Umpires in the Federal League

This article appears in SABR’s “Whales, Terriers, and Terrapins: The Federal League 1914-15” (2020), edited by Steve West and Bill Nowlin.

Only three umpires seem to have worked both years of the Federal League:

• Bill Brennan – worked 155 games in 1914 (113 at HP) and 166 games in 1915 (130 at HP)
• Barry McCormick – worked 158 games in 1914 (92 at HP) and 157 in 1915 (116 at HP)
• Spike Shannon – worked 93 games in 1914 (37 at HP) and 84 in 1915 (11 at home plate)

1914 only

• Ollie Anderson – 152 games, 81 at HP and 71 at first. Thirteen ejections. Umpired from 1903 through 1942.
• Garnet Bush – in 1911 and 1912, had umpired 100 NL games.
• Monte Cross – after 15 years as a player, Cross worked in 1914 as an umpire – 141 games, 38 at HP and 103 at 1B.
• Steve Cusack – 141 games, 39 at HP and 102 at 1B. worked in the Northwestern League in 1917 and then joined the Chicago Police Department in 1918.
• Ed Goeckel – 135 games, 89 at HP and 46 at 1B. He was signed on April 20 as the ninth umpire of the initial crew. Goeckel was a noted indoor baseball pitcher, who had umpired a lot of semipro games in the Chicago area.
• Bob Groom – normally a ballplayer, Groom worked one game only, September 12, 1914, St. Louis at Brooklyn – and only part of the game. See anomalous games below. Earlier in the year, he had as a player been ejected by Steve Cusack (June 25) and Ed Goeckel (July 31).
• Steve Kane – released in June 1914. His last games were on June 8. On October 30, 1915, Kane died of a heart attack at age 45.
• Al Mannassau – umpired 92 games in 1899 (NL), and 96 AL games in 1901 – and then 109 games (35 at HP) in 1914.
• Bert Maxwell – pitched for Brooklyn in 1914, but umpired one game on September 12, St. Louis at Brooklyn, a game in which four umpires worked: Umpires: HP – Bob Groom (left in the third inning), 1B – Bert Maxwell (left in the third inning); Monte Cross entered at HP in the third inning; Ollie Anderson entered at 1B in the third inning.
• J.A. Murphy – worked two games, August 14 and August 18, both in Chicago. It was the third league in which he worked in 1914; his Sporting News card shows little other work.
• Arthur Queisser – worked four games at St. Louis in 1914, one each on September 2 and 3, and a doubleheader on September 4, working HP in first game of the DH.
• Charles Van Sickle – worked 67 games from May 31 to August 16. In mid-June, he was officially hired to take Steve Kane’s place. He was fired after the game on the 16th “because, in the president’s opinion, he did not properly enforce the rules in Monday’s Chicago-Baltimore game.”1

Beginning in December, league President James Gilmore started hiring new umpires for the 1915 season.2

Although player salaries increased for many ballplayers due to the competition the Federal League presented to the American and National Leagues, the same was not true for umpires. There was some belt-tightening in the National League. In early January, it was announced that NL umpires would see their pay trimmed by $400 for the 1915 season.3

1915 only

• Tommy Corcoran – 18 years as a player. Umpired 46 games (11 at HP) in FL from May 1 to August 19.
• Bill Finneran – umpired 1903-1931. Worked 145 FL games in 1915, 109 at HP and 36 at 1B. Worked in NL in 1911, 1912, and 1923.
• Lucius Columbus “Lu” Fyfe – ejected 13 players in 84 games. August 2 was his last game. Worked 17 HP and 67 1B. In 1920, worked five NL games.
• Harry Howell – during his 13-year playing career, he umped one AL game in 1904, two in 1906, and two in 1907. In 1915 worked 85 FL games, 10 at HP and 75 at 1B. August 1, 1915, was his last game.
• Jim Johnstone – umpired in AL in 1902, then in the NL from 1903 through 1912. Worked in 153 FL games, 112 at HP and 41 at 1B. Ejected 183 people over the years, including 28 in 1904.
• Joseph Langden – three games: August 8, 11, and 13, 1915. Born Joseph Etienne Langevin.
• John Mullin – 1909 NL: 7 games; 1911 AL: 148 games; 1915 FL 67 games, 37 at HP and 30 at 1B. He had begun the season in the Western League but jumped his assignment there and began officiating in the Federal League on July 22. In his very first game, he ejected Baltimore manager Otto Knabe.
• Joe O’Brien – 43 games, 25 HP and 18 1B. Had umpired some in the AL in 1912 and 1914.
• Otis Stockdale – one game, August 11,1915. He hadn’t umpired a major-league game for 20 years, since 1895, when he had worked two National League games. After this one Federal League game, he worked 11 National League games from August 16-25.
• Frederick Westervelt – Frederick Euphenia Westervelt had worked 151 AL games in 1911 and 1912 combined. In 1915 he worked 145 Federal League games, 39 HP and 106 at 1B. In 1922 and 1923, he worked a combined 49 NL games.
• Kaiser Wilhelm – pitched for Baltimore in 47 FL games in 1914 and appeared in one game in 1915, but had contractual disagreements and pretty much sat out the season. Had umped one game in 1904 and one game in 1905, both while player in NL. Worked 52 Federal League games from August 13 through October 3. All but one game (September 27, game two) were at 1B.

Bill Brennan

Let’s look a bit more deeply at the three men who worked both years. Studying the box scores, we see that Bill Brennan turns up on Opening Day when St. Louis hosted the Hoosiers. Brennan was “chief umpire” and he worked 155 games in 1914 and 166 games in 1915.

He was a veteran with four-plus seasons of National League umpiring on his résumé and had worked the 1911 World Series between the victorious Philadelphia Athletics and the New York Giants.

• Bill Brennan umpiring record at Retrosheet.org

Note: One June 14, 1912, umpire Brick Owens had to leave the game after eight innings and Brennan moved behind the plate. Brennan worked in 152 games (and a total of 1,090), as indicated.

From David Anderson’s BioProject profile of Brennan, we learn that after a hotly disputed call he made late in the season, he completed his work that year but in 1914 quit the National League to take a job as chief umpire of the Federal League. Anderson writes:

“Putting together an umpire staff in a new major league was a tall order. The first thing Brennan did was to choose umpires who had heft. He turned down Hank O’Day and Jack Egan simply because they lacked the physical size Brennan thought necessary. One sportswriter said, “To look at Brennan’s selections, the inference at first thought would be that they were entrants in the all-round athletic competition at Harvard or Yale, or members of a selected football eleven in the days of Heffelfinger and the tandem-tackle play.”4 The reference to Pudge Heffelfinger came from Heffelfinger’s play at Yale during the late nineteenth century as a guard.

A number of early news stories had this umpire or that signing with the Federal League. Tim Hurst, Jimmy Johnstone, and Brick Owens were all named in a Los Angeles Times story headlined, “Three National League Umpires With Federals.”5

On January 19, however, it was reported that Bill Brennan had indeed signed.6 Steve Cusack, Monte Cross, and Garnet Bush signed the following day. It’s not quite clear what the Atlanta Constitution was thinking, though, with their headline “Federal League Umpire Staff Is Now Complete.”7 They named Brennan, Bush, Cross, and Cusack, but it was rather unlikely that four umpires were somehow going to be able to work 616 games on the eight-team schedule.

On March 4 Federal League umpires met in Chicago to discuss interpretation of the rules. The infield-fly rule was an important one to get straight, said one article, because National League and American League players were used to different interpretations, and with players from both leagues jumping to the Federal League, it was important to be clear from the start.8 Brennan presided over the meeting, which included Anderson, Bush, Cross, Cusack, Kane, Mannassau, and McCormick.

On March 10 eight umpires left St. Louis for Mineral Springs, Texas, to begin their own work officiating in league spring-training games. League secretary Lloyd Rickart said, “This is a regular league and we’re doing things as they should be done. All our umpires will spend a month in the South, going around to the different camps. They will be required to get in condition so that their eyes will be trained on the ball when the season opens. It’s as hard for an umpire to get his eye on the ball as it is for the batter.”9

Apparently, Brennan cut quite a figure at the March 12 game at Shreveport. The Chicago Tribune game report said, “Another feature was the accuracy and dispatch with which Bill Brennan umpired the game. The natives gaped in wonder at him, never having seen a regular big league umpire here before. Bill was dressed in all his armor, too.”10

The umpires were to wear “blue uniforms during the Spring and Fall months and crash material during the hot Summer months.”11

Having first-rate professional umpires on the field helped legitimize the Federal League. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch began its account of Opening Day at Handlan’s Park: “When the curtain was rung up on the Federal League season, the promoters showed a real park, real teams, real umpires and a real crowd. The big feature missing … was a local victory.”12

Anderson continued: “The Federal League began 1914 with eight full-time umpires: Brennan, Monte Cross, Al Mannassau, Ollie Anderson, Steve Cusack, Barry McCormick, Garnet Bush, and Steven Kane. But the president of the Federal League, James A. Gilmore, and Brennan had their hands full from the beginning with questionable umpiring. The first umpire to be relieved of his duties was Steven Kane. An umpire in the National League in 1909 and 1910, and one of the highest paid umps in the Federal League, Kane had racked up 11 ejections when he was fired for health reasons on June 8. Tragically, he died on October 30, 1915, of heart disease.13

“The next week saw the end of umpire Garnet Bush. Bush, along with Mannassau, had umpired the first Federal League game at Baltimore’s Terrapin Park on April 13. But after Bush ejected three St. Louis Terriers on May 26, then four Baltimore Terrapin players on June 8, and then threw out another five Terrapins on June 14, Gilmore had enough and Bush lost his job.14

“At the end of 1914 season, Gilmore dismissed another three umpires: Cross, Cusack, and Mannassau. This left only Brennan, McCormick, and Spike Shannon to be carried over for 1915. (Shannon, a former player with the Cardinals, Giants, and Pirates, became a Federal League umpire on June 28 after Kane and Bush washed out.)15 They were supplemented, for the 1915 season with William Finneran, Frederick Westervelt, Harry Howell, Louis Fyfe, and Jim Johnstone.16

For 1915, league President Gilmore requested that managers and umpires attend a February meeting in Buffalo, and then a 10-day training camp starting at the end of March at West Baden, Indiana, where “William Brennan, chief of the umpiring staff, will go over the rules with the members of the staff and lead in the physical conditioning that the league president insists upon.”17

In the midst of the Federal League’s second season, Brennan witnessed a pitching duel between former Philadelphia Athletics pitchers Eddie Plank and Chief Bender on June 26. Plank pitched for the St. Louis Terriers and Bender was on the mound for the Baltimore Terrapins, with St. Louis winning 2-0. Brennan said, “It was the hardest game I ever umpired. Neither pitcher grooved a ball in the entire game. They were cutting corners in an uncanny manner and when pitchers are pitching that way it is hard to umpire. I can easily see just why Plank and Bender have been leading pitchers for so many years.”18

Brennan was also partnered with Westervelt (the first game) and Johnstone (the final five) for the crucial six-game series between Chicago and Pittsburgh that concluded the 1915 season. The Whales won the Federal League pennant with an 86-66 record, St. Louis placed second at 87-67 and Pittsburgh placed third, a half-game off the pace, at 86-67.

After the 1915 season, the Federal League was disbanded. Brennan had to find another job and worked in the Class-C South Atlantic League in 1916. The Atlanta Constitution commented, “Bill Brennan, one of the best umpires who ever worked at that trade, had to take a job in a Class C circuit this year to get his bread and butter.”19

Barry McCormick

Barry McCormick umpired in all three major leagues of the twentieth century. He also played baseball, in both the National League and the American League. As an infielder, he played 989 major-league games at either third base, second base, or shortstop, and two in the outfield. He debuted in 1895, appearing in three games for the National League’s Louisville Colonels. Beginning in 1896, he played six seasons for the team now known as the Chicago Cubs (then, the Colts or Orphans).

After the 1901 season, McCormick jumped from the National League to join the St. Louis Browns in time for the second season of American League baseball and played that season and half of 1903 for the Browns. On July 16, 1903, St. Louis traded him to the Washington Senators. He played out that year and then a full season for the Senators in 1904.

From 1905 into 1910, McCormick played in the American Association for the Milwaukee Brewers. He put in time for Minneapolis in 1910 and both Minneapolis and St. Paul in 1911, completing his playing career serving as a player-manager in the Ohio State League in 1912. He was meant to manage and play for Peoria of the Three-I League in 1913, but was suspended in midseason due to a dispute with the team’s ownership.20

Robert Peyton Wiggins talks about McCormick’s time in the Federal League:

“On February 8, 1914, President James Gilmore of the Federal League, a new major league wanna-be, announced that Barry McCormick would be one of the league’s umpires for the 1914 season. Former major-league players becoming big league umpires was not unusual for the time, notably Hank O’Day, Bob Emslie, and Bill Dinneen. Umpire McCormick performed admirably for the troubled Federal League umpire corps during the two years of its existence as a self-proclaimed major league.

“Within three months of the official demise of the Federal League, McCormick’s performance in that circuit earned him a job as an umpire with the American Association in 1916. At the conclusion of the minor-league season, Association President Tom Chivington advised McCormick of his release, and the following February Barry joined Ban Johnson’s staff of American League umpires.”21

Thus, the very next year (1917), there he was, umpiring in the American League. There was one very memorable game he umpired. It came on June 23, in the first game of a doubleheader at Fenway Park. McCormick was the first-base umpire working a three-man crew with Brick Owens at the plate and Bill Dinneen at third base. Starting against the visiting Washington Senators was Boston’s Babe Ruth. The first batter Ruth faced (Ray Morgan) drew a walk, but Ruth took great exception to Owens’ ball-and-strike calling and struck the umpire on his ear. Ruth was ejected, policemen dragging him from the field, and Ernie Shore took over. With Shore on the mound, Morgan tried to steal second but was put out, and Shore retired the next 26 batters he faced in order. It was, truly, a perfect game.

He had to sit out 1918, Wiggins explained, when “Thomas Hickey, recently elected president of the American Association, announced the American League had no right to employ Barry McCormick in 1917. According to Hickey, McCormick was under reserve to the American Association, and he had been offered a contract for 1918.22 McCormick served his one year of exile in the American Association and was hired as a National League umpire for 1919. McCormick would umpire in the National League for the next 11 years.”

Wiggins pointed to another game that stands out in McCormick’s career. It also took place in Boston, at Braves Field on May 1, 1920. Pitchers Joe Oeschger of the Boston Braves and Leon Cadore of Brooklyn each worked complete games – the game lasted 26 innings and ended in a 1-1 tie, called due to darkness after 3 hours and 50 minutes. Working as a two-man crew, McCormick was the home-plate umpire; Bob Hart was the umpire on the bases.

• Barry McCormick’s umpiring record at Retrosheet.org

Spike Shannon

Shannon’s major-league umpiring career was limited to the Federal League.

• Spike Shannon’s umpiring record at Retrosheet.org

He had been an outfielder who broke in with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1904. He put in five years in the National League, for the Cardinals, Giants, and Pirates, playing in 694 games. He then played three years for the Kansas City Blues in the American Association. Though he umpired in both 1914 and 1915, neither year was a full year.

Rich Arpi tells how he got the job. “Shannon began the 1914 season as an umpire in this same Class-C Northern League. He umpired a series in each league town, including a warm reception in Virginia, [Minnesota,] before getting a better offer from the Federal League. How does an umpire with a little over one month experience get a call from a supposedly major league? Shannon was good friends with Bill Brennan, a former National League umpire and now chief of umpires for the Federal League. Shannon and Brennan, a St. Paul native, had played football together 10 years previously for the semipro St. Paul Tigers.”23

Shannon’s first game umpiring in the Federal League was on July 1. He partnered with Brennan and it was as though the two were inseparable: for Shannon’s first 29 games (July 1 through 30), Brennan and Shannon worked together. In 21 of them, Brennan worked the plate and Shannon was the first-base umpire. He had only three partners all year long. From July 31 through September 18, he was paired up with Barry McCormick, and from September 19 through the season’s last game on October 10 with Al Mannassau.

Once he got started, Shannon worked the rest of the season. In 1915, he started on Opening Day in Kansas City, but worked his last game on August 7 in Newark. Arpi says, “His partners during the season were Bill Brennan, Barry McCormick, and Jim Johnstone. Shannon missed a slew of games in May; only umpiring games on May 2, May 17, and May 21-24. He also missed several games in July (22-25). His last game was on August 7, 1915, when he and crewmate Jim Johnstone had to be escorted off the field after Newark fans rushed the field during a game against Kansas City. Doubleheaders at Pittsburgh on July 28 and 29 and in Kansas City on July 31 and August 1 might also may have exhausted Shannon.”24

Different looks at umpiring in the Federal League

Let us now take a look, from two perspectives, on the logistics of how the games were played. First, we will look at one team’s games to see which umpires worked the games of 1914’s pennant-winning Indianapolis Hoosiers. We will note that, throughout all three major leagues in this era, umpires worked a two-man system, positioned at home plate and first base and then moving as necessary to call plays on the bases.

1914 – a look at the umpires who worked one team’s games:

The first four games for the Hoosiers (April 16-19) were in St. Louis. They were worked by Bill Brennan at home plate and Barry McCormick at first base.

April 20-22 – the Hoosiers traveled to Kansas City and the umpires were Steve Cusack HP and Steve Kane 1B. This “crew” worked the three games at KC, then traveled to Indianapolis where they also worked the following six games, three each against visiting STL and PIT.

Starting on May 1, the Brennan/McCormick crew then worked five games in Indy. After the May 9 game, when BAL left Indianapolis and KC arrived for two games, Monte Cross (HP) and Ollie Anderson (1B) worked the next two games.

The Hoosiers then went to Baltimore, and Cross and Anderson did, too, for three games.

The Hoosiers then went to Brooklyn, playing May 18-20. The crew there was Ed Goeckel and the apparently more senior Steve Kane, who had two full seasons of National League umpiring under his belt. (Goeckel’s first major-league game was April 25 and he worked only in 1914.)

On May 21 in Buffalo, the umpires were Brennan and McCormick.

On May 24 the “Hoofeds” were back in Indianapolis for one game. Cross and Anderson worked it and then went to Pittsburgh, where they worked back-to-back 10-inning games on the 25th and 26th.

After a few days of inactivity, the Hoosiers were in Chicago for a Memorial Day doubleheader. Garnet Bush worked HP and Al Mannassau worked 1B in the first game; they switched positions for the second game.

The very next day, Mannassau was still in Chicago but Charles Van Sickle debuted as a Federal League umpire. He worked in 67 games (52 of them at home plate) in his only year as an umpire. Mannassau worked 109 games in 1914 – 35 at HP and 74 at 1B.

The Hoosiers then went to St. Louis and it was Goeckel and Kane on June 1 but Goeckel and Cross on June 2-7 (six games). Kane was off from June 2-7, then came back and worked a doubleheader with McCormick on June 8 in Chicago – and was then released.

On June 8 and 9, the Hoosiers hosted the visiting Baltimore Terrapins. The umpires were Garnet Bush and Ollie Anderson. Bush was released from his position after the game on the 15th. After a day off on the 10th, with Baltimore still in town, there was a doubleheader worked on the 11th by Anderson but with Van Sickel taking Bush’s place.

From June 12 through June 15, both Anderson and VanSickel worked four games against visiting Pittsburgh.

From June 16-23, Cross and Mannassau worked eight games in a row during visits from both the Buffalo Blues and the Brooklyn Tip-Tops.

June 24-July 4 – Anderson and Van Sickle were back for nine games. Visiting Kansas City players complained at one point that Anderson “kept throwing new balls on the field” and on June 30 he was fined $50 by President Gilmore “for violating a rule which provides that ‘old’ balls must be kept in play as long as possible.”25

July 5-8 – Bill Brennan and Spike Shannon handled the last three games of a very long 31-game Hoosiers homestand.

The Indianapolis Hoosiers went to Chicago where they reunited with Anderson and Van Sickle from July 9-12. It wasn’t always true that umpires swapped positions during a doubleheader; Van Sickle worked the plate in both games of the July 12 doubleheader.

The Hoosiers and the two umpires then all went to KC, where Van Sickle and Anderson worked the four games there, starting in July 13. And then both Hoosiers and the same two umps traveled on to St. Louis for three more games there.

From June 8 through July 19, Ollie Anderson had worked 29 Hoosiers games out of 39, and 11 in a row from July 9-19.

July 22-25 – Brennan and Shannon worked five games in Pittsburgh. Just as Van Sickle had worked the plate for two games on July 12, likewise Brennan did so in both halves of the July 25 doubleheader, both of which went into extra innings. Spike Shannon worked 13 innings behind the plate, and Brennan worked 12 innings at home plate in the second game. (Indianapolis lost both games.)

On July 27 in Baltimore, there was just one umpire: Ed Goeckel.

July 28 – Monte Cross joined Goeckel for games in Baltimore on the 28th and 29th.

July 31-August 3 in Brooklyn – the crew was McCormick and Shannon.

August 4-6 at Buffalo, it was Cross and Goeckel.

Back in Indianapolis, McCormick and Shannon teamed up for 10 games from August 8-15, embracing games against visiting Baltimore and Buffalo.

August 16-17 – Brennan and Steve Cusack worked the first two games of a visit by Pittsburgh.

August 18-19 – Goeckel arrived and he worked with Cusack for the last two games of the visit by Pittsburgh; Brennan went to Chicago for two games.

August 21-24 – Brennan and Mannassau worked three doubleheaders in a row – all against Brooklyn – on August 21, 22, and 24. Indianapolis swept all three twin bills.

August 26-September 4 – The Hoosiers went on the road to Kansas City. Cross and Anderson worked all eight games of the road trip, four in KC and then four in Chicago against the Whales.

September 5-7 – Both teams traveled to Indianapolis, where the Hoofeds hosted the Whales. McCormick and Shannon worked four games in the three-day visit.

September 9-10 – The Hoosiers went back on the road, to Baltimore for doubleheaders on the 9th and 10th – Goeckel and Cusack were the umpires.

September 12 – After a day off, the two teams squared off in another doubleheader. This time it was McCormick and Shannon for that one day.

September 14-15 – The Indianapolis team traveled to Brooklyn. Cross and Anderson worked the first two of five games there.

September 16-18 – Bill Brennan and Al Mannassau worked the three remaining games in Brooklyn.

September 19-24 – McCormick and Cross worked all five games in Buffalo.

September 25-29 – Brennan and Cusack worked four games in Pittsburgh.

September 30 – The Hoofeds returned home to close out the season. McCormick and Brennan worked one game, the Whales visiting Indianapolis.

October 1-8 – Brennan and Goeckel finished out the season working the final eight games against Kansas City and then St. Louis.

1915 – a look at one umpire’s schedule for the year

For 1915, rather than following one team, we will follow one umpire’s schedule.

Barry McCormick, who went on to umpire 12 years with both the AL and NL, worked 158 FL games in 1914 and 157 FL games in 1915 – both years working more games than any given team played in the 154-game schedule. It wasn’t the only time McCormick pulled off this feat: in 1921, he worked 158 National League games, in both 1925 and 1926, he worked 157 NL games, and in 1928 he worked 10 more games than there were on the schedule – 164 National League games.

Thanks to Retrosheet, we are able to present McCormick’s schedule for 1915 here.

One thing we see at a glance is that McCormick worked home plate for the first 75 games of his 1915 season.

We were interested to see whom he partnered with most often and if there were any evident patterns. In contrast to the usual pattern, which had obtained in his 1914 schedule, and in contrast to umpire crews today, McCormick was partnered with Frederick Westervelt for every one of the first 67 games on the 1915 season – every game from Opening Day through July 1. Then, on July 2, after the first nine games of a 16-game stretch of umpiring games played in Baltimore, McCormick was sent to Newark and partnered with Spike Shannon. Jim Johnstone came in to Baltimore to work the plate with Westervelt.

From July 2 through July 15, McCormick and Shannon worked together. McCormick traveled to Chicago and on July 17 worked first base in both games of a doubleheader; Harry Howell worked the plate. Howell had worked the full season to that point, but umpired only six more games, four with McCormick and then a doubleheader with Bill Brennan on August 1. According to biographer Eric Sallee, Howell “was released after an on-field brouhaha with St. Louis Federals manager Fielder Jones.”26

On July 21, Shannon and McCormick were reunited for a day, in the first game of a doubleheader. Howell worked second base in the second game. Then on July 22 – still in Chicago – John Mullin worked his very first Federal League game (and ejected Baltimore manager Otto Knabe over a call at second base). Mullin had worked seven NL games in 1909 and 148 AL games in 1911. The July 22 game was the first of 67 he worked in the Federal League for the remainder of 1915, his last games working in the majors. Knabe was the only man he threw out all year. Mullin worked July 22 and 23 with McCormick, and then Shannon was back for six games.

On July 31 McCormick had made his way from Pittsburgh to St. Louis and he met Westervelt there for a doubleheader. On August 1 Tommy Corcoran came to St. Louis and worked with McCormick. Westervelt missed four days and Corcoran and McCormick worked together. Corcoran was something of a fill-in during the 1915 season, working his first of 46 games on May 1 and his last on August 19. After the four days, Westervelt worked eight games with McCormick through August 13 – Westervelt being permitted to alternate home-plate assignments.

On August 14, after McCormick had departed Newark for Baltimore, his partner was Kaiser Wilhelm. It was Wilhelm’s first Federal League umpiring assignment. He had previously worked one NL game in 1904 and one in 1905, filling in for those two games during his pitching career with the Boston Braves. Wilhelm had been 12-17 for the Terrapins in 1914, but pitched in only one game in 1915 before a contract dispute ended his season with Baltimore. Once he began work as an umpire, he worked 52 games – the rest of the 1915 season. The first two of those games were with Brennan and the next eight were with McCormick.

On August 24 Westervelt and McCormick paired up for three games back in Newark, one in Buffalo, a doubleheader in Chicago, then back to Buffalo for two more games, then on to Brooklyn for one.

On September 2 McCormick went to Pittsburgh, where he started working with Joe O’Brien for the first time. O’Brien had just joined the league with an August 17 debut. He worked in 43 games. Once McCormick and O’Brien became partners, they worked together for the last 30 games of the year. McCormick’s season had been bookended, starting the first 67 games in a row with Westervelt and then the final 30 games with O’Brien. In between, he worked his other 60 games with Shannon, Howell, Mullin, Corcoran, and Wilhelm.

SOME ANOMALOUS GAMES

1914:

• May 18 – St. Louis at Buffalo – Barry McCormick worked solo (Bill Brennan came in for the next two games).
• May 26 – KC at Buffalo – Ed Goeckel worked solo (Steve Kane arrived for the next game, two days later).
• July 22-25 — St. Louis at Baltimore – Ed Goeckel worked solo for four games in a row.
• September 12 – St. Louis at Brooklyn. Bob Groom both umpired and played in the same game. This was a game in which four umpires in all worked: Umpires: HP – Bob Groom (left in the third inning), 1B – Bert Maxwell (left in the third inning); Monte Cross entered at HP in the third inning; Ollie Anderson entered at 1B in the third inning. What was this all about? The Brooklyn Daily Eagle explained: “When game time arrived, the umpires were nowhere to be found, and the rival managers agreed to have a player from each team officiate. Accordingly, Bert Maxwell of Brooklyn and Bob Groom of St. Louis made noises like regular umpires for one whole inning. Near the end of Brooklyn’s first time at bat Umpire Anderson hove in sight, and seemed surprised that the game had started at 2:30. He explained that he had understood that 3 o’clock was the time set for the start. A little later Umpire Cross strolled into the grounds and became very much excited when he found that a couple of innings had already been played.”27

1915:

• April 29 – St. Louis at Pittsburgh – four umpires worked the day. Game one: Bill Finneran HP, Harry Howell 1B; game two: Bill Brennan HP, Spike Shannon 1B. The next day’s Pittsburgh Daily Post reported this in the box scores, but without explanation.
• June 11 – Buffalo at Baltimore – Bill Brennan worked solo.
• July 20 – Baltimore at St. Louis – game one had Brennan at home plate and Shannon at first base; game two had Shannon at home plate and Tommy Corcoran at first base. The next day Brennan was back at home plate, with Corcoran at first base. Corcoran hadn’t umpired since May 21. The July 20 game was his first game back. He worked until August 19.
• August 9 – St. Louis at Baltimore – Bill Brennan worked solo.
• August 10 – Pittsburgh at Baltimore – Bill Brennan worked solo. The next day, Otis Stockdale worked his only Federal League game. He hadn’t umpired a major-league game for 20 years, since 1895, when he had worked two National League games. The Pittsburgh Press commented that Stockdale “engaged in a little fuss with Manager Knabe” who “kicked on a close play at first base, and made a few jumps toward the new arbiter, but he suddenly found himself squatting on the turf, where a rough push from Stockdale put him. Konetchy prevented further trouble by intervening. Knabe is proving quite an umpire baiter, but he didn’t get away with it on Brennan’s helper.”28 From August 16 to 25, Stockdale worked 11 National League games.
• August 11 – Kansas City at Brooklyn – Tommy Corcoran worked solo.
• August 22 – Buffalo at Chicago – Bill Brennan worked solo.
• September 30 – Newark at Baltimore – Bill Finneran worked solo in both games of a doubleheader.

Which umpire had the most ejections in Federal League games?

Ollie Anderson threw out 13 in his 152 games in 1914.

Garnet Bush threw out 16. Nine of the ejectees were from Baltimore.

Brouhahas – Garnet Bush threw out five Terrapins in one game on June 14, 1914: Mickey Doolin, Otto Knabe, Hack Simmons, Jimmy Walsh, and Guy Zinn.

He had thrown out four Terrapins in the June 8 game. One of the players was Kaiser Wilhelm, who became a Federal League umpire in 1915. The April 12 game was his one and only game as a player in 1915. (In 1921 he pitched in four games for the Philadelphia Phillies.)

Baltimore may have been troublesome to umpires; Ed Goeckel threw out three in the September 4 game. Five of the 13 players Anderson threw out were Terrapins. Four of the 10 Van Sickle threw out were Terrapins. Three of the 15 Brennan threw out over the two years of the Federal League were Terrapins, too.

Of 97 ejections throughout the league in 1914, 23 were Terrapins.

In 1915 it was Brooklyn that suffered the largest number of ejections. Of what appear to be 67 ejections, 16 were of Brooklyn players.

There were oddities, of course. During the July 5, 1915, game, it was reported that both St. Louis manager Fielder Jones and umpire Harry Howell were banished from the field.29 Howell was released from his position on July 26. He was later reinstated “after a short vacation” to replace Tom Corcoran.30

Rowdyism

Rowdyism was a problem throughout baseball at the time. There were any number of incidents of wrangling. On May 27, 1914, at Baltimore, umpire Al Mannassau had been kicked in the side by right fielder Fred Kommers.31

On June 14 in Chicago, there was “rowdyism that approached a riot.”32 Umpire Bush cleared the bench, ordering five Baltimore Terrapins ejected during the first game of a doubleheader. President James Gilmore was at the game, lectured participants between games, but then permitted them to play the second game.

In another larger-scale conflagration that occurred in Kansas City on July 28, 1915, umpire Tommy Corcoran was involved in fights in both games of a doubleheader. In the first game, Kansas City manager Stovall had “an argument … punctuated by fisticuffs” with Corcoran, and was ejected. In the second game, Lee Magee “struck Corcoran and when Corcoran drew blood from Magee’s lip, Kauff came to Magee’s rescue.”33 Three were fined, with both Stovall and Magee suspended. Magee said afterward, “I was put out of the first game of the season, and I have been the butt of every umpire’s anger since that time. They’ve been after me since that time. They’ve been after me because I’m known as an aggressive player and manager. Every time I open my mouth on the field I am sent to the clubhouse. Umpire Corcoran hit me first in our mix-up, and I couldn’t let him make a fool out of me. I have schooled my players into being aggressive, and I am not going to play ladylike baseball just to please some umpires.”34

Of course, it wasn’t only rowdyism, umpire baiting, and the need for ejections that presented problems for umpires. There were other problems that cropped us as well.

On July 31, 1915, Buffalo played a doubleheader in St. Louis. Umpire Westervelt worked home plate in the first game and then was listed as the first-base umpire in the second game. He was overcome by heat at the close of the game and was taken to the city hospital. “He is expected to recover,” reported the local paper. He did, but there were two deaths in the city attributed to the heat.35

The day after Stovall and Magee got into it with umpire Corcoran, the Chicago Tribune ran a lengthy article by I.E. Sanborn headlined “Sportsmanship Gets Black Eye by Continued Umpire Baiting.” Sanborn looked at other sports, from football to tennis to prizefighting and horseracing, and argued that officials in those sports never required police escorts to protect them from “rough handling” or threat. He decried the proclivity of both fans and ballplayers to ride the umpires. He ended his article thus:

“There are not sixteen ball players in the major leagues today who live cleaner lives and keep themselves in better condition mentally and physically to do their work on the diamond than the sixteen umpires do. There may be sixteen players who conduct themselves as cleanly as do the umpires during a season, but not more cleanly.

“How many ball players could field accurately or bat successfully with half the crowd riding them half the time?

“Isn’t the standard of sportsmanship in baseball lower than in any other sport?”36

Umpiring after the demise of the Federal League

Once the Federal League disbanded, players and umpires alike had to find other work. Looking at the three men who had worked both years in the league, we saw above that Bill Brennan had to take a position in Class-C baseball the following year.37 In his SABR biography of Brennan, Dave Anderson says that Brennan umpired in the American Association in 1917 and 1918, then became the Southern League’s umpire in chief starting in 1919. He held that position until 1933, though it is notable that he also worked 143 games in the National League in 1921.

Barry McCormick worked in the American Association in 1916. In 1917 he worked for a year as an umpire in the American League and from 1919 through 1929 he served as a National League umpire.

Spike Shannon took a position in the Western League from 1916 to 1919. He then worked in the American Association from 1920 through 1922. From 1923 to 1925, Shannon worked in the Western League, and in 1926 he worked in the Pacific Coast League. In 1927 he worked in the Southern Association and in 1928 in the American Association. For the final three years of his umpiring career, 1929-1931, he returned to the Southern Association.

The other Federal League umpires each followed their own paths.

BILL NOWLIN, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rounder Records (which he co-founded in 1970) has been a board member of SABR since 2004, and is looking forward to seeing SABR (which he did not co-found) turn 50 in 2021. He goes to almost every Red Sox home game and recently wrapped up a book based on interviewing more than 70 major-league umpires over the past four years. In part, that explains his decision to include a piece on Federal League umpires in the current volume.

Notes

1 “Umpire Van Sycle to Go,” Christian Science Monitor, August 18, 1914: 20. Apparently he repeatedly warned Whales manager Joe Tinker for taking too long to send batters to the plate, and threatened to forfeit the game.

2 James Crusinberry, “Gilmore Names Three More ‘Umps,’” Chicago Tribune, December 16, 1914: 13.

3 “Major League Umpires Will Suffer a Salary Cut During 1915 Season,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 9, 1915: 6.

4 David W. Anderson, “Bill Brennan,” SABR BioProject, at sabr.org/bioproj/person/e2b0040d. The sportswriter Anderson quoted was from an unidentified March 13, 1915, newspaper clipping in Bill Brennan’s file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

5 “Three National League Umpires with Federals,” Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1914: III-12.

6 “Big Leaguers Visit Federals,” Boston Globe, January 20, 1914: 7.

7 “Federal League Umpire Staff Is Now Complete,” Atlanta Constitution, January 22, 1914: 9.

8 “Federal League Threatens Big War,” New York Times, March 4, 1914: 9.

9 “Federal Umpires Going South to Get in Condition,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 11, 1914: 9.

10 Sam Weller, “‘ChiFed’ Blokes Win Opener,” Chicago Tribune, March 13, 1914: 14.

11 “Federal Umpires’ Assignments,” New York Times, April 5, 1914: S1.

12 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Federal League of Baseball Bears Major League Stamp,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 17,1914: 18.

13 Robert Peyton Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs: The History of an Outlaw Major League, 1914-1915 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009), 106.

14 Ibid.

15 Wiggins, 107.

16 Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Bill Brennan Umpire File. Story published in unidentified March 13, 1915, newspaper article headlined “The Umpire Staff.”

17 “Federal League Umpires to Get a Training Trip,” Christian Science Monitor, January 18, 1915: 14.

18 Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Bill Brennan Umpire File. Story published in unidentified August 14, 1915, newspaper article headlined “Wonderful Pitching by the Old Masters.”

19 “Diamond Flashes,” Atlanta Constitution, October 15, 1916: A4.

20 “Sporting Gossip,” Evening News (Providence, Rhode Island), October 28, 1913. See Wiggins’ biography of McCormick for more detail. Robert Peyton Wiggins, “Barry McCormick,” BioProject, at sabr.org/bioproj/person/22be876f.

21 Ibid.

22 “Can’t Have Umpire McCormick,” Sporting Life, March 10, 1917.

23 Rich Arpi, “Spike Shannon,” SABR BioProject, at sabr.org/bioproj/person/8c0483cc.

24 Ibid.

25 “Umpire Anderson Fined,” Boston Globe, July 1, 1914: 4.

26 Eric Sallee, “Harry Howell,” SABR BioProject, at sabr.org/bioproj/person/b8aabfeb.

27 “Brooklyn Feds Win Up-hill Game,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 13, 1914: 29.

28 “Knetzer to Pitch for Rebs,” Pittsburgh Press, August 12, 1915: 20.

29 “Fielder Jones Suspended,” New York Times, July 7, 1915: 12.

30 Wiggins, 242, 243.

31 “Kicks ‘Fed’ Umpire,” Washington Post, May 28, 1914: 8.

32 James Crusinberry, “Wrangles Mark Split Twin Card,” Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1914: 15. The article said that at least seven of the Baltimores were ejected, Bush later banishing “two or possibly three more.”

33 “Lee Magee Strikes Umpire Corcoran,” New York Times, July 29, 1915: 7. See also “Fine Three and Suspend Two for Attacking ‘Fed’ Umpire,” Washington Post, July 30, 1915: 8.

34 “Fine Three and Suspend Two for Attacking ‘Fed’ Umpire.”

35 “2 Deaths from Heat, Showers Cool Air Later,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 1, 1915: A5.

36 I.E. Sanborn, “Sportsmanship Gets Black Eye by Continued Umpire Baiting,” Chicago Tribune, August 1, 1915: B2.

37 “Diamond Flashes,” Atlanta Constitution, October 15, 1916: A4. Thanks to Dave Anderson’s SABR biography of Brennan.