Simkus: Baseball outsiders in the ragtime era
From SABR member Scott Simkus at Our Game on April 1, 2014:
The early morning phone call wasn’t much of a surprise. Inebriated, the star first baseman stumbled into a downtown Chicago theater, where he attempted to accost his wife backstage. Handlers gained control before the situation unraveled, and had the 29-year-old slugger ushered into a taxi cab.
At four o’clock in the morning, James “Nixey” Callahan, manager of the semipro Logan Squares club, sauntered across the cobblestones of 34th street, bailing his man out of the local police station. His man was none other than Mike Donlin, one of the most feared hitters during the deadball era, and a world-class carouser off the field. Eight years earlier, Donlin was actually locked up in a northern California prison when he first learned he’d been signed to a major league contract, and he’d spend several more times behind bars before his career was over. Truly, the only surprising thing for manager Callahan on that muggy August day was the fact Mike Donlin had made it almost five consecutive months without a major incident.
Just two years earlier, in 1905, Donlin had had the best year of his career, when he batted .356 (third highest in the NL, just a few points behind Honus Wagner) with 16 triples and 33 stolen bases. His 1906 campaign began exactly where it had left off the previous season: Donlin was leading all National League batters with a .364 mark before breaking his ankle during a game in Cincinnati. He’d eventually return near the end of the year, and while playing with a noticeable limp, managed only 1-for-14 in mostly pinch-hitting situations, lowering his overall batting average to .314 in 37 games.
Read the full article here: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2014/04/01/outsiders-in-the-ragtime-era/
Originally published: April 1, 2014. Last Updated: April 1, 2014.