Moments in Baseball History: Players and Games Worth Remembering

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MOMENTS IN

BASEBALL HISTORY

Players and Games Worth Remembering

Mark R. Brewer

Copyright © 2022 by Mark R. Brewer.

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Rev. date: 11/29/2022

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To my friends and family who are hardcore baseball fans:

                                              Tom Bailey

                                              Jeff Brewer

                                              Stephen Brewer

                                              Roger Brodmerkel

                                              Steve Castellano

                                              Tom Disher

                                              Skip Drinkwater

                                              Marshall Green

                                              Joseph Jones

                                              Max Nolan

                                              James Pensabene

                                              Evan Syzmanski

                                              Jason Syzmanski

                                              Alan Taylor

                                              John Tockstein

                                              Steve White

Thanks for all the chatter.

INTRODUCTION

It is the great American game, the National Pastime. No other sport can compete with the deep history and almost endless statistics of baseball. It also has no clock. It will end when it ends. It calls to mind long summer days of youthful innocence, seasons that stretch on and on into autumn, and players and pennant races long past. No comeback is impossible.

My own love for baseball began in the summer of 1967. My family is from Worcester, Massachusetts originally. I have been told that my grandfather on my mother’s side, James William Willie Congdon, was a huge Boston Braves fan. My own father was not a big baseball fan, but he kept saying to me that summer, Have you been following the Red Sox? They had finished ninth out of ten teams in 1966, but that summer of ’67, the Summer of Love, the Sox were making a serious run for the pennant. They would win it on the last day of the season. By the time they did, I was a major fan of the Red Sox and their star, Carl Yastrzemski, who won the Triple Crown that year.

Simultaneously, I had become friends with two twin brothers who were in the same grade as me, Joe and Eric Frueh. They casually asked me one afternoon if I wanted to play Strat-O-Matic. I said I didn’t know what that was. You never heard of Strat-O-Matic? Joe asked me incredulously. And so was born my introduction to table-top baseball and baseball stats. I became an instant junkie.

Baseball has brought me so many moments both of soaring joy and burning sorrow—just like life itself. I love the game more than I can express.

I once asked a missionary from my Church if there was baseball in heaven. Would it be heaven without it? she replied.

It would not.

Mark R. Brewer

January 2023

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As always, I must thank my brother, Michael A. Brewer, for his proofreading and editing of all my books, including this one. I am also grateful for his encouragement. He has definitely made this a better book. I am so thankful for my wife Laurie and my son Nick, who have listened to me ramble on about each chapter as I work on it. Their love and support, along with that of my daughter Madeline, is that which I most cherish in this world.

I must also give a shout out to two outstanding websites, Baseball Reference and the Society for American Baseball Research. They literally put the entire history of baseball at one’s fingertips. The fact that the two sites are linked makes research that much easier and enjoyable.

A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz

Humphrey Bogart

CONTENTS

Introduction

Acknowledgements

1 The Firebrand

2 The Greatest Game

3 Fleet

4 Our Johnny

5 Sir Hugh

6 Big Ed

7 Matty

8 Bonehead

9 The Longest Game

10 Chappie

11 The Big Train

12 The Black Babe Ruth

13 Gabby

14 Pete

15 Cool Papa Bell

16 Eddie

17 The Shot

18 Herb

19 Whitey

20 Harvey

21 Ole Satch

22 Dock

Notes

Bibliography

ONE

THE FIREBRAND

Friday, September 3, 1869

Jefferson Street Ball Park

25th and Jefferson Streets

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

2:45 P.M.

A large crowd had gathered to witness the game. They had come from all around, arriving on horseback, in carriages, and on foot. The Deseret News out of Utah stated that attendance was immense. Estimates said more than 4,000 people had come to see an unprecedented ballgame. Nothing quite like it had ever happened before at any location in the country. It was, as the New York Times reported, the first game played between a white and a colored club.

The home team took the field precisely at 2:45 P.M. They wore a uniform of dark blue pants, white shirts, and caps that one observer described as neat. They were known as the Philadelphia Pythians. (¹) The manager and second baseman of the Pythians was Octavius V. Catto, a thirty-year-old black man. (²) Catto was a teacher of Mathematics and English (³) at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia (now Cheney University). (⁴) He would later become the school’s principal. (⁵) In addition, he was a civil rights activist. (⁶) He has been called a firebrand on and off the field. (⁷)

Catto had, for some time, wanted the Pythians to test their mettle against a white ball club. (⁸) He believed that a game against our white brethren would help to improve race relations. (⁹) Earlier that summer, The City Item, a newspaper owned by Thomas Fitzgerald, published a letter calling for a white club to play the Pythians. Such a game would afford the whites serviceable practice, the letter stated. I learn that the Pythians are composed of the most worthy young men among our colored population. Who will put the ball in motion?

Figure 1 Octavius Catto in 1871

Several white teams agreed to play the Pythians but later backed out. Finally, the Philadelphia Olympics agreed to the game. The Olympics were the oldest sports organization in the country, having been formed in 1838. (¹⁰) They required that the game be played at their home grounds at 25th and Jefferson Streets. (¹¹) A flip of a coin went the Pythians way, and they chose to be the home team.

Thomas Fitzgerald agreed to be the umpire for the contest, but his task was not to determine if a ball was fair or foul or whether a runner was out or safe. The teams would decide that. Fitzgerald was there in the event that the two teams could not agree. Either team could then appeal to him and he would have the final say.

Catto, however, told his players not to make any appeals. Perhaps he was concerned that the white players would not enjoy having their honesty questioned. It would certainly help to avoid any confrontations on the field of play. (¹²)

The first batter of the game, the Olympics’ second baseman Kerns, hit a ball in the air out toward Octavius Catto, who caught it for an out. And so, the game got underway. Catto also caught a ball for the final out of the first inning, but in between, the Olympics scored a run.

In the bottom of the inning, the Pythians’ leadoff hitter and pitcher John Cannon got a hit. Catto followed with another hit. Clarke, the Pythians’ catcher, apparently followed with a triple that scored both runners, but then Clarke, according to the account in the Philadelphia Inquirer, was caught napping at third after making his base by a clean hit. It seems he was picked off. The Pythians scored one more run to give them a 3-1 lead after one inning. It was the only lead they would have all day.

In the top of the second inning, the Olympics, saw that they had no easy job before them and went to work with a will, scoring eight runs. The Pythians answered with two in the bottom of the inning, making the score 9-5 Olympics. But then things got out of hand when the Olympics scored fourteen runs in the top of the third inning. The Pythians spent the rest of the game trying to play catchup, but the Olympics kept adding on.

The mixed-race crowd was very orderly until the ninth inning, when many people broke through the restraining ropes that held them back and pushed onto the playing field. The ninth inning, said the Inquirer, was, therefore, played under great difficulty, and it was only with trouble that the scorers could see the game. The final tally was Olympics 44, Pythians 23. But the Pythians acquitted themselves in a very credible manner, especially their outfielders, who made several very fine fly catches. (¹³)

Umpire Fitzgerald wrote that the Pythians could have appealed several plays, but they chose not to note important points in the game. For instance, they allowed two Olympics to score who neglected to touch home plate. Fitzgerald added that the Olympics’ pitcher threw too swiftly because he was using a sidearm motion rather than the underhanded delivery that was required. If all of these points had been noticed, said Fitzgerald, the game would have been very close. (¹⁴)

*    *    *    *    *    *

Octavius V. Catto was born in Charleston, South Carolina on February 22, 1839 to free black parents. The family moved to Philadelphia in 1844 as his father was named pastor of the First African Presbyterian Church in the city. Catto attended the Quaker-sponsored Institute for Colored Youth (ICY), where he received an excellent liberal arts education. After graduating in 1858, Catto went to Washington D.C. where he continued his education. Returning to Philadelphia, he began teaching at ICY. (¹⁵)

During the Civil War, Catto worked with abolitionist Frederick Douglass to get the government to allow the enlistment of black soldiers into the Union Army. (¹⁶) Catto would serve as a major in the Pennsylvania National Guard and would help to recruit eleven regiments of colored troops. (¹⁷) In 1864, he became secretary of the newly formed Pennsylvania Equal Rights League, which he had helped found. (¹⁸) He also was involved in the founding of the Union League Association in Philadelphia and the Banneker Literary Institute. After the war, he once again worked with Douglass and others to fight for passage of the 15th Amendment, which would give black men the right to vote. (¹⁹)

In 1866, Catto started a movement that would lead to the integration of Philadelphia streetcars. Later that same year, Catto and his childhood friend, Jacob C. White, Jr., founded the Independent Ball Club. Also involved in the founding of the club was William Still, a famous abolitionist who was known as the Father of the Underground Railroad. Initially, their home games were played at Diamond College Park in Camden, New Jersey, but they soon secured the Parade Grounds at 11th and Wharton Streets to serve as their home field. Because so many of their players were members of the Knights of Pythias (²⁰) (a fraternal order that promoted friendship, charity, and benevolence) (²¹), the team changed their name to the Philadelphia Pythians. (²²)

At the end of the 1867 season, Catto unsuccessfully applied for membership in the National Association of Baseball players and the Pennsylvania Association of Amateur Base Ball

Players. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported at the time that the National Association was opposed to any club composed of black men, and any white club having colored members. (²³) The Pythians were, writes historian Neil Lanctot, barred from membership in both amateur leagues, foreshadowing the eventual de facto exclusion of African Americans from white professional baseball later in the century (see Chapter Three). (²⁴)

Figure 2 A Quest for Parity: The Octavius V. Catto Memorial

by sculptor Branly Cadet. The sculpture hangs at City Hall in

Philadelphia. Catto stands third from the left with his arms crossed

The Pythians were undefeated in 1868 (²⁵), prompting Catto to label his team the Black Champions. (²⁶)

Then came 1869 and the game against the Olympics. Weeks later, on October 16th, the Pythians defeated the all-white City Item team, 27-17. Named for his newspaper, Thomas Fitzgerald ran the team. The Pythians probably had no fear appealing plays, as Fitzgerald, though white, was a supporter of the black clubs. (²⁷)

On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment, guaranteeing the vote to black men, was ratified and so became part of the U.S. Constitution. (²⁸) The Election of 1871 took place in Philadelphia on October 10, 1871. Racial tensions gripped the city that day as it was one of the first times that black men were legally permitted to vote. The Democratic Party sent armed thugs to polling places to intimidate and prevent black men from voting. On his way to the polls, and not far from his home, Catto was harassed by the mob. Then a white man named Frank Kelly stepped forward and shot Catto through the heart. (²⁹) Catto was thirty-two.

On October 26, 1871, thousands of people passed through the City Armory to view Catto’s body as it lay in state. Thousands more watched the procession of soldiers, elected officials, and Pythians who escorted Catto’s body to Mount Lebanon Cemetery. The funeral procession was the largest in Philadelphia since Abraham Lincoln’s. (³⁰) Catto did not die because the murderer was his natural enemy, wrote a local newspaper. He died because a poor demented wretch was taught that the black man had no right the white man should respect. (³¹)

Figure 3 Frank Kelly guns down Octavius Catto, who is shown here with a pistol, though none of the accounts mention him carrying a weapon

At the time of his death, Catto was engaged to be married to Sarah LeCount, herself an activist for equal rights. (³²) After Catto’s death, the Philadelphia Pythians ball club dissolved. (³³)

Figure 4 The author at the statue of Octavius Catto at

City Hall in Philadelphia. Photo by Madeline Brewer

Frank Kelly escaped and left the city. He was found six years later in Chicago and brought back to Philadelphia for trial. At the trial on April 23, 1877, six eyewitnesses, three black and three white, identified Kelly as the man who shot Catto. Nevertheless, an all-white jury acquitted Kelly. (³⁴)

A statue honoring Catto on the southwest apron of City Hall was unveiled by Mayor Jim Kenney in the spring of 2017. It is the first statue in the city honoring a single African-American. (³⁵) It is hoped the statue will help people to understand who Octavius Valentine Catto was—an honest, decent, brave, and good man who deserves to be better remembered by the city of Philadelphia.

An interesting sidenote—on April 22, 1876, the first National League game in history was played between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Caps at the Jefferson Street Ballpark at 25th and Jefferson Streets. The Red Caps won 6-5. (³⁶)

We shall never rest at ease, but will agitate and work, by our means and our influence, in court and out of court, asking aid of the press, calling upon Christians to vindicate their Christianity, and the members of the law to assert the principles of the profession by granting us justice and right, until these invidious and unjust usages shall have ceased.

Octavius V. Catto (³⁷)

TWO

THE GREATEST GAME

Tuesday, June 14, 1870

Capitoline Skating Lake and Base-Ball Ground

Capitoline Hill, Brooklyn, New York

3:00 P.M.

It was a warm day in late spring in Brooklyn, the skies clear, and the temperature hovering around 86 degrees. Crowds had gathered from all around, and there was a festive atmosphere in the city of 419,921 souls (according to the 1870 census). The Cincinnati Red Stockings Base Ball Club had come to town to play the Brooklyn Atlantics. Odds favored the Reds 5-1.

The Red Stockings were known throughout the country, as they were riding a ninety-one-game winning streak that dated back to the 1869 season. (¹) Just the day before, they had crushed the New York Mutuals 16-3. The Reds had last played the Atlantics the previous June, and had dispensed with them easily by a score of 32-10. (²) But hope springs eternal in baseball, and supporters of the Atlantics believed they had a chance in today’s game. The gamblers did not agree. Odds favored the Reds 5-1. (³)

The driving force behind the Red Stockings was their manager and centerfielder William Henry Harry Wright. Wright was born in England in 1835, but his family moved to the U.S. when he was an infant. His father Sam was an excellent cricket player, and young Harry learned the game from him. When Harry was a teenager, they played together on a Harlem team. But when Harry saw a baseball game on a nearby field, he became interested in the American game. By the early 1860s, Harry was so proficient at baseball that he became the New York Knickerbockers first paid player. By 1866, he had moved on to Cincinnati, where he became one of the game’s greatest players. It is said that Harry once hit seven home runs in a game in 1867.

Figure 5 Harry Wright

In 1869, Harry decided he wanted to assemble the greatest ball club in the country. He would do this by paying all of his players, making the 1869 Red Stockings the first fully professional team. Harry obtained financial backers and then recruited players from all over the country. But the star of the team would be his younger brother George, who played shortstop. (⁴) So good was George Wright that he would be the highest paid player on the Red Stockings, his salary surpassing even his older brother’s—Harry made $1,200 to George’s $1,400. (⁵) And this, even though Harry’s managing of the club also entailed acting as general manager, road secretary, and scheduler of games. And he played centerfield. (⁶)

The Red Stockings began their historic season on April 17, 1869 by defeating a group of local amateurs 24-15. With no other strong competition in the area, they went on tour, traveling more than 12,000 miles to San Francisco, New Orleans, and Maine, and performing before some 200,000 fans. They would return to Cincinnati in November with 57 wins, one disputed tie, and no losses. (⁷) The one tie took place with the Troy Haymakers, who walked off the field in the sixth inning so they would not lose, and thus, the New York gamblers who had bet heavily on them would not have to pay off. (⁸)

During the 1869 season, the Red Stockings outscored their opponents by an amazing total of 2,395 to 574. George Wright, who batted leadoff, hit for a .518 average, scored 339 runs, and hit 59 of the team’s 169 homeruns. (⁹) Albert Spaulding, one of the early founders of the game, said one of the home runs George hit that season was the longest in baseball history up to that time. (It was Spaulding, it should be pointed out, who insisted that baseball is of modern and purely American origin, and That the first scheme for playing it, according to the best evidence available to date, was devised by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, New York in 1839. Spaulding wrote this in 1911. (¹⁰) Born in 1819, Doubleday was a twenty-year-old cadet at West Point at the time he invented the rather complex game. He was known as being a bookish man who did not participate in athletics. (¹¹) This myth, invented by Spaulding because he did not want to acknowledge that the roots of the game came from England, was accepted for years. It is why the Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown, New York, and why the ballpark there is named Doubleday Field.)

Figure 6 The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. It seems to me they have switched the names of H. Wright, C.F and Brainard, P. That is definitely Harry Wright seated second from right.

But back to the 1869 Red Stockings. The weakest hitter on the team that year was first baseman Charlie Gould, who hit a meager .453. (¹²) Gould was the only Cincinnati native on the club, whereas other teams were made up only of locals. This prompted critics of the team to call the Red Stockings eclectic. Today they would be termed all-stars. (¹³) By the end of the season, the team had earned a profit of only $1.39, due at least in part to the team’s whopping payroll of $9,400. (¹⁴)

In 1870, the Red Stockings, using the identical lineup, continued their winning streak, stretching it to ninety-one games. That brought them to Brooklyn on that Tuesday in June.

The New York World described the pregame scene at Capitoline Grounds.

Little urchins shouted ‘scorecards, names and positions of both nines,’ all the way from Fulton Ferry to Bedford, and all Brooklyn seemed awake to the event of the day. Stores were deserted, boys who could not obtain permission to leave school played hooky, and hundreds who could not or would not produce the necessary fifty-cent stamp for admission looked on through cracks in the fence, or even climbed boldly to the top, while others were perched in the topmost limbs of trees, or the roofs of surrounding houses. (¹⁵)

The Capitoline Grounds were actually known as the Capitoline Skating Lake and Base Ball Ground. The Grounds contained an enclosed base ball park. Every November, the Grounds were flooded from a city main and used as a skating park all winter. Occasionally, base ball games were played on the ice, which must have been a joy to behold if you could stand the cold. In the spring, the water was drained off, and Phineas T. Barnum held his circus there before it was turned over to the Atlantics for base ball. The Grounds could seat 5,000 fans in its bleachers, but on this day, Harper’s Weekly estimated the crowd to be between 12,000 and 15,000.

Many of those who attended came from Manhattan. To do so, they had to cross the East River via a ferry. Construction on the Brooklyn Bridge had only just begun and would not be completed until 1883.

The fee for admission was normally 25 cents, but when his Cincinnati nine played, Harry Wright insisted that the price be raised to 50 cents. It was, after all, the greatest team in the country fans were coming to see.

When the Atlantics took the field, they were clad in uniforms that featured a white shirt with a dark blue A embroidered upon it. Their pants were of dark blue with a white cord along the outer seams, and they wore light buff linen caps. The Red Stockings wore light-colored uniforms with an Old English C upon the shirt. Their socks were a bright red.

The starting lineups for both teams:

As the two teams came onto the field, the players on the Red Stockings tipped their caps to acknowledge the applause from the fans. (¹⁷)

And then the game got underway. The rules were somewhat different in 1870. Pitchers stood only forty-five feet from the batter (as opposed to sixty feet, six inches today) and were required to throw an underhand pitch. In addition, they did not throw from a raised mound. Pitching strategy involved changing speeds and changing location. The game was probably more like a modern-day softball game than a modern-day baseball game.

George Wright led off for the visitors and wasted no time getting the vaunted Reds offense in gear when he singled down the left field line. After Gould and Waterman were retired, cleanup man Doug Allison singled George Wright to third, and then Harry Wright singled to score his younger brother. Right fielder Dan McDonald fumbled Harry Wright’s single, which allowed Allison to score, making it 2-0 Red Stockings.

Figure 7 A sketch of the game by C.S. Reinhart for Harper’s Weekly showing Cincinnati

batting. Note that the Atlantics’ first baseman is playing partly in foul ground.

That score held until the third inning, when George Wright got a second hit, and Fred Waterman brought him home with his first hit of the day, making it 3-0 Red Stockings. The rally was stalled when Atlantics’ shortstop Dickey Pearce came up with Doug Allison’s hard groundball and turned it into a double play. The gamblers then changed the line to 10-1 for the Cincinnati club.

One newspaper reported that the visitors were annoyed throughout by catcalls, hisses, and jeers, their misplays being applauded, and their finest efforts received in silence.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Dickey Pearce led off for the Atlantics with a single. With one out, Joe Start singled, and with two outs, Brooklyn’s captain and catcher Bob Ferguson singled to score Pearce, and when Reds third baseman Fred Waterman, threw the ball away, Start also scampered home. In the bottom of the sixth, the Atlantics took a 4-3 lead on line drives that the Red Stockings fielders Waterman and second baseman Charlie Sweasy could not handle.

Cincinnati answered in the top of the seventh. Pitcher Asa Brainard and Sweasy each singled, and they both came around to score on a hit by George Wright. The Red Stockings were back in front, 5-4.

With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Atlantics’ third baseman Charles Smith tripled to deep left field. Joe Start followed with a line drive down the right field line. Red Stockings’ right fielder Cal McVey came racing in and made a fabulous catch. Tagging up from third base, Smith tried to score, but McVey’s perfect throw had him dead to rights—that is until the Reds’ catcher Doug Allison muffed the throw, allowing Smith to score the tying run. It was an error at a particularly crucial moment, but it should be pointed out that none of the players wore gloves while in the field. Allison was trying to catch McVey’s toss with his bare hands.

Both teams failed to score in the ninth.

The directors of the Atlantics ball club saw an opportunity to get away with a tie, which was as good as a win against the unbeaten Red Stockings, so they informed Captain Ferguson to pull his team from the field. The Atlantics began to gather their gear and stack bats, while the restless crowd swarmed onto the playing field.

Had the Reds agreed to this, their unbeaten streak would have remained intact. But the president of their ball club, Aaron Champion, climbed upon a bench and declared that Rule 5 of the rule book read that if a game was tied after nine innings, the game was to continue unless it be mutually agreed upon by captains of the two nines to consider the game as drawn. Champion had ordered Wright to continue the game, thus if the Atlantics refused to play, the Red Stockings would consider the game a forfeit in their favor. (¹⁸)

There was some discussion about this point, and then Harry Wright saw that Henry Chadwick, often called the Father of the Game, was in the stands. Chadwick had written many of the rules himself. Indeed, he had written the rule book. (Chadwick was elected to the Hall of Fame, whereas Abner Doubleday never has been.) (¹⁹)

How about it, Henry? Wright asked Chadwick, and the latter agreed that the Red Stockings were correct. That settled the issue. The game would go on. It would be the first time that the Reds would play an extra-inning game.

Figure 8 George Wright a few years later, playing for the Boston Red Stockings

Some of the Atlantics had already left the field, but they were soon recalled. It took a bit longer for the grounds to be cleared of fans, but eventually that was also achieved. And so, the game resumed.

The Red Stockings went down in the top of the tenth, but the Atlantics threatened in the bottom of the inning. With one out, Dan McDonald and Pearce each singled, putting runners on first and second. Then Smith hit a high popup to shortstop. George Wright got under it, but he let the ball hit the ground. He then grabbed the ball and tossed it to third baseman Waterman who then relayed to second baseman Sweasy to complete a double play that ended the inning. Under today’s rules, this would be illegal. The infield fly rule would later be added to the rules to prevent just such a play. But the play was allowable at the time.

With one out in the top of the eleventh, Brainard lined a double to right center. Sweasy followed by hitting a ball to the same area. Atlantics’ center fielder George Hall was about to make the catch when McDonald, racing over from right field, crashed into him. The ball fell in for a single, but Brainard, thinking the ball was going to be caught, had held up for a time and so was only able to make it to third base. McVey followed with a fly to center and Hall caught it for the second out. Brainard tagged at third base and scored easily, putting the Red Stockings back in front, 6-5. The inimitable George Wright followed with a single to score Sweasy from second, and the Red Stockings padded their lead. They took a 7-5 advantage into the bottom of the eleventh and seemed to have the game well in hand. The crowd grew quiet.

Charley Smith led off for the Atlantics in the bottom of the eleventh. This may seem odd as it was Smith who had hit into a double play to end the tenth. But under the bizarre rules of the day, Smith was not seen as making the final out. These were made by McDonald and

Figure 9 Left to Right: Dickey Pearce, Joe Start, Charley Smith, and John Chapman in 1868

Pearce, who had been forced out at second and third base respectfully. Therefore, Pearce was seen as having made the final out, and as Smith followed Pearce in the lineup, he led off. He did so by drilling a single to left field. Joe Start followed, and Red Stockings’ pitcher Brainard whipped a pitch so wild that Smith was able to get all the way around to third base. Start