12 Chief Meyers
The Cahuilla Valley is high up among the peaks and spurs of the San Jacinto Mountains; a wild, barren, inaccessible spot. The Cahuilla village, situated there, was one of the most interesting that we visited. The Cahuillas seemed a more clear-headed, more individual, and more independent people than any other tribe we saw.
This is partly due to their native qualities, the tribe having originally been one of the most warlike and powerful in the country. The isolation of this village has also tended to keep these Indians self-respecting and independent. There is no white settlement within 10 miles, there being comparatively little to tempt white men into these mountain-fastnesses. The houses are of adobe, thatched with reeds; three of the houses have shingled roofs, and one has the luxury of a floor.
The Cahuillas are a particularly proud and spirited people. They will endure a great deal before they ask for help. Last winter they were for many weeks without sufficient food, due to crop failures. The teacher of their school repeatedly begged them to let her write to the Indian Agent for help, but they refused. At last, one night, two of the head men came to her and said she might write. They could no longer subdue the hunger. She wrote the letter. The next morning, at daylight, the Indians were at her door again. They would not permit her to send the letter. They had reconsidered, they said, and would not beg. They would rather starve.
—HELEN HUNT JACKSON, On the Condition & Needs of the Mission Indians of California, 1883
THE BIGGEST REGRET of my life is that I never finished my college education. I was born in 1880 in a small Cahuilla village, and I went to school there. We’re one of the tribes that make up what are usually called the Mission Indians of Southern California. Far back in the past, however, the Cahuillas are descended from a Shoshone background.
Then my family moved here to Riverside when I was about eleven or twelve, and I went to the public schools here. I didn’t even think of going to college right away after high school. Instead, I caught for various semipro teams around here, in Southern California and Arizona and New Mexico. Not in organized ball, you know, just bush-league ball, semipro, although I made a living of sorts at it.
However, after a few years of that I applied for admission to Dart-mouth, and was accepted. I was a few years older than the average college student, and getting accepted at Dartmouth was a great thrill for me. You know that Dartmouth originally started back in King George’s time as Moor’s Indian Charity School. It was a missionary school, staffed by missionaries sent over from England to convert and educate the Indians. That was when America was still an English colony.
Eleazar Wheelock was the founder of the school—Moor’s Indian Charity School—and he convinced King George III of the good work that was being done, so the Crown made large sums of money available for its continuance. However, the Earl of Dartmouth was even more impressed, and he set up a sizable fund with the stipulation that it was to be used only for the purpose of teaching any Indian who was qualified to matriculate at the school.
That fund still exists today, although few Indians know anything about it. I didn’t know about it myself until I came in contact with Ralph Glaze while I was playing in a tournament in Albuquerque late in 1904. Ralph was on Walter Camp’s All American Football Team when he was at Dartmouth, and later he became a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox.
Ralph told me about Dartmouth, and through his efforts and the information he obtained for me I eventually got admitted myself. I was the first Cahuilla to ever get such a wonderful chance, so in September of 1905 I left home and went East to Hanover, New Hampshire, to avail myself of the opportunity.
However, I never got to finish. I regret it to this day. In 1906, after my freshman year, I went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to play summer ball. I was ineligible for baseball at Dartmouth, anyway, because I’d already played professionally, and I had a chance to make a little money over the summer playing for the Harrisburg club in the Tri-State League. That was my first club in organized baseball.
When the season was over and it was time to go back to college, my mother got very ill out here in California. My brother wrote me that she wanted me home, so I came back. Mother eventually recovered, but by the time she did it was too late to go back to Dartmouth. That was an unfortunate thing. Then…well, there was nothing else to do but go on with baseball, at least temporarily.
From Harrisburg I went to Butte, Montana, in the Northwestern League, from Butte to St. Paul in the American Association, and from St. Paul I was sold to the New York Giants. That was in 1908. I have no regrets about it. I liked playing ball, and I made good at it. But I do wish I had finished my college education.
You know, Dartmouth is just like the Giants: once a Giant, always a Giant. Mr. McGraw instilled a spirit there that never left you. And this is quoted from Chaucer: once a Dartmouth, always a Dartmouth. You never lose that affection for the old school, regardless if you just get in there and get a cup of coffee. They instill that spirit into you that lasts. Dartmouth men are very, very close, all over the world. They’ll never turn you down.
In those days, of course, baseball was different than it is today. I don’t mean as a game, although that was different, too. I mean it was not well thought of, like it is today. Ballplayers were considered a rowdy bunch. We weren’t admitted to hotels, that is first-class hotels. Like the sailors in Boston, on the Commons—“No Sailors Allowed.” We were in that class. We were just second-class citizens, even worse.
Mr. McGraw was the one who changed all that. He was the one who paid the price, and even more than the price, to get his ball team into the best hotels. Now, the ballplayer is respected. But it wasn’t like that when I started. You have to realize that I began playing ball—in the bush leagues, that is—when Dewey took Manila. That was in the late 1890’s, quite a while back.
Of course, they didn’t have scouts in those days, or bonuses. Nothing like that. It was a situation where you needed them more than they needed you. Today, it seems to be just the opposite. But in those days, you just pushed yourself in. If you liked to play ball and they saw you, they took you, that’s all. And then it was up to you to prove yourself.
Ballplayers in those days didn’t take too kindly to rookies, either. Not those tough babies! They figured a youngster was in there after one of their jobs. That’s the only way they looked at a youngster. And I don’t like to say this, but in those days, when I was young, I was considered a foreigner. I didn’t belong. I was an Indian.
I remember when I broke in with that Harrisburg club in 1906 there were a lot of old-timers on that team. That was my first club in organized ball. I joined them in the middle of the season, after school was over at Dartmouth. Soon after I got there the catcher got hurt in the late innings of a game. Broke his finger and couldn’t catch. So the manager—Billy Hamilton, remember him?—he told me to put the stuff on. Which I did. The pitcher was a spitball pitcher, and I checked the signs out with him. But the first ball he pitched, he hit me right in the belly with it. I’d called for a fast ball, but he threw me a spitter. Crossed me up all the way. So there I was, a young fellow behind the plate, being crossed up in my very first game.
Chief Meyers in 1910
After that I didn’t give him any signs at all. Because I was on my own then, I wasn’t expecting anything, and I could catch him.
“What’s the matter, you’re not giving any signs?” he yelled in at me.
“What’s the use?” I said. “You go ahead and pitch.” And I caught him.
When it came time for me to hit, I had no bat. I had just reported, and for some reason I didn’t have my bat. So when it came my turn to hit I went to pick up a bat, and some guy growls at me, “Hey, Busher, drop that bat!” Just like that.
So I looked at the manager, and told him I didn’t have any bat. Well, he went over and grabbed a bat and handed it to me. Of course, I had no choice of bat or anything. And when I got up to the plate, the first pitch came whistling in sort of
high and inside—right at the old head, you know. Kind of tamed me down. But I’d figured it. I’d figured it would be like that. It was tough, don’t think it wasn’t. In those days you had to have guts. That’s all there was to it.
However, on the next pitch I hit one over the fence, clear into the Susquehanna River. There were two men on base at the time, and that won the ball game. And the next day the papers came out and gave me credit for it, and after that things started to get better.
Two years later, in 1908, I was on the New York Giants. I did pretty well at St. Paul in the American Association that year, and late in the season St. Paul sold me to the Giants. I didn’t get in any games with the Giants during the little that remained of the 1908 season. Heck, they had Roger Bresnahan there, the best catcher in the league. But the next year Roger was traded to St. Louis, where he had the opportunity to manage the team, and George Schlei and I divided the catching.
By 1910, however, I was the regular Giant catcher and, as you know, I stayed as the regular catcher until 1916. Batted over .300 for that seven-year period on the Giants, including .358 in 1912. And then in 1916 I was traded to the Dodgers.
But once a Giant, always a Giant. That’s the truth. It was because of Mr. McGraw. What a great man he was! Oh, we held him in high esteem. We respected him in every way. According to Mr. McGraw, his ball team never lost a game; he lost it, not his players. He fought for his ballplayers, and protected them. You couldn’t come around and second-guess McGraw’s players in his presence without having a fight on your hands right there. He stood up for us at all times.
Of course, errors of judgment—not thinking and not being alert—were taboo with him. He wouldn’t stand for that. But regular errors—he often said errors are part of the game, and if there weren’t any the game would be perfect and no one would come out and see us. “But don’t make too many of them,” he’d say, “or else you won’t stay here very long!”
And how he hated lies. Don’t ever come in with some alibi. That didn’t go with him. No, he loved the truth, and you’d better come with the truth and nothing else. I remember one time a young player was on second base, and the next batter singled. This kid came tearing around third base and scored, but on the way around he missed the base. The third baseman shouted for the ball and touched the base, and the umpire called the youngster out.
“What’s the matter, didn’t you touch that base?” McGraw asked him.
“Yes, I did,” the kid said. “I stepped right on it.”
“You know something,” McGraw said, “that’ll cost you $l00. For stepping on that base. Any time that umpire says you didn’t touch the base, you didn’t touch it. They never call that play any other way.”
That was McGraw. What a wonderful man he was. Honest and forthright and charitable in the deepest sense of the word. We always called him Mr. McGraw. Never John or Mac. Always Mr. McGraw. And how he hated to be called “Muggsy!” That was a sore spot with him. Sometimes we’d call him that behind his back, but if he ever heard you, he wasn’t your friend any more.
It was the same way with Bill Klem, that great old umpire. If Klem was umpiring behind the plate, all you had to do was call him “Catfish” and out of the game you’d go. That’s all. Just that one word and you were out. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it was because he had rather prominent lips, and when he’d call a ball or a strike he’d let fly a rather fine spray from his mouth. Sort of gave the general impression of a catfish, you know. He was a little sensitive about it, to say the least!
Those were great Giant teams the years I was there. Take, for instance, Mathewson. I caught almost every game he pitched for seven years. What a pitcher he was! The greatest that ever lived. He had almost perfect control. Really, almost perfect. In 1913 he pitched 68 consecutive innings without walking a man. That record is still standing, I think. That season he pitched over 300 innings and I doubt if he walked 25 men the whole year. Same thing in 1914. I don’t think he ever walked a man in his life because of wildness. The only time he might walk a man was because he was pitching too fine to him, not letting him get a good ball to hit. But there was never a time he couldn’t throw that ball over the plate if he wanted to.
Bill Klem: “…all you had to do was call him ‘Catfish’ and out of the game you’d go”
How we loved to play for him! We’d break our necks for that guy. If you made an error behind him, or anything of that sort, he’d never get mad or sulk. He’d come over and pat you on the back. He had the sweetest, most gentle nature. Gentle in every way. He was a great checker player, too. He’d play several men at once. Actually, that’s what made him a great pitcher. His wonderful retentive memory. Any time you hit a ball hard off of him, you never got another pitch in that spot again.
You know, those fellows back there, they thought, they used their head in baseball, a whole lot. They talked baseball morning, noon, and night. Baseball was their whole life. We had old pitchers, like Joe McGinnity, who’d go out and pitch two games in an afternoon. Pitch a doubeheader! He did that a number of times.
Nowadays, the pitcher wastes so much time out there it’s ridiculous—fixing his cap…pulling up his pants…rubbing his chin…wiping his brow…pulling his nose…scratching the ground with his feet. And after he does all that he looks all around at the outfield, and then he st-a-a-a-res in at the catcher giving the sign. Why, he’s afraid to throw the darned ball! And with this modern jackrabbit ball, I don’t know as I blame him.
They waste an hour or so every day that way. We always played a game in less than two hours. Never longer. Two hours used to be considered a long game, really a long game. We played a lot of games in an hour and a half. I played in one that took only 58 minutes. Nowadays, a three-hour game isn’t at all unusual.
At the Polo Grounds then, you know, the Giants didn’t even start home games until four o’clock in the afternoon. That was because of Wall Street. The stock market didn’t close until three o’clock, and then two or three thousand people who worked down at Wall Street would take the elevated train up to the Polo Grounds. They were all good fans, and that was the only way they could get in to see the game if it was on a weekday. Of course, we played only day games then. If we didn’t start until four o’clock, and we didn’t have any lights in those days, you know we just had to play a game in less time than they do today. In those days, the pitcher simply pitched, and that was that.
Christy Mathewson: “We’d break our necks for that guy”
I’m not saying anything disparaging about the athletes of today. They’re just as good and just as fast now as they ever were. In fact, I think they’re faster. But they’ve got so much to work with that we didn’t have. The equipment and the fields, for instance. It’s just like the pole-vaulters today. Like Sunny Jim, high over the fence he goes! He just boosts over. In those days we didn’t have anything. Our gloves were like a motorman’s mitt. Now they’re similar to a lacrosse net. You just catch the ball in the net.
And they strike out so much today. A lot of players with l00 strikeouts, 150 strikeouts. It’s hard to believe! As old Al Smith used to say there in New York, “Let’s take a look at the record.” If you do, you’ll find out that I’d only strike out two or three times a season. We didn’t strike out, that’s all. We hit the ball. We had big, hefty bats. Mine weighed about 47 or 48 ounces. A modern ballplayer wouldn’t have anything to do with a bat like that. They don’t have bats now. They have whips. Thin-handled things that weigh about 30 or 32 ounces. Because they’re not trying for singles and doubles. They’re not trying to just meet the ball. They’re all trying for that home run, even the little shortstops and second basemen.
Another big difference between today and yesterday is that the ballplayers are all businessmen now. They’ve got agents and outside interests and all that sort of thing. We played for money, too. Naturally. That’s how we made our living. But mostly we played just for the love of it. Heck, most of us would have paid them just to let us play. We love
d baseball.
I don’t blame the modern players for making it while the making’s good. I’m not belittling them. Why shouldn’t they get the money? We never got it. I guess in a way we were just dumb eggs. We played for practically nothing. My top was about $6,000. Matty never made more than about eight. Well—that’s the way it was then.
But we sure did have some ballplayers in those days. Old Grover Cleveland Alexander. Boy, he had stuff, don’t think he didn’t. And Walter Johnson, what a pitcher he was. That Walter could buzz it by you, he sure could. He was wonderful, the fastest I ever saw. And Rube Marquard. The record books say he won 19 straight games in 1912, but they’re wrong. He actually won 20 straight, but they didn’t give him credit for one of them. I caught just about every one of those 20 games. And do you know that of those 20 straight wins, 16 or 17 were complete games?
The one they didn’t give him credit for was one where he came in as a relief pitcher and we scored the winning run after that. Under modern rules Rube would get credit for that victory, but then they gave it to the starting pitcher, Jeff Tesreau. At that, Rube’s record was 19 wins and no losses in mid-July of that year!
And catchers: Johnny Kling, Jimmy Archer, George Gibson, Roger Bresnahan. The best throwing catcher of them all was Jimmy Archer of the Cubs. He didn’t have an arm. He had a rifle. And perfect accuracy.
You know, one player who never got the credit he deserved was Nap Rucker, the great Dodger left-hander. He was terrific. One of the smartest pitchers I ever saw, and with plenty of stuff, too. I caught him when he was about through, when I went to the Dodgers. That was in 1916. Heck, I was practically through by then myself. I was thirty-six years old. I didn’t get into the Big Leagues until I was twenty-eight. And I didn’t get to play regularly for the Giants until 1910, when I was thirty. I cheated a little on my age, you know, so they always thought I was a few years younger. But when the years started to creep up on me I knew how old I was, even if nobody else did.
The Glory of Their Times Page 18
