Baseball’s unintended genius
Retelling the 1920 Indians’ story
Genius ideas are not always the spark behind promotional greatness. Sometimes they just happen. I suggest you google Birth of Advertising and B. Kliban. Come back here when you are done.
Pitchers will tell you every home run came on one of their mistakes. Hitters will take full credit. Nobody really knows. Even when something seems to work, there will be resistance. It’s often a lurch, not a steady flow, to progress.
Leading the way are cranky old men, perhaps someone who looks like me, who are just a tad afraid that change will come along and ruin the world just after the finally got it all figured out. Some of the fat cats of baseball looked like me.
For a demonstration, go back on the Internet and ask an old-timer about the value of Wins Above Replacement. But don’t expect us to wait this time, you will be gone too long.
Baseball in 1920 was still in the process of stumbling into genius ideas and Babe Ruth was the guy who made them look awkward by hitting so damn many home runs.
“The socking Mr. Ruth has started a home run epidemic which threatens to kill off the visible supply of baseballs if it isn’t stamped out in a hurry,” wrote somebody in the June 20, 1920 Plain Dealer. I say somebody because despite being filled with opinion and cranky observations this article on the sports page was unsigned.
“It used to be considered surpassing wondrous when one home run was banged in the Polo grounds in New York every week or so,” he wrote. (I’m assuming he’s a man.) “But now — ah! The other day, with Ruth setting the pace with three four-baggers, a total of eight home runs was compiled by the performing baseball hoi polloi.”
The purple prose tells a disturbing story.
“All of a sudden the other noble athletes became cognizant of the fact that Babe was monopolizing the spotlight. So they girded their loins, clutched their bats with a more feverish clutch, a look of hate came into their eyes as they stepped up to the plate — and what has been happening since is making baseball history.”
Sosa and McGwire they were not.
“Ruth topped the pack into early June with fifteen ‘all around the mulberry bush’ drives — an amazing showing. But Ruth isn’t out in front of the pack by a huge margin, at that. A half dozen other clubbers, who thought it a social error to compile even three homers in a season, have cracked out from five to nine four basers. ‘And we’re just hitting our stride,’ they snort”
As another Ohio newsman, Less Nessman, once said: “Oh, the humanity.” I think he stole that phrase.
This was a year before what was to become known as the Rueben Rule. It came after a fellow named Rueben Berman decided that a ball that came his way at the Polo Grounds belonged in his pocket. Because that was seen as theft in those days he was escorted from the park. Rueben sued and won $100 for his trouble. (The ball was gone; he threw it into the crowd as he was escorted away) You can thank him for making it possible for you and your children to keep any ball you catch at the ballpark. Soon fans across America were going home with balls, not out of generosity and marketing genius of the owners but because of the outrage and litigation of Mr. Berman.
Our Plain Dealer writer explains the owners pre-litigation insanity as that Pesky Ruth guy was sending baseballs into the hands of the great unwashed. “The magnates are wondering how much longer their coffers can stand up under the strain of having a lot of $2.75 perfectly good baseballs pounded into the never never land — from which none e’er returns.”
Yes, the Poobahs had no idea that a baseball hit by Ruth might hold a place of honor in a family’s home for decades, promoting baseball by passing from generation to generation until it is sold off a hundred years later to pay for a new three-bedroom home.
Those myopic owners won by losing!
On to League Park, where the right-field fence was only 290 feet away with a 45-foot fence, short enough to tempt any left-handed batter, even a Hall of Famer like Tris Speaker who made his reputation hitting singles and doubles.
When he faced Walter Johnson and the Washington Senators on June 18, 1920, Speaker might have thought his home-run hitting days ended when he left Boston, where he led the league with 10 in 1912, the first season of Fenway Park.
However, Johnson, known as the fastest pitcher and strikeout king of his era, was getting on in years, baseball-wise, when he came to town that day. The 37-year-old was gone after five innings, in part because Speaker hit a run-scoring double in the fifth inning, trailing 5–2. He was replaced by Tom Zachary.
The PD’s Henry P. Edwards takes over the play-by-play:
“In the next round, Tris Speaker showed his appreciation of Zachary’s presence by slamming the ball to center for four bases. Under ordinary conditions the drive would have been good for but one base, but it hopped away from Center Fielder Rice and bounded to the score board. Chapman scored ahead of his manager.”
(That’s Sam Rice and Ray Chapman. The PD of that era felt now obligation to provide first names and sometimes referred to players by the nicknames only. I have no idea why he capitalized Center Fielder as if it were a formal title.)
So Speaker did his homer-hitting in a fashion that allowed management to keep the ball and return it for play, denying someone on Lexington Avenue a souvenir! As manager he might have considered himself a company man.
The winning pitcher of this game was Ray Caldwell, in no small part because he did not allow a home run. His complete-game victory included only seven hits, one unearned run and three walks. It was hit eighth victory of the season.
The 9–2 win left the Indians at 36–17 and one game ahead of the Yankees, 7.5 ahead of the defending champions Chicago White Sox.
The Indians would play five more games in this homestand, against the Senators and Red Sox, before entering the heat of the summer for a road trip that began on June 25 until the next home game a month later, on July 25.
June 18 box score.
NOTE: It’s likely that 1920 readers understood: “having a lot of $2.75 perfectly good baseballs” meant that baseballs were sold by lot, as in a dozen, as opposed to a unit cost.
Dave Scott was a newspaper writer and editor for 40 years. He is a lifelong baseball fan and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research for decades, although SABR records might indicate I skipped my dues on occasion! DavidAScott@gmail.com I owe a great debt to the Cleveland Public Library for its excellent resources.
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The following have helped me tremendously with editing, error correction and technical advice:
David Bodemer
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Thanks to all of you!
Previous blog posts:
The Spitter Starts Sliding Out of Baseball
It Happens Every Spring — in Cleveland Anyway
Cleveland Fans Party — Tribe Style
Throwing it around in the old days
Bagby Flashes but Soon will Fade
Playing it again
In this Strat-O-Matic replay the great Walter Johnson also got pounded, leaving this game in the third inning after allowing eight runs.
The difference is that the Senators came back, tying the score with an eight-run eighth inning and going ahead in the ninth. The problem was that once Ray Caldwell tired there were few good options in the bullpen.
Caldwell allowed 10 runs and 15 hits, unheard of in our era and not so good in 1920, either. He was followed by Dick Niehaus, who gave up two runs and Tony Faeth gave up a hit, a walk and an unearned run. Niehaus finishes the day with a 7.06 ERA! Faeth is a more respectable 2.53 but in only 11 innings. Both relievers would be out of the major leagues after 1920.
These SOM Indians are 35–18 and two games ahead of the 35–22 Yankees. It seems rainouts were more common in 1920 and the teams often have considerably different total games played.
I hope to have a Netplay game each week, so if you are a Strat-O-Matic player, let me know you would like to play. DavidAScott@gmail.comPlaying it again
