The Cincinnati Red Stalkings

by Troy Soos

  Tuesday was to be our final game in Brooklyn. I’d continued to keep my mind and eyes open for anything that could provide a lead on the death of Ollie Perriman, hoping that somehow it would lead to an explanation of how I came to be set up with Rufus Yates.

  I’d talked to Curt Stram some more—or tried to, at least. I’d asked him if Katie Perriman had ever mentioned that her husband had enemies, or if she knew who’d been interested in his baseball collection. According to Stram, the only times she mentioned her husband were to complain about how he neglected her.

  I spent the last morning in New York trying to learn a little more about Dick Hurley. The New York Public Library carried old issues of the New York Clipper, the theatrical and sporting paper that covered baseball in its earliest years. The year I was interested in was 1872.

  I pored over the box scores and accounts of the Washington Olympics games. There weren’t many of them; the club folded in less than two months with a record of two wins and seven losses. In two of those games, Hurley played the outfield. He never got a base hit or scored a run, but there he was, just as the old man I’d dined with at the Sinton Hotel had said. And his teammates included former Red Stockings Asa Brainard and Fred Waterman.

  The question that troubled me was: why would Hurley be so accurate about 1872 and so vague on 1869? Why would a handful of games with an insignificant ball club be more memorable to him than a season with one of the greatest teams in history?

  Unable to find an answer to that question, I checked some newspapers from 1919 that covered the World Series. Not to see if there was anything about a scandal—those reports didn’t develop for some time afterward—but to read about the two surviving Red Stockings who’d returned to the Queen City for the Series opener.

  There were several lengthy pieces devoted to the recollections of Cal McVey and George Wright, but neither one of them mentioned Dick Hurley. I did note that Wright had traveled to Cincinnati from Boston, where he owned a sporting goods business.

  And Boston was the next stop on our road trip.

  Finished at the library, I returned to the hotel to pack before heading to Flatbush for the series finale. I also placed a phone call to my friend Karl Landfors; I told him I’d be coming to Boston after all, and that there’d be a ticket for him at Braves Field tomorrow.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I was already moving in toward the plate when Dolf Luque released the pitch. Hank Gowdy squared to bunt, and dropped a beauty that died in the thick grass. It was only supposed to be a sacrifice to move Billy Southworth to second, but I had to race in and barehand the ball. Off-balance, I threw to Jake Daubert just in time to nail Gowdy at first.

  A couple blades of grass stuck to my hand and I brushed them off on my jersey as I trotted back to my position. It struck me that I had played on this very turf when I’d first broken into the big leagues, with the Boston Braves in the fall of 1911. The park was different—the team then played at the South End Grounds on Walpole Street—but the infield grass was the same, having been transplanted here when Braves Field opened a few years later.

  “Hey, Rawlings!” came a shrill cry from the stands. “Why didn’t you roll the ball to first—it would gotten there faster!”

  It wasn’t a pleasant-sounding voice, but I was happy to hear that Karl Landfors had made it to the game.

  Luque then got Frank Gibson on a pop-up and fanned Walt Holke on three straight pitches to end the game and chalk up a 5–2 win.

  Half an hour later, I met Karl outside the park on Gaffney Street. “You sure got a good set of lungs,” I said. “Didn’t know a string bean like you could be so full of hot air.” I’d been trying to teach him about baseball for ten years. He still couldn’t keep score, or fathom the infield fly rule, but at least he was making an effort to heckle, and I thought he could use the encouragement.

  He grinned at the compliment and pushed his horn-rim spectacles higher on his long, thin nose. Karl was making some progress as far as baseball went, but his wardrobe was as limited as ever: a somber black suit draped his skeletal frame, and a derby of the same color perched on his head, hiding a scalp nearly as free of hair as a skull. “Sorry I was late,” he said. “Got held up at a meeting.”

  “Free ticket for a ball game and you go to a meeting? That’s downright un-American.” As a muckraking reporter, Socialist pamphleteer, and sympathizer to just about any hopeless progressive cause, he’d often been accused of being unpatriotic. At least with me, he knew I was only kidding.

  But he was serious when he replied, “It was actually a rather important strategy meeting.”

  “About the trial?” The Sacco and Vanzetti case had occupied most of his attention since he joined their cause last summer.

  He nodded. “Yes, we’re planning the appeal. It looks like—”

  I interrupted, “How about we head downtown while you tell me?”

  He agreed, and we got on the Beacon Street Subway. During the fifteen-minute ride, he told me about the trial of the Italian anarchists that had ended with their conviction for the murder of two men during a payroll robbery in South Braintree.

  We came out of the subway at Park Street. I suggested dinner, but Karl said he’d filled up on fried clams during the two innings he’d been at the game. So we opted for a walk through the Boston Common.

  “This appeal,” I said. “You think you have any chance?”

  “If it were strictly a matter of law, yes. The trial was an utter travesty, and Judge Webster Thayer was blatantly biased. He even bragged to one of his cronies that he’d get them hanged. That’s the prosecutor’s role, not the judge’s.”

  “Jeez, Karl. That’s awful.”

  “Thayer also liked to refer to them as ‘those anarchist bastards.’ Unfortunately, that’s what most people think of anarchists, so politically I don’t think we have a chance with the appeal. The rest of the Defense Committee is more hopeful.” He sighed. “Perhaps I’m just tired. I haven’t had a break for a long time.”

  “Why not take one? Get away for a while.”

  “No. There’s too much work to do.”

  A stray baseball came into our path, and a couple of boys who’d been playing catch yelled, “Little help!”

  Karl stooped down to pick up the baseball, then tried to hand it to me.

  “You throw it to them,” I said with a smile. “According to some bum at the ballpark, I’d do better rolling it.”

  “Very well. I shall.” He methodically removed his coat and hat, and gave them to me to hold. Then he went into a peculiar windmill windup that made it look as if he was trying to screw himself into the ground. With a high-pitched grunt, he let loose. The ball traveled a good forty feet before plopping to the earth.

  The two kids ran in to pick up the ball; one of them said loudly to the other, “My sister throws better than that.”

  Karl actually looked proud. His glasses had slipped down his nose, and he puffed from the exertion.

  “Not bad,” I said. “Next time I’m in town we’ll work on your hitting.”

  He put his derby back on, at a bit of an angle, and draped his coat over his arm as we resumed walking. He complained that he thought he’d pulled a muscle in his arm. I refrained from pointing out that he had none to pull.

  We crossed Charles Street to the Public Garden. “I got a problem with a judge, too,” I said. “Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.”

  “That—that—” Karl’s face reddened, and a vein bulged from his temple. I hoped he’d come up with an appropriate cussword before it burst. “That addlepated despot!”

  I wasn’t sure what that was, but I thought I got the gist of Karl’s meaning. “I figured you’d know about him from the Wobbly trial,” I said. During the war, Landis had presided over the sedition trial of Big Bill Haywood and almost a hundred other members of the Industrial Workers of the World.

  “Landis is every bit as bad as Thayer,” Karl said. “He’s bigoted, and a showboat. After the war, he tried
to have Kaiser Wilhelm extradited to Chicago. Landis wanted to indict him for murder because a Chicagoan had died when the Lusitania sank. Then there was Victor Berger, the congressman from Milwaukee—Landis sent him to prison simply for being opposed to the war.”

  I told Karl about Rufus Yates and the photograph that had been taken of us. “You think I can trust the Judge to do the right thing?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Landis’s prejudices are many—he hates immigrants, Negroes, unionists, suffragists, Socialists—and his rulings are capricious. As my friend John Dos Passos says, ‘that judge hands out twenty-five year sentences as lightheartedly as he’d fine some Joe five bucks for speeding.’ No, Mickey, you cannot rely on him to make a fair decision.”

  “You sure it’s not because you and him have different politics that makes you say he can’t be trusted?”

  Karl thought for a long moment. “I disagree with his politics. And I admit I detest the man personally. But my dislike for him is because of how he abuses his power, not simply because of a difference in philosophy.” He pushed up his glasses. “You don’t have to take my word for the fact that Landis goes by his whims instead of the law. Check into all the times his rulings have been overturned by higher courts. He probably has had more decisions reversed than any other judge on the bench.”

  I found that bit of information discouraging. “We don’t have that in baseball,” I said. “There’s no such thing as an appeal. Landis is the final authority.”

  Karl looked at me. “Then I strongly suggest you do whatever is necessary to ensure that he arrives at the correct decision.”

  The problem was I didn’t know what was necessary, because I didn’t know why I’d been set up with Rufus Yates in the first place. So I had to keep skipping around in time, from 1869 to 1919 to 1921, trying to cover all the bases.

  Thursday morning, I began an effort to learn more about the old Red Stockings from that team’s most illustrious player.

  I found Wright & Ditson Sporting Goods on Washington Street, near Filene’s Department Store in the heart of Boston’s shopping district. The large, orderly shop contained merchandise to appeal to every interest: baseball, football, and basketball gear for those who played sports; tennis and golf equipment for those who merely liked to stroll about on lawns. There were rows of shiny bicycles and shelves stocked with elegant uniforms. The only thing missing was George Wright.

  I explained my interest in meeting Wright to a salesclerk who got on the telephone to see if he could arrange an interview for me.

  While I waited, I explored the store, accompanied by a second clerk. I asked him about Wright’s baseball career after leaving Cincinnati, but the young man said he knew almost nothing about it. He did tell me that the former Red Stocking had introduced golf to Boston, brought ice hockey to the United States from Canada, and was the country’s leading manufacturer of lawn tennis equipment. Golf appeared to be the clerk’s favorite pastime, and he insisted on showing me a set of clubs. He was describing the virtues of a particular mashie niblick, when the first clerk arrived with the news that Mr. Wright would be pleased to meet me tomorrow at Franklin Park.

  I left the store wondering how anyone could play a game that used something called a “mashie niblick.”

  The golf course at Dorchester’s Franklin Park, a couple miles southeast of Braves Field, was crowded with men wielding such clubs. Most of the golfers were of middle age or beyond, dressed in funny suits with oversize caps.

  George Wright had finished playing for the day and the two of us were sipping lemonades on a patio behind the clubhouse. Our table overlooked the course, which was certainly picturesque: manicured green grass blanketed the fairways, and clusters of elms and maples dotted the rolling landscape.

  I was barely aware of the surroundings, though, because my attention was fixed on the noble face before me. Wright had deep-set, intelligent eyes; a strong nose projecting over a handsome mustache; and thinning silver hair neatly groomed. The seventy-four-year-old former shortstop, who still appeared fit enough to field the position, had removed his cap, but he still wore his golfing outfit: brown tweed Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, argyle stockings that came up to his knees, a stiff white shirt, and a neatly knotted cravat.

  I was awed to be in the presence of this baseball legend, and had difficulty finding anything to say. I finally asked him about playing in 1869, and he willingly began regaling me with tales of the old Red Stockings.

  As he talked, I relaxed a bit and noticed a couple of things. One was that he spoke with practiced ease; he’d probably been telling the same stories at banquets and business lunches for years. The other was that, unlike Dick Hurley’s supposed recollections, George Wright’s words conveyed the feel of what it was like to have been a member of the team.

  He went on to describe his later baseball career, including the competition between him and brother Harry in 1879, when both were National League managers. George came out on top, leading his Providence Grays over Harry and the Boston Red Stockings for the championship.

  I was reluctant to interrupt his stories; I could easily have listened to them for hours. But when he paused to hail a waiter for fresh drinks, I asked, “Do you still go to the ball games?”

  “Not many,” he answered. “Business, golf, and grandchildren keep me quite busy.”

  “You play a lot of golf?”

  “Nine holes every day.” He smiled. “But never more, or I might not be able to play nine the next day.” Waving his hand at the grounds before us, he added, “I do more than play—this course is my own design. Next year, it will open to the public.”

  I was disappointed that another sport had stolen the affections of this baseball pioneer.

  Wright reached into an inside pocket of his Jacket. “I do get to a few of the Braves and Red Sox games,” he said. He showed me a couple of passes. One was for Fenway Park; the other was a solid silver “Lifetime Pass #1” for all National League ballparks. “The game has grown so much,” he said. ”When I was a boy, I played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken. Beautiful spot for baseball, but it was just a pasture surrounded by trees—no fences, no seats for spectators. Now to see these big new parks like Fenway and Braves Field ... it’s remarkable to me.” He leaned back. “You know, there’s still not one of them that can compare with the old Union Grounds in Cincinnati, though.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Union Grounds was a pretty little park, but it’s not the structure that made it so special. It was everything that surrounded a ball game in those days: the parades, being taken to the game by carriage, bands playing, banners waving, the crowd cheering ...” His eyes looked upward, and I was happy to see that they did still have a spark of passion for the game, at least for the one he used to play. “To take the field and see the flags flying from the cupola over the Grand Duchess—”

  “Grand Duchess?”

  Wright explained that it was the nickname for the grandstand which was reserved for the ladies. “And, oh, how the ladies adored us,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes. “They’d wave red handkerchiefs, and some of them would wear red stockings. Of course they had to lift their skirts above their ankles for us to see them, and that was considered quite provocative in those days.”

  “Speaking about the ladies,” I broke in, “I heard that’s why Dick Hurley left the team—something about a girl named Sarah. They eloped, some say. Do you know if that’s true?”

  “I don’t recall the name of the girl,” he answered. “But I do believe I heard something about an elopement.”

  I then asked him about the homecoming on July 1, 1869, and the banquet that night. He gave me a recounting of the parade, the exhibition game, and the dinner. Although I enjoyed hearing it from his perspective, he didn’t say anything that I hadn’t already read or heard about. And, again, it all sounded smooth and polished.

  “Mr. Wright,” I said, “this might be important. Could you please try to think back if anything happe
ned that night with Dick Hurley? Did you see him with a girl at the banquet? Or did anything unusual happen?”

  He frowned and studied me for a moment. “You sound serious.”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Hurley was shot last week. And it may have to do with something that happened in the summer of ’69.”

  “Shot!” Wright repeated. “Did he survive?”

  “So far, but the last I heard, he’s still in the hospital. He came to Cincinnati for the opening of an exhibit on the Red Stockings, and a woman shot him at his hotel.”

  “Oh, my.” Wright appeared to be searching his memory. His tone no longer sounded like he was giving a banquet speech when he said, “I believe the story about Hurley running off with a girl was just a rumor. The team never discouraged it, though.” He smiled wryly. “Been telling the same story myself for so many years, I suppose I got to believing that’s what really happened. But it’s not why he left the club.”

  “Do you know the real reason?”

  He answered sadly, “My brother fired him for drunkenness. We were trying to make baseball respectable, and Harry had no tolerance for drunkards. In fact, Harry Junior, my nephew, was a fine ballplayer and could have made the big leagues in the eighties, but his father wouldn’t let him play because of all the rummies in the game. We weren’t exactly saints, mind you. Charlie Sweasy and Asa Brainard in particular could be problems. But Hurley embarrassed the team in public.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was so inebriated at that homecoming banquet that he couldn’t walk under his own power and had to be carried out. In front of the city’s leading citizens. Harry fired him the next morning. We didn’t want to humiliate him by giving the reason publicly, and of course it would have reflected badly on the team to say why he’d been dismissed. So Hurley just quietly went away. Must say, I prefer the story that he ran off with a girl.”