Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
Observations From Outside the Lines |
Carney's newest book,
Burying the Black Sox: How
Baseball's Cover-up of the
1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded, will be available soon.
Pre-order your copy today.
Click to subscribe to 1919BlackSox Yahoo Discussion Group
NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
#367 JANUARY 3, 2006
INDICES
Index: A guide for facilitating reference. When I started taking Notes on baseball back in March, 1993, the idea of having an index could not have been farther from my mind. I don't think I had ever written anything in my life that ever needed an index. And there was no reason to think that Notes would need one, either.
In those early days, Notes was simply dated, never numbered. (The first issue to have a number? #61, in April 1994.) Looking back, I become nostalgic for those days when I was writing about ten pages a week, and was following the seasons in progress. I wrote about baseball on every level, starting with Little League and going up (or down, it depends on how you look at it) to MLB. But I "marked time" with the major league season in progress, so it was Week One in early April, and so on, through till the end of the regular season, Week 26. Then the post-season ... then it was Week One of the Hot Stove Time, which ran up until Week One of Spring Training, which ran up until Opening Day. Eventually I added the exact dates for each issue, along with the numbers, a system I've retained. Using headlines came along much later.
From time to time, I published indices right in Notes. It was easy for me to find past topics, I had everything in my computer or on disks. But as I picked up new readers, I found myself referring more and more to previous issues, and rather than repeat myself (or reprint from the archives), I would send readers back to stuff I'd written months or years ago.
In March 1999, Notes moved to the internet, for better and for worse, starting with #184. I suppose its Archive (which includes some earlier issues, too) can be searched, somehow, but I've never tried that. There are a couple indices in the Archive. After issue #206, is an index that indicates the contents of the first 206 issues. It's partly topical, partly headlines.
My own indexing went on a bit longer -- through #252. After I got bit by the B-Sox bug (in #268), I didn't keep it up. But there is one other index in the Archive, for issues 268-287 (it follows 287), strictly for B-Sox material.
Anyway, this issue is all about indices, which can be boring. No one I know picks up a book and judges it by the index (altho I'm in the habit of peeking at that before I buy). If we have no real interest in looking it up, we don't need indices.
The Index I want to "feature" here is one I recently completed for the issues of Notes that were written in 2005. That is, the issues that deal with the B-Sox, which is most of them. It starts with #345, and runs thru #366 (last issue). That's just 20-some issues, less than two per month -- less than usual. Blame my book, blame e-mail, blame the Yahoo group. In any case, the index here for 2005 should be of interest mainly to new readers, who jumped aboard somewhere along the way. This index will make it easier for them to go back and look up the articles of interest.
If you are doing the math -- shame on you! You noticed that I have a couple gaps in my indices. Namely 207-267 (or just 253-267 for myself), and 288-344. I'll try to work on those gaps as 2006 moves along.
INDEXING THE BOOK
In case anyone is wondering -- yes, my book will have an index. But in the words of Shoeless and Buck, "I didn't do it!" The credit goes to Trey Strecker, a SABR member who also deserves the credit for putting me in touch with Hugh Fullerton expert Steve Klein.
Note to authors: because indices are so useful and helpful to researchers, SABR has a small corps of volunteers who will index baseball books. I remembered that, when my publisher asked me about providing an index. My contract said that either I would do one, or pay the publisher to do one. Well, as I said above, I had never indexed anything except Notes. So I was delighted when SABR found Trey to be a willing volunteer. It looks to me like he did a super job, and if it is OK with Potomac, maybe I can give you a preview in next issue. I understand that computers and the right software make it easier these days, but I really would not have known where to start.
As an aside -- I met Trey at the NINE conference in Tucson last March, and look forward to thanking him in person at the NINE conference this coming March. I would very much enjoy working with Trey and Steve Klein -- someday -- on a really great biography of Hugh Fullerton. (Trey -- the index is all yours!)
SPEAKING OF HUGH FULLERTON
Now there's a guy who could have used a good indexer! He was prolific, inside and outside baseball. He just never seemed to quit writing -- OK, maybe that's why his First Commandment of Sport was "Thou Shalt Not Quit!"
It looked like he quit writing -- about baseball, anyway -- after the World Series of 1919. Some accounts, relying on Eight Men Out, have Hughie writing his expose, but getting frustrated with his Chicago editors, so much so that he finally bolts to New York, where the Evening World comes to the rescue and gives him the space to vent. It's toned down, but it's all there, a recipe for an investigation -- that baseball pretty much ignored.
But that's not quite the way it happened. As near as I can tell, Hughie was headed to New York anyway. He had his ticket to ride, and the assassination attempt that Fall probably moved the date up a little. What is little known, however, is that between his famous Chicago Herald and Examiner column the day after the Series ended -- where he predicted (quoting Comiskey) that "seven players will not return" next spring -- and his mid-December series of NY Evening World columns challenging baseball to clean up its act, Hughie never really stopped writing!
You can look it up, and if you are a SABR member and know how to ProQuest, you can do it right from your home computer. Not from work -- if you are reading this at work -- STOP! Hugh Fullerton would NOT approve.
I recently did just that. Look it up, that is, and at home. I hadn't read those columns in a while. What follows is a kind of index, with each article appearing in the Atlanta Constitution:
October 6. The series isn't over, but Fullerton writes, "There is more ugly talk and more suspicion in the fans and among others in this series than there has ever been in any world's series. The rumors of crookedness, of fixed games and plots are thick.... There are three different lies going the rounds equally ridiculous." Alas, he does not describe each of those three.
October 10. Fullerton Says Series Should be Called Off goes the headline. "There will be a great deal written and talked about this world's series. There will be a lot of inside stuff that never will be printed...." "There are seven men on the team who will not be there when the gong sounds next spring and some of them will not be in either major league." Fullerton really thought Comiskey would fire a bunch, and that when word spread among the magnates about why, that some would be blacklisted. But he was wrong: only one, Gandil, missed the gong next Opening Day.
October 11. Now Fullerton left for a fishing trip in the north woods right after the Series, so you might think this next column was in the can. And most of it reads that way. But Hughie tacks on a couple shots at the end: "Now that the world's series is all cleaned up, excepting the remnants of the annual scalping and other scandals connected with the event, it is evident that the powers of baseball face a tough situation." Fullerton has this crazy idea he just can't shake -- as the money at stake goes up, so does the meddling and tampering of gamblers with the game. He's seen it before -- 1919 is just the latest and greatest case. He wants to stop the world's series, to stop the infestation. But he knows "it is hardly possible that the magnates [owners] and players will give up the rich prize even for the good of the game." Nor will they trade off TV revenue so kids (of all ages) in the east can view the end of the best games of the year!
October 17. In this column he alludes to that little encounter he had before Game One, that he detailed in that 1935 Sporting News memoir: "Outside of the scandalous rumors that circulated from the first -- even before the series started.... The series has hurt the sport terribly. It is up to ball club owners to decide whether it is worth while to take a half million dollars for the good name of baseball. [Remember, he wanted them to call off the 1919 series, before it started.] It is also up to them to investigate and run to their sources the vicious stories connected with the series." Fullerton is settling into his role as baseball's nagging conscience. Over the next several months, this call for an investigation is a recurring theme; the Evening World series is its climax.
October 21. Comiskey has offered $10,000 as a reward, but has not fired even a batboy. Instead, he has joined his voice with those calling for a return to best-of-seven games, and a better system of selling WS tickets. "All this indicates that, in spite of the harm done the game by the world's series, the owners intend to continue that event and ignore the scandals." Fullerton gives us a little peek at why the cover-up? Because the world's series had become a cash cow, and 1919 set records for receipts. Hugh Fullerton hated to see the income make the newspapers, displayed more prominently than the web gems and the winning strategies. In this column, Fullerton records the gambler's tip that Game Eight would feature "the biggest first inning ever."
October 23. Fullerton puts away his axe in this column, and instead talks about the strategy of the opposing managers in the series, and then spins some old yarns from his bag of stories.
October 25. It has now dawned on Fullerton that there is yet another reason that the baseball powers are not looking into the Fix rumors, as he wants them to do. There is a civil war brewing. Detroit owner Navin is leaning on his pal Ban Johnson to take away the wins from the New York that were earned by Carl Mays, who "jumped" from the Red Sox to the Yankees down the stretch. Without those wins, the Tigers finish third -- in the money. The issue has caused a fissure in the American League which will widen into a split, Comiskey siding with Boston and New York and bolting to join the National League, leaving Ban Johnson high and dry with his "Loyal Five" clubs. Fullerton: "I happen to know that, during the world's series, conferences were held and plans discussed for an entire readjustment of so-called organized baseball." Hughie thinks Buffalo will become a major league city. He can see the owners lining up behind Commy or Ban.
October 29. This column carries another theme of Fullerton's. He has been the champion of "dope" -- namely, basing predictions of performance on past achievements and tendencies. Since 1906, no one doped better than Hugh Fullerton, and newspapers paid him to do it on into the 1920s. In the 1919 Series, the better team lost, and Fullerton is upset because he had doped a Sox win. But he gives the Reds credit -- they fought hard, played as a team, got some breaks, and earned the win, even though "taken together, [they are] probably the third best team in the National League." Here, Hughie is very upset that both teams played it conservative on the bases -- holding runners at third on ground balls. You wonder if he was submitting columns aimed at an expose, or at the owners (but not his friend Commy), and his editors were telling him, Hughie, give it a rest!
CORRECTION
Back in Notes 305, I passed along a story about "Harry's Diary" from Eliot Asinof ... Asinof said he once had a typed copy of the diary, from Ed Linn. "When he participated in ESPN Classic's documentary in 2001, Eliot loaned three or four items to the producers, including the copy of Harry Grabiner's 1919 Diary. The items were all returned, except for -- you guessed it. Eliot did not seem nearly as upset about the loss as I was." I had noted in #305 that one of the ESPN producers was Gary Rothschild. Gary recently assured me that he never saw a copy of "Harry's Diary" and left production of that documentary long before it was completed. Alas, the elusive Diary remains MIA.
INDEX TO THE 2005 ISSUES OF NOTES DEALING WITH THE B-SOX
Mostly for newcomers, some Hot Stove reading suggestions, all found in the NOTES Archive.
1/1/05 #345 WINTER COOKIE
Nugget from Atlanta. Fullerton "Vividly Describes the Full Details" -- Commy said 7 won't return; the Kid packed iron.
Defending Buck. If I was Buck's lawyer, how I'd argue.
Still Shoeless, After All These Years. Review of Kelly Sagert's biography of Jackson.
1/9/05 #346 TRIPLEHEADER
Those Crazy Oil Men. A long look at "Sleepy Bill" Burns.
3/3/05 #348 CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL
Signing those waivers of immunity -- did that really matter?
A Week in the Life. Posts to the B-Sox Yahoo Group: Peaches & Maharg; Harry F.; Web Gems (Weaver); Weaver & Woodruff; More on Buck's Dilemma; Conspiracy Theory (Weaver); Conspiracy: Not a Four-Letter Word.
3/29/05 #349 NOTES FROM A ROAD TRIP
March Madness, Baseball Style. NINE Conference in Tucson, AZ.
On the Trail. Notes from Santa Fe microfilm.
4/14/05 #350 THREE HUNDRED FIFTY
Speaking of the Old West. An excerpt from Susan Dellinger's Red Legs and Black Sox (due out in early 2006 from Emmis Books).
Gleaned from the Internet: Yahoo Group Postings. Inside Eddie (Cicotte); Jacksonian Thoughts and More; Confession is Good for the -- Media; Tangled Webs -- Not Just for Mitts; Innocent Until Proven Guilty -- How Novel an Idea is That?
5/9/05 #351 PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
Replay of the 1919 Series, using the APBA dice simulation game.
5/19/05 #352 TIDBITS
Awfulizing. Maximize the crime, the guilty parties. Why not?
Includes a nugget from Eddie Cicotte in the Cleveland News, and some columns from Ed Bang.
ESPN -- The "Top Five" Show. A brief inside story.
6/7/05 #353 BURYING THE BLACK SOX
What's in a book title?
Another Series to the Sox. Lefty wins three this time around.
6/21/05 #354 REQUIEMS
A tribute to James Floto. The roots of Burying the B-Sox.
7/3/05 #355 NOTES ON A HOLIDAY WEEKEND
Notes from the B-Sox Trail. Nuggets from the Cooperstown library.
The Lure of the Mystery. Victor Luhrs, in the shadows of Asinof.
Reprint of a review of The Great Baseball Mystery from #277.
7/20/05 #356 THE SUMMER GAME
Following the Money ... No, the Other Money. How much would Baseball have lost if they halted or cancelled the 1919 WS?
The Tin Box. What was covered-up?
Careful-What-You-Wish-For Dept. Joe Williams' B-Sox writings.
8/9/05 #357 AFTER MORNINGS AFTER
A report on the SABR National Convention in Toronto.
Wait'll Next Year. Some B-Sox song parodies, just for fun.
8/27/05 #358 THE SAME OLD STORY
Bert Collyer: Baseball's Conscience. My presentation from the SABR convention.
In the Evening Mail. Fullerton columns from summer 1921, thanks to Steve Steinberg.
9/6/05 #359 TWO FOR THE BOOK
Sportographs. "The Fourth Menke" article. And a fifth.
The Eighth Obenshain: Worth the Wait. Earl Obenshain's take from 1929. Thanx to Mike Nola for finding both Menke & Obie!
10/16/05 #361 TIMING IS EVERYTHING
On the B-Sox Trail. A look back at three years of research.
10/23/05 #362 THE TRAIL GETS CROWDED
The White Sox in the 2005 Series puts 1919 in the spotlight.
Meanwhile, A New Discovery. "Seeds of a Scandal" in 1917? Not.
Open Letters to Dave Anderson (NY Times) & Mike Downey (Chicago Tribune). So much mis-information to correct, so little time.
10/28/05 #363 CURSE, SCHMURSE
The Rest of the Story. On that 1917 "Seeds of a Scandal."
Will the Trail Turn Cold? Discovery of Collyer's Eye, 1919!
These Things Happen. Stefan Fatsis & the Wall St Journal.
Epilogue. A note on the 2005 Series to tack onto my book.
11/13/05 #364 IN & OUT OF TIME
Meanwhile, Back on the Trail. Blackmail, wine & women lures!
More Guilty Knowledge. Dickie Kerr & the plight of the Clean Sox.
'Round the Internet Horn. SABR-L Posts: Left-Fielders & Grand Jury Leaks (Jackson & Bonds); The Strange Case of Joe Jackson; Joe Jackson and the Golden Rule; Jackson: Half-Drunk or Half-Sober? Yahoo B-Sox Question: Rank These Scandals in Order.
12/9/05 #365 LOST AND FOUND
Collyer's Eye at the UIUC Library: now you don't see it, now you do. Exposes and giving credit where it's due.
Women-of-the-Fix Dept. Mrs Kelley: what did she really know?
Collyer's Eye Revisited. Finding an obscure publication.
12/23/05 #366 HOLIDAY READING
The Curse. The price of Shoeless Joe's illiteracy?
Quantum Leap. A review of The 1917 White Sox.