And he and I became friends from that day on, until he died.
After that season, the Pirates sent me to Des Moines in 1904, and in 1905 I was with Johnstown. I hit .337 there and stole 57 bases, so at the end of that season the Chicago Cubs bought me. Like I said, though, they traded me to Cincinnati before the 1906 season began in order to get Harry Steinfeldt.
So in 1906 I started to play regular in the Big Leagues, at shortstop and third base with Cincinnati. Ned Hanlon, who used to manage the old Baltimore Orioles, was the manager of the Reds when I came up, and later it was Clark Griffith. That was before Griff bought the Washington club. Cy Seymour was there, and Miller Huggins, and Jimmy Delahanty, and later Bob Bescher and Dode Paskert. That was a very fast team around that time, you know. One year Bob Bescher stole about 80 bases, Paskert stole about 50, and I stole about 40.
Andy Coakley was a pitcher on that Cincinnati team, too. Quite a guy. Andy had graduated from Holy Cross, and he was a great fellow to have around. In the middle of an argument he’d come out with, “Being unable to assume an initial premise with any tolerable degree of accuracy, I am loathe to assert a conclusion fearful lest I should err.”
Mathewson, McGraw, and McGinnity in 1903. That year Matty won 30 games and McGinnity won 31. Three times that season “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity pitched—and won—both games of a double-header.
Andy and I saw a lot of each other many years later, when he was coaching at Columbia and I was at West Point, and every time we got together one or the other of us would spout that out before we’d even said hello.
Of course, I’m making it all sound like it was just a joy ride. But those were very rough days. It wasn’t easy to break into the Big Leagues. I still remember the famous day Rube Marquard made his debut with the Giants. We were the opposition. It was in 1908, very late in the season, only a couple of days after the Merkle incident. I think the Merkle incident happened on September 23, and on Friday the 25th McGraw started Marquard against us in the first game of a doubleheader.
New York was in an uproar over the Merkle thing, and everybody was also all excited about Marquard, the “$11,000 beauty” that McGraw had just bought from Indianapolis. The Polo Grounds was jammed to the rafters. Well, this kid—I don’t think Marquard was nineteen years old yet—was so nervous he couldn’t do a single thing right. He hit the first man up in the ribs, then I tripled, then Bob Bescher tripled, all in the first inning, and suddenly they started calling the “$11,000 beauty” the “$11,000 lemon.” Just a kid, you know. It was rough. He showed them a few years later, though, that he had the stuff.
Also playing conditions were very primitive then. The fields were bumpy and the gloves were nothing compared to today. And you know we were only permitted to have 17 men on a club, not 25 like they have now. If you got banged up, it was just too bad. You had to play. Actually, I believe there are a greater number of better players around today, but they’re not as rugged as we used to be. We didn’t have any choice, you see.
For instance, we didn’t have any training facilities to speak of. The trainer in those days had to take care of the uniforms and the equipment and everything else. Just one man. He didn’t know any more about health or medicine than the man in the moon. And no doctors, of course. If somebody got hurt the old cry would go out, “Is there a doctor in the stands?”
I remember once, in 1907 I think it was, I got hit in the head with a pitched ball. We were playing the Cubs and Orvie Overall was pitching for them. He and I had roomed together the year before, when I first came to Cincinnati, and then he’d been traded to the Cubs. I had three balls and one strike on me, and Ned Hanlon yelled, “Make him pitch to you, Hans.”
Well, if Hanlon called your first name, that meant to hit. So as soon as I heard “Hans” I knew I was to hit the next pitch. Overall let go with a high fast one and it hit me smack on the temple. I thought I was down about five seconds, but it was about ten minutes. Even so, when I came to, I had to stay in the game. They didn’t have anybody else to put in. Every step I took I felt the ground was coming up to meet my feet, or I was stepping into a hole. But I had to stay in there.
I thought I was getting over it after a week or two, but then suddenly I started to get plate shy. I couldn’t stand up there at the plate and I began to get terrible headaches every night. I couldn’t see the ball very well, either. It was September by then, and our position was pretty set, so I finally asked Mr. Hanlon if I could go home for the rest of the season. When I got home I went to a doctor for the first time, and he said I had a concussion.
So it was a different setup then. The boys were pretty rough. They were beer drinkers. They never drank hard liquor. After the game we’d go and have a couple of glasses of beer. Very few drank anything else. It wasn’t until prohibition came in, years later, that there was very much drinking besides a beer or two. There was lots more drinking during prohibition than before or since.
I didn’t even drink beer when I first came up. I’ll never forget in Cincinnati, we were sitting in a restaurant—Joe Kelley, Jimmy Delahanty, Cy Seymour, Shad Barry, Larry McLean, and myself—and they wanted me to join them and have a beer.
“No,” I said, “I don’t drink beer. I’ve never tasted it.”
Boy, they all grabbed me and held me and started pouring this beer in my face. I kept my mouth closed, and soon I had beer all over me. Finally, I’d had enough.
“OK,” I said, “cut it out. I’ll take a glass of beer.”
In the spring of 1911 Dode Paskert and I were traded to the Phillies, and a new rookie in the Phillies’ camp for the first time that spring was a big fellow by the name of Grover Cleveland Alexander. As you know, Alex got to drinking very heavily later in his career, but to the best of my knowledge he didn’t drink at all at that time. He was really something back then. I was with the Phillies for four years—1911 through 1914—and he was terrific every one of those years. In his rookie year, 1911, Alex won 28 games and at one point that season he pitched four shutouts in a row. And the thing is he wasn’t at his peak yet.
Grover Cleveland Alexander as a rookie pitcher in 1911
In 1915, ’16, and ’17 he won 30 or more games each season, and in 1916 he had 16 shutouts. For a right-handed pitcher in Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, where we played then, that was almost impossible to believe. The right-field fence was only 280 feet away and cut straight over to center field. That park was heaven for a left-handed hitter.
Alex was really an amazing pitcher. He had little short fingers and he threw a very heavy ball. Once, later on, when I’d moved over to the Giants, Alex hit me over the heart with a pitched ball and it bore in like a lump of lead hitting you. I couldn’t get my breath for ten minutes afterward. Matty was just as fast, but he threw a much lighter ball.
Anyway, like I said, Alex didn’t drink when he first came up. He didn’t really start to drink heavily until after he came back from the war in 1919. He wasn’t any youngster when he first came up, either. He must have been twenty-four or twenty-five by then. I guess he started in baseball late.
He was a great big guy, with a fine build. Now, you know, they always seem to remember Alex as an old man, and the only thing you hear about him is that he came in at the age of thirty-nine and struck out Tony Lazzeri to save the 1926 World Series for the Cardinals. But in those days he wasn’t any thirty-nine years old. He was in his twenties and he had a wonderful constitution. Funny thing, he never ran, like pitchers are supposed to. He’d get around third base and field some ground balls, and that would be that.
Alex’s big problem was that he took epileptic fits on the bench, and that continued all the years we played together. Maybe two or three times a season he’d have an epileptic seizure on the bench. He’d froth at the mouth and shiver all over and thrash around and sort of lose consciousness. We’d hold him down and open his mouth and grab his tongue to keep him from choking himself. It was awful.
After we’d gotten him down we’d pour some brandy
down his throat and in a while he’d be all right. It always happened on the bench, though, never out on the pitching mound. We always kept a bottle of brandy handy because there never was any warning.
Alex wasn’t the only epileptic on the Phillies at that time. Sherry Magee in the outfield had epilepsy, too. And Tony Lazzeri with the Yankees, later on.
I remember one Sunday when I was on the Phillies we all went over to Atlantic City. We didn’t play Sunday baseball in those days in Philadelphia. Monday, when we got back, was a beastly hot day, and Sherry Magee had been drinking and had a hangover. We played St. Louis that day and Bill Finneran was umpiring behind the plate. He called a bad strike on Sherry, and we could all see that Magee was about to go into a fit. He started frothing at the mouth and he went at Finneran like a crazy man. Finneran had his mask off and Sherry hit him in the mouth and knocked him down before we could get out there and stop him. Sherry was suspended 30 days for that.
In 1915 I was traded to the Giants, and after ten years in the Big Leagues I finally got to play under McGraw. That was a great thrill for me. Actually, I already knew McGraw pretty well, because he’d taken me on his world tour in 1913.
He took two teams around the world that winter. We were called the Giants and the White Sox, but we weren’t really. I was on the Phillies then, and I went along, and so did Sam Crawford, who was on the Tigers, and Tris Speaker from the Red Sox, Germany Schaefer from the Senators, and a few others who weren’t on either the White Sox or the Giants.
We left in 1913 on October 18, which is my birthday, and got back March 6, 1914. That was my honeymoon trip, too. We all took our wives and had a great time. First we toured the United States for a month and then went to Japan, China, Australia, Egypt, Italy, France, England, and Ireland.
When we were almost finished with the American part of the tour we played a game in Oxnard, California, which was Fred Snodgrass’ home town, and that was something I’ll never forget. It was one of the most bizarre incidents I ever took part in.
We arrived in Oxnard at about seven in the morning and were met at the train by about ten stagecoaches, in which they took all of us out to this big ranch for a huge barbecue. That was great cattle and lima-bean country around there then. They had this tremendous ox roasting, been roasting it for a couple of days, and lima beans with onions, and beer. That was our breakfast! Did you ever try roasted ox and beer for breakfast? Not bad. Puts hair on your chest, to say the least.
Well, after we had finished all this great food the mayor of the town got up and put me on the spot. He asked me if I would race a horse around the bases that afternoon.
“Lord,” I said, “I’m not here to run horses around the bases. I’m here to play baseball.”
But he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and McGraw finally talked me into agreeing to it. See, I was very fast in those days. In a field day at Cincinnati, a couple of years before, I had circled the bases in 13 4/5 seconds from a pistol start. As far as I know, that’s still a record. Tommy Leach held the record before that, 14 1/5 seconds, which he had made in 1907.
The idea was that first we’d play the game, and then after the game I’d race the horse. Well, afternoon came and we started the game, but it was very difficult to play. Nobody wanted to see the game. They all wanted to see this race between the man and the horse. There was a huge crowd there, maybe 5,000 people packed into those little rickety stands, and out in the outfield there must have been several hundred cowboys on horseback watching the game. (I learned later that there was a terrific amount of local wagering among the cattlemen and the cowboys on who would win, me or the horse.) The cowboys kept creeping in closer and closer, till we hardly had any room left to play.
So along about the seventh inning McGraw came to me and said, “John, we can’t finish this game. You might as well get ready to run the horse around the bases.”
Then, from this mass of cowboys encircling the outfield, out steps the most beautiful black animal you ever saw, with a Mexican cowboy on him all dressed up in chaps and spangles. Both he and the horse were glittering like jewels in the sunlight. The horse was a beautiful coal-black cow pony that was trained to make very sharp turns.
The cowboy couldn’t speak English, so I said, “Señior, practico. We’ll take a practice walk around the bases.”
So around we walked, the crowd roaring and the moving-picture cameras whirring—Pathé News was there. I was to touch the inner corner of each base, and he was to go around the outside, so as not to run me down.
Finally, everything was all set. Bill Klem was to be the referee and we were ready to go. A pistol started us, and off we went. I led at first base by at least five feet, and by second base I had picked up and was at least ten feet ahead. I was in perfect stride, hitting each bag with my right foot and going faster all the time. But instead of the horse keeping his distance, he crowded me between second and third and I had to dodge to avoid being knocked down. I broke stride, and that was the end. I was still in front as we rounded third, but not by much, and on the home stretch the horse just did beat me in. I still think I would have won if I hadn’t been practically bowled over at shortstop.
Hans Number Two: Hans Lobert in 1906
Bill Klem said the horse won by a nose. But, as you can plainly see, that was highly unlikely.
14 Rube Bressler
It is, as a rule, a man’s own business how he spends his money. But nevertheless we wish to call attention to the fact that many men do so in a very unwise manner. A very glaring instance of this among baseball players is the recent evil tendency to purchase and maintain automobiles.
Put the money away, boys, where it will be safe. You don’t need these automobiles. That money will look mighty good later on in life. Think it over, boys.
—Editorial in Baseball Magazine, 1914
HOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN the way things happen in this world? Some things you just can’t account for, that’s all.
I grew up in Flemington, Pennsylvania, and in 1912 I was a seventeen-year-old kid swinging a sledge hammer in a railroad shop. Had never pitched a game of professional ball in my life. Two years later I was a starting pitcher on Connie Mack’s World Champion Philadelphia Athletics, one of the greatest aggregations of talent to ever walk out on a baseball field at one and the same time. I won 14 games for them, lost only 3, and had a terrific earned-run average. And less than two years after that I was back in the bushes again. Couldn’t win a game to save my life. Twenty-one years old and evidently all washed up.
Well, I’ve heard of people aging quickly, but that was ridiculous. When I was a kid, George M. Cohan used to sing a song that I’ve never forgotten. It ended with: “Life’s a pretty funny proposition…after all.”
It all began because I used to pitch for the Pennsylvania Railroad shop team where I worked, at Renovo, Pennsylvania. One day Earle Mack, Connie’s son, came up with his All-Stars, and I beat them. I guess he told his Daddy, because the next year I was pitching for Harrisburg in the Tri-State League. That was 1913. And the year after that I went up with the Athletics.
The only pitchers I had to compete with when I got up there were Eddie Plank, who’s in the Hall of Fame, Chief Bender, who’s in the Hall of Fame, Herb Pennock, who’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Bullet Joe Bush, Colby Jack Coombs, and Bob Shawkey. Also Weldon Wyckoff. What a pitching staff! That’s what I had to cope with.
I guess Connie liked me, though, because he let me stay. I hung around until the middle of the season, hardly pitching at all, and then one day he started me. No warning at all. We were playing the Boston Red Sox, and Ray Collins was scheduled to pitch against us. He beat us regularly. Just tossed his glove on the mound and we were finished. Connie probably figured why waste a regular starter when Collins was going against us, so he threw me in there. And I won.
Connie Mack. There was a wonderful person. A truly religious man. I mean really religious. Not a hypocrite, like some are. He really respected his fellow man. If you made a mistak
e, Connie never bawled you out on the bench, or in front of anybody else. He’d get you alone a few days later, and then he’d say something like, “Don’t you think it would have been better if you’d made the play this way?”
And you knew damn well it would have been better. No question about it. He knew what he was talking about. Never raised his voice. Never used profanity of any sort. Oh, he might say, “Good grief, look at that!” Never anything stronger than that.
In my opinion, Connie Mack did more for baseball than any other living human being—by the example he set, his attitude, the way he handled himself and his players. You know, like you’re playing a great game and you’re heroes to the children of this country. Live up to it, conduct yourself accordingly. Over a period of years others followed, and baseball became respectable. He was a true gentleman, in every sense of the word. Not many men are.
And, of course, those 1914 Athletics were one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled, if not the greatest. That “$100,000 infield”—Stuffy McInnis, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, Frank Baker. I don’t know of any better infield ever played together. Wally Schang and Jack Lapp catching, Eddie Murphy, Amos Strunk, and Rube Oldring in the outfield, and you know the pitching staff. Three future Hall of Famers, that’s all. Plus a few more who should be there, like Bush and Coombs and Shawkey. Well, they won four pennants in five years, and three World Championships. Can’t do much better than that, can you?
The only World Series they lost was that 1914 one—to George Stallings’ “miracle” Boston Braves, of all teams. The weakest of them all. And we lost it in four straight games, too. Overconfidence was the thing that did us in more than anything else. We thought it would be a pushover. Also, Connie sent Chief Bender and Eddie Plank home to Philadelphia a week before the Series, to rest up, and they lost that fine edge. Their control was off.
The Glory of Their Times Page 20