Baseball Minutia

One gripe you hear year in and year out is that baseball is getting too commercial, the Reds recent ownership has increased the teams marketing efforts more so then the last ownership group, this includes reintroducing vintage brands that extend merchandising (Hi Mr. Redlegs) or packaging soda pop sales with cheerleading dance troupes that were formerly a NBA side show in most cities. One of the key movements in the MLB’s marketing push has been to increase signage at the ballpark, more often this is the sort of advertising that gets the baseball traditionalist up in arms, and that caused an issue 2 years ago when the Cubs of all the teams were going to bow to the will of the advertiser and place ads on the walls of Wrigley Field.

The HORROR!!!!!!

What a load, did we forget the name of the park itself?

Wrigley Field, as in Wrigley Gum… originally it was Weeghman Field, named after the owner of the team it was built for… The Chicago Whales of the Federal League, Weeghman owned a bunch of eateries in town and the name was a way of advertising his lunchettes. When Wrigley bought him out he eventfully changed the parks name to reflect his business, Chewing Gum. However from 1916-1926 it was known as Cubs Park, before the change. Therefore it’s ridiculous to lament the appearance of advertising on the walls of Wrigley, the stadiums name itself is a brand icon that literally sticks to whatever it touches. The Reds themselves are guilty of the same offense. According to a Sports Illustrated interview in 1959 with Larry MacPhail Powell Crosley changed the name of Redland Field to Crosley Field against the wishes of MacPhail, who felt that Crosley who was neophyte in the business didn’t deserve the honor yet. Crosley though had connection in the glass industry, these connections led to the ability for the Reds to have special lights built to try out a game at night, that alone gives Powell the cache to name his park after himself, but that’s another story, for another time.

Back to the advertising, I could skim the games years and come up with silly moments, ads and photos that exemplify the permanence of advertising in the game, maybe not as in your face as NASCAR or EPL soccer, but there nonetheless. One moment that recedes each year was the moment that Major League baseball celebrated the scoring of the “Millionth Run” in MLB history. I’m fairly certain that the memory of the event was greater to me since at the time I was knee deep in everything baseball, including vague celebrations about events that likely would go unnoticed if it wasn’t for the overzealous fan type, the ones who lay about in the games minutia.

As the 1974 season ended the American League had tallied 426,964 runs in its existence. The older National League could boast of scoring 570,819 runs. Since the American Association of the 19th Century and the Federal and Players League held no cache in the argument it was decided that Major League baseball had scored a grand total of 997,513 runs (by my count, theirs was 997,869) and that the millionth run was going to be scored in the 1975 season, and therefore a celebration should be undertaken to honor this event.
Baseball set up at the beginning of the 1975 season a “Control Center” to track the event. To enrich the interest of the fan base the 80 year old year old candy company “Tootsie Roll’s” sponsored the event with a sweepstakes designed to give a prize to the person who correctly identified the player that scored the one millionth run, and the date that he scored the run. Also participating in the contest was the Seiko Time company of Japan, the maker of the then popular digital watch.

As the final run came closer to being scored each park had a countdown posted in view for the players and the fans and as the nights commenced it crept closer to the magic seven figure number. For the event Tootsie had promised to pay the team of the player who scored the run $10,000, however there were those who had concerns about the sponsor, not exactly a big name, nor a class enthused product.

The ingredients of the traditional Tootsie Roll are sugar, corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, condensed skim milk, cocoa, whey, soy lecithin, and artificial and condensed flavors. In short it’s a bunch of additives and sugar.

Despite the grumblings the support for the promotion finally was cleared, and the turning point came at a meeting attended by Joe DiMaggio, who saw the idea as harmless. “Look,’’said Joltin’ Joe, “”I ate my first Tootsie Roll when I was six.'’

On the evening of May 3rd the San Francisco - Astros game at Candlestick was canceled, since the next day was a Sunday afternoon game so the makeup game was scheduled for earlier in the day. Giving the teams an opportunity to get a jump on the rest of baseball in the days action.

As the game progressed the countdown clock on the wall at Candlestick clicked closer to the magic number, during his first at bat Watson drew a base on balls, and was forced to second as Jose Cruz drew another. With the count 0-2 to Milt May the countdown clock clicked to 999,999 and May smashed pitch into the stands, Watson watched the ball sail over the fence and began trotting towards home. Meanwhile in Cincinnati, Reds shortstop Davey Concepcion also hit a home run and was rounding the bases. At the same moment John Lownestein of the Orioles was on third pondering trying to steal home to score the 1,000,000 run himself.

“I thought about trying to steal home, but we were behind by so much (8-1) that I figured that if I didn’t make it I might as well just keep on running, so I didn’t even try to get in.”

Meanwhile the Astros bullpen had Watson’s back, they knew that he had to run faster and they started to yell at him, imploring him to pick it up.

“I take off in a dead sprint and score the run,” Watson said. “If I don’t take off and listen to my guys in the bullpen, Concepcion scores the millionth run. I beat him by a second and a half.”

Officials from the Hall of Fame stopped the game, dug up home plate, asked for May’s bat and Watson’s shoes and even managed to retrieve the ball from the stands.

“I was upset,” Watson said. “I wasn’t going to let them take my shoes because in those days it took you a long time to break your shoes in. They weren’t like the shoes you have today where you can wear them right out of the box. This was May 4, I had just gotten my shoes broken in, and then they took them.”

The event was the highlight of the Astros year, other then breaking out the famous rainbow uniforms. For his effort Watson received a special $1,000 watch from Seiko, all his teammates received a lesser version and the Tootsie Roll Company paid off the $10,000 to the Astros in the form of 1,000,000 pennies (gee thanks guys!!) they also passed on 1,000,000 tootsie rolls to Bob Watson himself. He also received a million dollar grant to financially troubled minor league players in his name.

Watson’s children are allergic to chocolate so he donated that and the pennies to the Girl Scouts of America. Topping off the season for Watson was the fact that he was the Astros lone All Star representative, and along with his one millionth run it was the highlight of a disappointing season in Houston, one that saw the Astros as the worst team in the National League and next t the Tigers the worst in the game. But I’ll always remember them because of the Tootsie Rolls and the lucky kid who won the contest, he and 50 other folks guessed Bob Watson and the date, and then he won the draw, $10,000 for a 10 year old who likes Tootsie Rolls, you have to love that.

In an after thought a fan posed this question to The Sporting News.

Everyone knows of Jackie Robinson, many folks went out their way to make sure that Larry Doby was mentioned as well this past week as the honoring of Robinsons legacy came to its yearly day on the baseball calendar
Also occurring that season was a sudden surge in the games popularity, every turnstile in the game was turning at a healthy click, except one place… St. Louis, but only when the Browns were the home team. In early July Bill Veeck the games biggest promoter followed Branch Rickey’s move and signed Larry Doby, to many it seems that the rest of the season involving breaking the color line stops there .

But they are wrong, they are missing a big story, one that shows the other side Robinson saga, one fraught with mis aimed plans and poor decisions. One that involves the third and fourth black ballplayers in MLB, one that involves the first black teammates, and the first black man to hit a home run in the American League.

It all begins with a seven game losing streak, a new owner and a Rickey protégée running a moribund club. To understand the move and it’s appearance from know where you would first need to scan the attendance figures of the Browns in July of 1947. It had been years since the Browns were the hot ticket in town and during the attendance surge it was becoming apparent that they were not the choice for many in town when it came to entertainment, a crowd of 428 for a weekday afternoon game sealed that opinion.

Bill Dewitt and his brother Charlie ran the team, and it was Charlie who noted the size of the crowds being drawn by the Dodgers as they (and Robinson) appeared throughout the National League, not lost to the Dewitt’s was the increased numbers of black patrons. Also not lost on the brothers was the fact that 1 out of every 7 of the St. Louis population was also black, feeling the pain of the cellar and the pressure of the lagging gate (some contests were so sparsely attended that paying for the lights became the main thrust of evening) the brothers put their heads together and decided to tap the Negro Leagues for some talent, talent that they really hoped would help them at the gate as much as it would on the field, they committed one major error though, they did it without consulting the manager or testing the teams demeanor when it came to bring black players to the border state, in a town that Fred Lieb said, ‘Still had Confederate Sympathies” and “Retained Old Prejudices.’

On July 17th 1947 the DeWitt’s bought the contracts of three Negro League Players (Kansas City Monarchs) Willard Brown, Henry Thompson and Piper Davis. Davis was allowed to stay in the Negro League while the other two were sent to St. Louis and to the ballpark. Meanwhile at the ballpark manager Muddy Ruel had heard of the new players, just not their skin color, when they arrived he was just as surprised as his players, a mixture of men that were most likely not prepared to being confronted head on with the paradigm they were about to encounter. One player, Paul Lehner who was born and raised in Alabama “reportedly” threatened to jump the club and his late arrival to a contest following the signing of Thompson and Brown was high point of a clubhouse that was already termed by the press as possessing “ a gloom thick enough to make one gasp for air.”

Thompson was a 21 year old former reform school child who allegedly always carried a gun and had a confirmed drinking problem even then, Brown was reported as a 26 year old slugger by The Sporting News, this was a typo, Brown had been a star in the Negro leagues for years (picked as Bill James Negro league Player of the year 1937)

In the Puerto Rico Winter League Brown had a pair of Triple Crowns and topped the .400-mark two times and earned the nickname “Ese Hombre” or “That Man”

He would be voted into the Baseball Hall Of Fame in a special election in 2006

As for the Browns, they wanted to win, Thompson was inserted at second base when he was signed and he made an error (to feel at home is the likely reason) in the Browns 16-2 loss that night. He was officially the 3rd black player in modern times. Brown meanwhile had left his bats in Kansas City and confronted with the overt hatred of his teammates he felt less then comfortable, he finally got a start after a few appearances as a pinch hitter, with him and Thompson in the lineup together they became the first black teammates in Major League history. However during the contest Willard came to the plate with the bases full twice and both time he grounded into a double play.
After a couple of weeks Willard was still struggling to find a good bat in his new surroundings. Brown (who liked heavy bats) finally found a discarded one once used by another recent acquisition, Jeff Heath.

Willard who was nicknamed “Home Run” Brown by Josh Gibson had been putting on impressive batting shows during BP, but had yet to find a pitch to his liking in eth American League. In this game with his new bat he stepped to the plate and got his best cut as a Brown, a home run, making Brown the first black man to hit a home run in the American League. Returning to the dugout Heath grabbed his “Discarded” bat and destroyed it against the dugout wall. Hostility was common and it extended to the field where Thompson was faced with no one to warm up with one day when Brown was not on the field, one by one many of his available teammates just shook their head and let the young player look for someone else. Success was short for both, while Jackie won the hearts of many, Brown and Thompson struggled in their appearances. Thompson eventually lost his starting job and Browns high came with a four hit day at Yankee Stadium. The bottom line was the Browns needed help, lots of it and most would involve more fannies in the seats at Sportsman Park. This however wasn’t happening, the team with it’s new black players drew well on the road, pulling in 250 K in a 12 game road trip in Philly, New York and D. C. but at home the team struggled, on the field and at the gate.

When Brown and Thompson were signed the Browns were 28-51 and 27.5 games back of 1st place, on August 23rd they were 42-77 and 35 games back of first place Brown was hitting .179 and Thompson .256 (with a .346 OB%) it had been over a month since the Browns had inked the duo, they had made baseball history when they became the first black teammates in the big leagues, and it was on this day they became the first black ballplayers to be cut from a major league team when the Browns decided to end their ill timed experiment and let the season that was already lost, choking in the dust it was creating as it fish tailed out of control. Concerning his release Thompson was told by DeWitt that “There are things I can’t discuss.”

Thompson would reemerge again and would catch on with the Giants in the early 50’s. Brown would continue to play baseball in the Negro and Winter Leagues and eventually finished his career in the Texas League in 1954, knocking 34 Home Runs out before calling it a career.

So when we remember Jackie we should also remember Willard Brown and Henry Thompson, for they also touched the game in 1947 and that’s a fact that gets lost in the rather large shadow of Mr. Robinson.

Sept. 24, 1883. Roxburgh, of the Leadvilles, catches without a mask. How long will he continue it probably depends upon the number of fouls he is called on to catch. One of the audience remarked recently it reminded him of the engineer’s opinion of the Indian who attempted to stop a train by standing on the track: “I admire his pluck” he said, “but blank his judgment.”

Toledo Blade

Look into the past, look behind you, look at where we’ve come. Have you ever caught? I mean squatted, sat knees bent, mask heavy on the face, sweat beading on the padding as the smell of dirt seems stronger each inning as it fills your nose as the batters stir in the box. Playing catcher is something no one forgets, it’s something most don’t want to do, it’s freaking hard is what it is. I did it in 6th grade, a long time ago and only for that year, but I remember it like it was yesterday and I treasure the moments that it occurred, as low level as they were they still were something to marvel at. Therefore it should be of no surprise that the catching position fascinates me and it really is a position that is like no other on the field, nor in most sports. To start the catcher sets up in foul territory, outside the fair area that the game of play occurs in, clothed in armor he squats and faces the opposite ay then the other players, how he functions in the play is hard to explain to the uninitiated, aside from the obvious (catch the pitchers throws) he has other functions that occur throughout the action of the game that demand explanation. In short he’s an interesting cog in the game and the position demands some study now and then and lately I’ve been stumbling across a lot of catchers stuff out there that I feel could use some organizing.

One thing I like about the catcher is that the catcher originally started off clothed as everyone else on the field was, this of course meant that without the armor of the catcher image we all see in our minds eye the player was often too close to the play on the field, or specifically the swing of the batter and the tendency for foul tips to be rocket backwards. Below are two images of the game in the 1860’s, 1870’s the first is likely Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey and the bottom is one that is from a later date. Note that in both the catcher is more standing then squatting, and without his armor he sits further back from the play, sneaking up only as the count would escalate or a runner looms from 3rd.

This represents the game once it was more organized then the above as evidenced by the grandstand and the uniforms

It’s the sheer fact of placement on the field that makes the catchers job not only important, but dangerous. Thus it’s not that odd that at certain points of the games lifespan that the men who toiled behind the plate found it pertinent to them keeping healthy that they try ins some manner to improve the working environment that they had to endure. In the early days of the game it was not uncommon for injury to occur and in some cases they could, and did result in death or constant irritation.

Pretty heady stuff, this of course was in an era that death often hit everyone’s family at a much higher rate then it does today, however it doesn’t mean that folks weren’t worried about it and it’s from these sort of incidents that we find the beginning of the basic toolset of the catchers we see today. They are as follows:

Catchers in baseball use the following *basic* equipment to help prevent injury while behind the plate:

Mask - To protect the face and head

Chest Protector - This protects the catcher’s upper body much in the manner that shin guards protect the catchers legs

Glove - Catchers use a thick glove to lower the impact of the ball on their hand

Shin Guards - To protect legs from errant pitches as well as sliding players and other impact associated with the position.

Protective Cup - protects the groin area from errant pitches.

Basic tenets to walking home after the game as opposed to being carried by your mates. The real question is who and where did these innovations first take place, or at least take root and make their way into the popular culture of the sport? To start we look at the basic tool, the mask. Oddly enough baseball catchers first accepted the mask as a tool for protection, while Hockey Goalies (who are most like the catcher in all the professional games played ) waited to institute that last in their effort to protect themselves. However it was the mask that first showed up on the diamond. In another twist of fate the mask was created on the campus of Harvard, and in many folks opinion it is likely the best thing to ever come off that campus in its existence. Crafted by a 3rd baseman (Fred Thayer) for a new catcher he admired (as a player). It seems that the Harvard Nine had a pitcher who had mastered the newest fade in the game, The Curveball, and because of the new nature of the pitch and it’s breaking closer to the plate the catchers who had to field the pitch had to inch closer to the swinging lumber. The Harvard’s catcher had what was termed as slight fear of that procedure and in a brainstorming session that ensued Thayer concocted an idea to craft a mask from a Fencing mask that was lying around campus.

Below is photo of the Harvard Nine, Thayer sits in the middle, second from the left, besides him sits the catcher with the mask on his knee.

Once the mask came into the game it like many other protective devices over the ages was deemed as “Less then Manley” Of course the Press had to post their opinion and in this case it found fault with the testosterone fueled old style players who played tough with their health and ridiculed others who refused to follow suit.

New York Clipper, Aug. 25, 1877:

INJURIES TO CATCHERS. - It is really surprising, in view of the serious injuries catchers, facing swift pitching close behind the bat, are subjected to, that the wire-mask - a perfect protection against such injuries - is not in more general use among professional catchers. The idea seems to prevail among a prejudiced few of the fraternity that it is not plucky or manly to wear the mask. It is nonsensical to run the risk of such severe injuries simply because a pack of foolish boys may ridicule you. Look at Clapp of the St. Louis nine, who now lies ill and disabled with a broken cheek-bone, due entirely to the fact of his not wearing a protective mask. We regard the Harvard collegian’s invention as one of the best things out for saving a catcher from dangerous injuries. These masks, improved by substituting an elastic fastening for the strap, can be had at Peck & Snyder’s.

By the mid 1880’s the catcher regularly donned the mask and the umpire also began to wear one (Richard Highman, who deserves an entry all his own) By 1887 we can start to see the chest protector appear more and more in the game. Often these appearances are not truly documented, many believe that Jack Clements was the first man to wear a chest protector when he caught for the Philadelphia entry in the short lived Union Association in 1884.

This most useful piece of base ball paraphernalia had a hard time getting a foothold. The catchers were slow in adopting it, and the spectators at first guyed it as baby-play. Clements, the great catcher of the Philadelphia League team was the first to wear a catcher’s protector in a game before a Cincinnati crowd. He was then back-stopping Jersey Bakely with the Keystones Unions, of Philadelphia, in 1884. Considerable fun as made of the protector, and the writer distinctly remembers that it was made the subject of adverse newspaper comment by one of the best base ball authorities in America. Now it is different. A catcher’s protector is of much importance to a back stop as are his mask and gloves. In other days a visitor to the dressing room of a ball team when the players were getting ready for a game did not need to ask who were the catchers. He could tell them by the black and blue spots that appeared on various parts of their anatomy, the result of hard thumps from unruly foul tips. The protector, mask and padded glove have made the life of a catcher a bed of roses to what it used to be.
Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, Oct. 15, 1914

With Clements we find a rarity that vanished form the game long before we all were here on the planet. Clements is the last left handed catcher, and the all time leader in games played behind the dish and throw left handed.

Top 10 left handed throwing Catchers (games played)

GAMES                            G
1    Jack Clements              1073
2    Sam Trott                   272
3    Pop Tate                    202
4    Sy Sutcliffe                186
5    Bill Harbidge               128
6    Mike Hines                   99
7    John Humphries               75
8    Fred Tenney                  71
9    Art Twineham                 52
10   Phil Baker                   50

Despite the years catchers were often shaped the way they still are today… right Sal Fassaro?

The chest protector proved to be the tool that catapulted the catcher past the 80 game a year limit. Prior to its introduction the average catcher was able to log 75 games, the protection provided by the face mask and the chest protector helped St. Louis catcher Doc Bushong become the first catcher to top 100 games caught (107) in 1887.

The baseball cards of the late 1880’s displayed the innovated look of the chest protector as we can see below.

“Allison caught today in a pair of buckskin mittens, to protect his hands.”

June 28, 1870
Cincinnati Commercial

Despite the increased protection some old habits died hard, one was the use of a glove as a tool to lessen the pain of the pitched ball. Most on the field didn’t use a glove, catchers were the ones to change this though padded gloves were eschewed by most, though some (Deacon McGuire, Chief Zimmer) were said to line their small gloves with a steak to soften the blow of the harder throwers. By the look of the gloves on McGuire below it’s easy to see that something had to come along and save the hands of the catcher.

If any catcher could tell a tale about the changing of the equipment and the position in the 19th Century it would be McGuire, a player whose career began in 1884, back when catchers wore only masks and stood 10 feet behind the plate, safe from the swings and foul tips created by the batter. Back then the steal was underused and deemed less important, this coupled with the growing protection from the new tools within ten years McGuire would be squatting behind the plate (thanks to Chief Zimmer) and he would be using a large padded glove that was hinged, by the time he last played in 1912 he would have the pleasure of using shin guards, another tool that increased the games that a catcher could endure over the long season. As for the glove the inventor the padded catchers glove was (of course) a catcher, Joe Gunson was playing for the Kansas City Blues in 1887 when he crafted it together, he describes it below in a letter that resides at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I stitched together the fingers of my left-hand glove, thus practically making a “mitt”; and then I caught both games. It worked so well that I got to work. Took an old paint-pot wire handle, the old flannel belts from our castoff jackets, rolled the cloth around the ends of the finger, and padded the thumb. Then I put sheepskin with the wool on it in the palm and covered it with buckskin, thus completing the mitt, and the suffering and punishment we endured at the then fifty-foot pitching distances was all over.

In 1890, journeyman receiver Harry Decker invented the “Hinged Glove” also known as the “Decker Safety Catcher’s Mitt,” a glove stitched to the back of a pad that covered the extended palm. These were literally flat padded wads of leather that got their pockets broken in on the job. The padded glove and protective armor allowed the catcher to get closer to the play and as the pitchers began to bring power and speed more and more into the game the need for this became more necessary.

With the advent of all this equipment we also see the need for someone to make a buck off of these ideas and innovations, this is where we see Al Spalding and the pages and pages of equipment that many a boy slobbered over back when horses still dragged ice around to every house on your grandfathers street, back when mens hands and sometimes their body and face looked like hell after catching game after game after game.