NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF
COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the
Lines
By Two Finger Carney
(carneya6@adelphia.net)
#380 SEPTEMBER
4, 2006
COMING
EVENTS:
Sept.
7: John Vorperian's "Beyond the Game," White Plains Cable
"
": Westchester Baseball Group, 7 PM
September
20: Rome (NY) Historical Society, 7 PM
September
29-30: Pittsburgh
October
10: University of Rio Grande (Ohio)
October
13-14: Boston area
November
1-13: San Diego / Holland America cruise to Hawaii
STRETCH RUNS
Back from Milwaukee, I still have miles to
go before I stop. And if history teaches anything -- these trips tend to lead
to other trips. I'm not complaining, I like to travel. But on the road,
I only take notes, I don't make (new issues of) Notes. I might do that
someday. But until then, hitting the road -- or the ocean (I'm thinking of the
cruise, but Barb & I want to do a whale watch in Boston, too) -- will
continue to feel ambivalent.
MILWAUKEE,
THE SECOND TIME AROUND
Since last issue, I have spent a couple
days in Brewtown -- thanks, one more time, to a SABR-Yoseloff research grant.
Was it worth the time and expense? Yes.
I want to thank right up top, Tom Cannon
for his permission to spend fifteen hours cooped up with the material from that
1924 trial, held in Milwaukee, the one that pitted Joe Jackson against the
White Sox. (See Chapter One in Burying the Black Sox -- please!)
And thanx, too, to Jim Nitz, a Happy Felsch
and Milwaukee baseball expert, whose outstanding hospitality made the trip more
than just a mining expedition. Jim treated me to a guided tour of Miller Park,
top to bottom, and vicinity -- I think the hiking to and from and then all over
the facility, more than offset the calories added while watching the home team
win one. Jim also assisted me one day with the research.
I don't know if everyone feels this way,
but in my experience, research goes faster when I'm alone -- but it's more fun
when I do it with others. This has been the case all along, and it holds for
interviewing, as well as scanning microfilm, whether in Cooperstown, at the
Seymour Collection at Cornell U., or in a conference room in a law firm in
downtown Milwaukee. I just enjoy sharing the discoveries, and bouncing off
others my thinking, my theories, about what I'm reading.
More on Milwaukee later.
STUBS
My collection of ticket stubs for 2006 has
become an odd collection. The Brewers took on the Rockies, and it was the third
time this year that I've seen Colorado play. That's two more times than I've
seen my Pirates -- and I don't even have the stub from that one, it was a
two-inning exhibition rainout in Cooperstown, and I cashed in the souvenir for
a refund.
That leaves me with cardboard passports out
of time from two spring training games in Arizona, two games from the Seymour
Conference in Cleveland (the Jake & Lake County), and the Safeco Field 1:52
gem at the SABR convention in Seattle. I saw some American Legion tournament
games. here in the shadows, too, but only bits and pieces.
That's a pretty slim summer of The Summer
Game, if you ask me. Not that long ago, I was cramming in Little League
games, most every Utica Blue Sox game I could make, and scattered games from
every level in the minors. I feel like I've been dieting.
On my only visit to Pittsburgh, the Bucs
were out of town. I hope to catch them, though, at the very end of this season,
when they play the Reds on September 29-31. Might even catch two.
THE
RACES
And that is a perfect lead-in to my next
topic -- the 2006 pennant races. Because although the Cincinnati Reds have
slumped their way under .500 lately, they remain in contention for that
rascally Wild Card slot. Which means there is still a chance of a Reds-White
Sox World Series. If 1919 made the news last October, when only one of the
teams in the Series carried that bit of history with them -- think of what a
Reds-Sox 2006 duel would do.
And that gives you a hint of where my brain
has spent much of the season -- in 1919. Burying the Black Sox was
released in March, but (as the Milwaukee trip proves) my research continues.
And as more and more people read the thing, I get more and more requests
to talk about it -- I really have lost count of the radio interviews; just a
few TV; but it seems like I've talked about it constantly over the past six
months. To SABR groups, sure, but also to groups at historical societies and
book stores, and to countless individuals. Even at ballparks, as I reported
last issue. And that beat goes on.
So the 2006 seasons has unfolded in the
background for me, I have followed it at a distance. I might have been closer
-- but the local TV cable inexplicably dropped the Mets, the only team in the
National League having a decent season!
Really -- they are. The other division front-runners have been hovering
around 10 games over .500 ... where a pennant-winner should be around May or
early June. So the one team that is worth going out of my way to watch, ain't
available.
Of course I've kept one eye on Barry Bonds
and the Giants, to see if he'd break Aaron's record this summer (he won't), or
to see if he'd be indicted ... not sure I've done that with any player
before. The Giants have slipped below the .500 surface, too, but are still
within striking distance of the Dodgers. So are the Padres. Would be nice to
see this end in a 3-way tie.
While part of me roots for the Reds to grab
the WC, who would mind watching Ryan Howard and the Phils play in October? The
kid looks like he may hit sixty homers in his sophomore season -- so much for that
jinx. I suppose we will see Albert Pujols swing there, too, as the Cards limp
into the playoffs.
Not much to say about my Pirates, this time
around. They nose-dived right from Opening Day, then played consistently inferior
ball to earn that cellar dwelling. Should they be forced to play Kansas City
this October, so we can judge who was truly the worst in 2006? No, they shouldn't; better we don't know. But
then there is Freddie Sanchez, their game infielder who came out of nowhere to
lead the league in batting average. There is hope for this team -- but they
need to rebuild the pitching staff. What is that luxury tax income good for, if
not pitching?
Over in the American League, it was fun
while it lasted -- I mean, watching the Yankees struggle, of course. But give
them credit, they rose to the occasion, and Boston didn't, and that's all we
need to say. Nothing new here, move on.
How much credit does Jim Leyland deserve
for bring the Tigers into September with the best AL record? Pirate fans like
Leyland, I think, and are happy for him (again -- he did this in Florida, too).
But I'm sure he'll credit his players. And we'd sure prefer watching the Tigers
over the Yanks, in the Series.
But the White Sox and Twins and Athletics
will be in that mix, too. You almost wish the playoffs in the AL could be
expanded to eight teams, so all these guys, along with the Angels and Blue
Jays, could square off in October. Just this once?
In certain seasons past, I've kept a Stretch
Run Diary, and I'm toying with that idea again. With so many teams with a
chance, as we round third, kick the Labor Day bag and sprint for home, a daily
journal might be fun, so I an look back and see turning points, that didn't
look like turning points at the time. Scoreboard-watching can make it a
whole 'nother ball game.
Predictions? Not here. Frankly, my own rooting will be
focused on getting the Pirates past the Cubs. Which is precisely where
it was when I started rooting in 1957.
SAY
IT AIN'T SO, ABNER
Thanx to John Thorn for finding this nugget
and posting it on the SABR-L. It's from "Old Days in Baseball," by
Clarence Deming, in Outing, June, 1902, Vol. XXXX, No. 3, p. 357‑360.
Couple the lively ball leaping by the
dazed fielder with the old‑fashioned slow pitching, in its most liberal
phase a kind of swinging toss‑albeit the pitcher stood only forty‑five
feet from the home plate‑and the big scores of old baseball days become
clear, without emphasis on the earlier defaults in skill. Wide latitude in the
form, size, and material of the bat also favored hard hitting as against slow
pitching and lively balls. A hard wood bat was barely or never seen.
The regulation stick was long, thick,
and of the "pudding‑stirrer" shape, made of spruce, bass,
chestnut, and the lighter woods; and a shrewd, up‑country team of
Connecticut in the early sixties did not miss the mark when it bored out a set
of huge bass‑wood bats and filled them with corks.
That's right -- they were corking bats in
the 1860s. Which, to me, makes the practice so traditional that I am ready to
forgive Albert Belle and anyone else who imitated the pioneers of the game.
Which reminds me to add that I'm not so
bothered by the steroid thing, either ... it comes up a lot when I talk about
1919, because of the word cover-up and the phrase pretended not to
see [gambling/steroids]. As others
have pointed out, McGwire, Sosa, Bonds and the rest may have bulked up outside
the rule book (and I underline "may") ... but it looks like the
pitchers did, too, and not just the guys that have admitted it so far, I mean
maybe even heroes like Roger Clemens, and I'm OK with that. I think they have
damaged their bodies more than baseball. We cannot applaud the Boozing Babe
then turn on Barry when he cheats so he can work out so he can out-muscle
anything thrown his way.
All's fair in love and war. Both make
us irrational, so we do crazy, stupid, sometimes self-destructive things.
Whether they are illegal changes as the law changes. I'm reading a book about
Sunday baseball -- once illegal, gradually OK'd. Were there home runs hit on
Sundays in Ohio when that law banning Sunday ball was in effect? Maybe. But I don't care.
A
COUPLE MORE REVIEWS
RICHARD
D. CORENO, Berea, Ohio
So little has been written on the cover‑up
by baseball officials concerning the links to organized gambling that exploded
onto the front pages through the "Black Sox" scandal. Gene Carney
brings the angle to the top of the lineup through this richly footnoted book.
He explores the issues, personalities and controversies in great detail; in
particular the 1924 trial in Milwaukee that is rarely mentioned by researchers.
I wonder if there will ever be a definitive understanding on the scandal, but
that means Major League Baseball would need to honestly address the issue.
Since that will never happen, Carney has done the best job in reaching the
truth.
MARK
DWORKIN, Thornhill, Ontario
This is a valuable contribution to the study
of this landmark event. The reason I can't quite give it five stars is that it
is a book that could have been even better with the contributions of a ruthless
(pun intended?) editor. Students of baseball's notorious 1919 Black Sox scandal
will welcome all the varied information gathered together in one volume, some
of it creatively off‑the‑wall, much of it found in far‑flung
and hard to access sources. The chapter on gamblers was particularly useful for
this reader both in data and perspective, and the "Who's On First"
device of delineating them worked for me, but may not for all.
Sometimes it is true that our weaknesses
are our strengths taken to an extreme. That strength mentioned in the previous
paragraph is also the weakness of this book. There is so much data in this book
that it reads as though the author compiled his entire collection of source
notes, obscurities, impressions, and other material, and threw it all together,
with minimal coherence. Sprinkled among all this material the reader will find
conclusions, many of which are repetitive, appearing at regular and sometimes
jolting intervals, as though the book was complete here. One must say, however,
that Carney's conclusions are always reasonable, invariably thought‑provoking
even about one's long‑held views, and sometimes convincing. Even where I
find myself disagreeing with the author's conclusions (e.g. Joe Jackson's Hall
of Fame credentials), I find him non‑dogmatic. This book is an essential
source for all it contains of other sources, and is properly sourced itself,
with an excellent bibliography that includes some surprising material.
Both reviews above are from Amazon.com,
where I invite others to post THEIR reviews, too.
MORE
ON MILWAUKEE
I returned from my fishing trip to
Milwaukee with about 21 pages of typed notes. Some of them will appear in the
next issue of SABR's The Baseball Research Journal. And they won't
appear here until after they appear there.
I focused this time not so much on the
1,700 pages of trial transcripts. I only revisited them occasionally. No, this
time I was looking for stuff I skimmed or missed completely on my first
excursion into 1924. My hunch was that I knew a heck of a lot less then (in
June 2003) than I know today. I was right about that ... but on the other hand,
those 21 pages are not so earth-shaking that I would call a halt to any further
printings of Burying the Black Sox until I can insert my new findings.
I think one of the highlights was going
thru the depositions of Bill Burns and Billy Maharg, and piecing together their
version of exactly how the Fix was initiated and negotiated and executed, until
that side fell apart, after Game Two. Another highlight was reading again,
two depositions of Eddie Cicotte, and paying close attention to his 1920 grand
jury statements, embedded in these depositions. This has made me more convinced
that he was pitching to win in Game Four, that a promised bonus had nothing to
do with his motivation, and that he just might have been pitching to win Game
One, too.
Once I know what SABR will use in that BRJ
article, I'll share more here in Notes. OK, one more tidbit. Of course I
re-read the Hugh Fullerton testimony from the Milwaukee trial, and I wished
more reporters had been put on the stand. Lots more. Hughie had written that
"seven Sox players shall not return," and he wrote that for
publication on October 10, with the sounds from Game Eight still echoing. In
the trial, Jackson's lawyer pressed him repeatedly to say whether or not he'd
discussed that article with Comiskey ... when did Commy know, and how much? It was ironic -- Fullerton dodged the
question, said he based it on rumors and hearsay. In fact, right after the
scandal broke in September 1920, Fullerton wrote that he had been quoting
Comiskey. Something that Jackson's lawyer never imagined.