The Original Curse

by Sean Deveney; Ken Rosenthal

  Where World Series talk in Chicago had been trumped by talk of the war and the Federal Building bomb, World Series talk in Boston was overshadowed by news of the invalided battlefield heroes and simmering rumors of a fast-spreading fatal flu virus. For ballplayers, as the end of the season—and, quite possibly, the end of baseball and the good living the game provided—drew near, there was an increased need to squeeze out every dollar before the shutdown hit. Many of the players figured to be inducted into the army themselves soon. Helping to hammer home that reality was the presence of erstwhile Red Sox lefty Dutch Leonard, who joined the team in the Fenway dugout for Game 4. Leonard and several other players who dodged the draft by joining the shipyard league had been nabbed by the War Department and forced into the army. Now Leonard was simply waiting for his draft call. The sight of Leonard was a stark reminder for ballplayers that, from now on, there would be no more collecting a good salary while hiding from the war. It wasn’t a stretch for them to look at pictures of the invalided soldiers, to hear stories about the sailors sick with Spanish flu, to see someone like Leonard being kicked into the army, and to imagine their future selves. How were they supposed to provide for themselves and their families? What about mortgages and car payments and kids? What if they were invalided?

  Little wonder that money remained first on the minds of the players and that, just a few miles from the site of the tent camp at Corey Hill, Garry Herrmann received a phone call from Cubs outfielder Les Mann. The player representatives wanted to talk about World Series shares. They were not about to let this issue go. They felt they’d been promised $2,000 for the winners and $1,400 for the losers, and “their stand is that the other clubs should be left out of the proposition until the stipulated sums are paid, or that the commission should come up with the deficit.”1 If they could not be guaranteed that money, they would not play Game 4. Herrmann informed Mann, however, that Ban Johnson still had not arrived—his train would get him into Boston shortly before game time. If the players wanted to meet, Mann was told, they would have to wait until after Game 4. Not that it would matter. The commission, Herrmann claimed, did not have the authority to change the rule without a vote from all 16 team owners. Otherwise, some owners could sue on behalf of their players. “We could end the series at this point,” Herrmann threatened, “and divide the money that’s coming to the players equally among the club owners.”2

  Les Mann was a speedy, reliable outfielder for the Cubs, but he was also a key figure in the players’ battle for a better share of the World Series receipts. (CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM)

  No one really wanted to end the Series, and what neither side wanted to acknowledge was that their arguments had gaping flaws. The players had not really been promised $2,000 and $1,400—if they had read the new rule for World Series shares closely, they would have seen that the commission was merely giving the players what had already been agreed on. They were entitled, after the war charities donation, to 55.5 percent of the receipts for the first four games, minus the money that would go to the second-, third-, and fourth-place teams. That was what the commission was authorized to pay them. On the other hand, the commission was leaning on the notion that it could do nothing to change the rule without a full vote of both leagues. This was utter bunk. When the rule changes originally were passed the previous winter, there had been no league-wide vote. In fact, the rule explicitly said that the commission was using “plenary power to revise the rules and regulations governing contests for the World’s Series … pertaining to the players’ share of the receipts.”3

  That is, the change was enacted on the authority of the National Commission alone. The National Commission had every right to change the rule further as it saw fit.

  What’s unclear, though, is why the commission wouldn’t do the logical thing and at least eliminate the shares slated to go to other teams. It wasn’t a matter of greed. This issue was one of dividing the players’ shares, but the owners’ shares and the National Commission’s share would not be affected. The commission was not being stubborn because it was trying to keep more money for itself or the teams. Why not just allocate all the money in the player pool to the World Series participants? The answer, most likely, was hubris. To change the rule at the behest of the players would make the commission look weak. In hindsight, it had been a mistake to change the Series ticket pricing without making a corresponding change in how the player pool was handled. But look at how the commission handled other issues in baseball, like the use of freak pitching deliveries or the growing gambling problem. Over the brief course of the game’s history, baseball’s overseers never admitted mistakes. They were not about to start now.

  Still, Mann and the players agreed to go forward with Game 4 only with the understanding that they would meet with the commission later (some reports had the meeting scheduled for that night, while others put it at 10:00 A.M. the following day). This was a happy turn of events for Boston fans—around the city, interest in the World Series had slowly perked up. “A revival of some of the oldtime World Series enthusiasm was seen in Boston in the increased crowds that gathered about the bulletin boards in newspaper row to cheer the news of the Red Sox’s victory in Chicago,” the Tribune reported.4 They figured to have quality entertainment. The World Series games had been very well played, if not well attended. The pitching was brilliant, the strategy decisive, the fielding consistent, and the baserunning heads-up. When there were mistakes, such as Charley Pick’s attempt to take home at the end of Game 3, they were mistakes of overaggressiveness, not nonchalance or failure of focus.

  But after the long train ride from Chicago, after the players figured out they were going to be paid only half the money they thought they’d get, the level of play sank. The final games of the Series were defined by strange and crucial blunders. This, quite possibly, was not a coincidence. The players knew they were coming up short on money and had plenty of time and opportunity to consort with each other on the issue. They were in Boston, the capital of baseball betting, where less than two months earlier two Reds players had sauntered into a poolroom and easily arranged to fix a game. They were playing in a Series in which the betting had been unusual, and stories began to appear about the players’ anger over the revised player pool split. The setting was perfect for the enterprising bettor. There was no easier target for gamblers hoping to fix ball games than a group of players dissatisfied with their pay.

  At about 2:00 P.M. on Monday, 30 minutes before Game 4, 54 wounded soldiers gathered at Boston City Hospital and piled into automobiles provided by the Red Cross. They got to Fenway Park just before game time and, as they slowly made their way to grandstand seats—some with heads wrapped to cover skull wounds, some hobbling with badly mangled, or even missing, limbs—the other soldiers in attendance stood and saluted. The crowd cheered, and throughout the game lines of people approached the soldiers to shake their hands. The soldiers, of course, just wanted to watch the game and cheer on the Red Sox. (Well, not Private Harry Hansen, who had lost his arm at Chateau Thierry. He hailed from Percy, Illinois, and backed the Cubs.)5

  There was excitement around the soldiers, and Boston was expecting the return of old-time World Series enthusiasm, but again the weather did not cooperate. A drenching rain the previous day kept attendance low, as only 22,183 showed for Game 4, well below the packed-house crowd of 34,000 the Red Sox were predicting. Boston held a 2–1 lead in the Series, but still, the betting lines were tight—the Red Sox were only five-to-four favorites. Babe Ruth, his swollen finger stained yellow with iodine, was able to take the mound for the Red Sox. For the Cubs, rumors spread that Mitchell would start one of his right-handed spitballers, Claude Hendrix or Phil Douglas. But in the end Mitchell did not stray from his strategy. Lefty Tyler again would be his starting pitcher.

  When Ruth took the mound, fans finally diverted their attention away from the injured soldiers and gave Babe a big ovation. Max Flack stepped in against Ruth and stroked a single to right field, and almost imm
ediately Game 4 began to look funny. Charley Hollocher lined out to shortstop, and, with Les Mann at the plate, Flack took a big lead at first and just seemed to stop paying attention. Red Sox catcher Sam Agnew took a pitch from Ruth and threw down to McInnis at first base, picking off Flack for the second out and stopping any notion of a Cubs rally. Considering the circumstances, and how tight the first three games had been, this had to be maddening for Mitchell to witness. It would get more maddening, though. In the third inning, Flack reached on a force out and was sacrificed to second base by Hollocher. With two out, Flack again took a big lead and again seemed to fall asleep on the bases, idly kicking the dirt and “giving the brown study stuff a play around the sacks.”6 Ruth turned and threw to second base, and, for the second time in the game, Flack was picked off. It’s difficult to get picked off during a game at all, but to be picked off twice in the most important game of the season is a head scratcher. There have been 104 World Series in baseball history, but Flack remains the only player to be picked off twice in the same Series game.

  Shoddy play from the Cubs—from Flack, specifically—continued in the fourth inning, with Tyler facing Ruth and two men on base. Tyler was careful with his first three offerings, throwing three consecutive balls. With a full count, Tyler stepped off the mound, looked out to right field, and wondered why Flack was playing so shallow against the best left-handed batter in the game, especially after, in Game 1, Flack had just automatically moved into deep right field. “Flack was in too close,” the Herald Examiner reported. “Tyler waved him back. Flack did not pay attention to the command. Once again Tyler motioned him, but Max was obstinate.”7 The result was predictable. Tyler gave Ruth a strike, and Ruth crushed it into right. Flack, already playing shallow, inexplicably took a step in before turning to chase after Ruth’s hit. The ball landed well over Flack’s head and rolled easily to the fence. Ruth had a triple. Two runs scored.

  For the first seven innings, the Cubs failed to score. Ruth was wild—his finger was sore, and he walked six batters in the game—but it wasn’t until the eighth inning that the Cubs finally rallied, almost in spite of themselves. Ruth walked Bill Killefer to start the inning, and Mitchell sent up Hendrix (a very good hitter) in place of Tyler. Hendrix singled, bringing up Flack. Ruth started by unleashing a wild pitch, allowing Killefer and Hendrix to move up. But Hendrix took such a wide lead at second base that he was nearly picked off, and Mitchell, having seen enough bad Cubs baserunning on that afternoon, pulled Hendrix and inserted pinch runner Bill McCabe. With two men on, no outs, and Ruth clearly tiring, “Here was a fine chance for Max Flack to redeem himself,” the New York Times commented. However, “Flack again fell down, sending an easy grounder right into the hands of [first baseman] Stuffy McInnis.”8 Hollocher grounded out, scoring Killefer, and Mann followed with a single that scored McCabe, tying the game.

  After pinch-hitting for Tyler and having to pinch-run for Hendrix because of his knuckleheaded baserunning, Mitchell had only one choice for the bottom of the eighth inning—Phil Douglas, who had warmed up in the bullpen every game but was finally making his first World Series appearance. It did not go well. Douglas was a big guy and a spitballer, to boot, but throughout his career he had never been particularly error-prone or wild. Still, he started the inning by allowing a single to Wally Schang. He then threw wildly past Killefer (the pitch was counted as a passed ball), allowing Schang to move to second base. When Hooper attempted a sacrifice bunt, Douglas came shufflin’ off the mound, picked up the ball, and threw it well over Merkle’s head into right field, allowing Schang to score and giving the Red Sox a 3–2 win. Boston now held a three-games-to-one lead.

  This was not at all a typical performance for the 1918 Cubs. One player, Flack, was picked off twice. The same player ignored the explicit command of his pitcher, who implored him to play deeper with the heaviest hitter in the game at bat, and followed that by failing miserably in a clutch situation. There also was the pitcher, Hendrix, who ran the bases so badly the manager had to pull him, though he was scheduled to take the mound the next inning. Another pitcher, Douglas, let up a hit and a passed ball and threw the game away with a wild heave to first base on a bunt. In the Globe, Ed Martin summed it up best: “The Cubs did not look like a whale of a team.”9

  The Cubs did not dwell long on their Game 4 misfortune. Almost as the game ended, the attention of the players turned back to money. They still wanted $2,000 and $1,400 but would be willing to compromise at $1,500 and $1,000. “In the wake of this third and what amounts to the decisive defeat of the World Series, the Chicago Cubs were not only a disconsolate but a highly disgruntled force last evening,” the Boston Post reported. “The subject of a much-depleted monetary reward for engaging in the classic disturbs them mightily. Threats to strike and refuse to play today’s game were uttered, and were uttered freely. This, unless the National Commission guarantees at least $1,000 to each player of the losing club.”10 The players wanted to meet with the commission immediately. But the players were, again, put off, and, according to the Post, a player-commission meeting was scheduled for 10:00 A.M.—four and a half hours before Game 5—at the Copley Plaza Hotel.

  Finally, the players got their meeting with the commission. It was brief. Johnson, Heydler, and Herrmann again hid behind their inability to change the rule on payouts without a full vote of team owners. Even as the players presented different options for compromise, the commission would not budge. The matter would be considered, the players were told, but there would be no final answer until after Game 5 was played. The players could see they were being stalled—and that if the Red Sox won Game 5, it would not matter. The Series would be over, the game would be shut down for the duration of the war, and the players would be without contracts and without leverage. The player representatives returned to Fenway, angry. The commission, pleased at having defused the situation, celebrated. And when Ban Johnson and Garry Herrmann celebrated, there was almost always some libation 80 proof or stronger involved.

  At the park, the teams gathered in the Red Sox locker room underneath the Fenway Park stands. They reached a consensus. If the commission wanted to stall, that was fine. The players would stall too. They would not play until the commission gave them a guarantee on money. If the commission refused, the players would ask that their shares be donated to the Red Cross and go home. But while this revolt was brewing beneath the grandstand, up in the park itself, glorious late-summer weather combined with the possibility of a Red Sox championship attracted a sizable crowd. By 2:00 P.M., nearly 25,000 fans had settled in. But with the game set to start in 30 minutes, something wasn’t right. There was no batting practice. There were no players. Mann, in street clothes, had quickly popped onto the field for a word with Walter Craighead. But that was it. Both teams had remained in their locker rooms. They were on strike.

  Just after 1:00 P.M., Johnson, Heydler, and Herrmann got word of trouble. They were not well equipped for trouble at the moment. They were drunk. They likely continued to drink, even after hearing about the player strike—they did not show up at Fenway until 2:35 P.M., according to the Boston American’s Nick Flatley. Upon arriving, Johnson’s speech, according to the Herald Examiner, was “replete with repetitions, bubbles and strange Oriental spices.”11 The commissioners gathered in the tight umpires’ quarters. They were joined by Hooper and Mann, while a horde of writers and fans tried to see what was happening. The players, again, made their cases. But after sizing up the condition that Johnson, Heydler, and Herrmann were in, they could see it was no use. Herrmann spoke first, rambling about how much he’d done for baseball. Johnson began to sob and pushed Herrmann aside. Flatley marked down his speech: “I went to Washington,” he said, grandly thumping his own chest for emphasis and directing his speech to Hooper, “and had the stamp of approval put on this World’s Series. I made it possible. I did. I made it possible, Harry. I had the stamp of approval put on the World’s Series, Harry. I did it, Harry. I did it.”12

  Herrmann
then spoke up again. “Let’s arbitrary this matter, Mister Johnson,” he said. According to Flatley, “Then [Herrmann] launched forth into a brilliant exposition of the history of baseball’s governing board. Expert reporters took notes for a while, then quit, befuddled.” Hooper later recalled that Johnson, “came over to me [and said], ‘Harry, you know I love you. Go out and play the game.’ He put his arm around my neck and wept on my shoulder, repeating, ‘I love you. For the honor and glory of the American League, go out and play.’ Heydler never opened his mouth. It was apparent we had no one to talk to.”13 The Cubs and Red Sox had little choice. They’d have to play and hope that the commission would give them another hearing when they sobered up. Before agreeing to take the field, though, Hooper said he insisted that the commission assure the players they would not be punished for the strike. Johnson agreed.

  Outside, fans were restless. The Fenway band was ripping off numbers as quickly as possible, and several mounted policemen positioned themselves around the perimeter of the field to quell any thoughts of riotous demonstrations. Fans again began to cheer when the contingent of wounded soldiers entered, this time even more dramatically—three of the wounded, unable to navigate the Fenway stairs, were carried to their seats by their brethren. “The crowd outside burst into an immense roar of approval as the wounded soldiers and sailors came into the ball park,” the Herald reported. “These mighty heroes of the real game must have made everyone within hearing of that tribute think a mite.”14 Finally, ex-mayor John Fitzgerald, who had witnessed the negotiations in the umpires’ room, took hold of a megaphone and announced to the crowd that the strike had been settled and the players would go forward with Game 5 “for the good of the game and the public.”15 At 3:30, an hour late, the Cubs and Red Sox took the field.