Oscar Charleston is shown here in the uniform of the Santa Clara Leopardos, circa 1923. The 1923-24 Leopardos, for whom Charleston played, were considered the best Cuban team in history—a team so dominant that halfway through the season the league simply declared them champions and then reorganized. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

April 11, 2015, marked the centenary of Oscar Charleston’s debut in American professional Black baseball. The event passed without fanfare. Even though Charleston was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1976, many of today’s devoted baseball fans do not recognize his name, and when Charleston is thought of at all, it is often as a talented but temperamental hothead. There are many reasons for Charleston’s neglect, including his early death and lack of descendants. One of the unfortunate consequences of this neglect has been the persistence of a false image of Charleston as a dangerous loose cannon, bordering on psychopathic. Charleston began to gain this reputation because of an event that occurred at the end of his rookie season. The story of how that happened is usually highly condensed and often mangled. It deserves to be told in full.

Ranked in 2001 by Bill James as the fourth-greatest player of all time, Charleston may have been the most respected man in Black baseball in the years before Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers.1 As James pointed out, Charleston is “regarded by many knowledgeable people as the greatest baseball player who ever lived.”2 One of those people was a longtime Cardinals scout named Bennie Borgmann. Soon after former Negro Leagues catcher Quincy Trouppe started scouting for the Cardinals in 1953, Borgan told him, “Quincy, in my opinion, the greatest ball player I’ve ever seen was Oscar Charleston. When I say this, I’m not overlooking Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, and all of them.”3

Buck O’Neil claimed that Charleston was even better than Willie Mays, whom O’Neil regarded as the greatest major leaguer he had ever seen. O’Neil described Oscar as “like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one.”4 In a poll of twenty-four Negro League historians conducted around the turn of the millennium, Charleston received more votes for greatest player in Negro Leagues history than anyone else.5 While the data are incomplete, Gary Ashwill’s sabermetrically-oriented Seamheads.com currently estimates that Charleston compiled more Win Shares than any other player in Black baseball history.6 Charleston even played a role in the game’s integration. He was one of the first Black scouts for a major league team when Branch Rickey began using him to evaluate Negro League players for the Dodgers. The Dodgers only signed future Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella because of Charleston’s advice.7 In the face of this, Charleston’s obscurity seems highly unjustified.

Mark Ribowsky, among others, has given us the image of Charleston as a barely human berserker. “With his scowl and brawling tendencies, Charleston was a baleful man, and he enjoyed watching people gulp when he got mad,” wrote Ribowsky in his not entirely reliable history of the Negro leagues.8 Charleston was an “autocrat,” he claimed, a man with a “thuggish reputation” who was “barbaric on the basepaths.”9 He was “a great big snarling bear of a man with glaring eyes and a temper that periodically drove him beyond the edge of sanity.” Oscar may have “compiled a long record of achievement on the field,” but he also had “a police record almost as long.”10

Those who have dug into the sources know that such a portrait is wildly distorted. No contemporary sportswriter or anyone who knew Charleston personally ever called him a thug, and Charleston emphatically did not have a substantial police record. While he was happy to join fights in progress, he infrequently started them. And although as a young man, especially, he had a quick temper, he was not, to use Ribowsky’s adjective, “barbaric.”

Then, too, context matters. In both Black baseball and the majors, violence was vastly more common during the first decades of the twentieth century than it is today. Ballplayers almost routinely got into fights with opposing ballplayers, with their own teammates, with coaches and managers, with umpires, and with fans. As Charles Leerhsen demonstrates at length in his new, judicious biography of Ty Cobb, it was a time in which fighting and violence were integral to the game—and, arguably, American society as a whole. “The drama critic George Jean Nathan, an avid baseball fan, counted 355 physical assaults on umpires by players and fans during the 1909 season alone.”11

Oscar Charleston, in fact, was characteristically self-disciplined and reasonably good-humored, not to mention significantly more intellectual than most of his ballplayer peers, Black or White. Numerous extant photos show him smiling. Accounts do not dispute that Charleston was exceptionally tough, and we know he had a passion for boxing.12 But John Schulian, who spoke to a number of ex-teammates and relations for his splendid Sports Illustrated essay on Charleston, told me that “you get the feeling…that here is this rough ballplayer who would fight anybody, crash into anything, take out fielders, but was a real puppy dog.”13 Rodney Redman, whose father knew Charleston well, and who himself was close to Charleston’s brother Shedrick, said that he never heard anything negative about Oscar: “My father only said good things about him.” Mamie Johnson, who played for Oscar on the 1954 Indianapolis Clowns, said, “What I would say is that he was a beautiful person.” Did she enjoy playing for him? “Oh yes, he was great.” James Robinson, who played for Oscar on the 1952 Philadelphia Stars, remembers him as “mild” and “friendly.” Clifford Layton, another member of the 1954 Clowns, recalls Charleston as “a very intelligent man” whose “personality was beautiful.”14

In short, Charleston was certainly not a dark-souled, frightful hooligan. So how has this image taken hold?

EARLY LIFE AND ARMY BASEBALL OVERSEAS

Oscar McKinley Charleston was born in Indianapolis on October 14, 1896. Tom and Mary Charleston, along with three sons, had likely arrived earlier that year, migrating to Indiana by way of Nashville.15 The Charlestons moved frequently—living in at least ten different homes while Oscar was a child, mostly on the north side of the vibrant, African American Indiana Avenue neighborhood—and they were a spirited lot.16 Mary was once hauled into court for greeting a deputy with an ax. Brothers Roy, Berl, and Casper each had multiple run-ins with the law.17 Roy eventually channeled his thymos well enough to become a locally prominent boxer.18

Oscar finished the eighth grade at Indianapolis Public School No. 23, but he did not attend high school, where he would have been prohibited from playing on school athletic teams in any case.19 After finishing school, he likely went to work to supplement the family income. He also reputedly spent time as a batboy for the ABCs, whose home park was located within just a few blocks of the peripatetic Charlestons’ Indiana Avenue homes.20

Alas, you can’t be a batboy forever, and the work then available to a Black teenager in Indianapolis could not have been particularly rewarding. The United States military offered an attractive alternative. So in early 1912, fewer than two years after he had completed his eighth grade year, Oscar Charleston decided to join the Army. Giving his birthday as October 14, 1893 (rather than 1896), he enlisted on March 7, 1912. Oscar was accepted and assigned to the 24th Infantry, Company B. On April 5, he shipped out for the Philippines.

During his three years of service in the Philippines, Charleston’s prowess on the diamond made him a star. There were “few more popular baseball players in the islands than Charleston,” claimed the Manila Times, and “everybody knows that he is the boy to make good in any position.”21 The position at which Charleston made good was not center field, where he would later excel, but pitcher. In July 1914, after the completion of the 1913–14 professional Manila League season in which Charleston’s all-Black 24th Infantry regiment had fielded a team, he was chosen by Manila’s Cablenews-American newspaper to be its starter in an exhibition game against the rival Manila Times. Just seventeen at the time, Charleston hurled a one-hit shutout for this integrated all-star team, striking out ten and walking two. He also hit a triple.22 (The catcher for the Manila Times club that day was Charles Wilber Rogan, later known as “Bullet” or “Bullet Joe,” and possibly the greatest two-way player of all-time.23 Rogan was Charleston’s usual receiver on the 24th’s regimental squad, which obviously had a heck of a battery.)

We get a glimpse into this period of Charleston’s life from a letter he saved in his personal scrapbook. Dated August 1, 1914, the letter was written by an acquaintance stationed at the headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary in Manila. The all-star game in Manila had prevented Charleston from keeping an appointment with the writer, who excuses him for his absence. After all, “All of us and 90% of the fans around Manila, believe that in addition to being the best pitcher in the Philippine Islands, you are also all around, the best ball player in this neck of the woods.” The writer signs off by assuring Oscar that “Captain Loving and Mr. Waller join me in wishing you success in all your undertakings.”24

Among other things, this letter indicates that at a young age Oscar was already taking delight in, and had a talent for attracting, thoughtful companions. The Captain Loving mentioned in this letter was Walter Howard Loving, leader of the constabulary band, which he had led at William Howard Taft’s inaugural presidential parade in Washington, DC. In 1914, Loving was in the midst of a long and distinguished military career that would include serving as an undercover agent for the US government during World War I. Few Black Americans in the Philippines would have been more prominent than Loving. To have established a friendly acquaintance with him as a seventeen-year-old private must have been quite a thrill.25

Charleston’s scrapbook and photo album make clear that throughout his life he maintained an interest in music and ideas, and that he tended to seek relationships with others who shared these interests and who were striving to rise socially. This very much includes his two wives, Hazel Grubbs and Jane Blalock Howard, who were highly intelligent and came from respectable, ambitious, pillars-of-the-community sorts of families. A rounded view of Charleston’s life indicates, in other words, that he would have hated being regarded as a thug—a fact which makes his early troubles controlling his temper all the more poignant. Not until late in his life was Charleston able to consistently overcome this family legacy.26

BEGINNING WITH THE ABCs

After his discharge from the Army in March 1915, Charleston headed home to Indianapolis, where he presented himself to Indianapolis ABCs manager C.I. Taylor. (Taylor’s full name was Charles Isham, but he was universally known by his initials.) Taylor had purchased a half interest in the ABCs in 1914 from Thomas Bowser, a White bail bondsman who had bought the team from Ran Butler in 1912. In the last years of Butler’s ownership, the ABCs’ talent and fan support had declined. The late Butler years saw the team playing mainly at home, presumably to save money, and using gimmicks like a 793-pound umpire known as Baby Jim to lure folks to games.27 It took just one year for Taylor to begin to change the ABCs’ fortunes dramatically.

Rube Foster is more commonly named as early Black baseball’s most important institutional pioneer, but C.I. Taylor was nearly as formidable as Rube—and significantly less given to chest-thumping egotism than his rival. Like the rotund Foster, the thin C.I. was a southern minister’s son. He was also an Army veteran and a graduate of Clark College in Atlanta. Aside from his consuming commitment to baseball, this background played out in predictable ways: C.I. believed in self-help, discipline, practice, conditioning, and strategy—“scientific” baseball, as it was called at the time. He detested rowdiness, drunkenness, and gambling, and surrounded himself with intelligent, well-mannered men. At least two of his players published poetry, many were recruited from Black colleges, and a number went on to successful managerial careers. C.I. was civically active, too, the sort of man who served on YMCA fundraising committees. His managerial efforts led to increased community support for the ABCs, more stadium improvements, and—gradually, haltingly—a more female- and family-friendly game environment.28

Of course, winning was also high on the list of things three of his brothers—Ben, Candy Jim, and Steel Arm Johnny, all of them college men like C.I.—were exceptional ballplayers themselves. They didn’t always play for C.I.’s teams, but when they did, they were a tremendous help. When C.I. came to Indianapolis from West Baden, Indiana, where he had been leading a team called the West Baden Sprudels, he brought Ben, a first baseman, with him. From the Sprudels he also brought to Indy pitcher William “Dizzy” Dismukes (later to become Buck O’Neil’s beloved mentor), outfielder George Shively (a resident of Bloomington, Indiana), and light-hitting shortstop Morty “Specs” Clark.

Thanks to C.I., by early in the 1915 season the ABCs had accumulated a good deal of talent. Taylor, Shively, Clark, third baseman Todd Allen, and catcher Russell Powell formed the position-player core. The starting pitching rotation was anchored by Dismukes and Louis “Dicta” Johnson, an accomplished spitballer (at the time a perfectly legal, if unhygienic, pitch). Former Sprudel second baseman Elwood “Bingo” DeMoss—according to Bill James, the best bunter in Negro League history—came on board in early May.29

Shortly after Oscar got back to Indianapolis in spring 1915, he presented himself to C.I. Taylor for a tryout.30 Taylor knew he had something special on his hands. By April 9, he was telling the local papers that he had signed a “crack southpaw.”31 Two days later, at Northwestern Park, a couple of blocks from where his family now lived, Oscar’s stateside career in professional Black baseball began.32 Taking the mound against the semi-pro Indianapolis Reserves, he notched a shutout, giving up two hits in the first inning, but only one more the rest of the game. He also struck out nine, walked none, and pitched six perfect innings.33

Oscar’s start seemed to augur a future as a mound ace, but the second game Charleston pitched in 1915 for this talented ABCs team complicated things. Against a team of White minor-league players calling themselves the All-Leaguers, he gave up six runs in the ABCs’ loss. He also homered to right and was robbed of another hit when the left fielder snared a line drive. The 18-year-old Oscar’s home run was “one of the longest drives seen at the local park” and the longest ever to right field, claimed the Indianapolis Freeman. Charleston had not been back in the States for a month, but he was already being hailed as “one of the most promising young pitchers seen at Northwestern park. He pitches like a veteran, besides fielding his position and batting in great fashion. The fans should watch this youngster, he will be one of the best.”34

The following Sunday, Taylor had Oscar in center field for a rematch with the All-Leaguers. The ABCs had been left with a hole in the outfield when Jimmie Lyons jumped to the St. Louis Giants, so to the outfield Oscar went.35 He homered yet again in the ABCs’ 14–3 victory.36 Charleston’s bat was far too valuable not to be in the lineup every day. Oscar would start on the mound four days later, but for the rest of the season he would serve only occasionally as a starting pitcher. No one complained. Oscar’s fielding, baserunning, and his power, in that order, stood out much more than his pitching.

By June, when the Indianapolis Freeman ran photos of the speedy ABCs outfield of George Shively, Charleston, and midseason addition Jim Jeffries, the paper was claiming that “[t]his trio of outer gardeners looks to be the best in the game.”37 In the Black game, at least, that was probably not an exaggeration. Even when Charleston screwed up—as he did on June 24, when he misplayed an easy fly to center against the Chicago American Giants, allowing the winning run to score in the five-game series’ rubber game—he was liable to redeem himself in short order. Thus, a few days after that costly error against the Giants, when the ABCs took on the Cuban Stars before a record crowd at Northwestern Park, he made what the Star called “two remarkable running one-handed catches,” one of which led to a double play.38

Against the Indianapolis Merits, one of the city’s strongest White semipro teams, “Charleston made a circus catch in deep center, pulling the ball down with one hand,” helping to win what was billed as the city championship for the ABCs, 14–1.39, 40 Given the short, thin mitts then in use, in 1915 the one-handed catch was comparatively rare, and one gets the impression from contemporary newspaper accounts that Charleston was one of its first impresarios. The press frequently reported that his fielding “featured,” the era’s adjective of choice. Sometimes it was “sensational,” and once it was so good that fans were “startled.” In August, the Freeman praised Charleston for playing center field “for all there is in it.”41 Oscar’s range was most impressive to observers, but his arm was good, too. In games against top-tier opponents, he finished second on the team to George Shively with nine outfield assists.42

The 1915 ABCs liked to run—that was part of scientific baseball, as taught by Taylor and practiced in the big leagues with such flair by Cobb. Against the Fort Wayne Shamrocks, for example, the team stole nine bags.43 Charleston was not the team’s most prolific base stealer, but he held his own with speedy teammates like Shively and DeMoss. In fifty-seven games, he stole fourteen bases and legged out five triples, tied for tops on the team. For a while, later in the year, Taylor batted him leadoff.

Oscar’s power came and went in this rookie season, fading down the stretch as the ABCs faced better pitching and as pitchers seeing Oscar for the second and third time made adjustments. But homering in three of your first six games leaves a lasting impression, especially when they are no-doubters, and especially when you are playing in the Deadball Era. (Against top competition, the mammoth Pete Hill’s six home runs was highest among elite Black professional clubs in 1915.) Oscar was the “slugging soldier,” the “heavy-hitting outfielder,” even though he only hit one more homer the rest of the year.44 At this point in his career, he was only a decent hitter. Overall, he batted .258 against top opponents in 1915. His teammates Shively and Ben Taylor hit significantly better. Oscar’s best series came against the talented Cuban Stars in June, when he went 7-for-19 with a home run, a double, and three stolen bases and helped the ABCs win four out of five.

Charleston may not have been the ABCs’ best player—not yet—but the well-rounded quality of his game led the Freeman to dub him, on one occasion, the “Benny Kauff of the semi-profs.” Kauff manned center field for the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the upstart Federal League. Brash and flashy, he was well known to locals, first, because he had played center field for the Federal League’s pennant-winning Indianapolis Hoosiers in 1914, and second, because prior to Dizzy Dean he was probably the greatest trash-talker in baseball history. Kauff had no problem saying things like “I’ll make them all forget that a guy named Ty Cobb ever pulled on a baseball shoe,” and “I’ll hit so many balls into the grandstand that the management will have to put screens up in front to protect the fans and save the money that lost balls would cost.” To top it off, he dressed, in the words of Damon Runyon, like “Diamond Jim Brady reduced to a baseball salary size.” With respect to their games the comparison of Charleston to Kauff was not totally inapt, but, unlike Benny, Oscar did not boast in the press—and he didn’t have the funds to indulge in diamond tiepins and silk underwear.45

On the whole, in 1915 Charleston did as well as anyone might hope for an 18-year-old rookie. But there is one indication that there may have been trouble behind the scenes. For a period of at least three games in July, Oscar did not play for the ABCs. No reason for his absence was given in the Star or in the Freeman, but when he returned to the team Elwood Knox of the Freeman referred to his being “back in the fold again.”46 Perhaps he had been injured. Perhaps he and C.I. had butted heads. Perhaps Oscar was having trouble controlling that troublesome family temper.

Pablo Mesa, Oscar Charleston, and Alejandro Oms playing for Santa Clara in Cuba in the mid-1920s. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

THE INDIANAPOLIS POST-SEASON BRAWL

On September 9, 1915, the ABCs played their last game of the year against a top-tier non-White team, winning, 4–2, against the Cuban Stars. They had gone 37–25–1 against the top clubs, and they had absolutely rolled through lesser competition, including contests with White teams like the Chicago Gunthers, the Indianapolis Merits, and the unforgettably-named Terre Haute Champagne Velvets.47

No matter who they had faced in 1915, Dizzy Dismukes and Dicta Johnson had been fantastic at the top of the ABCs rotation, with Dismukes throwing a no-hitter against the Chicago American Giants on May 9 and matching the New York Lincoln Stars’ Dick “Cannonball” Redding pitch-for-pitch in a 1–1, 15-inning tie in which both pitchers went the distance. First baseman Ben Taylor had shown himself one of the best hitters not playing in White segregated baseball, and Shively and DeMoss had also had fine seasons. The ABCs had gone 9–3 against the Chicago American Giants, 13–9 against the Cuban Stars, and 4–4–1 against the Lincoln Stars, the three teams that were their top competition—in the argot of the time, the “fastest” teams out there.48 No one doubted that the ABCs were a very good team. This is how things stood in late September 1915, as the ABCs prepared to undertake what was becoming an annual tradition of postseason games against White all-star teams at Indianapolis’s Federal Park. Since the middle of the season the ABCs had been playing their Sunday home games at this new stadium, thanks to growing crowds that their usual home field of Northwestern Park simply could not accommodate. These all-star teams—the term was used loosely—consisted largely but not exclusively of Indianapolis natives returning home after their seasons in minor league ball had ended, as well as players from the high-minors Indianapolis Indians and other city teams.

The papers loved these games. The daily Star promoted them heavily, breathlessly reporting who and who would not play for the all-star teams, inserting editorial asides about the relative strength and hopes of the teams, printing trash talk, playing up the racial rivalry angle, and fairly openly taking the side of the White teams as the games went on. For the brawl that occurred on October 24, the White press shoulders at least a little of the blame.

The first games were scheduled for Sunday, September 26. “The colored champs”—the ABCs, that is—“had fairly easy sailing on their trip over the state” recently, admitted the Star; the ABCs had beat up on teams from Kokomo, Rochester, Columbus, and other Indiana burgs. But “Sunday it is thought they will meet with stronger opposition.”49 The White all-stars would include players from various leagues in and levels of the minors. The ABCs would be tested, predicted the Star. “The ABCs always take delight in polishing off any league teams, but they probably will be forced to step at their best today to turn the trick.”50 Eh, not really. The team of mostly low-minors “all-stars” that showed up on September 26 was no match for Taylor’s club, which won the first game, 12–1, and the second, mercifully shortened after five innings by darkness, 7–0. Collectively, Dicta Johnson and Dismukes gave up seven hits on the day. Charleston went 2-for-8 with two stolen bases. The ABCs stole 11 bags in game one alone. “Manager Taylor of the ABCs has drilled so much base-running knowledge into his colored champs that it is going to take an all-powerful outfit to grab a game from them,” conceded the Star.51

The White players set out to put together such a club. Frank Metz, who played first base for the American Association’s Indianapolis Indians, organized a new squad to take on the ABCs the following Sunday. The Indians’ Joe Willis, who had had a brief major-league career with the Cardinals, would pitch, and several other Indians and players from the Louisville Colonels would join in. “It looks like the ABCs are due for a trouncing Sunday when they battle Frank Metz’s All-Stars at Federal Park,” chortled the Star.52 The all-star outfield was “expected to show something in the way of distance slugging,” and Smiling Joe Willis’s left-handed pitching would “prove quite puzzling to the colored champs.” Willis even called his shot: “[T]he big fellow says he’ll win if given a few runs.”53 Metz’s all-star team proved much better than the previous Sunday’s, but still it could not beat the ABCs, the game ending in a 3–3 tie after 12 innings. Dismukes pitched seven innings of no-hit ball in relief of Dicta Johnson, and Charleston went 3-for-5 with a stolen base. Three thousand fans saw a “spicy game” full of “swell stops and neat catches,” but no winner.54

By now the big-league season was over, and there was no more messing around. Indianapolis native son Donie “Ownie” Bush was coming back to town, and he would lead the all-stars the following Sunday against the ABCs, just as he had the previous year, when his all-stars had gone 2–2 against Taylor’s club.55 Bush, twenty-eight, couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag, but he was fast, exceptionally disciplined at the plate (he had led the American League in walks five times already), and a slick fielder at shortstop. That combination of talents was good enough to place him third in the MVP voting of 1914. With him would not be Ty Cobb, who had better things to do, but three other Tigers teammates: outfielder Bobby Veach, who had led the AL in both doubles and RBIs that year; George “Hooks” Dauss, who had won twenty-four games with a 2.50 ERA and was also an Indianapolis native; and George Boehler, a reliever from nearby Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Also scheduled to play was the Yankees’ Paddy Baumann, yet another Indianapolis man who as a utility player had just hit .292.56 This new all-star team was a different beast. Bush’s club beat the ABCs, 5–2, on October 10. Dauss and Boehler frustrated the ABC batters with curves, striking out 12. Oscar went 0-for-4.

The ABCs were a “disappointed lot.”57 Two games remained in the series, and these were the only contests all year in which they could show to others, and to themselves, how well they stacked up against major-league, or at least near-major-league, competition. Then, too, the racially tinged needling of the White papers had to rankle. As the Star wrote the next week, apropos of nothing at all, “The All-Stars expect, next Sunday, to teach Tom Bowser’s men their ABCs.”58 Taylor had his club practicing all week. On Thursday, Bush announced that the Brooklyn Robins’ Dutch Miller would be added as the All-Stars’ catcher. C.I. responded by welcoming back Jimmie Lyons as his right fielder. Unfortunately, Dismukes had decided to head to Honolulu with Rube Foster’s American Giants, so Dicta Johnson would start this time for the ABCs, while for the all-stars the White Sox’s Reb Russell would fill in for Hooks Dauss, whose wife had taken ill. Russell had just posted a 2.59 ERA for the Sox, so this was not necessarily a downgrade.

Four thousand, five hundred fans showed up at Federal Park on the afternoon of Sunday, October 17. They watched Dicta Johnson throw a masterful game, giving up only four hits over eleven innings. The ABCs, sporting new uniforms for the occasion, finally won, 3–2, on Ben Taylor’s walk-off (the term wasn’t used then) base hit that scored Shively from second. It was far from a boring game. In fact, “until the deciding run was registered in the eleventh the fans were kept in an uproar by sensational plays on both sides.”59 Oscar, who had turned 19 three days earlier, went 2-for-4 with a double off the Mississippian Reb Russell, who “would no doubt draw the color line in the future,” chuckled the Black Freeman.60

The rubber game was set for the next Sunday, October 24. Excitement was high, and it built even more when it was reported first that Benny Kauff himself was headed to town to play for the all-stars, and next that Cannonball Redding, “the best colored hurler in the business,” would pitch for the ABCs.61 Redding wasn’t just coming to Indianapolis from New York for one game. In early October, C.I. had announced that his club would undertake a Cuban tour immediately after the season’s end. The ABCs were scheduled to leave right after this final game of the season, and Redding would accompany them. Reb Russell, allegedly angry over his defeat, would take the mound again for Bush’s club. The day finally arrived. The all-star team wasn’t at its best. Kauff had not made it, and neither Veach (who had only played the first game) nor Miller would play. Bush, Baumann, and Russell were the team’s only true big-leaguers. Perhaps that only put the ABCs more on edge. Not only were they tired from the long season, but with the all-stars not even at full strength the ABCs had to win this game—especially with five thousand screaming fans in the stands.

The all-stars scored first, plating one in the top of the second. In the meantime, the ABCs were having trouble solving Russell. When the fifth inning began, it was 1–0 all-stars. Donie Bush made it to first. Then he took off on Redding. ABCs catcher Russell Powell threw to second, where Bingo DeMoss was covering. The throw beat Bush, but umpire Jimmy Scanlon, who was White, signaled safe.62 That’s when all hell broke loose.

Like Tris Speaker, to whom he would later be frequently compared, Charleston played a famously shallow center field, and when Bush started for second [base] he no doubt sprinted in to back up the play. After Scanlon’s safe signal, he was already close to the action when he saw DeMoss lose it. DeMoss pushed Scanlon, then swung at him. Scanlon put up his fists, and the men began to grapple. A moment later, Oscar, still running at top speed, arrived and clocked Scanlon. His punch to the umpire’s left cheek left him gashed, bloodied, and lying on the ground.63

Umpires were not immune to the violence that was common on the field in those days. Earlier that season at Northwestern Park, an umpire had allegedly hit Chicago American Giants outfielder Pete Hill over the head with a pistol—the mere fact of pistol-packing umpires gives one some idea of the temper of that era.64 But still, for a Black man playing in a mixed-race game to slug a White umpire who was already engaged with another Black player was to cross any number of lines, and Charleston must have known that immediately. If he didn’t, the enraged fans that began to stream onto the field probably clued him in. Players from both teams also began to converge on the action at second base. The police—twelve patrolmen and six detectives—were close behind. The scene was chaotic. Just who fought whom is unclear, but it seems that most of the combat now took place between fans—it was very nearly, said the next day’s Star, a full-fledged “race riot.” The police used their billy clubs freely to break up the fighting. Several drew revolvers, but did not use them. The players themselves, from both teams, tried to restore order. Finally, the police gained control of the situation and the fans returned to the stands.

Oscar Charleston poses with his second wife, Jane Grace Blalock of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, whom he married in November 1922. The photo was probably taken in Cuba, where Oscar played winter ball, shortly thereafter. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

Oscar, if the Star’s account can be credited, had slipped away. The Star claimed that “he kept on running” after decking Scanlon, and if that was true it was the last time he ever ran away from a fight. He may have been genuinely scared for his life. The Indianapolis of 1915 wasn’t all that friendly to Blacks in the first place, and Blacks who assaulted White representatives of authority were not exactly assured of dispassionate justice.65 “The police had considerable trouble finding” Oscar, reported the Star, but eventually they located him. He and Bingo were placed under arrest and carted off to jail. The game, amazingly, then continued, Scanlon still umpiring. The ABCs, perhaps pondering whether and how they would get out of the park unscathed, managed just one hit in the game and were defeated, 5–1.

C.I. Taylor was embarrassed, dismayed, furious. Not only did he deeply wish to make baseball a more reputable activity, his entire identity was centered on being a respected member of the Indianapolis community. He knew that this ugly incident in a White ballpark would be held against all of the African American residents of the city as proof of their ineradicable savagery, especially at a time when a fresh wave of Black migrants from the South was contributing to heightened racial tensions. But he had made arrangements to take this team to Cuba, and, probably realizing that the best thing to do was to get the club out of town as quickly as possible, he went forward with his plans. His co-owner Tom Bowser bailed Oscar and Bingo out of jail, and by evening the ABCs were embarked on their journey.

When the team’s train stopped in Cincinnati, Taylor wired the Star with a statement. He made it clear where his sympathies lay. Not with his young players—and especially not with Oscar.

That was a very unwarranted and cowardly act on the part of our center fielder. There can be no reason given that will justify it. Umpires Geisel and Scanlon are gentlemen. I am grateful to Bush and Bauman (sic) and all the players of the All-Stars for their earnest efforts to ward off trouble and their kind words to me after the incident. The colored people of Indianapolis deplore the incident as much as I do. I want to ask that the people do not condemn the A.B.C. baseball club nor my people for the ugly and unsportsmanlike conduct of two thoughtless hotheads. I can prove by the good colored people of Indianapolis that I stand for right living and clean sport. I have worked earnestly and untiringly for the past two years in an effort to build a monument for clean manly sport there and am sorely grieved at the untimely and uncalled for occurrence at Federal Park today. Again I ask that the people do not pass unjust judgment on my club or me.66

It must have been an awkward trip to Florida. Bingo DeMoss had started the fight, but it was Oscar who took all of the heat. His actions had escalated things terribly, but from his point of view, he had come to a teammate’s aid.67 Was that entirely wrong? It would remain true throughout his career: Oscar didn’t usually start fights, but he loved to join them. And when he came to your aid, it was with fists flying. The man was simply not a natural peacemaker.

The next day, Oscar and Bingo were formally charged with assault and battery, and their case continued until November 30. A couple of days later they and the rest of the ABCs disembarked in Havana.

LETTERS FROM CUBA

By the time he reached Cuba, Oscar had cooled off. On November 1 he sent a statement to the Freeman. It is the first time we hear his voice in the historical record:

Realizing my unclean act of October 24, 1915, I wish to express my opinion. The fact is that I could not overcome my temper as oftentimes ball players can not. Therefore I must say that I can not find words in my vocabulary that will express my regret pertaining to the incident committed by me, Oscar Charleston, on October 24th.

Taking into consideration the circumstances of the incident I consider it highly unwise and that is a poor benevolence. I am aware of the fact that some one has said that they presume I am actuated by mania, but my mind teaches me to judge not, for fear you may be judged.

Yours respectfully,

Oscar Charleston68

Was the “some one” who had accused Oscar of “mania” C.I.? It isn’t clear. In any case, the apology was good enough for the Freeman, which encouraged readers to accept it. The paper emphasized that Oscar had “become exceedingly sorry.”

An apology was due from Mr. Charleston, a fact which finally dawned on him. He has done the very graceful thing in acknowledging his error, and which leaves him no less a man. The bravest are the tenderest. Considerable harm has been done because of the happening, and which a string of apologies from here to Cuba could never altogether righten. However, he has helped some, and he has set himself right individually and with his team and race.69

C.I., on the other hand, remained angry, even after a few days in the Caribbean. He remained eager to deflect any blame from landing on his own head. Four days after Oscar wrote his apology, Taylor sent from Cuba another statement about the whole affair in which he partially excused DeMoss but continued to take Charleston to task.

I am very grieved over the most unfortunate and degrading affair pulled off by DeMoss and Charleston. Umpire Scanlon was wholly blameless. His decision might have been questionable, but there is not one word that can be said justifying the perpetrators of that unfortunate and untimely happening. It was an awful climax of my last year’s work.

I feel that I should not be censured for the conduct of these two men. Neither should our club, for I do not believe that there is any man on the club outside those two who would have committed such an ungentlemanly and unsportsmanlike act. Every member has expressed to me his deepest regrets. And, too, I believe that if DeMoss had any idea that things would have turned out as they did he would not have raised a hand to push the umpire. Remember we are not trying to shadow him for his actions. He needs no defense—he was wrong. But knowing him as I do, I am fully convinced that his conduct was worse than his heart.

As far as Charleston is concerned, he really doesn’t know. He is a hot-headed youth of twenty years [actually nineteen; either C.I. was mistaken or Oscar had lied about his age] and is irresponsible, who is to be pitied rather than censured.70

It all added up to a bad time for Oscar in Cuba, a place Black teams had been visiting in the late autumn almost every year since 1900. Following the established tradition of the “American Series,” the ABCs were installed at Havana’s Almendares Park, where they played twenty games against three Cuban teams—Habana, Almendares, and San Francisco—between October 30 and December 2.

In subsequent years, Oscar would perform so well in Cuba that he would become a national legend. But with the brawl still fresh and his manager criticizing him in the press, in 1915 he could not get going. He batted .191, showing no power (he had only two extra-base hits in 77 plate appearances), and was caught stealing on half of his attempts. Taylor started him on the mound once and he was hammered, giving up ten runs, eight earned.

Certainly the competitive and proud Oscar must have been in a sour mood, which couldn’t have helped advance the cause of reconciliation with C.I. On November 25, midway through the ABCs’ Cuban tour, Taylor announced that he had kicked Oscar off the team. He had “persisted in disobeying club rules.”71 The expulsion didn’t last long: Oscar missed exactly one game. After the ABCs played their last game on the island on December 2, finishing their tour with a record of 8–12, Charleston returned to Indianapolis with the team.72

THE CONSEQUENCES

Charleston and Bingo had missed their November 30 trial date, of course—costing Bowser his $1,000 bond—and were promptly rearrested upon their return to Indianapolis. Their trial took place on December 7, Scanlon testifying for the prosecution. Judge Deery dealt with them leniently. Neither would have to serve any time. Oscar was fined ten dollars plus court costs, and Bingo five dollars plus costs.73 The legal drama was at an end, but the ramifications of the brawl were still playing out. Several days before the trial, the police used the fight as an excuse to declare that no games between Black and White teams would henceforth be allowed in the city. “It occurs to me that it is time to call a halt in baseball playing between Whites and Blacks when two teams of mixed colors cannot play a game without trouble,” announced a police captain. It was a good time to make such an announcement, since Blacks could be blamed for the decision. “I have talked to several witnesses, and there is no doubt but what the two colored players incited trouble.”74 The city’s decision looked like a blow to the ABCs, who had played a couple dozen games against White teams in 1915. This step backwards was exactly what C.I. Taylor had feared.

A few years later, Donie Bush, enraged by a call, punched umpire Bill Dinneen “in the stomach and jaw” in a major league game. He wasn’t even ejected—not until after the inning ended, anyway, when he threw a ball at Dinneen.75 Bush and Charleston weren’t so different from each other after all, or from the other rough-edged players of the Jazz Age. Both were intense, competitive, widely respected men. It’s not too surprising to learn that, sometime after the ugly incident at Federal Park, these baseball lifers began to call each other friend.76

Perhaps because he was Black, Charleston’s temper exacted a far higher reputational cost than did Bush’s. As player, manager, and scout, Oscar Charleston would go on to compile one of the finest baseball résumés of any player of any race.77 Yet more than a century later, the capsule narrative about him remains distorted by the ugliness that marred the end of his rookie season. That is how the myth began, and one of the reasons why the full truth about Charleston remains obscured.

JEREMY BEER is at work on a biography of Oscar Charleston for the University of Nebraska Press. He is the author of “The Philanthropic Revolution: An Alternative History of American Charity” and the editor of “America Moved: Booth Tarkington’s Memoirs of Time and Place, 1869–1928.”

Notes

1 Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Abstract, rev. ed. (New York: Free Press, 2001), 358. James defends this ranking at some length in the pages that follow.

2 James, The New Bill James Historical Abstract, 189.

3 Quincy Trouppe, Twenty Years Too Soon: Prelude to Major-League Integrated Baseball, rev. ed. (St. Louis, MO: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1995 [1977]), 118.

4 Buck O’Neil, I Was Right on Time: My Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 25.

5 William F. McNeil, Cool Papas and Double Duties: The All-Time Greats of the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 192.

6 See http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?ID=134&tab=2. First developed by Bill James, a win share is a comprehensive measure of player value that takes into account, at least theoretically, both offense (including baserunning) and defense.

7 See Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010 [1984]), 114; and Joe King, “Campanella Not Antique But Modernizer,” The Sporting News, July 18, 1951, 3. My thanks to Neil Lanctot for leading me to these sources.

8 Mark Ribowsky, A Complete History of the Negro Leagues, 1884 to 1955 (New York, NY: Birch Lane Press, 1995), 87.

9 Ribowsky, A Complete History of the Negro Leagues, 277.

10 Mark Ribowsky, The Power and the Darkness: The Life of Josh Gibson in the Shadows of the Game (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 45–46.

11 Charles Leerhsen, Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 331. Leerhsen documents the violence characteristic of baseball during the Cobb era in numerous other places throughout this biography.

12 Charleston’s personal scrapbook and photo album attest to this judgment. The scrapbook includes numerous boxing-related clippings, including a Cuban-newspaper story about Charleston going into the ring himself in Cuba. Oscar’s brother Roy was a prominent and successful fighter in Indianapolis. The Charleston scrapbook and album are kept at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. They were acquired by historian Larry Lester from Charleston’s niece Anna Bradley, who seems to have acquired them from Oscar’s sister Katherine. Lester also acquired and donated to the museum Oscar’s collection of Cuban cigarette baseball cards.

13 John Schulian, telephone interview, November 7, 2015. Schulian’s article on Charleston is the best piece ever written about the man. It is collected in Schulian’s Sometimes They Even Shook Your Hand: Portraits of Champions Who Walked Among Us (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2011).

14 Rodney Redman, telephone interview, December 28, 2015; Mamie Johnson, telephone interview, August 12, 2015; James Robinson, telephone interview, December 28, 2015; Clifford Layton, telephone interview, August 21, 2015.

15 The Charlestons probably arrived in Indianapolis in 1896 (1) because the first year in which they are known to have lived in Indianapolis is October 1896, when the newspapers mentioned the birth of a new son, and (2) because in contrast to later editions, the Charlestons are not listed in any Indianapolis city directory prior to 1897, which implies they moved to the city in 1896 too late to be included in that year’s directory. It is possible that the 1896 (or even earlier) directories missed them, of course, but given the frequency with which they were listed thereafter, it isn’t all that likely.

16 City directories make it clear that the Charlestons lived in at least ten different places before Oscar enlisted in the Army in 1912. From Oscar’s birth until he was four, the Charlestons lived in the Martindale neighborhood on Indianapolis’s northwest side, and after that in the Indiana Avenue neighborhood, but no one address and no one street was home for very long.

17 For the story about Oscar’s mother, Mary, see Indianapolis News, August 24, 1901, 6, and September 3, 1901, 9. Several newspaper accounts reveal that Oscar’s brothers Roy and Berl had multiple run-ins with the law. See, e.g., for Roy, Indianapolis News, November 7, 1900, 8, and for Berl, Indianapolis Journal, January 9, 1903, 8. Oscar’s brother Casper is listed as a ward of the Julia E. Work Training School in the small town of Plymouth, Indiana, in the 1910 United States census. The facility, known as Brightside, served as a home and training center for, among others, juvenile delinquents and “incorrigible” children sent there by the courts.

18 See, for example, “Ash Gets Shade in Ten-Round Contest,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 16, 1911, 7; “In the Field of Sport,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1912, 7; “The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 13, 1912, 5; “In the Field of Sport,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 16, 1912, 7; and “Boxing Contest at the Indiana Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 23, 1912, 6.

19 Oscar’s sister Katherine said that Oscar’s highest educational level was the eighth grade in the questionnaire she filled out for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976. This questionnaire is also the source of the claim that Oscar attended P.S. No. 23.

20 That Oscar served as a batboy for the ABCs was stated in many articles written about him later in life. Since he was in all likelihood the source of this information, it is probably true, though I have not been able to confirm it.

21 The article from the Manila Times was published in the Indianapolis Freeman on January 1, 1916. The Freeman was an African American newspaper that covered the Negro leagues closely.

22 This information comes from Geri Driscoll Strecker’s bio of Joseph Coffindaffer, available at http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/c6fd7724. The Manila Times provided extensive coverage of the buildup to this all-star game and of the 1913–14 Manila League season as a whole.

23 This the opinion of Larry Lester; in fact, he claims that given his prowess on the mound and at the plate, Rogan is the greatest player of all time, period. See William F. McNeil, Cool Papas and Double Duties: The All-Time Greats of the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 183.

24 This letter is included in Charleston’s personal scrapbook, which is kept at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

25 For information on Loving, see, e.g., Robert Yoder, In Performance: Walter Howard Loving and the Philippine Constabulary Band (Manila: National Historic Commission of the Philippines, 2013).

26 Charleston was married to Hazel Grubbs, of Indianapolis, from 1917 to 1921. Her father, William, was a highly respected school principal, and her mother, Alberta, just as highly respected a music teacher. Oscar married Jane Blalock in 1922. Her father, Martin Luther Blalock, was a prominent A.M.E. minister in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. By the time of Oscar’s death in October 1954, Oscar and Jane had been separated for a number of years.

27 Paul Debono, The Indianapolis ABCs: History of a Premier Team in the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.), 41. Although I have pieced together what follows from primary sources, Debono’s book is a valuable source of material for and helpful guide to ABCs history.

28 The portrait of Taylor here is drawn based on information taken from numerous contemporary newspaper articles, but see also Debono, The Indianapolis ABCs, 30–71, inter alia.

29 James, The New Bill James Historical Abstract, 176.

30 Dizzy Dismukes, “Dismukes Names His 9 Best Outfielders,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 8, 1930, 14. This article is also included in Charleston’s personal scrapbook.

31 “A.B.C.s and Reserves Play at Northwestern,” Indianapolis Star, April 9, 1915, 10.

32 1812 Mill. The house—and most of the street—is gone today, as is every other of the ten or more in which Charleston lived as a youth, as far as I can tell.

33 “A.B.C.s Shut Out the Reserves by 7–0 Score,” Indianapolis Star, April 12, 1915, 10.

34 “A.B.C.’s Lose to the All Leaguers before Large Crowd—Pitcher Charleston Looks to Be a Wonder,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1915, 5.

35 Lyons was known, like numbers of obviously good outfielders in the Negro leagues, as the “Black Ty Cobb,” a designation often wrongly implied to have been more or less exclusively used for Charleston.

36 “Colored Boys Slug Ball, Beating All-Stars, 14 to 3,” Indianapolis Star, April 26, 1915, 8.

37 “The Fast and Hard Hitting Out Field of the A.B.C. Ball Team,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 19, 1915, 4.

38 “Cuban Stars Defeat the A.B.C.s in Flashy Game,” Indianapolis Star, June 28, 1915, 8.

39 “Merits Have Been Hitting Ball Hard; Play A.B.C.s Sunday,” Indianapolis Star, June 4, 1915, 10.

40 “A.B.C.’s in Form and Merits Have No Chance,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1915, 4.

41 “Notes of the A.B.C.’s and Lincoln Stars,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 21, 1915, 4.42. These statistics and all

42 These statistics and all others, unless otherwise noted, are taken from Gary Ashwill’s invaluable Seamheads.com, with data input from Larry Lester and Wayne Stivers, which provides the best currently available Negro Leagues stats (they are more reliable than those found at baseball-reference.com). Seamheads counts only games against top-flight competition. For our purposes here, that means solely games against major Black professional teams.

43 “A.B.C.s Win at Fort Wayne,” Indianapolis Star, September 15, 1915, 8.

44 “A.B.C.’s Trim Gunthers,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1915, 4;“Notes of the A.B.C.’s,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1915, 4.

45 This information on Kauff is taken from David Jones’s excellent SABR BioProject article on Kauff. See http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4a224847.

46 “Notes of the A.B.C.’s,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1915, 4.

47 By my count. For what it’s worth, Taylor reported an overall 71-26-3 record going into the game on October 24 against Donie Bush’s All-Stars. Since they played a few games before Oscar arrived, and I am probably missing a few games, Taylor’s claim is probably not too inflated. Champagne Velvet was the name of a pilsner made by the team’s sponsor, the Terre Haute Brewing Company. The brand, allegedly quite popular in Indiana during the first half of the twentieth century, has been recently revived by Bloomington’s Upland Brewing Company.

48 Seamheads gives a triple slash line of .293/.385/.437 for Ben Taylor, .298/.385/.382 for Shively, and .214/.365/.274 for DeMoss. Those lines translate to OPS+s of 172, 156, and 106, respectively. Although these are the best stats we have, keep in mind that they should be taken with a grain of salt, as box scores are sometimes incomplete or contradictory, and some are missing entirely. Charleston’s OPS+ in 1915 was 125.

49 “Stars Play A.B.C.s,” Indianapolis Star, September 21, 1915, 11.

50 “A.B.C.s and Stars Play Double-Header,” Indianapolis Star, September 26, 1915, 21.

51 “A.B.C.s Too Fast for Minor Leaguers,” Indianapolis Star, September 27, 1915, 9.

52 “Chance for All-Stars,” Indianapolis Star, October 1, 1915, 13.

53 “Southpaw in Shape,” Indianapolis Star, October 2, 1915, 13. Both quotes at the end of this paragraph come from this source.

54 “Stars and A.B.C.s in a Drawn Battle,” Indianapolis Star, October 4, 1915, 8.

55 See Scott Simkus, “ABCs vs. Donie Bush All-Stars, 1914,” published on the Agate Type website on December 5, 2006.

56 All of the statistics in this paragraph taken from Baseball-Reference.com.

57 “Work for All-Stars,” Indianapolis Star, October 12, 1915, 13.

58 “Williford at Indiana,” Indianapolis Star, October 13, 1915, 10.

59 “Russell Beaten in Mound Duel,” Indianapolis Star, October 18, 1915, 10.

60 “A.B.C.’s Beat All-Stars,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 23, 1915, 7.

61 “Crandall to Be in All-Stars’ Lineup,” Indianapolis Star, October 24, 1915, 18. The statistics at Seamheads.com show that Redding had compiled a 1.06 ERA over 119 innings in 1915. No one had such numbers at hand at the time, of course.

62 Bush claimed that DeMoss missed the tag. The Chicago Defender, in its game report, states squarely that “Scanlon called what should have been an out safe.” October 30, 1915, 7.

63 My account of this game is taken from the following articles: “Last Game Taken by the All-Stars,” Indianapolis Star, October 25, 1915, 14; “Race Riot Is Balked by Police,” Indianapolis Star, October 25, 1915, 1; “All-Stars Take Last Game,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1915, 7; “Fight Ends A.B.C. Game,” Chicago Defender, October 30, 1915, 7.

64 “American Giants in Fierce Riot at Hoosier City,” Chicago Defender, July 24, 1915, 7. (The title of the article was sensationalist; there had been an on-field fight, but no riot.) It is also worth noting here that in 1916, DeMoss almost touched off another riot when he punched a White umpire in the face after being called out at home in a game against the Chicago American Giants. Charleston played in that game but was no part of the trouble. Why DeMoss has escaped being portrayed as a troublemaker is unclear. Perhaps it is the friendly-sounding nickname?

65 After all, in 1915 we are not that distant from the 1920s, when an estimated 27 to 40 percent of native-born White men in Indianapolis were official members of the Ku Klux Klan. See The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), 879.

66 The text of Taylor’s wire was published in “In the Field of Sport,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1915, 7.

67 Indeed, this was the Chicago Defender’s view of the matter: “Charleston came to DeMoss’ aid,” it reported. October 30, 1915, 7.

₆₈ “Charleston’s Unclean Act—He Is Very Sorry,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 13, 1915, 7.

69 “Mr. Charleston,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 13, 1915, 4.

70 “Manager Taylor Regrets A.B.C. Trouble,” Chicago Defender, November 6, 1915, 7.

71 “Charleston Dropped by the A.B.C. Club,” Indianapolis Star, November 26, 1915, 8.

72 For statistics and information about the A.B.C.s trip to Cuba, see Seamheads.com, from which these statistics are taken, and Severo Nieto, Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba: Box Scores, Rosters and Statistics from the Files of Cuba’s Foremost Baseball Researcher (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008). Note that Nieto’s statistics differ slightly from those on Seamheads.

73 “Baseball Verdict Withheld,” Indianapolis Star, December 8, 1915, 2; Indianapolis Star, December 9, 1915, 13.

74 “Baseball Color Line Is Drawn by Police as Result of Fight,” Indianapolis Star, December 5, 1915, 11.

75 Leerhsen, Ty Cobb, 328.

76 So said Indianapolis Indians business manager Ted Sullivan in 1954: “We were all great friends—Charleston, Donie, and I….” Quoted in “The Pres Box,” Indianapolis Recorder, June 5, 1954, 11.

77 William McNeil’s veterans ranked Charleston as the best manager in the leagues’ history. Charleston was named the greatest player in Negro league history in his poll of historians. See his Cool Papas and Double Duties, 172 and 192, respectively.

• Related link: Click here to access the SABR Little League Home Runs Database

• Appendix: Click here to read “Fun Facts About Little League Home Runs”

The presentation was fun to put together, and it must have been fun to watch, too, because SABR bestowed the Doug Pappas Research Award on me for it.2 Also included was a nice check for $250, presumably for the purpose of funding further research into the phenomenon of Little League Home Runs. (Most of the cash award was, in fact, spent in the bar of the Palmer House Hotel while talking about the presentation with other SABRites.)

But I’m not writing this denouement merely to crow about my presentation or my award (or my drinking in fancy hotel bars). I’m writing it to share what happened after the convention that helped finalize the definition of the LLHR, as well as publish an updated list of all known and confirmed LLHRs as of the date of publication of this article, along with some fun facts and general observations about them.

RETHINKING THE DEFINITION OF A LITTLE LEAGUE HOME RUN

Because I received such positive feedback about the presentation, I hoped the idea could earn a feature write-up on a website targeted to baseball fans. Fortunately, FanGraphs agreed and allowed me to repurpose the presentation into a three-part article, complete with embedded video and audio of actual LLHRs, which was published later that summer.

Part I established the proposed definition of the LLHR.3 As in the presentation, to be considered a LLHR the play needed to include the following elements:

• Two or more errors on the play.

• Batter scores on the play.

That was it. Simple, right? And the definition had to be simple since we needed to be able to query the play-by-play database maintained by Retrosheet — the universally acknowledged gold standard for the cataloguing of major league games throughout history — to uncover LLHRs for which we have no available video or audio evidence.4 Querying on this proposed definition, the earliest instance of a LLHR in recorded history we could find (as of date of publication) occurred during the fourth inning of Game 6 of the 1911 World Series (nearly 28 years before the actual Little League organization itself was founded and available to lend its name to such a play).5

The inaugural LLHR was hit by Jack Barry of the Philadelphia Athletics against the temporarily hapless New York Giants, and was served up by starter Red Ames. There is a hilarious description of the play that appeared in the New York Times the following day (click the image at right to read it.) It includes such classic lines as, “Then came a hysterical outburst of loose play by the Giants …” and “Making the circuit of the bases on a sacrifice hit is something new in baseball and the crowd almost died laughing — at the Giants.”

Ain’t 1911 sportswriting grand?

Part II of the article focused on the statistics and oddities peripheral to the phenomenon of the Little League Home Run.6 At the time of the original presentation, of the 148,390 total games available to query in the Retrosheet database (through the end of the 2014 season Figure is from a Retrosheet query provided by David W. Smith, founder of Retrosheet, in an email to the author, August 4, 2015. ), a total of 258 Little League Home Runs had been identified, which worked out to 1.74 LLHRs per 1,000 games played. (Additional and updated information about LLHRs appears in the Appendix.)

Part III was, to my thinking, the most interesting of all, and which did not appear in the original presentation at SABR 45 because of time constraints.7 This final part called the entire premise of Part I into question by examining the original proposed definition and inviting online discussion among the article’s readers as to whether it should remain the proper definition, or whether it should be adjusted.

Also included in Part III were several videos of plays which might have been considered by many — including the TV and radio announcers calling those game — to be LLHRs, but which did not fit the definition as originally proposed. A clear example was a booming hit by the Cubs’ Kris Bryant against the Pirates’ Arquimedes Caminero, early in 2015, that one-hopped the wall for a double.8 Bryant took third on the relay throw to the plate, intended to nab the lead runner, which bounced away from the catcher. As Bryant took a wide turn around third and put the brakes on, the catcher saw the opportunity to put Bryant out and threw to third. At that point, Bryant committed to the plate; the third baseman took the throw and threw back to the catcher, who dropped the ball, and Bryant plated the run.

The Cubs’ TV announcer called this play a Little League Home Run right away. However, the play did not meet our original definition either technically (only one error was made on the play) or aesthetically (Bryant had hit a booming drive over the center fielder’s head, which in an actual Little League game without fences would have allowed the batter to easily trot around the bases for a real live home run).

This specific play notwithstanding, it became clear that there could be many potential batter-scoring plays which might not satisfy the technical definition originally proposed, but which might fairly still be called a Little League Home Run if it could meet the premise of the play in spirit: an ordinary ball put into play that a bunch of kids in the field boot around and throw all over the place, turning what would normally be a routine out or hit into a four-base romp teeming with hilarity.

THE LLHR POLL AND THE RESULTS

The close of Part III included an online survey asking readers of the article to vote on what should or should not qualify as a Little League Home Run.9 Of the eight questions asked, the first seven included video of a play, a written description of the play in case the video did not properly load for the survey taker, and the simple question: “Should this be considered a LLHR?” The available answers were “yes” or “no” with a text box for optional comments. The eighth question consisted of twenty short play descriptions, each with a yes/no radio button for voting, and a comment box for the question overall.

During the seven weeks the survey was open following the publishing of the FanGraphs article, 424 total responses were received, with 642 comments offered by respondents to flesh out their answers.

The first question (see screenshot at right), contained an example of an obvious LLHR which was intended to test the integrity of the answers. It was also the first LLHR shown in both the SABR 45 presentation and the Fangraphs article: Miguel Cabrera’s 2012 “shot” against Colorado.10 Result: 414 of the 424 respondents, almost 98 percent, agreed that this should be a LLHR, with one respondent declaring, “That’s as little league as a little league home run gets.” Another wrote, “Rounding the bases on a grounder to the pitcher is the epitome of a LLHR” and a third chimed in with, “[This example] strikes me as something akin to the platonic ideal of a [Little League] home run.”

Perhaps the best summarizing comment was, “If this doesn’t fit the definition of a LLHR, I don’t know what does.” The earnestness of the answers to this first question indicated that the respondent base was prepared to take the survey seriously, inspiring confidence in their guidance. (Humorously, though, one of the ten dissenters insisted that all Little League Home Runs “[need] to be hit into the outfield” to qualify, an opinion that also informed the remainder of his answers.)

Most of the six remaining video questions yielded clear majorities one way or the other, all in the direction of the original definition. The voting on one play, however, ran so close that mathematicians might consider it a statistical dead heat. One 2011 play saw the Angels’ Peter Bourjos lining a sharp single into left field that skipped off the glove of a charging Rangers’ David Murphy and scooted all the way to the wall.11 Murphy bolted after the ball, picked it up near the outfield wall and hurled it in, far too late to get the speedy Bourjos.

Even though the play involved only a single defender, a full 49.6% thought this play should qualify as a LLHR. There were plenty of reasonable comments on both sides of the question. Some who thought it should qualify as a LLHR noted that “turning around to chase a ball that a fielder cleanly whiffed on collecting is quintessentially Little League,” and “these are the kinds of plays that happen in Little League all the time.” Those against the LLHR label for the play provided comments such as “feels like LLHR needs at least ONE bad throw (preferably two) to qualify” and that the play “lacks the Keystone Kops factor.”

The final question was perhaps the most important one, which could be asked only after respondents had seen the several video examples before it. The intention was to help crystallize in the respondent’s mind what a LLHR should look like in theory, and then to consider each of the options listed in the final question against their own mental benchmark to determine all the instances they believe should qualify as a LLHR. The results are listed in Figure 1 below.

(Click image to enlarge.)

The double line in the middle of the table was added to easily separate those plays that received majority “yes” answers from those that received majority “no” answers. The answers in bold are those plays that qualify as a LLHR under the originally proposed definition. As a quick scan reveals, most of the scenarios listed in this question that were voted affirmatively by the majority of survey takers adhered to the originally proposed definition — and on the flip side, no play which fit the original definition was voted down by the majority of survey takers. However, two plays that had not been considered before were voted by the majority as qualifying for the Little League Home Run label, and they are both single-error plays involving the infield.

Intuitively, this makes sense: if a batter hits a ball on the infield, the expected result would be a routine out, or a routine fielder’s choice. If the batter is a fast runner, he might get an infield single. But something dramatically unusual must happen for a batter to make it all the way around the bases on such a play, even if it involves only one official error committed. Maybe the errant throw past first rolls all the way down the line and the batter runs clear around the bases before the ball can be retrieved and heaved plateward. Reasonable conjecture suggests this scenario was probably more likely to occur in the more expansive ballparks of the game’s earliest days, given the amount of foul ground they typically contained. Perhaps in the same basic bad throw scenario, when the throw back in arrives at the plate the batter-runner gets caught in a rundown between third and home before eluding a missed tag by the catcher and scoring.

Another possibility would be on a bloop pop up down the line behind first base, the ball pops out of the second baseman’s mitt on a collision with the first baseman and the ball shoots past the right fielder down the line while the batter-runner comes around to score. Yet one more would be a clean base hit to the outfield that returns a throw to the infield to make a play on a runner, but at some point an errant throw gets heaved back into the outfield which allows the batter-runner to complete his trip around the bases. All of these could fairly be classified as legitimate Little League Home Runs, even without commission of a second error.

Of the comments from survey takers on the one-error scenario, this one perhaps encapsulates it best: “I think if there is only one error on the play it needs to be [on] a routine [hit ball] (that a little league fielder might mess up), [i.e., not] fielding a softly hit ball and if rolling to the wall, throwing the ball back to the infield … and it going past the fielders …”

And that, right there, is the essence of the Little League Home Run. It’s not necessarily that a batter-runner happens to score on a play that was not credited as a home run, and it’s not that a big league batter crushes an extra-base hit — as they all can and that only the very best Little Leaguers could ever hope to — and happens to score on a throw past third that sails into the dugout. It’s the routine play: the little dribbler, the bloop pop-up, the ordinary single — all of which should result in nothing more than station-to-station movement at most, but which suddenly and randomly becomes a wild free-for-all because of temporary and random defensive incompetence.

And if a player does happen to hit a clean double, but comes around to score on two errors, then that too reflects a level of defensive ineptitude that, despite the big league nature of the hit, also reflects the spirit of the Little League Home Run.

Therefore, as of publication date, for the purposes of querying the Retrosheet play-by-play database to identify potential events throughout history, the definition of the Little League Home Run is revised to encompass balls put into play during which:

The batter scores, and either

• Two errors are committed on the play; or

• One error is committed on the play, which is not an extra-base hit, and the error is charged to a non-outfielder.

By describing the one-error plays in this way, the chance that the batter could come home on a routine error committed on a double or triple is eliminated, since it is practically impossible to produce an infield extra-base hit. However, whether the ball is hit to the infield or to the outfield, for a batter to score on a single or non-hit with only a single error charged to an infielder, it would almost certainly have to include a wild throw, or the egregious miss of a throw, that sends the ball to the outfield, thus setting off hair-on-fire desperation to retrieve and return the ball, resulting in the hilarity that is the Little League Home Run.

This also helps explain why the Bourjos play, which drew a virtual 50–50 split vote, ultimately does not fit the description of a Little League Home Run: it occurs on a routine error typical of outfielders, rather than a rare and uncommon error. And the voting results bear this out: even though almost 50% of voters voted “yes” when viewing it, when the same play in theory was flatly described in the survey question as “Outfield single and one error,” only about 34% of respondents voted yes on it; and when it was alternately described as “Ball hit to outfield and one error,” it received even fewer positive votes: 26.5%. Given this, we should continue to regard plays like the Bourjos hit not Little League Home Runs.

An Excel file listing all Little League Home Runs, as well as providing links to newspaper accounts and box scores, will be hosted by SABR at http://sabr.org/little-league-home-runs. This file can also be accessed on Google Drive at https://goo.gl/Vyo2RE, and will be updated annually as Retrosheet brings more seasons online. (NOTE: Access to newspaper accounts that are linked to within the database may require a website subscription or library membership.)

CHUCK HILDEBRANDT has served as chair of the Baseball and the Media Committee since its inception in 2013. Chuck won the 2015 Doug Pappas Award for his oral presentation “‘Little League Home Runs’ in MLB History,” and received an honorable mention for his 2014 oral presentation, “The Retroactive All-Star Game Project,” which also served as the cover story for the Spring 2015 “Baseball Research Journal.” Chuck lives with his lovely wife Terrie in Chicago, where he also plays in an adult hardball league. Chuck has also been a Chicago Cubs season ticket holder since 1999, although he is a proud native of Detroit. So, while Chuck’s checkbook may belong to the Cubs, his heart belongs to the Tigers.

Acknowledgments

The Little League Home Runs project could not have been accomplished without help along the way from some terrific people. First and foremost among them is Tom Ruane of Retrosheet, who supplied query after query after query in our quest to identify LLHRs throughout history; as well as his compatriot Mark Pankin, for helping to identify for removal certain plays that showed up in those queries but that newspaper accounts confirmed as being incorrectly scored. Also, thanks to Jacob Pomrenke of SABR and Sean Forman of Baseball-Reference.com for supplying key tools and promotional support for the project; Dave Cameron and Carson Cistulli of FanGraphs for featuring the three-part LLHR article series on the website; David W. Smith, Daniel Hirsch and Mike Emeigh, all of whom supplied Retrosheet queries early in the project; and finally, a big thanks to Patrick Gallagher, Adrian Fung, Alain Usereau, Simon Dukes, Mark Pankin (again), Bill Nowlin, Amy Watts, and Cecilia Tan for helping us nail down those last few media account confirmations of Little League Home Run plays.

Notes

Journalist Studs Terkel called Marvin Miller “the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis,” long-time president of the United Mine Workers and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.2 Actually, he may have sold Miller short. Miller took over a moribund group of what he considered among the most exploited workers in the country, while at the same time being irreplaceable in their work, and turned them into arguably the most powerful labor union in American history.3 Last year marked fifty years since Marvin Miller’s arrival on the baseball scene, and this is the story of how it happened.

Marvin Julian Miller was born April 14, 1917, in the Bronx. He was the first child of Alexander and Gertrude Wald Miller.4 Shortly after his birth, his parents moved to Brooklyn, thus Miller grew up rooting for the Dodgers. Young Marvin was inculcated in the importance of unions at an early age. He walked a picket line with his father—a clothing salesman—and his mother was active in the New York City teacher’s union. He graduated with a degree in economics from New York University in 1938. Prior to taking over the leadership of the MLBPA, he worked for the National War Labor Board, the International Association of Machinists, the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA).

Miller cut his teeth on union issues while working for the USWA. He joined them as a staff economist in the research department in 1950, ultimately rising to chief economist and assistant to the president. In those roles he also served as a member of the union’s basic negotiating committee—the front lines of labor negotiations that would steel him (pun intended) for his future work in baseball. In 1950 the USWA, along with the UAW, were considered the twin pillars of American union strength. USWA membership exceeded a million in the first half of the 1950s, and the USWA had more than 2,300 locals throughout North America.5 By the time he took over the MLBPA, his negotiating skills were finely honed and his devotion to labor causes was well established. When he first arrived on the baseball scene he was an unknown to the general public, but in labor circles his skills were well respected.

Miller’s path to baseball began unexpectedly. In early 1965 the USWA concluded a bitter presidential election that resulted in the ouster of David McDonald, Miller’s boss and mentor. The shake-up led Miller to begin looking for alternate employment. After exploring opportunities with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a faculty position at Harvard, he was asked to interview for the executive directorship of the MLBPA. Miller was unenthusiastic about the position, but when he learned that Robin Roberts was heading the search committee, he agreed to an interview out of deference to Roberts’s heroic on-field accomplishments.

When asked later in life how he could have turned down a position at Harvard for the fledgling ballplayers union, Miller explained that he thought academic jobs were likely to come along again, but the chance to build a union was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In addition, he reasoned that because the MLBPA was totally ineffective, anything he did would be a big improvement. He loved baseball and a good fight, so it seemed like a natural fit.6

PLAYER UNIONS BEFORE THE MLBPA

The MLBPA was the fifth attempt by ballplayers to organize themselves. Until the introduction of the reserve rule prior to the 1880 season, players could shop their services to multiple teams. The reserve rule, however, altered the labor market, tipping the salary negotiation scales heavily in management’s favor. This certainly did not go unnoticed by the players, and just five years later they made their first attempt to level the playing field with the formation of the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players in 1885. The Brotherhood eventually created its own league, the Players League, which collapsed—taking the Brotherhood down with it—after its only season in 1890.

The next attempt at unionization occurred during the heat of the National League war with the upstart American League. The Protective Association of Professional Baseball Players had a brief run, but faded into insignificance when the leagues settled their differences. Attorney David Fultz then established the Baseball Players Fraternity in 1912 and it survived until 1918, after which he accepted the presidency of the International League. In 1946 the short-lived American Baseball Guild was organized by Robert Murphy, a Boston attorney. It lasted one year, and is perhaps most famous for an aborted mid-season strike by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Murphy’s lasting legacy is a spring training per diem for players, known to this day as “Murphy money.”

Though Murphy and the Guild quickly disappeared, his efforts spurred some changes. In an effort to ward off any future attempts to unionize, the owners worked with a player representative from each team and established a minimum salary of $5,000 with a maximum salary reduction of 25% from one year to the next. The biggest prize in the eyes of the players was the creation of a pension. It was originally funded by player contributions and proceeds from the sale of World Series radio and television rights. Eventually revenues from the All-Star game became a central source of pension funds. The players took the pension plan very seriously, but it was not well funded, and by 1949 was nearly insolvent.7

THE FORMATION OF THE MLBPA

The underfunded pension became the grain of sand that irritated the players into action. It might have been the most important thing that ultimately led to the hiring of Miller. In 1953 players began to question the fund, wanting more information and the ability to monitor it. Management stonewalled this request, but eventually agreed to meet with the players on the issue. Each club selected a player representative to do so, but there was no formal organization in place that could take action.

In August 1953 the player reps took matters into their own hands and hired attorney Jonas Norman Lewis to serve as their liaison with the owners at the pension committee meeting. Lewis had been with a law firm that represented the New York Giants for many years, and one of his clients was the Harry Stevens concession firm. His selection was an indication of the naiveté of the players in all matters legal. In an April 1954 article in the Labor Law Journal Lewis described himself as “a lawyer primarily interested in labor cases from management’s side,” and opined that strikes were an unfair labor practice. He defended baseball’s reserve system and the antitrust exemption baseball enjoyed, as well as expressing the opinion that ballplayers should feel lucky to have their jobs and enviable wages.8 Walter O’Malley, who abhorred the very idea of a players union, reminded Lewis that he was an “owners’ man,” and tried in vain to talk him out of accepting the position.9

When Lewis arrived for the meetings the owners refused to allow him in the room. Over the next few years the players kept him on retainer and turned to him for advice on various issues. Despite his background, Lewis fought hard for the ballplayers.

In December 1953, while the owners held their winter meetings in Atlanta, the players gathered there as well—though separate from the owners—and formed the Major League Baseball Players Association, chartered in New York. Lewis filed the paperwork and Bob Feller was elected the first president of the MLBPA, holding the position until 1959.

Though Lewis was devoted to the players, he was not a full-time employee and resisted becoming one. As a result there was no central office, offseason communication was sparse, and the MLBPA languished. While Lewis was committed to the players, he did not feel they reciprocated that commitment to their own cause, citing their reluctance to pay union dues. The players fired Lewis in February 1959, grousing about his lack of commitment to their cause and complaining that he refused to tour the spring training camps to meet with them.10

Later that year Feller stepped down, and the association hired Frank Scott on a part-time basis as executive director to oversee the organization’s trivial operations. Scott had previously served as the traveling secretary for the Yankees. He developed relationships with many players in that role, and after leaving, he served as a go-between, an early iteration of an agent, for some of them to secure endorsements and paid guest appearances.

Scott proposed that the players create a central office for their association, staffed by a full-time position that he would fill. The players agreed and Scott set up headquarters in a New York hotel where he also ran his agent business. For the first time, the players saw an active role for themselves, describing the purpose of the central office as an instrument for ballplayers to register their views and opinions on matters pertaining to Association policy or player welfare. Scott’s first major initiative was to hire a legal advisor. The players stated that their most pressing interests in the new attorney were to protect the pension and give them a voice in complaining about playing conditions. Judge Robert C. Cannon got the job ahead of a list of candidates that included former commissioner Happy Chandler, future owner Edward Bennett Williams, and Richard Moss, the man who would hold the position under Marvin Miller.

JUDGE CANNON

Cannon certainly had the pedigree for the job. His father, an attorney, once represented Shoeless Joe Jackson, and had previously attempted to unionize the players. The younger Cannon was strongly advocated for by Bob Friend, the influential Pirates player rep. However, he was another hire that exposed the players’ weak grasp of labor relations. Upon his appointment, Cannon voiced with pleasure that he was well received by baseball authorities and club owners. He also admitted in his application that he was not an authority on pensions, but espoused his belief that baseball was an important influence on American youth and as a result players should set a good example on and off the field. At one meeting with owners he told them his “primary concern will be what’s in the best interest of baseball. Second thought will be what’s best for the players.”11

Cannon was actually more interested in leading the owners than he was in representing the players. He coveted the commissionership. In positioning himself for the job, he once described Ford Frick as “a good man . . . [who] did not have the training to be commissioner.”12 He felt that a judicial background was necessary to be a successful commissioner, along with a love of baseball—a description of his own qualifications. When Frick retired in 1965, Cannon, still serving as legal advisor to the players, launched an unsuccessful bid for his office. Instead, the owners chose retired Air Force General Spike Eckert. Cannon’s interest in the commissionership should have sounded alarm bells with the players, but they believed his cozy relationship with ownership was an asset to their cause.

ELECTING A NEW LEADER

Pensions, not salaries, were the primary concern of the players in 1965. By then the MLB pension fund was accruing $1.6 million per year. Each player was making an annual contribution of $344 with teams contributing 95 percent of the All Star Game’s ticket revenue (a game in which the players participated for free) and 40 percent of the broadcast fees from the All Star and World Series games.13 Robin Roberts and Jim Bunning, two of the more vocal player reps, voiced a suspicion shared by many that the owners were under-valuing the media revenues in order to reduce their pension obligations to players. This was easy enough to do since the rights were sold as a package, bundled with the Game of the Week broadcasts. The players felt overmatched. Ralph Kiner argued that ballplayers needed legal representation because they were “the worst businessmen in the land.”14 Dodgers outfielder Al Ferrara was more blunt, noting that the players “were getting screwed by all kinds of people.”15 The players needed some legal muscle because the owners were evasive about the pension, evading player questions about its operation and steadfastly refusing to open the books for the players to examine. The seeds of distrust between players and management were sown long before Marvin Miller arrived on the scene.

But the search for a full-time leader was complicated by the underlying hostility that ballplayers had toward unions as a result of a very effective propaganda campaign run by the owners and fostered by the press. Players had been taught that baseball was a game, not a business; the owners were sportsmen, not businessmen; the commissioner was there to serve the game, not the owners (by whom he was hired and to whom he answered). The party line was that players should feel privileged to be able to play for a living while the average American had to work for a living. Unions, they were reminded, meant work stoppages, mafia involvement, and violence. The most important issue in that list was work stoppage. No work meant no pay, and few players could afford to miss a paycheck.

Miller was approached about interviewing for the baseball job by George Taylor, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, and a well-known labor advisor. Taylor, who was assisting the MLBPA in identifying potential leaders, had originally approached Lane Kirkland, a high ranking official (and eventual president) of the AFL-CIO, but had been rebuffed. Miller was his second choice, but a solid one, given his background and accomplishments with the steelworkers.

The search committee consisted of Roberts, Bunning, Harvey Kuenn, and Bob Friend. The other candidates interviewed for the job included Judge Cannon (Friend’s favorite—so much so that he didn’t even bother interviewing Miller), Detroit attorney Tom Costello (Bunning’s early choice), and Bob Feller, who actively campaigned for the job. Others known to be considered for the job were Hank Greenberg and Giants Vice President Chub Feeney.16

Miller nearly sabotaged his own candidacy. During the interview he strongly argued against the suggestion that his legal advisor might be former Vice President Richard Nixon. He told the players that because the MLBPA was a small organization, it could not afford any incompatibility in a union with just two professionals. He urged them to let their director, whoever that may be, pick his own legal counsel.

After meeting with the committee, Miller developed a strong desire for the job. He wrote to Roberts expressing his interest, highlighting the near perfect fit between the players’ needs and his skills. He sought to soothe the fear that a labor leader like himself would bring teamster tactics and mafia connections to the game by convincing Roberts that harmonious relationships between players and owners must prevail without any sacrifice of player interests.

Despite Miller’s outstanding credentials, the committee recommended Judge Cannon, and in January of 1966 at a player rep meeting overseen by Commissioner Eckert and his aide Lee MacPhail, the nomination was seconded, and on the second ballot he was unanimously recommended. All that remained was a pro forma vote of the rank and file. Ten days later, before his election could be held, his swift unraveling began.

Cannon had campaigned for the position, but then had second thoughts when he realized how much money he would lose in his foregone judicial pension if he switched jobs. Instead of turning down the job, he sought to renegotiate the contract, asking for a raise to cover his lost pension, and resisting the requirement that he relocate to New York.

In a sign of how interested the owners were in seeing Cannon take the position, Pirates owner John Galbreath offered to reimburse his lost pension. Cannon refused the offer, claiming to have lost interest in the position because he had “got it up to here with players who kept talking about money.”17 That was certainly the pot calling the kettle black. And it was a lucky break for the players.

The players—including Friend—were turned off by what they viewed as blatant greed and withdrew the offer. With tail between their legs they turned to Miller, who, with wounded pride, initially rebuffed them. After intense personal lobbying by Roberts and a humbled Bob Friend, he ultimately agreed to take the position if the players elected him.

The process, however, did not go smoothly. Judge Cannon and MLB executives were actively working behind the scenes to quash Miller’s election. While the players may have been reticent about hiring a labor leader, the owners were downright mortified at the idea. The last thing they wanted was an experienced, skilled, and knowledgeable adversary across the table from them. Naturally, they preferred things the way they used to be, without any organization on the part of the players. But if they had to negotiate with a players union, far better that it be led by a friendly face like Judge Cannon.

The owners quickly acted to discredit Miller. Before he even had a single meeting with the rank and file, newspaper articles appeared quoting players antagonistic to the idea of a professional labor man leading their association. They relied on heavy doses of anti-union propaganda to sway the players, and inserted coaches and managers into the meetings with Miller to both spy and intimidate.

The players were afraid that if they unionized Miller would lead them out on strike. They had been brainwashed by MLB executives that this was the inevitable outcome of a Miller leadership and unionization, stoking fears that only a few well paid superstars could financially weather any kind of walkout.18

Miller’s first meeting was with the Angels at their spring training site in Palm Springs. After a brief presentation he received the silent treatment. He only got a response, and a tepid one at that, after pointing out that because their pension plan had not kept up with inflation it had actually eroded in value.

From Palm Springs, he headed to Arizona to meet with the Giants, Cubs and Indians, and received an equally unenthusiastic reception. Miller was not informed of the vote totals at the time, which was probably good, since the players in the Cactus League opposed him overwhelmingly (102-17). The Giants were unanimous in their rejection of his nomination.19

The owners’ smear campaign was effective in the western camps, but failed in the east when they overplayed their hand. The day before Miller met with the Dodgers in Vero Beach, Buzzie Bavasi visited the clubhouse. He warned the players that they should be afraid of unions, reminding them they had families to feed, and unions meant strikes, which meant no work and no paycheck. Cannon was also deployed, distributing pamphlets to every clubhouse warning the players against hiring a labor man who would bring racketeering and goon squads to the game. The approach backfired. The players concluded that if ownership was so against the union, it must be good for the players.

By pointing out that by legal definition the players were already a union, despite their name—Major League Baseball Players Association—Miller was able to assuage their fears. While he did not promise that he would never lead them on strike, he did emphasize that the players would set the tone and enumerated the advantages of a well-timed strike if the stakes were worthwhile. Finally, he implored them to become active in their association so that they, and not he, would dictate its direction and the issues they wanted to address.

In the western camps the votes were conducted publicly by managers. In Florida the player reps took control and saw to it that the players ran the elections, conducted as secret ballots. The difference was staggering. In the east Miller was supported by a vote of 472-34.

Baseball would never be the same. On April 12, 1966, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) announced the second executive director of what had been, up to that point, a largely ineffective association. Miller was about to change that.

THE FIRST HURDLE

Having failed in their attempt to prevent Miller’s election, the owners changed strategy, attacking on two fronts. While he may have been elected, Miller was not yet under contract, a situation they sought to exploit. Additionally, the owners had intimate knowledge of MLBPA finances, especially their weaknesses. Once again they deployed Judge Cannon.

The Judge was assigned to draft the newly elected executive director’s contract. On its face, this seemed reasonable, since he was the legal counsel for the MLBPA. However, he was also the jilted suitor whose real desires lay in serving the owners. Not surprisingly then, the contract Cannon originally produced was refused by Miller.

Miller and the players had agreed on a five-year deal with a July 1, 1966, start date at $50,000 per year with an annual expense account in the amount of $20,000. But Cannon proffered a two-year contract with a starting date of January 1, 1967. The later date was significant because it meant Miller would not be representing the players during negotiations over the pension contract, which was about to expire.

The contract also included a three-day-notice termination clause if Miller was accused of public ridicule or moral turpitude. The vagueness of this clause was troubling enough, but the fact that there were no directions in the contract on how his expense account was to be managed opened him up to a virtually infinite number of moral turpitude charges. Miller insisted that the contract spell out reimbursement requirements, include the same good-conduct clause that appeared in player contracts, and begin on the original agreed-upon date. He compromised on length, signing a two and a half year pact.

At the same time they were trying to outflank Miller with the contract, the owners applied pressure to the association’s weak finances. When Miller was hired, the association’s assets totaled $5,700 and some used furniture in a rented New York office.20 The primary source of association income came from the owners. Players paid $50 in annual dues, which was not nearly enough to cover the costs of running the association. The owners enhanced the amount with funds from their own coffers (sort of: the funds actually were diverted from the amount owners had agreed to contribute to the pension fund). This was a blatant violation of the Taft-Hartley Act, but neither the owners, their legal advisors, nor Judge Cannon seemed to be concerned.

When Miller was elected instead of Cannon, as management had expected, they suddenly became aware of the Taft-Hartley Act and announced they were legally prohibited from providing any funds, thus starving the association of cash. They had no problem violating federal law when they thought Cannon would get the job, but suddenly got religion when Miller was the new hire. Miller, who was familiar with the Taft-Hartley Act, readily supported MLB’s decision. However, it meant he had a serious cash flow problem. MLB’s refusal to fund the union was less about the law than it was about putting a financial stranglehold on the union. However, it turned out to be a legal blunder. By admitting they were prohibited from funding the position by federal law, they had de facto conceded that MLB was a business, that it was engaged in interstate commerce, and that the MLBPA was indeed a union as defined under federal law, all of which would come back to haunt the owners in the future.21

To fund the association in his first year Miller negotiated a group license agreement with Coca-Cola to put player images on the underside of their bottle caps. The owners sought to scuttle the plan by refusing to license team logos. In reply, Coke simply airbrushed the team logos off of the baseball caps and proceeded with the plan. The result was a $60,000 infusion of cash, more than enough to tide over the office. During his career Miller would negotiate several such licensing agreements for the players, which produced substantial amounts of ancillary income.

PENSION NEGOTIATIONS

The final salvo fired by the owners was to employ delay tactics on the negotiations over the soon-to-expire pension agreement. They scheduled a June 6 meeting to discuss the pension. Holding such a meeting during the season was extraordinary, apparently signaling its importance. However, when Miller and the players showed up, no effort was made to negotiate. The owners initially refused to allow Miller to participate, since he was not yet under contract. Commissioner Eckert changed his mind, however, when Miller informed him that if he was not invited, none of the players would attend.

Having failed to exclude Miller, management sought to outflank the union altogether by announcing the new pension plan they had unilaterally decided upon, and then prepared a press conference to unveil it. Miller was initially stunned by the owner’s chutzpah, but recovered in time to pull Commissioner Eckert aside and point out to him that they were about to violate federal labor laws.

The owners called off the press conference and set up a series of meetings to discuss the pension plan. The old plan had allocated 40 percent of the national TV money for the All Star Game and World Series to the pension. As the value of TV rights rapidly escalated, MLB did not want to share that wealth. Instead, they proposed to contribute $4 million per year. Miller wanted to review the television contract, but the owners refused.

Miller proposed that the players’ contribution to their own pension be eliminated, commensurate with the way private pension plans were evolving.22 The $344 that players had previously contributed to the pension would instead be converted to dues. The $50 in dues they had been paying would revert to the players. Thus, players would see a $50 increase in their take home pay without losing either their pension or union membership. The owners had to approve the dues check off and agree to transfer those funds to the union, which they eventually did. All but two players signed up for the dues contribution. The degree of support stunned the owners and was a delightful surprise to Miller.

Negotiations got nowhere until Miller learned that MLB had previously broken the law by withdrawing $167,440 from the pension fund to redistribute among the owners.23 Using this as a bargaining chip, he finally closed the pension deal. The owners approved the elimination of the player contribution and the players accepted the fixed pension contribution. Miller was criticized for this concession, but he concluded that a straight cash contribution was better for the players, since it was impossible to enforce the 40 percent clause without access to the contract.

The owners had hoped that by stalling they would force Miller—who at the time still had no clear plan for funding his office—to abandon the cause. Instead, it enraged the players, and they consolidated their support behind Miller. In retrospect, the owners probably could not have done anything to better galvanize union support.

By the end of 1966, Miller’s biggest victory was the pension plan, but the most important one was solidifying the union. He added leadership and expert counsel with Richard Moss, his former colleague from the USWA, and put the union on firm financial footing with the dues check off (which cost the players nothing) and the Coca-Cola money. More importantly, the union no longer depended on the owners for funding, and their leader, Marvin Miller, was anything but their shill. Quite to the contrary, Miller was more pro-player than many of the players were. And while some took a while to trust him and buy into the idea that baseball players needed a union, they all backed him in time.

MILLER’S LEGACY

In his first six months on the job Miller delivered a new pension plan for the players. In his second year he went one better, negotiating the first basic agreement in professional sports, signed in February 1968. But the best was yet to come. Before he retired in 1982, the players had gained the right to arbitration for disciplinary issues and salaries, overturned the reserve rule, increased the size of their pensions, and saw salaries rise by nearly 2,000 percent—all without the Armageddon predicted by the owners.

“This will be the end of baseball as we knew it,” lamented Braves GM Paul Richards in reference to the dangers of negotiating (my emphasis) a collective bargaining agreement with the players. Richards was right, it was the end of baseball as the owners knew it. He just had no idea how much better things would get. Player salaries skyrocketed, attendance boomed, television revenues soared, franchise values exploded, and state-of-the-art, publicly funded stadiums sprouted like mushrooms. The owners are very protective of their financial records, but there is no evidence to support the claim that the rise in power of the MLBPA harmed the owners. They have been forced to share a bigger piece of the revenue pie, but the pie has grown exponentially since Marvin Miller arrived on the scene, allowing both sides to grow rich far beyond anything they could have imagined a half century ago.

MICHAEL HAUPERT is Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He is fortunate enough to be able to combine his work with his hobby, teaching and researching the economics of sports and history.

An earlier version of this article first appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of “Outside the Lines,” the newsletter of the Business of Baseball committee.

Sources

Abrams, Roger, legal bases: Baseball and the Law, Philadelphia, Temple University, 1998

Burk, Robert F., Marvin Miller, Baseball Revolutionary, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015

Haupert, Michael, Haupert Baseball Salary Database, private collection, 2016

Haupert, Michael, “Marvin Miller Takes the Helm,” Outside the Lines 22, no. 1 (Spring 2016), pp 26-32

Korr, Charles P., The End of Baseball As We Knew It: The Players Union, 1960-81, Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2002

Leahy, Michael, The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York: Harper Collins, 2016

Lewis, J. Norman, “Picketing in New York State,” Labor Law Journal 5, no. 4 (April 1954), pp 263-69

Lowenfish, Lee, The Imperfect Diamond: a history of baseball’s labor wars, New York: Da Capo Press, 1980

Miller, Marvin, A Whole New Ballgame: The Sport and Business of Baseball, New York: Birch Lane Press, 1991

Swanson, Krister, Baseball’s Power Shift, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016

Notes

A National League players’ strike, instigated by some of the St. Louis Cardinals, against the presence in the league of Jackie Robinson, Negro first baseman, has been averted temporarily and perhaps permanently quashed.

WARREN CORBETT is the author of “The Wizard of Waxahachie: Paul Richards and the End of Baseball as We Knew It,” and a contributor to SABR’s BioProject. He became a baseball fan when he saw Jackie Robinson dancing off base on a snowy black-and-white TV set. This article was selected as a winner of the 2018 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.

In 1880 the organizing of professional clubs to determine a national champion was but nine years old and the concept was still evolving. Offseason and post-baseball employment, although not new ideas, were growing concerns as the number of seasonal professionals increased with the era’s proliferation of major and minor baseball leagues. Sources indicate players were willing to try many occupations and schemes in a changing and dynamic decade. The emphasis of this survey is on what players did when not playing baseball in order to discern any trends that might emerge. In this wide-ranging survey, the activities of obscure players become as important as those of the renowned.

The activities of 269 players of the 1880s were taken into consideration. While some material comes from the SABR Biography Project (BioProject) which includes valuable genealogical sources, much of the information is sourced from brief snippets in weekly periodicals and daily newspapers. Considering the latter source, the trends offered here should be viewed as anecdotal rather than hard data. It should also be noted that since many players pursued more than one activity and all activities were included, the sum of the percentages proffered are greater than the whole. Yet it is hoped that noting these activities and trends can help put baseball players of the 1880s into some historical and cultural context.

AN ERA OF CHANGE

The 1880s were a decade of transition in American history. Within nine months of July 14, 1881 — the date Billy the Kid was gunned down — the Earps and the Clantons fought it out at OK Corral and Jesse James was assassinated. Although these events were fodder for the dime novels and significant contributors to the growing mythology of the American “Wild West,” that frontier was already being tamed. By the beginning of the 1880s, both the Sioux and the Comanche had been effectively subdued, and later in the decade Geronimo and most Apache were captured and ignominiously shipped off to Florida, virtually ending Native American opposition to Anglo-American expansion.1 That growth was being spurred by the prolific extension of the railroads and telegraph into the Great Plains. In 1870 the estimated bison population was 5.5 million. By 1889 there were but 541 American bison remaining.2 The improvement and increased use of mass production farming equipment opened the middle of the continent to the last wave of settlers moving west. Within the span of many baseball players’ careers, the geographical void once called the Great American Desert was transformed into the Corn Belt. The already established American passions of real estate and mining speculation came with the mass migration. Financial and intellectual tycoons the likes of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Edison, and Tesla were making their impact. Implementation of technologies like the telephone, telegraph, electric lights, steel, and trolley systems were transforming the urban American landscape as well.

Players came from every social and economic strata of American society. A few were first generation immigrants while many more were second generation stock. Some were considered native born, which did not mean Native Americans, rather they were of Anglo-Saxon heritage of multiple generations. Our current perception that a high percentage of early professional players met the contemporary definition of immigrants is mirrored in this observation from an 1886 issue of The Sporting News: “The players on the diamond are of various nationalities. Nava of Baltimore is a Spaniard, McKeon, Reddy Mack, and Pete Browning are Italians, while only a few are Americans.”3 This statement seemingly ignores the large number of second generation Irish-Americans playing the game, yet tacitly acknowledges them, and embodies the nineteenth-century perception that even native-born second-generation players were still “foreigners” when it states there are “few Americans” playing the game. The number of first and second generation immigrant players may have been nearly thirty percent.4 Regardless of national or ethnic background, all players of the 1880s exercised the new social and economic status provided them by baseball to seek further opportunity — with varying degrees of intensity and imagination.

EARNING POTENTIAL & THE WEALTHY

The need for a player to seek employment depended on the circumstances of the individual. The average baseball salary in the 1880s was around $2,000. In 1880 the highest salaried player was Cap Anson at $1,900, but by 1889 Fred Dunlap and Buck Ewing were bringing in $5,000 each, while others were reportedly making as much as $4,000. Owners may have often paid their star players more than the contract indicated. Bench or change players sometimes signed for $1,200–$1,500. The average American’s income of the era ran between $800 and $900 a year, but census records — which excluded many better-paying positions — cite a figure of $376. Many of the players considered in this essay possessed either a skilled trade or education that would have allowed them to make up to $1,000 or more annually outside of baseball. Whether a player worked or not during the offseason, or after his career ended, depended on his earning ability as a player, marketable skill set in the work world, his education, and ambition.5

A handful of players were financially well off, those with money of their own or who stood to inherit significant fortunes. Pitcher Lev Shreve, briefly with Baltimore and Indianapolis, was reported to come from a wealthy family. Shreve was worth $75,000 in his own right and was said to play ball for the fun of it. Two-time 40-game winner Bob Caruthers was set for life with $50,000 and stood to inherit over $300,000 more from his mother in a well connected East Tennessee family. German immigrant Willie Kuehne, who spent most of his ten-year infielding career in Pittsburgh, was born in Leipzig, in modern day Germany, and inherited nearly $75,000 one midseason from a relative in the old country. Emil Gross, five-year catcher with three teams, gave up the demanding position when he inherited $50,000.6

Others, while not so notably wealthy, did come from prosperous or comfortable families. Future Hall of Fame inductee and 328-game winner John Clarkson was the son of a prominent, successful jeweler and business associate of Harry Wright. The business district in Ilion, New York, was named “Hotaling Block” because it was owned by Pete Hotaling’s family. The real estate was waiting for him after he roamed the outfield for six teams in a nine-year career. Some others who might be considered well into the middle class include eight-year, seven-team pitcher-outfielder Ed “Cannonball” Crane whose father was a prosperous tailor, three-year Athletic outfielder Jud Birchall whose family did well in textile, and the popular second generation German immigrant and general utility man for the Baltimore Orioles, Joe Sommer, whose father was a successful hotelier. There are indications that nearly eleven percent of major league players had substantial financial support to fall back on if baseball did not work out for them.7

WORKING MEN AND BUSINESS VENTURES

Not everyone was born to the manor. Players were often apprenticed to the trades while still in their teens, before baseball propelled them into a new financial status. Jocko Milligan was apprenticed to a blacksmith at Girard College for Orphans before turning to real estate investment during his ten-year catching career. Baltimore native Frank Foreman, who pitched for four different major leagues 1884–1902, was one of many machinists. Bricklaying, plastering, plumbing, and carpentry were among the many trades players learned and practiced.

The young Tim Keefe, on his way to 342 wins and a belated Hall of Fame induction, soured on the trades early when he was stiffed on a bill for a house he built. Buffalo-born George Myers — primarily a catcher in the National League for six years — was reported to have built his $5,000 home with his own hands. Matt Kilroy once tried to use his glassblowing skills as a bargaining ploy in his contract negotiations with Billie Barnie of the Baltimore Orioles. He stated he was perfectly willing to go back to his old job where he could make $20 a week. With a $2,600 offer on the table, no one took him seriously. Things were so rough-and-tumble in the baseball world of 1885 that Baltimore catcher Bill Traffley declared all players should get paid at least $6,000 a year for risking their lives on the diamond. A local newspaper responded that if the game was too dangerous for his liking, he could always go back to his old job as brakeman on a gravel train. Bill stuck to catching. Those apprenticed or later working at a trade came to thirty percent of the players noted.8

While some would continue in the trades, others would try to parlay their baseball wages into various investments. Although rarely specified in the sources, it is certain that their notoriety propelled players into new social and business circles. Through those contacts, they could find better jobs, as well as enter into business ventures on their own, with teammates, or in partnerships with avid, well heeled fans who were happy to say they were a business associate with a local hero of the diamond. Nearly forty-three percent of the players considered in this essay ventured into assorted schemes, speculations, and opportunities.

After his bad experience in the construction business, Keefe put down his hammer, studied accounting and shorthand, opened a sporting goods store with fellow Metropolitan pitcher Buck Becannon, and invested in real estate in his hometown of Cambridge (MA) and Boston. It was reported he turned down a $30,000 offer for one piece of property, holding out for $50,000 because the city was looking to build a new library on the site.

While real estate was no more popular than other ventures, some did look to speculate in the expanding of the nation. Outfielder and yachtsman Ed Andrews became wealthy investing in land on Florida’s east coast during his eight-year career, and outfielder Abner Dalrymple actively tried to swap his ranch in Nebraska for one in California in 1888.9

Mickey Welch, whose Irish immigrant father was a ferrier by trade, tried his hand in a hotel, a saloon, cigar store, and a milk production venture with his sons. Then he hired on as steward of the Holyoke Elks Lodge, before working at the Polo Grounds later in life. After he blew his arm out, Matt Kilroy returned to his home town of Philadelphia where he gave up glass blowing and owned a popular restaurant and saloon near Shibe Park. It was the place for Philadelphia baseball fans to meet for many years before and after games.10

By far the most popular business or investment for a ballplayer of the 1880s was the saloon, sometimes included as part of a hotel, restaurant, or billiard room. Some were advertised as sports bars and were touted as meeting places where players and fans alike could commiserate about the latest baseball news over a beverage. Baseball-related names for these establishments were common. Orioles catcher Bill Traffley couldn’t get his $6,000 and wasn’t going back to the gravel train, so he teamed up with pitcher and batterymate Hardie Henderson and opened up “The Battery” in Baltimore. Baltimore backup catcher Dick Mappes went to the St. Louis Maroons the following year, where he and pitcher Jumbo McGinnis opened an establishment under the same name. While some saloons, like Kilroy’s, were successful, other players probably should have stayed out of the business. When it was reported that knockabout second baseman Dasher Troy had opened a “gin mill” in New York, it was followed with the comment that Dasher need only find a dozen customers such as himself to have “no trouble making a go of it.” Former promising pitcher Fred Goldsmith was thought to have fallen far from his days as “Adonis of Chicago” when he turned up working a saloon in Detroit “…a plain fourteen-hours-a-day hired man.” Whether owners, managers, barkeeps, or salesmen, a little over sixteen percent player involvement was enough to prompt contemporary observations of a glut of players in this particular line of work, and that there were plenty of other opportunities available if they would only broaden their interest.11

Some pursued an education before, during, or after their playing days to enter a profession. Some of the better known universities mentioned were Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn State, Cornell, Brown, Northwestern, Holy Cross, and the University of Pennsylvania. After five years in the outfield with three clubs, Jimmy Manning graduated from the Massachusetts School of Pharmacy and entered that profession. Veteran catchers Doc Bushong and George Townsend, perhaps understandably given the nature of their position, became dentists. Hall of Fame inductee John Montgomery Ward, said by some to be the most accomplished individual to ever play baseball, and the aptly named Orator O’Rourke, became well known attorneys. Within two years of a one-game stint for Detroit in 1884, Walt Walker was elected prosecutor of Isabella County in Michigan.

Mark Baldwin, a workhorse pitcher for five teams in three different major leagues over seven years, and Cleveland’s three-game tryout Doc Oberlander were among those who received medical degrees. Boston and Athletic backup catcher Thomas Gunning took off his equipment to became medical examiner for New York City, and later assisted on the parents of Lizzie Borden murder autopsies. Ohio native Lee Richmond’s best years as a pitcher came with the shortlived Worcester Brown Stockings. He later put aside his medical degree — earned from The College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City — to become a high school principal and teacher in Ohio where he taught Greek, math, physics, history, and chemistry, in addition to coaching and conducting the orchestra. In 1921 the multi-talented Richmond took on new responsibilities as professor and dean at the University of Toledo.

While playing for four major league teams in two years, Frank Olin was working on a degree from Cornell. He later ran a large commercial construction business in New Jersey specializing in power plants, mining facilities, and munitions factories. Over eight percent of the players looked at from this decade were found to have entered an educated profession.12

There was no shortage of artistic talent among baseball players of the era. Long John Reilly’s mother recognized her son’s abilities early and apprenticed him to prestigious Strowbridge Lithograph Co. where he specialized in circus posters and quickly earned a salary that rivaled his baseball earnings. Playing in Cincinnati, primarily for the Association club, he juggled the two lucrative careers. Reilly also painted artistically and was widely recognized for his talent. Mark Baldwin was another painter of note. He found the time between baseball, education, and a medical practice to specialize in landscapes.13

Norm Baker was a marginal pitcher for three American Association clubs in three years, but his first class baritone landed him lead roles in the offseason with the Ford Opera Co., for whom he appeared in Memphis. Baker may have been a bit of the diva, for he was said to be contrary and temperamental.

When he wasn’t playing football or running two to three miles a day to stay in shape, Emmett Seery patrolled the outfield for seven different clubs over nine years for all four major leagues between 1884 and 1890. In his spare time he sang in “The Chimey of Normandy” with the Peterson Opera in Indianapolis one winter. Sy Sutcliffe, who bounced through seven major league teams over eight years as a utility player, was another with a classical music bent and was “blowing the keys off a clarinet” for the Savannah Symphony Orchestra in 1886.14

While actual acting ability could be lacking, their star status allowed many players to take to the stage. Cap Anson’s and King Kelly’s exploits in front of the vaudeville footlights are well documented. Arlie Latham, star third baseman for the St. Louis Browns of the 1880s and often referred to as “The Freshest Man on Earth,” headlined in Lew Simmons’s minstrel shows but later tried his hand at acting as well. Due to make $90 a week in the Simmons backed farce-comedy, “Fashions,” Arlie ended up suing for lost wages of $394.12. It doesn’t appear he ever acknowledged that his acting may have contributed to the show’s demise. Harry Stovey, whose best years came with the Athletics, was scheduled to tour with a Simmons show in 1886. In addition to being one of the better players of the decade, Stovey was a first rate clog dancer. It may have been facetiously reported that Harry was to dance to the tune of “Footsteps in the Sand.”15

For those not musically or artistically inclined, the era offered other opportunities. In the midst of a six-team, three-league, seven-year utility career, Dave Rowe spent the 1884 offseason mining in Colorado with no success. He then returned to play in 1885 and manage the Kansas City Cowboys the following year. Joe Moffet was a borderline major league player, while brother Sam showed more promise. Both debuted in the major leagues in 1884 only to toss aside their baseball careers for a chance to work the silver strike in Butte, Montana. They struck it rich. The West Virginia brothers pulled out the princely sum of $231,000 worth of silver and gold. Bitten by both the baseball and the mining bugs, Sam came back east three years later to play in the major leagues for two more years before returning to the mining business in Montana and Canada for good.16 Although not a player, Pittsburg Allegheny owner and American Association president Dennis McKnight was another baseball figure with a mining payoff when his silver holdings in Mexico began to produce towards the end of the decade. McKnight was variously reported in Arizona or New Mexico, looking the cowboy, rubbing elbows with the brokers of El Paso, trying to raise the capital to expand his venture.17

While mining is a gamble, the hard work involved in it was not for everybody. Maryland native Dave Foutz spent some of his early years with his brother in the rough and ready minefields of Leadville, Colorado, where he learned games of chance. As a St. Louis Brown, Foutz once ran a floating poker game in San Francisco while playing winter ball there. The handsome Foutz fancied himself as much a professional gambler as a ball player. There is some question whether gambling allowed Foutz to play baseball, or if baseball allowed him to gamble. At least one contemporary newspaper felt that it was his baseball earnings that bankrolled his penchant for gambling, it being reported he once lost a season’s salary at the “green table” in New Orleans.

Six-year catcher and utilityman Dell Darling and two-year outfielder Jon Morrison were another pair looking for easy money-as train robbers. Not to be confused with the likes of the James or Younger brothers, this gang would board trains, furtively rummage through the luggage, and pass the loot off to accomplices at stops along the way. A hundred people were implicated in the scheme working out of Darling’s hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania.18

During a seven-year career as a catcher, primarily with the Cincinnati “Porkopolitans” of the American Association, Kid Baldwin once tried his hand at sheepherding. It appears the Kid had a hard time keeping track of himself, much less a herd. It was later reported that he was engaged to a wealthy heiress, and a newspaper wag opined that Baldwin would “go through her wealth like a bullet through cheese.” Many players found jobs in the offseason as referees in the New England Polo League, for which the irrepressible Arlie Latham was turned down. Latham later found his dream job as Commissioner of Baseball of England, a post he held for seventeen years.

The fantasy camp concept is not exclusive to our era: When Mark Baldwin wasn’t going to medical school, playing baseball, or painting, he found the time to teach fans the art of pitching at a pricey $25 each. All told, “miscellaneous” jobs accounted for about sixty-four percent of ballplayers’ employment activities.19

SPORTS AND THE SPORTING LIFE

Many players hewed close to baseball and sports in general. Ten-year veteran Tom York, Hall of Fame pitcher Tim Keefe, and stalwart Louisville hurler Guy Hecker were among those who opened sporting goods businesses. Others simply invested, managed, or worked for them in some capacity. Apparently, the temperamental Norm Baker passed on one opera season and spent the winter hand stitching baseballs for Al Reach. It was said he could turn out three dozen balls a day.20

Harry Decker and Ted Kennedy were two players who turned their efforts and imaginations to the game they played. Decker was one of those players from comfortable circumstances in Chicago who would later exhibit an enigmatic, if not bizarre, tendency to criminal behavior. A catcher by trade with six teams in three major leagues in four years, he patented his designs of a pioneering catcher’s mitt, and later worked and sold models through Al Reach who manufactured them. The patent was later sold to Spalding who marketed what would be known as the “decker.” The imaginative Decker also made improvements to the turnstile.

Kennedy, who lasted only two seasons in a major league pitching box, also patented his novel glove designs, which were subsequently sold to Al Spalding. Kennedy and Decker were responsible for at least some of the innovations that transitioned baseball from form-fitting to flexible padded gloves. Kennedy also opened a baseball school specializing in the art of throwing the curve ball. If you couldn’t physically make it to the class, he wrote a book, complete with diagrams, which an aspirant could purchase in order to learn the pitch at home. Kennedy then came up with an early pitching machine that was used by Jimmy McAleer and the St. Louis Browns prior to the 1904 season to improve their hitting. The pitching machine may have worked fine, but it did not have the noticeable effect on the Browns’ batting averages McAleer had hoped for. The Browns went from seventh to sixth in league hitting while improving from .011 to.005 below the league average, but the team average actually dropped from .244 to .239. And while we may want to believe the story that the creative Kennedy died of electrocution while trying to invent the electric score board, his obituary states that the coroner attributed his early demise to fatty degeneration of the heart.21

The 1880s may have been a decade of dissipation and rowdy behavior for many players, but a significant number realized that they made a significant salary playing baseball, hence they could make more money — for a longer period of time — if they took care of themselves. While some may have espoused billiards, hunting, and fishing with tongue in cheek, others had a firmer grasp on what it took to stay in shape. Many went to the gym to work out or took up activities such as handball, football, polo, running, and skating, calculated to keep them in condition throughout the year.

By 1886 Silver Flint had used his baseball earnings to buy his own gym in Chicago. Flint’s twelve years behind the plate, mostly with the Chicago Nationals, may attest to the success of his offseason conditioning. Little Hugh Nicol, a native of Scotland and described as the smallest man in baseball, is probably the pinnacle of those who chose to work out in the offseason. Always known as a fitness advocate the 145-pound Nicol was often referred to as an acrobat. After a bout with malaria, Hugh encountered a Professor Muegge who taught him a new regimen. In the offseason Nicol was hired by gyms as a manager or trainer, and other players followed his example by working out. Nicol, like Emmett Seery, was an early advocate of long distance running as a way to stay in shape, often completing the eighteen mile distance from Rockford, Illinois to Beloit on the Wisconsin border during the offseason. The diminutive yet strong and agile Nicol once took on the 315-pound wrestler Frank Sully, beating the giant in a two out of three falls in the first two rounds.22

Most players were not as ardent as Nicol, but both The Sporting News and Sporting Life refer to many who were in the gym by January, with some starting immediately after the season ended or at least by Christmas. Nearly twenty percent of the players considered from the 1880s were found to have made a concerted effort to stay in condition during the offseason. This does not include the legion who would scramble in to the gym or run down to Hot Springs, Arkansas, just before the start of spring training.23

In 1886 there were three major league clubs that required their reserved players to participate in offseason training. The Sporting News advocated this program, “…that men having thousands of dollars invested in a business on which so much depends upon the physical conditioning of their men should pay so little attention to the matter of training these people…Take these same men and let them put the money they invested in base-ball into horse-flesh. Would they dare send their horses out on the trotting or running circuit in the spring without training them?” The writer continued, recommending… “vaulting, string jumping, horse, parallel, and horizontal bars, etc…three clubs in the country have their men working a systematic course of training,-the St. Louis League, the St. Louis American and the Cincinnati Club.”24

WINTER BALL

Not every ballplayer of the 1880s worked or worked out in the offseason, nor did they idle away their time. When the baseball season ended, the south was still warm and without major league franchises. It was considered a prime market to take advantage of by baseball owners. In any given year four or more Association or League teams might embark on postseason tours. New York, Boston, Chicago, and the St. Louis clubs were among those extending their seasons into these untapped markets. These teams were sometimes supplemented with players from other clubs looking to earn extra money. They would tour the south before heading to California, which was referred to as playing on “the slope.”

Players were free to sign individual contracts in the offseason with teams in the south or west where weather allowed for extended seasons. California, naturally, was the most popular destination for those looking to play year round, but others played with teams throughout the south from El Paso to New Orleans, from Savannah to Havana, Cuba.25 Winter play gave them a chance to stay in shape, stay sharp, or even improve their skills.

In addition to the trades and professions, baseball players gravitated to jobs as policemen, firemen, farmers, retailers, pool hustlers, bakers, and cigar rollers. Railroads were a major employer of the day, so many found work there. While subject to opportunities of their times and their individual limitations, ballplayers’ pursuit of financial success is in some ways unique to their particular point in American history. Many squandered the opportunities that baseball fame and fortune provided in bars, bawdy houses, and gambling dens. But at an early point in organized professional baseball, others recognized the rare chance baseball provided them. They attempted to maximize their careers and earnings by training to stay in shape, and using their income for education or to otherwise invest in their prospects for the future.

MARTY PAYNE is a member of the Baltimore Babe Ruth Chapter of SABR and lives in St. Michaels, Maryland. The current article was based on a presentation made at the SABR Frederick Ivor-Campbell Conference on 19th Century Baseball in 2016.

Sources

Baltimore Day/Daily News 1882-1891

Baltimore News American 1882-1891

SABR American Association History Project files

SABR Biography Project

The Sporting News 1885-1889

Sporting Life 1886-1889

Morris, Peter; The Catcher, Ivan Dee, Chicago, 2009

Dewey, Donald, Acocella, Nicholas; The Ball Clubs, HarperPerennial, 1993.

Haupert, Michael, Major League Baseball’s Salary Leaders, 1874-2012, Business of Baseball Committee Newsletter, Fall 2012.

Clarence D. Long, Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890, Princeton University Press, 1960.

Members of the American Economic Association, The Federal Census Critical Essays, MacMillan and Co., New York, March 1899.

Various writers, Railways of America, John Murray, London, 1890.

baseball-reference.com

Notes

1 Chief Joseph with the Nez Perce and the Sioux at Wounded Knee seem less a viable threat to Anglo-American migration than a fait accompli resistance.

2 For the increase of the railroads see Railways of America, for 1880 and 1889, including maps on pages 432 and 433. The estimated bison populations are from Wikepedia.com, specifically citing The American Buffalo, Conservation Note 12 for the bison population of 1870. For the nearly extinct population of 1889, Hornday, William T., “The American Natural History,” New York, C. Scribner and Sons, 1904.

3 “Funny Cracks,” The Sporting News, July 19, 1886, 5.

4 This percentage was estimated from the 81 SABR Biography Project pieces considered for this essay. Of those 24 were determined to be first or second generation immigrants.

5 For the top salaries of the decade see Major League Baseball’s Salary Leaders, 1874-2012, Michael Haupert, Business of Baseball Research Committee Newsletter, Fall 2012. Haupert cites $864 as an average annual income for the mid-1870s. For the census figures see The Federal Census Critical Essays, American Economic Association, MacMillan and Co., New York, 1899, 356. The chart indicating the earning abilities of skilled trades of 1880 is in Clarence Long, Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890, Princeton University Press, 1960, 94.

6 For Lev Shreve see Baltimore Daily News, September 21, 1887. All notes from the Baltimore papers were done by the author in the early 1990s and did not include headings or page numbers. Those sources have not been revisited since. Further citations from the two Baltimore sources in this essay will not have heading or page. The background of Bob Caruthers is in the SABR Biography Project, “Bob Caruthers,” by Charles F. Faber. For Caruther‘s connection to the wealthy and influential east Tennessee McNeal family see also, “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, November 13, 1886, 5. Kuehne’s inheritence is cited in “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, August 11, 1886, 5 Emil Goss is found in “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, May 5, 1886, 5. Biography Project pieces cited in this essay are referenced for sources and footnoted to varying degrees of detail. For this and all further citations from the project the reader is referred to those documented pieces for primary sources. Ensuing citations from the project will be abbreviated as SBP.

7 See SBP for “Jud Birchall,” by Paul Hoffman. SBP, “John Clarkson,” by Brian McKenna. SBP, “Ed Crane,” by Brian McKenna. SBP, “Pete Hotaling,” by John F. Greene. 29 of the 269 players seem to have come from families of wealth or the comfortable middle class. Admittedly, this is an impressionistic projection since no specific definition of economic status was used, and sources merely needed to mention noteworthy property or a successful family business.

8 On Jocko Milligan see, SBP, “Jocko Milligan,” by Ralph Berger. Frank Foreman, “Notes and Gossip,” Sporting Life, November 27, 1889, 7. SBP, “Tim Keefe,” by Charlie Bevis. The note on George Myers is from The Sporting News. November 25, 1886, 6. The Matt Kilroy holdout is found in the Baltimore News American, April 4, 1888 and April 10, 1888. For Traffley’s opinion and the response see Baltimore Daily News, August 31, 1885. Traffley’s demand was triple the typical major-league salary of the time, six times that of a skilled tradesman, and sixteen times that of a typical American laborer. 82 of the 269 players considered for the essay worked in the trades at some point in their lives. The trades included but not exclusive to the construction industry, blacksmithing, machinists, and other assorted skilled professions like butchers, bakers and confectioners, among others.

9 See SBP, “Tim Keefe,” by Charlie Bevis. Also on the real estate see “Notes and Comments, Sporting Life, January 23, 1889, 2. On Ed Andrews see SBP “Ed Andrews,“ David Nemec; also Sporting News, October 25, 1886 5. Abner Dalrymple can be found in “Caught on the Fly, “Sporting News, January 14, 1888, 4; “Caught on the Fly,“ Sporting News, February 11, 1888, 5 and “Caught on the Fly,” Sporting News, February 25, 1888, 5.

10 For Mickey Welch see SBP, “Mickey Welch,” by Bill Lamb. For Kilroy’s post career see SBP, “Matt Kilroy,” by Charles F. Faber. 115 of the 269 players took the plunge into the world of business investment and speculation hoping for a big pay off.

11 The Traffley-Henderson venture is noted in the Baltimore News American, January 3, 1886. The Mappes-McGinnis in “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, November 20, 1886, 5. The opinion of Dasher Troy’s prospects are found in “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, October 5, 1889, 3. And Fred Goldsmith’s apparent fall from grace is found in “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, September 10, 1887, 5. 44 players of 269 were noted as being in the liquor business.

12 On Jimmy Manning see “The Kid and Jimmy,” The Sporting News, October 12, 1889, 3. For Bushong see SBP, “Doc Bushong,” by Brian McKenna. George Townsend is mentioned in the Baltimore Daily News, October 9, 1890. See SBP, “John Montgomery Ward,” by Bill Lamb. Walt Walker is in “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, December 1, 1886, 3. Doc Oberlander is in “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, July 27, 1887, 5. See the SBP, “Mark Baldwin,” by Brian McKenna. Thomas Gunning is in “Louisville Briefs,” Sporting Life, December 14, 1887, 1, also SBP, “Thomas Gunning,” by Bill Lamb. See SBP, “Lee Richmond,” by John Houseman. SBP, “Orator O’Rourke,” by Bill Lamb; SBP. “Frank Olin,” by Guy Waterman. Research identified 22 of the 269 entering an educated profession.

13 See SBP, “John Reilly,” by David Ball., and “Mark Baldwin,” by Brian McKenna.

14 See SBP, “Norm Baker,” by David Nemec. The citation for Emmett Seery playing football is in “Loafing Season,” Sporting Life, January 20, 1886, 3. His running is found in “Caught on the Fly,“ The Sporting News, March 17, 1886, 2. The opera gig is from “Indianapolis Mention Notes,” Sporting Life, November 21, 1888, 6. Sy Sutcliffe is found in, “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, October 30, 1886, 5.

15 Arlie Latham’s stage woes are from “Local Jottings,” Sporting Life, April 24, 1889, 2. Stovey’s planned tour is from “Funny Cracks,” The Sporting News, June 7, 1886, 5.

16 Dave Rowe’s Colorado expedition is in the Baltimore Day (Daily News) September, 25, 1883. See SBP “Joe Moffet,” by Carole Olshafsky, and SBP, “Sam Moffet,” by Carole Olshafsky for their mining success. Sam’s return is from “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, June 1, 1887, 10.

17 For reports of Dennis McKnight’s mining exploits see, “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, February 16, 1887, 3. Also “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, February 23, 1887, 5. See “From Pittsburg,” Sporting Life, October 26, 1887, 1. And “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, November 30, 1887, 5.

18 See SBP “Dave Foutz,” by Bill Lamb. For the gambling losses in New Orleans see “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, January 20, 1886, 3. The train robbery scheme is covered in SBP “Dell Darling,” by Brian McKenna.

19 See SBP, “Kid Baldwin,” by David Ball. The prediction of the heiress’s fortune is in “Funny Cracks,” The Sporting News, July 19, 1886, 5. See SBP on, “Arlie Latham,” by Ralph Berger. Mark Baldwin’s scheme for rich fans is from “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, February 9, 1887, 3.

20 Citations in newspapers for players involved in the sporting goods business are many. The citations used here are from SBP, “Tim Keefe,” by Charlie Bevis also; SBP, “Guy Hecker,” by Bob Bailey. See SBP, “Norm Baker,” by Dave Nemec for Baker’s prowress stitching baseballs. There were 173 notations of players working at miscellaneous positions. They included a multitude of railroad positions, firemen, policemen, clerks, and unidentified government positions, all requiring varying degrees of skills and abilities but not easily classifiable.

21 For Decker’s connection with Reach see “Local Jottings,” Sporting Life, November 20, 1889, 3. Peter Morris devotes a chapter to the strange life of Harry Decker in, The Catcher, pp. 189-207. For Kennedy’s efforts see SBP, “Ted Kennedy,” by Craig Lammers. The Hall of Fame has possession of many of Kennedy’s glove designs, not all of which are practical, and a copy of his instructional book on the art of the curve. The league and Browns batting average comparisons are from baseball-reference.com.

22 For Silver Flint see “The White Stockings, The Sporting News, March 17, 1886, 1. On Hugh Nicol, SBP, “Hugh Nicol,” by Charles F. Faber. For Nicol’s guidance from Professor Muegge see “Hugh Nicol’s New Job,” The Sporting News, September 27, 1886, 1. The bout with Frank Sully is found in “Little Nick As A Wrestler,” The Sporting News, December 11, 1886, 5.

23 The criteria the author used for serious training were those players who were working out by January. This allows for a break through the holidays. 52 players of the 269 were found to return to some sort of working out by the first month of a new year.

24 See “Training Players,“ The Sporting News, March 17, 1886, 2.

25 For the growing popularity of winter ball in the 1880s see “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, November 20, 1886, 5. While these winter season players were not tracked for the purposes of this essay, they warrant a more thorough treatment as a means of both training and employment. If nothing else, professional baseball players were probably better traveled than most other segments of the American population of the decade.

In the 1912 season Rube Marquard, the left-handed pitcher of the National League (NL) New York Giants, won nineteen consecutive games and it was thought at the time to be one game shy of the record. The record was thought to be twenty, set by John Perkins “Pat” Luby, a right-handed pitcher for the NL Chicago Colts in the 1890 season. About the time of Marquard’s feat, it was also reported that Jim McCormick, a right-handed pitcher for the Chicago White Stockings, had actually set the record at twenty-four consecutive wins during the 1886 season.1, 2 Confusion ensued and after some research into the respective seasons for Luby and McCormick it was found that neither of their achievements were as long as previously portrayed.3, 4

Luby’s 1890 season only amounted to seventeen consecutive wins and McCormick’s 1886 sixteen; both fell short of the eighteen consecutive game mark that had been set by Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourne of the Providence Grays in 1884.5 The plot then thickened because, for some unknown reason, by 1912 Tim Keefe’s nineteen consecutive win season of 1888 had apparently fallen through the cracks—yet today nineteen consecutive wins in a single season represents the MLB record. The record is held by both Keefe and Marquard, both Giants, although Marquard’s mark is further distinguished by the fact that it begins with the first game of the 1912 season, April 11.

The 1950 rule defining pitching wins has been used as the criterion to define the number of pitching wins for Radbourne in the 1884 season although a conundrum has become apparent.6, 7 The conundrum results from the fact that, if the 1950 rule defining pitching wins is to be applied to Radbourne’s pitching wins in the 1884 season, then it should also be applied to Keefe’s wins during his consecutive game win streak in 1888.8 The applicable portion of the 1950 ruling, which was new that season, is provided from Division 10—The Rules of Scoring, Determining Winning and Losing Pitcher as follows:

Rule 10.16. Determining the winning and losing pitcher of a game often calls for much careful consideration.

(a) Do not give the starting pitcher credit for a game won, even if the score is in his favor, unless he has pitched at least five innings when replaced.

(b) The five inning rule to determine a winning pitcher shall be in effect for all games of six or more innings. When a game is called after five innings of play the starting pitcher must have pitched at least four innings to be credited with the victory.

(c) If the starting pitcher is replaced (except in a five inning game) before he has pitched five complete innings when his team is ahead, remains ahead to win, and more than one relief pitcher is used by his team, the scorer shall credit the victory (as among all relieving pitchers) to the pitcher whom the scorer considers to have done the most effective pitching. If, in a five inning game, the starting pitcher is replaced before pitching four complete innings when his team is ahead, remains ahead to win, and more than one relief pitcher is used by his team, the scorer shall credit the victory (as among all relieving pitchers) to the pitcher whom the scorer considers to have done the most effective pitching.

(d) Regardless of how many innings the first pitcher has pitched, he shall be charged with the loss of the game if he is replaced when his team is behind in the score, and his team thereafter fails to either tie the score or gain the lead.9

The 1950 rule book not only instituted the new ruling regarding the definition of a winning and losing pitcher, it also exhibited a brand new format of ten “divisions,” as they were called at the time. The 1949 rule book had exhibited the rule format that had been in vogue dating back to the nineteenth century.10 But for the following season, the rule book was revised and amended—or to use the rule book term, the rules were “recodified.”

THE PITCHER PERFORMANCE COMPARISON

In order to discuss the conundrum properly, it is useful to compare the 1888 Keefe streak of nineteen with the 1884 Radbourne streak of eighteen. The biggest baseball story in 1884 wasn’t the number of consecutive wins by the Providence Grays or that Charlie Sweeney or Hugh Daily struck out nineteen in a single game; it was the overall season performance of Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourne.11 His season was nothing short of incredible, leading the National League in virtually every significant pitching category including wins, strikeouts, ERA, innings pitched, games started, and complete games. There is also one category they didn’t have a counting statistic for and that was dogged determination, or “guts,” if you will. The funny thing is that Radbourne’s magical season almost didn’t happen because early on Providence management was leaning toward Charlie Sweeney. Radbourne would have played second fiddle to Sweeney, except Sweeney threw it all away and left the team. Radbourne stepped up and the rest, as they say, is history.

Table 1. Comparison of the Radbourn and Keefe Performances

(Click image to enlarge)

Radbourne pitched in 75 of his team’s 114 games played during the regular season, including 22 consecutive, won 18 consecutive pitching starts (see Table 1) and pitched nine complete games in 11 calendar days, winning all nine. The nine games were part of his eighteen consecutive game win streak, from August 27 through September 6, and one of the nine was an 11-inning game. In an article written by Frank Bancroft, who managed the Providence Grays in 1884, the following quotation made by Radbourne himself in 1884 appears: “I will win or pitch my right arm off.”12

Radbourne effectively did pitch his right arm off in 1884. The same article also included the following quotation regarding Radbourne’s dogged determination:

Morning after morning upon arising he would be unable to raise his arm high enough to use his hair brush. Instead of quitting he stuck all the harder to his task going out to the ball park hours before the rest of the team and beginning to warm up by throwing a few feet and increasing the distance until he could finally throw the ball from the outfield to the home plate.13

The 1884 season was also important in National League history for the fact that it was the first season the rules did not define or restrict the pitching arm’s movement. The pertinent section of the 1883 rule book read as follows, from Class IV, Definitions: “Rule 27. A Fair Ball is a ball delivered by the Pitcher, while wholly within the lines of his position and facing the Batsman, with his hand passing below his shoulder, and the ball passing over the home base at the height called for by the Batsman.”14

The corresponding rule from the 1884 rule book deleted the “with his hand passing below his shoulder” and read as follows:

Rule 27. A Fair Ball is a ball delivered by the Pitcher, while wholly within the lines of his position and facing the Batsman, and the ball passing over the home base at the height called for by the Batsman.15

Lack of restrictions regarding arm movement during the pitching motion opened the door for pitchers to pitch overhand (O/H) in the National League for the first time, introducing a major change to the way the game was played. Strikeouts were becoming a bigger part of the game at that time, increasing in 1884 in the National League, and in recent years in the other two major leagues where underhand pitching remained the norm, the Union Association (UA) and American Association (AA).

The following season another rule change would again impact National League pitching, this time defining how the feet should be positioned and aimed at eliminating the “jumping tactics” of Radbourne himself.16 In 1885, the new rule read as follows, from Class IV, Definitions:

Rule 27. A Fair Ball is a ball delivered by the Pitcher while standing wholly within the lines of his position, and facing the batsman [sic], with both feet touching the ground while any one of the series of motions he is accustomed to make in delivering the ball to the bat, the ball, so delivered, to pass over the home base and at the height called for by the batsman [sic]. A violation of this rule shall be declared a “Foul Balk” by the umpire, and two Foul Balks shall entitle the batsman to take first base.17

Other changes to the rules were made between 1884 and 1888, but this is one key difference that brings attention to the pitching technique of Radbourne.18

Now to Keefe. The 1888 season began slowly for him when it was reported that as of April 20, he was holding out for an increase of $500 in salary and then signed on April 27, for $1000 more than his salary in 1887, which was listed as $3000.19, 20 As a result of the hold-out Keefe did not participate in any of the first nine games of the season and pitched his first game for New York on May 1, 1888, a 6–1 victory over Boston—the first of a league-leading 35 wins that season. But the nineteen-game win streak was yet to come.

The Keefe streak took place over 49 calendar days, from June 23, to August 10, 1888. The Radbourne streak had spanned 31 calendar days, August 7 through September 6, 1884. Table 1 compares the two streaks. During the Keefe streak the New York Giants played 38 games while the Providence Grays played only 20 during the Radbourne streak. Ed Conley pitched for Providence during the two games that Radbourne didn’t, while four other pitchers—Mickey Welch, Ed Crane, Stump Weidman, and Bill George—pitched for New York in the remaining 19 games that Keefe didn’t pitch.

Radbourne’s eighteen consecutive wins, in as many starts, were complete games, while Keefe pitched seventeen complete games in his nineteen consecutive wins in as many starts. Interestingly, in the two games Conley pitched during Providence’s twenty-game win streak, Radbourne played right field and shortstop respectively. Keefe typically wasn’t in the game unless pitching, although there was one exception during the streak: the July 16 game.

The two games that Keefe did not complete only amounted to a total of 7.1 innings pitched, which is why his total innings for his streak was 162.1 and Radbourne’s was 166. The first of the two games was on July 16, 1888—Game 9 of the nineteen-game streak. Keefe started but pitched only the first two innings before being replaced by Bill George. George pitched the remaining seven innings to finish the game, which the Giants won, 12–4, over the Chicago White Stockings. This game was interesting right from the start in that the designated umpire, Tom Loftus, did not show up and Chicago was forced to accept New York’s pitcher, Mickey Welch, as the umpire for the game.21 George started the game in right field but, in order to save Keefe for the game the following day, was summoned to the pitcher’s box to begin the third inning and Keefe finished the game in right field.22

Keefe did, in fact, pitch the following day, July 17, against the Chicago White Stockings, going nine innings in a 7–4 victory, his tenth consecutive win. It was the only time during the streak that Keefe pitched on back-to-back days. Keefe pitched in consecutive games on July 2 and 4 (the latter in the first game of two played that day) but they were not on back-to-back days.

The second of the two games Keefe did not complete was on August 3, 1888, game 16 of the nineteen-game streak. Keefe only managed to complete 5.1 innings due to being hit with a batted ball after Dick Johnston had flied to George Gore. Keefe was replaced by Ed Crane, who pitched the remaining 3.2 innings to complete the game. A Boston newspaper described the hit: “Wise batted a stinging ball that hit Keefe on the muscles of his pitching arm and the New Yorker was obliged to retire, Crane being called in to take his place.”23

Keefe’s top performance from a strikeout point of view came on July 23, 1888, when he struck out 14 (in nine innings) against the Boston Beaneaters, while Radbourne’s top strikeout performance was 12 in an 11-inning game on August 9, 1884, also against the Beaneaters. During the streak Radbourne gave up 11 hits on August 28, 1884, against the Chicago White Stockings while Keefe gave up 12 hits in two separate games—June 23 and July 20, 1888. The July 20 game, against the Philadelphia Quakers, was a 10-inning affair. A game-by-game breakdown for the Radbourne streak is shown in Table 2, and the Keefe streak in Table 3. One large disparity: 15 of the 18 games during Radbourne’s streak were at home while only nine of the 19 games were at home for Keefe.

Table 2: Old Hoss Radbourn Consecutive Game Pitching Streak in 1884

Table 3: Tim Keefe Consecutive Game Pitching Streak in 1888

(Click images to enlarge)

The HBP (Hit by Pitch) statistics don’t appear in the tables because in the 1884 National League, a batter was not awarded first base upon being hit. Accurate numbers aren’t readily available for all years, but Keefe had developed a reputation as a beanball artist. Keefe hit five batters in a single game (the National League record at the time) on June 12, 1885, vs Boston Beaneaters.24 The following nugget from the December 1885 issue of Sporting Life provides some insight into Keefe’s practices:

KEEFE has a habit of trying how near he can pitch the ball to a batsman’s head without hitting him, and thus intimidates the man. He hits more men than all the other League pitchers combined. It was for Keefe’s sake that the rule giving a batsman a base when hit by the pitcher was adopted by the American Association when he was with the Mets, and it was for Keefe’s benefit that the New York Club secured its defeat at the recent League meeting.25

During the Keefe streak four other significant baseball-related events took place:

1) The New York Giants sported brand new uniforms well into the season that apparently Keefe selected.26, 27

2) Buck Ewing’s consecutive game streak at the catcher position.

3) The notice to the New York Giants, owned by the Metropolitan Exhibition Company, from the Central Park Board, of New York, that the fences on the Polo Grounds across One Hundred and Eleventh Street had to be removed.28

4) John Ward’s book was published.29

THE PITCHING CONUNDRUM

The thinking on August 16, 1888, was clear: Tim Keefe had won nineteen consecutive games in nineteen consecutive starts and it was stated as such (“.…Keefe had won 19 straight games.…”) in the New York Times.30 To this day Keefe’s record of nineteen straight is still the MLB standard, although it was tied by Rube Marquard in 1912. But in game nine of the nineteen-game streak, on July 16, 1888, Keefe’s pitching in only the first two innings but being awarded a win presents a conflict with the 1950 rules.

Hence, the conundrum. Are the 1950 rules even applicable to nineteenth century games? They come into play because they have been applied to the wins recorded in Radbourne’s 1884 season. The Giants were ahead 9–0 at the time Keefe left the July 16 game, and they went on to win 12–4, but based on the 1950 rules Keefe should not be credited with a win. That represents conundrum issue number one. Why was Keefe credited with a win on July 16? A publication that may shed light on the thinking of the time as it relates to the scoring is another Spalding publication: HOW TO SCORE: A Practical Textbook for Scorers of Base Ball Games, Amateur and Expert. In a section entitled “Crediting or Charging the Pitcher,” the following is stated:

.…The nearest to a set of rules on the subject that can be codified may be formulated as follows: .…If the pitcher who first works has been taken out at any stage of the game with the comparative score in favor of his opponents, should the game be eventually won by his team, credit must be to the second pitcher. Should the game be lost the first pitcher is charged with the loss.31

With regard to the “Crediting or Charging the Pitcher” section, and with particular respect to the game of July 28, 1884, when Old Hoss Radbourne went into the game, at the start of the sixth inning to replace Cyclone Miller, who had pitched five complete innings, the Philadelphia Quakers were leading, 4–3. Not a hit was made off of Radbourne and his team went on to win, 11–4. Based on the “Crediting or Charging the Pitcher” section, Radbourne should be declared the winning pitcher because that was the general school of thought at the time.

Upon further review, on that same basis it may be that Radbourne should also be credited with the win for the July 8, 1884, game with the Buffalo Bisons. The score was tied 5–5 after nine innings pitched by Charlie Sweeney, and Radbourne pitched in the tenth when Providence went ahead 6–5 and won. The July 8 game was mentioned by Sweeney when he spoke in 1897 (from San Quentin prison) and his statement lends credence to the fact that giving the win to the finishing pitcher if the team went ahead to win was the general thinking of the time. Sweeney stated, “In Buffalo I pitched my first game after my arm was hurt. The score was tied in the ninth inning, when Bancroft said to me: ‘Had you not better let Radbourne go in, Charlie; your arm is pretty sore yet?’ I said, ‘alright if he wants to.’ He went in and he won in the tenth inning.”32

The Radbourne games of July 8 and 28, 1884, represent conundrum issue number two because of their impact on Radbourne’s overall win total in the 1884 season.

To advance the “general thinking of the time” theory, consider that both the 1885 Spalding Guide and the Boston Journal newspaper credit Radbourne with 60 wins.33 So does Elwood A. Roff’s Base Ball and Base Ball Players published in 1912.34 Reviewing the 1950 rules in detail exposes the fact that Radbourne should be credited with a minimum of 60 wins for the 1884 season and not 59. The official National League pitching statistics for the 1884 season that were published in 1885 Spalding Guide and the Boston Journal newspaper both indicate the same numbers, except for the average bases on balls statistic: 74 games played (should be 75), 62 games “won” (includes the two tie games), 1.09 average runs earned (81 earned runs), 5.90 average assists on strikes (437 strikeouts), 7.09 average base hits (525 base hits) and 1.28 average bases on balls (95 bases on balls).

The fact that 60 wins—plus two tie games, which weren’t wins—were included in the 62-win number lends credence to the 60 win number for Radbourne. The official 1884 pitching statistics only list 74 games pitched, yet we know Radbourne pitched in 75 games which implies that one game was omitted, leaving room for the July 8 game to be accommodated—presuming that it is credited as a win for Radbourne. If the July 8 game is credited as a win, it would give Radbourne a total of 61 wins, 12 losses and 2 ties in 1884, totaling 75 games pitched.

SUMMARY

On the surface the Radbourne and Keefe consecutive game win streaks appear to be similar. They differ by only a single game. But upon closer examination, the performances are very different. Among the key differences:

a) number of calendar days for each streak

b) number of team games played during each streak

c) number of complete games

d) number of innings pitched

e) pitching in consecutive games on consecutive days

f) number of home games

g) high or low ball pitching requirement

h) number of called balls for a base on balls

i) foot positioning

j) size of pitching box

k) bat cross section and handle wrapping

The comparison isn’t really apples-to-apples because of these differences, and delineation in the record books should reflect this. Radbourne and Keefe pitched from pitching boxes with slightly different dimensions and, though the rules of the time did not define a pitching “mound,” that did not stop the groundskeepers from adjusting the height of the pitching box.35 Another interesting fact—this one related to the bat—was that the rules of the time did not stipulate that the bat had to be one piece as they do today, which is why a 13-piece bat was able to be used by Chicago.36

Regarding the two conundrum issues, either the general thinking of the time must be accepted, or if the 1950 rules are to be applied it should be done consistently for both pitchers’ seasons. Applying the 1950 rules would result in the Keefe nineteen-game streak being scratched. Given that Cummings’ How to Score shows there was an acceptable method for determining the winning pitcher at the time, there is little reason to apply the 1950 rules anachronistically. This researcher is in favor of accepting the general thinking of the time, which would mean Radbourne should be credited with a minimum of 60 wins—maximum of 61—for the 1884 season and Keefe’s nineteen-game record would remain.

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 MLB. Brian has written many articles, winning awards for two of them, and has two baseball books on the way: one on the 1927 New York Yankees and the other on the 1897 Baltimore Orioles. Brian has become a frequent contributor to the “Baseball Research Journal” and is a longtime member of the PFRA. Growing up Brian played many sports including football, rugby, hockey, baseball along with participating in power lifting and arm wrestling events, and 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.”

Notes

1 George L. Moreland. Balldom: “The Britannica of Baseball.” New York, NY: Balldom Publishing Company, 1914. 304 pages. Reprinted in 1989 by Horton Publishing Company.

2 Francis C. Richter. Richter’s History and Records of Base Ball: The American Nation’s Chief Sport. Philadelphia, PA: Francis C. Richter, 1914.

3 Elwood A. Roff. Base Ball and Base Ball Players: A History of the National Game of America and the Important Events Connected Therewith From its Origin Down to the Present Time. Chicago, IL: E. A. Roff, 1912, 95–96.

4 An interesting comment related to the number of wins by McCormick comes from Sporting Life, Volume 23, Number 16, July 14, 1894, page 4. “LEAGUE GOSSIP; GENERAL COMMENT−Under present rules no League pitcher will ever duplicate McCormick’s famous record of nineteen [sic] consecutive victories. Nowadays just as soon as a pitcher’s chest begins to swell out over a few victories some team is sure to come along and hit it with an axe.”

5 Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourne’s last name was apparently arbitrarily spelled with and without an “e” on the end by various literature sources, newspapers, et cetera throughout the course of his baseball career. There simply wasn’t any consistency but at the time of his death Sporting Life used the Radbourne spelling. See “RADBOURNE’S RELIEF: Death Ends the Suffering of a Noted Man,” Sporting Life, Volume 28, Number 21, February 13, 1897, page 1. The Radbourne spelling is also on his gravestone, which is why this researcher elected to go with the Radbourne version.

6 Edward Achorn. Fifty-nine in ’84. New York, NY: Harper-Collins Publishers, 2010, 209.

7 Edward Achorn. “Old Hoss Radbourn: 59 or 60 Victories?” in Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Bill Felber, 2013. Phoenix, AZ: Society for American Baseball Research, 170–71.

8 Regarding the 1950 rule on pitching wins, this discussion is confined to Radbourne and Keefe. This isn’t to say, or imply, there were not other performances that could be discussed in relation to the 1950 rule, including the Marquard streak of 1912 and others. Other performances would be best discussed in an article that deals solely with the topic of the 1950 ruling.

9 J.G. Taylor Spink, compiled by. Baseball Guide and Record Book 1950. St. Louis, MO: Charles C. Spink & Son (The Sporting News), 1950, 570, 571.

10 J.G. Taylor Spink, compiled by. Baseball Guide and Record Book 1949. St. Louis, MO: Charles C. Spink & Son (The Sporting News), 1949.

11 The 1884 season saw the Providence Grays win twenty consecutive games to tie the record set by the Chicago White Stockings set in 1880. The 1880 White Stockings went twenty-two consecutive games undefeated; they had won a game, then tied a game, then won twenty in a row for a total of 22 games undefeated.

12 Frank C. Bancroft. “Old Hoss” Radbourn.” Baseball Magazine, July 1908, 12–14.

13 Bancroft.

14 Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1883. Chicago, IL: A. G. Spalding & Bros., 1883, 74–75.

15 Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1884. Chicago, IL: A. G. Spalding & Bros., 1884, 86.

16 “BASEBALL RULES CHANGED: Yesterday’s Session Of The Delegates Of The League Clubs,” The New York Times, Friday, November 21, 1884, 2.

17 Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1885. Chicago, IL: A. G. Spalding & Bros., 1885, 112.

18 There was also another rule change, although unrelated, concerning the short right field fence of the Chicago grounds that may be of interest to readers. The fence of the Chicago grounds was only 196 feet from home plate and 131 home runs had been hit there by the Chicago players in 1884. The new rule, Rule 65 (1), defined that a ball had to be hit over the fence a minimum of 210 feet from home plate for it be declared a home run, otherwise it was to be scored as a double. See Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1885, page 120.

19 “GOSSIP OF THE GAME: Tim Keefe Wants More Salary,” The Chicago Tribune, Saturday, April 21, 1888, 7.

20 “Keefe Signs a New York Contract,” The Chicago Tribune, Saturday, April 28, 1888, 3.

21 “DALY’S THROW TO SECOND: The Ball Hits Pitcher Baldwin On The Head,” The Chicago Tribune, Tuesday, July 17, 1888, 3.

22 “NEW-YORK WINS EASILY: The Giants Defeat The Chicago Club 12 To 4,” The New York Times, Tuesday, July 17, 1888, 2.

23 From a Boston newspaper account of the game on 1888 Boxscore Microfilm at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

24 The five batters that Keefe hit on June 12, 1885, were Joe Hornung, John Morrill, Jim Manning, Jack Burdock, and Ezra Sutton.

25 Sporting Life, Volume 6, Number 8, December 2, 1885, page 1.

26 The brand new uniforms were apparently selected by Keefe. The players were measured for the new black jersey suits, as they were called, at Spalding’s on July 14 which the team debuted on July 28, 1888. The new uniforms were described in The New York Times as follows: “As the New-Yorks marched upon the field yesterday they could hardly be recognized. The uniform of white pants and shirts and maroon stockings had been cast aside, and the men came out in a new outfit. It consisted of black shirts, knickerbockers, stockings, and caps of the same color, a white belt, and the words ‘New-York’ in white raised letters across the breast. The uniform is made of jersey cloth, and is tight-fitting.” From “NEW-YORK IN THE LEAD: The Giants Even With Detroit For First Place,” The New York Times, Sunday, July 29, 1888, 3.

27 See also “SHORT STOPS,” The New York Times, Sunday, July 29, 1888,page 3, and “League Notes,” The Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, July 18, 1888, 3.

28 The original Polo Grounds were bounded on the South by 110th Street, the North by 112th Street, the East by Fifth Avenue and on the West by Sixth (aka Lenox) Avenues, just north of Central Park. At the time One Hundred and Eleventh Street had been closed then fenced off to enclose the ball field. See “The Polo Grounds in Danger,” Sporting Life, Volume 11, Number 11, June 20, 1888, page 2 and “THE POLO GROUNDS MUST GO: An Adverse Decision Rendered by Judge Ingraham,” The New York Times, Sunday, July 15, 1888, 3.

29 John Montgomery Ward. Base-Ball: How To Become A Player: With the Origin, History, and Explanation of the Game. Philadelphia, PA: The Athletic Publishing Company, 1888. SABR reissued a reproduction of this book in paperback in 1993 under the title Ward’s Baseball Book, and again in 2014 under the original title Base-Ball: How to Become a Player.

30 “ANSON’S RECORD BREAKERS: New-York “Chicagoed” The First Time This Year,” The New York Times, Thursday, August 16, 1888, page 3.

31 J.M. Cummings. HOW TO SCORE: A Practical Textbook for Scorers of Base Ball Games, Amateur and Expert, part of the Spalding’s Athletic Library, Group 1, No. 350. New York, NY: American Sports Publishing Company, 1919, 52–53.

32 Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1885, 28–29; “THE PITCHING: The Work Accomplished by the Twenty-four Pitchers,” Boston Journal, Morning Edition, Thursday, October 16, 1884.

33 “SWEENEY SPEAKS: From His Prison Cell He Scores Frank Bancroft,” Sporting Life, Volume 28, Number 24, March 6, 1897, 11.

34 Elwood A. Roff. Base Ball and Base Ball Players. Chicago: E. A. Roff Printer and Publisher, 1912, 66.

35 “As the pitchers’ box on the Brooklyn grounds is very high….” a statement which appeared in “MURNANE’S MISSIVE,” Sporting Life, Volume 15, Number 6, May 10, 1890, 12.

36 “Secretary Brown sent Capt. Anson a new bat a few days ago, and the first thing the old man did was to take the club and Sullivan, Sunday, and Darling out to the Washington grounds, where he began practicing. The stick is made of thirteen pieces of wood and the long, slender handle is wound with twine.” From “Around the Bases,” Chicago Tribune, Thursday, September 8, 1887, 3.

To throw the ball hard, a pitcher needs to maintain excellent and consistent mechanics. These mechanics should be taught early in a child’s baseball career. Fleisig, et al. examined differences between youth, high school, college, and professional baseball pitchers.2 Their study showed that all kinematic parameters improved as the player progressed to higher levels. They also found that there were greater risk factors associated with higher level pitchers due to greater joint force and torque associated with increased strength and muscle mass. Fleisig presumes that if young baseball players can be taught efficient mechanics at an early age, then the risk factor for specific arm and shoulder surgeries can be decreased. Those mechanics demonstrate that pitchers can throw harder with greater, rather than worsened, recovery rates.

According to Fleisig et al. joint force and torque have been highly scrutinized due to the increase in ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) surgeries (“Tommy John” surgery). 3 Perhaps another area of pitching mechanics that needs to be scrutinized is the impact of lower body mechanics. The kinetic chain starts from the ground up, so it makes sense to examine that chain from its origin even if at first glance it is unclear how stride length impacts ground reaction forces, joint biomechanics, momentum transfer, and pitched ball velocity.

Previous research has provided a glimpse of what overstriding can do with regard to exertion, but not much exists on the effect stride length has on pitched ball velocity.4 What little research has been done indicates that stride length has little to do with resulting velocity.5 Beyond actual velocity generated by a pitcher in a single pitch, one must also account for the exertion required to pitch repeatedly throughout the course of a game. If a change in stride length resulted in reduced exertion over the course of the game, then in addition to faster recovery times perhaps there is a reduced loss of velocity over the course of pitches thrown.

Matsuo et al. investigated the differences between 29 collegiate and professional pitchers who threw with ball velocities above 85 miles per hour (MPH) and 23 college pitchers whose velocities were below 77 MPH.6 They concluded that height, humeral length, radial length, peak knee flexion angular velocity, maximum shoulder external rotation (MER), lead knee extension angular velocity at the instant of ball release (REL), forward trunk tilt at REL, time to peak maximum elbow extension angular velocity, and time to peak shoulder internal rotation angular velocity all differed significantly between the low- and high-velocity groups.

Crotin, et al. demonstrated that a shorter stride length can decrease exertion faced by a pitcher.7 Exertion was measured through a nine-minute resting baseline heart rate (HR), salivary cortisol, salivary alpha amylase, self-reported exertion scores, baseline blood glucose, and baseline lactate scores. They concluded that a longer stride length is physiologically more demanding. Another finding in this study showed that mean velocity was unaffected by stride length. Stride length in Crotin’s study was determined by desired stride length equal to 67% of the pitcher’s height. Over stride length was 76% of body height and under stride length was 52% of body height.

These previous studies did not study stride length as a relative influence on pitched ball velocity. The current study examines the effect of stride length on pitched ball velocity. It was hypothesized that by reducing a pitcher’s average stride length by 10 percent, there should be a slight increase in pitched ball velocity. Additionally, it was hypothesized that increasing stride length by 10 percent beyond each pitcher’s stride length should reduce pitched ball velocity.

METHODOLOGY

Participants

Participants were 30 males 18 to 22 years of age who were members of a Division 3 college baseball team. Approval from the college’s Institutional Review Board was obtained prior to administering the testing protocol and informed consents were signed by each participant. Each participant was required to have been a member in good standing with the baseball program and free from any pre-existing arm or shoulder injury.

A total population sample was employed to determine if the measurable factors would influence pitched ball velocity. Each participant warmed up using a modified version of the Velocity 18 throwing program.8 The Velocity 18 program is a warm-up consisting of throwing varying distances (45’, 60’, 90’, 120’, 90’, and 60’) for two minutes each using a four-seam fastball grip.

The purpose was to be consistent with getting each participant thoroughly warmed up in the exact same fashion, and to do so in a way that would minimize the risk of injury.

PROCEDURE, INSTRUMENTATION, AND INDEPENDENT MEASURES

Data collection occurred through participant observations. Objective tests aimed at determining if stride length had an impact on pitched ball velocity were administered as follows:

Once participants were warmed up they were placed on an indoor portable mound with a 10-inch rise—standard for a college baseball mound. They were asked to go through their normal pitching routine simulating a normal pitch. The researcher then marked the landing spot with standard silver duct tape. The researcher then calculated a landing spot that was 10 percent longer than normal and also a landing spot that was 10 percent shorter than normal. Each spot was marked with silver duct tape. Each piece of tape was marked with a “1” (10 percent shorter), “2” (normal), or “3” (10 percent longer). Participants were allowed to familiarize themselves with each landing area prior to delivering a pitch. The researcher then sat behind a protective net 60 feet 6 inches away with a Jugs II radar gun (Tualatin, OR, USA) and recorded pitched ball velocity for each pitch.

Pitching Sequence

In order to equalize fatigue, the pitches were thrown from random stride locations. The researcher would call out the number corresponding to the landing spot for the pitcher and the pitcher would land on the corresponding numbered piece of duct tape. Upon completion of each pitch the researcher would record the speed of the pitch using a calibrated Jugs II radar gun.

Results

Statistical Analysis

Comparisons between velocity and stride length (normal stride, 10 percent shorter than normal, and 10 percent longer than normal) were made using a repeated measure ANOVA with MPH as the dependent variable. Means and standard deviations were calculated and a 95 percent confidence interval was obtained. All calculations were completed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 23). The a priori alpha level was set to P≤.05.

Data Collection

Scores were obtained for each participant in one testing session. Thirty pitches with maximum effort were delivered in a randomized order and velocity was recorded in MPH for later analysis. All participants fully completed the testing session.

Table 1: Stride

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Table 1 illustrates the mean velocities for each treatment. Table 1 also illustrates that a stride length that was 10 percent shorter than normal resulted in an average velocity increase of .8 MPH versus a normal stride length and a stride length 10 percent greater than normal was over a full 1 MPH slower on average than 10 percent shorter than normal.

In addition to the mean differences, a 95 percent confidence interval was obtained to show that the data demonstrate there was a 95 percent chance the upper and lower velocities would fall between the listed data in table 2. This is an important statistic because it demonstrates on average the upper and lower velocities were at their best at the 10 percent shorter treatment.

The basis for the current research study was to see if reducing a pitcher’s stride length by as little as 10 percent could increase velocity. According to a repeated measure ANOVA, the stride length significantly altered pitch velocity (F_2,522=14.01, P<.001). 90% (mean=76.9 MPH) produced significantly faster pitch velocities than 110% (mean=75.8 MPH) 100% (mean=76.1 MPH). Finally, there were no significant differences in velocity across pitch number (F_9,522=1.81, P=.07). In order for a repeated measure ANOVA to be valid some assumptions need to be made. The first assumption is that trials are equal and all possible combination of trials are equal. This study followed both assumptions. Because of this, it is unlikely that the statistical analysis resulted in a Type 1 error (rejecting the null hypothesis).

Table 2: Pairwise comparisons

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DISCUSSION

The present study was designed to examine the effect stride length has on pitched ball velocity in 30 college baseball players comparing their normal stride length, a stride length 10 percent less than normal, and 10 percent greater than normal. The rationale for the basis of the study was the ongoing debate of the push versus pull philosophies when teaching individuals to pitch. Previous studies demonstrated that certain physiological variables contribute to velocity and to exertion, but none examined the relative effect of velocity.9 Results of the present study demonstrated that there were statistical differences between stride lengths and pitched ball velocity.

This study should be interpreted with reservation due to the following limitations: 1) This study was conducted with 30 college baseball players who were not assessed on mechanical efficiency but have been trained at a level where they were qualified enough to play baseball at the Intercollegiate level and 2) 30 subjects do not generalize itself to the entire population. This study should be replicated and scrutinized in the research community; however, it does give some substance to the market of baseball coaches that subscribe to the philosophy that pulling off the rubber will create a mechanical advantage to be able to throw at a slightly higher velocity. A secondary benefit to slightly higher velocities should also include less exertion and greater recovery rates.10

Despite the limitations of the study, it may benefit coaches to investigate the stride length of their current pitchers and assess the distance that the stride foot travels.

CONCLUSIONS

There are many factors that determine velocity when pitching (mechanics, strength, etc.) but one must also consider the relative impact that stride length has on pitched ball velocity. Coaches should consider an examination of lower body mechanics when teaching the skill of pitching in addition to their usual focus on upper-body mechanics. The next step should include researching the ideal stride length for the optimization of velocity, mechanical efficiency, and recovery. Some research has suggested the ideal stride length for professional pitchers is between 80% and 85% of body height.11 However, it has been researched that collegiate pitchers on average have even shorter stride lengths.12 There is still much research to be done to help advance the game in a safe and scientifically supported fashion.

STEPHEN SMITH joined SABR in 2011 and published the article “Talent Selection in Youth Baseball: Factors That Determine End of Season Success” in the Fall 2011 “Baseball Research Journal.” Smith serves as an associate professor of health and physical education at Lynchburg College in Virginia where he played and coached baseball for the Hornets. The current article was a collaboration with his son EASTON SMITH, who is currently working toward making the baseball team at Jefferson Forest High School in Forest, Virginia, and THOMAS BOWMAN, who is an associate professor of athletic training at Lynchburg College.

Sources

Crotin, R.L., Kozlowski, K., Horvath, P., and Ramsey, D.K. “Altered stride length in response to increasing exertion among baseball pitchers.” Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise 46 (2014): 565-571.

Dun, S., Loftice, J., and Fleisig, G.S. “A biomechanical comparison of youth baseball pitches: Is the curveball potentially harmful?” American Journal of Sports Medicine 36 (2008): 686-692.

Elliott, B., Grove, J.R., and Thurston, B. “A three-dimensional cinematographic analysis of the fastball and curveball pitches in baseball.” Journal of Sports Biomechanics 2 (1986): 20-28.

Escamilla, R.F., Barrentine, S.W., and Fleisig, G.S. “Pitching biomechanics as a pitcher approaches muscular fatigue during a simulated baseball game.” American Journal of Sports Medicine 35 (2007): 23.

Escamilla, R.F., Fleisig, G.S., Zheng, N., Barrentine, S.W., Wilk, K.E., and Andrews, J.R. “Biomechanics of the knee during closed kinetic chain and open kinetic chain exercises.” Medicine & Science in Sport and Exercise 4 (1998): 556-569.

Fleisig, G.S., Berrentine, S.W., Zheng, N., Escamilla, R.F., Andrews, J.R. “Kinematic and kinetic comparison of baseball pitching among various levels of development.” Journal of Biomechanics 32 (1999): 1371-1375.

Fleisig, G.S., Kingsley, D.S., and Loftis, J.W. “Kinetic comparison among the fastball, curveball, change-up, and slider in collegiate baseball pitchers.” American Journal of Sports Medicine 34 (2006): 423-430.

Lin, H.T., Su, F.C., Nakamura, M., and Chao, E.Y.S. “Complex chain of momentum transfer of body segments in a baseball pitching motion.” Journal of Chinese Institute of Engineers 26 (2003): 861-868.

Matsuo, T., Escamilla, R.F., Fleisig, G.S., Barrentine, S.W., and Andrews, J.R. “Comparison of kinematic and temporal parameters between different pitch velocity groups.” Journal of Applied Biomechanics 17 (2001): 1-13.

Seroyer, S.T., Nho, S.J., and Bach. “The kinetic chain in overhand pitching: Its potential role for performance enhancement and injury prevention.” Sports Health 2 (2010): 135-136.

Stoddin, D.F., Fleisig, G.S., McLean, S.P., and Andrews, J.R. “Relationship between biomechanical factors to baseball pitching velocity: Within pitcher variation.” Journal of Applied Biomechanics 21 (2005): 44-56.

Notes

This is of course what happened.

The width of the distribution is characterized by its standard deviation, defined as the square root of the sum of the squares of the difference between the team wins and 81, all divided by the number of teams. You would expect about two-thirds of the value to be within plus or minus one standard deviation, and 94 percent to be within two.

There is a formula which defines what this number should be in binomial distribution—the special case of the normal distribution where there are only two outcomes, like heads or tails, or in this case, wins or losses. The formula is simply the square root of the win probability times the loss probability times the number of trials, or games. For a 162-game season, this would be the square root of ½ times ½ times 162, which is 6.36. In my simulation, of course, each season out of the 1000 that I ran would not be exactly that value, but the number should be close. It turns out the season value was 6.35 with a range of plus or minus 0.9. If I combined the data into 10 year periods, the range was down to 0.3, as expected, reduced by the square root of 10.

If you assume luck and skill are independent — the luck factor for a season is the 6.36 wins calculated and the total variation is what happened on the field — then you can calculate the skill factor. It is simply the square root of total squared minus luck squared. I took the data by decades from 1871 to the present. The Union Association (1884) and Federal League (1914-15) were excluded.

Table 1

A variation in the luck factor of 0.3 wins or so would result in a change in skill of about 0.2.

What this shows is the skill factor, which was around 13 wins for 1901–1950, has been reduced significantly so that is has now been around 9 since 1971. This is a team skill factor, not a player skill factor, so basically the teams have become more evenly matched. It also shows that over the course of a full season, the skill and luck factors are almost equal. If you assume the 9 wins (.055 pct) would be constant for any length schedule, then you need 81 games before the skill factor and luck factor are equal. In 81 games, the skill factor would be 81 x .055 or 4.5 wins, while the luck factor (sqrt (81/4) would also be 4.5.

Next I modified my simulation to use teams that were not the same. I chose teams with a standard deviation equal to 9 wins derived from the previous table. I ran 1000 seasons, each with a different set of expected team win percentages. I noted the number of teams within each win range and the number of expected wins for each team that actually won games in that range. I derived a formula for the probability of one team beating another, which is the difference in overall win probability of the teams plus one half.

The results show the actual range is quite a bit broader than the expected one. From the previous table we would expect the actual range to have a standard deviation around 12, which it did. The important column is E/A, which is the expected number of wins for a team that actually won games in range. For example, a team that actually won 59 to 61 games was expected to win 67.4 games, which was 6.5 wins more than actual. Only 8 percent of the number of teams that won 59-61 games won more games than expected. Looking at the 89-91 range, those teams expected to win only 86.5 games and 70 percent of those teams won more games than expected.

Table 2

I then looked at actual data showing change in wins in the following year. I used all teams 1901 to date and found, not surprisingly, that teams tended to show wins closer to .500. In fact the change was almost identical to the change found in the simulation above. Thus I believe that the so-called regression to the mean is simply due to luck. Of course, we don’t know the true team win probabilities of the actual teams, but it does seem likely that they are similar to the simulation, and a real life 90 win team is probably an 86.5 wins team that was lucky. Wins were normalized to 162 games to account for varying length seasons. Diff1 is the difference between wins this year and next. Diff2 is the difference in team wins expected and actual from the previous table. The table below is from a much smaller sample, so the numbers would be less uniform.

Table 3

This method can also be used to look at player performance. The variation in batting average due to luck uses the same formula, except the probability of success is more like 0.25 rather than 0.50. For a full season of 500 at-bats, the variation in hits is the square root of 0.25 times 0.75 times 500, which is 9.7, or about 20 percentage points. The table below shows batting average by decades for all players with at least 300 appearances (at bats plus walks) in a season. Total, luck and skill are in batting average points, that is 37 is .037 on batting average. The variation in skill level has decreased, which indicates that the average level has probably increased, making it harder for the best players to exceed it. However some of the decrease may be due to power hitters who sacrifice batting average for homers. The standard deviation from year to year is 1.4 (square root of two) times the yearly value, so that means five percent of the players can change more than 60 points just due to luck.

Table 4

* Note: Although the chart shows appearances (AB + walks), actual at-bats were used to calculate the variance in batting average. AB are usual around 40 fewer than appearances. Example: 1901-10 it was 456, so sigma is sqr (456 *.265 *.735)/456 o 21 pts. Appearances give credit to players who walked, but I used batting average as the criterion and didn’t want too many columns.

Normalized on-base plus slugging (NOPS) is a better measure of batting than average, though. The definition is on-base average (OBA) player over OBA league plus slugging average (SLG) player over SLG league minus 1, all times one hundred. The league averages do not include pitcher batting. This is then adjusted for park by dividing the player park factor (PF). PF is basically runs scored per inning at home over runs scored per inning away plus one divided by two. So a park where twenty percent more runs were scored at home than on the road would have a PF of 1.10. NOPS correlates directly with runs in that a player with a 120 NOPS produces runs at a rate 20 percent higher than the league average. The standard deviation for NOPS is a bit more complicated. Slugging average is driven by home runs, so homer hitters have a higher standard deviation.

I ran a simulation where all players each year from 1901 through 2016 with 300 or more plate appearances were run through 100 seasons. The league standard deviation came out 15 points, although it was more like 14.5 for the first half of the period and 15.5 for the last half, where homers were more frequent. If I divided the league in half by homer percentage in 2016, the top half had 16.5 and the bottom half 14.5. I will use 15 for analysis. This table shows that the variation in skill level has remained fairly constant with a slight dip recently, which as with batting average may indicate a rise in average skill.

Table 5

So for NOPS, five percent of the players can change 40 or more points from year to year due to luck alone.

For pitchers, I would use normalized ERA, which is simply league ERA over pitcher ERA times 100. Again, a 120 NERA will result in 20 percent less runs allowed than an average pitcher. I do have a quarrel with the way earned runs are given, though. A pitcher is always charged with runs that score by players he has allowed on base. It would be fairer if they were shared when a relief pitcher comes in. For example, if a pitcher left with the bases loaded and none out, he would be charged with 1.8 runs. This is the number of runs usually scored by the 3 runners. If the relief pitcher got out with no runs scored, he would get minus 1.8 runs.

The actual value varies a bit from year to year and league to league, and does have a random factor associated with it. If runs were individual events like goals in a hockey game, the standard deviation would be the square root of the average number of runs, but in baseball scoring one run can often lead to another and a grand slam homer can score four in one blow, so the actual value is the square root of twice the number of runs. In the bases loaded case, the 1.8 figure is 701 scored in 389 cases for 2015 AL. The square root of 1402 over 389 is about 0.1. A runner on third and none out scores about 82 percent of the time, while a runner on first with two outs comes in only 13 percent.

For ERA, the luck factor is calculated the same way. A pitcher with 180 innings and an ERA of 4.00 would have allowed 80 runs, and the luck factor would be the square root of 160 times 9 over 180 or 0.63, a fairly hefty figure. That means five percent of the pitchers could have their ERA off by more than 1.26 due to luck alone. For NERA, the luck factor if the league ERA was 4.00 would be 0.63 divided by 4.00 times 100 or 16. The table below shows all pitchers with 150 or more innings from 1901 to the present by decades.

Table 6

I did a study of all players with at least 300 at bats their first two years and sorted by difference in NOPS and whether they made 300 at-bats in their third year. What it showed was that most players who did worse their second year improved in their third year, while most players who did better their second year didn’t do as well in their third year. About 30 percent of those who were worse their second year did not get a third year, while only 10 percent of those who were better did. In the 30-point change area, those who improved were 37 points higher in year two, but only 5 points higher in year three. So it appears that a big improvement is considered a trend, when it is really mostly luck. The 30-point players who improved did do a little better the third year (up 7 points), while those who did worse only went up 4, but that is a pretty small difference. (See Table 7.)

Table 7

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A handy rule for determining simulated series winners is that the probability of winning a seven-game series is equal to twice the one game percentage minus one half. So a .550 team will win the series sixty percent of the time. If you actually do the math, it turns out that a .500 team will win .500 of the time, obviously, while a .550 team will win .608, a .600 team will win .710 and a .650 team will win .800, but the rule of thumb is close enough.

I ran four separate runs of 5000 162-game season simulations based on playoff structure. The first was one league of 30 teams with no playoffs. The winner was the first place team at the end of the season.

The next case was 2 leagues of 15 teams with the league winners in the playoff. Then I tried two leagues of two divisions each and 4 teams in the playoffs. Finally it was two leagues, three divisions and a wild card, eight teams in the playoffs. As the number of playoff teams increased, the probability of the best team making the playoffs also increased, but the likelihood of the best team winning went down.

Table 8

In real life, we do not know which team was really the best, but if we assume that it was the team with the best record during the season, then that team has won the World Series five times since 1995 when the wild card was introduced, although in one case there was a tie for the best. That works out to about 20 percent, consistent with the above table. The average rank of the World Series winner was fourth out of eight. If the playoffs were completely random, the average rank would be 4.5. The worst team has won 4 times.

In a season, the variation due to luck is about 6.3 games or about 40 percentage points. In a 7 game series, the variation is the square root of ½ times ½ times 7 which is 1.32 games or 188 percentage points. For a single game it is the square root of ½ times ½ times 1 which is .5 wins or 500 percentage points. The average difference in team skill in a game is about 55 percentage points, but if you include home/away and variation among starting pitchers, the actual difference per game is around 100 points or one run. We established that the variation due to chance is the square root of twice the number of runs involved. This means the variation of the difference in runs for a single game would be the square root of 18 or 4.25. This is over four times the variation due to skill.

Looking at other sports as comparisons, the skill factor is much more important in basketball and football. With fewer players on a basketball team, one star player can make a big difference. Football has a much shorter season, so the luck factor is higher per game, but skill still wins out. If you assume the skill factor would be the same regardless of the length of the season, then for a 162-game season basketball would be about 150 points of winning percentage, football about 140, and baseball 55 as shown above. Trying to hit a round ball with a round bat introduces a lot of variability which does not exist in other sports.

Table 9.1. Basketball

Table 9.2. Football

A team’s record from year to year includes a great deal of luck, and luck contributes over four times as much as skill to a team’s eventual record. If all teams were equal, the standard deviation year to year would be 9 games (the square root of 324/4), or alternately the square root of 2 times the in season variation (square root of 162/4 or 6.36). That means every year there should be one or two teams with differences of 18 just by luck. Below are results by decade. The real difference between teams is only about 7 games a year. There were 166 teams who gained 18 or more games from one year to the next, going from 67 wins to 90 on the average. However, the next year, they dropped back to 85, just like any other team. Likewise there were 156 teams who dropped 18 or more wins, going from 91 to 68, but won 75 the following year. Wins were normalized to 162 games to allow for schedule differences.

Table 10

Conclusion

Most people think luck is a lot less important than it is. A team’s record from year to year includes a great deal of luck, and luck contributes about equally as skill to a team’s eventual regular season record. (And in the postseason, it’s nearly all luck.)

PETE PALMER is the co-author with John Thorn of “The Hidden Game of Baseball” and co-editor with Gary Gillette of the “Barnes and Noble ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia” (five editions). Pete worked as a consultant to Sports Information Center, the official statisticans for the American League from 1976 to 1987. Pete introduced on-base average as an official statistic for the American League in 1979 and invented on-base plus slugging (OPS), now universally used as a good measure of batting strength. He won the SABR Bob Davids Award in 1989 and was selected by SABR in 2010 as a winner of the inaugural Henry Chadwick Award. Pete also edited with John Thorn seven editions of “Total Baseball.” He previously edited four editions of the “Barnes Official Encyclopedia of Baseball” (1974–79). A member of SABR since 1973, Pete is also the editor of “Who’s Who in Baseball,” which celebrated its 101st year in 2016.

INTRODUCTION

In June of each year, Major League Baseball conducts its amateur draft (known as the “First-Year Player Draft” or the “Rule 4 Draft”). The MLB amateur draft, which was first held in 1965, consists of forty rounds (under the current collective bargaining agreement) plus the supplemental rounds for compensatory picks earned by teams based on departing free agents who reject qualifying offers, plus competitive balance picks. In general, the following players are eligible to be drafted and sign a professional contract: (i) high school players who have graduated and have not attended college, (ii) four-year college players three years after first enrolling at the institution, or after their twenty-first birthdays (whichever occurs first), and (iii) junior college players at any time.

The purpose of this study is to determine a drafted baseball player’s chances of making the major leagues based upon the round a player is drafted, age when drafted and signed (high school or college player), and position (pitcher or other position player). Historical data were compiled for all players drafted and signed through the twentieth round from 1996 through 2011. In each round for the 16 drafts combined, calculations were made to determine the sum and percentage of signed high school pitchers, high school position players, college pitchers, and college position players who made it to the major leagues and who played in the major leagues more than three years. Players drafted after 2011 were not included within this study in order to give all drafted and signed players an ample opportunity to reach the major leagues.1 Allan Simpson conducted a similar study on players drafted and signed from 1965 to 1995 based solely on the round a player is drafted (not categorized by the four player groupings used in this study).2 The results of this study are compared against the results of Simpson’s study to identify evolving draft patterns and trends.

The results of this study can assist scouts and front office personnel concerning appropriate allocation of resources in the acquisition of talent through the draft, as well as agents and coaches when giving career advice to players and their parents. However, a few limitations should be noted. Because this study entails descriptive (as opposed to explanatory) research, the data analyses do not proffer explanations for why the results are what they are. This study therefore provides empirical evidence for future explanatory research. It should also be noted that the results of this study do not take into account either the number of years it takes for players to make it to the major leagues (based on round, age, or position) nor the kind of impact the players will have when they make the major leagues (based on round, age, or position).3

METHOD

Historical data for this study were collected from two Internet sources, The Baseball Cube and Baseball-Reference.com.4,5 A master spreadsheet was created with separate tabs for each draft year from 1996 to 2011. For each round in each draft year, four separate player categories were created: high school pitchers, high school position players, college pitchers, and college position players.6 The data collection process first entailed searching the draft database on The Baseball Cube, round by round, each year from 1996 to 2011. For each round in a particular draft year, The Baseball Cube database provided data on the drafted players who signed in that round and whether they were high school pitchers, high school position players, college pitchers, or college position players. The number of players drafted and signed in that round, with respect to each of the four categories, was recorded in the master spreadsheet. The Baseball Cube also provided the drafted players in that round who played in the major leagues (for any length of time), and this number was also recorded in the spreadsheet, for each of the four categories. Then, for each player in that round who played in the major leagues, Baseball Reference was used to determine the number of years that the player played in the major leagues, and the number of players in that round who played in the major leagues more than three years was recorded in the spreadsheet, for each of the four categories. This process was repeated for each round for each draft year from 1996 to 2011. For purposes of this study, “played in the major leagues” means a player had at least one appearance or at-bat prior to August 1, 2016, and “played in the major leagues more than three years” means a player had at least one appearance or at-bat in more than three seasons. “More than three seasons” was used as the criterion because, once a player is added to the 40-man roster, he is typically eligible for optional assignment to the minor leagues in three different seasons.7

For rounds 1-5, calculations were made to determine for each round for the 16 drafts combined: (1) the sum and percentage of players drafted, proportioned by player category; (2) the sum and percentage of drafted players who signed, proportioned by player category; (3) of all players signed, the sum and percentage of players who played in the major leagues, proportioned by player category; and (4) of all players signed, the sum and percentage of players who played in the major leagues more than three years, proportioned by player category. For rounds 6-10, the same calculations were made but uncategorized. Rounds 11-15 were combined and rounds 16-20 were combined, and the same calculations were made uncategorized for each of the two cohorts.

RESULTS

Tables 1 through 12 set forth the sum and percentage totals by round (1-10) and combined rounds (11-15 and 16-20):

Table 1: First Round and Supplemental First

Table 2: Second Round and Supplemental Second

Table 3: Third Round and Supplemental Third

Table 4: Fourth Round

Table 5: Fifth Round

Table 6: Sixth Round

Table 7: Seventh Round

Table 8: Eighth Round

Table 9: Ninth Round

Table 10: Tenth Round

Table 11: 11th-15th Rounds

Table 12: 12th-20th Rounds

DATA ANALYSES

1. Figure 1 shows that a higher percentage of drafted players in all rounds signed from 1996 to 2011 than from 1965 to 1995. In Simpson’s study of drafted players from 1965 to 1995, the percentages of players who signed were 95.8% in the first round, 89.4% in the second round, 86% in the third round, 84.1% in the fourth round, 81.3% in the fifth round, 76.1% in rounds 6-10 combined, 70.7% in rounds 11-15 combined, and 65.8% in rounds 16-20 combined. In this study of drafted players from 1996 to 2011, the percentages of players who signed in those rounds were 97.2%, 94.8%, 93.5%, 92.9%, 92.1%, 91.25%, 86.1%, and 81.6%, respectively.

   Figure 1. Comparison of Percentage of Players Who Signed Between 1965–95 and 1996–2011
   
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2. In each of the first five rounds, more college players sign in proportion to high school players. Figure 2 compares the percentage of drafted players in each cohort who signed in each round from 1996 to 2011.

   Figure 2. Percentage Who Signed in First Five Rounds from 1996–2011
   
   (Click image to enlarge)
   

3. College players drafted in the first five rounds had a greater chance of both playing in the major leagues and playing in the major leagues more than three years than high school players, with the greatest percentage difference in the first and second rounds. This is partly due to the fact that a higher percentage of drafted college players sign in proportion to drafted high school players (as explained in No. 2 above), which results in college players making up a much higher percentage of all players signed who make it to the major leagues (as reflected in the results section above). But even when separate percentage calculations are made within each cohort, a greater percentage of college players than high school players played in the major leagues and (with the exception of the third round) played in the major leagues more than three years. Figure 3.1 compares the percentage of signed college players and signed high school players in each of the first five rounds from 1996 to 2011 who played in the major leagues, and Figure 3.2 compares the percentage of those who played in the major leagues more than three years. Because high school players drafted in 2010 and 2011 were much less likely (due to their age) than college players drafted in 2010 and 2011 to have played in the major leagues more than three years as of August 1, 2016, players drafted in 2010 and 2011 (although included in the results section as having played in the major leagues more than three years) were not counted in the calculations in Figure 3.2.

   Figure 3.1. Percentage Who Played in Major Leagues in First Five Rounds from 1996–2011
   
   (Click image to enlarge)

   Figure 3.2. Percentage Who Played in Majors 3+ Years in First Five Rounds from 1996–2011
   
   (Click image to enlarge)
   

4. College pitchers are the most drafted players in the first five rounds; they made up 31.1% of all players drafted in rounds 1-5 combined from 1996 to 2011. However, their chances of making it to the major leagues, and playing more than three years, were not as good as college position players drafted in the first five rounds. Signed college position players had a 6-7% greater chance than signed college pitchers: 350 of the 647 position players (54.1%) compared to 390 of the 810 pitchers (48.1%) played in the major leagues, and 234 of the 647 position players (36.2%) compared to 237 of the 810 pitchers (29.3%) played in the major leagues more than three years.
5. Players drafted in the first three rounds from 1996 to 2011 had close to the same chance of making the major leagues, and playing for a few years, as the players who were drafted in the same round from 1965 to 1995. Compared against the results of Simpson’s study, there was a differential in the range of ±0-4% with respect to the percentage of signed players drafted in those rounds who played in the major leagues and who played in the major leagues more than three years.
        a. Of the signed players drafted in the first round from 1996 to 2011, 66.7% played in the major leagues (compared to 67.0% from 1965-95) and 46.8% played in the major leagues more than three years (compared to 49.5% from 1965-95).
        b. Of the signed players drafted in the second round from 1996 to 2011, 49.4% played in the major leagues (compared to 46.5% from 1965-95) and 31.5% played in the major leagues more than three years (compared to 28.8% from 1965-95).
        c. Of the signed players drafted in the third round from 1996 to 2011, 39.7% played in the major leagues (compared to 36.2% from 1965-95) and 21.6% played in the major leagues more than three years (compared to 23.9% from 1965-95).
6. However, players drafted in the fourth and fifth rounds from 1996 to 2011 had a significantly greater chance of making the major leagues, and playing for a few years, than the players who were drafted in the same round from 1965 to 1995.
        a. Of the signed players drafted in the fourth round from 1996 to 2011, 35% played in the major leagues (compared to 28.3% from 1965-95) and 18.6% played in the major leagues more than three years (compared to 17.3% from 1965-95).
        b. Of the signed players drafted in the fifth round from 1996 to 2011, 33.3% played in the major leagues (compared to 28.5% from 1965-95) and 18.6% played in the major leagues more than three years (compared to 14.8% from 1965-95).
7. Players drafted and signed beyond the first five rounds from 1996 to 2011 had the same chances of playing in the major leagues as the players drafted and signed in the same round from 1965 to 1995 (a differential in the range of ±0-1%).
        a. In rounds 6-10 combined from 1996 to 2011, 20% played in the major leagues (compared to 20.4% from 1965-95).
        b. In rounds 11-15 combined from 1996 to 2011, 12.7% played in the major leagues (compared to 12.1% from 1965-958).
        c. In rounds 16-20 combined from 1996 to 2011, 9.9% played in the major leagues (compared to 9.8% from 1965-95).
8. However, players drafted and signed beyond the first five rounds from 1996 to 2011 had a slightly lesser chance of playing in the major leagues more than three years than the players drafted and signed in the same round from 1965 to 1995 (a differential in the range of -(minus) .9%-2.4%). The percentage of players in the three cohorts from 1996 to 2011 who played in the major leagues more than three years was 9% for rounds 6-10 combined (compared to 11.4% from 1965-95), 5.2% for rounds 11-15 combined (compared to 6.1% from 1965-95), and 4.4% for rounds 16-20 combined (compared to 5.6% from 1965-95).

CONCLUSION

The overall takeaway from this study is that, in the top five rounds, generally college players are much more valuable picks than high school players and college position players are more valuable than college pitchers. In the top five rounds, college players not only have a greater chance than high school players of making the major leagues and playing in the major leagues more than three years, but also more college players sign in proportion to high school players.

RICHARD T. KARCHER is a sport management professor at Eastern Michigan University where he teaches sport governance and regulation, sport ethics, NCAA compliance, and introduction to research in sport management. Karcher has provided expert testimony in numerous lawsuits on the lost earning capacity damages of amateur and professional baseball players. He serves on the editorial board for the “Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport.” Karcher also played three seasons in the Atlanta Braves farm system and is a lifetime member of the Association of Professional Ball Players of America.

Acknowledgments

I want to especially thank my research assistant, Joseph Barroso Jr., for his countless hours and attention to detail collecting the necessary data to make this study possible.

Notes

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most two-game sets were played as a morning and afternoon pair requiring a separate ticket for each, but many were played as one single-admission event, while in the twenty-first century, two games on one day are almost always played as two single games, one afternoon and one evening. These separate-admission sets are not considered “doubleheaders” under Major League Baseball’s Official Rules but colloquially— and for purposes of this article—the term includes all instances where two games were played in one day, whether single or separate admission.

Most doubleheaders featured the same two teams in both games, but there are a number of these sets in major league history that do not fit this pattern. Many of these featured three teams in one ballpark, but others are even more unusual. Most of these unusual game sets were played in the nineteenth century and this article runs through the 2016 season. All schedule and game result information has been taken from Retrosheet, with additional detail from contemporary news accounts.

THREE TEAMS IN ONE SET

Three teams playing two games in one day in one ballpark has occurred 17 times. In most cases, the home team played in both contests, but that was not the case twice. See Table 1 for a complete list of these doubleheaders. Note that the italicized lines indicate doubleheaders with the team in the “Visitor 1” column playing both games against two different home teams.

Teams felt free to change the published schedule to suit their needs in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for reasons such as playing games on days that would draw a bigger crowd, resulting in more money for the owners. As noted earlier, Sundays and holidays were the biggest days for attendance at the ballpark. Travel issues also contributed many times to schedule changes during the year, as did inclement weather.

The most recent instance of this odd scheduling occurred on September 25, 2000, in Cleveland. On September 10, the White Sox and Indians had been rained out in Cleveland in the last meeting of the year between the two clubs. This game was rescheduled for the afternoon of September 25, causing the White Sox to return to Cleveland for the day and giving the Indians an unusual day/night twin bill, since the Minnesota Twins were already set to play them on that date. The Tribe won that afternoon game, 9–2, but the Twins prevailed in the night cap 4–3. This is the only time that three American League teams played in one doubleheader.

On September 12, 1951, the New York (now San Francisco) Giants were rained out in St. Louis. This being the Giants’ last trip to St. Louis and the last meeting of the year between the clubs, the New Yorkers remained in town to make up the game the next afternoon. After beating the Giants that Thursday afternoon, 6–4, the Cardinals played their scheduled contest against the Boston (now Atlanta) Braves that evening. The visitors beat the Redbirds, 2–0, in the second game.

Before 1951, it had been 52 years since the last time that three teams played in the same ballpark on the same day. There were 10 of these doubleheaders during the 1899 season. That year, the National League’s Cleveland Spiders played 42 games at home and 112 away. Most of their best players were sent to the St. Louis Perfectos (Cardinals), also owned by the Cleveland owners. Although the original schedule had an even split of home and road games, the Cleveland season did not play out that way. The club was not drawing fans and opponents refused to travel to the banks of Lake Erie since their share of the gate would not pay for their expenses. Cleveland ended with a 20-134 record and folded after the season. During that 1899 National League season, seven of the ten unusual doubleheaders featured Cleveland as one of the visiting teams, as their schedule was reworked during the season. The Spiders also acted as home team, although in Chicago, for one other doubleheader. None of these unusual doubleheaders were planned before the season started.

Table 1: Doubleheaders with Three Teams

Notes:

1. Scheduled as three-team set before the season
2. St. Louis played both games as visitor; Cleveland and Chicago home teams in Chicago
3. Louisville played both games as visitor; St. Louis and Cleveland home teams in St. Louis

One 1899 doubleheader of note was played on September 24 in St. Louis. The Louisville Colonels had been scheduled in Cleveland on August 21 and in St. Louis on September 6. Both of these contests were moved to September 24 in St. Louis. The Colonels played as the visiting team twice that day, beating the Perfectos (Cardinals) in the first game and the Spiders in the second contest. The second game was stopped after seven innings due to darkness.

As the 1898 season wound down, the St. Louis Browns (Cardinals) were scheduled to host the Cleveland Spiders on Saturday, October 8 and the Chicago Orphans (Cubs) on Monday, October 10. Both of these games were transferred to Chicago and played on October 8. Teams did not like to play on Mondays because they drew fewer fans and many Monday games at the turn of the twentieth century were moved to other, more profitable, days. On this October Saturday, the last place Browns beat Cleveland, 4–3, in an afternoon contest called after seven innings to allow the Spiders to catch a train. Once Cleveland had left, Chicago played as the visiting team in their own home park and beat St. Louis, 4–3. These two results put Chicago into fourth place ahead of Cleveland, where they finished the season.

On September 14 and 15, 1887, the Metropolitans of the American Association hosted three-team doubleheaders on consecutive days. The Cincinnati Reds and Metropolitans were rained out on June 17 and September 12 and those games were rescheduled for September 14 and 15, when the Metropolitans were scheduled to play the Clevelands. These four games were played at the St. George Play Grounds on Staten Island, with the postponed games played in the morning and the scheduled games in the afternoon. New York lost all four contests to the visitors. To add to the confusion, Cincinnati left the Play Grounds after their morning games each day and went to Brooklyn to play the Brooklyns in the afternoon. Thus, the Metropolitans hosted two games against two opponents and Cincinnati visited two ballparks to complete a separate doubleheader. Four teams played a total of three games on each of those days spread between two ballparks.

The Boston Beaneaters (Atlanta Braves) of the National League played a scheduled three-team doubleheader on June 17, 1885. June 17 is the Bunker Hill Day holiday in Boston. In the morning, Boston lost to the Philadelphias, 5–3. After lunch, they lost to the New York (San Francisco) Giants, 10–0. The Philadelphias took the train to Providence to play the Grays in the afternoon, losing that contest, 10–4. The Philadelphia team played a split doubleheader that day as the visitor in two cities.

One year earlier, on June 17, 1884, the Beaneaters hosted another scheduled “triple double.” In the morning they hosted and lost to the New Yorks (San Francisco Giants), 7–6, in a 12-inning contest. That afternoon, the Bostons were beaten by the Philadelphias (Phillies), 7–2. During their lunch break, the New Yorks traveled to Providence for an afternoon contest against the Grays. New York lost that second game. The Gothams thus played two teams in two cities that day, which is the subject of the next section.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES (AND FOUR TEAMS)

Some large metropolitan areas, such as New York and Chicago, have had multiple teams within their confines. Most often, these clubs are in different leagues but sometimes they are not. The close physical distance between Brooklyn and Manhattan has allowed the National League to create some interesting scheduling. Other league cities have been close enough to allow teams easy travel between them. In the previous section, four days were cited on which a team played in two ballparks on one day: June 17, 1884, June 17, 1885, September 14, 1887 and September 15, 1887.

The first two featured a team traveling from Boston to Providence between games, while the latter two had a team traveling within the New York metropolitan area. On these days, Providence and Brooklyn played one game while Boston and Metropolitan played two.

Table 2 shows all instances of days when teams played two games in two ballparks. In most cases, both visiting teams traveled to the other park but there are a few in which only one team traveled. All of these doubleheaders were on the original league schedule unless otherwise noted in the table.

Table 2: Doubleheaders with Four Teams and Two Ballparks

Notes:

1. Scheduled as a doubleheader but changed after the season started
2. Chicago and Boston rained out in the afternoon
3. Not on the original schedule

On Decoration Day (May 30) 1883, both the National League and American Association scheduled four teams/two cities doubleheaders. In the NL, the Cleveland Blues played in Boston in the morning and in Providence in the afternoon. The Buffalo Bisons reversed the travel path that day, taking the train 41 miles to Boston for their second game of the day.

The Association teams had a tougher travel day on that 1883 date. The Cincinnati Red Stockings played in New York in the morning and took the train to Philadelphia, a distance of about 95 miles, to play the Athletics in the afternoon. The Columbus Buckeyes played the Athletics in the morning and the Metropolitans in the afternoon.

A few weeks later, on July 4, 1883, the Boston and Providence National League teams each made the New York/Philadelphia trek between games of a doubleheader. This is the only instance of the Beaneaters and Grays doing the traveling, as they usually were hosts for this sort of game set.

On May 30, 1884, the two league schedules featured three sets of traveling doubleheaders, which is the most of these unusual scheduling quirks in one day. In the National League, the Philadelphias (Phillies) and the New Yorks (San Francisco Giants) split games between Boston and Providence. Philadelphia moved southwest from Boston while New York traveled in the opposite direction.

In the American Association, the St. Louis Browns (Cardinals) played the Metropolitans in the morning and the Brooklyns (Los Angeles Dodgers) in the afternoon. The Indianapolis Hoosiers reversed the travel that day. The other four-team set in the AA had the Columbus Buckeyes in Washington in the morning and in Baltimore in the afternoon. The Cincinnati Reds were scheduled to play the Orioles in the morning and the Washingtons in the afternoon, thus reversing the movement of the Buckeyes. However, the morning game in Baltimore was moved to the previous day, thus avoiding the 40-mile commute between games.

On July 4, 1884, the Union Association got into the act with the only unusual schedule in the league’s one-year existence. The Baltimore Monumentals and the Washington Nationals each hosted two teams for Independence Day twin-bills. The Cincinnati Unions played in Baltimore and then traveled to Washington while the St. Louis Maroons played the Nationals in the morning and then the Monumentals in the afternoon.

For the third consecutive Decoration Day, the 1885 National League scheduled a set of games in two ballparks featuring four teams, with the Boston Beaneaters (Atlanta Braves) and Providence Grays again hosting the contests. The Detroit Wolverines started the day in Boston and then took the train to Providence for the afternoon game. The Chicago White Stockings (Cubs) played the Grays in the morning but were rained out in Boston that afternoon, with the make-up played on July 24.

The last of these sets not already mentioned occurred on Monday, May 31, 1886, which that year was the Decoration Day remembrance. These traveling sets were not in the original American Association schedule. The Cincinnati Reds were scheduled to play the Brooklyns in Brooklyn on May 28 and the Louisvilles were set to play the Metropolitans the same day. These games were moved to May 31, with the Reds playing in Brooklyn and then in New York City with the Louisvilles taking the opposite path.

FOUR TEAMS AND TWO LEAGUES IN ONE DAY

The last set of games to be discussed in this article involve two games played in one ballpark in one day with each game representing a different league. All of these games were played in New York. Table 3 shows the complete list of these games.

From 1883 through 1885, the National League’s New York team (sometimes called the Giants in 1885) shared a home field with the Metropolitans of the American Association. The Metropolitans joined the AA in 1883 and they shared the Southeast Diamond of the Polo Grounds for three seasons, then moved to Staten Island for the last two years of their existence.

In 1885, the two squads were both scheduled to play home games on Wednesday, August 26. The Association contest was played at two o’clock in the afternoon that day and the League game followed. The Metropolitans beat the Baltimore Orioles, 8–2, in the first game and the Gothams beat the Providence Grays in the second game, 6–0. One admission allowed the patron to see both games.

The Giants first scheduled home game of the 1885 season was rained out on May 1. That contest, against the Boston Beaneaters (Atlanta Braves), was rescheduled for August 28, which originally was an open date for the two clubs. That Friday afternoon, just as had been done two days previously, the Metropolitans played their scheduled game at two. The home team lost to the Athletics of Philadelphia, 4–2. Then the National League makeup game was played, with the home team victorious, 3–1. As had been the case on the 26^th, one ticket allowed a fan to see both games.

Table 3: Two Games in One Park in Different Leagues

The Giants and Metropolitans staged four single-admission doubleheaders in September 1885. In each case, the Mets were scheduled to play at home. The Giantis’ schedule called for games on the road but all four games were transferred to New York with the permission of the league. The Association game was played first in all cases.

On Monday, April 13, 1998, a steel beam fell from the upper deck structure at Yankee Stadium and landed in the empty lower seating bowl. This occurred in the afternoon just as the Yankees were about to start batting practice and caused the postponement of game that night and the following, April 13 and 14. The Anaheim Angels were in New York to start a three-game series. The two postponed contests were made up in August. The third game of the series was played as scheduled on April 15. However, this game was transferred to Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets. The contest was played in the afternoon and the Yankees beat the Angels, 6–3. Both teams then vacated the stadium and two more teams moved into the clubhouses. That evening, the Mets beat the Chicago Cubs, 2–1, in their scheduled contest. The Yankees were scheduled to play the Tigers at Yankee Stadium on April 17 through 19 but that series was moved to Detroit. The scheduled series for the Yankees in Detroit that would have been played later in April was moved to New York. (Fans of quirky doubleheaders may recall the Yankees and Mets have also played some odd two-team sets. In “interleague play” in 2000, 2003, and 2008, weather cancellations forced the rescheduling that resulted in the two teams playing in one stadium in the afternoon and the other in the evening.)

Baseball schedules can be affected by many external influences, such as weather. These factors can cause unusual scheduling quirks, some of which have been detailed in this article.

DAVID VINCENT was presented with the Bob Davids Award in 1999 and has been a SABR member since 1985.