The worst thing about working alone was the intimidation. It was no easy task to remain calm and impartial when two teams and thousands of fans were hooting and cursing at a man and challenging his manhood, if not threatening him with violence—threats on which they often made good. A number of players were experts at exploiting this intimidating situation, ferociously “kicking” at an umpire’s decisions until he reversed his ruling, or was so shaken that he feared to make a tough call against the same club.
The men of Victorian America attacked umpires with a ferocity that seems incredible today. It may have been that, in a culture hemmed in by rigid rules of decorum, umpire bashing gratified a long-repressed urge to kick back at an authority figure. Much anger, admittedly, was anything but subconscious. Men who had bet their hard-earned money, particularly on the home team, felt justified in seeking revenge against anyone who had cheated them or their city. After a Browns victory in Philadelphia, umpire Ormond Butler had to flee to a nearby customhouse for safety. The mob waited hours for him to emerge. In the struggle that ensued, Arlie Latham got roughed up, while “the driver’s lips were badly cut by a flying brick bat.”
Marveling that so many police officers had to be diverted from their duties to escort umpires through angry mobs during the summer of 1883, sportswriter O. P. Caylor quipped that each ump should travel around the country with his own posse, or ask the governor of each state he visited to formally call out the militia for protection. “The umpire seems to be a b-a-d man,” he wrote, “beside whom a Russian Nihilist is a seraph.” Russian nihilists, needless to say, were anything but angels, given that one had succeeded two years earlier in blowing up Czar Alexander II, the man who had freed the serfs and sold Alaska to the United States.
“Mother, may I slug the umpire?” asked one poet in 1886, not so facetiously giving voice to the violent hatred the crowds felt for umpires:
Let me clasp his throat, dear mother,
In a dear, delightful grip
With one hand, and with the other
Bat him several on the lip.
Let me climb his frame, dear mother,
While the happy people shout,
I’ll not kill him dearest mother,
I will only knock him out.
Let me mop the ground up, Mother,
With his person, dearest, do;
If the ground can stand it, mother
I don’t see why you can’t too.
Some good men cracked under the pressure, succumbing to the temptation to defend their honor. In 1884, Billy McLean, tormented by the “vile epithets” of louts in Philadelphia, angrily hurled a bat into the stands, striking an innocent man. Outraged, the crowd screamed “Kill him!” and jumped down onto the field. Police placed McLean under arrest for assault. The next day, he pleaded for compassion. “Goaded by uncalled for as well as unexpected taunts, I, for a moment, and but for a moment, forgot my position as an umpire and did what any man’s nature would prompt if placed in a similar position.” McLean called on club owners to eject hecklers. “Otherwise,” he warned, “the death of an honest and manly game is in the near future.”
As if mob assaults were not dangerous enough, umpires faced a constant risk of injury from hard-hit fouls. Most used no more protective gear than a mask, and some didn’t even bother with that. John Daily of New York was working an Inter-State League game between Brooklyn and Harrisburg when a foul “almost drove the side of his face in,” breaking his jaw in two places. The doctor who treated him noted that he would be able to consume only liquid food for several weeks.
The best of these Association umpires was Honest John Kelly, twenty-six, a profane, charming, witty, hard-drinking, hard-boiled New Yorker who had played some major-league ball as a catcher. He was that rarest of creatures: an 1880s umpire who won almost universal acclaim. Kelly became something of the dean of the profession, and when he quit after the 1888 season he held the record for the most games umpired in the majors, with 587. The Louisville Commercial called him “the best umpire in the country.” O. P. Caylor went one better, contending that he was one of the best umpires ever to set foot on a ball field. “It is really refreshing to see Kelly umpire a game; he puts so much life into it,” the Ohio State Journal observed. “He is all over the field, and seldom makes an error of judgment, because he is always right there to see how it is.” Kelly asserted his authority without fear, and when fans failed to show him respect, it was they who got knocked in the next day’s paper. The Pittsburgh Dispatch blasted a crowd of “howlers” for displaying a “most painful lack of breeding” during a series in June. “Kelly has won a reputation second to no umpire in the land for fairness and ability, and it is unfortunate that he should be made the victim of such an outrageous roasting as that of yesterday,” said the Dispatch. Kicking rarely swayed Kelly. He kicked back. In May 1883, Kelly got into a screaming match with St. Louis Browns manager Ted Sullivan that created such a din it reportedly panicked a horse outside Sportsman’s Park. The animal rampaged down the street until the buggy it had been pulling was “scattered in small fragments along Grand Avenue.”
Some of the most effusive praise for Kelly that spring came from Chris Von der Ahe, of all people. Early in the season, when one St. Louis fanatic kept up a screaming tirade at Kelly, the umpire “coolly stopped the game,” walked over to the offender, and demanded his removal from the grandstand. Von der Ahe stepped onto the field, in solidarity with Kelly, and ordered the police officer on the scene to do his duty. “Well, you will have to put me out too,” warned a friend of the transgressor, as the crowd threatened to get out of control—“at which the officer dropped the first delinquent and collared the second. Assistance coming, both men were thrown out, but only the first was retained in custody.” Von der Ahe announced that he would have him prosecuted for disturbing the peace.
Returning from the club’s first road trip in May, Von der Ahe pronounced Kelly something special. Even in translation by Reid, who habitually turned the owner’s idiosyncratic speech into something approaching Oxford English, the message came through: “I can candidly assert that never before in my life have I seen a better exhibition of umpiring than was given by Mr. Kelly. . . . His decisions were not only prompt but accurate, and he displayed a practical and scientific knowledge of the game seldom seen. His judgment was strikingly good, and his decisions rang with impartiality.” Just a few weeks later, Von der Ahe would characteristically change his tune, concluding that this exemplar of umpiring perfection was rotten to the core.
JUNE 28 WAS ANOTHER DAMP, CLOUDY DAY IN THE MIDWEST. DAYS of rain had swollen the great Mississippi and every stream in its vicinity, flooding fields and streets, but the main concern of men in and around St. Louis that morning seemed to be whether the great showdown between the Browns and the Athletics would take place. “All morning,” the Missouri Republican reported, “the uncertain skies were watched anxiously from store, bank, office, factory and hotel.” To the relief of all, the rain held off, and an atmosphere of pennant-race baseball prevailed at Sportsman’s Park that afternoon. Despite the threatening weather, some six thousand people turned out, a big crowd for a Thursday—some thought the biggest ever for a weekday game in the city.
WELCOME VISITORS was painted on the grass in front of the pitcher’s box, and the city meant it. The Athletics players had “carte blanche to do everything at Von der Ahe’s expense,” the Philadelphia World reported. “All who came to the grounds and said they were Philadelphians were given the best seats in the ground free.” St. Louis baseball lovers who fondly recalled the 1876 Browns Stockings were happy to see that club’s star pitcher, George Washington Bradley, back in town, taking the field once again. “It was the same old ‘Brad,’ grin and all, but a little stouter than of old,” Dave Reid noted. Grin was stationed in center field. Bobby Mathews, who had pitched in 1876 for the New York Mutuals, took to the box once again. He was “only a little older than he was seven years ago, but sports a heavier mustache,” wrote
Reid. Considering the treatment that rowdy Philadelphians gave their Browns earlier that month, the St. Louis crowd was surprisingly gracious, giving the Athletics “a very cordial reception,” the New York Clipper noted, “contrary to expectation.” There were signs, though, that both clubs were starting to take this pennant race very seriously. Simmons and his fellow owners had canceled the Athletics’ exhibition games during the western trip, a significant loss of money, but one they felt was worthwhile to keep the men fresh and limit their risk of injury.
The pitching matchup that day featured a “Jumbo” against a “Shrimp”—George McGinnis, five feet ten and 197 pounds, a hard-throwing right-hander who had won twenty-five games for the Browns in 1882, versus little Bobby Mathews, five inches shorter and 57 pounds lighter, who had won nineteen for the Boston Red Stockings. “It was virtually a battle between the two best pitchers in the American Association,” the Republican contended. Mathews got in some trouble in the third, falling behind 1–0 when Bill Gleason drove home Tom Dolan with a double, but he was a puzzle to the Browns hitters from that point on. McGinnis was almost as good. Harry Stovey tied the game with a run-scoring double in the sixth, but the Athletics went ahead, 3–1, thanks to uncharacteristic errors by Gleason and Comiskey. In the fateful ninth inning, Bill Gleason broke Mathews’s string of five straight hitless innings with a drive to center field. While Grin Bradley was chasing it, Gleason tore around first toward second. As the throw came in, A’s second baseman Cub Stricker fumbled with the ball. But Gleason slid past the bag, and Stricker managed to slap the tag on him while Gleason grabbed for the base. “Out!” umpire Kelly cried, killing any hopes the Browns had of winning. The call “provoked a perfect storm of hisses.” As Kelly noted after the game, Gleason “hung onto the bag and played to the grand stand for sympathy,” but the ump was having none of it. The crowd “cursed the umpire and expressed the belief he had sold the game,” the Globe-Democrat reported.
The loss plunged St. Louis into mourning, noted an Athletics player, jotting down his impressions for the Philadelphia Item. Cub Stricker, returning to the hotel from an after-supper stroll that evening, “informs me that there is crepe all over the city,” he wrote. The player described the Athletics at their ease that night, savoring victory. “The boys were objects of much interest about the hotel corridors in the evening, and were looked upon like a circus or some other curiosity. The boys are all seen at their best in the evenings, lounging in chairs in front of the hotel.”
Von der Ahe spent the night in a far less placid mood. He was certain that this umpire Kelly, this man he had only recently so effusively praised, had thrown the game to the Athletics. An off day on Friday only gave the owner more time to fume, replaying in his head all the calls that went against the Browns. “The local baseball caldron was boiling and bubbling” all Friday morning, evening and night, “and is probably very hot this morning,” the Globe-Democrat reported on Saturday. Someone had informed the easily enraged Von der Ahe that Kelly “had associated with the Eclipse and Athletic nines—a gross violation of the rules. But worse than all, he had played poker with members of the Eclipse nine.” Von der Ahe made up his mind then and there: come what may, by God, that crook Kelly would not umpire the second game of the Browns-Athletics series.
On Friday, the owner wired American Association headquarters, demanding Kelly’s replacement, throwing around his considerable weight, and threatening to “break up the American Association” unless he got his way. “That was a nice remark for him to make,” huffed Charlie Mason, co-owner of the Athletics. “They say he does such things thoughtlessly, but that’s no excuse.” Mason offered $50 to anyone who could “produce reliable information that [Kelly] is crooked.” There were no takers. Still, rather than risk losing one of his most lucrative franchises—there were already published reports that St. Louis intended to jump to the National League, should the Detroit club go under—American Association Secretary Jimmy Williams sheepishly ordered Kelly to trade places with Charley Daniels, who was umpiring in Louisville. Daniels was widely regarded as an “impartial, good humored and intelligent” umpire, the New York Clipper noted in a June 23 profile. “An atmosphere of glee surrounded” Von der Ahe when word came that Kelly had been yanked, and his followers proclaimed Saturday’s game “already won.”
Following orders, Kelly climbed aboard a 7 P.M. train on the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad that Friday night, bound from St. Louis for Louisville. “All went merrily until about 9 o’clock, when consternation spread through the camp,” the Globe-Democrat reported. A telegram from Daniels informed the Browns that he had missed his train in Louisville, and there was no other train available to get him to St. Louis in time. Suddenly, the stunned Von der Ahe faced the prospect of a big Saturday game with nobody to umpire it. Without an official umpire on hand, it would have to be played as a meaningless exhibition, sure to infuriate his customers and decimate the turnout. Still convinced that he had been right to banish Kelly, Von der Ahe asked railroad officials how much it would cost to hire a special train to transport Daniels to St. Louis. The answer came back from the Louisville & Nashville Railroad: $300—an enormous sum, about thirty times what an American Association umpire earned per game in salary. Still, it was cheaper than losing the gate from a Saturday game. “All right,” said Von der Ahe. “Bring Daniels on.” At about midnight, the arrangements were finalized.
John Kelly,
by John Reilly,
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette,
September 20, 1883 (Library of Congress)
His own manager, Ted Sullivan, was “struck dumb” when Von der Ahe came to him that Friday night at the club headquarters downtown to boast about his success in switching umpires. “Kelly was all right,” Sullivan explained. “Why did you not speak to me about it?” Von der Ahe “began to realize at once that he had acted impolitic, which was characteristic of him,” Sullivan recalled, “but he did not have it in his heart to tell me that he was such a fool as to pay $300 for a special for Daniels.” Just then, a friend who served as an agent of the railroad came into the office to inform Von der Ahe that he had just received a telegram: Daniels had safely departed on a 10:40 P.M. special. “Three hundred dollars is pretty stiff, Chris, for changing umpires,” the agent remarked. Blushing at being found out, Von der Ahe urged Sullivan to look on the bright side. “Ted, we will get it back at the gate tomorrow, as it will be a great ad, to see an umpire that was brought on a special train that cost $300 and it shows my power in the Association.” In truth, a huge crowd the next day, buzzing about the newspaper coverage of Von der Ahe’s stunt, paid the expense many times over. But the presence of umpire Daniels made little difference. The Browns fell 7–2, losing their second game in the four-game series to the Athletics. Back in Philadelphia, when the final result went up on the scoreboard during a dull Phillies game, boys in the bleachers amused themselves by whistling the “Dead March” and cheering.
On the next day, a scorching Sunday in St. Louis, some sixteen thousand people packed into Sportsman’s Park, reminding one reporter of “a solid amphitheater of humanity gathered at some of the old Roman holiday entertainments.” They got a classic battle between two great clubs that stretched into extra innings. With two men out in the bottom of the tenth inning, and Fred Corey pitching for the Athletics, Comiskey drove another one of his long flies past the center fielder for a double, then stole third base, just beating the throw. That brought up old Ned Cuthbert, “who shouldered his bat and looked determined” in spite of his feeble batting record. “Ned walked to the plate, rubbed a little bit of dirt on his hands from the home plate and then faced Corey,” said the Missouri Republican. He swung at a pitch to his liking and sent “a puzzlesome bounding ball” past the pitcher. By the time second baseman Cub Stricker could get to the bouncing grounder, Cuthbert had reached first base and Comiskey had crossed home plate to give the Browns the 9–8 victory. The crowd, having waited for days for something to roar about, “went wild with deligh
t. They broke over the field and sent up yell after yell of triumph.” With a win on Monday, the Browns could salvage a split of the big series.
On that day, fierce heat roasted St. Louis again, a particular torment to Browns starter Jumbo McGinnis, “a very stout, fleshy man,” according to the Republican. To the dismay of four thousand sweating fans, the “blue legs had no trouble at all hitting Mac,” whose “pitching lacked force, speed[,] and was devoid of tactics.” Some of his fat pitches looked “so lovely that the merest novices felt ambitious to be ball players so they could whack away at this beautiful delivery.” The Browns’ embarrassing 9–1 loss—the third in four games—dropped St. Louis two and a half games back in the standings. An infuriated Von der Ahe lashed out impulsively once again. He slapped a one-week suspension on the hefty McGinnis on the grounds that the pitcher had failed to take “proper care of himself.” The Republican’s troublemaking Reid, who may have planted the bug in Von der Ahe’s ear, applauded the hurler’s punishment: “The plain truth is he is carrying so much flesh that he has no control of himself.” The plainer truth was that, as the Browns struggled to remain in the pennant chase, Von der Ahe had deprived Ted Sullivan of one of his two starters—and one of the elite pitchers in the American Association. Despite sporadic soreness in his arm, McGinnis would win twenty-eight games that season, post the fourth lowest earned run average in the league, and lead the circuit with six shutouts.
The Summer of Beer and Whiskey Page 13
