Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
Observations From Outside the Lines |
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NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
#365 DECEMBER 9, 2005
LOST AND FOUND
I think my introduction to philosophy came when I was a kid watching Ernie Kovacs on small-screen b&w TV. Scene: squirrel standing by tree in forest, wearing cotton-ball earplugs. Voice: "Tim-ber!" The tree keels over. No sound. Along comes Ernie, removes cotton. Sound of tree crashing follows.
Which brings up that age-old question: if a newspaper exposes wrongdoing, but gets no credit -- are the reporter and everyone associated with the paper still heroic?
Following the tainted World Series of 1919, just one paper, Collyer's Eye, dared to investigate in a serious way, and to let the public know what they were finding. Not just rumors, like Comiskey and Ban Johnson were claiming. No, they had names -- names of ballplayers and gamblers. Names of players that would go down in infamy, when they were banned from the game a year later.
I think more people heard of Collyer's Eye in the past five days, than in the sixty-some years since the Eye stopped its presses (in 1942, I think, maybe a WW II casualty. Bert Collyer had passed away in July 1938.) Why? Because this obscure publication, retired and enjoying its anonymity until recently at a quiet library near Chicago, had suddenly been found to be missing a couple of its forgotten volumes.
How long they had been missing is anyone's guess -- my guess is almost two years, but what do I know? Where they were is also anyone's guess -- the volumes are too fragile to dust for fingerprints, and there were no security cameras running (I'm told) when the volumes were smuggled back to their home. It's a weird story, for a newspaper that was so hard to find for such a long time. There were days that I thought the only ones who knew they Eye ever existed, were me and the librarians and others in the hunt for some trace of its detective work in 1919.
Although I have never seen the Eye in person myself, I felt somewhat responsible for the temporary loss -- after all, I had written about it numerous times here in Notes, talked about it at two national SABR conventions, and mentioned it in countless other places, including email and the internet.
So I was relieved when those missing volumes miraculously reappeared, beamed down, perhaps, from some extraterrestrial who is inexplicably as hooked on the B-Sox as I am. Case closed said the campus police, sounding much like Judge Landis as he put the B-Sox to bed in 1921.
Anyway, read more about this later in this issue.
WORTH PONDERING SOME
My desk calendar continues to serve up food for thought. On July 13, 1934, Babe Ruth swatted his 700th career home run. That in itself is worth a pause ... but now think of this -- when that happened, the next-highest career total was that of Lou Gehrig, his teammate, who had 314. That's how much Ruth towered over the sport.
On August 9, 1906, Jack Taylor pitched a complete game. Today, a CG almost rates a headline. For Taylor, it was his 187th consecutive route-going performance! In the 202 games between June 13, 1901, and 8/9/06, Taylor pitched in 202 games (he finished fifteen in relief) without needing help from his bullpen. Makes you wonder if managers were just afraid to go to the mound and ask this guy to turn over the baseball. And it also makes you wonder if he had any friends who were relievers.
Finally, there is Henry Schmidt. He went 22-13 for Brooklyn in 1903. Big deal? Well ... yes. He was a rookie. A rookie with 22 wins today would be headed for Cooperstown and made a wealthy man indeed, with both a salary boost and endorsements. But when Henry Schmidt, a Texas native, received his contract for the next season, he returned it unsigned, saying that he no longer wished to play baseball "in the east." Which in those days meant in the majors, since even the "western" St Louis teams spent most of the summer in the east. And that was that for Henry Schmidt. Today, his agent could get him traded to a California team, maybe, or his contract could include jet rides home between starts.
WOMEN-OF-THE-FIX DEPT.
Last issue, I noted that the Boston Globe learned "that the ramifications of the clique which engineered the deal [the Fix] included the use of blackmail tactics, wine, and women lures."
That could easily be another entry under "Worth Pondering Some," I suppose. But instead, here's a bit more on a woman of the Fix.
Early on, I noticed that the story of the Fix, its cover-up, and its uncovering was almost exclusively a story about men. It was ecumenical, but almost exclusively white, too. I'm not going to turn into Michael Moore and claim that the story was ALL about "stupid white men" but the temptation arises. The fact is, that women are hard to find in this story.
Only one, really made much of a splash in the papers. That is, unless you count the enigmatic fixer "Rachael Brown" who morphs into Rafael in some accounts, or "Rachel" or just "Brown" which was also the name Nat(e) Evans borrowed for the occasion. Aside from Mrs Brown, the official "Mystery Woman" of the Fix was Mrs Henrietta D. Kelley of Chicago.
If you read all the accounts of the grand jury hearing in 1920 -- over and over and over again -- one thing you notice is that the testimony given, and then released or leaked was never as sensational as yesterday's headlines promised. I suppose this is true today -- I'm thinking of previews of films and TV shows here. It's almost as if today's papers are designed to sell tomorrow's. Do you think...?
Anyway, as the grand jury warmed up in September 1920, there were mentions of a "mystery lady" who was going to testify, and shake things up. One of the biggest buildups I've found to date was in the Boston Daily Globe, on September 28. The big bold headline went Woman to Testify in Gambling Case ... under that, Players Formerly Lived at Mrs Kelley's Home. Yes, Mrs Kelley took in boarders, and they included Eddie Cicotte in 1919 ... others were Ray Schalk, Kid Gleason, and John Collins. Eavesdropping on any one of these guys would make her a star witness, probably. But in fact, what Mrs K had to tell, came from Knuckles.
In baseball, timing is everything. With Mrs Kelley not just kneeling on deck, but putting on her Sunday best for her big day tomorrow, Eddie Cicotte was under considerable pressure. First Rube Benton pretty much insisted that he had LOTS more to tell the grand jury about the gamblers who tampered with the Series. Then Billy Maharg gets big headlines by going to a Philadelphia paper to tell the world the whole, awful truth (OK, maybe the possible reward of $10,000 was a tiny factor for Billy).
But now Mrs Kelley!!! In my book, I have included a number of versions about what or who moved or motivated Eddie Cicotte to volunteer to go to the grand jury, ruining what was otherwise a much-needed off day at the tail end of a terrific pennant chase. Nowhere will you find the suggestion that Mrs Kelley made him do it. But think about it. He certainly knew Mrs K, and could guess at what she knew. What was Eddie Cicotte trying to prevent her from saying, when he beat her to the grand jury that day?
After all, whatever she said would be reduced to a tiny blurb, once Eddie confirmed that the Fix had indeed been in the previous October.
We know what she ultimately told the GJ -- that she overheard Eddie Cicotte saying, during the tainted Series, words to the effect of "I got mine." As Eddie's lawyer, I would point out to the jury that Knuckles was no doubt in a heated discussion with the missus, about who, among the Sox "in the know" about the Fix, still had their integrity intact. "Got mine," insisted Ed.
Nowhere will you find a record of the disappoinment that must have washed over the country, when it turned out that that was ALL Mrs K had to say. Did she have MORE to say? Did she threaten Eddie (with a telegram, perhaps): "Unless you go to the hearing tomorrow and 'fess up, I'm telling them EVERYTHING." Did she have really damaging goods on Knuckles? Maybe something about wine and women lures?
Alas, probably not. The Boston Globe got to her before Eddie made his headlines. "She said that the subject of her supposed testimony is as much a mystery to her as to investigators. 'I cannot imagine why this subpena has been served on me unless the Grand Jury heard that I traveled back and forth between Cincinnati and Chicago for all the games of the World's Series last year,' she said."
Mrs Kelley had been repeatedly badgered about a mystery package, delivered by Fred McMullin to Buck Weaver. "I know nothing of such a package. I am certain that it is not for questions on that subject that I have been summoned."
And that ended Henrietta D. Kelley's moment in the sun. We are left to ponder some, what she really knew, but wouldn't say. (Would you live at a boarding house where what you thought you said in private appeared in the papers? This was her income. No six-figure deal from a publisher the next day.)
COLLYER'S EYE REVISITED
Bert Collyer died in July, 1938, and he was famous enough to rate obituaries in the major national newspapers. The NY Times noted that Bert claimed that his own paper, Collyer's Eye, was the first to expose the B-Sox scandal, but added that others made the same claim. Even in death, Bert and the Eye had a hard time getting respect.
I had been on the B-Sox trail about a year, and had run into Collyer's Eye a couple times. It was in the news when they raised, in 1923, the question about whether gambling and baseball were still on speaking terms. Judge Landis did not like that question and soon the Eye was slapped with a lawsuit. Then I found a note in 1962's The American League Story by Lee Allen (pg 94 in the revised edition, 1965). And that prompted me to place this "want ad" in NOTES #308 (the full "ad" is also in #363):
COLLYER'S EYE -- ever heard of it? The sporting (gambling) magazine published in Chicago by Bert E. Collyer, apparently ran an article immediately or soon after the 1919 World Series -- the article contained the names of the players later indicted. No other newspaper or magazine dared such an expose, for fear of libel, and for lack of hard evidence. That didn't stop Bert. Unfortunately, the Eye was disreputable, and their expose went unnoticed. Today, it seems virtually impossible to look it up. And believe me, I've asked librarians and researchers all over the country to try. So I'm tossing it out here -- anyone know how I might get a look at that issue from October 1919?
The search went on for several more months, before the Eye turned up at a library on the U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, campus. They had only 1920 forward (we thought at the time), but their October 2, 1920, issue -- right after the scandal broke -- had a great re-cap and a collage of headlines, and convinced me that the Eye was reputable after all -- but still lacked any real reputation, at least in the country of baseball.
I set out to change that here in Notes, then I chose to highlight Bert Collyer (along with Hugh Fullerton and Ban Johnson) as a key player in the B-Sox story, when I organized a panel on the 1919 WS for SABR's national convention in July 2004. Last summer, I devoted a whole presentation to Bert Collyer at the SABR national in Toronto -- he was, after all, the Canadian connection to the Big Fix. (See #358 for a summary of the talk.)
And it looked like that would be all the publicity Bert and his obscure publication would get -- until my book comes out, that is.
Then on October 22, Tom Ruane posted a note on the SABR-L, asking if anyone knew whether Collyer's Eye had any monetary value -- because (as I noted in #363) a couple volumes of the Eye had turned up missing from UIUC.
In telling the folks in Urbana what I knew, I learned that the volumes from 1919 were in their collection. Fantastic news, because now we can get the rest of the story behind that collage of headlines they made up after they were "vindicated!"
Good news: the missing volumes have been found. It looks to me like the publicity generated by the library, about the missing volumes, reminded some poor soul to return them. Whoever had them, may not have known how rare they were -- it seems that the library didn't know, either, till after they went missing!
I was interviewed by a reporter from the Chicago Tribune on Monday, December 5, and by another from the Champaign-Urbana News Gazette the next day, and the internet was abuzz with news that some issues of the Eye were MIA. (You can look it up -- try doing a search for Collyer's Eye with any decent search engine!) Then, as suddenly as they had vanished, they reappeared -- left on a table and discovered by a library aide, December 7, I think. In a twinkling (of an eye), life was back to normal at UIUC -- except it will be pretty impossible to check out the Eye again.
More good news: I think that UIUC will be trying its best to make the Eye accessible for researchers. They now know they have a treasure trove, and are eager to let the world know.
LOOKING AHEAD
As I have the opportunity to see various articles from Collyer's Eye, I will certainly report on them here. My interest is to see if they shed more light on the events of October 1919, not to see if the clear or condemn any individual (and I don't mean just the B-Sox, I mean Comiskey and Ban Johnson and others). If you are a member of the B-Sox Yahoo group (there's a link to join at the Notes web site home page), you'll probably see this material before it shows up here in Notes. But maybe not.
ALSO AHEAD
Bumped from this issue, a review of The 1917 White Sox by Wilbert & Hageman. I'll give you a sneak preview of one thought I had after reading it. Asinof has Eddie Cicotte plotting the Big Fix in 1919, because in 1917 he was denied a bonus of $10,000 for winning 30 games. I've written and talked about the legendary Cicotte bonus at length over the past several years. There are lots of problems with Asinof's claim, the greatest being the facts that in both 1917 and 1919, he had his shots at winning 30, and in 1917 he was a workhorse down the stretch, never held back from starts where he might have added to his win total (28).
But what if Comiskey promised Eddie that big, fat bonus in 1917 after the season? He had 28 wins under his belt. Two more wins, giving him 30 in all, might mean a World Championship.
Then in the 1917 Series against McGraw's Giants, Cicotte won #29 -- a 2-1 win in the Series opener in Chicago. Eddie the Ace came back in Game 3, and pitched another terrific game -- but lost it, 2-0, in New York. And that was Eddie's last Series start. 29 wins and counting ... the Sox up 2-1 in games, with at least two more games to go ... in fact, the Series went six games. But in Game Five, Reb Russell gets the nod, and is KO'd in the first. Cicotte comes right in, puts out the fire, pitches six innings, and is lifted, the Sox rally to win 8-5, but the win goes to Red Faber.
Faber then gets the start for Game Six, hurls a 4-2 CG win, picking up his third Series win. He's the hero. Was this what Eddie was stewing over, two years later, when another World Series comes along? Twenty-nine wins ain't thirty, Eddie.
By the way, speaking of that Cicotte Bonus -- upon further review (of the 1921 trial material in the day's papers) -- Eddie Cicotte received a $3,000 bonus after the 1919 World Series. We can guess it was mostly for winning 29 that summer, because he did lose two of his three Series starts that Fall. What else could it be for? Our little secret, hey, Eddie? That deal you guys made with Attell and Burnsy -- forget about it....
AND ON THIS NOTE
I'll wrap up this issue. I recently found a reference (in the Boston Daily Globe) to a game that Shoeless Joe Jackson played right here in the shadows of Cooperstown (AKA Utica, NY), in June 1922. If he did, he played it under the radar of the sports pages. Still, it's nice to think that he passed by, never stopping to give an interview, not distracted by that building to the south, the one with all those bronze plaques, the one that would be built much later. He just came in, played ball, and moved on. I hope he sampled some of the local cuisine. I'd love to find out if he stayed over, or caught a train that night. Utica had some terrific Italian craftsmen back then, maybe he ordered a pair of shoes....