholders?” she once quipped, “And leave these fine friends up here…. All my friends (are) here. They all know me! They save my seat for me while I am checking the boys in every day. Leave them? Never.”23 She added, “There are the real fans. Y’can bang the bell all y’darn please. The 55-centers don’t fuss so much about a little noise.”24

Hilda was not exclusively a baseball devotee. During the offseason, she made her way to Madison Square Garden to root for the New York Rangers, and she exhibited the same hardnosed devotion to the hockey team as she displayed in Brooklyn. On February 27, 1943, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle printed the following Hilda query: “Just a few lines to let you know I couldn’t wait for today’s Eagle to see what kind of writeup you gave the Rangers last night after that game with Detroit. I think it’s a rotten shame the way those referees treat our Rangers. I thought it was only in baseball they play dirty. Now I think it’s worse in hockey. How come?”25 Nonetheless, Ebbets Field and its environs were her preferred home-away-from-home. Hilda and her daughter were occasionally observed knocking down pins at Freddie Fitzsimmons’s bowling alley, located on Empire Boulevard across the street from the field.26

Various stories chart the manner in which Hilda expanded her repertoire from voice to cowbell. The most commonly reported is directly related to a heart attack she suffered in the 1930s. Her doctor eventually ordered her to cease bellowing at ballplayers, which led to her banging a frying pan with an iron ladle. They were replaced by a brass cowbell, which reportedly was a gift from the Dodgers’ players in the late 1930s. She also was noted for waving a homemade placard for one and all to see. On it was an inscription: “Hilda Is Here.”

After suffering a second heart attack in August 1941, Hilda found herself confined to Brooklyn’s Jewish Hospital. “The bleacher fans have taken on a subdued atmosphere since the absence of the bell-ringing Hilda,” reported the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “but she sends them all her best regards and urges them ‘to keep their thumbs up and chins out and we’ll clean up the league’.” While being prepared for a medical procedure, Hilda pinned a Dodgers emblem to her hospital gown and asked if she could hold onto a Brooklyn Daily Eagle clipping of Dixie Walker and Pete Reiser.27 Her health status was covered in the media, with the paper running a photo of a smiling Hilda, holding what presumably was the Walker-Reiser clipping, above the following caption: “Howlin’ Hilda Misses Dodgers: From a bed in Jewish Hospital Hilda Chester, popular bell-ringing bleacherite, roots for her faithful Dodgers to bring home the bacon.”28

After being bedridden for two weeks, Hilda announced that she was planning to leave the hospital and make her way to Ebbets Field for a game against the rival New York Giants. “I will be calm,” she told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “Oh, yes. I have to be calm. But—sure, I’ll take my bell along, just for luck. And will I ring it when our boys show them Giants how to play ball? Sure, I will, just for luck. And, oh yes, I guess I’ll cheer a little, too, for Leo [Durocher] and Dixie [Walker] and the rest of the boys.”29 So against doctors’ orders, Hilda returned to Ebbets Field because, as she explained, her boys “needed me.”30

While hospitalized, Hilda had been visited by no less a personage than Durocher, who then was the Bums’ skipper. It was for good reason, then, that Durocher was a Hilda favorite. After the 1942 season, scuttlebutt had it that the Dodgers were about to fire Leo the Lip. “[W]hat’s all this noise going on about not re-signing Leo Durocher N.L. best Mgr., again in 1943,” Hilda wrote the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “You know, I know that we all know whom we have but who knows what we will get. For the past two seasons Leo did a wonderful job and for that reason must the Dodgers get a new Mgr.” The missive was signed “HILDA CHESTER, 100% real loyal Dodger bleacher rooter.” Her mailing address was 20 DeKalb Avenue in downtown Brooklyn.31

During the 1945 campaign, The Lip faced a felonious assault charge for allegedly donning brass knuckles and helping to beat up John Christian, a medically-discharged veteran. Hilda immediately came to Leo’s defense. “The pernt is this: Christian had been pickin’ on nearly all the Dodger players for more’n a month—with a verce like a foghorn,” she declared. “He shouldn’t been usin’ langwidge that shocked the ladies.”32 In court, Hilda was called to the witness stand and promptly perjured herself, claiming that Christian had called her a “cocksucker”—and the manager merely was defending her honor.

By this time, Hilda occasionally accompanied the team on short road trips; “I’m travelin’ right along in da train wit da boys,” she declared in 1945. “Ain’t it t’rillin’?”33 During the war years, she also appeared at the team’s temporary spring training site at Bear Mountain in upstate New York. “Close to 500 watched the Dodgers in action on the Sabbath,” reported the Brooklyn Daily Eagle during spring training in 1943. “A sizeable delegation of Brooklyn fans were headed by Milton Berle, the comic, and Hilda Chester, the cowbell girl.”34

Hilda was by then a semi-celebrity who was synonymous with the Dodgers brand, and who was cited in the same sentence as big-name entertainers. New York Post columnist Jerry Mitchell dubbed her “the Scarlett O’Hara of Ebbets Field,” and her name even occasionally appeared in game coverage.35 “Whether it was Durocher, Charley Dressen, Johnny Corriden or Hilda Chester, someone was responsible for a lot of wild masterminding in a wild and at times fantastic game,” wrote The New York Times Louis Effrat, reporting on the Dodgers’ tenth-inning victory over the Boston Braves in August 1944.36

And certainly, Hilda reveled in her fame. “I notice in [your] Sunday magazine section you gave me a little plug,” she wrote Times columnist Arthur Daley. After thanking him, she added, “For heaven’s sake, don’t call me a character.” She signed the missive “Hilda Chester, The Famous One.”37

It was around this time that Hilda went Hollywood. Whistling in Brooklyn (1943), an MGM comedy, stars Red Skelton as “The Fox,” a popular radio sleuth who is a prime suspect in a series of murders. He is chased into Brooklyn and winds up at Ebbets Field, where the Dodgers are playing an exhibition with the Battling Beavers, a House of David-style nine. “The Fox” dons a fake beard and impersonates “Gumbatz,” the Beavers’ starting pitcher, in a sequence that features such real-life Dodgers as Leo Durocher, Billy Herman, Arky Vaughan, Ducky Medwick, and Dolph Camilli.

As Herman comes up to bat, a female fan is shown on-camera and yells out what is best translated as: “Will ya get it wound up son of a seven, you Gumbatz.” Could it be? Yes, it’s none other than Hilda Chester. (“Beware, Hollywood!” observed columnist Alice Hughes in the Reading Daily Eagle. “Hilda Chester, most famous rooter of our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, has been playing a bit in [the] Red Skelton movie, ‘Whistling in Brooklyn,’ some of it filmed in the Dodgers’ ball park—so look out Hedy Lamarr and Greer Garson!”)38

Additionally, Brooklyn, I Love You (1946), a Paramount Pictures short highlighting the Dodgers’ 1946 season, features such Brooklyn stalwarts as Durocher, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Reiser, Eddie Stanky, Red Barber—and Hilda. A Hilda-ish fan, played by character actress Phyllis Kennedy, appears in several scenes in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), the first “42” biopic; the Hilda-inspired Sadie Sutton, a gong-beating fan, is one of the minor characters in The Natural, Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel. Around this time, Hilda began popping up on radio and TV shows. For example, on April 19, 1950, she guested on a This Is Your Life radio tribute to umpire Beans Reardon. Among those appearing on the July 23, 1956, edition of Tonight!, with Morey Amsterdam substituting for host Steve Allen, were “Diahann Carroll, vocalist,” “Oscar Peterson, jazz pianist,” and “Hilda Chester, Dodger fan.” Then on March 7, 1957, Hilda guested on Mike Wallace’s Night Beat interview program. Her fellow interviewee was Gerald M. Loeb, a founding partner of E.F. Hutton & Co.

Across the years, Hilda formed warm personal relationships with players. In 1943, The Sporting News reported that “Brooklyn’s No. 1 rooter…always remembers the Dodgers’ birthday with cards, visits them in hospitals when they’re ill or injured and consoles them in their defeats.”39 Noted Dixie Walker: “She never forgets a birthday. She sends us the nicest cards you ever saw, on all important occasions. I think she’s wonderful.”40 Hilda the super-fan even had kind words for Dodgers’ management. Of Branch Rickey, she observed: “Anything the boss does, he knows what he’s doin’.” But clearly, Leo the Lip was her favorite. “They don’t come any better in my book,” she declared.41

On one occasion, in a well-reported anecdote, Hilda actually affected the outcome of a game. Whitlow Wyatt was the Dodgers’ starting pitcher. It was the top of the seventh inning; the year was either 1941 or 1942. The story goes that, as center fielder Pete Reiser took his place in the field, Hilda handed him a note and instructed him to deliver it to Leo Durocher. Upon returning to the bench, Reiser gave it to his manager—and Durocher assumed that the missive was from Larry MacPhail. It read: “Get [Dodgers reliever Hugh] Casey hot. Wyatt’s losing it.” Upon taking the hill, Wyatt surrendered a hit and Durocher promptly replaced him with Casey, who almost lost the game. An irate Durocher berated Reiser for handing him the note without explaining that it was from Hilda rather than MacPhail.

(As the years passed, different versions of the story were cited. For example, as early as 1943, The Sporting News reported that Hilda had written: “Better get somebody warmed up, Casey is losing his stuff out there.”42 In a 1953 Brooklyn Daily Eagle column, Tommy Holmes—after observing that “in 1941, [Hilda] was the unchallenged dream boat of the cheap seats”—recalled that she had written: “[Luke] Hamlin seems to be losing his stuff—better get Casey warmed up.”43 Then in 1956, Reiser claimed that the Dodgers’ starting pitcher that day was Curt Davis, rather than Wyatt.44 But the essence of the tale remains unchanged.)

During the 1943 campaign, after the Dodgers dropped their ninth game in a row, Tommy Holmes observed, “When nobody else loves the Dodgers, Hilda Chester will…”45 Perhaps Holmes was a bit optimistic. Just before the 1947 season, Hilda abruptly switched her allegiance to the New York Yankees. It was noted in The Sporting News that her “feelings have been hurt by certain persons in the [Dodgers] business office. It seems Hilda wrote in for her customary seat, but got a bill for $24.50, instead. She angrily denied the presence of Laraine Day [the Hollywood actress who was Durocher’s wife at the time] had anything to do with it. ‘Laraine?’ she said. ‘That’s Leo’s headache’.”46 Queried Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist George Currie, “[W]hat is Ebbets Field ever going to be again, without her cowbell?”47

But Hilda never could become a true-blue American League devotee. Later that season, she and her “Hilda Is Here” banner began inhabiting the Polo Grounds; by the following year, the New York Giants had become her team of choice, in part because she claimed to have had difficulty obtaining 1947 World Series tickets, but also because, midway through the campaign, her favorite baseball personality left his Ebbets Field managerial post for the vacated one in Coogan’s Bluff. The Sporting News published a photo of Hilda and an unidentified female fan holding a large sign with “Leo Durocher” on it. In responding to a question about her health, Hilda explained, “I hardly ever get pains now, except for what they done to my Leo.”48

A statue of Hilda Chester now stands in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

All was soon forgiven, however, and Hilda returned to her outfield perch at Ebbets Field. In fact, she was presented with a lifetime pass to the Flatbush grandstand; eventually, in a departure from her loyalty to the center-field denizens, she was given a reserved seat near the visitors’ dugout. In 1950 she was asked if she ever received free Ebbets tickets. “Free tickets!” she bellowed. “I never accepted free tickets. They always give me complementaries.”49

The cowbell was not the only gift to Hilda from her Brooklyn “boys.” In August 1943 she was presented with a silver bracelet that featured her first name across the band and a small baseball dangling from the chain. “Was Hilda the happiest woman in Brooklyn last night?” queried The New York Times. “Silly question!”50 In August 1949, the Dodgers awarded her a charm bracelet for her “loyalty” as the team’s number one fan. On Mother’s Day 1953, after she dyed her hair “a flaming red,” team owner Walter O’Malley—in a pleasant mood because the Dodgers were completing a winning home stand and had just bested the Philadelphia Phillies—had a florist deliver to her a large bouquet with a note inscribed, “To Brooklyn’s newest redheaded mother.” The Sporting News reported: “Long after the game Hilda was still outside Ebbets Field, displaying her flowers to all and sundry.”51 In 1955, the Dodgers announced their all-time all-star team, as determined by fan vote. A ceremony was held at Ebbets Field on August 14. Various Dodgers who were present and in the stands or dugouts were acknowledged. They included Billy Herman, Leon Cadore, Otto Miller, Arthur Dede, Gus Getz, and one non-ballplayer: Hilda Chester.

By the 1950s, Hilda’s mere presence at Ebbets Field was enough to spur on the Dodgers. But she still sporadically employed her lungpower. On one occasion, she yelled to a young Dodgers broadcaster, “I love you Vin Scully!” Apparently, a mortified Scully did not respond, and her follow-up line to him was, “Look at me when I speak to you!”52 Meanwhile, her iconic status was acknowledged by Dodgers ballplayers. Recalled Ralph Branca: “She was better known than most of us, and if you stunk she’d let you know it.” Added Duke Snider, “She’d be in her box by the third-base dugout and keep hollering at you until you acknowledged her.” But the Duke of Flatbush admitted, “She had a great knowledge of the game and of game situations. It was her life.”53

Near the end of the 1955 season, The Sporting News reported that “Dodgers players, headed by Pee Wee Reese (who else?), gave Hilda a portable radio… Now Hilda can tune in on the Bums, wherever they may be.”54 However, “wherever they may be” would soon be a long way from Brooklyn, as it was announced that the team would be abandoning the Borough of Churches and heading west, to relocate in Los Angeles.

Hilda, like all Brooklyn diehards, was furious. At first, she was in denial about the situation. “The Dodgers ain’t gonna move to Los Angeles,” she declared in March 1957. “I saw some games in Los Angeles a few years back. Why, the place was like a morgue…no rootin’…no cheerin’…how are the Bums gonna feel at home there?”55 As the days turned to months, though, it became clear that the Dodgers’ new anthem would be “California, Here I Come.” Writing in the Los Angeles Times in July, Jeane Hoffman declared, “If you want one reporter’s opinion, our guess is that if L.A. comes up with what O’Malley wants, the city has got him—even if Brooklyn threw in the Gowanus River and Hilda Chester to try and keep him there.”56

Of course, the Dodgers did leave after the 1957 season. During their inaugural campaign in Los Angeles, the closest they got to Brooklyn was Philadelphia, when they played the Phillies—and Hilda pronounced that she “wouldn’t be caught dead” there.57 In June 1958, Dick Young quoted her from her perch selling hot dogs at one of the New York racetracks: “You oughta hear how the horseplayers talk. They hate O’Malley.”58

In 1960, upon the razing of Ebbets Field, Hilda and five members of the Dodger Sym-Phony appeared on Be Our Guest, a short-lived CBS-TV program. (The other guests included Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine, and Phil Silvers Show regulars Maurice “Doberman” Gosfield and Harvey Lembeck.) Hilda joined the Sym-Phony in performing a number, to the tune of “Give My Regards to Broadway,” which included a revised lyric: “Give our regards to all Dem Bums and tell O’Malley, ‘Nuts to you!’” Hilda asked host George DeWitt if the show was being broadcast in color. The answer was “black-and-white,” which displeased her because she had dyed her hair for the occasion. She and the musicians were described as being “still Dodger rooters, but only for the departed Brooklyn club.” All were given original Ebbets Field seats.59

A year later, it was announced that Hilda “will be honored as America’s No. 1 baseball fan” during ceremonies at the opening of the National Baseball Congress tournament in Wichita, Kansas.60 But then she quietly faded from view. Occasionally, her name would pop up in the media. In 1963, Dan Daniel noted that “the last I heard of Hilda was that she was employed by the Stevens brothers in their commissary department at the New York race tracks.”61 Still, she steadfastly maintained her Dodger ties. In 1969, Dixie Walker noted that he hadn’t been back to Brooklyn “for years” but was quick to add, “Ah, but last September I got a birthday card from Hilda Chester. She never misses a one.”62 Rumor had it that she no longer resided in the New York metropolitan area. “I understand she’s in retirement in Florida,” declared Dodgers super-fan Danny Perasa.63 However, Dick Young reported that “the cowbell-ringing zany of the old Dodger days” is “ill at age 71. Drop her a note at: 144–02 89th Avenue, Queens, N.Y. 14480.”64

In the early 1970s, Hilda’s address became the Park Nursing Home in Rockaway Park, Queens. Writer Neil Offen showed up at the home with the intention of interviewing her. “I’m sure she won’t want to talk, not about baseball, not about those days,” explained a nursing home employee. “She doesn’t like to talk about them anymore. She doesn’t even like to talk about them to us.” However, Offen got to speak with Hilda on the telephone. “The old days with the Brooklyn Dodgers, no, that’s out,” she insisted. She noted that there was “no particular reason” for her reluctance to reminisce, but she quickly added, “It’s all over, that’s it. That’s the only reason. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry. But it’s all over. That’s it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”65

Hilda Chester was 81 years old when she passed away in December 1978. Matt Rothenberg, Manager of the Giamatti Research Center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, reported that she died at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Queens and was buried in Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island, which is operated by the Hebrew Free Burial Association.

What emerges here is that, for whatever reason, Hilda’s indigent state was not addressed by any surviving family member. According to the Association’s mission statement, “When a Jewish person dies and has no family or friends to arrange for the funeral, or if the family cannot afford a funeral, we assure that the deceased is treated with respect demanded by our traditions. The deceased is buried in Mount Richmond Cemetery in Staten Island where our rabbi recites memorial prayers over the grave. Whether they die in a hospital, nursing home, or a lonely apartment, the New York area’s poorest Jews are not forgotten.”66

Various sources list Hilda’s death date as December 1. However genealogical researcher Scott Wilson reported that her fate was altogether different—albeit no less tragic. According to Wilson, she “died alone at 81 at her home at Ocean Promenade, Far Rockaway, Queens. Found December 9, with no survivors or informant, she was taken first to Queens Mortuary, then to Harry Moskowitz at 1970 Broadway, through the public administrator. Buried December 15, 1978, and a stone placed by the Hebrew Free Burial Association in the 1990s, sec. 15, row 19, grave 7, Mt. Richmond Cemetery…”67 Andrew Parver, the Association’s Director of Operations, confirmed Wilson’s reportage and noted: “It doesn’t appear that she had any relatives when she died.” He added that Hilda’s “stone was sponsored by an anonymous donor” and that “our cemetery chaplain has a vague recollection of someone visiting the gravesite more than 15 years ago.”68

At her passing, Hilda was the definition of a has-been luminary—and her demise went unreported in the New York media. But in subsequent years, her memory has come alive in the hearts of savvy baseball aficionados. Events sponsored by The Baseball Reliquary, which was founded in 1996 and describes itself as “a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through the context of baseball history,” begin with a ceremonial bell-ringing which pays homage to Hilda. All attendees are urged to bring their own bells and participate in the ceremony.

“It’s a great way to engage the audience and a perfect way to remember Hilda,” explained Terry Cannon, the organization’s Executive Director.

Additionally, The Reliquary hands out the Hilda Award, which recognizes distinguished service to the game by a baseball fan. According to Cannon, the prize itself is “a beat-up old cowbell…encased and mounted in a Plexiglas box with an engraved inscription.” But he was quick to note that, while Hilda is the Reliquary’s “unofficial symbol” and “perhaps baseball’s most famous fan,” she remains “somewhat of a mystery woman. I’m not aware of any existing family members…. Had she died today, of course, that news would have been on the front page of every paper in New York.”69

Hilda also has a presence at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, where an almost life-size fabric-machê statue of her and her cowbell, sculpted by Kay Ritter, is displayed with several other ballyard types. Hilda is all smiles as she rings her bell; affixed to her dress is a button that says: “I’LL TELL THE WORLD I’M FROM BROOKLYN N.Y.” Three years after her death, she was a character in The First, the Joel Siegel-Bob Brush-Martin Charnin Broadway musical about Jackie Robinson. And thirty-plus years after her passing, Howling Hilda (also known as Howling Hilda and the Brooklyn Dodgers), a one-person biographical musical set at the start of the Dodgers’ 1957 season, was penned by Anne Berlin and Andrew Bleckner and presented at various venues.

“I happened upon her and her story quite by accident and fell in love with her instantly,” explained Berlin. “She was one of the most colorful people I had ever read about…. She had a very musical sounding voice to me. With musicals you have to have a voice before you can tell a story. Hilda Chester was all voice—I could hear her voice clearly and thought she would make a wonderful subject for a musical.

“I think she was ahead of her time. Today her cowbells would be tweeted—pictures of her would be on Instagram. She would have a Facebook page called The Brooklyn Dodgers’ Greatest Fan. She knew how to market herself. She took an interest and love and made herself indispensable to it…. She’s coarse, abrupt, gruff, but at the same time she’s someone who can’t get enough of these guys. This was her family. She’s a product of her class, her environment, and Brooklyn. I feel the Dodgers were her family—her real family did not matter to her.”70

Hilda Chester may be long-gone, but she is not forgotten—and, if she could speak today, her response to all the hubbub surely would be: “Ain’t it t’rillin’!”

ROB EDELMAN teaches film history courses at the University at Albany. He is the author of “Great Baseball Films” and “Baseball on the Web,” and is co-author (with his wife, Audrey Kupferberg) of “Meet the Mertzes,” a double biography of I Love Lucy’s Vivian Vance and famed baseball fan William Frawley, and “Matthau: A Life.” He is a film commentator on WAMC (Northeast) Public Radio and a contributing editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. He is a frequent contributor to “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game” and has written for “Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond;” “Total Baseball;” “Baseball in the Classroom;” “Memories and Dreams;” and “NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture.” His essay on early baseball films appears on the DVD Reel “Baseball: Baseball Films from the Silent Era, 1899–1926,” and he is an interviewee on the director’s cut DVD of “The Natural.“

Acknowledgments

Audrey Kupferberg; Lois Farber; Murray Polner; Jean Hastings Ardell; Anne Berlin; Jim Gates, Matt Rothenberg, Sue MacKay, and Cassidy Lent of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum; Terry Cannon of The Baseball Reliquary; Andrew Parver, Director of Operations, Hebrew Free Burial Association; Mark Langill, Team Historian and Publications Editor, Los Angeles Dodgers.

Additional Sources

Jean Hastings Ardell. Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005.

Notes

1.Interview with Murray Polner, March 21, 2015. 

2. Peter Golenbock. Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984, 60.

3. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/duke-snider-brooklyn-dodgers-boys-summer-baseball-treasure-ebbets-field-article-1.117552.

4. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/01/sports/la-sp-erskine-20130502.

5. J.G.T. Spink. “Looping the Loops.” The Sporting News, April 22, 1943, 1.

6. Thomas Oliphant. Praying for Gil Hodges: A Memoir of the 1955 World Series and One Family’s Love of the Brooklyn Dodgers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005, 158.

7. https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535.

8. Rich Podolsky. “The Belle of the Brooklyn Dodgers.” Saratoga Summer 2003, Summer, 2003.

9. Margaret Case Harriman. “The Belle of the Brooklyn Dodgers.” Good Housekeeping, October 1945, 257.

10.Spink, 1.

11.Harriman, 256.

12.http://www.aagpbl.org/index.cfm/profiles/chester-bea/213.

13.Jim Sargent. We Were the All-American Girls: Interviews with Players of the AAGPBL, 1943–1954. Jefferson, North Carolina, MacFarland & Company, 2013, 105.

14.Dan Parker. “The Broadway Bugle.” Montreal Gazette, May 24, 1948, 15.

15.Mildred Danenhirsch. “The Miss of Tomorrow.” Thomas Jefferson High School Yearbook, June, 1939, 75–76.

16.Harriman, 19.

17.“Child Box Fund Brings $2,000 to Hebrew Orphans.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 23, 1932, 6.

18.“Asylum Given Substantial Aid By Auxiliary. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 14, 1933, 22.

19.http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2012/09/walkabout-saving-abrahams-children.

20.“Hilda Clings to Lip, Clangs for Giants.” The Sporting News, August 18, 1948, 14.

21.Louis Effrat. “Whatever Hilda Wants, Hilda Gets in Brooklyn.” The New York Times, September 3, 1955, 10.

22.Carl E. Prince. Brooklyn’s Dodgers: The Bums, the Borough, and the Best of Baseball: 1947–1957. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, 89.

23.Spink, 11.

24.Sam Davis. “No Fair Weather Fans in Flatbush, and When You Hear the Gong, It’s Hilda Chester Time at Ebbets Field.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September 28, 1943, 6.

25.“Sincerely Yours: Ralph Trost Answers the Mail.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 27, 1943, 9.

26.Hugh Fullerton, Jr. “Sports Roundup.” The Gettysburg Times, February 3, 1944, 3.

27.“Brooks’ No. 1 Fem Fan ‘Benched’ By Illness.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 21, 1941, 1.

28. http://www.brooklynvisualheritage.org/howlin-hilda-misses-dodgers.

29. “It’s All Over, Terry, Our Ace Feminine Fan Is On the Mend.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 3, 1941, 3.

30. “Defies Doctors’ Orders to See Dodger Games.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 8, 1941, 1.

31. “Sincerely Yours: Ralph Trost Answers the Mail.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 21, 1942, 9.

32. Jack Cuddy. “Leo’s Alleged Lawsuit Divides Brooklyn Fans.” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1945, 10.

33. Harriman, 258.

34. “Flock Is Getting Into Shape Fast.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 22, 1943, 9.

35. Jerry Mitchell. Sports on Parade. New York Post, January 29, 1943, 41.

36. Louis Effrat. “Dodgers Set Back Braves in 10th, 8–7.” The New York Times, August 6, 1944, S1.

37. Arthur Daley, “Sports of the Times: Short Shots in Sundry Directions.” The New York Times, June 12, 1947, 34.

38. Alice Hughes. “A Woman’s New York.” Reading Daily Eagle, April 29, 1943, 14.

39. Oscar Ruhl, “Purely Personal.” The Sporting News, August 12, 1943, 9.

40. Spink, 11.

41. Davis, 6.

42. Spink, 11.

43. Tommy Holmes. “Daze and Knights.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 22, 1953, 9.

44. “‘McPhail’s Order’ for Leo Proved to Be Work of Hilda.” The Sporting News, April 4, 1956, 16.

45. Tommy Holmes. “Dodgers Drop 9th Straight, 7 to 4.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 8, 1943, 24.

46. Paul Gould. “Even Hilda Quits Dodgers, shifts to Yankee Stadium.” The Sporting News, April 9, 1947, 20.

47. “George Currie’s Brooklyn. Brooklyn Daily Eagle. April 9, 1947, 3.

48. “Hilda Clings to Lip, Clangs for Giants,” 14.

49. Oscar Ruhl. “From the Ruhl Book.” The Sporting News, May 3, 1950, 21.

50. Roscoe McGowen. “Dodgers Overcome By Braves, 7 to 4; Defeat 9th in Row.” The New York Times, August 8, 1943, S1.

51. (Roscoe) McGowen, “Hilda, Now Redhead, Gets Big Bouquet From O’Malley.” The Sporting News, May 20, 1953, 11.

52. http://lasordaslair.com/2012/01/21/dodgers-in-timehowlin-hilda-chester.

53. Podolsky.

54. Roscoe McGowen. “It Was 25-Man Job,’ says Smokey, Dodging Orchids.” The Sporting News, September 14, 1955, 5.

55. “Hilda Claims Bums to Stay.” Toledo Blade, March 8, 1957, 31.

56. Jeane Hoffman. “Soul of Irish Charm: O’Malley Adopts ‘Wait and See’ Policy in Face of N.Y. Headlines.” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1957, C-6.

57. Gay Talese. “Brooklyn Is Trying Hard to Forget Dodgers and Baseball.” The New York Times, May 18, 1958, S3.

58. Dick Young. “Clubhouse Confidential.” The Sporting News, June 18, 1958, 19.

59. “Hilda and Sym-Phoney [sic] Band Bid Adieu to Ebbets Field.” The Sporting News, February 17, 1960, 27.

60. “Hilda Chester to Be Cited as Top Fan at NBC Tournament.” The Sporting News, February 15, 1961, 21.

61. Dan Daniel. Mary, Lollie, Hilda—Loudest Fans in Stands.” The Sporting News, February 2, 1963, 34.

62. John Wiebusch. “Dixie…Hilda…Leo…Shades of Daffy Dodgers.” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1969, F1.

63. Michael T. Kaufman. “For the Faithful, There Will Never Be a Coda to the Sym-Phony of the Brooklyn Dodgers.” The New York Times, April 11, 1971, 77.

64. Dick Young. “Young Ideas.” The Sporting News, February 15, 1969, 14.

65. Neil Offen. God Save the Players. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1974, 96–97.

66. http://www.hebrewfreeburial.org/what-we-do.

67. Scott Wilson. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of Over 10,000 Famous Persons. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2007, 134.

68. Interview with Andrew Parver, April 22, 2015.

69. Interview with Terry Cannon, March 24, 2015.

70. Interview with Anne Berlin, March 12, 2015.

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:1
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,2
And then when Cooney3 died at first, and Barrows4 did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair.5
The rest Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, “If only Casey6 could but get a whack at that—
We’d put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.”7

But Flynn8 preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,9
And the former was a lulu,10 while the latter was a fake;11
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single,12 to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;13
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.14

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;15
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.16

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile lit Casey’s face.17
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;18
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,19
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—20
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey.21 “Strike one!” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted someone on the stand;22
And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;23
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, “Strike two!”24

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered “Fraud!”
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold,25 they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat26 upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.27

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,28
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;29
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.30

RUSSELL FRANK’s baseball career began in the New York City suburbs, where he was a Mickey Mantle worshiper and a no-field, no-hit second baseman/right fielder for Milk Maid Ice Cream, a Peewee League team. It ended 25 years later in Sonora, California, with Live Theatre, a slow-pitch softball team. While playing third base, he failed to get his glove up fast enough to catch a line drive, which caught him below his left eye, breaking the zygomatic arch. Asked by a concerned teammate if he knew his own name, the prostrate Frank said, “Well, it isn’t Brooks Robinson.” He has since retreated to the safety of the Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Journalism. And yes, he’s still a Yankees fan.

Notes

1923 Detroit Tigers. Standing left to right: Bob Fothergill, Johnny Bassler, Bobby Veach, Larry Woodall, Fred Haney, Harry Heilmann, Ty Cobb.

In 2011, I found a black and white photograph taken in 1923. The picture included six members of the Detroit Tigers standing in front of a dugout with their temperamental skipper, Mr. Cobb. This pesky photo led me into a journey that would permanently affect my cross-reference methods. I had reviewed hundreds of pictures of the 1922 Tigers, the year Johnson began his major league career.

In a 1923 photo, the first fellow I spotted on the left was Bob “Fatty” Fothergill. Bob, a relief outfielder, was also signed in 1922 and I had previously examined several images from his rookie year. Don’t assume that his nickname “Fatty” assisted my identification. The hefty gentleman’s figure was not visible—the edge of the photograph trimmed at his neck. Fothergill’s tired-eyed stare was the first feature I recognized. But, just to be sure, I cross-referenced the photo with Bob’s picture on his profile page at Baseball-Reference.com. His wearyeyed glance stared back at me, verifying my guess.

The man standing to Fothergill’s right was catcher Johnny Bassler. The only man smarter than the weather in the picture, Bassler wore a wool cardigan sweater with a calligraphy “D” on his chest. Johnny had facial features that were simple to remember. Baseball-Reference confirmed my memory.

The third man in the row was another no-brainer. The angry gape of Bobby Veach had frightened me when I initially started my research of the Tigers from the 1920s. Bobby’s face was occupied by a pair of sharp and icy eyebrows that would make any player second guess themselves before confronting him. On reviewing his career, I learned that his menacing eyebrows did not match his upbeat demeanor. I read one story that Cobb had purposely instructed a player to taunt Veach when he stepped into the batter’s box. Veach, known to have a friendly conversation with the opposing team’s catcher before the pitch crossed the plate, had infuriated Cobb (who was not one to extend any courtesy to his opponents).

Veach occupied Detroit’s left field from 1912 until 1923. This photograph captured one of the last days of Veach dressed in Detroit duds. The man standing to the right of Bobby Veach was a gentlemen who stuck out in more ways than one. Larry Woodall was born with the physical feature of ears that I would classify as “cab doors,” like a small fan on both sides of his face.

The fifth man in the lineup was another 1922 rookie named Fred Haney. I noted Haney as the only third baseman and the shortest man in the picture. Just shy of five-foot-six, Fred’s identity was confirmed by Baseball-Reference.com. I ran into a problem when I came to the sixth man in the lineup. Towering over Haney by seven inches stood Harry Heilmann. I recalled other photos I had seen of this legendary hitter. He reminded me of today’s popular actor Russell Crowe. Crowe, known for his roles as James J. Braddock in the 2005 motion picture, Cinderella Man, and Maximus Meridius in the 2000 film, Gladiator, could have been Harry Heilmann’s relative. 

Harry Heilmann (left) and Larry Woodall (right)

Worried that my interest in modern films might cloud my research judgment, I went to Baseball-Reference.com to compare Harry’s profile picture with the 1923 photo. I found Harry’s page but Harry wasn’t there. His full name and every accurate stat of his career were there. But rather than finding my expected look-a-like shot of Russell Crowe, I found a snapshot of Woodall and his cab door ears! Why was Larry on Harry’s page?

I went back to Woodall’s profile page on Baseball-Reference.com. Larry was there, accurately where he belonged. After clicking back and forth between Heilmann and Woodall, I determined two differences. On Larry’s page, his photo showed his eyes looking up. On Harry’s page, Larry’s photo showed his eyes looking right at the camera. Then I saw something else. Larry’s picture on Harry’s page was a face shot, just like the other one—but there was a distinctive white space in the upper left-hand corner of the picture. I surfed the web to collect additional pictures of both players. My opinion that Heilmann and Crowe shared similar facial features was verified. Woodall and his protruding cab doors were also verified. Then I stumbled across a baseball card printed in 1960 that made my jaw drop.

Card #65 “Harry Heilmann” from Fleer’s 1960 Baseball Greats card set.

Card #65 from the 1960 Fleer set titled “Baseball Greats” was marked “Harry Heilman.” But Heilmann’s face was not on the face of the card—it was Larry Woodall in the same pose as appeared on his Baseball-Reference page. I purchased Card #65 from an online auction. Both the front and back of the card read “Harry Heilman.” Harry’s stats were printed on the backside but Woodall’s face was undoubtedtly affixed to the front.

Fleer had colorized the original 1923 Woodall photo by adding ink blasts of pink skin tone and blots of navy blue to enhance his Detroit ball cap. Below the modernized reproduction in bold, white print, read two words: “Harry Heilmann.” Wow.

My first step to correct the error was to notify the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. I traded letters with a brilliant and helpful gentleman named Freddy Berowski. Freddy agreed with my findings and thanked me for my “keen eye for detail” along with his surprise that Card #65 had gone unnoticed for so many years.

I then contacted the web team at Baseball-Reference.com, pointing out the error, and suggesting that Harry’s Card #65 may have led the creators of Heilmann’s profile page in the wrong direction. Baseball-Reference.com immediately responded, and replaced Harry’s photo with an accurate one in July 2011.

I continued to review more photos of Harry and Larry before I contacted the Fleer Corporation. The powerhouse sports card company, founded in 1885, had been sold in 1992 to the Marvel comic book company, then to a private company, then to Upper Deck after it was declared bankrupt. As I researched Upper Deck, I found another error!

Card #DC-HC “Cobb/Heilmann” from Upper Deck’s 2005 Legendary Cuts “Dual Cuts.”

In 2001, Upper Deck had released a new baseball card series titled “Legendary Cuts.” These expensive, limited number sets featured hand cut signatures of legendary baseball players. Some sets included players’ signatures with authentic pieces of the player’s bats and uniform swatches. Others included photographs of the players set next to their genuine autographs. Upper Deck continues to issue these sets today. In 2005, Upper Deck added a dual signature card to their Legendary Cuts set. One card was titled “DC-HC,” and featured two of Detroit’s most renowned baseball legends, Ty Cobb and Harry Heilmann. Named “DC” for “Dual Cuts” and “HC” for “Heilmann/Cobb,” the card was hand numbered “1/1,” signifying that only one card (featuring the signatures of Cobb and Heilmann) existed in the set. But there was a problem.

I found no fault with the lower half of the card displaying an accurate photo of Tyrus Cobb and the original cursive of his authentic autograph. But the upper half of the card displayed Heilmann’s valid signature set next to a small, sepia and black colorized photo of Charles Lawrence “Larry” Woodall! When I found the card on an online auction website priced for $5,995, I contacted the seller about the error and the card disappeared from the Internet. I had learned long ago that error cards are worth more than their “corrected” cards. I felt as if I had tiptoed past a cat that got spooked and ran away. (On March 14, 2012, the Upper Deck Card DC-HC sold for a final private bid of $1,558.)

Card #9 “Harry Heilmann” from Panini’s 2012 National Treasures “League Leaders”

Meanwhile, I traded emails with Lyman Hardeman, the editor of the popular baseball card website “Old Cardboard.” He agreed with my observation of Fleer Card #65. More interest followed after I contacted Rich Mueller, editor of the “Sports Collector Daily” website. In late July 2011, both sites graced me with digital ink as they presented details of my detection, which was cleverly coined “The Mix-Up of Harry & Larry.” My Internet news story earned more interest a few weeks later. During my photograph review, I noticed that another baseball card company had committed several new errors. Panini America Incorporated has been in the business of sports collectibles and cards for years. In 2012, not long after my confusion between Harry & Larry was beginning to calm, Panini released their “National Treasures” baseball card series. These cards included old and recent baseball players’ autographs, personal uniform swatches, and authentic baseball bat chips. Card #9 from Panini’s 2012 National Treasures “League Leaders” set of 99 cards was titled, “Harry Heilmann” and wouldn’t you know it, Harry’s mug was missing from the face of the card, replaced by Larry’s.

Card #5 “Collins/Gehrig/Heilmann/Kamm” from Panini’s 2012 National Treasures “All Decade Quad.”

When Panini manufactured other categories titled “Legends” and “All-Decade,” Heilmann’s name and bat chips continued to be accompanied by Woodall’s image, although some Heilmann cards from the “Legends” and “All Decade” categories were printed with accurate photos of Harry and some of Larry. Altogether, of the 488 Harry Heilmann cards issued by Panini in their 2012 National Treasures set, 334 had accurate photos of Harry and 154 had pictures of Larry. I attempted to contact the Upper Deck Company and Panini America Inc. by email and snail mail in 2012, but I have not received a reply to date.

Many of the Heilmann error cards from Panini’s “National Treasures” that I had discovered and noted have been graded, authenticated, and inspected by trusted sports card grading companies. It’s amazing that two men (who look nothing alike) were confused and permanently printed, graded, and sealed in the history annals of error cards. Then I found another problem that deserved some attention.

2012 Helmar Brewing L# Cabinet Card #56: full view and close-up.

The Helmar Brewing Company, a prosperous beer franchise located in Detroit, released a set of “cabinet cards” in 2012. The owner of the company, Charles Mandel, created a successful brewing company and followed his personal passion to create old-time sports cards for today’s modern collector. Helmar cards have a unique appearance and feel in comparison to the fresh, sharp-edged cards of new players. These new “old-time” cards are purposely discolored, scraped and weathered to create an aged look. The company releases cards of old-time players like Mel Ott, Ty Cobb, and—you guessed it—Harry Heilmann.

Mandel’s company created cabinet cards, otherwise noted as “L3” cards. There are 207 cards measuring 9.5 inches tall and 4 inches wide in the 2012 set. Each features a separate player. Brilliant color and added details of branded leather and nine chips of Swarovski crystal cover the face of the card, above and below the player’s photograph. The L3 card set is amazing… and so is Card #56. I examined this card and noticed Heilmann’s name burned in the leather. Harry’s name, along with the names of 204 star players from the Detroit Tigers are listed on the back side of the card. On the face of the card, surrounded by nine sparkling crystals, is the face of a catcher who never made any prominent records in the Detroit annals. It was a face I clearly recognized. Larry Woodall was staring back at me again.

I contacted the Helmar Brewing Company in 2013 and traded emails with Charles Mandel, who apologized for creating the Heilmann error card. I purchased the card happily and added it to the other Heilmann error cards I had been collecting for the past two years. Not long after I made contact with Mr. Mandel, I received an email from Bill Wagner. Known professionally as “Da Babe” or “Babe Waxpak,” Wagner was a writer for the Scripps Howard News Service. Recognized for his writing talent and advice and enthusiasm as a sports card collector, Wagner inquired into the details behind “The Mix-Up of Harry & Larry.”

After an interesting conversation, I was honored to work with the talented gentleman shortly before he announced his retirement. In late October 2013, the details of my discovery made press ink. Bill Wagner titled the story, “Error Corrected After 90 Years.” By now I felt passionate about finding the origin of this error that had produced hundreds of cards confusing these two players since Fleer committed the initial error in 1960.

The first step of my investigation was to closely examine the details of the Woodall image used on Baseball-Reference.com and the cards issued by Fleer, Upper Deck, Panini, and Helmar. Every photo was an identical match. Each company changed the color of the image, but the shadows and physical image of Woodall remained the same, altered to conform to the setup and background of each company’s design. Some companies took a “block shot” of the Woodall image, cut from the original photograph with four edges of the original background that surrounded Larry when the shot was taken.

Other companies cropped Woodall’s image as they cut away the original background that surrounded Larry. These cut images were trimmed closely against Woodall’s face, cap, uniform and shoulders. I wanted to know the details of the “white void” I noticed in the image on Heilmann’s profile page on BaseballReference.com. I started a relentless search for the original image. I contacted libraries in Detroit and requested a search of images of Charles Woodall, Larry Woodall, and Harry Heilmann.

My digging paid off when one of my late night Internet image searches hit. ESPN.com had created a webpage on December 12, 2012, titled, “Hall of 100—Ranking All-Time Greatest MLB Players.” I found the original photo of Larry Woodall incorrectly included on Harry Heilmann’s ESPN.com webpage on which Harry was ranked as #110 in the “Honorable Mention” category. Similar to Baseball-Reference.com’s stats and details, Heilmann’s notations were correctly displayed with the wrong player’s photograph.

I took a digital snapshot of the photo used by ESPN.com and enlarged it. I immediately spotted the reason for the “white void” I had seen. It was another player’s elbow. In the background, facing the opposite direction from Woodall, a player stood on the left side of Larry with his arms and elbows resting on the top of the concrete dugout. Then I took a closer look at Fleer’s Card #65. I could vaguely see the heavily colorized and shaded section occupying the upper left corner of the card, erasing the player’s elbow from the original shot. The edge of the dugout extended from the player’s elbow behind Woodall’s head and reappeared over Larry’s right ear. Fleer could not erase the dugout edge above Larry’s ear.

The photo on ESPN, Baseball-Reference, and Fleer’s card #65 were a match. ESPN’s image added another detail that caught my eye. Their photo included a closer view of the top button of Woodall’s uniform. A metal safety pin was clearly visible, used as a makeshift button. ESPN’s photo was obviously the original photograph, with no alterations. I compared that to Fleer’s card #65, on which Woodall’s top button is fastened and nicely detailed with a round button. Fleer had cleverly drawn a bright, white button over Woodall’s safety pin. Fleer also colorized the black and white photo and attempted to blur the player’s elbow in the upper left corner. A closer look at ESPN.com’s picture revealed that the photograph was credited “AP Photo.”

1923 AP photograph of Lawrence Woodall, the original picture that started the author’s quest.

On September 11, 2013, I searched the Internet and found the website for the Associated Press. I searched through the images and found the “X” on my treasure map. APimages.com had a category titled “Harry Heilmann.” I clicked on Heilmann’s link and found three “Heilmann” photos. One was a 2010 photograph of Harry P. Heilmann, the assistant Chief Engineer of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Since my research didn’t involve Washington trains, I skipped over the details of this “Heilmann.” One, copyright number 2601010370, dated 1/1/1926 was an accurate image of the Tigers’ Harry Heilmann, kneeling with one knee down while holding himself up with a bat. The third, dated 1/1/1923, was really Charles Lawrence “Larry” Woodall, a silver pin clasped under his Adam’s apple and a clearly visible player facing away from him with relaxed elbows on top of a dugout.1 It was a great sight to see: the original photograph. It was labeled copyright number 2601010266. My eyes focused to the lower right of the photo as I examined the original chalk used to number it. I noted the handwritten digits “16” in white grease pencil on the black and white photo. Considering that this original photo could be in reverse (as many pictures are), I concluded that this number could be “91” if the photo negative was upside down. 

I had found what I had been looking for and I was thrilled.

1960 Fleer’s Baseball Greats Card #65 Photo / 1923 Original Photo of Larry Woodall (Comparison Circles: “Dugout/Ear,” “Void/Collar,” “Pin/Button,” “Fold/Chest”).

I printed the picture and drew horizontal and vertical lines over it to create a grid. I did the same with Fleer’s card #65, Upper Deck’s DC-HC, the Panini’s cards, Helmar’s card #56 and Baseball-Reference’s erroneous photo. I was able to confirm that every photo included a dark shadow “void” on the left side of Larry’s neck. This helped me to verify that all pictures were an identical match to the chalk-marked original AP photograph. Could there be a chance that AP had the original physical photograph in their archives? If they did, was it likely that the back of the photo was incorrectly labeled “Harry” instead of “Larry”? I considered the possibility that the artist responsible for taking the snapshot was the famous baseball shutterbug, Charles M. Conlon.

Conlon was known to take snapshots of players as they stood alone in a dugout. I quickly reviewed and eliminated Conlon’s competitor, Chicago sports photographer George Brace, since Brace did not begin taking baseball photos until 1929. If this was an authentic Conlon shot, why was it owned by the Associated Press? I contacted the AP and requested a copy of the picture. My offer was rejected by the AP’s contracted sales company, Replay Photos, who explained, “AP does not have the rights to sell this photo for personal use. Unfortunately Major League Baseball prevents us from having the rights to sell prints of Major League Baseball players, even for personal use.” MLB owns the photos and allows AP the rights to license and distribute them to professional publishing companies. I asked Replay Photos to inspect the original photograph and check the blank reverse side for the names Larry and Woodall, explaining in tedious detail the errors I had found. Sadly, I never received a reply. In October 2013, Bill “Waxpak” Wagner contacted Associated Press and spoke with Paul Colford, AP’s Director of Media Relations, to discuss the details of my error discovery. Colford advised Wagner, “We’re unable, so many years later, to determine how the image came to be misidentified initially. However, it is properly identified now, so that any future licensor of the photo from AP images can be confident.”2 Wagner’s interview with AP and the specifics of the errors I discovered were added to Wagner’s story: “Error Corrected After 90 Years.” I believe it’s possible that when Larry’s original shot was taken, it was marked incorrectly with the name “Harry,” and that started it all. 

Both players were with the Tigers from 1920 through 1929. They were born eight days apart in 1894. Harry was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1952. A year before he was given his baseball honor, Harry “Slug” Heilmann died in Southfield, Michigan, on July 9, 1951. Woodall passed away twelve years later on May 6, 1963, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Heilmann lived up to his handle, “Slug,” collecting 2,660 hits during his 17-year career in the major leagues. In 1923 Harry earned an astounding .4027 batting average. Larry gathered 353 hits during his decade with Detroit. Although he never made the history books for anything outstanding during his time on the major league fields, Larry Woodall’s face landed on popular baseball cards linking him with Harry Heilmann’s statistics, Heilmann’s name, and Heilmann’s honors.

When I initially discovered the error, I couldn’t help but imagine two photograph artists yelling back and forth to each other in a loud printing press office at the Fleer headquarters. Perhaps when the design of card #65 was in the process of production, one artist yelled “Harry” across the room to his co-worker—when he should have yelled “Larry.” Maybe the back of the original Woodall photograph negative has the incorrect label. No matter what the truth is, the error carried on for almost 100 years and I was more than happy to be a part of its history.

MATTHEW M. CLIFFORD is a freelance writer from the suburbs of Chicago. He joined SABR in 2011 with intentions to enhance his research abilities and literary talents to help preserve accurate facts of baseball history. Clifford has a background in law enforcement and is certified in a variety of forensic investigative techniques, all of which currently aid him with historical research and data collection. He has recorded and reported several baseball card errors and inaccuracies of player history to SABR and the research department of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Clifford has published in the SABR Biography Project and “The National Pastime.”

Notes

1 EDITOR’S NOTE: It is common practice for the AP and other historical photo collections to use “January 1” as a generic date indicating the year of the photo is known, but the exact day is not.

2 “Babe Waxpak/Sports Collectibles: Error Corrected After 90 Years,” Indiana Gazette, October 19, 2013.

The 13-year-old third baseman from Colorado, who identified his race as Hispanic American, didn’t look far from home when he named his favorite player, who also happened to be his favorite athlete and his hero: Colorado Rockies’ Carlos Gonzalez. A 14-year-old Minnesotan, who proclaimed his primary position on his select baseball squad as third base, looked to an outfielder who plays for a California team as his hero, favorite athlete and favorite ballplayer: Mike Trout. This teen listed his race as Caucasian. And the 10-year-old left fielder from Missouri, who listed his race as African American, chose Wilber “Bullet” Rogan as his favorite baseballplayer and fellow Negro Leaguer Satchel Paige as his hero.

Although they played different positions, were different ages, and hailed from different states, the three select baseball players had one thing in common: Each boy chose a hero who shared his racial or ethnic identity. Children and the people they emulate have been the focus of previous research, predominantly in the early twentieth century with a renewed interest on children’s attitudes toward those they admire. Viewers of the annual Little League World Series witness such interest anecdotally. Television broadcasts of that series typically include brief interviews with participants, where they state their names, the positions they play, and their favorite players. What these players never reveal is why they made their choices. This study delves into who select youth baseball players choose as their favorite player, favorite athlete, and hero in an attempt to discover patterns in the choices youngsters make.

Heroes provide children with role models, while giving them a way to understand their places in society.1 To fully understand the influence that heroes—and subsequently role models—have over their subordinates, one must first understand that heroes and hero-worship are concepts that have endured throughout history.

Scottish philosopher, writer, essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle contended that it was impossible to stamp out reverence for great men. Hero-worship endures, according to Carlyle, while man endures.2 Heroes have been defined as those who serve as models for personal conduct3 and those who influence through aspirations and actions.4 Heroes represent the ideal of what admirers would like to become, focusing especially on qualities they would like to develop.5

Literature Review

Michael Sullivan and Anre Venter sought to understand how and why people use the term “hero.” While attempting to determine the parameters for the term’s use, they first sought to define it. “For some, heroes are both a creation of and a service to society at large.”6 Based on the literature, they discovered that, on one level, heroes share the characteristic of being individuals placed in a public role because of some feat they performed or quality they possess. They reported a second theme among definitions of hero: the function the hero, or heroic figure, plays for those who view him or her as one. Focusing merely on the attributes and characteristics of those identified as heroic isn’t enough. Attention must also be placed on the role that individuals have when determining whether to deem someone as a hero, or heroic. For their research, the authors defined heroes as people who “possess a skill, trait, or position that inspires an individual to imitate or strive to attain goals.”7

Heroes shape a person’s self-concept and the literature is ripe with the outcomes of possessing a hero: gaining persistence when facing adversity and promoting long-term career planning. “The focus is not merely on the attributes of the heroic figure but also takes into account the role that individuals have in whether they accept a figure’s hero status.”8

The impact that heroes have on their admirers can be significant, and Sullivan and Venter found that those identified as a hero have the same effect on their admirers’ self-concept as their loved ones.9

Sullivan and Venter, while citing their investigation of the popular press, contend that although the concept of hero remains prevalent in society today, it is unclear what meaning the word conveys. “The term hero is commonly understood to be an individual who is viewed positively; but across context, the specific distinctions of who is a hero and what is heroic have differed.”10

A study of 241 French 10- and 15-year-olds and 227 Spanish youths of the same age found that the younger participants preferred heroes with collectivist qualities while the older preferred them with individualized qualities.11 The study noted that French female participants chose proximal—family and community-based— heroes more often than expected by chance, while French male participants chose this type of heroic figure less than expected. The male participants, however, chose distal heroic figures—art-science, political, film-television-video, religious, music, sport and modeling—more often than expected by chance.

Traits of exterior (outward appearance) of an athlete are worship facilitators for adolescents when choosing idols.12 A study of 1,636 students attending 13 Taiwanese high schools found that those chosen as favorite idols were more often male (65 percent) than female. In addition, 67 percent chose actors, singers or athletes as their favorite idols, while 10 percent chose family, friends, or teachers. Finally, the study revealed that most participants—regardless of gender—chose a male media star as their favorites. The conclusion was that female participants saw male media stars as a safe and convenient romantic attachment, while identification attachment resulted in male participants choosing idols who were male.

The pretext that hero choices would be confined within the boundaries of gender and the natural selection of public figures, according to the literature, cannot be generalized. Of note were studies that explored a more personal approach to hero selection and compared gender differences in hero selection.13, 14

A study of 111 boys, ages 11 to 21, suggests that because of a narrowing of time and space around boys, they see the life experiences of teachers and parents as too dated to be relevant for them. Likewise, according to the study, the gilded lifestyles of celebrities, including athletes, are thought to be alien. “This phenomenon forces boys to weigh up the positive and negative examples given by local, ‘older brother’ role models to the exclusion of more traditional figures.” Participants had little desire to follow in their father’s footsteps, thus opting away from the “historical” route to manhood.15 They also saw those who found fame and fortune, as portrayed by the media, as “glossily distant to be useful role models.”16 This mindset results in the participants looking to “older brother” figures who lived where they lived and “whose positive and negative experiences in a world that boys can recognize provide trusted clues towards the next steps they themselves might, or might not, take.”17

Shayla Holub, Marie Tisak, and David Mullins explored the gender differences in the choices children make as their heroes, the attributes of those chosen, and the characteristics shared by typical heroes. They discovered that while the majority of the girls in their study chose heroes personally known to them, boys chose personal and public figures equally often. Most boys chose male heroes, while the selections made by girls were mixed. Of note, however, the authors reported that both boys and girls collectively chose private heroes—family members, friends, teachers—more than they chose public figures.18

Gender is not the only factor that affects a youngster’s choice of hero. Racial identity is also a factor. Sports have become so racialized in the United States that affinity for a sport also means an affinity for a race.19 Thus, a youngster who favors basketball is also likely to favor and to focus on the African Americans who play it. That is, basketball belongs to African Americans.20 Baseball, on the other hand, belongs to Caucasians, as do its heroes.21 Coaches, school officials, and authority figures reinforce these stereotypes, as do parents.22, 23

Mass media also serve a major role in stereotyping sports and its heroes. While the “whiteness” of baseball is celebrated in mass media such as movies (i.e. the films Bull Durham, The Rookie, and Major League, in which the only black character practices voodoo), mass media also reinforce and commercialize the “blackness” of basketball and its heroes. Reebok and other athletic apparel companies have built basketball players such as LeBron James, Allen Iverson, and Michael Jordan into icons and more. NBA player Vince Carter was made larger than life by a soft drink company that pitted Carter, a Toronto Raptor, against another kind of raptor—a computerized velociraptor.24 Such commercial images make not only heroes of those NBA players,25 but they also become cultural currency for African American youth, because “emulation of those players was important for membership in peer groups.”26 However, such hero worship makes African American youth feel as if they are part of a cultural “in-group.”27

While much has been written generally about heroes and hero worship, children’s hero conceptions are not commonly the focus of research studies. “Parents, teachers and researchers have had growing concern that an increase in superhero cartoons for young children has negatively influenced the play and behavior of this age group.”28 Public figures don’t always serve as positive role models. “It is important to find out why children value these characters as heroes in order to better assess the influence these figures have on children.”29

Based on findings in the literature and previous research on select baseball players, the authors addressed five research questions:

• RQ #1: Are select ballplayers more likely to choose a favorite MLB player of their own race?
• RQ #2: Are select ballplayers more likely to choose a hero of their own race?
• RQ #3: Do more youth players choose proximal (private) heroes more than distal (public figures)?
• RQ #4: Are select players of one race more likely to choose a ballplayer or parent as a hero?
• RQ #5: Are younger players more likely than older players to cite a parent as a hero and less likely to cite a ballplayer as a hero?

Method

Youth select baseball players who competed in a national tournament held in June 2014 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, were the subjects of this study. Protocol stipulated by the University of Nebraska required that the researchers first approach a player’s parent or guardian about the study to receive verbal consent to approach the players. With parental or guardian consent secured, the researchers then explained their survey and its focus to potential participants.

Players who agreed to participate were asked to complete a 10-question survey. The initial five questions were biographical in nature, focusing on their age, state of residence, position most frequently played, time in years playing select baseball, and race. The second five questions focused on their preferences: whether they had a hero and, if so, who that was; whether they had a favorite athlete (of any sport) and, if so, who that was; whether they had a favorite baseball player and, if so, who that was. Additionally, participants were asked the reason for their choice of favorite player, along with their favorite sport and the sport at which they thought they were best. Participants were asked to answer the questions without parental input, but the researchers provided explanations for the questions when asked. In some situations, the researchers read the questions to participants and recorded their responses for them. The researchers opted for a more basic definition of hero than used by Sullivan and Venter: “A hero is someone you look up to.”30

Results

Of the 396 players, ages 7 to 17, who completed the survey, 306 (78 percent) identified themselves as Caucasian, 25 (6.5 percent) African American, 42 (11 percent) Hispanic American, 9 (2.3 percent) Asian American, 5 (1.3 percent) Native American, and 6 (1.5 percent) Middle Eastern. The teams were from 23 states, with Colorado and Texas being the most represented states (103 players and 66 players respectively).

Of the 396 players, 277 participants indicated they had a hero. Almost half (134) chose a baseball player, while more than one third (96) chose a parent. Likewise, 347 of the respondents cited a favorite baseball player, and 140 of them named both a hero and a favorite baseball player, with 77 choosing the same baseball player as both.

In addressing the five research questions, the authors found the following:

RQ #1: Are select ballplayers more likely to choose a favorite MLB player of their race?

The 10-year-old center fielder from Colorado, who identified himself as Caucasian, chose Todd Helton as his favorite player, while the 11-year-old first baseman from New Mexico, who identified himself as Hispanic American, selected Boston designated hitter David Ortiz. Their choices replicated study results that players’ choices of favorite players followed racial lines (see Table 1). Select players were significantly more likely to choose an MLB player of their own race than a player of a different race (X2 (8, N=329)=21.56, p<.01). Of the 271 white players, 148 named Caucasian MLB players as their favorites, while 10 of the 21 African American players selected MLB players of their race. Of the 37 Hispanic select players who chose a favorite MLB counterpart, 16 named an MLB Hispanic players. All results were significantly higher than expected by chance. The MLB players mentioned most often as favorite players were Mike Trout, Derek Jeter, Troy Tulowitzki, David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia. (Jeter, who is biracial, was considered as African American for this study.)

Table 2: Race and Hero

Note: Although 277 respondents named a hero, race of the hero could be verified in 159 cases. An example for when race could not be determined would be when the player named a relative. X² = 17.70, p < .05

Table 3: Age and Hero Selection

X² (2, N = 241) = 4.48, p = .106