Philadelphia Blues
Retelling the 1920 Indians Story
Bicker, Bicker, Bicker.
Ballplayers say the owners cheat them. Owners say the cities cramp their styles. Cities hate court restrictions. And everyone hates the umps.
Aren’t you glad this is 100 years behind us.
WARNING: This blog post contains irony, sarcasm and facetious quips.
The game of the week is from Sunday, May 23, the Athletics 2–1 victory over the Indians at League Park. But to properly tell this story with all of the stridence and snide commentary necessary, I must start with the Indians’ 4–1 victory over the Athletics at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park the day before, Saturday, May 22, 1920.
You might be puzzled at the teams playing back-to-back games in different cities. It’s because the A’s were singing the blues about the way the city of Philadelphia was treating them.
Blue laws once were a big deal but many Ohioans only experience them if they try to buy whisky on the way to church on a Sunday morning. Blue laws once restricted a raft of Sunday happenings based on the idea that Sunday was the Lord’s Day and the Bible calls on everyone to rest and worship on that day.
In Philadelphia, that meant no baseball in the Shibe Park neighborhood. The A’s had been whining about the restriction for decades and would for decades more.
Here’s a portion of Wikipedia’s summary of A’s manager Connie Mack’s issue with the city: “The main driving force behind his interest in playing on Sunday was to earn money. The Athletics were not a wealthy baseball club, and Athletics vice-president John Shibe estimated that the team would make $20,000 for each Sunday game that they played in Philadelphia. Mack thought that, for the team, it was financially necessary to play on Sundays, explaining that ‘we [the Athletics] cannot meet our payrolls playing on seventy-seven weekdays at home’. Many Pennsylvania politicians and religious groups opposed Shibe and Mack’s effort for Sunday baseball, claiming that playing on that day was a ‘breach of peace’ and that the games would be ‘a disturbance to persons in that neighborhood desirous of preserving the peace and quiet of Sunday so that they may in such peace and quiet pursue their religious worship and meditation’. Unfortunately for the Athletics, Philadelphia’s other baseball team, the Phillies, took no public position on the subject, undermining the Athletics’ case.”
If you enjoy political bickering, Philadelphia style, follow the link to Wikipedia and beyond to see how Pennsylvania and U.S. Courts cramped the style of the City of Brotherly Love. Or you can stay here and imagine what it was like for the A’s to hop on a train headed to Cleveland on a Saturday night after losing three straight home games with the idea that they would play one in Cleveland and slide back onto the train for a Monday game against the White Sox in Philadelphia.
The A’s had only one road game between May 11 and May 29 and it was at League Park. They were 6–11 over that stretch.
Before we chug out of Philly, let’s talk about that May 23 game at Shibe. Here to bring us unbiased reporting, 1920 style, is Robert W. Maxwell, writing for the Plain Dealer.
“PHILADELPHIA, May 23 — The Indians scored a double victory at Shibe Park this afternoon. First, they trimmed the Athletics, 4–1, in the third game of the series, making a clean sweep, and as a finale battled a crowd of 3,000 fans, who showed a keen desire to get better acquainted with Umpire Hildebrand. The arbitrator made two decisions which were absolutely fair, but as they were against the home club, the crowd did not take kindly to them.
When the last man had been put out in the ninth, the fans swarmed on to the field and surrounded Hildebrand and [umpire]Billy Evans. They, meaning the umpires — kept going and nothing was done until they were close to the players’ dugout. Then some of the brave persons in the rear pushed those in front and for a time it looked as if there would be an old fashioned mob scene.”
This was when Philadelphia needed heroic ballplayers to rescue the city from national embarrassment and convince the fans to take the high road. Instead, they let the Tribe do it.
“Tris Speaker jumped in front of the mob, and held them back single handed until the umpires left the field. Doc. Johnston grabbed a bat and rushed to his assistance and was followed by Chapman, Gardner, Wamby, Graney and Wood. Then some of the Philadelphia players decided to take a hand but the danger was over. One fan took a punch at a player who looked like Joe Boehling but the fan got the worst of the argument.
“While the crowd was massed in front of the grandstand, some humorist threw a cushion. That was a signal for hundreds of heavy missiles to follow and hundreds of straw hats were smashed. The police appeared by this time and they, too, were made targets. The crowd took it good naturedly and no one was injured.
The action of the crowd was a big surprise for it is something strange here. The folk in Philadelphia are accustomed to losing ball games and shouldn’t get excited. If they did there would be a rough and tumble battle every day.”
(I should have mentioned that not all of the sarcasm would come from my careful prose.)
Getting out of town probably seemed like a good idea at the moment. Of course, Clevelanders bent things to their favor.
“Our victorious first-place Indians are going to drop in on us for a call today,” trumpeted the PD that sober Sunday morning. “They will be “at home” at League Park from 2:30 until 5 and it is believed some 25,000 or more Cleveland baseball fans will be on hand to extend a welcome and pull for another victory over the Athletics who kindly consented to come here from Philadelphia to aid in entertaining the Cleveland Populace.”
I’m uncertain how they knew the game would be over at 5. In modern terms that seems absurd, as the baseball science has advanced to the point of doing in three or four hours what once only took 180 minutes. My research to determine if there was some kind of funky Blue Law curfew on Sunday afternoons failed to turn up anything.
On this day the Indians were done in by a trend often recognized by modern fans: a soft-tossing lefty who turns Tribe sluggers’ bats into noodles.
This day’s southpaw is Pat Martin.
On to Henry P. Edwards, who was trusted to write about home games but spared trips to Philly:
“Martin earns his living with his left arm. Judging from what his south whip displayed yesterday, it should keep Pat out of the bread line for a few years. Prior to yesterday, Pat had not been entrusted with the honor of starting many games, but when Mack saw his alleged regulars being clouted by the redskins, he decided to hold Naylor, his pitching ace, for the home folks and try out Martin away from home.
“All Martin did was hold the hard hitting Indians to five hits. Five hits, properly assembled, will win many ball games, but Martin did not allow them to assemble. He scattered them through as many innings and permitted but two of the five when redskins were on the bases, and not even then when there was a tribesman on second and third.”
If you followed that link to Martin’s Baseball Reference page, you noticed this would be Martin’s only win of his feeble career. He finished his two-year, major-league stint later that season. His 1920 ERA: 6.12.
Now to our feature game. Coveleskie was on the mound. The Tribe had just beaten the A’s three straight and were looking for more.
The game was a dud.
“But the defense wilted in the eighth,” Edwards wrote. “Dykes led off with a teasing bounder over Coveleskie. Wamby and Chapman tried to field it with the result neither grabbed it. Thomas tapped to Covey who threw to second in plenty of time to aid in a double play. Again, there was a lack of team work at second, as in their eagerness to make the play both Chapman and Wamby ran to cover the bag. Wamby took the throw, but being fussed by the presence of his side kick, let the ball dribble through and both runners were safe. Walker followed with an attempted sacrifice to Covey but Stanley got the ball to third in time to head off Dykes.
Witt worked Covey until the count was three and two and then, with both runners sprinting for the next stations, grounded to Wamby with the result that they Indian second sacker had to be content with getting the batsman. Dugan followed with a long drive to left. Graney misjudged it long enough to allow it to drop safely at the edge of the crowd. That slam sent Thomas across the plate with the runs that gave the Athletics the victory.”
Joe Dugan had a long and undistinguished career, including being the answer to the question: Who played third base for the 1927 Yankees? He was not a bomber, never hitting more than seven homers for the Yanks. The 1920 season was the only time he was better than average in the comprehensive OPS+ ranking.
Later, Dugan got to the Yankees in a pennant-race deal with the Red Sox. Branch Rickey of the Browns objected to the effect such a deal would have on the standings and riled up the St. Louis folks.
James wrote in his Abstract that Rickey “orchestrated a campaign to get St. Louis civic organizations to protest these kinds of deals. The city council, the Rotary club and other civic organizations filed protests with Commissioner Landis, complaining that their teams could not hope to compete if the New York teams were allowed to buy off the competition in the heat of a pennant race.”
That’s how we got the Trade Deadline, first established as June 15 but now later in the season.
Following their loss to the A’s the Indians were 21–9 and in first place.
The prospects of The Stadium Game also came up this week, as told in the Plain Dealer.
“It is gratifying news to American leaguers that the owners of the New York Giants have consented to continue to rent the Polo Grounds to the Yankees as it would be almost impossible for the Yankee owners to procure other grounds and erect stands that would be as satisfactory as the present location.
New Yorkers have been educated to go to the Polo grounds for their baseball and American league interests would suffer were the Yankees forced to go to Bronx. The Giants also would have lost considerable rental of the park on days it otherwise would have been deriving no revenue.”
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
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.
I make no money from this blog. Please consider sharing it on your social media. New editions come every week, usually on Wednesday. Let me know if you want an email notice when it is posted.
The following have helped me tremendously with editing, error correction and technical advice:
David Bodemer
Ken Krsolovic
Joe Shaw
Vince Guerrieri
Scott Longert
Thanks to all of you!
Play it Again
Strat-O-Matic displays the on-base chances of each hitter and the first Indian to face Martin with an on-base LESS than 50 percent was Smokey Joe Wood at a mere 48.9 percent.
Martin never got a third out and left trailing 8–0. It was 11–0 in the third inning when I decided it was time to post this blog entry as I was already two days late!
I promise a stronger Strat effort next week.
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.com
