Ball-players and Umpires are Regarded by the Fans as Natural Enemies, and the Fans Are about Right—Types of Arbiters and how the Players Treat them—“Silk” O’Loughlin, “Hank” O’Day, “Tim” Hurst, “Bob”” Emslie, and Others, and Close Ones they have Called—Also Some Narrow Escapes which have Followed.
Ball-players and Umpires are Regarded by the Fans as Natural Enemies, and the Fans Are about Right—Types of Arbiters and how the Players Treat them—“Silk” O’Loughlin, “Hank” O’Day, “Tim” Hurst, “Bob”” Emslie, and Others, and Close Ones they have Called—Also Some Narrow Escapes which have Followed.
Whenthe Giants were swinging through the West in 1911 on the final trip, the club played three games in Pittsburg, with the pennant at that time only a possibility more or less remote. The Pirates still had a chance, and they were fighting hard for every game, especially as they were playing on their home grounds.
The first contest of the series was on Saturday afternoon before a crowd that packed the giganticstands which surrounded Forbes Field. The throng wanted to see the Pirates win because they were the Pirates, and the Giants beaten because they were the Giants, and were sticking their heads up above the other clubs in the race. I always think of the horse show when I play in Pittsburg, for they have the diamond horse-shoe of boxes there, you know. No; I’m wrong—it’s at the Metropolitan Opera House they have the diamond horse-shoe. Any way, the diamond horse-shoe of boxes was doing business at Forbes Field that Saturday afternoon.
This story is going to be about umpires, but the reader who has never seen the Forbes Field folks must get the atmosphere before I let the yarn into the block. Once, on a bright, sunny day there, I muffed fly after fly because the glint of Sol’s rays on the diamonds blinded me. Always now I wear smoked glasses. “Josh” Devore is so afraid that he will lose social caste when he goes to Pittsburg that he gets his finger-nails manicured before he will appear on the field. And the lady who treated him one day polished them to such an ultimate glossiness that the sun flashed on them, and he dropped two flies in left field.
“Look here, Josh,” warned McGraw after the game, “I hire you to play ball and not to lead cotillions. Get some pumice stone and rub it on your finger-nails and cut out those John Drew manicures after this.”
This crowd is worse after umpires than the residents of the bleachers. The game on that Saturday worked out into a pitchers’ battle between Marty O’Toole, the expensive exponent of the spit ball, and “Rube” Marquard, the great left-hander. Half of “Who’s Who in Pittsburg” had already split white gloves applauding when, along about the fourth or fifth inning, Fred Clarke got as far as third base with one out. The score was nothing for either side as yet, and of such a delicate nature was the contest that one run was likely to decide it.
“Hans” Wagner, the peerless, and the pride of Pittsburg, was at the bat. He pushed a long fly to Murray in right field, and John caught it and threw the ball home. Clarke and the ball arrived almost simultaneously. There was a slide, a jumble of players, and a small cloud of dust blew away from the home plate.
“Ye’re out!” bawled Mr. Brennan, theumpire, jerking his thumb over his shoulder with a conclusiveness that forbade argument. Clarke jumped up and stretched his hands four feet apart, for he recognizes no conclusiveness when “one is called against him.”
“Safe! that much!” he shouted in Brennan’s ear, showing him the four-foot margin with his hands.
There was a roar from the diamond horse-shoe that, if it could have been canned and put on a phonograph, would have made any one his fortune because it could have been turned on to accompany moving pictures of lions and other wild beasts to make them realistic.
“Say,” said Clarke to Brennan, “I know a pickpocket who looks honest compared to you, and I’d rather trust my watch to a second-story worker.”
Brennan was dusting off the plate and paid no attention to him. But Clarke continued to snap and bark at the umpire as he brushed himself off, referring with feeling to Mr. Brennan’s immediate family, and weaving into his talk a sketch of the umpire’s ancestors, for Clarke is a great master of the English language as fed to umpires.
“Mr. Clarke,” said Brennan, turning at last, “you were out. Now beat it to the bench before you beat it to the clubhouse.”
Clarke went grumbling and all the afternoon was after Brennan for the decision, his wrath increasing because the Pirates lost the game finally, although they would not have won it had they been given that decision. And the crowd was roaring at Brennan, too, throughout the remainder of the contest, asking him pointed questions about his habits and what his regular business was.
It takes a man with nerve to make a decision like that—one that could be called either way because it was so close—and to make it as he sees it, which happened in this particular case to be against the home team.
Many times have I, in the excitement of the moment, protested against the decision of an umpire, but fundamentally I know that the umpires are honest and are doing their best, as all ball-players are. The umpires make mistakes and the players make errors. Many arbiters have told me that when they are working they seldom know what inning it is or how many areout, and sometimes, in their efforts to concentrate their minds on their decisions, they say they even forget what clubs are playing and which is the home team.
The future of the game depends on the umpire, for his honesty must not be questioned. If there is a breath of suspicion against a man, he is immediately let go, because constant repetition of such a charge would result in baseball going the way of horse racing and some other sports. No scandal can creep in where the umpire is concerned, for the very popularity of baseball depends on its honesty.
“The only good umpire is a dead umpire,” McGraw has declared many times when he has been disgruntled over some decision.
“I think they’re all dead ones in this League,” replied Devore one day, “considering the decisions that they are handing me down there at second base. Why, I had that bag by three feet and he called me out.”
Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile.
“Kill him! He hasn’t got any friends!” isan expression shouted from the stands time and again during a game.
But I know differently. I have seen umpires with friends. It is true that most ball-players regard umpires as their natural enemies, as a boy does a school teacher. But “Bill” Klem has friends because I have seen him with them, and besides he has a constant companion, which is a calabash pipe. And “Billy” Evans of the American League has lots of friends. And most all of the umpires have some one who will speak to them when they are off the field.
These men in blue travel by themselves, live at obscure hotels apart from those at which the teams stop, and slip into the ball parks unobtrusively just before game time. They never make friends with ball-players off the field for fear that there might be a hint of scandal. Seldom do they take the same train with a club unless it cannot be avoided. “Hank” O’Day, the veteran of the National League staff, and Brennan took the same train out of Chicago with the Giants in the fall of 1911 because we stopped in Pittsburg for one game, and they had to be there to umpire. It was the only available means oftransportation. But they stayed by themselves in another Pullman until some one told them “Charley” Faust, the official jinx-killer of the Giants, was doing his stunt. Then they both came back into the Giants’ car and for the first time in my life I saw “Hank” O’Day laugh. His face acted as if it wasn’t accustomed to the exercise and broke all in funny new wrinkles, like a glove when you put it on for the first time.
There are several types of umpires, and ball-players are always studying the species to find out the best way to treat each man to get the most out of him. There are autocrats and stubborn ones and good fellows and weak-kneed ones, almost as many kinds as there are human beings. The autocrat of the umpire world is “Silk” O’Loughlin, now appearing with a rival show.
“There are no close plays,” says “Silk.” “A man is always out or safe, or it is a ball or a strike, and the umpire, if he is a good man and knows his business, is always right. For instance, I am always right.”
He refuses to let the players discuss a decision with him, maintaining that there is never any room for argument. If a man makes any talk with him,it is quick to the shower bath. “Silk” has a voice of which he is proud and declares that he shares the honors with Caruso and that it is only his profession as an umpire that keeps him off the grand-opera circuit. I have heard a lot of American League ball-players say at various times that they wished he was on the grand-opera circuit or some more calorific circuit, but they were mostly prejudiced at those moments by some sentiments which “Silk” had just voiced in an official capacity.
As is well known in baseball, “Silk” is the inventor of “Strike Tuh!” and the creased trousers for umpires. I have heard American League players declare that they are afraid to slide when “Silk” is close down over a play for fear they will bump up against his trousers and cut themselves. He is one of the kind of umpires who can go through a game on the hottest summer day, running about the bases, and still keep his collar unwilted. At the end he will look as if he were dressed for an afternoon tea.
Always he wears on his right hand, which is his salary or decision wing, a large diamond that sparkles in the sunlight every time he calls a manout. Many American League players assert that he would rather call a man out than safe, so that he can shimmer his “cracked ice,” but again they are usually influenced by circumstances. Such is “Silk,” well named.
Corresponding to him in the National League is “Billy” Klem. He always wears a Norfolk jacket because he thinks it more stylish, and perhaps it is, and he refuses to don a wind pad. Ever notice him working behind the bat? But I am going to let you in on a secret. That chest is not all his own. Beneath his jacket he carries his armor, a protector, and under his trousers’ legs are shin guards. He insists that all players call him “Mr.” He says that he thinks maybe soon his name will be in the social register.
“Larry” Doyle thought that he had received the raw end of a decision at second base one day. He ran down to first, where Klem had retreated after he passed his judgment.
“Say, ‘Bill,’” exploded “Larry,” “that man didn’t touch the bag—didn’t come within six feet of it.”
“Say, Doyle,” replied Klem, “when you talk to me call me ‘Mr. Klem.’”
“But, Mr. Klem—” amended “Larry.”
Klem hurriedly drew a line with his foot as Doyle approached him menacingly.
“But if you come over that line, you’re out of the game, Mr. Doyle,” he threatened.
“All right,” answered “Larry,” letting his pugilistic attitude evaporate before the abruptness of Klem as the mist does before the classic noonday sun, “but, Mr. Klem, I only wanted to ask you if that clock in centre field is right by your watch, because I know everything about you is right.”
“Larry” went back, grinning and considering that he had put one over on Klem—Mr. Klem.
For a long time “Johnny” Evers of the Chicago club declared that Klem owed him $5 on a bet he had lost to the second baseman and had neglected to pay. Now John, when he was right, could make almost any umpirical goat leap from crag to crag and do somersaults en route. He kept pestering Klem about that measly $5 bet, not in an obtrusive way, you understand, but by such delicate methods as holding up five fingers when Klem glanced down on the coaching lines where he was stationed, or by writing a large “5”in the dirt at the home plate with the butt of his bat as he came up when Klem was umpiring on balls and strikes, or by counting slowly and casually up to five and stopping with an abruptness that could not be misconstrued.
One day John let his temper get away from him and bawled Klem out in his most approved fashion.
“Here’s your five, Mr. Evers,” said Klem, handing him a five dollar bill, “and now you are fined $25.”
“And it was worth it,” answered Evers, “to bawl you out.”
Next comes the O’Day type, and there is only one of them, “Hank.” He is the stubborn kind—or perhapswasthe stubborn kind, would be better, as he is now a manager. He is bull-headed. If a manager gets after him for a decision, he is likely to go up in the air and, not meaning to do it, call close ones against the club that has made the kick, for it must be remembered that umpires are only “poor weak mortals after all.” O’Day has to be handled with shock absorbers. McGraw tries to do it, but shock absorbers do not fit him well, and the first thing that usually occurs is a row.
“Let me do the kicking, boys,” McGraw always warns his players before a contest that O’Day is going to umpire. He does not want to see any of his men put out of the game.
“Bill” Dahlen always got on O’Day’s nerves by calling him “Henry.” For some reason, O’Day does not like the name, and “Bill” Dahlen discovered long ago the most irritating inflection to give it so that it would rasp on O’Day’s ears. He does not mind “Hank” and is not a “Mister” umpire. But every time Dahlen would call O’Day “Henry” it was the cold shower and the civilian’s clothes for his.
Dahlen was playing in St. Louis many years ago when the race track was right opposite the ball park. “Bill” had a preference in one of the later races one day and was anxious to get across the street and make a little bet. He had obtained a leave of absence on two preceding days by calling O’Day “Henry” and had lost money on the horses he had selected as fleet of foot. But this last time he had a “sure thing” and was banking on some positive information which had been slipped to him by a friend of the friend of the man who owned the winner, and “Bill”wanted to be there. Along about the fifth inning, “Bill” figured that it was time for him to get a start, so he walked up to O’Day and said:
“Henry, do you know who won the first race?”
“No, and you won’t either, Mr. Dahlen,” answered “Hank.” “You are fined $25, and you stay here and play the game out.”
Some one had tipped “Hank” off. And the saddest part of the story is that ”Bill’s“ horse walked home, and he could not get a bet down on him.
”First time it ever failed to work,“ groaned ”Bill“ in the hotel that night, ”and I said ‘Henry’ in my meanest way, too.“
Most clubs try to keep an umpire from feeling hostile toward the team because, even if he means to see a play right, he is likely to call a close one against his enemies, not intending to be dishonest. It would simply mean that you would not get any close ones from him, and the close ones count. Some umpires can be reasoned with, and a good fair protest will often make a man think perhaps he has called it wrong, and he will give you the edge on the next decision. A player must understand an umpire to know how to approach him to the best advantage. O’Day cannot be reasonedwith. It is as dangerous to argue with him as it is to try to ascertain how much gasoline is in the tank of an automobile by sticking down the lighted end of a cigar or a cigarette.
Emslie will listen to a reasonable argument. He is one of the finest umpires that ever broke into the League, I think. He is a good fellow. Far be it from me to be disloyal to my manager, for I think that he is the greatest that ever won a pennant, but Emslie put one over on McGraw in 1911 when it was being said that Emslie was getting so old he could not see a play.
”I’ll bet,“ said McGraw to him one day after he had called one against the Giants, ”that I can put a baseball and an orange on second base, and you can’t tell the difference standing at the home plate, Bob.“
Emslie made no reply right then, but when the eye test for umpires was established by Mr. Lynch, the president of the League, ”Bob“ passed it at the head of the list and then turned around and went up to Chatham in Ontario, Canada, and made a high score with the rifle in a shooting match up there. After he had done that, he was umpiring at the Polo Grounds one day.
“Want to take me on for a shooting go, John?” he asked McGraw as he passed him.
“No, Bob, you’re all right. I give it to you,” answered McGraw, who had long forgotten his slur on Emslie’s eyesight.
Emslie is the sort of umpire who rules by the bond of good fellowship rather than by the voice of authority. “Old Bob” has one “groove” and it is a personal matter about which he is very sensitive. He is under cover. It is no secret, or I would not give way on him. But that luxuriant growth of hair, apparent, comes off at night like his collar and necktie. It used to be quite the fad in the League to “josh” “Bob” about his wig, but that pastime has sort of died out now because he has proven himself to be such a good fellow.
I had to laugh to myself, and not boisterously, in the season of 1911 when Mr. Lynch appointed “Jack” Doyle, formerly a first baseman and a hot-headed player, an umpire and scheduled him to work with Emslie. I remembered the time several seasons ago when Doyle took offence at one of “Bob’s” decisions and wrestled him all over the infield trying to get his wig off and showhim up before the crowd. And then Emslie and he worked together like Damon and Pythias. This business makes strange bed-fellows.
Emslie was umpiring in New York one day in the season of 1909, when the Giants were playing St. Louis. A wild pitch hit Emslie over the heart and he wilted down, unconscious. The players gathered around him, and Bresnahan, who was catching for St. Louis at the time, started to help “Bob.” Suddenly the old umpire came to and began to fight off his first-aid-to-the-injured corps. No one could understand his attitude as he struggled to his feet and strolled away by himself, staggering a little and apparently dizzy. At last he came back and gamely finished the business of the day. I never knew why he fought with the men who were trying to help him until several weeks later, when we were playing in Pittsburg. As I came out from under the stand on my way to the bench, Emslie happened to be making his entrance at the same time.
“Say, Matty,” he asked me, “that time in New York did my wig come off? Did Bresnahan take my wig off?”
“No, Bob,” I replied, “he was only trying to help you.”
“I thought maybe he took it off while I was down and out and showed me up before the crowd,” he apologized.
“Listen, Bob,” I said. “I don’t believe there is a player in either League who would do that, and, if any youngster tried it now, he would probably be licked.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Matty,” answered the old man, as he picked up his wind pad and prepared to go to work. And he called more bad ones on me that day than he ever had in his life before, but I never mentioned the wig to him.
Most umpires declare they have off days just like players, when they know that they are making mistakes and cannot help it. If a pitcher of Mordecai Brown’s kind, who depends largely on his control for his effectiveness, happens to run up against an umpire with a bad day, he might just as well go back to the bench. Brown is a great man to work the corners of the plate, and if the umpire is missing strikes, he is forced to lay the ball over and then the batters whang itout. Johnstone had an off day in Chicago in 1911, when Brown was working.
“What’s the use of my tryin’ to pitch, Jim,” said Brown, throwing down his glove and walking to the bench disgusted, “if you don’t know a strike when you see one?”
Sometimes an umpire who has been good will go into a long slump when he cannot call things right and knows it. Men like that get as discouraged as a pitcher who goes bad. There used to be one in the National League who was a pretty fair umpire when he started and seemed to be getting along fine until he hit one of those slumps. Then he began calling everything wrong and knew it. At last he quit, and the next time I saw him was in Philadelphia in the 1911 world’s series. He was a policeman.
“Hello, Matty,” he shouted at me as we were going into Shibe Park for the first game there. “I can call you by your first name now,” and he waved his hand real friendly. The last conversation I had with that fellow, unless my recollection fails me entirely, was anything but friendly.
Umpires have told me that sometimes they see a play one way and call it another, and, as soonas the decision is announced, they realize that they have called it wrong. This malady has put more than one umpire out. A man on the National League staff has informed me since, that he called a hit fair that was palpably two feet foul in one of the most important games ever played in baseball, when he saw the ball strike on foul ground.
“I couldn’t help saying ‘Fair ball,’” declared this man, and he is one of the best in the National League. “Luckily,” he added, “the team against which the decision went won the game.”
Many players assert that arbiters hold a personal grudge against certain men who have put up too strenuous kicks, and for that reason the wise ones are careful how they talk to umpires of this sort. Fred Tenney has said for a long time that Mr. Klem gives him a shade the worst of it on all close ones because he had a run in with that umpire one day when they came to blows. Tenney is a great man to pick out the good ones when at the bat, and Fred says that if he is up with a three and two count on him now, Klem is likely to call the next one a strike if it is close, not because he is dishonest, but because he has acertain personal prejudice which he cannot overcome. And the funny part about it is that Tenney does not hold this up against Klem.
Humorous incidents are always occurring in connection with umpires. We were playing in Boston one day a few years ago, and the score was 3 to 0 against the Giants in the ninth inning. Becker knocked a home run with two men on the bases, and it tied the count. With men on first and third bases and one out in the last half of the ninth, a Boston batter tapped one to Merkle which I thought he trapped, but Johnstone, the umpire, said he caught it on the fly. It was simplicity itself to double the runner up off first base who also thought Merkle had trapped the ball and had started for second. That retired the side, and we won the game in the twelfth inning, whereas Boston would have taken it in the ninth if Johnstone had said the ball was trapped instead of caught on the fly.
It was a very hot day, and those extra three innings in the box knocked me out. I was sick for a week with stomach trouble afterwards and could not pitch in Chicago, where we made our next stop. That was a case of where a decision in my favor “made me sick.”
“Tim” Hurst, the old American League umpire, was one of the most picturesque judges that ever spun an indicator. He was the sort who would take a player at his word and fight him blow for blow. “Tim” was umpiring in Baltimore in the old days when there was a runner on first base.
“The man started to steal,” says “Tim.” He was telling the story only the other day in McGraw’s billiard room in New York, and it is better every time he does it. “As he left the bag he spiked the first baseman and that player attempted to trip him. The second baseman blocked the runner and, in sliding into the bag, the latter tried to spike ‘Hugh’ Jennings, who was playing shortstop and covering, while Jennings sat on him to knock the wind out. The batter hit Robinson, who was catching, on the hands with his bat so that he couldn’t throw, and ‘Robbie’ trod on my toes with his spikes and shoved his glove into my face so that I couldn’t see to give the decision. It was one of the hardest that I have ever been called upon to make.”
“What did you do?” I asked him.
“I punched ‘Robbie’ in the ribs, called it a foul and sent the runner back,” replied “Tim.”
The Championship of the National League was Decided in 1908 in One Game between the Giants and Cubs—Few Fans Know that it Was Mr. Brush who Induced the Disgruntled New York Players to Meet Chicago—This is the “Inside” Story of the Famous Game, Including “Fred” Merkle’s Part in the Series of Events which Led up to it.
The Championship of the National League was Decided in 1908 in One Game between the Giants and Cubs—Few Fans Know that it Was Mr. Brush who Induced the Disgruntled New York Players to Meet Chicago—This is the “Inside” Story of the Famous Game, Including “Fred” Merkle’s Part in the Series of Events which Led up to it.
TheNew York Giants and the Chicago Cubs played a game at the Polo Grounds on October 8, 1908, which decided the championship of the National League in one afternoon, which was responsible for the deaths of two spectators, who fell from the elevated railroad structure overlooking the grounds, which made Fred Merkle famous for not touching second, which caused lifelong friends to become bitter enemies,and which, altogether, was the most dramatic and important contest in the history of baseball. It stands out from every-day events like the battle of Waterloo and the assassination of President Lincoln. It was a baseball tragedy from a New York point of view. The Cubs won by the score of 4 to 2.
Behind this game is some “inside” history that has never been written. Few persons, outside of the members of the New York club, know that it was only after a great deal of consultation the game was finally played, only after the urging of John T. Brush, the president of the club. The Giants were risking, in one afternoon, their chances of winning the pennant and the world’s series—the concentration of their hopes of a season—because the Cubs claimed the right on a technicality to play this one game for the championship. Many members of the New York club felt that it would be fighting for what they had already won, as did their supporters. This made bad feeling between the teams and between the spectators, until the whole dramatic situation leading up to the famous game culminated in the climax of that afternoon. The nerves of the playerswere rasped raw with the strain, and the town wore a fringe of nervous prostration. It all burst forth in the game.
Among other things, Frank Chance, the manager of the Cubs, had a cartilage in his neck broken when some rooter hit him with a handy pop bottle, several spectators hurt one another when they switched from conversational to fistic arguments, large portions of the fence at the Polo Grounds were broken down by patrons who insisted on gaining entrance, and most of the police of New York were present to keep order. They had their clubs unlimbered, too, acting more as if on strike duty than restraining the spectators at a pleasure park. Last of all, that night, after we had lost the game, the report filtered through New York that Fred Merkle, then a youngster and around whom the whole situation revolved, had committed suicide. Of course it was not true, for Merkle is one of the gamest ball-players that ever lived.
My part in the game was small. I started to pitch and I didn’t finish. The Cubs beat me because I never had less on the ball in my life. What I can’t understand to this day is why ittook them so long to hit me. Frequently it has been said that “Cy” Seymour started the Cubs on their victorious way and lost the game, because he misjudged a long hit jostled to centre field by “Joe” Tinker at the beginning of the third inning, in which chapter they made four runs. The hit went for three bases.
Seymour, playing centre field, had a bad background against which to judge fly balls that afternoon, facing the shadows of the towering stand, with the uncertain horizon formed by persons perched on the roof. A baseball writer has said that, when Tinker came to the bat in that fatal inning, I turned in the box and motioned Seymour back, and instead of obeying instructions he crept a few steps closer to the infield. I don’t recall giving any advice to “Cy,” as he knew the Chicago batters as well as I did and how to play for them.
Tinker, with his long bat, swung on a ball intended to be a low curve over the outside corner of the plate, but it failed to break well. He pushed out a high fly to centre field, and I turned with the ball to see Seymour take a couple of steps toward the diamond, evidently thinkingit would drop somewhere behind second base. He appeared to be uncertain in his judgment of the hit until he suddenly turned and started to run back. That must have been when the ball cleared the roof of the stand and was visible above the sky line. He ran wildly. Once he turned, and then ran on again, at last sticking up his hands and having the ball fall just beyond them. He chased it and picked it up, but Tinker had reached third base by that time. If he had let the ball roll into the crowd in centre field, the Cub could have made only two bases on the hit, according to the ground rules. That was a mistake, but it made little difference in the end.
All the players, both the Cubs and the Giants, were under a terrific strain that day, and Seymour, in his anxiety to be sure to catch the ball, misjudged it. Did you ever stand out in the field at a ball park with thirty thousand crazy, shouting fans looking at you and watch a ball climb and climb into the air and have to make up your mind exactly where it is going to land and then have to be there, when it arrived, to greet it, realizing all the time that if you are not there you are going to be everlastingly roasted? It is no cure fornervous diseases, that situation. Probably forty-nine times out of fifty Seymour would have caught the fly.
“I misjudged that ball,” said “Cy” to me in the clubhouse after the game. “I’ll take the blame for it.”
He accepted all the abuse the newspapers handed him without a murmur and I don’t think myself that it was more than an incident in the game. I’ll try to show later in this story where the real “break” came.
Just one mistake, made by “Fred” Merkle, resulted in this play-off game. Several newspaper men have called September 23, 1908, “Merkle Day,” because it was on that day he ran to the clubhouse from first base instead of by way of second, when “Al” Bridwell whacked out the hit that apparently won the game from the Cubs. Any other player on the team would have undoubtedly done the same thing under the circumstances, as the custom had been in vogue all around the circuit during the season. It was simply Fred Merkle’s misfortune to have been on first base at the critical moment. The situation which gave rise to the incident is well known to everyfollower of baseball. Merkle, as a pinch hitter, had singled with two out in the ninth inning and the score tied, sending McCormick from first base to third. “Al” Bridwell came up to the bat and smashed a single to centre field. McCormick crossed the plate, and that, according to the customs of the League, ended the game, so Merkle dug for the clubhouse. Evers and Tinker ran through the crowd which had flocked on the field and got the ball, touching second and claiming that Merkle had been forced out there.
Most of the spectators did not understand the play, as Merkle was under the shower bath when the alleged put-out was made, but they started after “Hank” O’Day, the umpire, to be on the safe side. He made a speedy departure under the grand-stand and the crowd got the put-out unassisted. Finally, while somewhere near Coogan’s Bluff, he called Merkle out and the score a tie. When the boys heard this in the clubhouse, they laughed, for it didn’t seem like a situation to be taken seriously. But it turned out to be one of those things that the farther it goes the more serious it becomes.
“Connie” Mack, the manager of the Athletics, says:
“There is no luck in Big League baseball. In a schedule of one hundred and fifty-four games, the lucky and unlucky plays break about even, except in the matter of injuries.”
But Mack’s theory does not include a schedule of one hundred and fifty-five games, with the result depending on the one hundred and fifty-fifth. Chicago had a lot of injured athletes early in the season of 1908, and the Giants had shot out ahead in the race in grand style. In the meantime the Cubs’ cripples began to recuperate, and that lamentable event on September 23 seemed to be the turning-point in the Giants’ fortunes.
Almost within a week afterwards, Bresnahan had an attack of sciatic rheumatism and “Mike” Donlin was limping about the outfield, leading a great case of “Charley horse.” Tenney was bandaged from his waist down and should have been wearing crutches instead of playing first base on a Big League club. Doyle was badly spiked and in the hospital. McGraw’s daily greeting to his athletes when he came to the park was:
“How are the cripples? Any more to add to the list of identified dead to-day?”
Merkle moped. He lost flesh, and time after time begged McGraw to send him to a minor league or to turn him loose altogether.
“It wasn’t your fault,” was the regular response of the manager who makes it a habit to stand by his men.
We played on with the cripples, many double-headers costing the pitchers extra effort, and McGraw not daring to take a chance on losing a game if there were any opportunity to win it. He could not rest any of his men. Merkle lost weight and seldom spoke to the other players as the Cubs crept up on us day after day and more men were hurt. He felt that he was responsible for this change in the luck of the club. None of the players felt this way toward him, and many tried to cheer him up, but he was inconsolable. The team went over to Philadelphia, and Coveleski, the pitcher we later drove out of the League, beat us three times, winning the last game by the scantiest of margins. The result of that series left us three to play with Boston to tie the Cubs if they won from Pittsburg the next day, Sunday. If thePirates had taken that Sunday game, it would have given them the pennant. We returned to New York on Saturday night very much downhearted.
“Lose me. I’m the jinx,” Merkle begged McGraw that night.
“You stick,” replied the manager.
While we had been losing, the Cubs had been coming fast. It seemed as if they could not drop a game. At last Cincinnati beat them one, which was the only thing that made the famous season tie possible. There is an interesting anecdote connected with that Cincinnati contest which goes to prove the honesty of baseball. Two of the closest friends in the game are “Hans” Lobert, then with the Reds, and Overall, the former Chicago pitcher. It looked as if Chicago had the important game won up to the ninth inning when Lobert came to the bat with two men out and two on the bases. Here he had a chance to overcome the lead of one run which the Cubs had gained, and win the contest for the home club, but he would beat his best friend and maybe put the Cubs out of the running for the pennant.
Lobert had two balls and two strikes when hesmashed the next pitch to center field, scoring both the base runners. The hit came near beating the Cubs out of the championship. It would have if we had taken one of those close games against Philadelphia. Lobert was broken-hearted over his hit, for he wanted the Cubs to win. On his way to the clubhouse, he walked with Overall, the two striding side by side like a couple of mourners.
“I’m sorry, ‘Orvie,’” said Lobert. “I would not have made that hit for my year’s salary if I could have helped it.”
“That’s all right, ‘Hans,’” returned Overall. “It’s all part of the game.”
Next came the famous game in Chicago on Sunday between the Cubs and the Pittsburg Pirates, when a victory for the latter club would have meant the pennant and the big game would never have been played. Ten thousand persons crowded into the Polo Grounds that Sunday afternoon and watched a little electric score board which showed the plays as made in Chicago. For the first time in my life I heard a New York crowd cheering the Cubs with great fervor, for on their victory hung our only chances of ultimatesuccess. The same man who was shouting himself hoarse for the Cubs that afternoon was for taking a vote on the desirability of poisoning the whole Chicago team on the following Thursday. Even the New York players were rooting for the Cubs.
The Chicago team at last won the game when Clarke was called out at third base on a close play, late in the contest. With the decision, the Pirates’ last chance went glimmering. The Giants now had three games to win from Boston on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, to make the deciding game on Thursday necessary. We won those, and the stage was cleared for the big number.
The National Commission gave the New York club the option of playing three games out of five for the championship or risking it all on one contest. As more than half of the club was tottering on the brink of the hospital, it was decided that all hope should be hung on one game. By this time, Merkle had lost twenty pounds, and his eyes were hollow and his cheeks sunken. The newspapers showed him no mercy, and the fans never failed to criticise and hiss him when he appeared on the field. He stuck to it and showed up in the ball park every day, putting on hisuniform and practising. It was a game thing to do. A lot of men, under the same fire, would have quit cold. McGraw was with him all the way.
But it was not until after considerable discussion that it was decided to play that game. All the men felt disgruntled because they believed they would be playing for something they had already won. Even McGraw was so wrought up, he said in the clubhouse the night before the game:
“I don’t care whether you fellows play this game or not. You can take a vote.”
A vote was taken, and the players were not unanimous, some protesting it ought to be put up to the League directors so that, if they wanted to rob the team of a pennant, they would have to take the blame. Others insisted it would look like quitting, and it was finally decided to appoint a committee to call upon Mr. Brush, the president of the club, who was ill in bed in the Lambs club at the time. Devlin, Bresnahan, Donlin, Tenney, and I were on that committee.
“Mr. Brush,” I said to my employer, having been appointed the spokesman, “McGraw has left it up to us to decide whether we shall meet the Chicago team for the championship of theNational League to-morrow. A lot of the boys do not believe we ought to be forced to play over again for something we have already won, so the players have appointed this committee of five to consult with you and get your opinion on the subject. What we decide goes with them.”
Mr. Brush looked surprised. I was nervous, more so than when I am in the box with three on the bases and “Joe” Tinker at the bat. Bresnahan fumbled with his hat, and Devlin coughed. Tenney leaned more heavily on his cane, and Donlin blew his nose. We five big athletes were embarrassed in the presence of this sick man. Suddenly it struck us all at the same time that the game would have to be played to keep ourselves square with our own ideas of courage. Even if the Cubs had claimed it on a technicality, even if we had really won the pennant once, that game had to be played now. We all saw that, and it was this thin, ill man in bed who made us see it even before he had said a word. It was the expression on his face. It seemed to say, “And I had confidence in you, boys, to do the right thing.”
“I’m going to leave it to you,” he answered“You boys can play the game or put it up to the directors of the League to decide as you want. But I shouldn’t think you would stop now after making all this fight.”
The committee called an executive session, and we all thought of the crowd of fans looking forward to the game and of what the newspapers would say if we refused to play it and of Mr. Brush lying there, the man who wanted us to play, and it was rapidly and unanimously decided to imitate “Steve” Brodie and take a chance.
“We’ll play,” I said to Mr. Brush.
“I’m glad,” he answered. “And, say, boys,” he added, as we started to file out, “I want to tell you something. Win or lose, I’m going to give the players a bonus of $10,000.”
That night was a wild one in New York. The air crackled with excitement and baseball. I went home, but couldn’t sleep for I live near the Polo Grounds, and the crowd began to gather there early in the evening of the day before the game to be ready for the opening of the gates the next morning. They tooted horns all night, and were never still. When I reported at the ball park, the gates had been closed by order of the NationalCommission, but the streets for blocks around the Polo Grounds were jammed with persons fighting to get to the entrances.
The players in the clubhouse had little to say to one another, but, after the bandages were adjusted, McGraw called his men around him and said:
“Chance will probably pitch Pfiester or Brown. If Pfiester works there is no use trying to steal. He won’t give you any lead. The right-handed batters ought to wait him out and the left-handers hit him when he gets in a hole. Matty is going to pitch for us.”
Pfiester is a left-hand pitcher who watches the bases closely.
Merkle had reported at the clubhouse as usual and had put on his uniform. He hung on the edge of the group as McGraw spoke, and then we all went to the field. It was hard for us to play that game with the crowd which was there, but harder for the Cubs. In one place, the fence was broken down, and some employees were playing a stream of water from a fire hose on the cavity to keep the crowd back. Many preferred a ducking to missing the game and ran throughthe stream to the lines around the field. A string of fans recklessly straddled the roof of the old grand-stand.
Every once in a while some group would break through the restraining ropes and scurry across the diamond to what appeared to be a better point of vantage. This would let a throng loose which hurried one way and another and mixed in with the players. More police had to be summoned. As I watched that half-wild multitude before the contest, I could think of three or four things I would rather do than umpire the game.
I had rested my arm four days, not having pitched in the Boston series, and I felt that it should be in pretty good condition. Before that respite, I had been in nine out of fifteen games. But as I started to warm up, the ball refused to break. I couldn’t get anything on it.
“What’s the matter, Rog?” I asked Bresnahan. “They won’t break for me.”
“It’ll come as you start to work,” he replied, although I could see that he, too, was worried.
John M. Ward, the old ball-player and now one of the owners of the Boston National League club, has told me since that, after working almost everyday as I had been doing, it does a pitcher’s arm no good to lay off for three or four days. Only a week or ten days will accomplish any results. It would have been better for me to continue to work as often as I had been doing, for the short rest only seemed to deaden my arm.
The crowd that day was inflammable. The players caught this incendiary spirit. McGinnity, batting out to our infield in practice, insisted on driving Chance away from the plate before the Cubs’ leader thought his team had had its full share of the batting rehearsal. “Joe” shoved him a little, and in a minute fists were flying, although Chance and McGinnity are very good friends off the field.
Fights immediately started all around in the stands. I remember seeing two men roll from the top to the bottom of the right-field bleachers, over the heads of the rest of the spectators. And they were yanked to their feet and run out of the park by the police.
“Too bad,” I said to Bresnahan, nodding my head toward the departing belligerents, “they couldn’t have waited until they saw the game, anyway. I’ll bet they stood outside the parkall night to get in, only to be run out before it started.”
I forgot the crowd, forgot the fights, and didn’t hear the howling after the game started. I knew only one thing, and that was my curved ball wouldn’t break for me. It surprised me that the Cubs didn’t hit it far, right away, but two of them fanned in the first inning and Herzog threw out Evers. Then came our first time at bat. Pfiester was plainly nervous and hit Tenney. Herzog walked and Bresnahan fanned out, Herzog being doubled up at second because he tried to advance on a short passed ball. “Mike” Donlin whisked a double to right field and Tenney counted.
For the first time in almost a month, Merkle smiled. He was drawn up in the corner of the bench, pulling away from the rest of us as if he had some contagious disease and was quarantined. For a minute it looked as if we had them going. Chance yanked Pfiester out of the box with him protesting that he had been robbed on the decisions on balls and strikes. Brown was brought into the game and fanned Devlin. That ended the inning.
We never had a chance against Brown. His curve was breaking sharply, and his control was microscopic. We went back to the field in the second with that one run lead. Chance made the first hit of the game off me in the second, but I caught him sleeping at first base, according to Klem’s decision. There was a kick, and Hofman, joining in the chorus of protests, was sent to the clubhouse.
Tinker started the third with that memorable triple which gave the Cubs their chance. I couldn’t make my curve break. I didn’t have anything on the ball.
“Rog,” I said to Bresnahan, “I haven’t got anything to-day.”
“Keep at it, Matty,” he replied. “We’ll get them all right.”
I looked in at the bench, and McGraw signalled me to go on pitching. Kling singled and scored Tinker. Brown sacrificed, sending Kling to second, and Sheckard flied out to Seymour, Kling being held on second base. I lost Evers, because I was afraid to put the ball over the plate for him, and he walked. Two were out now, and we had yet a chance to win the game as the score wasonly tied. But Schulte doubled, and Kling scored, leaving men on second and third bases. Still we had a Mongolian’s chance with them only one run ahead of us. Frank Chance, with his under jaw set like the fender on a trolley car, caught a curved ball over the inside corner of the plate and pushed it to right field for two bases. That was the most remarkable batting performance I have ever witnessed since I have been in the Big Leagues. A right-handed hitter naturally slaps a ball over the outside edge of the plate to right field, but Chance pushed this one, on the inside, with the handle of his bat, just over Tenney’s hands and on into the crowd. The hit scored Evers and Schulte and dissolved the game right there. It was the “break.” Steinfeldt fanned.
None of the players spoke to one another as they went to the bench. Even McGraw was silent. We knew it was gone. Merkle was drawn up behind the water cooler. Once he said:
“It was my fault, boys.”
No one answered him. Inning after inning, our batters were mowed down by the great pitching of Brown, who was never better. His control of his curved ball was marvellous, and he had allhis speed. As the innings dragged by, the spectators lost heart, and the cowbells ceased to jingle, and the cheering lost its resonant ring. It was now a surly growl.
Then the seventh! We had our one glimmer of sunshine. Devlin started with a single to centre, and McCormick shoved a drive to right field. Recalling that Bridwell was more or less of a pinch hitter, Brown passed him purposely and Doyle was sent to the bat in my place. As he hobbled to the plate on his weak foot, said McGraw:
“Hit one, Larry.”
The crowd broke into cheers again and was stamping its feet. The bases were full, and no one was out. Then Doyle popped up a weak foul behind the catcher. His batting eye was dim and rusty through long disuse. Kling went back for it, and some one threw a pop bottle which narrowly missed him, and another scaled a cushion. But Kling kept on and got what he went after, which was the ball. He has a habit of doing that. Tenney flied to Schulte, counting Devlin on the catch, and Tinker threw out Herzog. The game was gone. Never again did we have a chance.
It was a glum lot of players in the clubhouse. Merkle came up to McGraw and said:
“Mac, I’ve lost you onepennant. Fire me before I can do any more harm.”
“Fire you?” replied McGraw. “We ran the wrong way of the track to-day. That’s all. Next year is another season, and do you think I’m going to let you go after the gameness you’ve shown through all this abuse? Why you’re the kind of a guy I’ve been lookin’ for many years. I could use a carload like you. Forget this season and come around next spring. The newspapers will have forgotten it all then. Good-by, boys.” And he slipped out of the clubhouse.
“He’s a regular guy,” said Merkle.
Merkle has lived down that failure to touch second and proved himself to be one of the gamest players that ever stood in a diamond. Many times since has he vindicated himself. He is a great first baseman now, and McGraw and he are close friends. That is the “inside” story of the most important game ever played in baseball and Merkle’s connection with it.