And that’s how come I never went to St. Paul. I had a good start and a little bit of luck when I needed it. You have to have a little luck, you know. That year and the next we started to form the nucleus of what was to become a great, great Red Sox ball club. We won the American League pennant in 1912, ’15, ’16, and ’18, and in between we finished second twice. From 1912 to 1918 we won four pennants and four World Series.
They never did beat us in a World Series. Never. We played four different National League teams in four different World Series and only one of them even came close. That was the Giants, in 1912. We beat them four games to three. We beat Grover Cleveland Alexander and the Phillies four games to one in 1915, the Dodgers four games to one in 1916, and the Cubs four to two in 1918. The best team in all of baseball for close to a decade!
There really were two teams, the 1912 team and the 1915 one. The outfield was the same on both—Tris Speaker, Duffy Lewis, and myself—I think acknowledged by most as easily the greatest defensive outfield ever. Larry Gardner was at third base on both teams, and Bill Carrigan and Forrest Cady caught that whole time. But at first base it was first Jake Stahl and then Doc Hoblitzel; at second Steve Yerkes was eventually replaced by Jack Barry; and at short it was first Heinie Wagner and then Everett Scott. And, of course, the whole pitching staff turned over—from Smoky Joe Wood, Hugh Bedient, Charlie Hall, and Buck O’Brien in 1912, it became Ernie Shore, Dutch Leonard, Carl Mays, George Foster, Joe Bush, Sam Jones, and Babe Ruth in 1915 or so.
Babe Ruth joined us in the middle of 1914, a nineteen-year-old kid. He was a left-handed pitcher then, and a good one. He had never been anywhere, didn’t know anything about manners or how to behave among people—just a big overgrown green pea. You probably remember him with that big belly he got later on. But that wasn’t there in 1914. George was six foot two and weighed 198 pounds, all of it muscle. He had a slim waist, huge biceps, no self-discipline, and not much education—not so very different from a lot of other nineteen-year-old would-be ballplayers. Except for two things: he could eat more than anyone else, and he could hit a baseball further.
Lord, he ate too much. He’d stop along the road when we were traveling and order half a dozen hot dogs and as many bottles of soda pop, stuff them in, one after the other, give a few big belches, and then roar, “OK, boys, let’s go.” That would hold Babe for a couple of hours, and then he’d be at it again. A nineteen-year-old youngster, mind you!
He was such a rube that he got more than his share of teasing, some of it not too pleasant. “The Big Baboon” some of them used to call him behind his back, and then a few got up enough nerve to ridicule him to his face. This started to get under his skin, and when they didn’t let up he finally challenged the whole ball club. Nobody was so dumb as to take him up on it, so that put an end to that.
You know, I saw it all happen, from beginning to end. But sometimes I still can’t believe what I saw: this nineteen-year-old kid, crude, poorly educated, only lightly brushed by the social veneer we call civilization, gradually transformed into the idol of American youth and the symbol of baseball the world over—a man loved by more people and with an intensity of feeling that perhaps has never been equaled before or since. I saw a man transformed from a human being into something pretty close to a god. If somebody had predicted that back on the Boston Red Sox in 1914, he would have been thrown into a lunatic asylum.
I still remember when the Babe was switched from pitching to become an outfielder. I finally convinced Ed Barrow to play him out there to get his bat in the lineup every day. That was in 1919, and I was the team captain by then. Barrow technically was the manager, but I ran the team on the field, and I finally talked Ed into converting Ruth from a pitcher into an outfielder. Well, Ruth might have been a natural as a pitcher and as a hitter, but he sure wasn’t a born outfielder.
I was playing center field myself, so I put the Babe in right field. On the other side of me was a fellow named Braggo Roth, another wild man. Sakes alive, I’d be playing out there in the middle between those two fellows, and I began to fear for my life. Both of them were galloping around that outfield without regard for life or limb, hollering all the time, running like maniacs after every ball! A week of that was enough for me. I shifted the Babe to center and I moved to right, so I could keep clear of those two.
Babe Ruth, a left-handed pitcher (“and a good one”), in 1915
Sheer self-preservation on my part, pure and simple. I’m still amazed that playing side by side those two never plowed into each other with the impact of two runaway freight trains. If they had, the crash would have shaken the Boston Commons.
Of all the pennants and World Series we won, I guess 1912 was the most exciting. That was the first year the Lewis-Speaker-Hooper outfield really became famous, that was the year Smoky Joe Wood won 16 straight games, the year Snodgrass muffed that fly ball in the last game of the Series—well, all in all, so many things happened that season that it’s hard to find another that can compare with it.
I think the thing I remember best about 1912, though, is the pitching of Smoky Joe Wood. Was he ever something! I’ve seen a lot of great pitching in my lifetime, but never anything to compare with him in 1912. In 1917, for instance, I was in right field for the Red Sox when Ernie Shore pitched his perfect game (against the Senators, I think it was). And in 1922 I was in right field for the White Sox when Charlie Robertson pitched his perfect game (against Detroit). I guess there haven’t been more than about half a dozen perfect games pitched in the history of baseball, and I was the right fielder in two of them. On two different teams, too.
So you might say I’ve seen some pretty good pitching. But I’ve never seen anything like Smoky Joe Wood in 1912. He won 34 games that year, 10 of them shutouts, and 16 of those wins were in a row. It so happened that that was the same year Walter Johnson also won 16 in a row. (That’s still the record in the American League, by the way.) And the fact that both of those fellows were so unbeatable that year gave rise to one of the greatest games in the history of baseball.
You see, Walter Johnson set his record first. Walter finally lost a game in August, ending his streak at 16. But Walter hardly had time to accept congratulations, before up loomed Joe Wood, who looked as though he’d take the record right away from Walter before that very season had come to an end.
When Walter’s streak ended at 16 in August, Joe Wood had won about 9 or 10 in a row. But then Joe kept adding to it…11 straight…12 straight…13 straight. In early September we were scheduled to play Washington, and the public started to clamor for Walter Johnson himself to be allowed to pitch for Washington when Joe Wood went for us.
“Let Walter defend his record!” That was the cry.
Well, the owners were no fools. So when the Senators came to Boston for this series it was arranged that Walter Johnson and Joe Wood would oppose each other in one of the games. The crowd that jammed Fenway Park that day poured out onto the field, and the team benches were moved out along the foul lines so the fans could be packed in behind them. People were also standing all around on the outfield grass, held back by ropes.
By then Joe had won 13 straight, and Walter really was defending his new record. Well, to make a long story short, Joe Wood beat Walter Johnson that day, and the score was exactly what you’d expect—one to nothing. In the sixth inning Tris Speaker hit one into the crowd standing in left field for a ground-rule double, he scored on a double by Duffy Lewis, and that was the whole story. Not another runner crossed home plate all day. That was probably the most exciting game I ever played in or saw.
Smoky Joe Wood in 2912: “Was he ever something!”
A 1912 advertisement
After that, Joe won two more games to tie Johnson’s record at 16, and then he lost the next time out on an error that let a couple of unearned runs score in the eight or ninth inning. So now they both hold the record. Funny thing, that’s also the same year Marquard won 19 straight in the National League.
The te
nsion on Joe was just terrific all that season. First the 16 straight, and then the World Series. I still remember talking to him before one of the Series games and suddenly realizing that he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t say a word. The strain had started to get too much for him. Well, what can you expect? I think he was only about twenty-two when all this was happening. Mighty young to be under such pressure for so many months.
But he still won three games in that 1912 World Series. The last inning of the last game of that Series was quite a doozy. That’s one they’ll never forget. The Giants took a 2–1 lead in the top of the tenth, and the first man up for us in the bottom of the tenth was Clyde Engle, pinch-hitting for Joe Wood. He hit the fly ball that Fred Snodgrass dropped. The famous Snodgrass muff. It could happen to anybody.
I was up next and I tried to bunt, but I fouled it off. On the next pitch I hit a line drive into left center that looked like a sure triple. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred no outfielder could possibly have come close to that ball. But in some way, I don’t know how, Snodgrass ran like the wind, and dang if he didn’t catch it. I think he outran the ball. Robbed me of a sure triple.
I saw Snodgrass a couple of years ago at a function in Los Angeles, and I reminded him of that catch.
“Well, thank you,” he said, “nobody ever mentions that catch to me. All they talk about is the muff.”
I don’t know about anybody else. But I remember that catch all right. I’m the one guy who’ll never forget it.
After that, Steve Yerkes got a base on balls, and that brought up Tris Speaker. We’re still behind, 2–1, and there’s one out. Well, Spoke hit a little pop foul over near first base, and old Chief Meyers took off after it. He didn’t have a chance, but Matty kept calling for him to take it. If he’d called for Merkle, it would have been an easy out. Or Matty could have taken it himself. But he kept hollering for the Chief to take it, and poor Chief—he never was too fast to begin with—he lumbered down that line after it as fast as his big legs would carry him, stuck out his big catcher’s mitt—and just missed it.
Hooper slides in to third. Is he safe or out? The Philadelphia third baseman is Home Run Baker.
Spoke went back to the batter’s box and yelled to Mathewson, “Well, you just called for the wrong man. It’s gonna cost you this ball game.”
And on the next pitch he hit a clean single that tied the game, and a couple of minutes later Larry Gardner drove in Yerkes with the run that won it.
After that wonderful season, Joe Wood never pitched successfully again. He hurt his arm and never was able to really throw that hummer any more, the way he did in 1912. Joe kept trying to come back as a pitcher, but never could do it. He had a lot of guts, though. He couldn’t pitch any more, so he turned himself into an outfielder and became a good one. He could always hit. He played with Cleveland in the 1920 World Series as an outfielder. I think he’s the only man besides Babe Ruth who was in one World Series as a pitcher and another as an outfielder.
Harry Frazee became the owner of the Red Sox in 1917, and before long he sold off all our best players and ruined the team. Sold them all to the Yankees—Ernie Shore, Duffy Lewis, Dutch Leonard, Carl Mays, Babe Ruth. Then Wally Schang and Herb Pennock and Joe Dugan and Sam Jones. I was disgusted. The Yankee dynasty of the twenties was three-quarters the Red Sox of a few years before. All Frazee wanted was the money. He was short of cash and he sold the whole team down the river to keep his dirty nose above water. What a way to end a wonderful ball club!
And now he slides home. Is he safe or out this time?
I got sick to my stomach at the whole business. After the 1920 season I held out for $15,000, and Frazee did me a favor by selling me to the Chicago White Sox. I was glad to get away from that graveyard.
At Chicago they gave me a blank three-year contract and told me to fill in the figure.
“Well,” I thought, “I’ll be doing business with Mr. Comiskey for some years, and I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot.”
So instead of filling in $15,000—which was what I’d been holding out for with the Red Sox—I put down $13,250. Well, I had five darn-good years with the White Sox, best hitting years I ever had. Hit .328 one year, and .327 another. But in 1926 I got a contract in the mail calling for $7,000. That’s right—$7,000!
So I wrote to Comiskey and reminded him that when I’d signed with him in 1921 I’d been more than reasonable in filling in a blank contract. I said I thought perhaps that should sort of be taken into account now. Ha! He wrote back that he never heard of anyone getting a guarantee of anything in this business, and sent me my release along with the letter. And they really needed me that year; they had nobody to play right field.
Well, that was early in 1926, and I was thirty-eight years old. So I went into the real-estate business for a while, coached baseball at Princeton for a couple of years, and then during the depression I took a fill-in job here at Capitola as postmaster—and didn’t leave it until 25 years later. Supposed to be a temporary job.
I enjoyed the couple of years I coached at Princeton very much. Still go back there every once in a while. Beautiful spot, Princeton. Speaking about that, today they make such a big deal about all the college men in baseball, and about how baseball today has such a “better class” of people in it than the “rowdies” of the old days. But that’s not true at all. With respect to college men, let me give you an idea of what it was really like.
I joined the Boston Red Sox in 1909, and when I got there Bill Carrigan was the regular catcher. He’d gone to Holy Cross. At first base was Jake Stahl, from the University of Illinois, and at third was Larry Gardner, from the University of Vermont. In the outfield, I had gone to St. Mary’s, and so had Duffy Lewis. On the pitching staff was Marty McHale of the University of Maine (another civil engineering graduate), Chris Mahoney from Fordham, and Ray Collins from Vermont.
That was just the Red Sox. In general, I’d say that back in my day maybe as many as about one out of every five or six Big Leaguers had gone to college. I don’t know how many of them graduated, but that isn’t the point. The point is that they came from colleges into professional baseball.
Of course, it’s ridiculous to think that only college men are gentlemen, or are intelligent. That isn’t even worth discussing. But it should certainly be clear that the impression that we were an uneducated bunch of “rowdies” is a lot of nonsense.
Most people know that Mathewson went to Bucknell, but they don’t realize that Frank Chance went to Washington University, Hal Chase to Santa Clara, Buck Herzog to the University of Maryland, Orvie Overall to the University of California, Eddie Plank to Gettysburg College, Chief Bender to Dickinson College, Art Devlin to Georgetown, and so on.
And there were more. Ginger Beaumont went to Beloit College, Andy Coakley and Jack Barry to Holy Cross, Eddie Collins to Columbia, Eddie Grant to Harvard, Fred Tenney to Brown, Bob Bescher and Ed Reulbach to Notre Dame, Jack Coombs to Colby, Harry Davis to Girard College, Chief Meyers to Dartmouth, Davy Jones to Dixon College, et cetera, et cetera.
Why, Miller Huggins and Hugh Jennings were both lawyers—Huggins was a graduate of Cincinnati Law School and Jennings went to Cornell. Both of them went to law school after they were in the major leagues. Even John J. McGraw went to St. Bonaventure for a while, also after he was in the majors. And do you realize that every one of these fellows I’ve named was in the majors in 1910 or earlier, and most of them were there before 1905.
If you take into account the proportion of the total population that went to college back in those days, I think it’s pretty clear that we had more than our share of college men in baseball. And it’s also pretty clear that the usual picture you get of the old-time ballplayer as an illiterate rowdy contains an awful lot more fiction than it does fact.
11 Joe Wood
“Can I throw harder than Joe Wood? Listen, my friend, there’s no man alive can throw harder than Smoky Joe Wood.”
—WALTER JOHNSON, Interview in 1912
YOU KNOW, I often look back on it now…the Wild West…Buffalo Bill…cattle rustlers…outlaws…sheriff’s posses. I see these western pictures on television and sometimes it just hits me: I actually lived through all that in real life. Sort of hard to believe, isn’t it?
At the turn of the century we lived in this little town of Ouray in the southwestern part of Colorado, not far from places with names like Lizard Head Pass and Slumgullion Gulch. And every day I’d see these big stage coaches go by, drawn by six horses, two guards sitting up there with rifles, guarding the gold shipment coming down from the mines. Dad was a lawyer there—his law partner was later the attorney general of Colorado—and he was involved in some big cases for the Western Federation of Miners. During several of these cases they had to send in the state militia to guard him. Feelings ran high about unions in Colorado back then. He was a great trial lawyer. Hardly ever lost a case in front of a jury.
Later we moved to Ness City, Kansas, about 60 miles north of Dodge City, and that was rough country too. Dad represented the Missouri Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads there. Even though he was a lawyer, my father never could really settle down. In 1897 he got the gold fever and went to the Klondike in the gold rush. Not as a lawyer—as a prospector! He returned with his legs frozen, Yukon diarrhea, and lots of great stories, but no gold. Later he took off on another prospecting trip, this time to Nevada and California, but he didn’t do any better there than he had in the Yukon.
He had such a full life! A brilliant man. He spent his last years in this very house, the house where he was born, and when he died in 1944 he was only one month short of being ninety years old. I had a special generator put in here to give him electricity, then they started stringing electric lines through this part of the country and we had to carry two motors for the different voltages. But he’d never have anything to do with any of it. Always used kerosene lamps, the old icebox, the wood stove. Wouldn’t even use a coal furnace. He’d cut his own firewood for his little stove. All those chores kept him going until he was almost ninety.
The Glory of Their Times Page 16