Between May 24, 1935 and August 7, 1988, Wrigley Field had hosted 4,193 regular season games, nine World Series games, two League Championship Series games, and three All-Star games, only one of which—a 1943 All American Girls Professional Baseball League contest lit by a small set of portable lamps—was played at night. That all changed on August 8.

On February 25, 1988, Chicago’s City Council voted 29–19 to remove a 1983 ban on lights at Wrigley Field, making it theoretically possible for the Chicago Cubs to host night games. The new ordinance also would influence the probability of Major League Baseball awarding the Cubs the 1990 All-Star Game. The vote also locked the Cubs into Chicago through the 2002 season.

An additional “compromise ordinance” addressed the number of night games per season and their start times as well as late afternoon game times, litter, and parking.

General Electric in Hendersonville, North Carolina provided the $5M lighting system and began installing it on April 7. The Cubs announced in June that they would host seven night games that year, the first at 7:05 P.M. August 8 versus the Philadelphia Phillies.1

Chicago Cubs Original 1988 Home Schedule

On June 28, 12,756 public tickets were made available, starting at 8:00 A.M., and quickly sold out.

July 25, the Cubs hosted a 7:00 P.M. “night game preview” which featured an on-field autograph session, home run derby, live music, and batting practice. The lights were tested one final time. About 3,000 people paid $100 each (which went toward the Cubs’ charitable arm) in order to attend this unique event.

The Chicago forecast for August 8 predicted a high of 96 degrees with possible rain and thunderstorms in the morning and evening and partial cloudiness in between.

The “Wrigley Field: Home of Chicago Cubs” marquee that greeted fans as they entered at Clark & Addison also sported a heretofore unseen message: “Welcome to Opening Night.” In addition to the 39,008 in attendance, 556 media representatives were on hand, according to Cubs Director of Media Relations Ned Colletti.2 Some 109 newspapers, 49 television stations, and 38 radio stations covered the game. National television shows sending camera crews included Entertainment Tonight and daytime shows Good Morning America (ABC) and Today (NBC). WGN provided local television and radio coverage of the contest,3 while in Philadelphia, WTXF provided television and WCAU-AM did the radio broadcast.4

Dignitaries attending included MLB Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, NL President Bart Giamatti, Illinois Governor James Thompson, and Chicago Mayor Eugene Sawyer. Celebrities included actors Dabney Coleman, Bill Murray, and Mark Harmon.5

Some fans that could not get tickets to the game paid as much as $1,000 to watch it from neighboring rooftop buildings. For seats in the ballpark, scalpers paid $250 (or more).

C.U.B.S. (Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine), a grassroots organization which opposed Wrigley Field night baseball, had approximately 200 people surveying crowd behavior and monitoring whether parking rules were being enforced.

Between May 24, 1935 and August 7, 1988, Wrigley Field had hosted 4,193 regular season games, nine World Series games, two League Championship Series games, and three All-Star games, only one of which—a 1943 All American Girls Professional Baseball League contest lit by a small set of portable lamps—was played at night.

Former Cubs broadcaster Jack Brickhouse served as the pre-game ceremonies emcee. 91-year-old Harry Grossman, who had attended his first Cubs game in 1906, turned the lights on at 6:09 P.M. The Cubs and Phillies, who had previously taken batting practice, then took the field for infield drills. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed the National Anthem. Billy Williams and Ernie Banks threw out the ceremonial first pitches to Cubs catcher Damon Berryhill.

The Cubs entered the game in fourth place in the NL East with a 53-56-1 record, 13½ games behind the New York Mets. The Phillies were fifth, 48-62-1, 19 games out.6

Rick Sutcliffe threw the first pitch to Phil Bradley—a ball—at 7:01 P.M. The game time temperature was 91 degrees and the air was thick and humid. The south winds were blowing at nine miles per hour.

Bradley hit Sutcliffe’s third pitch onto Waveland Avenue, over the left-center field wall, for the first hit and run in the Cubs’ first home night game.7 Sutcliffe then retired Milt Thompson on a ground out to third baseman Vance Law, got Juan Samuel to fly to center fielder Mitch Webster, and induced Mike Schmidt to foul out to first baseman Mark Grace to end the inning.

The Cubs responded. Webster grounded Kevin Gross’ first pitch up the middle just went past second baseman Samuel’s glove and into center field. Before the next hitter, Ryne Sandberg, reached the plate, “Morganna the Kissing Bandit” ran from the lower outfield box seats to try to kiss him but was stopped by two security personnel before she could kiss Sandberg.

Unfazed, “Ryno” hit Gross’ second pitch into the left field bleachers and gave the Cubs a 2-1 lead.10 Sandberg came out of the dugout for a curtain call. Gross retired Grace on a line drive to first baseman Ricky Jordan, fanned Andre Dawson, and got Rafael Palmeiro on a fly out to center field to end the inning.

The Phillies threatened in the second, putting two men on, but Sutcliffe induced Gross to pop up to shortstop Shawon Dunston in shallow left field to end the Phillies’ scoring threat.

In their half of the inning, the Cubs also put two men on, but with two out, Webster rolled out to first base.

With two outs in the Phillies’ third, Samuel took an outside Sutcliffe pitch to right field. Samuel beat Dawson’s throw and slid into second for a double. During this plate appearance, home plate umpire Eric Gregg called time because the wind was blowing the dirt around home plate. The Phillies’ broadcasters had also noted that the skies were getting darker and the winds were increasing. Schmidt grounded out to shortstop to end the inning.

Sandberg walked on four pitches to lead off the Cubs third. He stole second and advanced to third on Mark Grace’s sacrifice bunt. One out later, Rafael Palmeiro lofted a soft liner into right field and scored Sandberg to give the Cubs a 3-1 lead.8 Law swung and missed at Gross’ first pitch and Palmeiro was caught stealing second.

The fourth inning began with Lance Parrish being called out on strikes. Chris James’ ground ball deflected off the pitcher’s mound and landed on Sandberg’s glove side of second base, and the Gold Glove defender spun around and threw to first for the out. Ricky Jordan kept the inning alive by lining an outside pitch off the right field fence for a triple, but after fouling off three straight pitches, shortstop Steve Jeltz struck out swinging to end another Phillies rally.

As soon as the top of the fourth ended, a heavy rain began, accompanied by wind, thunder, and lightning. Four Cubs—catcher Jody Davis and pitchers Les Lancaster, Al Nipper, and Greg Maddux ran from the dugout and slid onto the wet infield tarp.9 Some fans also attempted this feat and one crashed into the brick wall near third base so hard that he had to be helped from the field.

At 10:25 P.M., the game was postponed after a two-hour, 10-minute rain delay.10

Wrigley Field hosted its first official MLB night game the next evening, and the game was televised on NBC. The Cubs scored four runs in the seventh inning en route to a 6-4 rain-free victory over the Mets.

STEVEN GLASSMAN has been a SABR member since 1994 and regularly makes presentations for the Connie Mack Chapter. SABR 45 was his 10th convention. “Philadelphia’s Other Hall of Famers” was published for the SABR 43 online edition of “The National Pastime.” Steven has made five convention poster presentations, most recently, “The Gulf States and Lone Star League” (SABR 44). He also made three oral presentations at SABR nationals, most recently “A History of the Houston Colt .45s and Astros in The Rule Five Draft.”

Sources

Books

Sloan, Dave ed. 1989. The Sporting News Official Baseball Guide, 1989 Edition. St. Louis: The Sporting News. 13-15, 65.

Magazines

Fimrite, Ron, “Out of the Darkness,” Sports Illustrated, August 15, 1988.

Goddard, Joe, “Notebook: N.L. East,” The Sporting News, August 29, 1988.

Nightingale, Dave, “Let There Be Lights!” The Sporting News, May 30, 1988.

_______________, “It Works Out That Elia Will Help Cubs See Light,” The Sporting News, July, 4, 1988.

Television

Philadelphia Phillies at Chicago Cubs. 1988. Aired August 8 on WTXF. Maxell Epitaxial Video Cassette Model T-120.

New York Mets at Chicago Cubs. 1988. Aired August 9 on NBC. Maxell Epitaxial Video Cassette Model T-120.

Websites

www.archives.chicagotribune.com

www.baseballanerica.com

www.baseball-reference.com

www.retrosheet.org

www.sabr.org

Notes

1 The compromise ordinance originally scheduled eight 1988 night games. The Phillies and Cubs were originally scheduled to play at 3:05 P.M.

2 This set an MLB record. There were 275 in Cincinnati when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb’s career hit record on September 11, 1985. (Years later it was found that Cobb had fewer hits than previously thought, meaning he actually broke the record in Chicago on September 8.) Ned Colletti would become the Cubs’ Vice President of Baseball Operations in 1993. He later worked in the San Francisco Giants front office (1995–2005) and was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ General Manager from 2005 through 2014.

3 Harry Caray and Dewayne Staats were the Cubs’ television announcers. Steve Stone provided color commentary.

4 Harry Kalas and Andy Musser were the Phillies’ television announcers, while Richie Ashburn provided color commentary.

5 Murray and Harmon also appeared during the WGN television broadcast.

6 The Cubs finished the season in fourth with a 77–85–1 record, 24 games behind the Mets. The Phillies finished sixth (and last), 65–96–1, 35½ games behind. This was Philadelphia’s first last place finish since 1973.

7 Since the game was not official, Bradley lost his sixth homer of the season (58th career) and Sandberg lost his 12th (102nd).

8 Palmeiro‘s third-inning single extended his hitting streak to 18 games, but it also did not count. He officially extended it August 9 and finished with a 20-game streak.

9 Les Lancaster went on the 21-day disabled list July 23 following an appendectomy. He was activated August 12. Cubs’ GM Jim Frey later fined the foursome $500 each.

10 The rainout was rescheduled as part of a September 5 doubleheader. The Phillies played their first Wrigley Field night game on September 6 and won 3–2.

NOTES

On September 8, 1978, Northside and Southside fans finally found something they could agree on: Don Kessinger.1 Fans from Chicago’s two storied baseball teams came together to cheer the veteran infielder at Comiskey Park on a special promotion night arranged by Sox owner Bill Veeck to salute Kessinger, one of the lucky few to have played for both the Cubs and White Sox. The game drew 30,270 fans, and as the Sporting News noted, “a large segment of the crowd consisted of Cubs fans in honor of his eleven years with the Cubs.”2

Though best known as a smooth-fielding All-Star shortstop for the Cubs of the 1960s and early 1970s, Kessinger also had a “brief but interesting stay on the South side.”3 After a brief exile to St. Louis, Kessinger was traded to the White Sox on August 20, 1977, to shore up a leaky infield.

The Kessinger Night promotion couldn’t have been timed better. The Sox were returning home from a short trip having won three of four games, and Kessinger had “played a major role in most of them.”4 At one stretch of the season, he went 11-for-21 and had raised his batting average to around .270. Kessinger was surprised when Veeck told him what he was planning to do—he never thought of himself as the type of player who deserved a day. “Boy that was a special treat that night,” Kessinger reflected. “It’s just one of those things that is an unreal experience. I was totally shocked when Bill Veeck said that is what he wanted to do. I was just thrilled to death. I was just happy to be there and be playing and enjoying what I do.”5 The veteran admitted that he hadn’t felt as nervous since being a rookie in 1964.

He was joined on this special night by his wife, Carolyn, and two sons, Keith and Kevin, who had flown in from their Memphis home. Kessinger looked on as master of ceremony Harry Caray trotted out ex-Cubs teammates and other dignitaries. Kessinger enjoyed the banter, at one point joking with former teammate Ernie Banks, “Ernie, they wouldn’t be having this night for me if you hadn’t dug my throws out of the dirt all those years. Come to think of it, I’d probably be in the Hall of Fame if you picked them all up.”6 Kessinger and his family received everything from two ponies for their Memphis acreage to a round-trip flight to Hawaii courtesy of United Airlines.

“It was too much to put into words,” Kessinger said that night. “I’ve gotten nothing but kindness and respect here for all those years. I’ve got to try and give it back to such wonderful fans.”7 The Sox won the game 3–2 over the Seattle Mariners, and although Kessinger went hitless, “he handled seven chances, two brilliantly.”8

Chicago fans had good reason to cheer him. Kessinger played with grace and consistency during his years with the Cubs and White Sox. From 1965 through 1969, Kessinger joined with Glenn Beckert, Ron Santo, and Ernie Banks to make up one of the most famous infields in baseball history. “They called that the Million Dollar Infield in Chicago,” said Kessinger. “Glenn Beckert used to tell me, ‘yeah, but $900,000 is on the corners.’ They were unbelievable. They were not only great players, they were great friends and teammates. It was a wonderful thing. And we got to do something that doesn’t happen much these days. There wasn’t free agency then. So we stayed together for a long time.”

“Defense and durability,” writes Al Yellon of the fan website Bleed Cubbie Blue, “is what Don Kessinger brought to the Cubs for eleven years as the starting shortstop. Fans remember Kessinger going far to his right, gloving the ball, and then in one graceful motion, reverse in the air as he whipped the ball to first base to retire the batter.”9

Children who watched Kessinger on television widely copied his “boarding-house reach” on play grounds and in Little League. Cubs pitcher Ferguson Jenkins told Caray, then the Cardinals’ radio voice, in a pregame interview on July 4, 1969, “In the past five games he’s made many great plays to his right. Don has this play down pat.”

Kessinger initially struggled in his first exposure to the big leagues, hitting only .201 and committing a league-leading 28 errors in his rookie year of 1965. Including a Father’s Day doubleheader against the Reds in Cincinnati, Kessinger had started eleven games at shortstop and had already committed nine errors. Despite his throwing miscues, however, Kessinger showed promise with his excellent range, and Cubs manager Lou Klein stuck with him. “That doesn’t worry me,” Klein told reporters. “This boy can play shortstop. That much I know.”10

Reds second baseman Pete Rose gave him some advice. “Pete kept telling me, ‘Relax, relax. Don’t worry. Just throw the ball,’” Kessinger told reporters. “Everybody has been trying to get me to relax. Glenn (Beckert) hollers at me a lot during the games and yells, ‘You okay?’ Then he laughs and smiles and says, ‘Everything alright with you?’”11 Klein told Kessinger the same thing. “If you’re going to throw it away, throw it away good. Don’t be afraid to let loose.”12 Coaches and even sportswriters remained convinced Kessinger would be a star. “There doesn’t seem to be any question that he will be one of baseball’s best shortstops in the near future,” Jerome Holtzman of The Sporting News wrote. Manager Klein agreed. “Put him down in your book,” Klein said. “This boy will make it. And he’ll make it big.”13

Teammate Ron Santo also had confidence in the rookie. “When Kessinger first came up, he made a lot of mistakes,” Santo told reporters going in to the 1966 season. “But after all, he was young, green, and scared.”14 He noted that after being around just a month in the league, Kessinger was already making some fantastic plays. “He has as good an arm as any shortstop in the league and he can make that play in the hole,” Santo said. “There are still a few things that need polishing in his pivot work at second, but he and Beckert were clicking pretty well before the season was over.”15

Kessinger continued to improve his fielding and in 1968 was recognized as one of the National League’s top shortstops when he was voted to start at shortstop in the year’s All-Star game. “I hadn’t been in the league long,” Kessinger recalled. “The All-Star game was in Houston. I’ll never forget walking into the old Astrodome. I walked into the locker room and looked around at Hank Aaron and Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente and Bob Gibson. You think, ‘what am I doing here?’ But I was thrilled to death. I told my wife before the game I hope I do well. I don’t want to make an error. I know I am here because I am supposed to be able to play defense. I’d love to get a hit. But I don’t want to make an error.”16 The midsummer classic was played on July 9, 1968. Kessinger was 0-for-2, but the NL won the game, 1–0.

Kessinger remained a cornerstone of the Cubs infield and repeated as an All-Star each year through 1972 and made the squad again in 1974. “I played in six All-Star games of which we won five,” Kessinger said. “The one we lost (in Detroit) is remembered for the colossal home run Reggie Jackson hit there.”17

In 1969, Kessinger set a major league fielding record for shortstops on June 15 against the Cincinnati Reds when he played his 54th straight errorless game, breaking the single-season record previously set by Chico Carrasquel in 1951. Kessinger’s streak was stopped when he recorded an error in the second game of that day’s doubleheader. “It was a little surprising to me that I went that long without making an error,” Kessinger reflected. “When I finally did make an error, it was a routine ground ball in Cincinnati hit right at me that went right through my legs. You wonder, ‘what did I do different?’”18

Kessinger led NL shortstops three times in putouts, four times in assists, four times in double plays, and once in fielding percentage. He won Gold Gloves in 1969 and 1970. “I always used to pride myself on being the guy who led the league in assists,” Kessinger said. “I always felt like the balls I could get to would help my team.”19

While not known for his offense, Kessinger eventually became a reliable hitter. After his struggles at the plate in 1965, Kessinger decided to try switch-hitting. The 24-year-old reported to the Cubs’ 1966 early-bird spring training camp in Escondido hoping to learn to hit lefty. Lou Klein, who was running the camp, discouraged him. “When I told him I’d like to try switching, Lou said, ‘Look, let’s work with what we’ve got,’” Kessinger said.20 Kessinger spent the spring trying to improve right-handed, but despite Klein’s rebuff, continued to take swings in the batting cage from the left side. New Cubs manager Leo Durocher liked the idea and encouraged it. In mid-May, Durocher was discussing Kessinger with Cubs VP of player personnel John Holland, who told the manager of Kessinger’s interest in switch-hitting. “I said, ‘John, that’s great,’” Durocher recalled. “’We know one thing. This boy isn’t going to hit much right-handed. Let’s try him.’”21

A few days later, on May 19 with the Cubs leading Houston 7–0, Durocher told Kessinger to hit from the left side his next trip to the plate. Kessinger hit a line drive to center off Houston right-hander Gary Kroll, and in his next at-bat—also as a lefty—against Don Lee, lined to shortstop. The Sporting News noted that “from the looks of things now, this move could change him from an ordinary ball player into one with possibilities.”22 Durocher concurred. “He’s going to be a good one, all right,” then corrected himself. “He’s a good one right now.”23

Kessinger said it wasn’t difficult learning to swing from the left side because he had been a basketball player at the University of Mississippi and always had a strong left hand. With the help of coach Pete Reiser, his hitting improved from .228 in the first half of the season to .309 during the second half as he finished at .274. “I felt I had to do this to survive and remain in the big leagues,” Kessinger reflected. “In retrospect, it was the right decision.”24

His best all-around season came in 1969 when he hit .273 with career highs in home runs, hits, runs, doubles, and RBIs. On June 17, 1971, Kessinger had his best day ever at the plate when he went 6-for-6 against the Cardinals, becoming the 62nd player in league history to get six hits in one game. He remains one of the last Cubs players to achieve the feat. “It was a week’s work in one day,” said manager Leo Durocher.25 Kessinger led the Cubs to a 7–6 10-inning victory over the Cardinals with five singles and a double, scoring three runs and knocking in one. “It’s just one of those once-in-a-lifetime things,” Kessinger told reporters.26 “And I’m glad it wasn’t wasted because we won the game.” Teammate Joe Pepitone, who had helped propel the Cubs with his bat to three wins in the last week, joked, “I’m glad you guys finally helped out. I can’t keep doing it all every day.” Kessinger added, “You just have to be lucky to have a day like this. I was just swinging the bat and the hits just kept falling in.”

Kessinger got four of those hits against Steve Carlton and remembers not wanting to play that day. “When I left home that morning to come to the ball park I said to my wife Carolyn that I wished it would rain us out. In fact, I’d like to have a day off just to rest a little,” Kessinger reflected. “I told her Steve Carlton was pitching. He was a great pitcher. You don’t usually have a lot of luck against a great pitcher like Steve… I just went to the park and my first four at-bats I had line drive base hits off Steve. It’s another one of those things that’s not supposed to happen to a guy like me.”27

From 1967 through 1972, the Cubs fielded one of the best teams in baseball. In addition to that famous infield, the team also had standouts Randy Hundley at catcher, future Hall of Famer Billy Williams in left field, and a stellar starting trio of Ferguson Jenkins (also a future Hall-of-Famer), Bill Hands, and Ken Holtzman. “They worked hard and cared about playing,” Kessinger said. “Billy Williams is the best hitter I ever played with. He had such a sweet swing. He could just hit. And Fergie was just a model of consistency. If he told you he was going to pitch a guy a certain way … that’s what he did. He had the ability to do it. We just had a good ballclub.”28

But despite a record of 515 wins and 449 losses over that six-year span, the Cubs never won a pennant or even made it to the post-season. The Cubs finished second three times (1969, 1970, and 1972) and third three times (1967, 1968, and 1971).

Don Kessinger will go to his grave believing that the Cubs had a better team in 1969 than the eventual NL East champion New York Mets. Many sports historians have called the 1969 Cubs team the greatest second-place team of all time. The season started with high hopes for the Cubs but ended in one of the most monumental collapses in Chicago baseball history. From Opening Day on, the Cubs held first place for 155 days, but a late-season 8–18 swoon and a concurrent Mets surge reversed the course. The Cubs led the Mets by 9½ games on August 14 but ended the season in second place, eight games out.

So what caused the collapse? Was it bad luck? A black cat appeared on the field during a 7–1 loss to the Mets on September 9 that reduced the Cubs lead to half a game. Or was the team just worn down? Sportswriters of the time and historians have noted that the Cubs’ offense, fielding, and pitching all failed during that last crucial month. From August 1 through the end of the season the heart of the Cubs lineup slumped. Kessinger was batting .296 but hit only .223 the rest of the season. In Durocher’s Cubs: The Greatest Team That Didn’t Win, author David Claerbaut concludes that Durocher bears the brunt of the blame because he failed to adequately use his bench. He rode his veterans hard and created unnecessary tension by fighting with players, sportswriters, and even fans.

Looking back, Kessinger believes the race turned on a combination of factors and is quick to give the Mets their due credit. “Everybody has an opinion of what happened,” Kessinger said in a December 2014 interview. “But the main thing that happened was the Mets won, like, 38 games. Let’s don’t forget they earned it. The last month, nobody was better than them.”29 He believes that playing all day games without much rest also took a toll on the Cubs. “I speak for me, but yes, I think down the stretch we were more tired than some of the other teams,” Kessinger continued. “I’m not criticizing Leo for not playing other players. I think when we reached for the little extra, it wasn’t there. And it did get tough because the Mets won every day. Daggum, we were looking at them and they won every day…not that we choked or folded. It appears that we did. But I will never remember it that way. For a period of three or four years we were as good as any team in baseball. And I will go to my grave believing we were the best team in baseball [in 1969]. And for a lot of days we proved it.”30

The Cubs would never be the same though after 1969. Over the next few years, Kessinger watched as ownership packed off the players from that famous team. Ernie Banks retired in 1971. Ken Holtzman went to Oakland in 1972. Ron Santo and Glenn Beckert were traded after the 1973 season to the White Sox and San Diego Padres. Pitcher Ferguson Jenkins also went in 1973 to Texas, and batting star Billy Williams was traded after the 1974 season to Oakland. Randy Hundley was traded to the Twins in 1973. And Jim Hickman went to the Cardinals in 1974. By then, Kessinger was the last remaining player from the 1969 team.

Then, in October 1975, after 11 seasons with the Cubs, Kessinger was traded to the Cardinals for pitcher Mike Garman and a player to be named. The move came as no surprise. “I knew halfway through that season that I was the last one remaining and they were making changes in the organization,” Kessinger reflected. “Jim Marshall had come in as the new manager. So I knew at the end of the year that I was likely not coming back.”31

Kessinger had a somewhat down year for the Cubs in 1975. He batted .243 but also hit 26 doubles and 10 triples. As a ten-year veteran, Kessinger could have refused the trade, but instead was excited to be going to the Cardinals, a good team and the one he had rooted for as a kid. “Kind of ironic isn’t it?” Kessinger said. “I mean, 11 years a Cub. The Cardinals were our arch-enemies. Not that I minded. As a kid in Forest City [Arkansas] I grew up as a Cardinals fan. Let’s just say this was a good trade from a personal standpoint. You see, I wanted to go to a club that had a chance of winning.”32

He also felt he still had a few more good years of baseball left. “I certainly haven’t lost any of my speed,” Kessinger said. “Far from it. I’ve still got the range at short. I can do more now to help a club than I ever could. I’m a better hitter now than I’ve ever been. And I’m a smarter ball player.”33

Cardinals general manager Bing Devine noted that Kessinger was still solid in the field, still possessed a good batting eye, and “has been especially durable. He misses few games annually, and never missed four in a row.”34 Kessinger was sad to leave the Cubs and Chicago, but did so with no bitterness. “I have nothing but respect for the Cubs,” Kessinger said at the time of the trade. “I enjoyed my 11 years with them. I wish them nothing but the best for all concerned.”35

Kessinger’s stay in St. Louis, though, proved short. The 33-year-old hit only .239 for the Cardinals and lost his starting job to Garry Templeton. In August 1977, Kessinger was traded to the White Sox for pitcher Steve Staniland. “The Cardinals brought up Garry Templeton at the end of the year,” Kessinger said. “He was their prospect of the future. And I knew it was going to be that way. I was going to be in a utility role. They had asked me to work with Garry. I wanted to play, but I was content to do that.”36

Kessinger was glad to return to Chicago. “I just talked to Bill Veeck and I can’t tell you how it feels to be returning to a place where you’re really wanted,” Kessinger said. “Returning to Chicago is returning to my baseball home.”37 Kessinger’s wife was also glad to be returning to Chicago, albeit to the south side. “We sold our home in Northbrook when the Cubs traded us,” she said. “Now we have a permanent home in Memphis. But we’ll get to Chicago and find us quarters on the north shore. Oh goodness. We’re southsiders now, aren’t we?”38

The Sox had acquired Kessinger to shore up a leaky infield; everyday shortstop Alan Bannister had made 28 errors. Kessinger’s first game at Comiskey Park came August 22, 1977, against the Yankees. Manager Bob Lemon inserted him as a pinch-runner in the seventh inning. Kessinger admitted he was nervous about the reception he would get from the fans after having spent all those years with the Cubs, but he needn’t have worried. “One of the greatest days of my life was my first game in Comiskey,” Kessinger recalled. “I was sitting on the bench and Bob Lemon came down to see me and said if Lamar Johnson gets on base, you go and run for him. I’m not sure if I wanted Lamar to get a hit or not. My thing was, ‘are they going to hate me for being a Cub?’ But when I ran on that field they gave me a standing ovation. It was the most heartwarming feeling I ever had in baseball. When I was standing at second base with tears running down my face Bucky Dent, the shortstop for the Yankees, came up and said, ‘What have you done to these people?’ I said, ‘Man, I don’t know. But don’t tell them any different.’ I had no idea. But they certainly treated me with unbelievable respect.”39

Kessinger played in 131 games for the White Sox in 1978 and was owner Bill Veeck’s surprise choice to manage the team in 1979. Veeck told the media that Kessinger had “outstanding leadership qualities and would be particularly suited to leading the young defensive club that the Sox will field next year. The youngsters confide in him. While he is a nice man, he’s also a very determined man with a desire to win in a nice, quiet, decent way.”40 Kessinger replaced Larry Doby, who had taken over after Bob Lemon was fired.

“It’s very difficult for me to replace Larry Doby,” Kessinger told the press. “It is difficult for me to take over from a good friend. I didn’t solicit the job. But I’m delighted at getting the job and also very happy for our new coaching staff because of my inexperience as manager.”41 Veeck had taken out some insurance by hiring Bobby Winkles, a highly successful coach at Arizona State University and former manager of the A’s, and Joe Sparks, who had been managing the Iowa farm team for the last two seasons, as coaches. “I’m more a Bob Lemon personality,” Kessinger said. “But I learned a lot from Leo (Durocher). He was tough to play for because he was tough to please.”

Kessinger recalled that he took the job reluctantly. His career was winding down and he was looking forward to spending more time with his family. “Bill Veeck called me in toward the end of the 1978 season and said ‘Have you ever thought about managing?’ I said, ‘Yeah, Bill. I don’t think I want to. My kids are living back in Memphis. I think when I am through I’m going to watch my kids grow up because I am missing too much of what they are doing. He said, ‘Well, I’m talking about the White Sox.’”42 Kessinger told Veeck he would think about it and to talk to him about it again once the season was done. “After the season was over he called me and said ‘we don’t have a manager. I want to talk to you,’” Kessinger said. “So I did—reluctantly. But the challenge was there. And I just can’t not do it. So I did.”43

Kessinger became the last playing manager, to date, in American League history. And he saw his share of strange events. He was managing the Sox on July 12, 1979, the date of the infamous “Disco Demolition Night.” The idea was to demolish a pile of disco records in a symbolic cooling down of disco fever. Fans bringing in a disco record got into the game for 98 cents.

During a break between games of the night’s doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers, Steve Dahl, a disc jockey with Chicago’s WLUP-FM, whipped the crowd into a frenzy during a ceremony that ended with him blowing up a crate of disco records in center field. Thousands of fans surged onto the field and “what began as a fun tongue-in-cheek event quickly became ugly.”44 Riot police were called in and made arrests but “were hard put to control the mob which shouted obscenities and tore the park up.”45 Police Lt. Robert Reilly remarked, “It’s as bad as the night the Beatles were here.”46 Police made 39 arrests that night and it took 90 minutes to restore order. The field was unplayable and the Sox were forced to forfeit the game.

Kessinger locked his team in the locker room. “It was a terrible night,” Kessinger recalled. “It was a case of a promotion that was too successful. Nobody saw it coming. I can tell you while we were warming up the stands were chanting ‘Disco sucks!’ the whole time. It just kept going. And people kept coming in. Half were there to watch the ball game and half were there to blow up disco records. And it just got to be a chant constantly and just a really bad deal. I was hoping Steve would calm them down. He walked up to that microphone and he uttered those two words were the first thing he screamed into the mike. I’m sure he was surprised at what happened. It just incited everyone at that point. People piled out of the stands and onto the field. It was just a bad thing. I told all my players to get in the locker room. We locked that door.”47

Unfortunately, Kessinger’s tenure as manager did not progress much better. With the team languishing in fifth place, 14 games out of first place, Kessinger asked Bill Veeck to have lunch with him on August 2. The Sox had just completed a 1–8 home stand and were going nowhere. Kessinger told Veeck the club was “playing with a bad attitude” and he didn’t know how to stop the slide. He surprised him by offering to resign. “I realized halfway through the season we weren’t playing that well, and this isn’t what I wanted to do in the future,” Kessinger recalled. “I went in there and just told him. I said ‘Bill, I’m not going to come back next year. We’re not going anywhere this year. It’s your call. I’ll finish the season, or you can call up Tony LaRussa from Triple-A, which I’m sure he was going to do.”48

At a press conference, Veeck cited Kessinger’s “class” and “integrity” but made no effort to talk him out of resigning, telling reporters “No, because it was his decision. And you know he’s not a fellow given to hasty decisions, and I obviously had to respect what he wanted to do. He felt it would be helpful if we tried to shake up some of the athletes with a different management.”49 Kessinger added, “I don’t really blame myself for what’s happened, nor do I think Bill Veeck blames me for what happened. I just said to him that I felt maybe a change would help. Bill agreed that a change might help us. I don’t think I did a bad job, and I don’t think Bill feels that way either.” Kessinger also removed himself from the team’s active roster, retiring having played in 2,078 games with a lifetime batting average of .252.

“Chicago is a great sports town,” Kessinger reflected. “I was absolutely blessed to have played there. Their fans just adopted this good ol’ southern boy and treated me like a king. I have nothing but fond memories. I’m just unbelievably thankful to the White Sox for allowing me to finish on such a high note.”50 And, he added, “being able to live in a great city and playing in Wrigley Field were special. Having Hall of Fame teammates such as Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ferguson Jenkins, and Ron Santo made my career extra special.”51

MARK RANDALL, an award-winning journalist, has for the past 15 years worked at newspapers in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Florida, Utah, Arizona, Alabama, and Utah. He has lived in northeast Arkansas for the past nine years and currently covers local government for the West Memphis Evening Times. Although originally from Massachusetts, he was raised by his grandfather as a New York Yankees fan. While not a hateful person, he absolutely hates the Boston Red Sox. His articles about George Kell and Wally Moon have been published in the “Baseball Research Journal.”

NOTES

All three teams slumped after July 17. In this article we will view ten players from each team as lenses through which to view the highlights of a campaign dotted with no-hitters,1 blockbuster trades, Black Sox foreshadowing, and a photo-finish pennant race.

Note that standings discussed in this article relate to games ahead or behind, rather than by percentage points.

CUBS CRESTING

After Hank O’Day’s Cubs finished fourth in 1914, Roger Bresnahan took over a team with two offensive mainstays. One, third baseman Heinie Zimmerman, hit .307 or higher in 1911, 1912, and 1913, and in 1914 led Chicago in batting average and slugging percentage. After the season, however, Zimmerman considered quitting,2 failed to win back fines he had paid for misconduct during 1914,3 and fantasized about playing for the Giants.4 Bresnahan “announce[d] … that Zimmerman would not be traded under any consideration”5 then tried to swap him for New York’s Larry Doyle or Cincinnati’s Heinie Groh.6

“In 1912, [Zimmerman] had married seventeen-year-old Helene Chasar, but the marriage quickly dissolved and in January 1915, she had sued for alimony, alleging that Zimmerman had sent … no support.”7 The case hounded Zimmerman, perhaps explaining his subpar 1915 season.

The second potent bat, first baseman Vic Saier, led the 1914 Cubs in walks and OPS; his hitting and health drove the rise and fall of the 1915 Cubs. Unlike Zimmerman, Saier had “a quiet winter … [and] is ready … for the season to start.”8

With Larry Cheney, who’d won 20 games each year from 1912–1914, and Hippo Vaughn, also a 20-game winner in 1914, Bresnahan had “a pitching staff … loaded with holdover contracts,”9 a key given the raids on NL and AL staffs by the Federal League. Bresnahan released George McConnell, who had twelve wins over four seasons, and kept Karl Adams, who briefly appeared with the 1914 Reds. McConnell would star for the Whales while Adams would struggle for the Cubs.10

Chicago moved into a first-place tie May 21 and occupied first place for all but eleven days through July 17. Statistics through that date show Saier providing slugging and George Pierce—who had notched 22 wins in the previous two seasons—offsetting Cheney’s mediocrity with good mound work. Jimmy Lavender won his debut, but hurt his ribs11 and went more than a month until his next start. Bert Humphries, hobbled in training,12 missed the season’s first seventeen games.

Lacking Lavender and Humphries, Bresnahan leaned on Vaughn and Cheney. Yanking George Washington “Zip” Zabel from the hill in the season’s fourth game, Bresnahan used both Vaughn and Cheney in a 7–4 loss. Heinie Zimmerman, kicked out of games more than any other NL player in 1915, “after being good for three whole days in succession, became peevish over being called out at second … and … tried to bean an umpire with a practice ball between innings.”13

In late April, Zimmerman began playing second base, and the Cubs commenced a season-high seven-game winning streak “in spite of the heavy handicap of a short-handed pitching staff.”14

Eleven days after the streak ended, Zimmerman, “threatened … with jail”15 over alimony, nearly blew a Humphries gem. Fielding a bouncer with a man on first, Zimmerman “started to throw to second, saw it was too late, then made a wild peg to first and lost both men.”16 Humphries, however, preserved a 1–0 win over New York.

Lavender returned to the rotation May 21, downing Boston 3–2 to push the Cubs into a first-place tie for the first time since opening day. Chicago swept the series with the defending champions as Zimmerman went 9-for-14 with six doubles and a homer.

Chicago slipped to second after losing two straight to Philadelphia between June 9 and 12, but Vaughn returned the Cubs to first after consecutive starts against Boston. He lasted just one inning in a 6–4 win, but after an off-day tossed a shutout. Cheney started and lost the third Boston game, which Zimmerman exited early with a spike wound.17

The loss kept the Cubs in a first-place tie, but a 19-inning 4–3 win over Brooklyn on June 17 gave Chicago sole possession of first, which it held through July 12. Zimmerman missed this game and the next three, the first four of a six-game winning streak jumpstarted by the extraordinarily long contest during which “Humphries’ hand was split”18 in the first inning. Humphries missed ten days.

Saier’s homer in the bottom of the fifteenth prolonged the June 17 contest; Chicago won on an error, rewarding Zabel for an amazing 18 1/3 innings in relief.

Saier’s power (a single, triple, and two homers) spurred the Cubs to a three-game sweep of Brooklyn. Baseball Magazine raved that Saier’s “tremendous drives seem to come just when they win or tie.”19

Zimmerman dramatically returned on June 24, after Chicago blew a 10–9 ninth-inning lead as St. Louis scored four. With one out in the home ninth, one in, and two on, he pinch-doubled, tying the game. A groundout advanced Zimmerman after which he swiped home “on one leg with the winning tally and made the final count 14 to 13.”20

After beating the Cardinals again, the Cubs had a season-high 4½-game lead, but, in the first of three bad streaks in little more than one month, Chicago scored just six runs in six games and lost four of them.

On June 28, after lollygagging, Zimmerman “was ordered out of the game and fined $100.”21 Replacement Polly McLarry made a key bottom-of-the-ninth fumble in the loss. The next day, Zimmerman filed for divorce after a failed reconciliation.22 The day after that, he was caught looking and ejected for throwing “his bat to the bench … there was nothing short of murder in the second degree in Zim’s eyes and attitude as he started after the umpire.”23 McLarry entered again and made another error, this one figuring in a 1–0 defeat.

On July 2, “the Great Zim … wrecked a splendid stop by a wild throw to first, giving the visitors a run in the fourth inning.”24 Tied 1–1 in the ninth, the game went Chicago’s way on Saier’s RBI single.

Grantland Rice noted similarities among, Saier’s, Ty Cobb’s, and Sam Crawford’s statistics although “no one had figured the quiet, retiring worker on the Cubs even close to their class.”25 Of his ex-teammate, Johnny Evers added, “When you … take fielding and all around work … there is no player … who is a better man than Saier.”26

Facing an eighteen-game road trip that began with a win at Pittsburgh, the first-place Cubs acquired New York’s Red Murray, who “favored … the Cubs because he suspects they are going to win the pennant this year and get a lot of bonus money.”27

The Cubs fell into a bad streak immediately, however, blowing a 7–1 lead at Brooklyn and falling 8–7 in ten. The Cubs scored twice in the first. “They might have had more, but Heinie Zim forgot how many were out and jogged into a putout…. When Saier fanned, with the call three and two, Zim started for second, but although he seemed to have the base stolen, he stopped when he saw Saier had missed … and … was run down.”28

Brooklyn swept four from Chicago, and New York then took two from the Cubs. In the July 12 Brooklyn game, Pierce “strained his side reaching for a high bounder”29 and would sit for eight days. Pierce, 9–1 at that time, was just 2–8 in his next ten decisions.

On July 13, Humphries blew a 3–0 lead against the Giants, yielding a pair of runs in the eighth and ninth in another tough New York City loss.

Chicago recovered to win three of five, capped by Cheney besting Philadelphia’s Pete Alexander 4–0 on July 17, the last day the Cubs shared first place.

SOX SURGING

At 70–84, the 1914 White Sox were Chicago’s only major league team with a losing record. The Sox finished 30 games behind Philadelphia, who would lose to Boston in the World Series; this was one impetus for Connie Mack to dismantle his last great Deadball team. Mack’s moves in turn effected a transformation of the White Sox.

Mack considered dealing 1914 AL Chalmers (MVP) Award winner Eddie Collins to New York, but Chicago owner Charlie Comiskey secured Collins, making “1915 … the dawn of a new era for the White Sox,”30 then announced an unknown minor-league skipper, Clarence “Pants” Rowland, as Chicago manager.

Collins moved one reporter to verse:

He’s a daisy, he’s a dandy,
He’s a wonder at the game,
He’s a corking second-baseman;
Every rooter knows his name.

He’s a peach at stopping grounders
As they skim across the dirt;
He’s chockfull of pop and ginger,
And he plays for all he’s worth.

He is just as good as Evers
When it comes to brain and wits,
And he is just as fast as Milan
At beating infield hits.

They may talk about Joe Jackson,
Tyrus Cobb and all the rest,
But when it comes to picking stars,
We’d pick Collins with the best.

Last year he won the Chalmers car,
He well deserved the same,
So, here’s hats off to Eddie Collins;
He’s a credit to the game.31

Other newcomers would soon join Collins, with “the greatest interest … in ‘Happy’ Felch (sic), the stalwart young outfielder from Milwaukee, who is expected to make good with the south siders.”32

Only a year older than Felsch, Buck Weaver, at 24, had completed three seasons as the Sox shortstop and tied for seventh in the 1914 Chalmers balloting. Interestingly, in an early association with gambling, Weaver “suddenly decided to become a business man. Before the impulse left him he purchased a billiard hall and barber shop on the south side.”33

Ex-Yankees manager Frank Chance liked how the Sox looked, saying, “Rowland has at his disposal a wonderful pitching staff, and the keystone defense—Eddie Collins and Buck Weaver … should form an ironclad infield.”34

In 1914, that wonderful pitching staff included Joe Benz, Eddie Cicotte, Jim Scott, and Reb Russell, with rookie Red Faber relieving more than starting. Rowland, who had first recommended Faber to Chicago, made him a starter. Less successfully, Rowland shifted Lena Blackburne from second base to third due to the arrival of Eddie Collins—the second Collins on the team along with outfielder Shano Collins.

Through July 17, Eddie Collins led the attack. Faber, already exceeding his innings thrown in 1914, and Scott each had ten more wins than losses.

Faber won the first two games of 1915, including a 16–0 rout of the Browns in which he himself had four hits and yielded just seven. St. Louis dealt with Collins the way many teams would in 1915, passing him four times. Collins eventually topped the AL with 119 walks, by far his career high.

Chicago lost six in a row after their first two victories, with a two-out, three-run homer by Hank Severeid transforming a seemingly sure Sox win into a 4–3 loss that dethroned Chicago from first. The Sox then lost four straight at Detroit.

When the team returned home, it got hot again. Starting with a five run rally when down 4–0 against St. Louis in the bottom of the ninth, Chicago won nine of its first ten home games. Shano Collins tied the game with a two-out triple in the ninth, scoring Eddie Collins, and Shano scored the winner on a passed ball. Faber won with six relief innings and would capture his next seven decisions.

Faber reportedly threw just 67 pitches in nine innings (50 strikes and 17 balls), retiring the side on one pitch per batter in both the third and fifth, in a 4–1 win over Washington May 12.35

The Sox moved into a virtual tie for first after beating Boston 3–2 in 17 innings on May 21 behind Faber’s ten winning frames in relief. “From the tenth to the seventeenth he allowed only two hits and walked nobody.”36 Backup catcher Tom Daly’s pinch-single secured the win.

Chicago swept the Boston series. Eddie Collins created an insurance run in the finale with his “nerve and footwork in going from first to third on [first baseman Jack] Fournier’s sacrifice bunt”37 in the seventh in a 4–2 win.

The Sox then swept three from New York to extend its winning streak to nine. Shano Collins saved the second Yankee contest, throwing out speedster Fritz Maisel trying to score from second on a single with two outs in the ninth to preserve a 7–6 lead.

On May 30, Cleveland ended Chicago’s streak, and on June 7 someone—Boston—finally beat Faber. “Faber showed speed, command and a neat moist ball”38 in yielding four hits, two walks, and one earned run but lost 3–0 as Chicago fell from first for the only time between May 21 and July 18.

Chicago took the finale in Boston and the first two in New York. Faber started against the Yanks and had led 8–1 lead in the bottom of the fourth. But Russell, in relief, lost the game, which ended with Daly flying into a double play with the tying run gunned down at home, reversing the ending of the game when Shano Collins had thrown out Fritz Maisel.

Washington took two of three from Chicago, but the streaky Sox took nine in a row and 14 of 15. After a three-game sweep in Philadelphia, Sporting Life predicted “a picnic for the White Sox if they do not become overconfident or get badly crippled.”39

Chicago kept rolling during a week in Cleveland with six straight wins, the last of which took 19 innings. Faber, in the midst of a strange batting streak of seven walks in eight plate appearances,40 survived five Chicago errors in the third of these games, a complete-game triumph over at Cleveland. “Buck Weaver was chief messer of the afternoon, being charged with three mistakes. He dropped a ridiculously easy pop fly, heaved one to the grand stand back of first base, and kicked one all over the infield, which was considerable messing.”41

Weaver redeemed himself in the 19th “when, with two men out, [he] lined a single to left field, his fifth blow of the game, and legged it home a moment later when Eddie Collins crashed a two bagger far down the left foul line.”42 On one day of rest, Faber won, hurling 11 scoreless innings, yielding three hits, and fanning nine.

After losing the Cleveland finale, Chicago took five from St. Louis and Detroit, giving the Sox a season-high six-game cushion in first place before losing five to the same two teams. Faber dropped a pair of games against the Tigers, the second of which occurred when he again appeared with just one day of rest. Down 7–1 after six on July 4, the Sox plated one in the seventh and five in the eighth, but Faber walked in the winning run in the bottom of the tenth for a disappointing 8–7 defeat.

In his 670-game career, Faber stole just seven bases, but swiped second, third, and home in one sequence against Philadelphia on July 14. Chicago led, and rain threatened to end the game before it had become official. Joe Bush “soaked him in the slats with a pitched ball. Red kept right on running after reaching first base, but the Athletics refused to put him out. When Faber was on the way to third Bush tossed the ball back to [catcher Wally] Schang and Schang tossed it back, although the runner was within easy reach of him.”43 The weather held, however, and Faber won a complete game.

Boston followed Philadelphia to Chicago, and after an opening doubleheader split on July 17, the White Sox had a 1½-game lead and seemed well-positioned to snare the 1915 pennant.

WHALES WINNING

The Chi-Feds had the best 1914 record among the local clubs at 87–67, finishing 1½ out of first. Unlike its older neighbors, the Federals kept their manager, Joe Tinker, for 1915. Tinker spent the offseason recruiting players.

Chicago’s powerful catcher, Art Wilson, had the FL’s sixth-highest OPS in 1914, but his two backups hit .188 with no homers, figures that William Fischer of Brooklyn, who jumped to the FL for 1915, would easily exceed.

Eddie Plank rejected Chicago, but days later, a headline blared, “Chicago Feds Sign Walter Johnson for Two Years.”44 The FL St. Louis Terriers had offered Johnson a three-year contract, but Chicago owner Charlie Weeghman suggested the same money for fewer years. Plank “was then awarded to the St. Louis Club for its part in signing Johnson.”45

Johnson, of course, never pitched for Chicago, instead returning to Washington, where he would torment the White Sox, but Plank stayed and went 21–11 with a 2.08 ERA. Instead of Johnson, the newly named Whales, a sublime joy for jokey sportswriters,46 inked Mordecai Brown. “Tinker doesn’t expect Brown to work as often as he did … but thinks he will turn out just as strong hurling … if not called upon more than … every five or six days.”47

Outfielder Les Mann, whose ninth-inning single beat Plank in Game 2 of the 1914 World Series, also joined Chicago. “Tinker wanted [Mann] particularly because he is a right handed hitter, and the Tinx of last year were overset with left handed batters,”48 including first baseman Fred Beck, and outfielders Max Flack, Al Wickland, and Dutch Zwilling. Shortstop Jimmy Smith switch-hit.

Through July 17, the catchers and outfielders led the attack in support of three workhorse pitchers, paced by George McConnell, who could not make the Cubs. Claude Hendrix, who went 29–10 with a 1.69 ERA over 362 innings in 1914, “has been slow in rounding to. He was late in reporting”49 and pitched inconsistently in 1915.

Hendrix bested Plank in the season opener 3–1 as Chicago rallied with three in the eighth. Mann reprised his heroics from Game Two of the 1914 World Series with another late-inning RBI single off Plank, and Wilson had the go-ahead hit.

After rain postponed the rest of the St. Louis series, McConnell, “mixing a good spitball with a terrific fast ball,”50 made his FL debut in relief against Pittsburgh. Down 3–0 in the home sixth, Chicago again rallied, giving McConnell his first win.

Although he yielded but three hits and one earned run in eight innings, Brown lost his debut on April 15, dropping a 3–1 decision to Pittsburgh. Teenage shortstop Jimmy Smith’s two errors gave him four in three games.

Smith also sparked the Whales to two wins, however. On April 16, he worked a ninth-inning walk and scored the winning run. The following day, with Chicago losing 1–0, Smith homered in the sixth and singled in the eighth as Hendrix improved to 2–0. Unfortunately, Kansas City’s Grover Gilmore “ran his spike into Smith’s hand,”51 slowing the rookie down in an April 24 game that rain kept from becoming official.

Brown’s first win sparked a five-game streak that left Chicago, on May 3, two games up in the race. This would be the team’s largest lead of 1915.

Six straight losses, five by one run and one by two, sank the Whales to fourth. Without Smith, Tinker played shortstop on occasion and sometimes played third with Rollie Zeider at short. On May 6, he went 3-for-4 with a double and triple, the last extra-base hits and multi-hit game of his career. Taking pregame infield the following day, Tinker “suffered a rupture in his right side”52 and thereafter mostly managed.

Smith returned May 10, just prior to a Pittsburgh trip where Hendrix, originally a Pirate, no-hit the Rebels. “James Savage was the last man up, and he drove the long foul to Leslie Mann, who made a great running catch … while many … rushed the field and congratulated the big Whale spitball pitcher for his accomplishment.”53

Chicago won another thriller back home, rallying twice against Baltimore’s Chief Bender. Down 5–2 with two outs in the eighth, the Whales got three. In the tenth, McConnell yielded a run, but Chicago once again scored multiple times with two down, getting a two-run pinch-single to win. Smith scored in both rallies, but made his eighth error in fifteen games.

Through the first six weeks of the season, Brown had pitched sparingly. He went nine innings May 22, but then the Whales split a doubleheader and trailed Buffalo 3–2. Buffalo hurler Gene Krapp, who lived down to his name by passing eleven, walked a man with the bases full to force home Flack with the tying tally in the ninth. Flack’s hit in the 14th won the game, making Brown, who yielded three hits in seven and a third relief innings, the winner on one day of rest.

First baseman Beck was hurt in Buffalo and missed six games. Bill Jackson replaced him and drew a bases-loaded walk to force in the winning run in Brown’s next appearance, a complete-game, eleven-inning 2-1 effort in the second half of a May 31 doubleheader against Kansas City. This win brought Chicago into a first-place tie, but the club then dropped six straight to fall to fifth. Led by McConnell (who won nine straight from June 6 through July 8), the Whales then captured 14 of 21 road contests, including the final six.

Brown nearly matched Hendrix on June 18, pitching “a near no hit no run game against the Buffalo Feds. One lone blow was all that separated Brownie from the much coveted record. Percy Dalton was the offender, getting the safe swat beyond question in the eighth inning, and that after Brown had put two strikes over him.”54

On June 19, Chicago seemingly beat Baltimore 8–1. With the bases loaded and one out in the first inning, Smith broke for home after a wild third strike, but the throw beat him, so he left the field thinking the Terrapins had retired him. The other runners advanced, however, and a dispute ensued. “While this was going on Smith ran out from the bench and touched the plate. Umpire Johnstone called him safe and the run counted. He contended that a play had to be made on Smith, as it was not a force out at the plate. [Baltimore] contended Smith was automatically out for running to the bench.”55

The FL upheld the protest, ordering a replay, although more than one month later the official standings still, erroneously, included the game.56 Hendrix lost credit for a complete-game win as well as two hits, including a homer, and the Whales lost a win.

Brown threw a second shutout 11 days after his one-hitter, giving up four Newark hits. Fischer drove in the only run following Flack’s walk and attempted steal of second, which resulted in a fielding error. “Only the great speed of Flack enabled him to score on a close play at the plate.”57

Unlike Brown, McConnell struggled at Newark, and Chicago trailed 6–1 late before breaking through in the ninth. “The sudden rally of the Whales was a thriller and all the serious damage was done after two men were out in the ninth round.”58 Chicago had good-hitting pitchers, which helped on this day. McConnell tripled, one of 25 extra-base hits from Brown, Hendrix, and McConnell in 1915. Fischer later tripled and scored the tying run. In the bottom of the eleventh, McConnell escaped a bases-loaded, no-out jam, and Beck won the game with an RBI single in the twelfth.

The Whales completed the sweep with another extra-inning win. Chicago busted a scoreless tie with three in the top of the twelfth. Flack legged out a double and scored following a sacrifice and Jackson’s bunt single. Although he had started two days earlier, “Brown had been warming up for several innings and was ready to be called upon.”59 Allowing two inherited runners to score by hitting consecutive batters, Brown saved the win and lowered his ERA to a season-best 1.41.

The Whales went back on the road after a home week. A Hendrix-Plank rematch in St. Louis resulted in 13 scoreless frames. Plank yielded one hit in that span, a Hendrix double. In the fourteenth, Jackson walked, took second on a single by Mann—still Plank’s nemesis—and scored when an outfielder played Hendrix’s fly into another double. Mann also tallied, and Hendrix fanned ten in his 2–0 shutout.

His winning streak over after losing in relief, McConnell won at St. Louis on July 14, edging the Whales back into a first-place tie for the first time since May 31. Chicago completed the St. Louis sweep, split a Brooklyn doubleheader, and held sole possession of first on July 17, the last time all three Chicago teams occupied first place. By the end of the 1915 season, fans of two of the clubs would find it hard to believe that such success had actually transpired.

CUBS COLLAPSING

After July 17, the Cubs fell apart. The offense scored nearly one fewer run per game, and Adams pitched horribly. Bolded OPS and ERA figures indicate performance declines compared to earlier data.

Beginning July 19, Chicago suffered its third and worst bad streak with three 1–0 losses, four other one-run losses, and a two-run loss. The July 20 game against Philadelphia encapsulates the Cubs’ sudden collapse.

Zimmerman did not run out a grounder, so Bresnahan fined him $25 after the sixth inning. Next, Saier scored on a double steal but “hooked his foot on the plate and sprained a tendon in his leg so badly that he had to be carried off … for repairs.”60 Finally, after Chicago had taken a 5–2 lead into the bottom of the eighth, Cheney relieved, retired two, but gave up two hits, erred, and threw consecutive wild pitches to help Philadelphia score six and eventually win 8–6. The performance likely expedited Cheney’s exit from Chicago and, worse, Saier never regained his fantastic form.

Bresnahan moved regular catcher Jimmy Archer to first and took over the catching duties until breaking his toe July 23. He would never again have an extra-base hit in the majors. His spirits broke, too: “Bresnahan has lost faith in a lot of his players … He made the statement … that he had only three or four men … who were really trying.”61 John McGraw agreed with his former backstop, blasting the Cubs for “not hustling as hard as they did.”62

On the marathon road trip, “Eighteen games were played, and the Cubs won only four of them. Bad luck, bad playing and injuries put the Cubs out of first place…”63

Saier returned for the first half of a July 30 doubleheader, the last game of the losing streak, but “hurt his lame knee in the second inning … and had to retire.”64 Missing three more games, he would—oddly—pinch-run to score the winning tally on a Murray hit on August 5, the middle match of a five-game winning streak that got Chicago within 1½ games of first.

The Cubs got no closer. Brooklyn beat Chicago four straight, with the nadir “the most one-sided and farcical baseball exhibition staged this season on the West Side grounds,”65 a 13–0 rout during which George Cutshaw went 6-for-6.

Five days later, the Cubs still had some fight in them. Against St. Louis, “an error by Zimmerman let in two runs. After the players returned to the bench, several got after Heinie for loafing after fumbling the ball. Had he hustled after fumbling he might have cut off one of the runs.”66 Zimmerman tried to punch Pierce, but hit a better pitcher, Vaughn, in the mouth instead, splitting the peacemaker’s lip.

Instead of fighting each other, Chicago killed itself with kindness after battling back from a 4–0 hole to tie Boston on August 26. Chicago should have surged ahead, but Archer fell rounding third. A teammate, coaching, “placed his hands kindly on [Archer] … The minute he held his hands on the crippled base runner the alert Evers ran crying to Umpire O’Day, calling his attention to the illegal act, and Hank promptly called Archer out,”67 and the game ended in a tie.

Languishing in fourth in late August, Chicago traded Cheney, who had “trouble with his arm and has been pounded harder than ever before,”68 to Brooklyn for infielder Joe Schultz Sr., who played just seven games for the Cubs. Lavender responded two days later by no-hitting New York. “His mastery of the situation was supreme. The Giants were as helpless as infants before his delivery. Just how helpless is shown by the fact that only twice … was the ball driven beyond the infield.”69

Lavender, however, faltered in relief two appearances after this no-hitter as the Cubs fell to fifth after an excruciating doubleheader loss to the Cardinals. In Game One, Lavender entered in the twelfth and hit a batter with the bases loaded, giving Chicago the loss; the bags had been filled by a hit, a fielder’s choice, and a walk. The Cardinals scored two runs batting out of order, but Bresnahan failed to protest in time, so the tallies counted.

Although not the losing pitcher against St. Louis, Lavender would drop six straight, the last of which dropped the Cubs to last place, albeit only for a day. By closing with seven wins in nine games, Chicago finished fourth, disappointing given the season’s early promise but devastating due to the hasty giveaway of Cheney, the crippled condition of Saier, and the malignant presence of Zimmerman.

SOX SINKING

After July 17, the White Sox scored nearly a run fewer per game. In addition, Faber slumped, perhaps due to his heavy workload. Bolded OPS and ERA figures show performance declines compared to earlier data.

After splitting a doubleheader with Boston on the 17th, the White Sox dropped three straight then won five of six to pull into a virtual tie for first. Although sued for breach of promise by a “very pretty” woman on July 20,70 Jim Scott won two (one by a 1–0 shutout in which he had an RBI single) and saved a third game from July 22 through July 30.

On August 4, the Sox, in the midst of scoring thirteen runs in six straight losses, fell to third for the first time since May 18, where they would remain.

Blackburne, subpar at third base, threw away the first loss. With two on and none out in the ninth, New York bunted, but “‘Lena’ scooped up the ball and heaved it high over Fournier’s head,”71 giving Benz the first in a series of tough losses over the season’s last months.

The August 2 game ended even more excruciatingly. Faber took a 2–0 lead over the Yankees into the bottom of the ninth. With one out and runners on the corners, Faber induced a double-play ball to Eddie Collins, who “handled the ball as if it was an anarchist’s bomb. He picked it up and dropped it and then repeated the operation.”72 The error cut the lead to 2–1; an out and a single tied the game, ending Faber’s day. Scott relieved, issued a walk, and threw a wild pitch to send the Sox to a 3–2 loss.

Chicago left New York, lost two at Washington, and seemed doomed to a fifth straight defeat, trailing Walter Johnson 2–0. But the Sox bats improbably awoke with a six-run eighth-inning rally sparked by Johnson’s throwing error on Shano Collins’ bunt.

With a four-run lead, Mellie Wolfgang relieved for Chicago then gave way to Faber. With two outs in the last of the eighth and the lead trimmed to 6–5, Faber had two strikes on Johnson with runners on second and third. The lead runner broke for home, “but Johnson poked a low fly to short left field. Weaver was running in … possibly with the idea of covering the plate on the steal home.”73 Johnson’s flare drove in two runs; Weaver’s vacating his position had transformed a heartening rally against the game’s greatest pitcher. Johnson would come around to score in the White Sox’s crushing 8–6 loss.

Weaver made the front page of the paper a few days later. In an article sub-headed “White Sox Ball Player Has More Trouble on His Hands; Now Must Explain Dice Gambling,” a brief revealed, “Buck’s poolroom … was going at a little too merry clip at 5 o’clock yesterday morning, so the police swooped down upon it like a bunch of Red Sox with war bludgeons.”74

Chicago got better news in late August with the Sox’ blockbuster acquisition of Joe Jackson, who had flirted with the Whales.75 The Sox needed reinforcements; beginning with Jackson’s arrival, Chicago played 89 innings in six days, with two doubleheaders (the first game of the first DH which Eddie Collins won with an eleventh-inning single) and four straight extra-inning games that Chicago would split. On his third day in Chicago colors, Jackson tripled home Eddie Collins to lift the Sox to an 11-inning win over the Yankees.

Washington was the opposition for the rest of the bonus baseball. On August 24, trailing 5–4 in the bottom of the eleventh with two outs and the bases loaded, the Sox won on Murphy’s walk and Shano Collins’ single before succumbing to Johnson’s arm and bat in the next two games. First, he scored the winning run and got the win in a 7–4 14-inning defeat of Chicago; he then drove in a run and saved a 2–1 13-inning win.

In 21 plate appearances in 1915, Johnson hit .421/.476/.579 against Chicago. On the hill, he posted a 4–1 record with two saves.

Hitting pitchers plagued the Sox into September. With a 1–0 lead at Fenway Park in the bottom of the seventh inning on September 14, Benz faced Boston pitcher Babe Ruth, who “smashed the ball against the left-field fence, sending home the winning run.”76

Chicago won its last eleven games but finished a distant third. This streak made Chicago’s season seem more impressive retrospectively, but the run differentials of the league’s top three teams show that the White Sox should have done far better.

“Comiskey has been prodigal in his expenditures for new talent, and has not obtained a great deal in return…. Eddie Collins was worth every cent … but the keystone monarch alone could not make a winning team out of the collection of ivory that surrounded him.”77 The 1915 additions—Rowland managing, Faber starting, and Collins, Felsch, and Jackson playing—paid off two years later with the 1917 champions. The gambling associations of Weaver hinted, however, that the game’s greatest scandal would soon stagger the Sox.

WHALES WIN!

The Whales declined at bat and on the mound after July 17, but the resilient club nevertheless eked out just enough clutch wins. Bolded OPS and ERA figures show performance declines compared to earlier data.

Starting with the second game of the July 17 doubleheader, Chicago dropped five of six. On July 22, “King Mordecai of the House of Brown brought the Whales up from the sea of despair … by pitching almost perfect baseball against the scrappy Terrapins of Baltimore. Brownie subdued the turbulent Terps with three small hits, and his 4 to 1 victory was clearly earned.”78 Following this game, Brown would not start for an entire month due to kidney inflammation.79

With Brown out, Chicago dropped four straight home games to Newark, including a 3–2 16-inning August 2 loss, the winning run scoring when “Smith cracked at the critical moment,”80 making his 40th error.

Smith kicked two more in the next game, but McConnell threw a critical complete game to beat Brooklyn 3–1. “McConnell varied the mud ball with an ordinary spitter he had, the Brookfeds missing ‘em by six inches, but he fanned only one batter. Properly delivered, the mud ball breaks like an illegal emery ball. It shoots around the plate like a bilious gent wending his way homeward at 3 a.m.”81

Chicago made the short trip from Brooklyn to Newark, and Mann scored the winning run in the ninth inning of the third game against the Peppers on August 12 following a triple82 and a pinch-squeeze bunt by backup outfielder Charlie Hanford, who had been “ejected” two innings earlier “because Umpire McCormick’s sensitive ear was offended … [in Federal League rules] A player ousted merely from the bench, who has not been in the game, may return any time his manager desires, so Tinker was able to recall … Hanford … from exile.”83

Hendrix homered and won the opener of an August 14 doubleheader split with Baltimore. One of these games represented the replay of the June 19 protest.

Chicago dropped the last Baltimore game and then four to Buffalo, dropping from first to fourth in three days. On August 22, Brown again righted the Whales’ ship, returning from illness on a day in his honor for “one of the greatest games of his long career. Against his magnificent labor the wrecking Buffeds were like children, and Tinker’s Whales sauntered to a 4 to 0 shutout victory.”84

Brown dropped three in a row after his comeback and “showed weakness as a result of his recent sickness. His fast ball was lacking in its usual speed.”85

Hendrix also struggled in August, losing the day before Brown’s beauty and twice more before the month’s end. Smith cost him a game in Pittsburgh. With the Whales up 2–0 and a man on first in the bottom of the eighth, Steve Yerkes “rolled an easy one to Smith, who had a perfect double play set before him, but fumbled, and both runners were safe.”86 Smith’s 47th and final error for Chicago set up the tying runs, and a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth brought home the winner.

Tinker hurriedly swapped Smith for Baltimore’s Mickey Doolin, but at first, the Whales played worse following the trade. Given a 6–1 lead in a game Chicago would lose 10–9 against Kansas City, Hendrix “following his usual custom, was knocked off the hill in less than six innings.”87 The Whales slipped a season-high 5½ games behind with less than a month to play.

Another no-hitter turned around Chicago’s season, albeit a no-hit defeat in the first game of a September 7 doubleheader to Dave Davenport of St. Louis. Perhaps embarrassed, Chicago would go 17-4-1 over the season’s final 22 games. Three of the four losses came by one run.

Hendrix started the turnaround with the second-game win over St. Louis. “Previously he had taken part in six games without registering a victory. He worked … with severe pains in his back and limped off after each inning. However he pitched a masterly”88 3–2 Whales win.

Brown pitched a complete-game win over Baltimore in the first of a four-game series. On September 12, in Game One of a doubleheader, McConnell earned his 22nd victory in a wild, 5–4 15-inning affair. The win returned Chicago to second place. Trailing 3–2 in the tenth, Mann doubled and Doolin singled to re-tie the game. Then, down 4–3 in the 15th, Tinker pinch-hit Hendrix for his third-place hitter, Zwilling, the team leader in several offensive categories. Hendrix singled, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on an error. The winning run scored on a single by Joe Weiss, who had joined the team after winning an amateur newspaper talent contest!89 In Game Two, Hendrix pitched a darkness-shortened shutout to complete his virtuoso day.

In the Baltimore finale after an off day, Brown, on two days of rest, yielded seven runs in seven innings. Hendrix rescued Chicago again, however, saving the 8–7 win with two shutout frames.

On September 19, the Whales met Buffalo in a twin bill. Brown fired a complete-game 3–1 win in the opener; Weiss started a triple play on a line drive to first.90 McConnell pitched a four-hit shutout for his 23rd win in Game Two, in which Weiss had another game-winning hit.

Weiss tallied three more hits September 22 as Chicago earned a critical 4–4 tie against Newark. Trailing 3–0 early, and 4–3 in the bottom of the eleventh, Fischer and Beck delivered pinch-singles that enabled the Whales to draw even in a game that would last 15 innings.

In third place, 1½ behind, Chicago closed the season with home-and-home doubleheaders against Pittsburgh. On October 2, Chicago swept the first twin bill and moved back into first for the first time since August 18.

Brown was the hit of the first game. He went 4-for-4 at the plate, staking the Whales to an 8–1 lead and cruised to a complete game 8–5 win despite yielding 16 hits. In the nightcap, Chicago blew a 3–0 lead in the ninth but escaped with a 6–3 win in 11, the decisive run scoring on Mann’s double and Doolin’s single.

The greatest—and last—day in the Whales’ brief history took place October 3, 1915. In the first of yet another doubleheader, McConnell could not hold a 4–1 lead in the ninth, and Pittsburgh delivered a disheartening 5–4 defeat in 11 innings.

Entering the bottom of the sixth of the last game, neither team had scored. The fans on hand were apoplectic. Doolin singled and advanced to third with two out. Flack “caught one on the nose and drove a terrific drive to left center. [Pittsburgh player-manager Rebel] Oakes … dashed madly after the ball and the Rebel did manage to get his hands on it, but the sphere hopped out into the crowd for two bases, driving in Doolin with the one run necessary.”91 Zwilling and Wilson followed with RBI hits, making the final 3–0 Chicago in a game called after six and a half because of darkness.

By percentage points, the Whales had won Chicago’s only 1915 pennant. By capturing the second and last banner in the brief history of the Federal League, the legacy of the Whales flickers a century later while the White Sox and the Cubs continue to play.

A SABR member since 1990, MARK S. STERNMAN has written for “The Inside Game,” the SABR BioProject, and “The Miracle Braves of 1914: Boston’s Original Worst-to-First World Series Champions.”

Notes

1 Chicago also had Negro League teams. “Dizzy Dismukes of the Indianapolis ABCs no-hit the Chicago Giants on May 9, while Dick Whitworth of the Chicago American Giants also no-hit the Chicago Giants on September 19.” www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/1915_in_the_Negro_Leagues (accessed January 3, 2015).

2 “The Chicago Cubs,” The Sporting Life, October 31, 1914: 7.

3 “National League Notes,” The Sporting Life, November 7, 1914: 8.

4 “Nativity against Him,” The Sporting Life, November 14, 1914: 7.

5 “National League Notes,” The Sporting Life, November 28, 1914: 4.

6 I.E. Sanborn, “Chatter about Cubs,” The Sporting Life, December 19, 1914: 3.

7 Sean Deveney, Before Wrigley Became Wrigley (New York: Sports Publishing, 2014), 208.

8 James Crusinberry, “Eleven Cubs Leave here for Tampa Training Camp,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 27, 1915: 9.

9 I.E. Sanborn, “Cubs to Battle Cubans Again at Tampa Today,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 15, 1915: 13.

10 “Adams would have had the kind of APBA card that you’d have set fire to if he was on your team. He went 1-9 with a pretty decent team, had an ERA 70 percent over the league norm, and as a hitter went oh-for-thirty.” Bill James, The Baseball Book 1990 (New York: Villard Books, 1990), 183.

11 I.E. Sanborn, “Rain Disappoints 49 Bugs Who Go to Cub Park,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 22, 1915: 10.

12 I.E. Sanborn, “The Chicago Cubs,” The Sporting Life, April 10, 1915: 5.

13 I.E. Sanborn, “Rally in Ninth Nips Cubs, 7-4, in Real Farce,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 18, 1915: B1.

14 I.E. Sanborn, “Chicago Chat,” The Sporting Life, May 15, 1915: 6.

15 I.E. Sanborn, “The Chicago Cubs,” The Sporting Life, May 22, 1915: 6.

16 I.E. Sanborn, “Rogers Win, 1-0; Bert Humphries Holds New York,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 19, 1915: 13.

17 “Echoes of the Game,” Boston Daily Globe, June 17, 1915: 7.

18 “Rice,” “Ed Pfeffer Pitches Nineteen-Inning Game,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 18, 1915: 2.

19 Wm. A. Phelon, “The Season’s Game,” Baseball Magazine, August 1915: 19.

20 I.E. Sanborn, “Zim Steals Home in the Ninth, Winning Wild Battle, 14-13,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 25, 1915: 13.

21 I.E. Sanborn, “Zabel Hurls Three Hit Game, but Seven Errors Beat Cubs,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 29, 1915: 11.

22 “H. Zimmerman Wants Divorce,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 30, 1915: 9.

23 I.E. Sanborn, “Lavender Loses Two Hit Game, but Cheney Blanks Redlegs,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 1, 1915: 13.

24 I.E. Sanborn, “Saier’s Drive Gives Rogers 2 to 1 Victory,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 3, 1915: 11.

25 Grantland Rice, “Giving a Modest Star His Due,” The Sporting Life, July 31, 1915.

26 Ward Mason, “Vic Saier, the Slugger of the Cubs,” Baseball Magazine, September 1915: 78.

27 James Crusinberry, “Murray Joins Rogers’ Squad; Rain Balks Brooklyn Game,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 9, 1915: 11.

28 James Crusinberry, “Cubs Lose to Robins in 10th, After Leading by Six Runs,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 10, 1915: 15.

29 “Dodgers Win But Drop back in the Race,” The New York Times, July 13, 1915.

30 Warren Brown, The Chicago White Sox (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1952), 63.

31 W. A. Carlson, “Eddie Collins,” Baseball Magazine, March 1915: 68.

32 Sam Weller, “Sox Start West Tuesday Night,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 14, 1915: B1.

33 Keene Gardiner, “Introducing Mr. Buck Weaver in New Role of Business Man,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 15, 1915: 14.

34 R.S. Ranson, “The White Sox,” Sporting Life, March 27, 1915: 4.

35 “Claims a Pitching Record,” Sporting Life, May 22, 1915: 8.

36 James Crusinberry, “White Sox Beat Boston in 17 Inning Battle, 3 to 2,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 22, 1915: 9.

37 “Daring Stealing by White Hose Leaders, with Some Great Fielding, Spells Defeat for Red Sox,” Boston Daily Globe, May 24, 1915: 7.

38 T.H. Murnane, “‘Smoky Joe’ Pulls White Sox out of Lead,” Boston Daily Globe, June 8, 1915: 6.

39 Chandler D. Richter, “New Sidelights on Baseball,” Sporting Life, June 26, 1915: 8.

40 Tom Ruane, “A Retro-Review of the 1910s (the 1914-1919 edition),” www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/rev1910_art.htm (accessed January 16, 2015).

41 James Crusinberry, “Sox Lam Ball; Crush Indians Despite Slips,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 23, 1915: 14.

42 James Crusinberry, “Sox Beat Cleveland in 19 Innings, 5 to 4,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 25, 1915: 13.

43 I.E. Sanborn, “Sox Trounce Mackmen, 6-4, in Crazy Game,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 15, 1915: 13.

44 I.E. Sanborn, “Chicago Feds Sign Walter Johnson for Two Years,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 4, 1914: 11.

45 Clarence F. Lloyd, “St. Louis’ Story,” Sporting Life, December 12, 1914: 9.

46 “Otto Knabe’s Terrapins kicked the sperm oil out of Joe Tinker’s Whales” represents an excellent example. Sam Weller, “Swat by Mr. Zinn ‘K.O.’ for Whales at Baltimore, 9-8,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 7, 1915: 11.

47 James Crusinberry, “Left Handers Beaten in Game at Whale Camp,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 26, 1915: 18.

48 Sam Weller, “Outfielder Mann of Braves Jumps to Local Feds,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 12, 1915: 16.

49 Philip Morgan, “The Chicago Whales,” The Sporting Life, April 10, 1915: 7.

50 “Notes of the Whales,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 14, 1915: 13.

51 “Chicago Chat,” The Sporting Life, May 1, 1915: 12. “In August he suffered one of the stranger injuries in baseball history. The Wilkes Barre Times Leader said that ‘Smith leaped for a hot one, lost his balance and doubled backwards wrenching the muscles of his neck and spiking himself in the back of the head. Smith was knocked out completely.’” Jim Sandoval, “Jimmy Smith,” sabr.org/bioproj/person/bcee87a4 (accessed January 15, 2015).

52 “Tinker Is out,” The Sporting Life, May 15, 1915: 13.

53 Sam Weller, “No Hits Made off Hendrix; Beats Rebels,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 16, 1915: B1.

54 Sam Weller, “Brown Blanks Buffeds, 8 to 0, with One Swat,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 19, 1915: 11.

55 Sam Weller, “Whales Defeat Terrapins, But Knabe Protests,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 20, 1915: B1.

56 J. J. Alcock, “Eastland Disaster Closes Whale Gate; Two Contests Today,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 26, 1915: 13.

57 Sam Weller, “Brown Defeats Newfeds, 1 to 0, in Mound Duel,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 30, 1915: 9.

58 Sam Weller, “Whales Score 5 Runs in Ninth; Win in Twelfth,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 1, 1915: 13.

59 Sam Weller, “Three Run Rally in Twelfth Gives Whales Victory, 3 to 2,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1915: 13.

60 James Crusinberry, “Rajah, Aroused, Levies Big Fines on Zim and Zabel,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 21, 1915: 11.

61 James Crusinberry, “Shakeup Coming Unless Cubs Get Hearts in Game,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 26, 1915: 13.

62 John J. McGraw, “In the National League,” Boston Daily Globe, July 26, 1915: 4.

63 James Crusinberry, “Cubs back Home with Only Coin to Offset Woe,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 28, 1915: 9.

64 James Crusinberry, “Losing Streak of Cubs Ended by Even Break,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 31, 1915: 9.

65 “Cutshaw Poles out Six Hits off Cubs,” The New York Times, August 10, 1915.

66 “Pierce and Zim Fight; Vaughn among Injured,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 15, 1915: B1.

67 James Crusinberry, “Cubs and Braves Play 4-4 Tie; Archer Falls and Loses Run,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 27, 1915: 9.

68 “Brooklyn Gets Cheney,” The New York Times, August 30, 1915.

69 “No-Hit Game Won by Jim Lavender,” The New York Times, September 1, 1915.

70 “American League Affairs,” The Sporting Life, August 7, 1914: 9.

71 “Chicago Baseman Tosses Game away,” The New York Times, August 1, 1915.

72 “Scott’s Wild Toss Lets in Winning Run,” The New York Times, August 3, 1915.

73 I.E. Sanborn, “White Sox Fall in Two Battles at Washington,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 7, 1915: 7.

74 “Buck Weaver’s Poolroom Raided and 12 Arrested,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 16, 1915: 1.

75 “Plot That Failed,” The Sporting Life, August 28, 1915: 9.

76 T.H. Murnane, “‘Speed Boys owe This One to Ruth,” Boston Daily Globe, September 15, 1915: 1.

77 I.E. Sanborn, “Chicago Gleanings,” The Sporting Life, October 2, 1915: 6.

78 J. J. Alcock, “Brown Allows Only Three Hits; Whales Win, 4-1,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 23, 1915: 9.

79 “Brown Sent to Hospital; Now on Way to Recovery,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 30, 1915: 9.

80 J. J. Alcock, “Whales Lose to Newfeds in Sixteen Inning Combat, 3-2,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 3, 1915: 11.

81 “Notes of the Whales,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 6, 1915: 9.

82 Mann had an FL-leading nineteen triples in 1915, including four in July, four in August, and seven in September.

83 Alcock called this quirk “a new wrinkle in Federal league rules.” J. J. Alcock, “Squeeze Play in Last Gives Whales 2-1 Victory Over Peps,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 13, 1915: 9.

84 J. J. Alcock, “Fed Fans Flock to Whales Park for ‘Brown Day,’” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1915: 9.

85 “Notes of the Whales,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 31, 1915: 11.

86 Sam Weller, “Smith’s Error Helps Pittfeds Defeat Whales,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 28, 1915: 11.

87 Sam Weller, “Whales Beaten in Binglefest at Kansas City,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September, 1915: B3.

88 Sam Weller, “No Hits, No Runs off Davenport; Whales Divide,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 8, 1915: 11.

89 J. J. Alcock, “Tribune Boy’s Swat Wins for Tinker in 15th,’” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 13, 1915: 11.

90 J. J. Alcock, “Tribune Boys Help Whales Win Twin Bill,’” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 20, 1915: 11.

91 J. J. Alcock, “Whales Win Pennant as 34,000 Fans Cheer,’” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 4, 1915: 13.

Tradition dictated the umpire would be Virgil Peterson, then chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission and a man turned perennially crooked on behalf of the faculty, but that year, 1960, luck seemed to tilt in the students’ favor: Peterson would be out of town. That gave Reinsdorf the opportunity to find a neutral replacement.

Reinsdorf drove his jalopy to the White Sox offices at 35th and Shields, site of the original Comiskey Park, with a plan to line up an impartial celebrity ump. Outside the park, he spotted his quarry, team owner Bill Veeck, walking down the sidewalk. Reinsdorf pulled to the curb and petitioned Veeck. It was the kind of stunt the owner noted for his Barnum & Bailey marketing gimmicks might have approved. But he said no.

“Why don’t you ask Hank Greenberg?” Veeck suggested. Typical for him to stick his co-owner with his unwanted tasks. Veeck had left it to Greenberg to deal with Chuck Comiskey (namesake of the man who brought the White Sox to town), who refused to cooperate with the new owners after they bought his sister’s majority share.

So Reinsdorf parked his car, traipsed into the White Sox offices and tracked down Greenberg, the team’s vice president and treasurer, fibbing, just a little, that Veeck had said he should ump the law school’s annual softball game. Greenberg agreed.

Reinsdorf’s ambition didn’t rest with bagging the former Hall of Fame player as an umpire. He sent a letter to Ford Frick and asked the MLB commissioner to put it on his official letterhead. The letter said that Frick, as commissioner of all organized and unorganized baseball, had become aware of the travesty at Northwestern’s School of Law and had appointed Hank Greenberg umpire to put an end to the chicanery. Frick went along with it. “For some reason he trusted me,” Reinsdorf laughs years later.

Reinsdorf sent Frick’s declaration to the Chicago newspapers and television stations, who picked up the story. Chicago’s American even printed the commissioner’s letter on the front page. There was no way for Greenberg to back out now. “I can’t believe I had the balls to do this at 24,” Reinsdorf says.

Greenberg good-naturedly carried out his duties in the game, which was played in the downtown park across Lake Shore Drive from the law school. He addressed every batter by name their first time up. When Reinsdorf took his turn, Greenberg called the first two pitches, which were well outside, strikes. After the second called strike, the young law review managing editor turned around to look at the ump. “You’re not going to get any balls,” Greenberg said calmly. “You better swing.” 

Reinsdorf ended up with a double and triple that day. The student nine was ahead, looking like it had the chance to notch its first victory over the faculty in years, when the plot thickened. The faculty called time out and appointed Greenberg honorary dean for the day, a move that made him a de facto member of its side…and sent the man with the .313 career batting average, 331 home runs, and 1,276 RBIs to bat.

Reinsdorf, who had anticipated the faculty would pull some such underhanded stunt, countered. He summoned a young woman to pitch and surreptitiuosly slipped her a ball packed with cotton. He figured Greenberg would not be able to give the truly soft ball much of a ride. But on the first pitch, the former Tiger slugger literally knocked the stuffing out of the ball, which landed foul, so the girl had to deliver her next offering with a regulation 16” softball. Greenberg drove that pitch “as far as you could and still stay in the park,” Reinsdorf says. “We had a guy stationed in the outfield about 800 miles away who caught it.” 

The next time up with runners on base and the students clinging to a one-run lead, Greenberg slashed a drive that the shortstop tried—unsuccessfully—to field. “It nearly took his hand off,” Reinsdorf says.

Greenberg’s hit drove in two runs that put the faculty ahead. The law school’s permanent dean promptly declared the game over, preserving the faculty’s winning streak. “Cheaters,” Reinsdorf says. “I thought for sure we were going to beat them.” 

Reinsdorf didn’t see Greenberg again until an old-timers game at Comiskey Park the day prior to the 1983 All-Star Game. By then the owner of the White Sox himself, Reinsdorf ran into Greenberg in the dugout. Twenty-three years later, the ump who had produced the game-winning hit still remembered the softball tilt. That pleased Reinsdorf, who was finally able to accept the loss.

JOHN ROSENGREN is the award-winning author of eight books, including “Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes.” You can find him at www.johnrosengren.net.

Sources

Jerry Reinsdorf, interviewed by the author November 8, 2010.

Photo credit

Moose Skowron, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Notes

Through five games of the 1945 World Series, the Detroit Tigers held a three games to two lead over the Chicago Cubs. This Fall Classic was, as Baseball Magazine’s Clifford Bloodgood called it, “A comedy of errors—loosely played but good entertainment.” The comedy continued in Game Six, played at Wrigley Field, though not everyone would find humor in the errors.

A year previously, Captain Hank Greenberg of the U.S. Army had been stationed in India, listening to the Series on the radio and figuring he would never play in another one himself. His first three had not been fully satisfying. In 1934, despite putting up decent numbers, he had been criticized for failing to come through in the clutch when the Tigers lost to the Cardinals; Dizzy Dean had mocked him with three strikeouts in Game Seven. The next year, he had injured his wrist and been forced to the sidelines of the team’s victory. In 1940, his last full season, he had endured another disappointing seven-game defeat, this time at the hands of Cincinnati.  

Now, the Tigers left fielder had another chance—not only to play, but also to set right his World Series record. It would be his last chance. 

In the bottom of the sixth inning of Game Six, Greenberg chased Mickey Livingston’s pop-up blowing back toward the infield. He managed to get his glove on it, but couldn’t make the catch. The ball fell for a double (the official scorers charitably awarded Livingston a hit), and Livingston later scored to put the Cubs up 5–1.           

In the seventh, Greenberg scored, as did teammate Doc Cramer, to trim the Cubs’ lead to 5–3. The score would have been 5–4 if not for the “Hostetler Flop.”  Chuck Hostetler, the Tigers’s fastest runner despite being 42 years old, had rounded third on Cramer’s single, hell-bent on home, when his toe caught the turf. He stumbled, lurched forward several strides windmilling his arms, then belly-flopped into no man’s land. Instead of scoring, he was tagged out.

The Cubs increased their lead by two in the bottom half of the seventh, but the Tigers rallied again in the eighth, pulling within a run at 7–6. The day before, Hank Greenberg had pledged to homer in Game Six. Now he faced gray-haired lefthander Ray Prim with two outs and nobody on. Greenberg worked the count to 3–2 then clubbed the ball. Despite a strong wind blowing in, Greenberg’s clout soared over the left-field ivy and tied the game. The Tiger players jumped to their feet, cheered and danced spontaneously. “That’s it!” Tiger manager Steve O’Neill yelled from the third base coach’s box. “That’s the payoff.”  They were certain victory and the championship was theirs. 

That is, until Hank Borowy came on in relief and closed the door. With the score tied 7–7, the game headed into extra innings. In the bottom of the twelfth, with shadows cramping visibility, Chicago’s Stan Hack batted with pinch-runner Bill Schuster on first and two outs. Hack smacked a routine single to left. Greenberg moved in to field it, wanting to nip the runner at third to finish off the Cubs. He dropped to his right knee to play the bounce, but the ball struck a sprinkler head and hopped over his left shoulder. Greenberg wheeled and chased the ball to the wall, but Schuster scored standing up. The three official scorers, led by Harry Salsinger of the Detroit News, held Greenberg responsible for the loss: E-7. 

While the Wrigley Field crowd whooped and hollered, Greenberg made the long, lonely walk from left field to the Tigers clubhouse entrance on the first-base side with his head down, growing angrier by the step. Instead of celebrating a World Series victory—once again the Tigers had squandered a three-two series lead—he lamented an extra-inning loss pinned on him, the bum. He stomped into the clubhouse, where his teammates gave him a wide berth. When a reporter asked, “What happened to you on that play, Hank?” Greenberg snapped, “What happened to me? What happened to you?! Did you see the game?” 

Always sensitive to criticism about his limitations in the field, Greenberg was incensed that the scorers had charged him with an error on a ball he didn’t think he had a legitimate chance to field. It had bounced over his shoulder! He never touched it. Still, he was down on himself that he had let it get by.

Greenberg’s teammates agreed that he had been unfairly accused of misplaying the ball. “How in the hell could anyone give an error on such a play?” O’Neill demanded.   

The second-guessing extended beyond the Tigers clubhouse. Members of the press argued over the call back at the Palmer House, their Chicago headquarters for the Series. Some of them finally wore down Salsinger and the other two scorers, who reversed their decision—the first time that had ever happened in the World Series—and awarded Hack a double and an RBI. Greenberg was off the hook but not pleased. He had hit his second home run of the Series, as predicted, but that no longer mattered. The Tigers had lost. The scorers wouldn’t change that fact.           

Greenberg wouldn’t have to mope for long. Two days later, with Greenberg drawing two walks and adding a sacrifice fly and sacrifice bunt, the Tigers won Game Seven 9–3 and were once again World Champions. 

JOHN ROSENGREN is the award-winning author of eight books, including “Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes.” You can find him at www.johnrosengren.net.

MATTHEW CLIFFORD, a freelance writer from suburban Chicago, joined SABR in 2011 to help preserve accurate facts of baseball history. Clifford’s background in law enforcement and knowledge of forensic investigative techniques aid him in historical research and data collection. He has contributed to the SABR Biography Project and the 2013 National Pastime.

Sources

Internet

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

Baseball Almanac

MLB.com

Baseball Hall of Fame Library & Museum

BaseballLibrary.com

Norwegianamerican.com

Boston-Braves.com

SABR Encyclopedia (SABR Members)

Books

Blake, Michael. Baseball Chronicles. Detroit: Betterway Books, 1994.

Gogan, Roger. Bluejackets of Summer. Ypsilanti, MI: Great Lakes Sports Publishing, 2008.

Johnson, Harold. Who’s Who in Baseball. Chicago, Buxton Press, 1933.

Kaufman, Alan S., and Kaufman, James C. The Worst Baseball Pitchers of All Time. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing, 1995.

Nash, Bruce, and Zullo, Allan. Baseball Hall of Shame. New York: Pocket Books, 1985.

Pitoniak, Scott. Baseball in Rochester. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003.

Weeks, Jonathan. Cellar Dwellers. Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2012.

Newspapers

The Sporting News (1928–1950)

The Chicago Tribune (1992–1994)

The Chicago Sun-Times (1992–1994)

The Milwaukee Journal (1943–1945)

The Ottawa Daily Times (1970–2013)

Sports Collector Digest (1980–1990)

The Associated Press (1927–1950)

The United Press (1927–1950)

Magazines

Mandernach, Mark. “The Day the Bambino Bombed.” Sports Illustrated, Volume 78, Issue #23, June 14, 1993.

Holtzman, Jerome. “Babe Ruth’s Last Stand Still a Vivid Memory.” Baseball Digest, August 1992.

Personal Correspondence

Mel Bashore (Vintage Photography Collector), email correspondence, 04/01/2011

John Ring (Galesburg Zephyr Newspaper), telephone interview, 06/05/2011

Chris Carmack (Rock Island Library Resources), email correspondence, 03/02/ 2011

Mary Brace (Brace Photography, Chicago), email correspondence, 04/10/2010

Peggy Bermel (Si Johnson’s Personal Secretary), personal interviews, 2010-2013

Gary Stutzman (Beacon News/Hillsboro Argus), email correspondence, 06/03/2011

Tom Templeton (Sheriff, LaSalle County Sheriff’s Department), personal interview, 02/16/2011

Joe Phillips (Vintage Baseball Glove Appraiser), email correspondence, 03/11/2011

Dave Johnson (The Norsk Museum), email correspondence, 06/01/2013

Michael Hall (History Teacher, Newark High School), personal interview, 02/16/2011

Jim Mattson (WHOI News Anchor), email correspondence, 02/05/2011

John Skipper (Author), email correspondence, 04/02/2010

Sandy Vahl (Sheridan Historical Society President), email/USPS, 02/11/2011, 01/14/2013

Additional assistance

Freddy Berowski (National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum records review request)

Danielle Clifford (Research assistance)          

The Village of Sheridan

The Norsk Museum

Newark High School 

Jimmy Meyers (WEEI Radio, Boston)

Keith Pinney (Research assistance)

The Sheridan Historical Society Museum

The Norway Store & The Borchsenius Family

James Podnar (Research assistance)

The National Sports Collector Convention (2005)

The Calico Café, Sheridan

The Chicago Cubs

Channel 9 (WGN-TV Chicago)

Robert E. Rowe Public Library, Sheridan, Illinois

Graves-Hume Public Library, Mendota, Illinois

Somonauk Public Library, Somonauk, Illinois

Notes

While professional baseball and politics have always been linked, only once has a major league baseball team become a voluntary part of a Presidential campaign.

The visible evidence of this happenstance is the 1920 Chicago Cubs’ exhibition game in a small Ohio town against a squad of local semi-professionals called the Kerrigan Tailors.

United States Senator Warren Harding, the Republican candidate for President, was running a controlled “front porch” campaign in his hometown of Marion, Ohio. Two Chicago men—the original advertising “Mad Man,” Albert Lasker, and the King of Gum, William Wrigley Jr.—were behind not only the game but also the election of Warren Harding as President. How and why did this happen?

Why Did the Harding Campaign Need Baseball?

Things were going well for the Harding campaign in 1920, due in large part to the first comprehensive presidential “marketing campaign” to include national advertising. Unfortunately, however, Warren Harding liked to play golf. Not that golf is bad, but during the “Progressive Era” of American politics, it was perceived as somewhat less than manly, a game played only by the rich. During this time in America, the wealthy were not universally adored.

Democrat Woodrow Wilson had won the previous two Presidential elections because of divisions between “progressive” and “stand pat” Republicans. An Indiana politician, Will Hays, had worked to bring peace to the party’s warring factions. Will Irwin, founder of Cummins Engine in Columbus, Indiana, held Indiana’s second-ranking political post. He recommended that Hays contact a business colleague—an advertising genius from Chicago named Albert Lasker. 1

Lasker’s brilliance in advertising had led to repeated business success. California oranges were rotting and going unpurchased until Lasker branded them “Sunkist.” Raisins weren’t doing well; prunes were, in fact, more popular. (This period saw multiple California baseball teams called the Prunes, but no California Raisins.) Lasker rescued the sun-shriveled grapes by naming them “Sun-Maid.” 2, 3

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation was stuck with excess paper products after World War I. Soon, their “Kleenex” product would become a generic term, Lasker having added “makeup remover” to the box to encourage women’s purchases. The same company was unsuccessful in selling sanitary napkins until Lasker’s advertising campaigns and improved product placement—heretofore it had to be bought from male druggists—made Kotex seem essential. As part of the deal for promoting Kimberly-Clark, and his other clients, Lasker received company stock as payment, so he did extremely well for himself. His home outside Chicago included 450 acres and 55 servants.

Lasker and his cadre of top-flight marketers and copywriters did it all: branding, advertising, sales strategy, and the like. Only the phenomenally successful Lucky Strike cigarette campaign was a joint effort with the company itself.

Will Hays, by this time National Republican Chairman, asked Lasker to meet with Harding and translate business marketing to politics. Lasker brought along a friend, William Wrigley, Jr.

Like Lasker, Wrigley was a great marketer. He certainly knew how to sell gum, and like Lasker, had the most valuable commodity in politics: money. Lots of it. With Wrigley on board, Lasker agreed to run Harding’s advertising and marketing.

Interestingly, Will Hays became—after just one year in Washington—the nation’s film czar, tasked with restoring public confidence in a new and powerful industry in danger of being sunk by the bad publicity resulting from pornographic movies (and criticism of the mostly Jewish film producers). At the same time Kenesaw Mountain Landis was trying to clean up baseball, Hays instituted a moral code governing what films “should” and “shouldn’t” legally show until the 1960s. While this code was said to be voluntary, it had its intended effect. 4

Albert Lasker was not only a wealthy advertising genius pioneering political marketing and advertising; along with his friend William Wrigley, he also owned the Chicago Cubs. To Lasker and Wrigley, the Cubs were mostly a hobby, rather than a source of their wealth. Baseball was a game: politics was about how nations would be ordered. And since the major issue of this presidential campaign was the League of Nations, this campaign was about the future of the world.

Unfortunately, someone associated with Harding thought a newsreel of the president playing golf would help his image. This was a serious issue, because newsreels were the only form of video communication available in 1920. And once people began seeing the newsreels in July, “Harding playing golf” bombed. 5

While the resulting flood of negative mail against golf and those who played it is interesting, perhaps more interesting is this: in 1920, Lasker was already pioneering immediate market research. “Exit polling” was not invented by modern political consultants or television networks. At selected theaters, note-takers were on hand to hear comments from exiting viewers. Feedback quickly identified that the “golfing” portion was a disaster—Harding was identified as “rich,” not a common man.

It didn’t take long for the data to confirm that Harding was in trouble. One can only imagine the yelling, blame-throwing, and semi-panic at Republican headquarters in New York and Lasker’s ad agency in Chicago. “Now,” I’m sure the campaign and advertising planners were saying, “some idiot is about to undo everything we’ve done by associating Harding with golf.”

Every campaign has at least one pivotal moment. This was one. How could the campaign, with the election three months away, pull Harding out of this pit? Obviously, the League of Nations, the stormy rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia, and post-war labor turmoil in the US were the real issues of the campaign, but to be heard on those issues, Harding needed to be a man of the people not an effete rich guy.

The answer? Associate President Warren G. Harding with a manly, American common sport—baseball! Call Wrigley up and let’s get those Chicago Cubs over to Marion now .

The Cubs had a break in their schedule just before Labor Day. Lasker started seeking an opponent. No other team in the region had an off day, but double-headers were common so schedules could be adjusted. In political terms, scheduling was a “fake” problem; the problem was real but could be fixed if one wanted to fix it. Lasker, however, immediately ran into political problems—some in “real” politics and some in baseball.

Harding was a fan of the Cincinnati Reds. (One could literally say Harding was a die-hard fan, since his last discussion before dying was to ask his wife how the Reds had done that day.) But Cincinnati itself presented a variety of problems.

Garry Herrmann was the President of the Reds and head of the National Commission, the three-man governing body of baseball. The Reds had also won the 1919 World Series against the “Black Sox.” Sportswriter Hugh Fullerton, in 1920 employed by the Harding campaign, had warned the year before of a rumored Series fix. Lasker and Wrigley were already furious at Herrmann for trading the Cubs a ballplayer whom Herrmann knew had tried to fix a game. Frustrated with the potential ruin to the integrity of the game, Lasker proposed a plan for reorganizing baseball. 6

Real politics was involved as well. Cincinnati had been run politically for decades by the most famous political boss west of Tammany Hall: George Cox. Herrmann and a fellow Cox sidekick managed patronage. They were part of the Ohio Republican Party’s anti-Taft, anti-Harding, pro-Senator Joseph Foraker faction. To them “progressive” was a curse word. The most successful politician in their web was Mayor Julius Fleischmann, a wealthy man due to his family’s whiskey and yeast connections (their most famous product came later). Lasker’s request to the Reds came through the Jewish financial sources behind the 1920 Reds, but Herrmann made it clear that the Reds would not adjust their schedule to accommodate Warren Harding, of all people. So the Reds were out. 7

Most baseball sources suggest that Lasker then pursued an agreement with Charles Stoneham, the owner of the New York Giants. Unfortunately, John McGraw kiboshed the deal for political reasons. The problem with this theory is that Stoneham was aligned with Tammany Hall. While Tammany was no fan of Democrat Vice-Presidential nominee Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in 1920, it is unlikely that Stoneham wanted to help Lasker promote Harding. There was also the matter of Stoneham’s close ties to gambling kingpin Arnold Rothstein, who was already being fingered as the man behind the 1919 Series. It seems implausible that the New York Giants would help to rescue Harding’s image. 8

Then there was nearby Cleveland, home of the American League Indians, a contending club that later that year won one of its two World Series championships. The Indians were highly unlikely to change their schedule. There was also a serious baseball politics problem. New Indians owner Jim Dunn had purchased the team with a $100,000 loan from AL president Ban Johnson, a loan on which he still owed $60,000. The premise of the Lasker baseball re-organization plan was that someone not under control of the owners should make decisions so the public would have more “confidence” in those rulings. Johnson, along with Herrmann a fellow “target” of plan, would not rescue Lasker’s guy until Hell, not Lake Erie, froze over. 9

The solution was to simply tap into the huge local network of baseball teams. Every town back then had semi-pro clubs sponsored by local companies, often with former college, high school, or minor league players in their ranks. And that is how the Kerrigan Tailors came to play the Cubs on September 2, 1920.

Warren Harding even briefly pitched in the game, and the Cubs loaned Kerrigan a pitcher as well. The outcome of the game only mattered to the folks watching that day. The true purpose of the event was to generate moving pictures of Harding playing and talking baseball with famed pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander and the other Cubs. Once shot, these films were sent to the nation’s theaters. As we politicians say, “great video.” The golf issue was buried.

Wrigley and Lasker: The Friendship

Lasker and Wrigley’s partnership as owners of the Cubs is well documented. Whether they were friends is speculative at best. Lasker had nominated Wrigley as a Cubs director before actually meeting him. Lasker’s hideaway office was in the same building as Wrigley’s, so after nominating him, Lasker convinced Wrigley to accept the post. As the team’s largest shareholder, Lasker had demanded that Wrigley be on the board because he wanted some allies with cash and business sense.

Wrigley never utilized Lasker’s advertising agency. This would make most investigators a tad suspicious about the closeness their relationship, especially since soon after Harding’s victory, Wrigley bought out most of Lasker’s Cubs shares. The newspaper stories of the time have a variety of excuses, as do biographers, but only one makes sense: both had strong opinions and wanted to stay friends, so one backed down. To say that neither was good at being a follower is to understate the point. 10 , 11

Lasker and Wrigley continued to serve on the board of Chicago’s Foreman Bank after dissolving their Cubs partnership. The son of the bank’s founder had married Lasker’s daughter. Lasker, however, seemed to avoid advertising entanglements with his friends. (They may be the only people he didn’t hard-sell.) A close friend of Lasker founded the Yellow Cab Company in 1915 and went on to considerable business success. John D. Hertz and Lasker were such good friends that they shared a bank account to which either could make changes without the other’s knowledge. Just prior to the stock market crash of 1929, Hertz withdrew and sold the account’s stocks, including Lasker’s.

While Lasker was initially upset at what Hertz had done—he did not agree that the market was going to crash—the action saved Lasker’s fortune. But like with Wrigley, Lasker never handled the advertising for Yellow Cab or other Hertz corporation properties.

While they seemed to be friends and shared some interests, there is no evidence that Wrigley and Lasker were personally close. In 1911, Wrigley purchased a mansion near Lincoln Park and a summer home on Lake Geneva, but after the gum company went public in 1919, Wrigley increasingly spent time (and money) out West. Lasker moved to Washington in 1921 after Harding won, not returning to Chicago until after Harding’s death.

Lasker appears not to have viewed Wrigley as an intellectual equal. While Wrigley seemed to be a friend of everyone and certainly did not shy away from being linked with Lasker, it is safe to assume that Lasker’s Jewish activism led him to different social circles than Wrigley’s. 12

Personalities are also important to friendships. Lasker was intense about everything: Wrigley was intense about gum. Fortune magazine once likened Wrigley to a jolly bartender. No one said that about Lasker. Wrigley seemed to be the eternal optimist. Lasker veered between optimism and a sometimes debilitating depression. They appeared to respect each other and get along when necessary, but “close” would not describe their friendship. In politics, “my good friend” means you aren’t enemies. 13 14

Wrigley and Lasker: The Politicians

While the Cubs were a valuable political prop at a critical moment in Harding’s campaign, it does not explain why Lasker and Wrigley agreed to meet with Harding at his Ohio home long before the Cubs were needed. Both men had actively supported major alternatives to Harding at the Convention. The core question, of course, is why wealthy businessmen become involved in politics, and the numerous answers vary in emphasis by individual.

The issues dealt with by government, especially the Federal Government, have always been sweeping. In that time, “trust” (monopoly) rulings could make or break a business. Lasker and Wrigley were both part of the “progressive” movement. Business owners, especially Protestant and Jewish, tended to associate with reformers fed up with big-city political corruption. Chicago has a deserved historic reputation for corruption.

Lasker initially supported California Senator Hiram Johnson—Teddy Roosevelt’s Vice-Presidential partner for the Progressive Party in 1912—in his bid for President. Lasker is said to have drawn Wrigley into both baseball and the Johnson campaign.

This claim, however, is simplistic. Lasker claimed that Wrigley knew nothing about baseball, though Wrigley had sponsored a semi-pro team years earlier called the Wrigley Nips. He also appears to have played the game growing up in Philadelphia. And Wrigley was an avid admirer of Teddy Roosevelt, so converting him to a campaign for Hiram Johnson would not have been especially difficult. TR, who had hoped to run in 1920, died in 1919, and Johnson was his political heir.

Johnson was not especially likable and was busy proving that he had no chance to win. Reformers began to cluster around General Leonard Wood as a candidate. Wrigley and Lasker, as later noted in a congressional investigation, poured thousands into Wood’s campaign.

But complications developed in Chicago, home to the 1920 Republican Convention. Others jumped into the presidential fray, including Illinois governor Frank Lowden. (Incidentally, the key Cook County coordinator of Lowden’s gubernatorial campaign had been his college friend Kenesaw Mountain Landis; some raised eyebrows would be appropriate.) The agreeable Wrigley, a delegate to the Convention from Illinois, actually voted for Lowden rather than for the initial leading vote-getter, Wood, nor third-place Johnson, both of whom he had funded. Harding, in fifth place far behind the top three on the first ballot, was supposedly selected by the political bosses in a smoke-filled suite at Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel. The key part of the deal was Lowden’s agreement to move his votes to Harding.

Lasker, more than Wrigley, was motivated by a specific issue: isolationism. Lasker cared most deeply about blocking American participation in the League of Nations. It is unclear how Wrigley felt about the issue. Lasker cuttingly said that Wrigley was a “one-idea man” who lived for Wrigley’s Chewing Gum. Lasker not only tried to force Harding into openly opposing the League as part of accepting the marketing assignment (no source even hints that Wrigley disagreed with Lasker on this), but also continued to pressure Harding on the issue throughout the campaign.

Wrigley later did articulate one political issue he cared about beyond the importance of being positive and working hard. When Calvin Coolidge became President after Harding’s death, Wrigley was a major proponent of Coolidge’s tax cut engineered by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. An enthusiastic Wrigley wrote that if Mellon sought the Republican nomination against Coolidge in 1928, he’d easily win. (Wrigley was a bit out of touch politically.) 15

Meanwhile in 1928, Lasker was trying to re-start the Hiram Johnson bandwagon against Coolidge’s re-nomination. Wrigley again funded Johnson’s 1924 campaign efforts before deciding that Coolidge was going to win re-nomination and was friendlier towards cutting taxes. Both men knew how to promote and advertise, but had severe political limitations.

Beyond those basic issues of opposing the League and desiring lower taxes, another even larger factor explains Wrigley’s and Lasker’s involvement in politics. The wealthy who get involved often have accomplished business success and are ready for some life changes. These people don’t necessarily abandon business involvement, but are wealthy enough that it no longer consumes them. For example, Lasker moved to Washington after the 1920 campaign because, substantially wealthy, he felt his business could succeed without his regular involvement.

Businessmen, often myopic in focus which leads to their success (i.e., Wrigley only thinking about gum), find politics intoxicating in multiple ways. The combination of power and victory after intense competition can intoxicate anyone, including the most famous movie stars, Wall Street financiers, and athletes. Wealthy businessmen with time to spare are not immune. Some, like Lasker, are heavily involved for a period while others, like Wrigley, are only marginally involved but stay engaged for a longer period.

Wrigley took his company public in 1919 and as a result suddenly came into even bigger stacks of cash. He remained President of Wrigley, and still dominated the gum world, but after the introduction of P.K. gum in 1921, his company introduced only one new product, a wartime gum, over the next 55 years. Product innovation was not his skill: Wrigley consolidated his products and promoted them hard. Cubs fans are probably not surprised. 16

But Wrigley personally was suddenly a changed man, as explained by his activities over a few short years after the IPO. Wrigley bought Catalina Island, Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, and the Angels PCL team as well as a mansion in Pasadena that his wife wanted mainly for its good seat from which to watch the Tournament of Roses parade. (The home is now Parade headquarters.) Wrigley also loved Phoenix and helped to grow it, investing in and eventually owning the famed Biltmore hotel. He also constructed an adjacent mansion, wintered in Phoenix, and encouraged millionaire friends to move there as well. Back in Chicago he built the iconic Wrigley Building and took over the Cubs. And helped elect a President. It was a busy few years. 17 , 18 , 19 , 20

Wrigley remained interested in politics. He was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1924 and 1928. Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover both visited Catalina Island. During the three years of Harding’s Presidency, Wrigley visited the White House often enough to be listed as part of Harding’s “Poker” Cabinet but largely withdrew from politics except for providing some funding and friendship to various Presidents. Among Harding’s last words were the wish to do some deep sea fishing at Wrigley’s Catalina Island home. 21 , 22

Lasker’s involvement with President Harding was far more intense. He headed an agency that following World War I was very important: the National Shipping Board. It oversaw what to do with excess Navy vessels and the nation’s shipyards and oversaw America’s new role as the dominant power on the seas—a personal interest of Harding’s. Mrs. Harding adopted Mrs. Lasker as well. As a result, the Laskers ate at the White House three to four times a week. On a long vacation trip to the South, the Laskers joined the Hardings. Lasker complained, in fact, of having to play golf with Harding so often that his arms hurt.

During the campaign, Lasker had been called on to “fix” a number of Harding’s numerous personal problems. Another strong indicator of Lasker’s loyalty to Harding was his financing a significant percentage of the support for Harding’s mistress Nan Britton (and their child) after Harding’s death.

Lasker left Washington for a number of reasons, including his frustration with the never-ending negotiations of politicians and the fickle public, which couldn’t just be ordered to do things. He also didn’t care for Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge (a feeling which likely was reciprocated). Furthermore, Lasker’s business needed his attention again.

Often ignored in discussions of Lasker is the difficulty at the time of being Jewish. Lasker fully utilized his Jewish connections in the movie industry, baseball, and finance. Part of the reason he has not received his historical due is that he was forced to understate his involvement in the campaign.

Henry Ford wrote, in 1920, an article titled the “Jewish Degradation of American Baseball,” which became part of a book published during the campaign year titled The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem . 23

Ford blamed the world’s problems entirely on the Jews, focusing especially on Jewish influences in baseball. He claimed that “the Jewish coterie in Chicago” manipulated the “Gentile boobs” and led to the Black Sox scandal. Ford included a direct attack on Lasker and the plan to remove Ban Johnson. “Then it was that the Jew lawyer, [Alfred] Austrian (attorney for both Lasker and Charles Comiskey, also feuding with Johnson at the time), came forth with the ‘Lasker Plan,’ named for his Jewish friend Lasker, member of the American Jewish Committee, head of Lord & Thomas (Gentile names) and Chairman of the United States Shipping Board.” Ford’s article just goes downhill from there.

Lasker also faced rough grilling in Washington, but Harding not only stuck with him but also appointed him to a highly visible position. In fact, Albert Lasker was only the third Jew in history to hold a high post in American government. While Lasker went to the background, he obviously was not overly intimidated; just a few years later, he was again promoting Hiram Johnson for President.

It is clear that from the ownership days of Albert Spalding and his political involvement to the modern-day Ricketts family, politics and baseball have long been part of the Chicago Cubs tradition.

MARK SOUDER resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which he represented in the United States Congress for 16 years. An active leader during the baseball steroids hearings, Souder criticized one slugger for refusing to talk about the past to an oversight hearing but then told a famous pitcher, “It is better not to talk about the past then to lie about the past.” 

NOTES

BROCK HELANDER is the author of “The Rock Who’s Who” (1982), “The Rock Who’s Who Second Edition” (1996), “The Rockin’ ’50s” (1998), and ’The Rockin’ ’60s” (1999). Since joining SABR, he has focused on researching baseball in the nineteenth century, particularly 1877-1881. He has contributed to “Nineteenth Century Notes,” the “Baseball Research Journal,” “The National Pastime,” and SABR’s BioProject.

SOURCES