RESEARCH PROCEDURE

The connotation of the “five-tool player” term is sustained outstanding performance in each of the five talents. Since “outstanding performance” does not necessarily mean “the best performance,” I decided to zero in on those players who achieved multiple top-five rankings in each of the metrics employed to evaluate relative performance in each of the five tools.3 For the domain of players in this study, I chose all Hall of Fame players (except pitchers) whose major-league careers commenced before Mays began his 22-year National League career (May 25, 1951, through 1973, with 1953 missed because of military service). Thus, all the Hall of Famers from Cap Anson (1876–97) through Mickey Mantle (April 17, 1951, through 1968) are included.

For additional comparison, those Hall of Famers who began their big-league careers within a few years after Mays’s debut and were contemporaries of Mays for at least 15 years are also included. Thus, players such as fellow outfielders Al Kaline (1953–74), Hank Aaron (1954–76), Roberto Clemente (1955–72), and Frank Robinson (1956–76) are also included. Altogether, the domain consists of 116 players. Using the Spalding, Reach, and Sporting News baseball guides, the baseball encyclopedias utilizing Pete Palmer’s database of baseball statistics—i.e., Total Baseball (Thorn and Palmer) and The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (Gillette and Palmer)—and the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet websites, I ascertained the number of times a player excelled in each of the five tools. From this information, I was able to construct tables (organized according to the principal fielding position of each player) that summarize on a career basis the five-tool accomplishments of each player.4 These tables are provided in the Appendix, which is available on the SABR website.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The “hit for average” tool is a vital skill because it indicates how proficiently a player gets on base (via base hits), the first requirement for the main offense objective, scoring runs. However, after nearly a century of relying solely on batting average (BA) to gauge a player’s ability to get on base, the importance of measuring a player’s skill in getting on base via walks (and by being hit by pitched balls) became appreciated as a valuable strategy and on-base average (OBA) emerged—thanks to the innovative research and statistical analysis of Allan Roth, coupled with the input and strong endorsement of Branch Rickey.5

Indeed, on-base average, or on-base percentage (OBP), as it’s often called, is now generally regarded to be more useful than the traditional BA. Therefore, in my evaluation of a player’s performance for the “hit for average” tool I utilized both the classic BA and the relatively modern OBP. Continuing, the “hit with power” tool demonstrates how well a player enhances the advancement of both himself and any teammates already on base around the basepaths to home plate—the ultimate goal—with extra-base hits. To assess a player’s ability to hit with power I utilized two metrics: the classic slugging average (SLG) and the modern isolated power (ISO).6 With that introduction, let’s first focus on those players who excelled in BA, OBP, SLG, and ISO.

During his journey to Cooperstown, Mays achieved the following yearly top-five performances:

• 7 in BA (including one first place);
• 10 in OBP (two firsts);
• 14 in SLG (five firsts);
• 12 in ISO (five firsts).

This impressive record was deemed to be the threshold for a player to be considered as a five-tool player prior to Mays. That is, a player had to at least come reasonably close to Mays’s accomplishments. Table 1, culled from the tables in the Appendix, presents a list of those players who qualified in these four statistical departments, the qualification requirements being (a) at least six top fives in BA or eight top fives in OBP and (b) at least 12 top fives in SLG or at least 10 top fives in ISO. Table 1 also provides information on the base stealing performance achieved by these players (discussed below). Also included in Table 1, irrespective of their record, are the 11 Hall of Famers who played primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates: center fielders Lloyd Waner and Max Carey; right fielders Roberto Clemente and Paul Waner; left fielders Willie Stargell, Ralph Kiner, and Fred Clarke; second baseman Bill Mazeroski; third baseman Pie Traynor; and shortstops Arky Vaughan and Honus Wagner.

Inspection of Table 1 reveals that, in addition to Mays, only 14 other players satisfied the admission requirements: Mantle, Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb, Frank Robinson, Aaron, Mel Ott, Babe Ruth, Sam Crawford, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, and Wagner.

Let’s now address the running tool, which manifests itself in both offense and defense: Speed and effectiveness in running give the player an advantage to beat out scratch hits, take extra bases, and steal bases while his team is batting and to run down flyballs hit to the outfield gaps or reach grounders hit to the infield holes while his team is in the field. Probably the most expedient metric for assessing a player’s running speed is his base-stealing performance. Three different metrics have been employed to evaluate base-stealing: (1) stolen bases (SB), which were first recorded officially in 1886; (2) base-stealing runs (BSR); and (3) stolen-base percentage (SBP).7

The BSR and SBP metrics utilize caught stealing (CS) numbers, which regrettably are not available officially for all seasons. For the American League, CS stats are available for only 1914–16 and 1920 forward; for the National League, CS stats are available for only 1913, 1915–16, 1920–25, and 1951 forward. Thanks, however, to the phenomenal efforts of the volunteers who contribute to the Retrosheet database of baseball information, unofficial CS statistics are available for the 1926–50 NL seasons (although these CS stats may not be complete for all players since game play-by-play accounts have not yet been ascertained for all teams and all seasons from 1926 through 1940). Inspection of Table 1 reveals that of the 14 players (besides Mays) with excellent performance records in both “hitting for average” and “hitting with power,” only six produced base-stealing stats at least reasonably in line with those achieved by the Say Hey Kid: center fielders Mantle, Speaker, and Cobb, right fielders Robinson and Aaron, and shortstop Wagner.

With Mantle, Robinson, and Aaron being contemporaries of Mays, only Speaker, Cobb, and Wagner remain as possibilities for being the genuine prototypical five-tooler, depending on how each stacks up with Mays in the two fielding tools.

For the two fielding tools, I have utilized two sets of fielding metrics to evaluate a player’s performance:

1. The classic metrics of putouts-per-game (PO/G) for catching the ball and assists-per-game (A/G) for throwing it; in addition, the traditional fielding average (FA) was also included in the evaluation. These metrics were used only for the outfielders and the shortstops.

2. The modern metrics developed by Pete Palmer: fielding runs (FR), fielding range (RNG), and fielding throwing (THR).8 These metrics were used for all the players.

Because only one player at most can qualify for a fielding title for each position from each team, I tightened the ranking requirement from a top five to a top two. The pertinent fielding information for Mays, Speaker, Cobb, and Wagner is provided in Table 2.

Table 1: Players with (a) 6 Top 5s in BA or 8 Top 5s in OBP & (b) 12 Top 5s in SLG or 10 Top 5s in ISO

(Click image to enlarge)

Table 2: Top-Two Fielding Rankings Achieved by Mays, Speaker, Cobb, and Wagner

(Click image to enlarge)

From inspection of the fielding analytics given in Table 2 we can see that by the classic fielding metrics, Speaker, Cobb, and Wagner generally outperformed Mays. With Palmer’s modern fielding metrics, Speaker surpassed Mays in each, while Mays outfielded Cobb in each; Wagner and Mays split the three metrics, with Mays getting the lion’s share.

It is worth noting that comparing the relative fielding performances of center fielder Mays with shortstop Wagner is an apples and oranges situation. Another modern analytical technique for assessing relative fielding performance is Defensive Regression Analysis (DRA), developed by Michael Humphreys.9 According to Humphreys, the top center fielder of all time is Andruw Jones, followed by Mays, Speaker, Paul Blair, Gary Pettis, and Richie Ashburn. No other Hall of Famers were included in Humphreys’ “Top Forty Center Fielders of All Time.” At the shortstop position, Humphreys came up with Mark Belanger as number one, followed by Rey Sanchez, Ozzie Smith, and Joe Tinker. Wagner did not make Humphreys’ list. “Honus was only a solid-to-good, not great, fielder at shortstop,” Humphreys wrote. “He was clearly among the better-fielding shortstops of his time, just not an all-time great.”

Bill James, though, in his New Historical Baseball Abstract, wrote, “Wagner was among the greatest defensive players in the history of baseball.” James’s top five defensive shortstops of all time were, in order, Wagner, Smith, Bill Dahlen, Rabbit Maranville, and Pee Wee Reese. James adds that this list “includes Win Shares earned at other positions, as well as shortstop; if you base the rankings only on Defensive Win Shares at shortstop, Ozzie is first.”10

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Based on the information collected in Tables 1 and 2, it’s reasonable to consider Speaker, Cobb, and Wagner to have been true five-tool players. Therefore, based on the facts and figures assembled in this report, Willie Mays may not be the prototypical (i.e., original) five-tooler, as claimed in Sports Illustrated. It appears that The Grey Eagle, The Georgia Peach, and (perhaps) The Flying Dutchman may have preceded The Say Hey Kid. Being recognized as “the ultimate five-tool player” is part of the legacy of Willie Mays.11 But he wasn’t the first.

HERM KRABBENHOFT, a SABR member since 1981, is a retired organic chemist. He is a lifelong fan of the Detroit Tigers. His baseball research endeavors have included ultimate grand slam homers, leadoff batters, quasi-cycles, and ascertaining accurate records for runs scored and runs batted in by players of the Deadball Era.

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to express my tremendous gratitude to Bill Deane, Gary Gillette, and Pete Palmer for the input and guidance they provided to me. I should also like to thank the following people for their very valuable help in providing me with important information (including scans of articles) on the origin and use of the “five-tool” term: Bruce Berger, Adrian Fung, Chuck Hildebrandt, Wayne McElreavy, Rod Nelson, Dave Newman, Cliff Otto, and Dennis VanLangen.

Notes

1 Lou Smith, “Lou Smith’s Notes,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 6, 1954. See also: Jean Hoffman, “Durocher People’s Choice to Manage Giants,” The Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1960.

2 Bill Syken, “Alltime Best,” Sports Illustrated, November 24, 2003.

3 The Appendix provides complete details with regard to the requirements to qualify for a top-five ranking in the BA, OBP, SLG, ISO, and SBP metrics (and for a top-two ranking in the fielding metrics).

4 Baseball America and the Baseball Hall of Fame, The National Baseball Hall of Fame Almanac (Durham, North Carolina: Baseball America, 2017).

5 Branch Rickey, “Goodby to Some Old Baseball Ideas,” Life, August 2, 1954.

6 The present-day definition of isolated power (ISO) is “slugging percentage minus batting average,” which can be expressed equivalently as: ISO = (SLG – BA) = (D + 2T + 3HR)/AB which is identical to the formula for extra base power developed in the 1950s by Branch Rickey and Allan Roth; see Note 5.

7 John Thorn & Pete Palmer, The Hidden Game of Baseball (New York: Doubleday, 1984). Base stealing runs (BSR), also called stolen base runs (SBR), was devised by Palmer and used in The Hidden Game of Baseball.

In emails between Palmer and Krabbenhoft February 7 and 9, 2018, Palmer wrote, “Another way of doing it would be to rank players on SB minus 2 x CS. A stolen base is worth about .22 runs and a caught stealing is minus .35 runs, which works out to a 63% success rate to break even. So, SBR = .22 x SB – .35 x CS. Using 2 to 1 is an approximation which makes the calculation easier. The run values are based on the change in expected runs to be scored before and after the event.” It is pointed out in emails February 7 and 9, 2018, between Bill Deane and Krabbenhoft that an analogous metric, adjusted stolen bases (ASB), was concocted by Deane “around 1983, before Hidden Game came out.” The formula for ASB is: ASB = SB – 2(CS). Finally, the formula for stolen base percentage is: SBP = 100 X SB/(SB + CS).

8 Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer, The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (New York: Sterling, 2008).

9 Michael A. Humphreys, Wizardry: Baseball’s All-Time Greatest Fielders Revealed (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

10 Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (New York: Free Press, 2001).

11 Matt Doeden, Willie Mays (Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books, 2011).

How did Face amass these impressive totals? Was it the result of entering numerous tie games and benefitting from Pittsburgh rallies? Did he surrender tying or go-ahead runs only to be bailed out by his team’s offense? This article will present a narrative description of Face’s season with an analytical breakdown of each of his 19 decisions. The article will also present a brief summary of his 10 saves. The primary source for this analysis comes from game breakdowns on Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.

INTRODUCTION

After four minor-league seasons, Face, a Rule 5 draftee from the Brooklyn Dodgers, made the jump from the Class AA Fort Worth Cats to the Pirates for the beginning of the 1953 season. In his major-league debut against the Philadelphia Phillies on April 16, he retired Stan Lopata before giving up two doubles, a single, a walk, and another single before Johnny Hetki was summoned from the bullpen to replace the 25-year-old hurler. At 5-foot-8, Face was an unlikely candidate for major-league stardom, and he started the 1954 season with the Class AA New Orleans Pelicans, managed by Danny Murtaugh. Needing an off-speed pitch, Face ultimately mastered an uncommon one that would make him successful in a major league career that spanned 16 seasons and 848 appearances. As Jim O’Brien, the author of numerous books on the Pirates, wrote in 2005: “He didn’t invent the fork-ball, but he certainly made it famous. He still likes to show people how he placed the baseball between two of his fingers to throw that pitch. Most people can form a ‘V’ or victory sign, but Face can form a ‘U’ with his two fingers.”1

An analysis of Face’s 1959 season reveals two significant statistics. The first is that half of his 18 wins came when he entered a tie game. In three of those, he gave up the go-ahead run, but the Pirates rallied and gave Face the win. The second is that 10 of his wins, including the last seven, were in extra-inning games. There is an overlap of six games in those two categories (May 3 and 7; June 8 and 25; August 30; September 19).

TIE GAMES

Face’s first victory of the season came at Forbes Field at night on April 22 against the Cincinnati Reds, when he entered the game with the score tied 7–7. Gus Bell greeted him with a home run to push the Reds ahead 8–7. But Face retired the next six Reds and the Pirates scored two runs to secure the win.

Face’s May 3 effort in the first game of a doubleheader was one of his strongest of the year. The score was tied 3–3 when he entered the game in the eighth inning in relief of Vern Law. He retired all nine Phillies batters that he faced and his teammates rewarded him with an extra-inning victory when Bill Mazeroski singled with the bases loaded and two outs in the 10th.

On May 7, Face relieved Law in the top of the 10th inning of a 4–4 game against the Phillies. Face pitched to four batters, surrendering only a two-out single to Ed Bouchee. Ted Kluszewski slammed a home run leading off the bottom of the inning to provide Face his fourth victory of the season.

Just a bit over one month later on June 8, Face entered a game against San Francisco in the ninth inning with the score 9–9. Although Face gave up three hits in the inning, the Giants could not score a run. Face pitched well in the 11th and 12th innings, retiring all six hitters he faced. The Pirates won the game in the bottom of the 12th when Harry Bright hit a three-run homer off of Mike McCormick. The victory advanced Face’s record to 8–0.

On June 14, Face was called in from the bullpen in the eighth inning of the first game of a doubleheader against the Dodgers with the score tied, 3–3. The Pirates scored three runs in the eighth inning to take the lead and Face shut down the Dodgers in the top of the ninth to record his 10th win. He struck out four of the eight Dodgers he faced.

He entered the June 18 game against the Chicago Cubs with the score tied 2–2 in the bottom of the ninth. The Pirates scored twice in the 13th and Face was 11–0. He pitched to 18 batters in five innings, striking out four and reducing his ERA to 1.34.

On June 25, the Pirates and Giants were locked in a 1–1 pitching duel between Harvey Haddix and Stu Miller. Face kept the Giants off the scoreboard by retiring seven of the first eight batters that he faced, with his lone hiccup a two-out walk to Darryl Spencer in the 11th inning. Roman Mejias delivered a two-run home run in the top of the 12th off of Eddie Fisher to provide the winning edge for the Bucs, and Face held off the Giants despite giving up two singles and a walk. His ERA dropped to 1.18.

In the second game of a doubleheader against the Phillies on August 30, Face relieved Don Gross in the 10th inning of a 5–5 tie. He gave up a home run, but Dick Stuart kept Face’s victory streak intact when he doubled home Don Hoak and Bill Virdon to provide the margin of victory in a 7–6 win.

Face picked up his only loss of the 1959 campaign against the Dodgers in the first game of a doubleheader on September 11. Eight days later, he came in against the Reds with the score tied 2–2 in the ninth inning. Face pitched to 15 batters over four innings, giving up the go-ahead run to the Reds in the 12th. The Pirates bailed out their relief ace by scoring twice in the bottom half to claim a 4–3 victory.

MORE EXTRA-INNING WINS

Six of the 10 extra-inning wins required a single extra frame, while the other three went 11, 12, and 13. Seven of the extra-innings victories were at Forbes Field, a pretty strong number of walk-off wins. The six games (May 3, May 7, June 8, June 25, August 30, September 19) Face won after entering a tie game that also went extra innings are detailed above. The other four games are discussed in this section.

On July 9, he came on in the ninth inning against the Cubs and gave up the tying run. Harry Bright, pinch-hitting for Virdon, singled in Roberto Clemente to win the game in the bottom of the 10th.

In the first game of a July 12 doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals, Face entered in the top of the eighth after Haddix, who’d started the inning with a 5–1 lead, gave up three runs. In the top of the ninth, Face gave up a run-scoring single to tie the score. Clemente singled in Dick Schofield with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th to give Face his 14th win.

Face relieved Law in the eighth inning at Wrigley Field on August 9 with the Cubs leading 2–1. He gave up one run but Bob Skinner threw out Jim Marshall with another would-be tally at the plate. The Pirates scored two in the ninth to tie the game 3–3 and then took a two-run lead in the top of the 10th inning on three hits and two walks. Face pitched to 13 batters and notched win number 15.

In the second game of an August 23 Sunday doubleheader against the Dodgers at Forbes Field, Face entered in the top of the ninth inning with the Dodgers leading 3–2. Stuart singled in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. In the top of the 10th, Face loaded the bases before getting pinch-hitter Carl Furillo to line out to left field. Face picked up win number 16 when Dick Groat singled off of Don Drysdale to drive in Virdon with the winning run.

THE OTHER FIVE WINS

Face entered the April 24 game against the Phillies in the bottom of the seventh inning with the Pirates leading 4–3 and retired one batter. The Phillies scored two in the eighth to take the lead, but the Pirates scored four in the top of the ninth to go ahead 8–5. Although Face gave up two hits in the bottom of the ninth, the Phillies couldn’t score and Face won his second game of the season.

On May 13, he came on against the Dodgers at the Los Angeles Coliseum in the bottom of the seventh inning with the Dodgers leading 4–3 and retired three of the four batters that he faced. In the top of the eighth, the Pirates scored three on a two-run homer by Stuart and a double by Mazeroski that scored Skinner. Face gave up two singles to begin the eighth inning before retiring the next three batters. In the bottom of the ninth, Face walked two Dodgers but finished off the next three to record his fifth win of the season.

The following evening, he entered the game in the bottom of the eighth with one out, runners on first and third, and the Pirates ahead 6–3. The Dodgers quickly tied the game. In the top of the ninth, Stuart homered, and Face retired the Dodgers in order to close out the game and notch his sixth win.

In the second game of a May 31 Sunday doubleheader at Crosley Field, Face entered the game against the Reds in the bottom of the seventh inning of a slugfest with the Pirates ahead 14–11. He earned the win as the most effective Pirates pitcher, retiring nine of the 10 batters he faced over the final three innings.

Face entered the June 11 game with the Giants in the top of the eighth inning relieving starter Bob Friend with the Pirates leading, 7-5, with no outs and runners on first and third. After retiring Leon Wagner, pinch hitter Willie Mays hit a three-run homer pushing the Giants ahead, 8-7. The Pirates scored five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, and Face won his ninth game with relief help from Vern Law who earned a save after giving up one run in the ninth inning of the Pittsburgh 12-9 victory.

SOME DETAILS

One-third of Face’s 18 wins came in games started by Law, the ace of Pittsburgh’s starting staff. Ron Kline started four of the games Face eventually won. Haddix and Bob Friend each started two of the games Face ultimately won. His other four were in games started by Bennie Daniels, Dick Hall, Al Jackson, and Red Witt.

Face spread out his wins relatively evenly through the National League with one exception. He failed to record a decision against the Milwaukee Braves. Face recorded his most wins, four, over the Dodgers, the team that provided the reliever with his sole loss. He won three games each against the Cubs, Reds, Phillies, and Giants. He got only two wins against the Cardinals.

He was stronger during the first three months of the season. After struggling in his two April outings, which still produced victories, he won five games in both May and June. At the end of those three months, Face had a 1.17 ERA. He encountered some difficulty in July, when he recorded just two wins and his ERA increased to 1.61. His combined ERA for August and September was 5.13, and he completed the season at 2.60.

Nine of Face’s 18 wins ended as one-run victories as did his loss, a 5–4 defeat to the Dodgers. Four of the wins were decided by two runs, with five more being three-run victories. In only one of the games, the June 25 win over the Giants, was the Pirates’ opponent held to one run.

Eight of Face’s 10 saves were bunched in May and June. Unlike his efforts in wins, which involved six games started by Law, Face saved only one of Law’s starts. Haddix was the beneficiary of three of Face’s saves while Daniels, Friend, and Kline won two games apiece that Face saved.

CONCLUSION

Roy Face’s incredible 1959 season was the result of effective pitching and good luck. His 18 wins and 10 saves contributed to 36 percent of the games the Pirates won in 1959. The Pirates’ fielding was strong in supporting the relief ace–only one of Face’s 28 runs was unearned. He gave up but five home runs in 93⅓ innings. In 38 of his 57 appearances, Face did not give up a run. The Pittsburgh staff ERA was 3.90. Only Law and Face recorded an ERA below 3.00. Although the Pirates finished the season barely over .500, the 1959 season provided the foundation for the 1960 World Series champions, a 95–59 regular-season performance.

ED EDMONDS is Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Notre Dame. He is the former law library director at William & Mary, Loyola New Orleans, St. Thomas (Minnesota), and Notre Dame. He is a frequent speaker at the NINE Spring Training Conference and the Cooperstown Symposium. With Frank Houdek, he is the co-author of “Baseball Meets the Law” (McFarland, 2007). He has taught a seminar on sports law for over 35 years and written numerous law review articles on the legal aspects of labor and antitrust law and baseball. Edmonds first encountered SABR when he bought a copy of the “Baseball Research Journal” during his first trip to Cooperstown in 1975 while on his honeymoon.

Sources

Roy Face 1959 Pitching Game Log, Baseball-Reference.com,

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=facero01&t=p&year=1959.

Gary Gillette, “Roy Face,” SABR Biography Project, http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/a959749b.

Retrosheet

Notes

Moses Yellow Horse was 23 years old when he made his major league debut in 1921 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Said to have been the first full-blooded Native American to play in the majors, the Pawnee may also have been the darkest-skinned major leaguer since the color line was drawn in the late 19th century. Certainly no big-leaguer before him had a name that sounded more Native American than Moses Yellow Horse. From Jim Thorpe and Chief Bender to Louis Sockalexis, who helped put the “Indian” in the Cleveland Indians, indigenous people had been sporadically represented on the rosters of major league teams since before World War I.

Moses attended the Federal Indian School at Chilocco, Oklahoma, where he honed his baseball skills by throwing stones at rabbits and squirrels for the cook pot. At the age of 19, in 1917, he was playing both varsity and semipro ball. By 1920, he helped pitch the Little Rock Travelers to the Southern Association championship with a record of 21 wins and 7 losses.

On September 16, Yellow Horse’s contract was purchased by the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Sporting News reported: “The sale of Moses Yellow Horse was rather un-expected, not that the Indian is not worthy of advancement, but it was generally expected that the young Pawnee would be allowed to spend another season here.”1 The Pawnee Chief’s writer wrote, “Yellow Horse is sure to make good. He is a close student and soaks up every ounce of information that is given in a wise manner. The Indian will keep National League batters swinging with one foot free when he is on the mound. He has terrific speed, but wonderful control of it. He also has a good curve ball and controls it equally as well as his fast one.”2

Later it was revealed that the purchase of Yellow Horse by the Pirates was a ruse to prevent his being drafted from Little Rock. The Pirates were to return him to the Travelers for the 1921 season, but Yellow Horse pitched so well in spring training that manager George Gibson insisted on keeping him for the season, whatever the price that might be asked for his release. Gibson’s judgment seemed justified. Yellow Horse demonstrated in his brief trials that he was worth it to a club that needed just one more winning pitcher to make it a pennant favorite.

Although Native people were not formally banned from baseball, Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss’s signing of Yellow Horse flew in the face of tradition. From time to time a few Native people—like Thorpe, Bender, and Chief Meyers—had made it to the majors, but because of their mixed ancestry, the color line had not been invoked.3 So how did Moses Yellow Horse, “as dark as the previous night’s lunar eclipse,” gain entry in the league?4

For one thing, Dreyfuss was a powerful force, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was intrigued by Yellow Horse’s American Indian heritage.5 Landis’s fascination with Yellow Horse was so great that in the spring of Yellow Horse’s first season with the Pirates, the commissioner summoned manager Gibson and Yellow Horse to his chambers. After their meeting, highlighted by a question and answer session, Landis was impressed by the Pirates’ latest addition.6 Many newspapermen were impressed by him too. The Sporting News reported, “Fandom here has gone wild with Moses Yellow Horse, the young Indian slabman, who has been used to date only as a relief artist. They like the young Indian’s actions, and are convinced he is going to shine when given the right opportunity.”7

Other writers were mixed in their reviews. One anonymous scribe in the March 19 Sporting News wrote, “Pirates are comparing Moses Yellow Horse, the Indian pitcher Barney Dreyfuss brought from Little Rock, to Chief Bender. All he lacks is Bender’s size, stuff and disposition. He’s an Indian, with two legs and two arms, not a bad pitching prospect at that, however, but hardly a Bender.8

A Pittsburgh tradition was born with Yellow Horse’s penchant for successful relief pitching appearances. It wasn’t long before fans began to chant, “Put in Yellow Horse” whenever the starting pitcher faltered. The chant became so ingrained during his short career with Pittsburgh that it survived him by many years. Jim Nasium, a Sporting News writer, related in a 1926 column that during a lecture at the nearby University of Pittsburgh, a professor became lost in his notes, confused, and tongue-tied, and that his stammering was interrupted by a student who yelled, “Put in Yellow Horse.”9

In a July 5 game against the Cardinals, the 5-foot-10, 180-pound reliever suffered an arm injury that required surgery and shelved him for two months. His 5-3 record helped the Pirates finish in second place, four games behind the New York Giants. Had he been healthy, he might have significantly altered their finish, but he was sorely missed by the Pirates and the fans.

Because of his long layoff, Yellow Horse’s teammates voted him only a 2/5 share of their second-place money. Commissioner Landis overruled the decision and decreed him a full share.

Much blame for the failure to win the pennant was placed upon manager Gibson, who was accused of being unable to discipline his team. The press was rife with charges of heavy drinking against unnamed players. Bill McKechnie replaced Gibson as manager and Gibson warned McKechnie that he would have to keep an eye on roommates Yellow Horse and Rabbit Maranville. Maranville gave Yellow Horse the nickname Chief, and his first drink of whiskey.

Yellow Horse had insomnia and couldn’t sleep in hotel rooms. McKechnie, in a stroke of genius, decided the best way to keep an eye on his two problem children was to have them room with him. McKechnie would rent hotel suites with three beds, taking the third himself.

As Pat Harmon reported in the Cincinnati Post and Times Star:

The first night on the road, McKechnie entered the suite about 9 p.m. only to discover Yellow Horse and Maranville playing a game. They were standing on the window ledge, 16 stories above the ground, catching pigeons by scooping them off the ledge.

Maranville had made a bet with Yellow Horse that he could get more pigeons in fifteen minutes than Yellow Horse. Rabbit won 8-5. But the fun wasn’t over. McKechnie then opened a closet door. Out flew several pigeons. McKechnie immediately retreated and went to another closet to hang up his coat. “Don’t open the door,” Maranville warned. “The chief has his pigeons in there.” Following that incident, McKechnie got a room by himself.10

Dissatisfaction with Yellow Horse began to surface among Pirates fans after he got injured and had surgery. His drinking problem had also become well known. An October newspaper account predicted that “as a pitcher and player his days are few.” Sadly, this was the same paper that earlier in the year had touted him the “best all-round player.”11 Yellow Horse was not meeting the expectations of the owners, either. He did little to dispel stereotypes about Native Americans with his drinking and disruptive behavior

Years later, Tribal leader Earl Chapman told of Yellow Horse drinking during the Pirates’ 1922 games. Not in the bullpen, but while he was pitching. According to Chapman’s tale, Yellow Horse would signal the Pittsburgh groundskeeper that the mound needed more dirt. The groundskeeper would then come out and put shots of whiskey all around the mound. Yellow Horse would then sneak shots without anybody noticing and—if you believe Chapman’s tale—he never got caught.12

Yellow Horse’s effectiveness both as a pitcher and a crowd pleaser waned as the 1922 season wore on. Alcohol had a definite deleterious effect on his performance. Both Dreyfuss and McKechnie were disheartened. Healthy except for a bout with tonsillitis that cost him a few weeks in early August, Yellow Horse appeared in 28 games for Pittsburgh in 1922, all but four of them in relief. He compiled a 3–1 record and a 4.52 ERA.

In December, Yellow Horse was traded along with three other players and $7,500 to the Sacramento Senators of the Pacific Coast League for pitching phenom Earl Kuns. The trade to Sacramento meant the end of Yellow Horse’s career in the major leagues.

He played sporadically in the minors over the next two years. In 1923, as the ace of the pitching staff, he helped the Senators to a second-place finish. He ended the season with a 22-13 record and an ERA of 3.68.

Yellow Horse injured his arm midway through the 1924 season. Other than a few games in 1926, that was the end of his time in Organized Baseball. At the age of 28, he returned home to Pawnee, Oklahoma.

Yellow Horse was a barely functional alcoholic until 1945. He then spent time and energy with tribal concerns. He helped establish and coached in youth baseball, umpired for semipro games, and pitched from time to time. Much of his time was spent teaching Pawnee traditions, ceremonies, and language, which were disappearing. Yellow Horse never abandoned his Pawnee heritage.13

In 1935, a character based on Yellow Horse appeared in the comic strip Dick Tracy. Cartoonist Chester Gould,who also grew up in Pawnee, always included aspects of his hometown in the comic. Yellow Pony was a hero who helped capture Boris and Zora Arson, two escaped convicts. His character, however, was portrayed in a racist manner, speaking in guttural, grunting, English. Initially introduced as a naive character, Yellow Pony developed into an ardent crime fighter, shooting villains and helping Tracy plot the capture of various criminals.

Moses Yellow Horse “thought Yellow Pony was funny” and the portrayal, he said, “wasn’t a big deal.”14

GEORGE SKORNICKEL is a retired educator who has been a Pirates fan for over 60 years. He is the president of the Forbes Field Chapter and has presented at SABR 44 in Houston and SABR 45 in Chicago, Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference in 2012 and 2014, the Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Baseball Conference in 2017, and the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture in 2017 and 2018. He has been published in the “Baseball Research Journal” and Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, and is the author of “Beat ’Em Bucs: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates.” He lives outside of Pittsburgh in Fawn Township with his wife Kathy and two Labs, Maz and Dexter.

Notes

1. Sporting News, September 16, 1921.

2. “Pirates Pawnee pitcher went ‘way of all bad Injuns,” Sports Collectors Digest, March 4, 1994:60.
3. William Jakub, “Moses Yellow Horse: The Tragic Career of a Pittsburgh Pirate,” Pittsburgh History, Winter, 1995/96.
4. Todd Fuller, “60 Feet Six Inches And Other Distances from Home,” (Saint Paul: Holy Cow! Press, 2002), 142.
5. “Mose J. Yellow Horse, Pawnee baseball player,” AAA Native Arts, https://www.aaanativearts.com/mose-j-Yellow Horse-pawnee-baseball-player.
6. Pittsburgh Gazette, April 21, 1921.
7. Pittsburgh Gazette, April 21, 1921.
8. Sporting News, March 19, 1921.
9. Sporting News, March 19, 1921.
10. Pat Harmon, “Chief Yellow Horse and the Rabbit,” Cincinnati Post & Times-Star, April 24, 1964.
11. Jim Nasium, Sporting News, 1926.
12. Harmon, “Chief Yellow Horse and the Rabbit.”
13. Fuller, “60 Feet Six Inches,” 54.
14. Jakub, “Moses Yellow Horse.”

Pittsburgh Pirate Honus Wagner is the greatest shortstop of all time. Baseball guru Bill James ranks Wagner as the second greatest baseball player in history, behind only Babe Ruth. He was a longtime hero in Pittsburgh. So how did the beloved Pirate get routed in the 1925 race for sheriff of Allegheny County? He ran into presidential politics in Pennsylvania.

But that is not how most baseball historians have recorded his history. Wagner biographer Arthur Hittner writes the consensus view: “Despite the support of several newspapers, Wagner’s half-hearted campaign fell short of the mark.”1 The Associated Press wrote in 1925 that “in sport parlance it might almost be said that Mr. Wagner hit weakly to the infield.”2 Others loved analogies to striking out. The prevailing view, however, is very wrong.

The complexity of the interaction of politics and Honus Wagner sheds much insight into how politics actually works.

Republicans had long been touting Wagner for office. In 1917 the New York Sun headlined, “Honus Wagner for Sheriff: Famous Pirate Is Logical Candidate of Pittsburg Republicans.” Leaders of the machine-led Republican Party were touting Wagner for sheriff of Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh.3 The boss-picked county coroner called him the “ideal man”: “The old Pirate standby is popular and would win in a walk. I feel sure that I am voicing the opinion of the great majority of Republican voters in Allegheny County when I say that he is the logical man for the job.”4

Wagner may have been able to hit almost any kind of pitched ball with a baseball bat, but when he finally did run for sheriff eight years later, he was completely shut down by the political dealmaking necessary to pass the Calvin Coolidge/Andrew Mellon tax cut. It remains the most celebrated tax cut in American politics, touted by Ronald Reagan in promoting his own administration’s cuts and compared in a Washington Post headline to the 2017 tax-cut bill.5 No former baseball player was going to stand in the way.

Germans were still struggling with acceptance by the WASP establishment during Wagner’s life. Honus is a variation (Hah-nus) of Johann or Johannes. He was a German who liked his strong drink. Debates over beer, Sunday baseball, and the rowdiness at games were proxy battlegrounds for the extended political controversies of the era. Pennsylvania was on the front line of the national debates. Barney Dreyfuss, who had worked in his family’s Kentucky whiskey business, cashed in his share to buy control of the Louisville team and move it to Pittsburgh. His most important decision was to bring Wagner with him from Louisville to Pittsburgh. Honus fit well with the German wet population in Pittsburgh.

Prohibition was coming when the first “run, Honus, run” political rumors began in 1917 and was in place during his actual campaign in 1925. Known to like his beer, sometimes too much, Honus was presumably not the teetotaler candidate to run the Pittsburgh sheriff’s office. A leader of the then-powerful Women’s Christian Temperance Union specifically denounced him as a candidate because his election could lead to an “open county and Sunday athletics.” She said that Wagner “may be a good ball player, but he would not be a good sheriff.”6

The issue was extra intense in Pittsburgh because “revenuers” were part of the Department of Treasury run by native Andrew Mellon, who was part of the Pittsburgh Republican establishment. He designated his nephew to chair the state GOP as well as coordinate Pittsburgh politics during the period of Wagner’s campaign.

Nor was Honus Wagner going to be mistaken for a classic western-style sheriff in the Clint Eastwood mode. Jan Finkel, in his SABR biography of Wagner, does not describe someone who sounds like the slick political candidates of today. He was “awkward-looking” and had huge hands that “made it difficult to tell whether he was wearing a glove.” “His one weakness in the field stemmed from his oversized feet, which sometimes got in the way.” “He tore around the bases with his arms whirling like a berserk freestyle swimmer.” When he lost, even a small-time newspaper in Iowa reprinted this line: “Someone says Pittsburgh refused to elect Honus Wagner sheriff because a crook could get away through Honus’ bow legs. Baseballs didn’t.” So Wagner’s looks weren’t going to carry his campaign.7

Nor was Wagner much of a public speaker. His four-minute speeches to help sell World War I Liberty Bonds were possibly the longest speeches he ever gave. He wasn’t going to wow the voters with his words.

But he did have political assets. He was the hometown sports hero who helped make Pittsburgh a worldwide name beyond just its industry. Pittsburgh was the city of smoke and grime. Honus Wagner besting Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers to win a World Series in 1909 had helped every Pittsburgher’s self-image. Wagner loved people and they loved him. That tends to be important in politics. Wagner had interests similar to the common man and he developed his business interests around those personal interests. To a political boss trying to win an election, Wagner was a magnet for the average laborer. He also had other “common man” interests:

• He loved to tinker with automobiles, which were just emerging at the time. So he started a garage where he sold cars and gas. His only problem was that he was not a good salesman and admitted to buying about half the gas he sold to use for his personal touring.
• He loved to fish so he started the Honus Wagner Sporting Goods Store. He and fellow Pirates star Pie Traynor signed autographs, chatted with folks, and got fishing and hunting gear wholesale. They lost their investment but had a good time doing so.
• He loved sports so he played on a top local basketball team in the offseason and later headed local youth sports leagues. He was always out mixing with the “folks,” as voters are often called by politicians.
• He liked to drink pretty well so he partnered in the creation of a distillery. It failed, but the discounts were nice. And most men weren’t teetotalers.8

Was running for sheriff a “last-minute” thought by Wagner? This is a common assertion in any comments that go beyond the basic “and he lost.” Wagner flirted with the idea in 1910 when he was asked, possibly in jest, by a congressman to run for sheriff. The Republican Party, at least segments of it, clearly pushed him to run by going public in 1917. That year was not an easy one for the GOP. Nationally, it was coming off two straight Woodrow Wilson presidential victories after Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party had carved up the Republican vote in 1912. In Pennsylvania, there was still bitter infighting between progressive Republicans and regulars. Having the most popular Pittsburgher as a candidate for sheriff, the most visible candidate spot other than mayor, would have been a big asset in 1917. But Wagner didn’t file. In 1925, when he did run, he filed just before the deadline. In 1929, he filed to run for sheriff again, but then withdrew his name before he was locked on the ballot.

While this could suggest a lack of serious commitment, I tend to think it reflects not only a dogged interest in being sheriff but also someone who is making a calculation about other job options, personal financial need, and some chance of electoral success. When you’re the biggest name in town, people always whisper sweet nothings in your ear about how you should run for this or that.

The fact that Wagner accepted a political appointment to the Fish & Wildlife Commission from Pennsylvania Governor John Tener in 1914 is instructive. Tener, a former baseball player, was elected in 1910 with the support of the Republican political bosses. Much later, in 1942, Wagner briefly accepted a post as sergeant-at-arms of the Pennsylvania legislature, again a patronage post controlled by the Republican political bosses.

Many baseball writers point out that Wagner was also made a deputy sheriff, in 1940. That post obviously wasn’t very taxing, since one month after receiving the appointment, Wagner took leave and left for Florida to help coach the Pirates in spring training. Memoirs suggest that Deputy Sheriff Wagner mostly hung around the judge’s office talking with his old friend and former Pirates star Deacon Phillippe, who was a bailiff. The position did indicate his ongoing interest in police work. A photograph exists showing Wagner as an old man with a gun in each hand. It fits the profile of a person who was attracted to law enforcement his whole life, as Wagner clearly was.9

Wagner obviously liked guns, because in the biography Honus Wagner: Life of Baseball’s Flying Dutchman he is always off hunting or fishing. Probably even more importantly, and seldom noted, is that his wife’s father was a police detective.10 So Wagner was the son-in-law of a police detective; he was a potential sheriff’s candidate three times, running once; he was later a sergeant-at-arms and a deputy sheriff; and he loved guns. I don’t think his interest in running for sheriff was last minute.

Every urban area had political bosses who delivered services in return for votes. Tammany Hall of New York is by far the most famous. Among political historians, however, Pennsylvania earns a special place. In the space of 30 years, it managed to have two political bosses, Matthew Quay of Pittsburgh and William Vare of Philadelphia, refused seating by the United States Senate because of corruption.11

In the first decades of the 20th century, Pennsylvania was the most dependable large state for Republicans in a presidential contest. This resulted in immense power and influence among Republicans. Pennsylvania was controlled by three interests: Pittsburgh bosses, Philadelphia bosses, and the state business group dominated by business interests in both cities (often centered in Harrisburg, the state capital). Woodrow Wilson said that the Vare machine in Philly (three brothers, with William the head) was worth an extra 200,000 votes to Republicans in Pennsylvania. (“Extra” was a euphemism for illegal.) Over 90 percent of Italian Catholics in South Philly, the Vare political base, voted Republican. African Americans remembered which party favored emancipation and also voted over 90 percent Republican.

The Vare brothers controlled garbage, taxing powers, construction, and transportation. They also rotated as city, state, and federal legislators. Thus, all three brothers soon were very, very rich as well.

Andrew Mellon had different personal goals from Pittsburgh Republicans who were focused on local patronage and contracts. In return for his having helped get them elected, he demanded that Pennsylvania’s two United States senators, David Reed and George Pepper, back him in the Senate by supporting the tax cut that Mellon, as treasury secretary, had developed for President Coolidge. It was the number one issue for Coolidge and Mellon.12

Coolidge’s personal view was clearly stated in his Inaugural Address of 1925: “The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny.13 Coolidge was frustrated with earlier defeats of his tax bill, but 1926 would be the final showdown. To pass, Republicans had to control Pennsylvania in 1925. In return, the bosses could do their grubby work in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Senators from Pittsburgh included Mellon’s former partner and Mellon’s personal attorney, which is one way to assure loyalty. The Philadelphia bosses also gave Mellon full support.14

However, as 1925 dawned, Pittsburgh was at war. Two factions had turned on each other in a fight over division of patronage and spoils, which endangered GOP control of the entire state. On top of that, Pennsylvania governor Gifford Pinchot—famous environmentalist friend of Roosevelt’s and a pain-in-the-neck progressive reformer as far as the bosses were concerned— was still carrying the progressive torch that had split the party the previous decade and resulted in the election of the Democrat Wilson to the White House. Mellon decided that if the Coolidge plan was to get needed support from Pennsylvania, he needed to knock some heads together in Pittsburgh. So Mellon met with both factions, and they developed a “unity” ticket of political bosses. Everything seemingly was back to normal. The deal was made. Then in walked Honus Wagner with some troublemaking friends in Pittsburgh calling themselves a “non-partisan ticket” and attacking the “compromise” ticket as a front for corrupt bossism.15

It’s naive to think that a candidate runs for office all by himself, that the people carefully choose a candidate they like, and that if that candidate, especially if famous, had just worked harder, victory should have been easy. Politics are fluid and you must always adapt. One of the factions in Pittsburgh, and it appears it may have been the dominant coalition in 1917, had wanted Wagner to run for sheriff to help the entire ticket corral votes. Wagner didn’t run. In 1925 they faced a new crisis and formed a new coalition. It didn’t include Wagner.

Instead, Wagner was aligned with a man named William L. Smith, who was running for mayor of Pittsburgh. One of the newspapers friendly to Honus Wagner and company reported nearly verbatim speeches from a “non-partisan” slate event, and they practically scream “You’re in political trouble” to Wagner. The Pittsburgh Press quoted Smith calling all Republican city and county elected officials— and the “unscrupulous” machine that controlled them—corrupt.16

“Attacking” the now unified GOP leaders—who happened to include all the local elected officials, state legislators, congressman, both of Pennsylvania’s United States senators, Treasury Secretary Mellon, and almost every top businessman in Pittsburgh—is not a path to victory.17

The machine also included Gus Greenlee, who helped deliver African American voters critical to establishment control. He was the owner of several establishments that anchored the Hill Street district. Greenlee—Republican treasurer in the predominantly black Third Ward for Judge Charles Kline’s machine organization—began running a “numbers” operation the year after the election.18 His earnings led to his purchase of a local black baseball team and building it into one of baseball’s all-time great teams, the Pittsburgh Crawfords.

Machine opponent and Wagner political teammate Smith explained their goals to a small gathering of non-partisans: “Our quarrel is not with the Republican Party itself, but with the unscrupulous political machine that has been operating in the city and in the county for years under the cloak of that party. What right have those machine candidates, these political harmony tools, to ask for the support of the good people of this city?” He then proceeded to rip his mayoral opponent, Kline.19

The speech by Wagner was much shorter than the others made that evening but his opening says everything one needs to know about his campaign, his goals, and why he lost: “I am a candidate on the Non-Partisan ticket for the office of sheriff of Allegheny County to aid in the fight against corrupt machine politics now rampant in the administration of city and county offices.” He went on with somewhat less of a fiery challenge: “I believe that we need strict enforcement of all laws because they are laws, regardless of politics or party, and to this purpose I pledge myself and influence if I am elected.”20

I don’t think it is accurate to say that Honus Wagner lost because he didn’t campaign. Smith lost to Kline 70,680 to 19,838 in the Republican primary and then, running on the Labor ticket in the fall, lost again, 69,831 to 15,210. The Democrat candidate had 5,342 votes. (The Democrats weren’t very relevant at the time in Pennsylvania.) Wagner lost primarily because he was part of a political slate that took on the entire power structure of Pittsburgh. And was crushed. Twice in one year.21

Pittsburgh Mayor Kline ran for reelection in 1929 and won, this time with Wagner pulling out of the race after again filing for sheriff. Somebody must have warned him not to get pounded again, or more simply: “We have a slate of candidates. You are not on it.” But corruption usually catches up with politicians. Mayor Kline was arrested and convicted, resigned, and appeared to be headed to jail, but he died first. History did prove that Wagner was right about the corruption. Winning isn’t everything.22

It is also worth noting that the politicians who had been convinced of his easy victory early on (and the newspaper writers) seemed little concerned as to whether Wagner was qualified to be sheriff. The bosses figured they would choose his deputy and have someone else run the office, with Wagner as the “front man.” Wagner biographer Arthur Hittner writes that Wagner had been approached “by William H. Coleman, later a congressman, to run for sheriff of Allegheny County but Wagner had (originally) declined.” Wagner later quipped that he had told Coleman that “I knew more about hanging up base hits than murderers.”23 When Wagner finally did run, apparently his interest in being sheriff, and in listening to the pipe dreams of politicians who hoped to utilize his fame for their own purposes, overwhelmed his own honesty.

At the state and national level, the tax deal played out this way: The Coolidge-Mellon tax bill passed but, while Philly boss Vare defeated Governor Pinchot and the incumbent senator in the May 1926 primary, the Senate refused to seat Vare because of his corrupt practices in Philadelphia. The incumbent senator thus retained the seat. That incumbent was Senator George Wharton Pepper, who had been baseball’s counsel in the antitrust lawsuit of the Federal League in 1915, which resulted in the so-called antitrust exemption that still provides a protective shield to Major League Baseball today.24

MARK SOUDER served as the US Congressman for northeastern Indiana from 1995–2010. He was a senior staff member in the US House and Senate for a decade prior to being elected to Congress. He was one of the primary questioners in the hearings on steroids abuse in baseball. He has contributed articles to the last two issues of “The National Pastime,” as well as several recent SABR book projects including “Boston’s First Nine,” “Puerto Rico and Baseball,” and “From Spring Training to Screen Test.” Souder is retired other than occasional political commentary and meddling. He lives in Fort Wayne with his wife Diane and his books.

Notes

1  Arthur D. Hittner, Honus Wagner: Life of Baseball’s Flying Dutchman (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003). 244.

2  “Wagner Files His Papers for Nomination as Sheriff of Allegheny County,” Miami (FL) News, August 20, 1925.

3  “Honus Wagner for Sheriff: Famous Pirate Is Logical Candidate of Pittsburg Republicans,” New York Sun, March 25, 1917. Pittsburgh had lost its final “h” in an 1891 ruling by the US Board on Geographic Names but voted to restore it in 1911. Publications around the country were slow to adapt to the change.

4  “Groom Honus Wagner for Job as Sheriff of Allegheny County,” Binghamton (NY) Press, March 31, 1917.

5  Robert S. McElvaine, “I’m a Depression historian. The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929,” Washington Post, November 30, 2017.

6  “County W.C.T.C. Selects Ticket,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, September 10, 1925.

7  Jan Finkel, “Honus Wagner,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/30b27632.

8  Hittner, Honus Wagner; Dennis DeValeria and Jeanne Burke DeValeria, Honus Wagner: A Biography, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995); William R. Cobb, ed., Honus Wagner: On His Life & Baseball (Ann Arbor: Sports Media Group, 2006). These three biographies of Wagner served as background sources. Most key facts are repeated in all of them, and this section incorporates them into the flow of the narrative.

9  Robert Peyton Wiggins, The Deacon and the Schoolmaster: Phillippe and Leever, Pittsburgh’s Great Turn-of-the-Century Pitchers (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011). 253.

10  Hittner, Honus Wagner, 213.

11  Samuel J. Astorino, “The Contested Senate Election of William Scott Vare,” Pennsylvania History, 28, no. 2 (April 1961): 187-201, https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/22800.

12  David Cannadine, Mellon: An American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 294-295.

13  “U.S. Cherishes No Purpose Save to Merit Favor of God—Coolidge,” Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, March 3, 1925.

14  Astorino, “Contested Senate Election”; John B. Townley, “Pittsburgh Has Had Three Democratic Mayors in 50 Years, Success is Story of Deals Within G.O.P., Ranks of ‘Machine’ Domination and of Political Giants Who Ruled from Behind the Scenes,” Pittsburgh Press, June 23, 1934.

15  Townley, “Pittsburgh Has Had Three Democratic Mayors”; Bruce M. Stave, The New Deal and the Last Hurrah: Pittsburgh Machine Politics (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970), 28.

16  “Smith Assails Lawlessness and High Taxes,” Pittsburgh Press, October 20, 1925.

17  “Wagner Speaks,” Pittsburgh Press, October 20, 1925.

18  “Kline Forces,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 31, 1929.

19  “Wagner Speaks.”

20  “Wagner Speaks.”

21  “Election in Pennsylvania,” Lebanon Semi-Weekly News, September 17, 1925.

22  Stave, “The New Deal,” 30.

23  Hittner, Honus Wagner, 244.

24  “Chronology of the Year—1926,” Edw. Webster, Trenton (IL) Sun, December 30, 1926.

Jimmy Callahan accepted the job with a two-year contract, but the results were disastrous. The Pirates finished in sixth place with their worst winning percentage since 1914. The 42-year-old Wagner suffered through a myriad of injuries to his hands and hip, and was no longer the “Flying Dutchman.” He had lost more than a few steps and played in 92 games at shortstop, the fewest since moving to that position full-time in 1903, though he also made 23 starts at first base.

Wagner wasn’t sure if he’d be back with the Pirates in 1917. He concluded the season with the worst slump of his career, managing just 11 hits in his last 77 at-bats and scoring just one run in his final 23 games. His struggles intensified speculation that he would finally hang up his spikes. He hadn’t batted .300 since 1913, it was increasingly difficult for him to get into and stay in condition, and his days as an everyday shortstop were over. On the other hand, he was the most visible person in the Smokey City. Pittsburgh sportswriter Henry Keck called him “probably the most beloved man in baseball,” admired and praised by fans and press across the country as much for his accomplishments as for his upstanding character.2 There wasn’t much more he could do: He was a World Series champion, had collected the most hits (3,359) and runs (1,724) in big-league history, and was the active leader in home runs (101).

Cognizant of his eroding skills, Wagner needed a rest and also wanted to spend more time with 26-year-old Bessie Smith, a local Pittsburgher and his companion of eight years. Although he was an avowed bachelor who had pledged to remain one as long as he played baseball, Wagner’s attitude shifted that offseason after the sudden death of his oldest brother, Charley, from complications of pneumonia on October 31, 1916. The two siblings had been very close; Charley and his wife, Olive, and three children provided Hans a semblance of domestic life. Long known as an intensely shy man who shunned the spotlight, Wagner pulled off the biggest surprise of his life on December 30 when he married Smith in a private ceremony in his childhood parish, St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Carnegie, a small coal-mining and steel mill community six miles southwest of Pittsburgh, where Wagner grew up and still lived. The wedding was such a secret that Wagner’s brother Al, who served as best man, found out just hours before the ceremony, after which the newlyweds traveled to the bride’s house to inform her parents. “Honus Wagner Caught at ‘Home’ by Dan Cupid,” reported the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times playfully on the front page the following day, adding confidently, “His retirement from baseball is not yet in sight.”3

While Wagner embarked on a care-free honeymoon vacation in warmer climates in the south and west, Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss brooded. The shrewd German-born businessman, upset about high player salaries coupled with poor results on the field, embarked on a policy of financial retrenchment, as did owners throughout baseball. He slashed contract offers, in some cases by half, and expected holdouts, reported sportswriter Charles J. Doyle of the Gazette-Times, but players had few options and no leverage.4

Among the highest paid players in baseball, earning a reported $10,000 annually, Wagner had his salary reduced significantly, according to Arthur Hittner in his groundbreaking biography Honus Wagner: The Life of Baseball’s “Flying Dutchman,” and might have been slashed to as low as $5,400.5 Ralph S. Davis, a sportswriter with the Pittsburgh Press, attempted to diffuse the growing public perception that Wagner was in a salary dispute with Dreyfuss and had retired, suggesting that Wagner’s reluctance to sign had more to do with his expanding girth (he had gained a reported 20-30 pounds).6

By the first week of February 1917, the great Wagner wait was on. While Pittsburgh sportswriters reported every rumor, Wagner himself remained silent about his future. Wagner “still has a lot of baseball left in him,” said former Pirates skipper Clarke.7 Wagner uncharacteristically stepped into the limelight on February 25 when the Hot Stove Club of Pittsburgh put on a gala celebration for the player’s 43rd birthday at the luxurious William Penn Hotel, where he was roasted by local politicians, industrial magnates, and big-league players. Dreyfuss described his longtime star as a model player and the one “with whom no one ever had any trouble,” according to sportswriter Ed F. Balinger.8 Those laudatory remarks seemed to diffuse, at least momentarily, any sign of a feud between the two kingpins of Pirates baseball and instilled confidence that Wagner would play in 1917.

Wagner was not with the Bucs when they departed on March 9 to Columbus, Georgia, for spring training. “Is Hans dissatisfied in his relations with the Pirates club?” asked beat reporter Harry Keck. “Or is he afraid that he will not be able to finish the season a regular? Does he see the dread shadow of the bench trailing in his wake?”9 Dreyfuss publicly denied that Wagner was a “hold-out” because of a salary dispute but also added that “I do not know what he will do.”10

Questions swirled around not only Wagner’s future, but the entire 1917 baseball season. On April 6, the United States declared war on Germany, thereby expanding the scope of the world war and raising discussions about canceling the season. Baseball commenced as planned, but for the first time since the previous century, Wagner was not on the Pirates’ roster when they opened the season on April 11 in Chicago. “As far as I know,” said Dreyfuss a few days later, Wagner “has quit the game as he told me he thought of doing.”11 While the Pirates played 28 of their first 35 games of the season on the road, sportswriters deliberated if Wagner retired on his own accord or if he was forced out by the miserly Dreyfuss’s contract offer. “Whichever is correct,” declared Davis, “Wagner quit.”12

As Wagner gradually faded from the headlines in May, Balinger dropped a bomb in the Pittsburgh Post on June 3: “Hans Wagner’s baseball days may not be over after all,” began the sportswriter in an article that initiated a frenzied few days.13 Wagner’s return, if it happened, continued the scribe, would be as a coach. Pittsburghers woke four days later to read “Wagner Signs Pirates Contract” emblazoned on the front page of the sports section of the Post.14 The previous evening Wagner had accepted a contract calling for a reported $10,000 salary. Dreyfuss issued a statement suggesting the inevitability of Wagner’s return. “He has been a fixture for so many years that he has come to be almost a part of the club, like the grandstand or the pitcher’s box.”15

Less than a day after signing his contract, Wagner was in uniform as the lowly Pirates, with major league baseball’s worst record (14-27), took on the Brooklyn Robins at Forbes Field on June 7 in front of an “unusually large” crowd [estimated at 4,000] for a midweek game.16 “It was evident that something would have to be done to revive interests,” Davis quipped about the legend’s return to the moribund team.17 Playing first base and batting fifth, Wagner put on a “classy performance” (Balinger) and “played in oldtime style” (Davis), singling in four at-bats and driving in a run, but the Pirates lost yet again.18 Visibly overweight and out-of-shape, Wagner hadn’t trained, let alone played baseball, since ending the 1916 season in a month-long slump; nonetheless, in his fourth game, he took over third base, a position he’d played just 18 times since 1901. After his first eight games in 1917, he had managed nine singles, four of which came in one game, in 33 at-bats, while the Bucs won just twice. It was clear that the Flying Dutchman was no elixir to the Bucs woes.

Wagner’s return for his 21st season was akin to a grand farewell tour. In the first contest of a three-game series in St. Louis, Wagner was “center of attraction for the fans,” opined the Press.19 That was just prelude to “Wagner Day” on June 22, when Pittsburgh celebrated its favorite citizen’s return to baseball by staging a grand fête and 200-car parade with a “distinct military atmosphere,” reflecting the country’s wartime status.20 Hailed as a “national institution through baseball,” Wagner, flanked by mayor Joseph G. Armstrong, passed by immense crowds from Liberty Street and Fifth Avenue to Forbes Field. The festivities were even greater at the ballpark, where Wagner was presented various gifts while an estimated 1,000 soldiers drilled. “Hans Wagner was the hero of one of the most public demonstrations in the history of the diamond,” gushed Balinger.21 The 43-year-old lined an RBI single in his first at-bat in the Bucs’ eventual victory in 10 innings over the Chicago Cubs. Still, Pirates fans had little to cheer other than Wagner, who ended his slump one day after those festivities by pounding out 13 hits in his next 21 at-bats over a five-game stretch to lift his batting average from .236 to .342 on June 28.

By that time, reports circulated that Callahan, on the hot seat for weeks, had been fired and that Wagner would take the reins of the club. Ralph S. Davis attempted to quash those rumors, reminding readers that Wagner had refused the job when Clarke retired. “He is even more determined now that he will not be manager of the Pirates,” wrote Davis, adding that Wagner “is evidently too wise to attempt to bring order out of chaos that exists.”22 Pittsburgh sportswriters seemed concerned about Wagner’s reputation and how it could be tarnished by taking over a club described by Balinger as comprising “considerable inferior material” and by Davis as a “mistfit aggregation of minor leaguers” and “disgruntled” veterans.23

Callahan was removed as manager on June 29, leading to “all sorts of weird guesses” about his successor, wrote Davis.24 The new manager, he reported, was supposedly from “out west” and had “considerable experience.” Among those tossed around by sportswriters as the next manager included Harry Wolverton, the recently fired skipper of the San Francisco Seals, who was supposedly in Pittsburgh to discuss the matter with Dreyfuss; former NL MVP Larry Doyle, captain of the Cubs, who was rumored to have been acquired in a trade for flychaser Max Carey; and even Dreyfuss himself.

Defying expectations of the Smokey City sportswriters, Wagner was named Pirates interim manager the day Callahan was fired. “Just how long Wagner will remain at the helm appears to be indefinite,” wrote Balinger, noting that Wagner “would be afforded ample opportunity to show what he might do in the role of a real pilot.”25 Providing a different perspective, Davis reported that Wagner “requested that he be relieved of the duties as soon as possible. Evidently, the veteran does not care to shoulder the responsibility for a tail end club.”26

While spreading the news about Wagner, Davis offered yet another twist by suggesting that Hugo Bezdek, a “professional friend” of Dreyfuss, might be the hitherto unidentified westerner and yet another managerial candidate. Bezdek was a well-known college football coach who had guided the University of Arkansas to an undefeated season in 1909 and was coming off a Rose Bowl victory as head coach of the University of Oregon. He had also served as head baseball coach at those two institutions and was a Pirates scout on the West Coast. Unimpressed with those credentials, Davis opined that Bezdek “can probably be secured on the cheap.”

On his first day calling the shots for what Davis called “one of the cheapest [teams] in the major leagues and . . . just where it belongs in the standings,” manager Wagner made all the right moves while first baseman Wagner supplied some timely hitting for the last-place Bucs’ 5-4 win against skipper Christy Mathewson’s Cincinnati Reds.27 Wagner led off the second with a double and then scored on Chuck Ward’s two-bagger to tie the game 1-1. In the sixth, Wagner’s two-run single knotted the game 3-3. Wagner’s batting average improved to .354, but declined steadily thereafter.

Notwithstanding his reputation as one of the greatest players in history, Wagner was in an untenable position as both player and interim manager. His return, predicated on Dreyfuss’s acquiescence to his salary demands, fueled dissension among the players, most of whom weren’t in the big leagues during the Flying Dutchman’s heyday. The Pittsburgh Press noted that some players were upset by what they felt was Wagner’s special treatment by Dreyfuss and “became more sullen and discontented than ever, and, instead of helping matters, the situation became worse than ever.”28 To some teammates, Wagner was part of the problem, not a solution.

Fresh off his first, and what proved to be his only, victory as manager, Wagner and the Pirates traveled to Cincinnati for a doubleheader the next day. Wagner “was not forgotten by his thousands of faithful friends at Redland” Field, gushed Queen City sportswriter Jack Ryder about the large crowd, estimated at 18,000 strong, on hand for “Wagner Day” at the park.29 Reds players and officials celebrated the living legend and showered him with gifts in ceremonies before the first and second games. Reds hurler Fred Toney stole the show, however, as he started both games of the twin bill, tossing consecutive complete-game three-hitters. Wagner collected one safety in each contest, extending his hitting streak to nine games.

Accompanying the Pirates on their one-day whirlwind tour to Cincinnati was Dreyfuss, who met with Bezdek, who’d arrived from Oregon. The reason for the meeting was unclear, but to Pittsburgh sportswriters, it appeared as though an intrigue were brewing. Harry Keck of the Post defended Wagner, writing that he “will lose no prestige if he doesn’t improve” the team, and that he doubted Wagner would remain much longer as skipper because he lacks the tough-edged personality needed to discipline the players.30 Ralph S. Davis thought Wagner “appears to be defeated before he starts,” considering the Pirates below-average talent.31

Dreyfuss, Wagner, and Bezdek traveled back to the Smokey City separately from the players. Following the Bucs’ 6-4 loss to the Cardinals at Forbes Field on July 2, details of their meeting emerged. Balinger reported that Wagner and Bezdek “will work together,” with the former in charge of “playing” and the latter taking care of “business affairs” in a potentially awkward responsibility-sharing situation.32 “The team needs much more than a new manager before it will become a menace to the other seven clubs in the league,” wrote the Press.33

On Tuesday evening, July 3, following the Pirates’ fourth straight loss, Wagner resigned from his position as interim manager. “You couldn’t coax him back on the job with a battle ax as a persuader,” joked Davis in the Press.34 The 34-year-old Bezdek was named the new skipper for the rest of the season and was in the dugout as the club hosted the Redbirds for a Fourth of July doubleheader. The Bucs dropped both games, but Wagner, noted Balinger, “played first base without being bothered by the cares and worries of a tail-end ball club.”35

So ended Wagner’s inglorious five-game, four-day career as Pirates skipper. Liberated from a task he never really wanted, Wagner was able to settle into his role as the grand old man of the national pastime and continue his farewell tour. On July 6, the Pirates kicked off an eastern road swing in Philadelphia, where the Phillies celebrated Wagner Day at the Baker Bowl by presenting the player with a leather traveling bag in a pre-game ceremony.36 Six days later, it was the Brooklyn Robins’ turn with Wagner Day at Ebbets Field, where the club’s namesake, skipper Wilbert Robinson, presided over a ceremony at home plate.37

A chance for a fairy-tale ending to Wagner’s illustrious career was abruptly snatched away two days later when he was spiked on the right ankle by the Robins’ Casey Stengel in the second game of a doubleheader in Brooklyn.38 The injury, initially diagnosed as slight, became infected and derailed Wagner’s season. Batting a robust .313 at the time, he had trouble pivoting on the foot and started only 24 more games the rest of the year. He was shelved for Wagner Day at Braves Field in Boston on July 19, but delighted fans the next afternoon at Coogan’s Bluff by pinch-hitting against the New York Giants on yet another Wagner Day, at the Polo Grounds. A hobbling Wagner managed just 3 hits in his final 30 at-bats of the season and batted a paltry .202 (20-for 99) after the spiking.

In an interview with Baseball Magazine in March 1918, Wagner admitted, “I had firmly made up my mind to quit [following the 1916 season]. I was getting old for a player and the end was clearly in sight. . . . But when the season rolled around and the boys began to take their swing and the pitchers started loosening up I couldn’t get over the idea that I would like one more try at it.”39 Wagner had the same thoughts again that spring, but knew better than to try another comeback.

A lifelong Pirates fan, GREGORY H. WOLF was born in Pittsburgh, but now resides in the Chicagoland area with his wife, Margaret, and daughter, Gabriela. A Professor of German and holder of the Dennis and Jean Bauman endowed chair of the Humanities at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, he is currently the co-director of SABR’s BioProject and has edited seven books for SABR, including those on the 1929 Chicago Cubs (2015), 1957 Milwaukee Braves (2014), 1965 Minnesota Twins (2015), 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates (2016, co-edited with Bill Nowlin), as well as County Stadium (2016) in Milwaukee, the Houston Astrodome (2017), and Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis (2017). He’s written more than 150 biographies of players for the BioProject, and approximately 100 games for the Games Project.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Retrosheet’s World Wide Web site, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

Notes

1  Dennis DeValeria and Jeanne Burke DeValeria, Honus Wagner. A Biography (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), 267.

2  Harry Keck, “Sporting Chit Chat,” Pittsburgh Post, June 21, 1917.

3 “Honus Wagner Caught At ‘Home’ by Dan Cupid,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, December 31, 1916.

4 Charles J. Doyle, “Carmen Hill Released to Birmingham in Grimes’ Deal,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, January 7, 1917.

5  Arthur D. Hittner, Honus Wagner. The Life of Baseball’s “Flying Dutchman,” (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996).

6 Ralph Davis, “Ralph Davis’ Column,” Pittsburgh Press, February, 5, 1917.

7   “Hans Wagner Praised by His Former Pilot,” Pittsburgh Press, February 11, 1917.

8   Ed F. Balinger, “Wagner Night Howling Success,” Pittsburgh Post, February 25, 1917.

9 Harry Keck, “Sporting Chit-Chat,” Pittsburgh Post, March 13, 1917.

10  “Wagner Not a ‘Hold-Out,’ Says Barney,” Pittsburgh Post, March 16, 1917.

11 “Wagner Has Not Signed A Contract,” Pittsburgh Press, April 15, 1917.

12   “Ralph Davis, “Ralph Davis’ Column,” Pittsburgh Press, April 21, 1917.

13   Ed F. Balinger, “Wagner May Come Back. See Phils Down Bucs. Confers With Callahan,” Pittsburgh Post, June 3, 1917.

14   Ed F. Balinger, “Hans Wagner Signs Pirates Contract,” Pittsburgh Post, June 7, 1917.

15   DeValeria and DeValeria, Honus Wagner, 272.

16   Ralph S. Davis, “Baird Goes To Bench,” Pittsburgh Press, June 8, 1917.

17  Ralph. S. Davis, “Brooklyn-Pittsburgh Ball Game Today Postponed,” Pittsburgh Press, June 6, 1917.

18 Davis, “Baird Goes To Bench.”

19   “Pepper Shown By Pirates,” Pittsburgh Press, June 19, 1917.

20   “Thousands Will Honor Honus Wagner Today,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, June 22, 1917.

21   Ed F. Balinger, “Bigbees’s Long Blow and Big Bill’s Rap End Fray in 10th,” Pittsburgh Post, June 23, 1917.

22  Ralph S. Davis, “Dreyfuss Seeking Successor to Jimmie Callahan. Wagner Refuses The Job,” Pittsburgh Press, June 29, 1917.

23 Ed F. Balinger, “New Buccaneer Leader May Succeed Callahan With Next Few Days,” Pittsburgh Post, June 29, 1917; Davis, “Dreyfuss Seeking Successor.”

24 Ralph S. Davis. “Guessing As To Identity of New Buccaneer Manager,” Pittsburgh Press, June 30, 1917.

25  Ed F. Balinger, “Hans Wagner Chosen Pilot of Buccaneers in Callahan’s Place,” Pittsburgh Post, July 1, 1917.

26 Ralph S. Davis, “Honus Wagner In Command,” Pittsburgh Press, July 1, 1917.

27 Davis, “Honus Wagner In Command.”

28   Ralph S. Davis. “Callahan’s Successor in Tough Tome. New Policy Is Needed,” Pittsburgh Press, July 1, 1917.

29 Frank Ryder, “Toney Wins Both Ends of Double-Header,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 2, 1917.

30  Harry Keck, “Sporting Chit Chat,” Pittsburgh Post, July 2, 1917.

31 Ralph S. Davis, “Bezdek Will Not Supplant Wagner Just Now, ‘Honus’ Still On The Job,” Pittsburgh Press, July 2, 1917.

32 Ed F. Balinger, “Hans Wagner Comes First On Pilot Job,” Pittsburgh Post, July 3, 1917.

33   Ralph S. Davis, “Wagner Can’t Make ‘Em Win,” Pittsburgh Press, July 3, 1917.

34   Ralph S. Davis, “Big Job For News Manager,” Pittsburgh Press, July 5, 1917.

35 Ed F. Balinger, “Hans Wagner Resigns And Managerial Reins Are Given To Bezdek,” Pittsburgh Press, July 5, 1917.

36   Jim Nasium, “Phils Lacked Punch When Men Were On,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 7, 1917.

37  Ed F. Balinger, “Dodgers Donate Stein To Wagner, Game To Pirates,” Pittsburgh Post, July 13, 1917.

38  Ed F. Balinger, “Dodgers Again Take Twin Bill Off The Bezdeks,” Pittsburgh Post, July 15, 1917.

39   “Twenty-One Years In The Major Leagues,” Baseball Magazine, March 1918: 395.

A gloomy fact of film history is that more than half the movies made during the silent film era (pre-1927) are lost—vanished into the mists of the passing generations. Yet a smattering of materials related to the early motion pictures do exist, and occasionally, their origins are cloaked in mystery.

For example, in 2004, Robert Edward Auctions sold a set of five lobby cards from Spring Fever, a Honus Wagner short that the auction house reported as being released in 1919. Wagner appears on three of the five, identified as “Hans Wagner.” Filmgraphs is cited as the film’s releasing company, but the company name is an addition, a photographed overlay. The cards were part of the Hall of Famer’s estate and were put up for auction by his granddaughter Leslie Blair Wagner.3

To be sure, Spring Fever is a curio, and not just because it features Wagner in a rare screen appearance. As described in the auction catalog:

In Spring Fever Honus Wagner teaches a young boy the skill of batting. Incredibly, the young boy in the film was Moses Horowitz [sic], who later became very well known as Moe Howard, of the Three Stooges.4 The cast of Spring Fever also included Moe’s brother, Shemp Howard. Now really, we must pause for a moment, to contemplate the fact that the great Honus Wagner actually starred in a movie with two future members of the Three Stooges, long before this comedy team’s formal debut.

The opening bid for the set was $500. The sale price: $1,495.5

Two of the five “Spring Fever” lobby cards with Honus Wagner. (PUBLIC DOMAIN)

The whereabouts of any existing print of Spring Fever, knowledge of the actual year in which it was made, and the possibility that it was originally released under a different title remain unanswered questions—much like the rest of Wagner’s screen career.6 Moe Howard died in 1975 at the age of 77, and apparently, late in life, he claimed to have appeared with Wagner in 12 short films. All supposedly were made in the early 1920s, a “fact” that is casually noted in a number of Three Stooges histories. “Besides stage work,” reads The Three Stooges Scrapbook, written by Jeff and Greg Lenburg and Moe’s daughter, Joan Howard Maurer, “Moe also appeared in 12 two-reel shorts with baseball great Hans Wagner.”7 However, in a 2005 post on a Three Stooges forum, a user named BeAStooge wrote: “In the early ’90s at one of the Philadelphia (Three Stooges) Conventions, Joan Howard told me she did not know where the Lenburgs got that information; as co-author, it did not come from her, and she was not aware of anything in her father’s papers that may have sourced the information.”8

In The Three Stooges, Amalgamated Morons to American Icons: An Illustrated History, Michael Fleming reported that a “series of twelve two-reel silent sports comedies (were) filmed outside Pittsburgh. The result: it’s a good thing Wagner could hit a curveball. He won five batting titles for Pittsburgh but was not Oscar material. ‘I think,’ said Moe, ‘that perhaps they made banjo picks out of the (films)’.”9 No detailed production information is cited in either book, and no record of their existence is found in the standard film history sources. (For the record, Wagner copped eight batting crowns.)

The Wagner/Three Stooges connection remains an enigma to Three Stooges experts. “It has been written in the past that Moe and Shemp starred with Honus Wagner in the Spring Fever short and that Moe starred with him in 12 shorts,” wrote Wil Huddleston of C3 Entertainment, which owns the Three Stooges brand and sponsors the group’s official website. “As to which ones, I am not sure. Unfortunately, I do not have any way of confirming this because we do not have those shorts available to us.”10

Regarding Spring Fever, other sources — for example, the first edition of Total Baseball and Arthur D. Hittner’s Honus Wagner: The Life of Baseball’s “Flying Dutchman” — report that Wagner made the film in 1909 for the Vitagraph Studios. According to Total Baseball, “The movie showed Honus Wagner teaching a little boy the art of batting.”11 Hittner noted that the film “featured the famous ballplayer delivering batting tips to a young boy, played by Moses Horwitz.”12 Lending this credence is the fact that Horwitz/Howard was born in 1897; by 1919, he was no longer a “little” or “young” boy. Furthermore, the Vitagraph studio was located in Brooklyn, and the Horwitz brothers were born and raised in Brooklyn.

As listed in The American Film Institute Catalog, Film Beginnings, 1893–1910, Vitagraph released over 175 short films in 1909. None is titled Spring Fever, and most are long-lost.13 So perhaps the Spring Fever lobby cards are connected to the film’s retitling for re-release. Adding to the confusion is another 1919 short with the same title, this one a Harold Lloyd comedy. But the existence of the lobby cards is proof positive that Wagner did appear in a movie that at one time was marketed under the title Spring Fever.

ROB EDELMAN offers film commentary on WAMC Northeast Public Radio, and his byline has appeared in “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game” and dozens of other publications. He is a longtime Contributing Editor of “Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide”; his books include “Great Baseball Films,” “Baseball on the Web,” “From Spring Training to Screen Test: Baseball Players Turned Actors” (co-edited with Bill Nowlin) and (with Audrey Kupferberg) “Matthau: A Life” and “Meet the Mertzes,” a double biography of I Love Lucy’s William Frawley and Vivian Vance. He teaches film history courses at the University at Albany.

Notes

1 Rob Edelman, “Lost (and Found) Baseball,” Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game 5, no. 2 (2011): 23-37.

2 Rob Edelman, Lost (and Found) Baseball, Part 2, Our Game, September 28, 2012, https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/lost-and-found-baseball-part-2-12163c87037b.

3 1919 Honus Wagner in Spring Fever Lobby Cards (5), Robert Edward Auctions, Spring 2004, http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/auction/2004/spring/328/1919-honus-wagner-spring-fever-lobby-cards/.

4 Moe’s and Shemp’s birth name was in fact Horwitz, rather than Horowitz. Shemp later appeared opposite Dizzy and Paul Dean in Dizzy & Daffy (1934, Warner Bros.), a two-reel comedy in which he plays a half-blind hurler who quips, “The only Dean I ever heard of is Gunga.”

5 1919 Honus Wagner in Spring Fever Lobby Cards.

6 According to the Internet Movie Database, Wagner also appeared as himself in Al You Know Me (1915), a comedy short penned by Ring Lardner, and The Baseball Review of 1917, a documentary. Then in the IMDB summary for In the Name of the Law (1922), he “expanded his entertainment repertoire by catching baseballs dropped from the top of the ten-story city-county building in Pittsburgh while hundreds of people watched and cameras rolled. Pittsburgh Police Superintendent and former professional ball player John C. Calhoun dropped three balls more than 150 feet to a waiting Wagner who was able to snare the first and third ‘pitches.’ The film of the stunt was later shown at the Carnegie Theatre as a prologue entitled ‘In the Name of the Law.’” http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0905929/.

7 Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg, The Three Stooges Scrapbook (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1982), 20.

8 BeAStooge, “Re: Missing Moe Solos?”, The Kingdom of Moronica forum, November 3, 2005, http://moronika.com/forums/index.php?topic=782.0

9 Michael Fleming, The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 11.

10 Wil Huddleston, email to author, May 10, 2011.

11 John Thorn and Pete Palmer, eds., Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball (New York: Warner Books, 1989), 409.

12 Arthur D. Hittner, Honus Wagner: The Life of Baseball’s “Flying Dutchman” (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996), 243.

13 The American Film Institute Catalog, Film Beginnings, 1893–1910 (Metuchen NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1995), 239.

Forbes Field on Opening Day in 1909. (COURTESY OF THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES)

Many people regard Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, home of the Pirates from 1909 to 1970, as a quaint, simple ballpark. Some might even consider Forbes Field’s design reflective of an old-fashioned and bygone era. Nevertheless, its construction was very much rooted in embracing modernity. Forbes Field inspired other sports entrepreneurs to embrace more permanent, luxurious, and ambitious projects. This led to the rise of increasingly opulent sports facilities throughout the nation.

Forbes Field and Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, both christened in 1909, were built to be permanent ballparks. Philadelphia Athletics owner Benjamin Shibe and Pittsburgh Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss were the first major league owners to fully plan, design, and engineer ballparks that abandoned wooden construction in favor of facilities that were built entirely of fireproof steel and masonry. Forbes Field was the first ballpark to require a million-dollar investment, as well. However, it was not the first venue to embrace luxurious amenities.

In the 1880s, sporting goods entrepreneur and team owner Albert Spalding entertained Chicago White Stockings fans at White Stocking Park, offering well-heeled patrons enclosed private spaces that overlooked the field. These precursors to luxury suites included comfortable armchairs. Spalding even installed a telephone in his own private box. Ballpark historian Michael Benson described the facility as “the finest in the world” at the time. But it was a wooden structure, and like many nineteenth-century parks, it closed less than a decade after opening.1

Cincinnati’s Palace of the Fans opened in 1902 and continued a trend of hastily constructed opulence, as did New York’s legendary Polo Grounds, built in 1890. The Polo Grounds was then a wooden ballpark, while Cincinnati incorporated fireproof materials, masonry, and steel for much of the structure. Its Corinthian columns, palatial architecture, and opera-style private boxes looked impressive, but its uneven construction quality led to its demise in 1911, a mere 10 years after its unveiling.2

Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl is often called the first fireproof major league ballpark. Constructed largely of wood in 1887, it was quickly reconstructed of brick and masonry after extensive fire damage in 1894. However, some platforms in the rebuilt venue retained wooden support materials.3 As such, Shibe Park, also in Philadelphia, could be considered America’s first carefully engineered, fully fireproof baseball venue. Nevertheless, it contained wooden seats, as did other ballparks of the era. Produced at a cost of $315,248.69, Shibe Park was described as the finest American ballpark when it opened on April 12, 1909. It featured French Renaissance flourishes and was designed with an intended permanence not previously found in other American ballparks.4

Nevertheless, the scope and scale of Forbes Field’s construction dwarfed the highly touted project in Philadelphia. Forbes Field needed almost three times more structural steel and, with its million-dollar price tag, cost over three times more to build. In February, as work was underway, the Pittsburgh Post asserted that 537 large freight cars of materials would be required to finish the project.5 Forbes Field actually required approximately double that early estimate, including carload totals of 40 for ornamental iron, 70 for seats, 110 for cement, 130 for structural steel, and 650 for sand and gravel.6

An aerial view of Forbes Field in 1960. (COURTESY OF THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES)

To ensure that Forbes Field avoided the short lifespan of other ballparks, Dreyfuss solicited engineering and architectural expertise beyond what had been used elsewhere. On December 15, 1908, the Pirates announced that “numerous architects” had submitted plans for the proposed venue.7 After sifting through proposals, Dreyfuss hired Charles Wellford Leavitt Jr., a respected New York architect and civil engineer, to supervise the design. Leavitt worked on major projects for municipalities and wealthy clients, with his entry into sports having come through horse racing, with New York’s famed Belmont and Saratoga racetracks as clients.8 These venues featured large grandstands with opulent flourishes intended to attract wealthy patrons, making Leavitt’s transition to Pittsburgh’s ballpark design desirable.

C.E. Marshall, a Leavitt employee, provided further engineering expertise. Marshall’s years of site work at the Panama Canal shaped the early stages of that complex undertaking. Specifically, his knowledge of retaining wall construction and drainage was touted as construction began. Such a focus was likely by design, as Exposition Park, the Pirates’ home at the time, experienced numerous drainage and water-related problems.9

Site work began on December 23, 1908, shortly after the Nicola Building Company was announced as lead contractor. Before that, steel magnate and confidant Andrew Carnegie assisted Dreyfuss in property acquisition. As work began, Dreyfuss emphasized that although the ballpark was not located near Pittsburgh’s central business district, “We have not made any mistake in choosing the best site,” in part because the location was in an emerging upscale neighborhood, and, in part because the site afforded transportation options, including nearby trolley stations, that Dreyfuss said “are better than any other part of the city.”10

Forbes Field was unique in the level of publicity it received. Such attention reached beyond the predictably enthusiastic drumbeat of local newspapers. In one example, Harper’s Weekly offered a national feature that included panoramic photographs with coverage that emphasized its million-dollar cost while highlighting the location in “the Schenley district, one of the city’s most prominent residential sections.”11 Newspaper reporting was widespread, too. An Iowa newspaper, for example, explained that enthusiasm at the June 30, 1909, opening game was so intense that many of Pittsburgh’s downtown businesses “declared a half holiday,” while asserting police presence was required to quell “riots” caused by large crowds.12

The scale of the Forbes Field project and its focus on opulent modernity helped it to stand out among other ballparks. Even before planning and building Forbes Field, Dreyfuss was a baseball pioneer. He was an early proponent of postseason interleague play, with his Pirates facing the Boston Americans in the 1903 “World’s Championship Games.” He was an early adopter of the use of a canvas tarpaulin to keep Exhibition Park’s easily water-soaked infield dry, and he fabricated an even larger protective cover for Forbes Field. The Pirates were the first team to maintain a fully equipped training facility in the south, too.13 Subsequently, these strategies were emulated elsewhere.

Forbes Field’s innovations were numerous. As its grand opening approached, reporter James Jerpe asserted that “every detail at Forbes Field is many years ahead of the so-called modern effects and innovations elsewhere.” For example, Dreyfuss installed public telephones for use on all floors, a first for a major league-venue. He also created a separate entrance for “holders of season box admission tickets.”14

Luxury seating was not new, but Dreyfuss was the first to install elevators to comfortably transport patrons to their posh seating locations on the exclusive third tier. This precursor to modern skyboxes was described as “boxes for the true lovers of the game who are willing to spend a little extra money to not only obtain a fine view of the field, but to be able to secure a quiet and comfortable time.” For other visitors, ramps replaced stairways, allowing more convenient and efficient entry and exit.15

Baseball under the lights at Forbes Field. The Pirates began to play night games in 1940. (COURTESY OF THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES)

Less than six months after the first Ford Model T rolled out of a Detroit assembly plant, Dreyfuss planned for the installation of an expansive parking area underneath the ballpark.16 As the concrete was being poured, a Pittsburgh Post story explained that this part of the park “will be the finest automobile garage in Pittsburgh.”17

Dreyfuss also worked to astutely cultivate his most loyal customers. In one example, he installed brass identification plates on the private boxes of season ticket-holders.18 Additionally, men’s and ladies’ restrooms were more modern and comfortable than was available in other ballparks. Dreyfuss added private areas for umpires, too, as well as a separate entrance for players. The visiting team had access to locker rooms with similar space and amenities as the home team, including on-site laundry equipment. Electricity and lighting were installed, with early plans discussed for night baseball, even though such a game did not occur in Pittsburgh until 1940.19

Nevertheless, the lighting, electricity, and other amenities made Forbes Field a highly versatile all-purpose venue. In its opening week, Dreyfuss provided fans with baseball in the daytime, but after the game was over, a new group of patrons paid up to a dollar to watch evening fireworks while listening to a patriotic military band.20 When the team was on the road, events were scheduled, including a heavily touted extravaganza called the Hippodrome, a mix of circus acts, vaudeville, and popular culture.21 Football, boxing, and other entertainment took place, too.

Many considered Dreyfuss’s investment in Forbes Field foolish and overly extravagant, suggesting that he might never fill his cavernous new ballpark.22 The detractors were wrong, and the ballpark’s opening game unfolded in front of a massive crowd that exceeded capacity. Forbes Field attracted strong interest for the remainder of the 1909 season as the Pirates advanced to the World Series, and, in storybook fashion, beat the Detroit Tigers to be crowned world champions.

Barney Dreyfuss’s investment, persistence, and vision helped baseball to retain its stature as the national pastime at a time when the entertainment landscape was rapidly changing. Recently opened nickelodeons showcased films and relatively new commercial amusement parks such as nearby Kennywood Park in West Mifflin provided consumers with a broader array of leisure options than in previous generations.23 This uncertain environment presented unique challenges to sports entrepreneurs such as Dreyfuss.

The opulence that Forbes Field initially projected helped to attract numerous customers and, while doing so, altered the nature of the sporting experience in subtle and unexpected ways. Pirates shortstop Honus Wagner asserted that with a classier atmosphere, players needed to “stop cussing” during games, while Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson joked about the potential to lose fly balls because of shimmering diamonds in the stands.24

Of greater significance, rival baseball owners worked to emulate the success achieved at Forbes Field, with Albert Spalding boasting in 1911 that  “there is nothing that can equal such baseball palaces as have been built in Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and other cities, to say nothing of the improvement contemplated in New York.”25 As other cities committed to new construction, New York rebuilt a fireproof version of the Polo Grounds in 1912, erected Ebbets Field in Brooklyn in 1913, and wrapped up baseball’s first concrete-and-steel era with the completion of cavernous Yankee Stadium in 1923.

For those unfamiliar with Pittsburgh’s baseball legacy, Forbes Field might not evoke the awe-inspiring, heart-pounding excitement of the much-ballyhooed Yankee Stadium, or perhaps one of today’s more modern twenty first–century ballparks. But after Dreyfuss died in 1932, National League President John Heydler recognized the transformative nature of Forbes Field. He displayed a picture of the crowded ballpark’s inaugural game directly opposite his office desk, and its careful positioning ensured that it would be an image that he would see every day. Neatly written below this large photograph was: “Forbes Field. June 30, 1909. Attendance, 30,332.”26 Forbes Field’s cultural and commercial success in 1909 paved the way for not only the House That Ruth Built, but numerous other majestic ballparks that would be unveiled throughout the twentieth century and beyond.

ROBERT C. TRUMPBOUR is Professor of Communications at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona College. He recently served as co-author of “The Eighth Wonder of the World: The Life of Houston’s Iconic Astrodome” (University of Nebraska Press), recipient of SABR’s Seymour Medal in 2017.  Trumpbour also served as author of “The New Cathedrals: Politics and Media in the History of Stadium Construction” (Syracuse University Press). Prior to teaching, he worked in various capacities at CBS in New York for the television and radio networks. Trumpbour periodically does freelance production work on live sports broadcasts.

Notes

1  Michael Benson, Ballparks of North America (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989), 82-83.

2  Robert Trumpbour, The New Cathedrals (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007), 75.

3 Michael Gershman, Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 57-59.

4 Rich Westcott, Philadelphia’s Old Ballparks (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 106.

5  “Construction of New Ball Park at Pittsburgh Will Tax the Capacity of 537 Large Freight Cars,” Pittsburgh Post, February 28, 1909.

6 Gershman, Diamonds, 88.

7   “Plans Arrive for Park,” Pittsburgh Post, December 15, 1908.

8   “Charles W. Leavitt, Park Designer, Dies,” New York Times, April 24, 1928.

9 “Workmen are Busy at New Ball Park,” Pittsburgh Post, January 3, 1909.

10  “Grading of New Baseball Grounds to Be Finished Within Sixty Days,” Pittsburgh Post, December 23, 1908.

11 “Pittsburg’s Million-Dollar Baseball Park” Harper’s Weekly, May 22, 1909.

12   “New Ball Park Opened,” The Burlington (IA) Hawkeye, July 1, 1909.

13   “Fifteen Hundred Tons of Steel for Grandstand at Pirate Park,” Pittsburgh Post, January 29, 1909.

14   James Jerpe, “Forbes Field, the World’s Finest Baseball Grounds,” Pittsburgh Post, June 27, 1909.

15   “New Ballpark Will Surpass Expectations,” Pittsburgh Post, March 7, 1909.

16   “Major League Schedule Makers to Meet in Cleveland Tomorrow,” Pittsburgh Post, January 17, 1909.

17  “Two Shifts Will Work on New Baseball Park,” Pittsburgh Post, March 28, 1909.

18 “Pirates to Depart for Cincinnati,” Pittsburgh Post, May 9, 1909.

19   “Baseball Games by Electric Light Are Planned for New Pirate Park,” Pittsburgh Post, April 4, 1909.

20   “Fireworks at Forbes Field,” advertisement, Pittsburgh Post, July 4, 1909.

21   “Pittsburgh’s Hippodrome Is a Real Open-Air Circus,” Pittsburgh Post, August 6, 1909.

22  John Kieran, “The Passing of Barney Dreyfuss,” New York Times, February 6, 1932.

23 “Season Opens Today at Kennywood Park,” Pittsburgh Post, May 2, 1909.

24 Dennis DeValeria and Jeanne Burke DeValeria, Honus Wagner: A Biography (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), 213.

25  Albert Spalding, America’s National Game (New York: American Sports Publishing, 1911), 505.

26 Kieran, “The Passing of Barney Dreyfuss.”

In 1950 the Pittsburgh Pirates resembled too well
The woeful Washington Nats;
With the fans’ only reason for interest and hope,
Contained in Ralph Kiner’s bats.

The Senators and Pirates were symbols of defeat
On stages and movie screens:
Damn Yankees was based upon Senators losses . . .
In Pittsburgh, Angels (in the Outfield) intervened.

For eight years in the Fifties, the Bucs finished seventh or eighth,
With the cellar five times claimed outright;
In each of those seasons they were so far from first place,
Pennants weren’t remotely in sight.

Around the same time, Abbott and Costello drew laughs
With an exchange that left audiences amused;
In “Who’s on First?” Bud did his very best to explain
As Lou only grew more confused!

With Pirate rosters filled with few household names,
What would Costello have thought
If instead of “Who,” “What,” or “Today,” he were told
The true names of guys holding a spot?

The real first sacker never was “Who,”
But observers might have said, “Who is he?”
When holding on runners, or awaiting a toss,
A Hopp, Ward, or Fondy they’d see.

Jack Phillips and Bartirome, in those lean early years,
Also donned a first baseman’s mitt;
Despite their best efforts, neither performed well enough
To make the organization commit.

In ’56, a first sacker did make national news
By homering in eight straight games,
But elation waned as Dale Long’s team hit the skids
And resumed its severe growing pains.

Nor did the fictitious fellow named “What”
Appear at the keystone spot;
Instead Merson and Murtaugh, Basgall and O’Brien
Gave second base their best shot.

That O’Brien was Johnny, not his twin brother Eddie—
The pair sometimes took the field together;
In ’54 Curt Roberts called second his home,
While hoping each day to play better.

“I-Don’t-Know” wasn’t found near the hot corner,
In Forbes Field or in games on the road;
Castiglione, Cole, and Freese all did play there
Though their status as stars seldom glowed.

Pittsburgh’s shortstops never uttered, “I don’t give a darn”
As they tried to improve and excel;
They didn’t succeed but they had a fine view
Of Pittsburgh’s “basepaths carousel.”

Behind the plate there appeared five masked men—
But not the imaginary “Today”;
Joe Garagiola and the others did all that they could
To keep rival basestealers at bay.

The name of “Tomorrow,” the hurler on Abbott’s team,
Held meaning for young guys on the farm
As they placed trust in the future and blossoming youth,
Along with sound pitching arms.

There were plenty of names, but not many well-known,
Among those who trekked to the mound;
Dickson and Surkont, LaPalme and Lindell
Were a few Branch Rickey had found.

Dick Littlefield was another one of the bunch
Who pitched in a very large yard;
Forbes Field was spacious with very wide gaps
That swallowed sharp liners hit hard.

Marginal players filled out the various rosters
In each of those frustrating years:
Gair Allie, and Atwell, Macdonald and McCullough,
Came with cold Iron City beer.

The O’Briens and O’Connell, Strickland, Shepard, and Sandlock,
And slugging Frank Thomas, of course,
Whose offensive stats, far better than most,
Eased mood swings bent toward remorse.

Howie Pollet, Bob Purkey, a Hogue and a Hetki,
Dick Hall, Woody Main and Red Munger,
A Werle and a Wilks, a Queen and a Chambers . . .
All afflicted with “pennant-race hunger.”

The losses and pain continued until ’58
When maturing finally occurred;
Second place lifted spirits, good times lay ahead—
Valid hopes for a flag had been stirred!

Mazeroski, Groat, Clemente, Virdon, and Skinner
All played quite well in that year;
The pitching of Law and Kline and Friend and Face,
Signaled big celebrations were near.

Danny Murtaugh had now returned to the scene
As manager of an expected rebirth;
That new dawn would be realized just two years hence
When his second sacker shook the earth!

FRANCIS KINLAW has contributed to 18 SABR convention publications (matching the number of Max Surkont’s pitching losses in 1954, Ron Kline losses in 1956, Bob Friend losses in 1957, and Roy Face and Vern Law victories in 1959). He has attended 22 SABR national conventions, equaling the number of Bob Friend’s mound victories in 1958. A member of SABR since 1983, he resides in Greensboro, North Carolina, and writes extensively about baseball, football, and college basketball.

While his off-the-field behavior, at times, appeared to be caused by drunkenness, the tumor is the culprit, a fact that went largely unnoticed, as did Gibson’s career, until Negro Leagues scholarship exploded in the 1990s. A member of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays, Gibson has enjoyed a renaissance, of sorts. In the 1996 HBO movie Soul of the Game, the icon known as “the black Babe Ruth” gets a just treatment from his portrayer, Mykelti Williamson. Without any gloss, Williamson showcases Gibson’s erratic decorum.

1947 is the setting for “The Unnatural,” an episode of The X-Files that honors Gibson in the final scene. Alien conspiracy investigator Fox Mulder—played by David Duchovny, who also wrote and directed the flashback episode—wears a Grays jersey bearing Gibson’s name while he hits baseballs off a pitching machine at night in the final scene. After leaving a message for his partner, Dana Scully—played by Gillian Anderson and named by the show’s creator, Chris Carter, after Dodgers announcer Vin Scully—to meet “Fox Mantle” at the baseball diamond, Mulder teaches her how to hit a baseball by getting behind her, gripping the bat, and swinging in tandem. Flirtation is evident.

Duchovny, a baseball fan, paid homage to alien and baseball lore by placing the episode in 1947, the year of an alleged UFO landing in Roswell, New Mexico. Mulder and Scully learn of a slugger named Josh Exley, who played for the fictional Roswell Grays. Exley is discovered to be an alien by the original X Files investigator, Arthur Dales, whose brother, also named Arthur, tells the tale to his brother’s successors.

There is also a 2009 documentary highlighting Gibson’s life, The Legend Behind the Plate: The Josh Gibson Story, produced by a dozen Duquesne University students, journalism professor Dennis Woytek, and Pittsburgh television news anchor Mike Clark. While Gibson’s life is celebrated and his death mourned by these two productions, there has been a dearth of Gibson stories. That paradigm changed in 2017 with the opera The Summer King.

Not since Martina Arroyo entertained Howard Cosell on an episode of the 1970s sitcom The Odd Couple have the worlds of opera and sports blended to great appeal. “What? An opera about Josh Gibson?”1 recalls Christopher Hahn about the initial reaction to the idea. Hahn has been with the Pittsburgh Opera since 2000, serving as artistic director until 2008 and general director since then.

“Opera is about compelling stories of myths and legends told through music and action. What’s happening across America is a trend of opera companies exposing their audiences to a different range of subject matters in an attempt to engage audiences and communities in ways beyond Madame Butterfly and La Bohème,” Hahn says.

“People in this region are extraordinarily proud and very interested in all things Pittsburgh. It’s very different from other big metropolitan areas in that you’re living in a city with a small-town feel. Sports is one of the big fascinations and obsessions, but it is not so well-known that the theatrical community contributes to the life and pulse of the city.”2

Pittsburgh Opera is the seventh oldest opera company in the United States, but The Summer King was its first world premiere. It bridges the gap of knowledge for an arts culture that tends to think of sports as a diversion that neither informs nor elevates society. Sports fans got exposed to a subcategory of the performing arts that they tend not to be interested in. Forty percent of the single-ticket buyers for The Summer King had never bought a ticket to a Pittsburgh Opera performance before.3

Composed by Dan Sonenberg and directed by Sam Helfrich, The Summer King also benefits from contributions by Daniel Nester and Mark Campbell; Maine’s Portland Ovations launched the project with a trial concert reading in 2014.4 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reviewer Robert Croan lauded the performance, highlighting Alfred Walker in the title role: “He can be tender in a love duet with his young wife Helen (bright and edgy coloratura Jacqueline Echols), heartbreaking in an aria describing her death during childbirth, and yet, in the second act, elicit the viewer’s admonition for the character’s dissolution and self-destructive behavior.”5

Additionally, 53-year-old Denyce Graves got high praise as Gibson’s girlfriend, Grace. “When this woman is on the stage, everything around her disappears into her own luminosity.”6

In this scene from The Summer King, Josh Gibson (played by Alfred Walker) hallucinates seeing Joe DiMaggio, and is agitated when DiMaggio doesn’t answer him. (DAVID BACHMAN PHOTOGRAPHY FOR PITTSBURGH OPERA)

The Summer King came to Hahn’s attention through the trade organization Opera America, which provides workshops for new productions. “When I started to say the name Josh Gibson around Pittsburgh, it got instantaneous recognition,” Hahn says. “In addition to the sporting community, there’s also a really powerful story of integration and social justice. It’s happening in the 1930s and 1940s with those aspirations.

“Gibson is a tragic character whose story is palpable. His wife died giving birth to twins. Though he was bereft, he had to raise them, which was a challenge when he was on the road playing baseball to earn a living. It’s a compelling story that he missed out on playing in the major leagues.”7

The opera also highlights Wendell Smith, the Pittsburgh Courier scribe later selected by Branch Rickey to be Jackie Robinson’s road companion and press conduit during Robinson’s rookie year of 1947—he wrote a column under Robinson’s name. In addition to baseball and the Courier, Pittsburgh’s black community had a prosperous cultural world that included the Crawford Grill, a cornerstone of black nightlife and a central location in The Summer King; when famous jazz artists came through the city, they often played there.

“There was a real sense of identity that was connected to the world of Negro League baseball. And what was really important to me was to address some of the complexity of the story because I think the most well-known narrative is the narrative of Jackie Robinson, how Jackie Robinson came along in baseball and integrated baseball and everything was sort of great after that,” says composer Sonenberg.

“What I wanted to convey here is that there was also something lost. There was this sense of community and identity that a lot of people had who belonged to the world of Negro League baseball and its surrounding cultural life in one way or another. And when baseball integrated which, of course, was a great thing that it happened, but a lot of these cultural institutions then began to fade away. Ultimately, the Negro Leagues themselves kind of completely disbanded by the end of the ’50s. They were no more.”8

There’s a scarcity of documented information about Gibson’s insights regarding baseball, racism, and the Negro Leagues. This presented both a challenge and an opportunity for Sonenberg to fill in gaps in public knowledge through research, lore, and creative license. In turn, he got a sense of the slugger’s persona. “Research was a long process. It was an on again, off again journey, but the more I worked on it, the more I gained a deeper understanding of the context of the Negro Leagues in the 1930s and 1940s,” he says. “Then, it became more and more clear to me how perfect a medium opera is to tell the scope of his story and the tragic component of it. From the start, I had an innate connection to the material.

“Josh Gibson still has not received his just acclaim. One of the real joys has been the response in Pittsburgh, where he’s celebrated as a hometown hero. It was my dream to have the opera premiere in Pittsburgh, so I think the idea that I was introducing this historical figure to opera fans not likely to know about him is to say that Josh Gibson is important to the city and important to all of us.”9

In this scene from The Summer King, Sam Bankhead (Kenneth Kellogg) mourns the death of his best friend Josh Gibson (Alfred Walker), who died at the age of 35. (DAVID BACHMAN PHOTOGRAPHY FOR PITTSBURGH OPERA)

To ensure the accuracy of family information in the opera, Sonenberg worked with the Gibson family. “When I heard about the idea, the first thing that I said was, ‘How is this going to work?’” says Sean Gibson, the slugger’s great-grandson, who leads the Josh Gibson Foundation. “So Dan came down to Pittsburgh and explained how he wanted to do the story. Ten years later, we had the world premiere.”

Sean Gibson says a lot of parents approached him in the lobby after performances to ask him about his great-grandfather. “I hope that when people leave the theater, they get a better sense of Josh’s life,” he says. “We helped Dan with some of the facts because we want people to know the family side of Josh. The opera tapped into groups that you usually don’t see at operas. African Americans. Teenagers. Children.”10

Born on December 21, 1911, in Buena Vista, Georgia, the future Hall of Famer—the second Negro Leaguer inducted after Satchel Paige—had a ninth-grade education. When he was 16, he began playing semipro baseball. A few years later, in 1930, according to legend, he came out of the stands at an exhibition game to replace Homestead Grays catcher Buck Ewing, who’d injured his hand. He was on his way to becoming the Steel City’s prince of power.11  When Gibson died on January 20, 1947, Smith wrote the obituary for the Courier, highlighting Gibson’s $6,000 salary being the second highest in the Negro Leagues, next to Paige’s. “There is no doubt that he would have been in the big leagues had it not been for the long and unjust ban against Negroes in organized baseball,”12 wrote Smith wrote.13

And the rest is history, revived in an art form that, at first, seemed questionable for its pursuit and now presents answers to dispel myths, enhance knowledge, and shed light on a corner of baseball history long since cloaked.

Bravo!

DAVID KRELL is the author of “Our Bums: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory and Popular Culture” (McFarland, 2015). “Our Bums” received Honorable Mention for SABR’s 2015 Ron Gabriel Award. In addition to “The National Pastime, David has written for the “Baseball Research Journal,” “Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal,” and “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game.” David is also a contributor to SABR’s Biography Project, Games Project, and Ballparks Project. David often speaks at SABR conferences and the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture.

Notes

1  Christopher Hahn, telephone interview, January 17, 2018.

2  Hahn.

3  Hahn.

4 Robert Croan, “Review: Pittsburgh Opera’s ‘The Summer King’ makes for thought-provoking performance,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 30, 2017. http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/music/2017/04/30/Pittsburgh-Opera-review-The-Summer-King-Benedum-Center/stories/201704300302.

5  Croan.

6  Croan.

7  Hahn, telephone interview.

8  “Daniel Sonenberg and Sam Helfrich,” Voice of the Arts, WQED Radio, April 28, 2017.  https://wqed.org/fm/podcasts/voice-arts/daniel-sonenberg-and-sam-helfrich.

9  Daniel Sonenberg, telephone interview, February 9, 2018.

10  Sean Gibson, telephone interview, January 22, 2018.

11 “Josh Gibson,” National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/gibson-josh; Gibson’s SABR bio has Joe Williams as the injured catcher. Bill Johnson, “Josh Gibson,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/df02083c.

12  Wendell Smith, “Grays’ Home-Run King Dies at 36,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 25, 1947.

13  Wendell Smith, “Grays’ Home-Run King Dies at 36,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 25, 1947.

Since 1971, over 30 Negro Leagues players and executives have been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame based primarily on their careers in the Negro Leagues. Those honored include Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, and Judy Johnson, Paige’s teammates on the 1936 Pittsburgh Crawfords—arguably, with its five future Hall-of-Famers, the greatest team in Negro Leagues history. Also in the Hall of Fame are Buck Leonard, Raymond Brown, and Jud Wilson, who, along with Gibson, were part of the dominant Homestead Grays’ team that won nine consecutive Negro National League pennants from 1937–45 and three Negro World Series titles.

One of the most important members of the great Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays teams, however, is not in the Hall of Fame. Sam Bankhead was one of the most accomplished and versatile players in Negro Leagues history. An eight-time selection to the East-West All-Star Game, he was a clutch hitter, an excellent baserunner, and, possessed with a powerful throwing arm, such a skilled infielder and outfielder that he was named the top utility player on the all-time Negro Leagues team selected in a 1952 poll by the Pittsburgh Courier.1

Born on September 18, 1910, in Sulligent, Alabama, Sam Bankhead played his way into professional baseball on sandlots while working in coal mines. He began his Negro Leagues career with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1930. He played with the Nashville Elite Giants in 1930, the Black Barons in 1931, and the Louisville Caps in 1932 before returning to the Elite Giants, where he began to establish his reputation as a star. Bankhead was selected to the first East-West All-Star team in 1933 and played right field for the West. In 1934, he made the West squad in the All-Star Game as a right fielder again. In his eight appearances in All-Star games, he would start at five different positions (second base, shortstop, and all three outfield positions).

In 1935, Bankhead signed a contract with Gus Greenlee to play for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and quickly became a friend to Gibson. In his biography of Gibson, Mark Ribowsky wrote that “Bankhead served as a father confessor, a baseball coach, and a drinking crony.”2 Ribowsky wrote that Gibson’s son, Josh Jr., said that “Sammy was a constant. I’d see a lotta guys come by our house . . . Satchel, Cool Papa, Buck Leonard. All of them great players. But the only guy whose face I got to know was Sammy’s.”3

With Sam Bankhead having his best season, the 1935 Crawfords won the Negro National League pennant. In 1936, while there were no playoffs, they had the best record in the Negro National League. In the 1936 All-Star Game, several Crawfords were in the East starting lineup, including Bankhead, who played left field and had two hits. The Crawfords’ domination of Negro Leagues baseball ended in 1937, however, when Paige convinced several of the team’s best players, including Gibson and Bankhead, to join him with the Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

After spending most of the 1937 season with Ciudad Trujillo and playing winter ball in Cuba, Bankhead returned to the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1938. While the Crawfords were failing financially and soon to leave Pittsburgh, Bankhead made the starting lineup in the East-West All-Star Game, this time as the East’s center fielder, and, at the end of the regular season, he was picked up by the Birmingham Black Barons for the Negro American League playoffs.

In 1939, Cum Posey moved his Crawfords to Toledo. Bankhead began the season with the Crawfords, but ended up with the Homestead Grays and helped the Grays to their third straight Negro National League pennant. In 1940, Bankhead joined a wave of Negro Leagues players, including Gibson, who jumped to the Mexican League, run by the wealthy Jorge Pasquel and his brothers.

After two years playing with the Monterrey Industriales, Bankhead returned to the United States to play for the Homestead Grays, where he had his best years. In 1942, he played in his fifth East-West All-Star Game, this time as the starting second baseman for the East. The Grays won their sixth consecutive Negro National League pennant that year but lost the World Series to Paige and the Kansas City Monarchs.

In 1943, Bankhead was once again the starting second baseman in the East-West All-Star Game and helped the Grays to their seventh consecutive pennant and a World Series victory over the Black Barons. In 1944, he started and played second base and shortstop in the East-West All-Star Game. The Grays went on to win their eighth pennant in a row and, once again, defeated the Black Barons in the World Series.

While he appeared in only 35 games in 1945, Bankhead hit well enough in his limited play to help the Grays win their ninth consecutive pennant, though they were swept by the Cleveland Buckeyes in the World Series. In 1946, the Grays failed to win the Negro National League pennant for the first time in a decade, but Bankhead, at the age of 35, had an outstanding season. He was the East’s starting shortstop in the first of two East-West All-Star games played that year. His younger brother Dan pitched for the West in both All-Star games. The following season Dan became the first black player to pitch in the major leagues since the nineteenth century when he took the mound at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on August 26 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In that year, 1947, when Jackie Robinson crossed baseball’s color line, the Homestead Grays again fell short of winning the Negro National League pennant, but they bounced back to win it in 1948 and defeat the Black Barons in the World Series. It turned out to be the last Negro National League championship for the Grays. With the Negro National League’s star players signing with major-league teams, the circuit folded after the 1948 season.

The Homestead Grays managed to operate for two more years, but one of the most fabled teams in Negro Leagues history played its last games in 1950. During those two years, Sam Bankhead became the team’s player/manager and used his influence to convince the Grays to sign 18-year-old Josh Gibson Jr. to a contract. Since Josh Gibson’s death in January 1947, just months before Jackie Robinson played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Bankhead and his wife, Helen, had taken responsibility for the care of Josh Jr.4

In 1951, Bankhead made history when he became the player/manager of the minor-league Farnham Pirates in Canada’s Class C Provincial League. He was the first black manager of a minor-league team in organized baseball. While the Pirates finished in seventh place with a 52-71 record, Bankhead, at the age of 40, played in all but one of his team’s 123 games and batted a respectable .274. Bankhead also brought Gibson with him to Farnham, but the teenager batted only .230 in 68 games before breaking his ankle sliding into second base. The injury ended his baseball career.

When Bankhead returned to Pittsburgh, he was out of options in baseball, so he took a job with the city’s sanitation department. When he was joined by Gibson, the two worked together on the same truck, collecting the city’s garbage. Bankhead eventually took a job as a porter in the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. On the night of July 24, 1976, Bankhead got into an altercation at the hotel’s bar that led to someone pulling out a gun and shooting Bankhead to death. The All-Star, the greatest utility player in Negro Leagues history, was dead at the age of 65.

While Sam Bankhead has been passed over year after year by the Baseball Hall of Fame, he was not forgotten by August Wilson, a Pittsburgh native and one of the most important dramatists of the twentieth century. Wilson’s plays have received numerous honors, including Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards. His greatest achievement was a cycle of 10 plays, one for each decade of the 20th century, that dramatized the long and continuing struggle of African Americans against racial hatred and injustice.

Fences, often acclaimed as Wilson’s best play and his first to win a Pulitzer Prize, is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District and takes place in the 1950s, the pivotal decade for the civil rights movement. Rather than a landmark decision or a history-changing moment, Wilson decided to use baseball as the backdrop for his play about the lives of mid-century African Americans.

It’s easy to assume that Wilson based his main character, Troy Maxson, on Josh Gibson, but the likely model was Gibson’s teammate and close friend, Bankhead. Like Bankhead, Maxson, after starring in the Negro Leagues, is working on a garbage truck for the city’s sanitation department. A hard drinker, Maxson is so bitter about never having had a chance to play in the major leagues that he’s building a fence around his Hill District house in a futile attempt to protect his family from the racism that destroyed his dream. He never finishes his fence and dies of a heart attack in his backyard while swinging his bat at a ball made of rags: “Troy assumes a batting posture and begins to taunt Death, the fastball in the outside corner,” Wilson writes. Then Troy says: “Come on! It’s between you and me now!”5

Bankhead made another appearance in the arts when Daniel Sonenberg, resident composer at the University of Southern Maine, decided that opera, with its emotional power, was the perfect medium for the story of a larger-than-life baseball player who was tormented by the forces that denied his greatness and eventually destroyed him. Sonenberg found his story in the tragic life of Josh Gibson, transformed Gibson’s life into an opera, and called it The Summer King.

The Summer King had its world premiere in Pittsburgh on April 29, 2017. While Judy Johnson, Cool Papa Bell, and Double Duty Radcliffe appear in the opera, Sam Bankhead is a lead character. In the final scenes of the opera, he becomes the chronicler of Gibson’s life. At one point, Bankhead intervenes when a group of younger Homestead Grays mock a fading Gibson. He asks them to respect Gibson because of his past greatness.

As he’s dying, Gibson reminds Bankhead about Gibson’s fabled Yankee Stadium home run: “It went a long way. I hope you’ll remember that.”6 At the moment of Gibson’s death, Bankhead steps forward to deliver a powerful aria in memory of the fallen Summer King. In the aria, Bankhead portrays Gibson as baseball’s Moses, who led black players to “the promised land” but never had the opportunity to play there. At the end of the aria, Bankhead laments his own fate now that his king is gone. He asks the question that would haunt Sam Bankhead after his baseball career was over: “What will become of me?”7

Sam Bankhead, like his friend Josh Gibson, never made it to the promised land, never lived the dream of playing in the major leagues. Even with all his flaws, including his struggles with alcohol and drugs, Gibson, in 1972, became the second Negro Leagues player to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Since that time, other Negro Leagues legends, like Cool Papa Bell and Buck Leonard, have entered the Hall of Fame. Bankhead, their teammate and one of the greatest stars in Negro Leagues history, is still waiting to cross over.

RICHARD “PETE” PETERSON — a Pittsburgh native and professor emeritus of English at Southern Illinois University — is the author of Growing Up With Clemente, Pops: The Willie Stargell Story, Extra Innings: Writing on Baseball, and co-author, with his son, Stephen, of The Slide: Leyland, Bonds, and the Star-Crossed Pittsburgh Pirates. He is the editor of The Pirates Reader and The St. Louis Baseball Reader, and co-editor, with David Shribman of Fifty Great Moments in Pittsburgh Sports.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in NOTES, the author consulted the following:

Baseball-Reference.com.

Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (New York: Oxford University Press), 1970.

James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll and Graf), 1994.

Fred C. Bush and Bill Nowlin, eds., Bittersweet Goodbye: The Black Barons, the Grays, and the 1948 Negro League World Series (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research), 2017.

Notes

1 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graff, 1994), 52.

2 Mark Ribowsky, The Power and the Darkness (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1996), 164.

3 Ribowsky, 164.

4 Ribowsky, 303

5 August Wilson, Fences (New York: Plume, 1986), 89.

6 The Summer King, music by Daniel Sonenberg, libretto by Sonenberg and Daniel Nester, with additional lyrics by Mark Campbell, Pittsburgh Opera, Benedum Center in Pittsburgh on May 7, 2017.

7 The Summer King.