Touching second; the science of baseball

Front matter

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Introduction

- A ball player who has served on a championship baseball club for seven seasons and a reporter who has followed the fortunes of winning and losing teams for twenty years decided to pool their knowledge of the game and its players and produce a book. They agreed that past generations of ball players and reporters have left only garbled traditions and scattered fragments of their knowledge of the game and that the science of baseball, as understood now, should be preserved in some way for future generations to use or to improve upon. They designed the book not only to be a history of the present day development of the American game, but also as a high text book for the lovers of baseball, for players in the amateur and school fields, and for the ''fans" generally. That they do not know all about baseball, they freely concede, but present a general study of the inside science of the game based on long experience, dozens of the great players past and present being unconscious contributors.

The manuscript was originally written by the reporter and was rewritten, added to, corrected and revised, by the player. In it are included several articles originally printed in The American Magazine under the reporter's name, with corrections and additions by the player. The whole was rewritten into its present form by the authors, working together, and is presented with the hope that it may assist "fans," younger ball players and all lovers of baseball to a better appreciation of the finer points of the national game, and enable them to see behind the moves of the men on the field, the generalship and brainwork of "inside play."

April, ipio.

LIST OF CHAPTERS

Chapter No. Page

I The Game ii

II The Players 25

III Baseball Law 42

IV Creating a Winning Team 56

V Managers and Their Duties TZ

VI Catching 87

VII Pitching 100

VIII The Inside Game 119

IX Outfielding 140

X Batting 154

XI Base Running 168

XII Umpiring 181

XIII Developing New Plays 196

XIV Combination Plays 209

XV The Spring Training 220

XVI Fine Points of the Game 246

XVII On the Bench 263

XVIII Deciding Moments of Great Games 282

XIX Scoring 300

ILLUSTRATIONS

John J. Evers Frontispiece

Tyrus Cobb, an "all-round" player 36

Roger Bresnahan, catcher and manager 78

"Red" Dooin, catcher 94

Vic Willis, pitcher 104

Ed Walsh, of the White Sox no

Harry Krause, pitcher 116

Napoleon La Joie, star infielder 128

Harry Lumley, outfielder 146

Hans Wagner, heavy hitter 164

"The Chicago Slide" (Lobert and Kling) 174

Tris Speaker, a "find" of 1909 200

Christy Mathewson 228

Mordecai Brown 236

Eddie Collins, of the Athletics 250

Photograph of a "Fullerton Score" 304 it

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e two feet additional distance would make it almost impossible for a team to score. If the distance between the bases was 88 feet the scores would run into double figures in almost every game. The distances have been so calculated and the players so distributed, that each of the nine men on defense has exactly the amount of ground to cover that the fastest runner possibly can cover with a flying start.

As a problem in geometry, baseball, in any of its departments, may be reduced to exact figures. In algebra the laws of choice and chance may be applied directly to the game. As a scientific pastime, involving the laws of physics and mathematics, the game appeals to the studious. As an exhibition of physical ' skill and endurance it attracts all lovers of athletics; involving quick thinking, a high degree of generalship and brainwork, it draws the attention of many who ordinarily care nothing for sports or games.

Baseball once was defined as "nine durn fools clubbing a ball around and nine other durn fools chasing it." The definition, while trite, is erroneous, for, in the present day, a fool would have as great a chance to succeed in any of the professions as he would in baseball.

Charlie Bennett, the once great catcher, who lost both legs in a railway accident at the height of his career, illustrated this fact in making a bull. He was watching a game at Detroit when a young base runner, trying to steal second, slid straight at the baseman, who was reaching to take a high throw. The baseman blocked him with one leg, caught the ball and touched the runner out.

"I could have beaten that myself," muttered Bennett m disgust.

"Without legs, Charlie?" inquired a friend.

"Yes — without legs," snorted Bennett angrily, "for I would have had brains enough not to slide where he could block my feet."

Besides interesting almost all classes of Americans, including every imported race after the first generation, baseball has an added interest which, to a great extent, explains its widespread vogue, and this is the element of local popularity. The game in America has reached an almost feudal stage. Each city possessing a ball team takes the same pride and interest in it and accords it the same loyal support that the cities of mediaeval Europe did to their chosen bands of warrior knights. To what extent this pride and loyalty exists is scarcely understood, a close race between teams representing rival towns sometimes creating a condition not far removed from civil warfare.

Probably there is not one person in one hundred over fourteen years of age in the United States who does not understand at least the basic principles of the game and scarcely one native born American in a thousand who has not at some time played the game. A canvass of the House of Representatives at Washington made by the late Joe Campbell during one session of Congress revealed the fact that every man in the House understood baseball and all except two had played the game. One of the two was crippled and the other was partially blind. Campbell obtained from each member a story of his baseball experiences. At that time there were seven members of Congress who had played professional baseball, one of them being Senator Arthur Pugh Gorman.

The extent to which the game has seized upon the people, regardless of class, may be judged by the fact that the number of persons who paid admission to see major league baseball games in one season exceeded the adult population of the United States. In one day (a week day) the total attendance upon baseball games at 107 parks under organized baseball was given at 543,200, and the largest crowd was given at 24,800. How half a million persons could leave business for half a day to attend games was not explained. These figures are from the records of games in leagues under the National agreement, operated as a business. How many were attending amateur, semi-professional and college games on that same day cannot be estimated. Nor can anyone tell accurately how many baseball teams there are in the United States. The city of Chicago alone, with two major league clubs, and twentysix semi-professional teams, has registered over 550 baseball clubs with nearly 75,000 players. A close estimate of attendance upon baseball games in Chicago one Sunday with both the American and National League teams playing at home showed that about 400,000 persons spent part of Sunday afternoon watching ball games. The scores of 278 games played on that Sunday in and around Chicago were received by one newspaper. This proportion of interest scarcely can be maintained throughout the country. Chicago is a Sunday ball town and the game on that day is the chief amusement of the people. And every town and hamlet, city, college, almost every church, young people's society, and club, every farm hamlet and cross roads village has its baseball team.

The extent to which the people are familiar with the game and interested in it may be judged by a story. A few years ago the clubs representing Chicago in the American and National Leagues won the championships in their own leagues and met to play for the World's Championship. Chicago was in a turmoil for weeks, business was neglected, and work in many cases abandoned. The foreman of one of the great newspapers was compelled to send all the American League adherents in his office to one department and the National Leaguers to another, keeping them apart so the paper might be printed without delay. Police records showed hundreds of arrests of men who fought while disputing the merits of the two teams.

The Sunday editor of one paper sent three reporters out into the city to discover some adult male citizen who did not know that the White Sox and Cubs were to play. After five days of canvassing m.any sections of the cifty and all classes of its cosmopolitan population the man was found. He was a German butcher and he became famous in a day as the only man in Chicago who was ignorant of baseball and the approaching series. But even he became a convert, for Comiskey sent him a season ticket to the American League games and before the next June he was one of the regular White Sox rooters.

During that same series, when the West Side and the South Side were engaged almost in civil war, there was an Irishman named Faugh, a Ballagh Finnegan, better known as "Fog," who had made a small fortune in trade on the West Side, and who, although he never had seen a game, was one of the most loyal supporters of the West Side team. On the day of the first game "Fog," gloriously arrayed, and with much money to wager, was the center of a group of ardent West Siders assembled in one section of the South Side stands. Standing on his seat he defied the White Sox supporters and flaunted his money in their faces.

"Wan hundred to sixty on the Wist Side," he shouted.

"Wan hundrid to fifty. Wan hundrid to forty."

The South Siders, who were not betting on their team, ignored him. He shouted, challenged, and yelled the praises of the West Side. Presently the umpire brushed ofif the plate and announced : —

"Ladies and Gentlemen — The batteries for today's game will be Reulbach and Kling for the West Side. Walsh and Sullivan for the South Side."

For an instant "Fog" blinked hard, wavering between loyalty to the West Side and love of Ireland. Then, leaping up again, he shouted,

"Walsh and Sullivan — thim's they byes I meant. Wan hundrid to sixty on the South Side."

The interest in that struggle in Chicago was duplicated over the entire country the following year when Chicago and New York engaged in their bitter contest for the National League championship. The presidential campaign was at its height, but the interest in the baseball race overshadowed it. Norman Mack, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, met one of the club owners on the street.

"When is that baseball season going to end?" he inquired anxiously.

The club owner explained the situation.

"Well," remarked Mack, "Hurry up and get it over with. We want to stir up some interest in the campaign."

On the day when the teams played off their tie for the championship, the Democratic National headquarters was turned into a baseball meeting. A committeeman from Oregon, entering to report, complained to Mack that he could not get a hearing.

"They're in the sixth inning now," remarked Mack. "In about an hour we can start to do business." And he joined the c/owd at the ticker, f Baseball, under that name, had its beginning at Cooperstown, N. Y., in 1839, although afterward the name was changed, the game being called the "New York game," with the "Massachusetts game" following later, the rules being somewhat different. Before the invention of baseball the English game of "rounders" and ''town ball" and "three hole cat" had been played in America with balls, bats and bases. In 1839 a West Point cadet named Doubleday, appointed from Cooperstown and probably at home on furlough, invented the game. Doubleday afterwards was a brigadier general in the army and famous as a mathematician. He organized a team of seven boys to play the game, first against two batters, then against any number present and not engaged in fielding. Later he placed nine men on a side, assigned their positions and played games. As to whether Cadet Doubleday introduced the game into West Point upon his return to the academy there is much dispute. It is said by several army veterans that the class of 1841 played a game believed to be the Doubleday game against another class team, but this has been denied.

Alexander J. Cartwright, of New York, proposed a similar game in 1845, niathematically calculated the distance between bases, and, singularly enough, adopted 90 feet as the correct distance, exactly as Doubleday had done. The wisdom of the mathematical calculations of these pioneers is vouched for by the experts of to-day. Cartwright wrote rules for his game and organized a club, first trying seven players, then nine.

Baseball, under the name of the "New York game,'* became popular at once and was played widely through the eastern states, the rules, however, varying in almost every district so that it was difficult to arrange matches. Each team was forced to concede some rules to the other, and lengthy conferences preceded inter-city matches before the rules could be agreed upon. In some towns 21 "aces" (or, as we call them, "runs") constituted a game. In others, especially where cricket had been played, 100 "rounds" or tallies constituted a game and frequently many days were required to complete a match.

The Knickerbocker club, of New York, framed a complete code of rules in 1845, the basic principles laid down in the rules being the same as those now prevailing. The rules placed the bases 42 paces apart and 21 "aces" constituted a game. The new game had taken well in Brooklyn, which was the center of athletic activity, and the Knickerbocker rules prevailed among the Brooklyn clubs. The Hudson river towns and cities adopted the game, and adapted the rules to suit their own views. It was played entirely by amateurs, and while called "baseball" in some places it continued to be called the "New York game" or "New York" until it was introduced into Boston by the Tri-Mountain team in 1858.

Boston, having been a cricketing center, objected to the New York rules, changed them and played the "Massachusetts game," in which 100 runs constituted a game. The records of games played in Boston and Cambridge show that sometimes five days were required to complete a match. Harvard teams engaged in the "Massachusetts game" soon after its introduction in Boston and became leaders in the new pastime.

With the organization of the National Baseball Association in 1858, the game began to approach uniformity. The rules were amended and codified and baseball quickly succeeded cricket as the popular sport. From the first, local patriotism played an important part in the sport. Matches played for as high as $1,000 a side were frequent. Brawls, clashes between partisan crowds, and assaults upon umpires are recorded even in those days.

In i860 baseball had become almost national in scope, and the rules were constantly modified as the play developed necessities for restricting certain practices. The game spread westward rapidly, and made much better progress in western cities than in the east. The civil war, however, arrested the development of the new game for a time. It was played during the war in camps all over the south, regiments and companies having their teams. Sergeant Dryden, of an Iowa regiment, relates that during the long waits in the trenches before Vicksburg, the Union and Confederate soldiers jokingly challenged each other to play baseball, and that during the brief truces the men of his company and the enemy played catch from line to line.

"We were throwing and catching the ball belonging to our company team one day" he relates, "when firing commenced afresh and the men dived into their holes. There was a big fellow named Holleran who, after we had got under cover, wanted to go over and whip the 'Johnny Reb' who had stolen our ball. The next morning during a lull in the firing, that *Reb' yelled to us and in a minute the baseball came flying over the works, so we played a game on our next relief."

The returning soldiers gave the game new impetus in 1865 and within a few years the West became the important factor in the development of baseball. Chicago, Rockford and Freeport, III, Cincinnati, Youngstown, O., and many of the small cities produced famous clubs, while in the East, Providence, Troy, Lynn, Mass., Hornellsville, N. Y., and cities scarcely heard from since became prominent because of their teams.

The first move toward professionalizing the game was made in 1864 when Al. J. Reach, afterwards famous as a player and manufacturer of sporting goods, v/as paid a salary to play with the Philadelphia club. In the late sixties the Cincinnati Cricket Club, of which Harry Wright was the leading spirit, organized a professional baseball team called the Red Stockings which toured the country, advertising the Queen City and demonstrating the commercial possibilities of the game.

In 1 87 1 a move was made which came near bringing baseball into disgrace and preventing its growth. This was the organization of the National Association of Professional Baseball Players. This body established itself in power, the players governing the game and themselves, and continued to rule until 1875. During that time gamblers, in collusion with certain players, gained control of baseball, and open gambling and the selling of pools was conducted in connection with many parks. The confidence of the public was destroyed, and except as a gambling institution baseball attracted little attention in the professional field. Grave charges of selling games, and in some cases proof of crooked playing, resulted from the reign of the gamblers and the dishonest among players and managers.

The game sufifered in popularity, even in the amateur field, and the players who were in charge of the organization proved failures. When in 1876 the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs succeeded to the control of baseball and took the game out of the hands of the players, the promoters made a stern attempt to punish players guilty of selling games and to stamp out gambling as the only means of salvation of the pastime.

William H. Hulbert, president of the league, saved the game by a radical move. He summarily expelled and placed upon a blacklist every player accused of being connected with the gambling frauds, whether the charges were proved or not. Some innocents may have suffered, but Hulbert drove the gamblers from the parks.

Again baseball recovered and flourished, increasing steadily in popularity until 1890, when an insurrection of the players against the National League club owners checked its progress. The cause of the rebellion was the attempt of the club owners to limit all salaries. The players for a time seemed triumphant, but leaders among them treacherously sold them out to the club owners and the Player's League collapsed, leaving the owners heavily in debt and the game discredited in many places.

Slowly the era of prosperity returned. Interest increased rapidly. Baseball was flourishing more and more until 1900, When a war between the two great leagues of the country gave it another serious reverse. With the re-establishment of peace and uniform laws governing all clubs and players the game made wonderful strides forward year by year. The owners of the major league clubs themselves were surprised. The development of interest in the game during the last ten years has been so rapid that men financially interested found themselves unable to accommodate their patrons. From the field in the pasture lot at Cooperstown, where Doubleday stepped off 90 feet, an era of million dollar plants, each seating up to 40,000 spectators, shows the change in the game.

As an amusement enterprise baseball today is scarcely second to the theater. It caters to millions of spectators and represents an investment of perhaps $100,- 000,000 in property and players. The property holdings of the National and American Leagues alone represent an investment of about $15,000,000. The sixteen major league clubs pay over $1,000,000 a season in salaries to players and spend nearly as much in securing and trying out new players. Add to this the salary lists of thirty-eight minor leagues, and the wages paid by thousands of semi-professional clubs, and the immensity of the baseball business as an amusement enterprise may be imagined.

Chapter II

There is scarcely a sport known to the world in which professionalism does not exert a lowering influence. Cricket, golf, even the turf, draw strict lines between the amateur and the professional. In most branches of athletics to become a professional means to take a step backward in the social scale and in the estimation of fellow men.

The great exception to this rule is baseball. The chief reason for this is that baseball in the United States and Canada no longer is upon a doubtful basis, but ranks as an established and honorable trade. In addition the game requires exceptional qualities of body and mind, and in consequence perfect physical condition, involving moral restrictions, not only is insisted upon, but brings exceptional rewards.

In the earlier days of the game professional players were looked upon, in many cases justly, as ruffians or at best itinerant ne'er-do-weels. In many towns and ' cities of that time the atrocious conduct of the hired athletes, their carousals and misbehavior on and off the field, gave the sport and its players a bad name. Players of that day were recruits who looked upon the game as a means of gratifying nomadic tastes. Few of them expected to continue in the sport, and regarded an engagement as a summer outing, to be devoted to having a good time.

The end of that era came when baseball became a paying commercial venture and was placed upon a business basis. During the early days of the National League, as well as the smaller leagues, club owners, managers and backers invested in the game for the love of the sport itself and without much thought of getting any monetary returns. They expected to lose money; or possibly to regain it through the advertising the team would give them or their cities, rather than in actual receipts at the gates. They organized and operated their teams from that standpoint. Some of the owners were wealthy men, backing teams as an amusement or from a personal pride. There was no recognized basis for salaries, but the average was low, and attracted only the adventurous or the tough, scrappy athletes from the back lots and bottoms of cities. While here and there were men of character and of education, decent clean young men who loved the game, the average of the players was low, morally and intellectually.

When the owners began to perceive that the sport was the latent rival of the theater in financial possibilities and possibly might become the greatest amusement enterprise in the world, the necessity of curbing rowdyism among the players and of obtaining men of higher moral and mental equipment impressed itself upon some of them. A few still held out for the old order of things. The majority, however, became wiser. They had seen crowds suddenly cease to attend games ; whole cities turn in disgust against teams and their tactics ; as happened in Cleveland, Baltimore, and once in New York. The owners then decided to cater to the patrons; to protect them from the insults and revilings and the coarse words and acts of some of the men.

Much as the "commercialization of baseball" is to be regretted from some standpoints, the fact that it has abolished rowdyism, brought a higher, cleaner and more sportsmanlike class of players into the game and put a premium on brains, commends the business administration. With the beginning of financial prosperity to owners, who had long struggled against loss and sometimes ruin, a higher class of men was attracted to the profession. The colleges sent some of their best men; young athletes who under ordinary conditions would have remained at home and entered business were lured to the game by the chances of big salaries and some honors.

This revolution of conditions began before the Brotherhood fight which culminated in the revolt of the players in 1890. The game was beginning to prosper after years of struggle, salaries were growing higher and higher, and club owners were bidding against each other for the services of the best players. In that respect, baseball is one of the oddest of all business ventures. Eight club owners in the league are partners in business, sharing receipts, sharing prosperity and adversity. Yet all the time these business partners must strive to beat each other on the field and to take each other's players away from them. The National League has almost from the start been mercenary, and this unavoidable condition, which reduced profits largely, the club owners sought to abolish by agreeing to enforce a salary limit, whereby the highest salary paid to any player was to be $2,000. The players revolted against this reduction of salaries, organized a rival league, and salaries leaped to five times that fig-ure, bringing disaster upon everyone concerned.

The restoration of peace reduced salaries again, but they increased steadily during the next ten year period, as the game grew in popularity and returned large financial receipts. The National League had inaugurated another salary reducing campaign in 1899, which ended abruptly v^hen the American League invaded the field and sent salaries to a war-time footing again by bidding for players. At the restoration of peace salaries had -reached so high a figure that baseball offered a chance of quick riches to a high class of youths who speedily enlisted. Salaries fell after the peace pact, but have continued to increase steadily and healthily to the present time.

The reforms among the players which the National League had striven in vain to bring about were accomplished as a result of the war between the American and National Leagues. Up to that time the rowdy element in professional baseball had been rampant ; and the players of greatest prominence considered themselves almost beyond control of their managers. The young players entering the profession in many instances fell under the influence of the disorderly element and became their allies. The American League, raiding the National, took away most of its star players, but also got most of the disorderly element. These men, scattered through new clubs and sharply curbed, lost much of their power and influence. The American League found itself compelled to adopt stern repressive measures while the National, with clubs of young and aspiring recruits, was relieved of the necessity of repressing them, and started right with the new men by placing a premium oh decency and good behavior.

The owners and managers came at last to realize that players of the carousing type could not maintain themselves in good playing condition through an entire season, while the sober and hard working players, even when less brilliant, were found to bring better results.

The establishment of two major leagues of equal or nearly equal caliber immediately doubled the demand for first-class players, and developed the fact that, with perhaps 100,000 active players in the minor leagues, college, semi-professional and strong amateur teams, it was extremely diflicult to find 325 men good enough, and with experience enough, to fill the sixteen clubs of the two major leagues. This famine in athletes not only acted to increase the demand for players, and to add to salaries, but it impressed upon both owners and managers the necessity of keeping good ball players in condition. The live stock, upon which the fortunes of the owners depended, had become so valuable that any depreciation found its way into profit and loss figures, and the watchful care of managers over the morals and physical grooming of players insured good behavior. As the game advanced and developed toward perfection, the demand for men above the average in mentality as well as in strength and speed became greater and greater, and the value of the players rose steadily.

The finding and developing of players is the greatest problem of the modern game. There is a dearth of really good players ; men of brains, speed and strength, coolness and character. The major leagues alone demand nearly two hundred new players each year to fill gaps in the ranks, and of these not more than twenty, or one in ten, is good enough to remain with the major league teams as a substitute even, and perhaps not more than an average of eight for the sixteen clubs secure regular positions, replacing veterans.

It is almost impossible to purchase players of worth, but outside of all monetary considerations it is certain that the manager of a weak major league club cannot, even if given his choice of all the players in America outside the major leagues, get together a team good enough to raise his city into the first division unless phenomenal luck attends his efforts and a half a dozen players develop suddenly after being promoted.

There have been instances of teams being thrown together that fitted exactly, but they are baseball miracles. The modern manager has as much chance of putting together a winning team in one season as he would have of throwing a handful of mud into the air and having it come down as a Sevres vase. John Grim, who has managed baseball clubs in almost every league and state in the United States, once put together a team of ten men to represent Portland, Ore., in the Northwest League. He had two weeks in which to create a team out of nothing and a few thousand dollars. In ten days he gathered from all over the United States ten players, most of whom he never had seen before and knew little about. He moved on Portland with his squad. Every man in the squad developed into a good ball player. All ten remained with the team through the entire season, and with only one recruit they won the championship from three other teams of experienced players.