Fenway 1912

by Glenn Stout

  Like Pedro Martinez many years later, Wood had unusually long fingers that he used to impart terrific backspin on the pitch to help it move, and he delivered the ball with a unique and pronounced snap of the wrist that drew comment from everyone who saw him throw. "The wrist comes down and the ball leaves my finger quickly," Wood once explained, "thereby giving the ball the extra speed they say I have." He also threw each pitch, as he once said, "with all the energy I have," a habit that caused old-timers to shake their heads and wonder what was keeping his arm from falling off. Wood complemented his fastball with a so-called 12-6 curveball that did not curve so much as drop straight down, from twelve o'clock to six o'clock, a pitch that he could throw at various speeds. Wood occasionally claimed that he never threw what was then called a "slow ball" or a changeup, but that was a ruse. Smart hitters knew better.

  Yet unless Wood could command his fastball, his other pitches were ineffective, and he knew it. His pitching philosophy was uncomplicated and direct and built around his best pitch. "When you stop to think of it, good pitching is only the knack of throwing the ball accurately so it will pass the batsman in a way that queers the sure eye," Wood once said. "That's why I believe in the fastball." It was that simple. In order to succeed Wood needed confidence in his ability to throw the fastball whenever and wherever he wanted.

  That was what made Wood's catcher so important him. Despite the earlier report indicating that Wood had asked to pitch to Carrigan, as the season continued the two men, who were not close anyway, did not see eye to eye. Yet Wood's growing discontent with Carrigan as a receiver went beyond any personal animosity. Before breaking his leg in 1911, Carrigan had been one of the quicker and more active backstops in the game. But the broken leg had slowed him down. He did not move as well behind the plate anymore, either receiving the ball or throwing it. That affected Wood more so than Boston's other pitchers. Not only did Carrigan have a bit of trouble handling Wood's fastball—particularly when Wood missed location and Carrigan had to react quickly—but Wood, who still struggled to hold runners on base despite throwing from the stretch, needed a good-throwing catcher to keep base runners close and allow him to concentrate on pitching. The problem was that no matter how close Wood held runners to first base, Carrigan could no longer get rid of the ball fast enough to prevent most players from stealing. As a result Wood was forced to pay more attention to men on base and to pitch differently to hitters, both to keep them off base in the first place and then to hold runners close when they did reach first.

  Earlier in the season Wood had successfully lobbied Jake Stahl to have Les Nunamaker catch on the days he pitched, but in truth Nunamaker wasn't a dramatic improvement over Carrigan. The two other catchers on the team, Hick Cady and Pinch Thomas, were on the roster primarily to keep them from playing for anyone else. Neither had major league experience, Stahl had no faith in either man, and they had hardly played.

  Wood was not the only Boston pitcher struggling. Although Hall was pitching well and Bedient was gaining confidence, Eddie Cicotte remained awful, and Buck O'Brien was maddeningly inconsistent. Perhaps they all needed some time away from Boston.

  Unfortunately, Cleveland was not the cure. Although the Indians were only playing .500 baseball, they took three of four from Boston, giving Hall his first defeat of the season and also beating Bedient and O'Brien. Wood won his eleventh game, but still gave up four runs and had to pitch ten innings to earn the victory. The only good things that happened in Cleveland were that lefty Ray Collins of Vermont, a stalwart of the staff in 1911, made his first appearance in relief and, after weeks of inactivity, Jake Stahl finally made a brief appearance. He had been out for so long with the bad ankle that some had questioned his fortitude. Indeed, according to some baseball historians, the phrase "jaking it," which refers to an injured player milking his recovery, was first used in reference to Stahl. He knocked in three runs in one game against Cleveland before returning to the bench, having turned a sure home run into a triple because he still couldn't run. Still, he would soon return to the lineup full-time and send Hugh Bradley and his anemic bat back to the bench. With each passing day Bradley's blast over the left-field wall seemed more and more an anomaly. In fact, a little more than a month after the Yankees had wanted Bradley as part of a deal for Hal Chase, the Red Sox put Bradley on waivers and found no takers. The Sox left Cleveland for Detroit down another game to the White Sox.

  When they arrived in Detroit on June 5 they got their first look at Detroit's new ballpark, Navin Field, named after Frank Navin, who owned half the club. The other half was owned by Bill Yawkey, who inherited his money from his father, who had made his fortune in the logging and deforestation of Michigan's great north woods. When Bill Yawkey's sister's husband passed away, he would eventually adopt his nephew, Tom Austin. Bill Yawkey would give young Tom both the Yawkey name and, eventually, the Yawkey fortune, which in 1933 Thomas Austin Yawkey would use to purchase Fenway Park and the Red Sox. Although Yawkey was as responsible for the new park as Navin and could have had his name attached to it had he wanted, he deferred to his partner. He liked owning the Tigers because he liked palling around with ballplayers and was uninterested in leaving behind a monument bearing his name.

  Because of the rain that had delayed the opening of Fenway Park, Navin Field had opened for business on the same day. Built on the same site as its precursor, Bennett Park, Navin Field was in many ways Fenway Park's spiritual and architectural cousin, albeit a bit more spacious. That was no accident, for both clubs utilized the services of Osborn Engineering in Cleveland in the building of their parks. Like Fenway, the concrete-and-steel ballpark in Detroit featured a single-deck grandstand with a similar configuration and pavilions that stretched down not just the first-base line, as in Fenway, but down the third-base line as well. And just like Fenway, center field was occupied by a section of bleachers. The twin scoreboard on the left-field fence was identical to that at Fenway Park and had been built by the same manufacturer. The field even mimicked Fenway Park's orientation to the sun. In 1926, however, a second deck would be added to the original single-deck structure, and any similarity to Fenway Park would be obliterated.

  The construction of so many concrete-and-steel ballparks in such a brief time period provided evidence of just how deeply the game of baseball had become ingrained into the fabric of American life and how important it had become. Prior to the concrete-and-steel era ballparks had been less permanent, wooden structures that after only a few years were destined to decay. Although investments in concrete-and-steel structures were made primarily because of insurance and safety concerns, the decision to invest in such a durable structure was also emblematic of baseball's permanence. Baseball franchises like the Red Sox had come to represent the character of their city and were now worthy of homes that reflected their place in the hearts and minds of their people. The concrete-and-steel ballpark era provided evidence that baseball was a lasting part of the culture. Like public buildings, they were built to last. The game was here to stay and so, presumably, were its structures. These ballparks became homes for the aspirations of the game, and they would evolve to fit their cities and grow in importance to the fabric of the surrounding communities.

  The Sox were impressed. Navin Field was much like Fenway, only bigger in scale, including a 125-foot flagpole in deep center field and a few other interesting features, such as a dark green backdrop in center field for the benefit of hitters, which batters loved but pitchers detested. That feeling became even more pronounced among Boston pitchers after the Red Sox dropped two of the first three contests to the Tigers. Since beating Washington in the first game of a doubleheader on Memorial Day, the Sox had now lost five of eight.

  Yet there was still some reason for optimism. Although Hall lost again, Buck O'Brien pitched well to earn a win, and in his first start of the season Ray Collins, his bum knee finally healed, pitched relatively well in defeat as he replaced Eddie Cicotte in the rotation. And fortunately for the Red Sox
, the first-place White Sox had gone into a tailspin. Instead of falling further behind in the race, the Red Sox remained only two games behind Chicago, although Washington, which had not lost since that same Memorial Day doubleheader against Boston, was closing fast.

  Wood pitched the series finale, and after the Sox erupted for four runs in the top of the first, he made it stand up and salvaged a split for Boston with an 8–3 win. He still wasn't the best pitcher in baseball, but he had been able to get outs when he needed them. Tim Murnane noted that "Wood never worked more earnestly in a game. Several times Ty Cobb was in position to make trouble with a safe drive, but the Kansas Cyclone cut the Georgia Peach off without the semblance of a hit." Chicago lost again, and with their next stop St. Louis, Boston now trailed by only a game.

  The Red Sox arrived in St. Louis knowing there was nothing like a series against the Browns to cure the ills of a flailing ball club. Boston's batters relished the opportunity to feast on the Browns' pitching staff, and Boston's hurlers looked forward to throwing in the steamy heat of the old river town, which made the arm feel loose and free. Even better, the Browns had gotten off to a slow start and were now lurching to a complete halt. About the only thing about the club that did not reek of ruin and decay was their ballpark, Sportsman's Park. An earlier wood structure had been rebuilt in steel and concrete in 1909, the third such park in the majors. It was, in a way, the kind of park Fenway was first intended to be: the grandstand featured a double deck with single-deck wings extending down each line. But of all the concrete-and-steel ballparks of the era, Sportsman's Park, like the Browns themselves, was rather dull and uninteresting. Although later renovations would give the park some charm, as first constructed it was as colorless as the team that called it home.

  St. Louis fans were accustomed to watching the Browns lose, and they were not disappointed when Boston came to town. In the first game things got so bad that St. Louis fans spent most of the game cheering Tris Speaker, and with good reason. He hit for the cycle, and Duffy Lewis also chipped in with a home run as Bedient scattered ten hits in a 9–2 win. But the big news was in Chicago, where the White Sox, playing at home, were falling apart. All of a sudden Boston was closing on Chicago.

  They could smell it, and the next day, for perhaps the first time all year, the Red Sox came alive and through pure effort won a game they should have lost. Trailing the Browns 2–1 behind O'Brien, Boston tied the game in the eighth when Carrigan knocked in Larry Gardner. Then, in the ninth, Steve Yerkes singled. After Speaker made an out, Stahl called for the hit-and-run play. Yerkes broke for second base, and Duffy Lewis complied by bouncing a slow ground ball to Browns third baseman Jimmy Austin. He fielded the ball cleanly and threw to first as Lewis gamely raced down the line.

  But Lewis's hard run caused Austin to make what Paul Shannon described as a "lurid throw" that sailed high and careened against the stands. In Fenway Park, where the pavilion was angled toward the field, such overthrows usually bounced back at a sharp angle toward the field of play, making it difficult to advance more than one extra base. But in St. Louis the pavilion was parallel to the foul line, and the ball bounded along the barrier into foul territory far down the right-field line. As Steve Yerkes, hardly a speed demon, rounded second base he saw manager Jake Stahl waving madly in the coach's box. Yerkes kept running, and when Stahl sent him around third base, he headed home and barely beat the throw to the plate. When Yerkes made it to the dugout he was swept up in the arms of his teammates, a rare expression of public camaraderie on a team that still struggled to pull together as one. Meanwhile the White Sox were losing again, and when Duffy Lewis gathered in a fly ball at the base of the left-field bleachers for the final out of the game, the Red Sox were in first place in the American League for the first time since April 23.

  Winning made everything easier, but it was not a time for gloating. The Red Sox realized, as one Boston writer noted, that their spot in first place "was accomplished not so much by the superior playing of Boston as by the unlooked for slump of the Chicago team." Besides, Washington still had not lost since Memorial Day, and truth be told, Boston worried more about the Athletics, a sleeping giant lurking in fourth place, than about either Washington or the White Sox.

  A's manager Connie Mack thought his 1912 team was the most talented he had ever managed, but after winning two pennants the A's were both overconfident and wracked by dissension. Much of that was due to a series of articles that A's second baseman Eddie Collins authored in American magazine during the off-season. In one, he revealed how opposing pitchers tipped their pitches. Collins's teammates were incensed that he revealed such critical information for his own personal gain at their expense. The A's clubhouse began to fracture and slowly split apart.

  The next day the news got better for Boston by getting worse. Charley Hall, using what the Post called "a variety of benders and shoots that had the Browns ducking and backing away," was working on a 4–0 shutout. Then, with one out in the third inning, St. Louis shortstop Bobby Wallace took a cut and fouled a pitch straight back. Boston catcher Les Nunamaker didn't have a chance. A week before, in Cleveland, he'd taken a pitch off his bare hand, and it was still sore and swollen. Now the ball split the skin between his thumb and forefinger. He bent over double as blood spurted to the ground like a fountain. He was rushed to the hospital for stitches, and Bill Carrigan came into the game.

  George Ellard, catcher for the old Red Stockings in 1869, once captured the catcher's plight in verse:

  We wore no mattress on our hands

  No cage upon our face

  We stood right up and caught the ball,

  With courage and with grace.

  Nunamaker and other catchers of his era had benefited from some improvement to the equipment, such as a padded glove, a thin chest protector, a wire face mask, and rudimentary leather shin guards, but compared to today's catchers, decked out in high-tech armor, they were almost defenseless. Few catchers at the major league level had all their teeth, most had had their nose broken multiple times, and their fingers were usually contorted and misshapen from repeated breaks.

  Nunamaker's bad break, however, proved fortuitous to the Red Sox. Boston was due to play in Chicago next, and there was some speculation that Stahl would hold Joe Wood back a day to pitch the opener. But with the White Sox on the skids, he once again chose to avoid wasting Wood opposite Ed Walsh, and Wood got the call to pitch the series finale against St. Louis.

  Despite the injury to Nunamaker, his catcher would not, however, be Bill Carrigan. Forrest "Hick" Cady, Boston's third-string catcher, drew the surprise assignment.

  The hulking, twenty-six-year-old rookie from Illinois—whose nickname was an abbreviated version of his childhood nickname, "Hollick," though it could have described his rural upbringing and naïveté—had been a professional since 1906. He was so raw when he started his pro career that he later liked to tell a story about the time his minor league manager ordered him to call for a pitchout. He did not, and when his manager asked why, Cady explained that he didn't think it was in his pitcher's repertoire. The catcher himself had not known what a pitchout was. Nevertheless Cady learned fast, and in 1911 he had benefited from catching the aging veteran and former Giants great "Iron Joe" McGinnity for Eastern League Newark, impressing Boston scouts. After the season the Sox, worried about the condition of Bill Carrigan's broken leg, acquired Cady in exchange for $6,000 and two players.

  He impressed observers from the outset, particularly with his arm. Tim Murnane noted that Cady threw "dead to the mark all the time." Even though the Sox did not really need him after Carrigan proved relatively sound, in the spring of 1912 Cady made the roster to keep him from being grabbed by another club. Yet he hardly ever played. An ankle injury early in the year had slowed him down, and with Carrigan and Nunamaker on the roster he was still, at best, Stahl's third choice behind the plate. He spent most of his time warming up the pitchers Stahl tried not to use.

  Cady was a large player for
the era, standing 6'2", and although not very fast, he was quick and agile. For the rest of the season—and for one season only—he was the answer behind the plate for Boston, just as veteran catcher Elston Howard would be for the Red Sox in 1967 after being acquired in midseason. As A. H. C. Mitchell accurately observed later in Sporting Life, "Wood has more confidence with him [Cady] behind the bat." He wasn't alone. From the time he entered the lineup virtually every Boston pitcher threw the ball better with Cady behind the plate, and the rookie also hit better than any other Boston backstop. If there was one change that made a difference for the Red Sox during the course of the 1912 season, it was when Hick Cady entered the lineup. He helped make Joe Wood a star.

  As Carrigan and Nunamaker looked on the next day Wood pitched to Cady for the first time in competition since spring training. At the start of the game Nunamaker, Cady's roommate, called for him to "keep up the reputation of the room!" Cady, normally soft-spoken, took that as a challenge. He turned to the bench and called out, "If they give me the chance, they'll never miss you." The remark raised some eyebrows, but Cady was correct. Although he and Wood were not yet on the same page—Cady did not know the strengths and mostly weaknesses of the Browns hitters, and Wood shook him off repeatedly, in essence calling his own game—that was probably for the best. That gave Cady a chance to see how Wood liked to work, and for the first time all year Wood got to throw exactly what he wanted, when he wanted.

  It worked. Wood dispatched the Browns 5–3 as Cady chipped in with a hit and a sacrifice, and Wood blasted a home run to help his own cause, although he gave it back when a base runner took advantage of his slow wind-up and stole home. Still, it was a nice start for what would soon become Boston's best battery. And in a superstitious age Wood's victory with Cady behind the plate gave Jake Stahl a great excuse to continue to have Cady catch Wood instead of Carrigan—it was considered bad luck to break up a winning combination. As Cady predicted, Nunamaker was not missed and barely played the rest of the year. Wood was now 12-3 and finally starting to pitch up to his record.