The Original Curse

by Sean Deveney; Ken Rosenthal

  The Sunday fans also heard the band play “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the seventh inning. The Chicago Herald Examiner reported, “All hands, with the exception of one rash youth, stood up and saluted. He probably will stand up for a week with or without music. Indignant patriots grabbed the slacker, rushed him down the center of the aisle of the stand and into the street. Other patriots stepped into the aisle behind the procession and landed a series of swift kicks where they would do the most good.”12

  By the third game the Giants were deflated and frustrated—particularly ex-Cub Heinie Zimmerman, now New York’s third baseman, who was alternately cheered and booed throughout the series. The Giants grabbed a quick lead, but the Cubs scraped back. As the Cubs were pulling even, Mann went hard into third base and Zimmerman gave him a forceful tag to the stomach. Mann grabbed Zimmerman’s knees, pulling him to the ground. The two exchanged blows before being separated without ejections. But the Cubs kept up their assault, giving Claude Hendrix a 7–3 win. After the game, a ticked-off Zimmerman waited for Mann in street clothes on Addison Street. A group of fans watched eagerly. Alas, Zimmerman’s pugilistic intentions were short-circuited by the fairer sex. “Later Mann came out,” Crusinberry reported, “but Mrs. Mann had been waiting for him and walked alongside of him, past Heinie and the expectant crowd. Strong arms weren’t needed this time. Mrs. Mann marched her husband home, and Heinie grabbed a taxi and beat it.”13

  The Cubs had humiliated the NL champs. In three games they outscored the McGraws, 19–8, outhit them, 40–24, outplayed them in the field, and showed far more class on the mound. Mann’s bout with Zimmerman might have been exactly what the Cubs needed. The Giants had a bullying reputation that reflected the disposition of McGraw, their hard-boiled manager. The Cubs would not be cowed. Later in the week, Bill Killefer got into a dustup after Cincinnati’s Greasy Neale—future Hall of Fame football coach—delivered a sucker punch to Killefer’s jaw, laying out the sturdy catcher in the middle of a game. An onrush of Cubs players came to their catcher’s defense, and Neale was thrown out for the punch. Incensed Cubs fans threw glass soda bottles at Reds outfielder Rube Bressler, thinking he was Neale, and showing that these Cubs and their fans were not afraid of rough play.

  Indeed, baseball was not a game for the meek in 1918, on the field or in the stands. Not until the 1923 season did baseball, tired of seeing umpires attacked with projectiles, ban glass bottles in parks. During the ’18 season, after two women were injured by fans who threw seat cushions during Cubs games, Charley Weeghman pushed Chicago’s aldermen to make it a crime to throw bottles and other objects from the stands. He failed. The aldermen decided that “the enraged fan was within his rights in heaving a bottle at Catfish the umpire.” One alderman, incredibly, argued, “Our ancestors fought and died for certain unalienable rights. Just now our boys are fighting in France for freedom and democracy. Why should not the baseball fan have freedom to innocently express his sentiment?”14

  The Cubs were 23–12 when they left the friendly, flying-bottle confines of Weeghman Park to set out on the road for a 23-day junket to the East on May 31. The train ride was miserable—it was hot, and war restrictions meant all 30 members of the Cubs traveling party were crammed into one car, which made even grabbing a seat a challenge. Teddy Roosevelt was on the train, with a car to himself. Several players stopped to visit the ex-president, who had been a loud critic of the administration’s war effort. Roosevelt’s disdain for Wilson and Baker was widely known (rooted in the fact that they hadn’t allowed Roosevelt, 59 years old and not exactly in peak shape, to put together his own fighting division to take to France). When players asked what Roosevelt thought about the work-or-fight order and how it would affect ballplayers after July 1, they were probably expecting T.R. to deliver a scathing rebuke. They were disappointed. Roosevelt told them he had been too busy to think about baseball’s situation.15

  The Cubs swept the Braves and Phillies to start the trip, which boosted them to the top of the standings. They were greeted in Philadelphia by Bill Wrigley, who gave each player a first-place reward—$5 to spend on new clothes, which they gladly did the following day. “Haberdashers on Chestnut Street did some business,” the Daily News reported. “The boys came back with new ties, hats, socks and shirts, which they sported on the Sabbath.”16 To close the trip, the Cubs split the rematch with the Giants, won two of three from Brooklyn, and split with Pittsburgh. They went 13–5, returning to Chicago with a 36–17 record and a tight grip on first place.

  NINE

  Loyalty: The Texel

  OFF THE NEW YORK COAST, SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 1918

  It was just after 4:00 P.M. by the watch of K. B. Lowry, the Brooklynite captain of the Texel, a Dutch steamship that had been loaded up with 42,000 tons of sugar from the Caribbean. The sea was calm, the afternoon was warm, and Lowry had the boat about 60 miles from its destination, New York harbor. That’s when he saw ripples radiate in the water, just yards from the Texel’s bow. The smooth surface of the ocean convulsed and split, and suddenly Lowry was looking at the massive gray deck of a submarine. Without warning, the sub aimed its gun and fired a shell packed with shrapnel at the clumsy body of the Texel. Panic set in among the crew. What was a submarine doing firing shells on an unarmed sugar boat 60 miles off the New York coast? The men took cover. One of the crew, Frank Ryan, scrambled back on deck to rescue the ship’s mascot, a Maltese cat. Just in time. The sub’s guns fired again, a rain of debris spraying the Texel’s deck. And then a third blast. Lowry pulled the Texel to a stop. The U-boat’s captain boarded, demanding to see the ship’s papers. Looking them over, he said to Lowry, “We will give you time to get off. Then we shall sink your vessel.”1

  The 36-man crew crammed into two lifeboats. The cat too. They began to row to shore, a two-day ordeal. Behind them, the U-boat blasted the Texel, which tipped to its side and slowly eased into the water.

  June 2 was a bad day for ships in American waters. The Texel was one of six ships sunk off the East Coast that day. In the past, German submarines had occasionally slipped into U.S. waters to cause mischief and create a scare, but this was different. Between May 25 and May 28, four nonmilitary ships had been mysteriously sunk, and the June 2 tally brought the total to 10 in a span of just eight days. This wave of U-boat marauding would end in mid-June, with ships attacked from the waters of Massachusetts down to Virginia, but in the wake of the sinking of the Texel and others, there was no way to tell what, exactly, was going on or when it would stop. It very much appeared that the United States was under German assault. Word spread that there were as many as five U-boats off the coast, and a mother ship, maybe even disguised under an American flag, supplying them.2

  It was easy to tie these rumors to another rumor, which held that a shipment of one million Mauser rifles and a billion cartridges had reached American shores and was hidden in storage in the United States, waiting for a German-American uprising. Both rumors had credibility. New York’s deputy attorney general held hearings on the Mauser rifle shipment,3 and the U.S. Congress thought enough of the U-boat threat that it passed a $16 million appropriation for balloon and seaplane stations to track enemy subs. In New York, fear spread that the submarine attacks could be a precursor to German air attacks. For the first time, the city established an air raid siren and required businesses on major thoroughfares—such as Broadway and Fifth Avenue—to dim their lights at night to make the streets harder to see from above.4

  The ship sinkings were not part of a German invasion. There was no air assault, and there were no Mauser rifles. The attacks of late May and early June were the work of just one very efficient sub, the U-151, which was sent to America to lay mines off the coast and, when it was finished, went on a three-week rampage that hit 20 ships. But the heightened reaction to U-151 was revealing—rational Americans were afraid that the war “over there” would open a front over here. There was much to drive that fear. Americans had been spooked the previous year by the Zimmerman telegram, in wh
ich Germany recruited Mexico as an ally in war on America. German saboteurs and propagandists had been found to be working in the country (though not to the degree many claimed). After leaving his ambassadorship in Germany in 1917, American statesman James Gerard became a great force for fear in the nation. His story was adapted into a movie, My Four Years in Germany, and in a speech he gave all around the country Gerard said, “The foreign minister of Germany once said to me, ‘Your country does not dare do anything against Germany, because we have in your country 500,000 German reservists who will rise in arms against your government if you dare make a move against Germany.’”

  There were not 500,000 German reservists in the United States, but Gerard didn’t let facts muddle a rousing speech. Gerard continued: “I told him that that might be so, but that we had 500,001 lamp posts in this country, and that that was where the reservists would be hanging the day after they tried to rise. If there are any German-Americans here who are so ungrateful for all the benefits they have received that they are still for the Kaiser, there is only one thing to do with them. And that is to hog-tie them, give them back the wooden shoes and rags they landed in and ship them back to the Fatherland.”5

  Gerard’s speech was titled “Loyalty,” and it was emblematic of the mood of the nation. Legitimate fear of German invasion became distorted into rabid hatred of all things German. This was driven in part by domestic propaganda efforts, which were so successful that overzealous Americans were inspired to acts ranging from silly to bone-chilling, under the guise of loyalty. Schools dropped German from the curriculum, the Bismarck School in Chicago was renamed “Funston School,” sauerkraut was renamed “liberty cabbage,” and even German measles were called “liberty measles.” The statue of the writer Friedrich von Schiller in Chicago was painted yellow by vandals, and a statue of Goethe was put into storage for its own protection. One congressman from Michigan introduced a bill eliminating all American town names containing the word Berlin or Germany and replacing them with the word victory or liberty.6 Books by German writers were burned publicly, and recordings of Beethoven and Bach were smashed.

  Some expressions of loyalty went further. In May, Wilson had pushed the Sedition Act through Congress, making it illegal to “willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government. Criticism became a crime. Everywhere Americans squealed on fellow citizens for making disloyal comments. John Anderson, of Quincy, Massachusetts, was riding on a train near Boston when he was overheard saying that the war in Europe was a family affair in which the United States should not be involved. Enraged fellow passengers “were at the point of throwing [him] from the train.”7 Instead, they turned him over to police at the next stop. When children trying to sell thrift stamps to Dr. Ruth Lighthall of Chicago were turned away, they told authorities that she said the war was one for capitalists. Lighthall confirmed that sentiment, added that she thought President Wilson a traitor—and she was sentenced to jail for 10 years for it.8 Millionaire Rose Pastor Stokes was sent to jail for 10 years after making an antiwar speech in Kansas City. Respected film producer Robert Goldstein had his movie The Spirit of ’76 seized because it showed British soldiers committing war atrocities—which should be expected in a patriotic movie set in the American Revolution. But the British were American allies now. Goldstein was sentenced to 10 years in prison.9

  Before the war, German-Americans were one of the proudest, most assimilated ethnic groups in the nation, especially in Chicago. History professor Melvin Holli notes that, before the war, “No ethnic group was so numerous in Chicago or the nation or had made such rapid and solid economic progress, dominating and monopolizing in many cases the middle rungs of the occupational ladder.”10 But the spasm of patriotism that accompanied the war erased that. German-Americans became targets. Early in the morning of April 5, Robert Prager, a 29-year-old unemployed baker, was lynched by a mob of 350 in Collinsville, Illinois. Prager allegedly made a “disloyal” comment while seeking work at a local mine. A growing mob menaced him throughout the day and evening, finally tracking down Prager after midnight. Originally, the plan was to tar and feather him, but with no tar or feathers handy at that hour, the mob hanged Prager instead. Five men brought to trial for the lynching were found not guilty after the jury deliberated for just 45 minutes.11 The incident was a national disgrace. But, then, hadn’t Gerard promised the German foreign secretary that his countrymen would hang from American lampposts?

  In the midst of the U-151 raids, Red Sox first baseman Dick Hoblitzell—himself partly of German descent—finally left the team to join the army’s Dental Corps as a lieutenant, to be trained at Fort Ogle-thorpe in Georgia. Attached to Fort Oglethorpe, Hoblitzell would have found an internment camp, one of three across the country that held Germans who had been living peacefully but were now held as enemy aliens. In that camp was another famous Bostonian, 58-year-old Dr. Karl Muck, the conductor of the Boston Symphony. Or ex-conductor. Muck had been arrested in late March on the charge of being German (though Muck had Swiss citizenship). Muck allegedly refused to lead “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a concert in Providence and had been criticized across the country for it—though witnesses confirmed that Muck did play it. But Muck was German, he was suspect, and he was sent to Fort Oglethorpe.

  If Hoblitzell had listened carefully when he arrived in Georgia, he might have heard the sounds of Beethoven’s Fifth coming from the jail. That’s because Muck wasn’t alone. Many of the nation’s orchestras were stocked with Germans, and Muck found so many musicians among his fellow prisoners that he started a Fort Oglethorpe orchestra.12

  The Red Sox started June in first place and headed on a long western trip, with stops in Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, and St. Louis. The team Hoblitzell left was not in bad shape. Ruth was out of the infirmary, healthy again. Hobby was the captain, but he had been injured and slumped under the mental strain of his impending army service. Stuffy McInnis had been playing out of position at third base, and when Hoblitzell left he slid over to his natural first-base spot. Fred Thomas, Class 1A and waiting for the call to war, took over at third. Hoblitzell’s captaincy went to Harry Hooper, who was batting .330, was popular with teammates and fans, had a good relationship with Barrow, and was suited for the job. Hoblitzell had already yielded his spot in the lineup—cleanup hitter—to Ruth, and his departure cemented Ruth’s place as the team’s top run producer.

  Ruth’s stay in the infirmary did have a benefit. It forced Barrow to use one of the young pitchers he trusted so little—Sam Jones, who had gone just 0–2 in two big-league seasons. But without Ruth, Barrow was so desperate as to insert Jones on May 23, and Jones responded by allowing just one run in a complete-game loss to Cleveland. It was a good enough showing to warrant another start, and Jones beat Washington great Walter Johnson, 3–0, on May 29. This was quite a turn in Jones’s young career. He had been so deep on the Boston bench that, when the team reported for spring training that March, few noticed Jones hadn’t shown up. The Red Sox assumed Jones had been drafted by the army. He hadn’t, and, according to The Sporting News, “The team was at Hot Springs when owner Harry Frazee received a message from Sam which expressed itself thusly: ‘Forgotten me altogether? Not worth a contract of any sort? If I am through, let me in on it.’”13

  Barrow’s confidence in Jones grew, and for a short time the Red Sox had pitching depth, a rare commodity in 1918. On June 6, Jones took the mound at Cleveland. Seated in the press box was 51-year-old Cy Young, baseball’s lifetime leader in pitching wins. As Young watched Jones, he lamented the lack of pitching around the league. When told the Senators resorted to giving some starts to Nick Altrock, their noodle-armed 41-year-old coach, Young “declared that if his arm were a little stronger, he would come back and try to pitch again himself.”14 He probably could have. An inordinate number of pitchers were in the service of Uncle Sam. In his syndicated column, Reds manager Christy Mathewson wrote, “If the other big-league managers a
re having the same trouble I am, and I guess most of them are in the same boat, they must go to bed at night praying for some young hurler to rise up over night as a Moses to lead them out of their difficulty.”15 For Barrow and the Red Sox, that Moses was Sam Jones. In that game against Cleveland, Cy Young himself watched Jones hurl a five-hit shutout.

  The rise of Jones provided an opening for Ruth, who had become fond enough of hitting that he did not want to pitch anymore. After returning from the tonsil problem, he kept himself off the mound by complaining about arm injuries of dubious legitimacy. Even with Jones pitching well, the Red Sox slumped to a 3–5 start on their June trip—one of those wins was Dutch Leonard’s no-hitter in Detroit—and the surprising Yankees moved into a tie for the top spot in the AL. That’s when Boston rolled into Chicago’s South Side for a four-game series against the defending champions, a series that should have been of the same magnitude as Cubs–Giants. But the White Sox were engulfed in turmoil. Jackson was gone to the shipyard, Byrd Lynn and Lefty Williams were preparing to follow, and Red Faber enlisted in the navy. It was an opportunity for the Red Sox. Joe Bush opened the series with his best performance of the year, yielding two hits in a 1–0 win. In the second game, Faber—making one last start—shut down Boston, 4–1. But Carl Mays and Leonard dominated the last two games with shutout wins, and over the four games Boston outscored Chicago, 15–4. The South Siders were booed by their home fans. It was so windy on the final day of the series that the 1917 AL pennant the White Sox had hung in the outfield ripped and had to be taken down for repairs. “The Red Sox are putting bigger holes in it than the wind did,” the Globe noted.16