The Summer of Beer and Whiskey

by Edward Achorn

  Instantly, hundreds of pent-up fans made a rush to cross the diamond to exit the park. Quest himself, who was headed for third, watched Corey make the play, then dejectedly trotted to the bench to collect his jacket before someone in the crowd walked off with it. Yet things were not as they seemed. Looking over his shoulder, he was stunned to see that Stovey had, in fact, dropped the ball at first. The Browns were still alive. Veering toward home, Quest tapped the plate with his toe, claiming the game was now 9–2. Athletics players raced in from the field, protesting angrily that Quest had never touched third and should be declared out. But umpire Charlie Daniels, who had been watching the play’s conclusion at first while nervously eyeing the mob flowing over the field, had not seen Quest’s detour to the bench as he rounded the bases. The run counted.

  For the next several minutes, Daniels and the police worked fiercely to push the crowd back, clearing enough of a space so that the game could go on. Bradley would have to go out and throw again. George Strief promptly hit one of his pitches sharply on the ground, but it went straight to second baseman Cub Stricker, who scooped up the ball and “relentlessly forwarded” it to Stovey. This time, the star first baseman grasped it firmly—and with that catch, the series was over.

  In one hour and forty minutes, the hated Bradley had pitched a three-hit masterpiece, winning perhaps the biggest game of the season. “HE WRECKED US,” the Missouri Republican headlined the next day, adding, “Bradley Constituted Himself an Infernal Machine.” The Browns, who had posted a .671 winning percentage under Ted Sullivan, had gone only 9–7, with a .562 winning percentage under his successor, Charlie Comiskey. And that had made all the difference.

  The Athletics rushed to their waiting carriages, and “as they were driven out of the gates, they were heartily cheered and hailed as the future champions,” the Philadelphia Press reported. Even if St. Louis were to sweep the Alleghenys in their final three-game series, the club could achieve a tie for first place only if the Athletics lost all four of their games against the Louisville Eclipse. “The knowing ones,” said the Press, “laugh at the very idea” that St. Louis might yet pull it off. Philadelphians began working frantically on plans for a stupendous welcome-home parade to celebrate the pennant victory.

  But was it really over, even now? The Browns, after all, were fully capable of beating the next-to-last-place Alleghenys three straight times. And the Athletics, far from home, were wretchedly weak and on the edge of collapse—facing a talented Louisville club that would love to play the role of spoiler. “The Athletics leave here in quite a crippled condition,” the Press had to admit in its final report from St. Louis. “Stovey is away under the weather. Mathews’ arm has given out and hangs limp and lifeless, from his shoulder. Jones is also complaining of lameness and [backup catcher Ed] Rowen has had his finger split.”

  No, it wasn’t over yet. As the Globe-Democrat would remark with amazement a few days later, when few were laughing anymore at the idea of the Browns stealing the pennant away from the Athletics, “base ball is mighty unsartin, so that anything may be looked for.”

  14

  LIMPING HOME

  LEW SIMMONS HOPED HIS ATHLETICS WOULD CLINCH THE pennant on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 26, 1883, in Louisville, with an easy win over the Eclipse club in the opener of a four-game set. But here he was, a nervous wreck. As another Louisville player crossed home plate in the ninth inning, the smiling men surrounding him in the wooden grandstand at Eclipse Park broke out in applause for the umpteenth time that afternoon, some waving their derby hats. Simmons chewed on the stump of his cigar and flung it under his seat with disgust. This didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all. The Athletics were blowing it, blowing it.

  Simmons’s smooth-tempered colleague Charlie Mason, having nursed the Athletics for three-quarters of the road trip, had gone back home to help prepare for the grand celebration in Philadelphia. The baseball-crazed city was already planning a massive party, with a nighttime parade and spectacular dinner. Simmons and co-owner Billy Sharsig would hold down the fort here, in unseasonably cold and windy Kentucky. Simmons had already negotiated with the Eclipse managers to move up Sunday’s game from the afternoon to the morning. He had had to fork over $300 to Louisville management to change the time, an enormous sum, given that American Association clubs only guaranteed visitors $65 per game. Both clubs knew that the gate take would be lousy on a Sunday morning in church-going Kentucky. But an early escape was essential if the Athletics were to get back in time for the big celebration.

  Yes, the club was putting the cart before the horse. But to capture the flag, all the Athletics had to do was win just one of these four games in Louisville. Either that, or the Browns would have to lose just one of their three against the Alleghenys. That seemed easy enough: just one in seven games had to go Philadelphia’s way. But, on that Wednesday, neither the A’s nor the Browns showed much of an inclination to cooperate. As a minstrel star, Simmons was accustomed to performing under pressure, and he loved the spotlight. But, somehow, this week, his brassy confidence had started melting down. He was too much in love with baseball and his Athletics to be dispassionate about the outcome in Louisville. The thought that his beloved boys might fritter away the pennant, after coming so far, twisted his stomach in knots.

  George Washington Bradley was in the pitcher’s box for the opener. That made some sense, Simmons thought: three days earlier, he had turned in the club’s most impressive pitching performance in weeks, beating the Browns, 9–2, in the rivals’ season finale. Two days of rest were plenty by 1880s standards, and the club might as well use the best pitcher available to finish the job. As the afternoon had progressed, though, it had become depressingly apparent that sending Bradley out again so quickly might not have been such a swell idea. Grin had expended so much of his strength in that Browns game that he seemed to have little left for this one. He had trouble putting the ball over the plate—an obvious sign of fatigue—inflicting three passed balls and two wild pitches on his catcher, Jack O’Brien. Forced to throw weak pitches directly over the plate for strikes, he got hammered for fourteen hits.

  For much of the afternoon, though, strangely, that had seemed good enough. The Athletics had fought back from a 4–0 deficit to take a 5–4 lead, while Simmons “chewed up four cigar stumps” in hellish anxiety. But just when Louisville appeared to be “very near going to pieces,” and the pennant seemed in Philadelphia’s grasp, Eclipse pitcher Sam Weaver found the strength to hold the Athletics back, letting his teammates get to work with the bat. Two runs in the sixth inning gave the Eclipse the lead; another in the ninth iced it, 7–5. Simmons looked nervously at the scoreboard. There was no relief from St. Louis. The Browns had been stockpiling runs all afternoon against the inept Pittsburgh Alleghenys. When the slaughter was over, the Browns had amassed thirty hits, forty-six total bases, and a 20–3 victory. Fred Lewis alone had three singles, a double, and a triple. Obviously, the Browns had no intention of rolling over so that the Athletics might win the pennant.

  In Philadelphia, crowds of men and women, eager to celebrate the pennant win, swarmed outside the Athletics’ club headquarters and the large windows of the city’s newspapers, where the inning-by-inning scores, fresh off the telegraph wire, were posted for all to see. In front of the Philadelphia Press building, the busy intersection of Chestnut Street and Seventh was blocked by fanatics “who debated between innings the prospect of the favorites, and stopped long enough to shout or sigh as the score took a Philadelphia or Louisville turn.” Although it was obvious that Louisville was playing a strong game, “an abiding faith in the good luck of the Athletic kept the crowd standing inning after inning.” At last, the final results were posted: defeat. “Then the excited feeling broke forth in a groan which made the air mournful for blocks around.”

  There was good reason to groan. Slugger Harry Stovey was still limping around on the ankle he had sprained in St. Louis, robbed of the speed that had made him the Association
’s most fearsome offensive threat. He was no longer able to steal bases, stretch triples into home runs, or make dazzling plays on the field. And who would pitch? The Athletics had already—perhaps foolishly—used up Bradley, with only a defeat to show for it and three games to go. Jumping Jack Jones, after letting up twenty runs in his last two games, now admitted his arm was “lame.” Bobby Mathews, who had let up twenty-three, didn’t have to admit anything—it was obvious to everyone that he could barely move his arm. That night, “the Athletics’ friends in Philadelphia burned the wires with importunities to get into the game and win the pennant,” Simmons recalled. “We all were just as anxious, too.” But it was too late to bring on new players. “Just now . . . Simmons is on the ragged edge,” the Cincinnati Enquirer laughed.

  On Thursday, Simmons, in loud suit and derby hat, strode into the park with head held high, clutching his cane. This would be the day. It had to be. He did not want to consider the gut-churning alternative. And, as luck would have it, he did not have to wait long for something to cheer. In the first inning, Louisville ace Guy Hecker, a twenty-eight-game winner that year, proved “very wild and hard to hold,” according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, giving a workout to catcher Dan Sullivan. The Athletics, able to wait for the pitch they wanted, hit him hard. Jud Birchall opened with a sharp drive to right field that Chicken Wolf—who got his nickname for touching no meat but chicken, which he ate four times a day—had to chase down and catch. Harry Stovey followed with his requisite single. “Playing on one leg,” Stovey hobbled to second on a passed ball and limped home on Mike Moynahan’s hit to right field. The Athletics led, 1–0.

  Louisville fans had come to the park hoping to see Jumping Jack Jones perform his famous leap. And, indeed, he seemed a reasonable choice to pitch game two. Louisville fans were surprised, then, to see a little man with a big mustache make his way, slightly limping, to the pitcher’s box. Bobby Mathews, the Athletics’ highest paid star, the player most responsible for Philadelphia’s sterling season, had been given responsibility for producing the one victory the Athletics needed. Probably, he had demanded it.

  Simmons’s air of satisfaction proved short-lived. In the bottom of the first, Louisville slugger Pete Browning repeated Harry Stovey’s round by slashing a single, reaching second on a passed ball, and scoring on a single. The Athletics battled back to take a 2–1 lead, but Mathews, who had been relying almost entirely on his oversized heart, ran out of strength in the fourth, and the Eclipse ripped into him for three runs to move ahead 4–2. The club added another the following inning. The Athletics cut the lead in the seventh, when Mathews himself drove a runner in from second with a single, but the Eclipse built it right back up in the eighth, to 6–3. “The crowd yelled repeatedly until a number were hoarse,” the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. Mathews, wracked with pain, had turned in a heroic performance, arguably his best in many games. But it just wasn’t good enough.

  Trapped among the cheering revelers, Lew Simmons slumped angrily in his seat, sinking into the sort of gloom that always descended on him when his Athletics lost. He chewed on his cigar and flashed dirty looks at those who tried to talk to him. “Lew Simmons’s manners usually intimidate one who is not acquainted with him,” the National Police Gazette observed. “He has a ‘git off my lip, I can’t spit’ style about him that breaks a stranger all up, and makes him believe he is going to get a black eye or a bloody nose if he crosses the path of Mr. Simmons.” Some critics had accused the co-owner of being greedy, but others knew better. “Mr. Simmons . . . has his whole heart in the Athletics club,” the Philadelphia Item contended, “and would rather come out of the season without a cent’s profit than have his club worsted in the championship race. He is an enthusiast, and not the cold, calculating miser that some of the young men in the press picture him.” Now, in Louisville, the enthusiast looked on, hoping against hope his team might rally for victory in the ninth.

  Instead, the Athletics went down without a peep, losing 6–3. Philadelphia was reduced to only two more chances to win the pennant. Simmons, who cherished a gold-headed cane that had been given to him years before in recognition for his wonderful playing for the Athletics, suddenly snapped. “Lew Simmons brought his cane down on the benches with a whack, breaking it in two, and walked sadly off the grounds,” the Courier-Journal reported. If the Eclipse could win one more game, the writer added, “it will take a log chain to hold Lew Simmons.”

  There was no help from St. Louis, of course. That afternoon, the Browns had an easy time of it. Tony Mullane carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning, and though the Pittsburgh boys scratched out two hits at the very end, “The Apollo of the Box” tamped down the threat to win, 6–2. If the Athletics were to win the pennant, they would have to find a way to do it on their own. The Alleghenys weren’t going to help.

  On the streets of Philadelphia, frustration was boiling into panic and rage. Co-owners Simmons and Billy Sharsig, who were supposed to be managing things in Louisville, “came in for their full share of condemnation, and the last two defeats were laid on their shoulders,” the Philadelphia Inquirer said. Charlie Mason, following telegraphed accounts of the games, was alarmed and perplexed. He had left orders to pitch Jumping Jack Jones and Grin Bradley, in that order, in the first two games in Louisville: “These orders were disobeyed, but why Mr. Mason did not know. He regarded it as a very poor piece of head work to pitch Mathews . . . as he was suffering from a lame arm.” Men feverishly making preparations to honor the Athletics sent frantic telegrams to Louisville urging Captain Lon Knight to start Jumping Jack on Friday, while Philadelphians obsessed over Thursday’s loss. “The excitement all over the city was intense,” the Philadelphia Inquirer noted. “Crowds surrounded the bulletin boards and newspaper offices, and the Athletics’ defeat was the sole topic of conversation.” Back in Louisville, Simmons feared the worst. “Our cup of sorrow overflowed,” he recalled years later. “The boys were almost wild with grief, and they were keyed to the highest tension all the time.”

  Simmons’s anxiety was only making the men press harder. The players, already feeling badly, recommended that the distressed owner stay out of their sight during the next game. “The boys would not even let me around where I could be seen. My face was the picture of distraction and they were blue enough,” he later said. After a horrible, sleepless night, Simmons felt so desperate that he tracked down Louisville player-manager Joe Gerhardt before the third game and made a highly unseemly proposal. The Eclipse general did not feel the sort of animosity toward Philadelphia that he did toward St. Louis—the Browns’ vicious Tony Mullane, after all, had almost killed him with a pitch—and Simmons thought Gerhardt might be willing to show the Athletics some mercy, just once, so Philadelphia could win the pennant. “Give us a show,” Simmons suggested, using slang for throwing a game. Gerhardt, as a fierce competitor, flatly refused. Though the Eclipse had no chance to win the pennant, the men “wanted to beat the team that did have a chance.” They weren’t even playing for money at this point; they were playing for pride. Certain that further argument was futile, Simmons glumly found a place to hide at the park, out of sight of his men.

  The Athletics were plainly in trouble. If the team’s money pitcher, Bobby Mathews, could not deliver the one victory needed, who could? “DANGER AHEAD,” the Philadelphia Press warned. A tie for first place—an ignominious finish, given that the Athletics had the pennant all but locked away with their brave work in St. Louis—was no longer a farfetched idea. The Browns needed only to win their final game while the Athletics lost their last two. Bradley and Mathews had both failed; the only pitcher left was Jumping Jack, whose recent performances hardly instilled confidence. Without a healthy Mathews, the Athletics were just another club, and not a particularly good one. “It has been said all along that it is by the grace of the Supreme Being that they are in the position they now hold,” the Louisville Commercial sneered, “and we begin to think so too.”

  Only five hundred
spectators bought tickets to the third game on Friday, September 28—better than the paid turnout of twenty-two against the Orioles a week earlier, but less than one-thirtieth the size of the biggest turnout in St. Louis just days before. For their loyalty to a team long out of the hunt, those hundreds got a special treat that day: the last chance to see the Athletics’ bizarre Jumping Jack. Jones’s aching arm had been rested for five days, his self-confidence was back, and he was hungry for victory. He informed his mates that “if Louisville won that game they would have to walk over his dead body, for he would either do or die.” The tense Athletics players swallowed hard and got ready to play.

  Jones brought back his bizarre leap, providing “much amusement” to the crowd—although catcher Jack O’Brien, forced to dive for his wild throws, no doubt found the spectacle less enjoyable. Still, Jumping Jack seemed more effective than of late, and the days off seemed to have returned some zip to his fastball. When he hurled such pitches in tandem with his distracting jumps, Louisville batters were caught on their heels. Athletics batters, meanwhile, were hitting the tired Guy Hecker hard, though Louisville’s terrific fielding contained the damage. For three innings, the clubs were locked in a scoreless tie. In the fourth, Athletics third baseman Fred Corey lifted the spirits of his teammates by leaping for a hot liner with one hand, the force of which caused him to roll over and over. And in the bottom of the inning, Philadelphia batters finally got to Hecker. Mike Moynahan slapped a single to left, stole second, and scored on a wild pitch. Jack O’Brien walked, went to third on a single by Fred Corey, then scored on a grounder to second base. Simmons, trying to remain in hiding, may have had to stifle his habitual cry of “Pretty work!” The Athletics’ 2–0 lead was short-lived, as Leech Maskrey drove home two runners to tie the game in the top of the fifth. A rally in the sixth, however, earned the Athletics a 5–2 lead. At long last, the American Association pennant seemed in reach.