Where has the summer gone? Of course it was just as long as any of them, but the unusually wet days (that's the sun? Thought it was a UFO) seemed to pile up and dominate the last several months. It occurred to me that even if Utica did have a team this summer, my nights at the ballpark would have been seriously curtailed.
But I'm not complaining. I started this particular summer spending my holiday weekend in a hospital. So I'm glad to have gotten to the games I got to, glad to be still processing words.
This issue is a bit light. Starts off with a few notes from the B-Sox trail (news of another discovery of sorts) ... switches to the Adirondacks, an unlikely perch from which watch the pennant races ... and ends with a kind of memoir about the Rookie of the Year Award.
Labor Day Weekend traditionally signals the end of summer, even though some schools opened weeks ago. The stretch runs are on, we will be counting down magic numbers soon. Bring on the playoffs!
For my wife and me, most of our lives, "the school year" has been there like a clock, marking when we can or cannot get away. When our kids entered college, we were suddenly free from the need to plan things that way, and now that they are both out, we are even more free. So the bookend holidays of Memorial Day and Labor Day no longer signal summer's beginning and end. They are welcome breaks in the daily routine, of course.
If I am making any point at all here, maybe this is it: summers need not end, just because Labor Day is behind us. And for baseball fans, the summer game will carry us through October. All the way through, this year. Maybe even through to November, when the smell of turkey will carry us a while.
My daughter is looking at grad schools in the southwest, and by coincidence, I'm looking at the NINE conference in Tucson, next March 17-20. Could be fun.
When I spent a couple of days in Milwaukee in June 2003, reading the transcripts of the 1924 trial (Jackson vs White Sox), I noted that the exhibits at that trial included several press clippings; they are preserved, and included the famous article by Hugh Fullerton that appeared (I thought) in the Monday, December 15, 1919, NY Evening World.
What struck me about the clipping in Milwaukee was that it contained information not usually quoted by the sources which refer to Fullerton's "Is Big League Baseball Being Run for Gamblers, With Players In On the Deal?" Toward the end, Fullerton suggests that someone like Judge Landis (who was not yet Commish, and would not be for another year or so) interrogate Zork, the Levy brothers, Eddie of Boston, Tim of Des Moines, Attell, Burns, Pesch, and Redmond ... then Mont Tennes of Chicago and Rothstein ... Comiskey's detectives, Kid Gleason, writers Crusinberry and Ed Wray of St Louis -- HSF himself, of course -- and finally, clean-Soxers Schalk & Eddie Collins. (Eddie of Boston and Tim of Des Moines remain phantoms to me.)
I recently received a xerox copy of the 12/15/19 article in the NY Evening World -- and the information above, which I had copied from the article I read in Milwaukee, was NOT included. I was not totally surprised, because that explains why more sources, quoting the article, make no mention of Fullerton's plan for an investigation. (By the way, when on the stand in Milwaukee, Fullerton was asked about this article, and he stated that even if Landis had only interrogated Bill Burns, the truth would have come out.)
The only clue to explaining the discrepancy between the NYEW article, and the "Milwaukee version," is that I recorded the source of the latter as the "NY World." In other words, the longer version might have, or must have run in the morning edition -- I believe that AM/PM editors swapped or shared material (I read that somewhere). So HSF's "plan" likely ran in the AM, and was then trimmed for the Evening edition, or possibly edited out.
I mentioned here (I think) recently that a later NYEW article refers to the articles -- plural -- by Fullerton, suggesting that he wrote a series.
On that Milwaukee witness stand, Jackson's lawyer Ray Cannon asked Fullerton, "Did you write in the three [emphasis mine] articles for the New York Evening World that anyone interested in the [Fix] should find Burns?"
Several books, including Eight Men Out refer to the series of articles Fullerton wrote. Some of those authors no doubt are leaning on Asinof. But at least one, by Robert C. Cottrell, Blackball, the Black Sox and the Babe (McFarland, 2002), refers to another article in the series. Page 117: Fullerton turned to the NYEW. There on 12/15/19 the first of a series of articles ... Fullerton called in the NYEW on December 18, 1919, for "an entire cleaning up of baseball and a thorough investigation of the scandalous charges" about the 1919 WS.
According to some sources, the "series" that Fullerton wrote after he left Chicago for NY is supposed to include "diagrams" by Christy Mathewson, of suspicious plays. (In the NYEW article, HSF writes, "But through the series, we [he and Matty] watched every play. Any play or move that looked suspicious I ringed in the scorebook. There are seven rings around plays and any one of these plays could be accounted for by the theory of accident as well as by the theory of crooked work.")
Again -- as far as I know, NO ONE has turned up any Fullerton articles in this series containing any diagrams, or which identified which seven plays he circled. No one except perhaps Cottrell has found any article except the 12/15/19 NYEW article, which apparently ran on page 3 and concluded in the sports section.
I'd like to thank here, Evelyn Begley, for combing the NYEW for Fullerton articles. She started in November 1919 and went thru to the spring of 1920. If others are inclined to follow up, and have the time, I think the place that next needs to be combed is the NY World, early edition(s). I would very much like to confirm that the version I read in Milwaukee appeared there (if others have seen this version -- please let me know; I can check some books, too). There is a chance that the "series" by HSF was only versions of the same article, run in different editions of the World. But there is also a chance that the "missing" articles ran ONLY in early editions of the World -- not the Evening.
* * * * *
What I wrote above originally concluded with a request from Notes readers for help tracking down the answers, in the NY Public Library.
But then Nicole DiCicco -- who had looked up the Cottrell information above -- looked up more. She reported that Cottrell, on page 290, cited the dates and titles of those elusive "other articles" in the Fullerton NY World series. "Comiskey Has Been on Point of Dropping Seven Men" appeared on December 18, page 28; and "Judge Landis Asked to Take Charge of Investigation" ran on December 20, page 8.
You can -- I hope -- look it up.
As for the equally elusive long version of "Is Big League Baseball Being Run for Gamblers" -- the December 15 article -- the only copy I know of, in Milwaukee, is still safe. When I read that clipping -- it was the original newsprint, not a copy -- back in June 2003, it never occurred to me that it might be the only one around. Yes, that's possible, because according to Nicole, when the microfilming was done for the NY World, articles (pages?) that appeared in the AM and PM editions were only copied once, if they were duplicates -- or appeared to be. A copier scanning quickly could easily miss the extra paragraphs in Fullerton's long version. Again -- we know the short version is on microfilm.
* * * * *
I hope that soon, a publisher or editor will ask me: got any photos for the book? I don't. But I will lobby hard to include copies of the key articles that have been hard to track down -- but worth the effort. I'm thinking Collyer's Eye, the 1935 Fullerton Sporting News memoir, and -- the long version of his December 1919 blockbuster. Maybe the whole series of three. Maybe the Eighth Obenshain, maybe the Fourth Menke. (For those in the hunt, no explanation is needed; for others, it would take too long!)
CAMP
I've made notes in the Adirondacks before, notes which ultimately ended up in Notes. They were made on paper, with pen or pencil. That was because the family camp was computer-free.
I process these words, however, on a laptop -– at camp. A corner has been turned.
Once upon a time, the camp had no telephone. Not even a cell. Going 'way back, there was an outhouse instead of a bathroom, but by the time I came along, the plumbing had moved indoors. So I missed the really old days. But my kids have memories of camp when its main attraction was the fireplace, which was lots more interesting and (in winters) warmer than the old cableless, VCR-less TV, that pulled in (somehow) only a few channels.
My Adirondack notes were never too much about baseball. They were more about how remote baseball was from camp. It was maddening to go north in the stretch run, when the Pirates were contending –- I'm going back here to 1990-1992. They needed me, and the best rooting I could muster was long-distance. My car radio pulled in KDKA, that was it, until the TV revealed scores at 11:20 PM or so. Looking back, it was fun, like smuggling transistors into school or work each October to follow the Series, before night games started in 1971.
Now camp has satellite TV –- meaning that I can actually pick up more baseball games on TV up here in the Adirondacks, than I can in my living room. Which means that there may come a day when the Pirates are contending again, and I'll actually be forced to leave home and drive an hour or so north, to catch them -- to assist them -- coming down the stretch.
Not this time around. The Pirates' season seemed to peak around Memorial Day, and was sabotaged soon after by a ten-game losing streak. They came back -– nine W's in a row at one point, I think -– and not too long ago, they still seemed just a long win streak away from the wild card ticket to the playoffs. But now it looks like they will settle for fourth in their division, happy to finish ahead of Selig's Milwaukee entry, and perhaps Cincinnati -– a team that folded badly, and whose season may have peaked with Griffey, Jr's 500th HR.
I thought the Pirates could catch and pass Houston, and perhaps they still will, but that seems unlikely now. [As I was writing that, the astros were completing a sweep of the Pirates.] As for Chicago, they ought to be rallying for that WC ticket, and readying their pitching for another try at getting into the Series.
Of course I’m rooting for a Red Sox-Cubs World Series. Why? Because it's possible.
While I wasn't paying close attention, the Red Sox have crept back into a position to finish ahead of the Yankees. Having grown up in the fifties, the Yankees always seemed to represent the Ike Republicans (who said that rooting for the guys in pinstripes was like rooting for IBM?) So with John Kerry of Boston taking on the incumbent GOP man Bush, the AL race has, for some fans, the character of an omen.
This superstition seems not so far-fetched to this fan, because somewhere lodged in my brain in a memory of the 1960 upset of the Yankees, by my Pirates, being a sign that Kennedy was going to beat the odds and become the first Catholic in the White House. I also recall hearing someone argue back in those days that for a number of seasons, an election-year NL win in October meant the Democrats would win in November. All I knew was that the Yankees and Ike won in '52 and '56, and the Bucs and JFK won in '60. But then the theory held in '64 (Cards/LBJ) and '68 (Tigers/Nixon) and '72 (A's/Nixon) and '76 (Reds/Carter), too. Superstition, indeed.
The Phillies first-ever Series win in 1980 was apparently a huge upset, or you might conclude that no NL team could stop Ronald Reagan that year.
Hmm. Based on that old theory, Red Sox-Cubs would be win-win for Kerry fans.
There are, of course, a bunch of other good teams that the Sox and Cubs will have to battle through. Last I looked, the Dodgers were having a fine summer, and ALL their Californian neighbors north and south were all dreaming of the playoffs, too. So were the Marlins, when they weren't dodging hurricanes. The Braves will be there. So will, it seems, those pesky Twins of Minnesota. Since the Series will start on October 23 this year, there is the threat of November baseball, so having the prospect of Twins fans trudging to their Dome through snowdrifts is fun.
ROY
I have written here a few times that being a Pirate fan has its bright side. For example, I do not need to pay attention in the off-season when the superstars auction themselves off to the big-payroll teams. Another thing Pirate fans never worry about is the Rookie of the Year Award.
When I was a rookie -- well, when I was in my first full season of rooting, in 1958 -- it looked like a Pirate would win the ROY award. I was sure it would happen. The Pirates had taken a tremendous leap forward, from last to second place in the then-eight-team National League. They had come up with two rookie pitchers, who were both given credit for that surge in the standings. A kid named Curt Raydon won 8, lost 4, with a 3.62 ERA, and at 24, seemed to have the potential of being an ace. But 1958 was his only season in MLB.
The Braves won their second straight pennant for Milwaukee that summer, by the way, partly because a couple of young arms on their staff blossomed, too: Juan Pizzaro, Carleton Willey, and Joey Jay. Spahn and Burdette were routinely winning 20 or more in those days, and the Braves had a star-studded lineup headed by Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews. So finishing second to those guys was no disgrace.
Then there was George Adrian Witt, cleverly nicknamed "Red" because guess what color his hair was? This kid (he was 24 in 1958, too) from California had an amazing stretch run, finishing 9-2 with an ERA that still sparkles, 1.61. That's a number I never need to look up. Witt didn't qualify for the league lead in that department, because he pitched only 106 innings. But I thought the least the league could do was honor him with the Rookie of the Year thing.
However, while the Brave and Pirate farms were growing pitching, the Giants were producing muscle. In 1958, Orlando Cepeda joined Willie Mays in their lineup, batting .312 and hitting 25 homers. Cepeda would go on to menace pitchers for another sixteen summers and wind up in Cooperstown. But in 1958, he was simply good enough to be Rookie of the Year. Unanimously. There was talk of having a separate award for rookie pitchers -- after all, aces who were denied the MVP could still win the Cy Young. The Sporting News did it that way. But no matter -- my man had finished second, like the Pirates. Oh well. Wait'll next year.
The next year, Cepeda was displaced from his job at first base for the Giants by another ROY and future 'Famer, Willie McCovey. Those were the days. George Witt's arm was shot, and he finished 0-7, 6.93.
When I started rooting around in baseball history, I learned that the ROY award wasn't that old -- I was older, by a year. And I learned, too, that it was not for Pirates. None had come close to winning it. The best the Bucs could do was to trade for a ROY-winner, Bill Virdon, who broke in with St Louis in 1955. I suspect that had the writers known that Virdon would become a Pirate, the award would have gone to someone else. Well, that's how I felt.
The Sporting News actually started giving the ROY award a year earlier, and in 1946 it was -- not Ralph Kiner -- but Del Ennis. Never mind that Ralph led the least in homers that first year -- and the next six, by the way.
In the seasons that followed, the Pirates rarely produced players who broke in big -- big enough to win the ROY. There were a few close calls -- 2B Johnny Ray lost to 2B Steve Sax, 63-57 in 1982, that was closest, I think. It was easy to imagine that the ROY would never go to a Pirate. Not ever.
The pitcher who brought back memories of George Witt was knuckler Tim Wakefield, whose 8-1, 2.15 stretch record in 1992 was good enough for 3rd in the ROY race, behind Eric Karros (116 votes) and a point behind Moises Alou (30).
Why am I on this subject, anyway? Because of Jason Bay. If I read the Pittsburgh sports writers correctly, a lot of Pirate fans think Jason is a shoo-in for the ROY award this time around. This would be, of course, like the Phillies winning the World Series in 1980. Are we in for an autumn of upsets?