Here's a ball player I've been wanting to do a card of for a long time. Actually, I illustrated the thing long ago, I just hadn't felt I completed enough research on the guy to tell the story the way I wanted to. Back when I was in college in Baltimore, I got to asking many of the old timers about the Negro League stars, and when catcher came up, most of the oldsters said Biz Mackey was The Man. I asked about Josh Gibson, the great Homestead Grays slugger and sure enough most said that yeah, that Josh could hit the ball a mile, but Biz was the better all-around ball player.
Strong words, and contradictory to most blackball history you read, but me, I'll side with people who were there every time. So, who was Biz Mackey?
Heard of Roy Campanella? The Tokyo Giants? Well, without Biz Mackey both might not have existed...
He grew up playing town ball with his brothers Ray and Ernest before going pro with the San Antonio Black Aces in 1918. When the team folded C.I. Taylor's Indianapolis ABC's bought his contract. The ABC's were among the elite black teams at the time and for a young kid like Mackey to be picked up by them was saying a lot about his raw talent. Serving his big league internship on a team filled with stars such as Oscar Charleston, Dizzy Dismukes, Crush Holloway and Ben Taylor benefited the burly young catcher and he batted .312, 329 and .365.
In 1923 he moved to the Hilldale Club out of Darby, Pennsylvania. Hilldale was the classiest of the eastern blackball outfits and were about to embark on a tear of three pennants once the Eastern Colored League was founded the year Mackey joined them.Because Hilldale already had slugger Louis Santop behind he plate, Mackey often played in the infield so both his and Santop's bats could be in the lineup. It says a lot that a man of Mackey's size, about 6' and over 200 pounds, could play shortstop and third base with the same ease as he could catcher. When he did displace Santop behind the plate, Mackey's mastery of the position became legendary. His arm was so strong and accurate that he didn't have to stand up to throw a base runner out at second. No one had seen that before and soon Mackey was getting compared to Major League baseball's best catcher, Mickey Cochrane, who played across town with the Philadelphia Athletics. Oldtimers who saw both men play usually give Cochrane the slight edge with a bat, but overwhelmingly give Mackey the nod when it came to defence and calling a game.
Mackey was gregarious and jolly; his nickname "Biz" actually derives from his propensity to give batters "the business" as they tried to concentrate at the plate. Mackey would ask them questions, try to get the ump to examine their bat, anything to distract them. He loved the nightlife, too. Blackball players were royalty in the still segregated cities and Mackey took full advantage of all it had to offer. Extremely fond of the sauce, the big catcher was known for his epic nights on the town, but while other ball players eventually succumbed to its debilitating effects, Mackey avoided the slippery slope to alcoholism. While known to show up at a ball game still showing the effects of the night before, once he put on that uniform and crouched behind the plate he was all business.
Because Mackey was renown as one of the best players outside the majors he was much in demand to play during the winter months. Besides the Caribbean, which was a popular destination for black ball players since the early 1900's, by the 20's Southern California had a burgeoning winter baseball season as well. The California Winter League usually featured a few white teams made up of major leaguers and Pacific Coast League stars and a single black ball club stocked with the best the Negro Leagues had to offer. In the winter of 1926-1927, promoter Lonnie Goodwin assembled the Philadelphia Royal Giants, what may have been the greatest single-season team of black players ever to take the field. Joining Mackey was the Kansas City Monarchs' ace Bullet Rogan, Turkey Stearnes, Willie Wells, Andy Cooper and Bill Foster, all Hall of Famers. The Royal Giants buzz-sawed their way through the winter league and took the pennant with a 26-11-1 record against the white teams. In a few more seasons Commissioner Landis would put a stop to the major leaguers playing in the Winter League, but for a few years it was possible to see how black ball players could do against their white counterparts.
After the Winter League season ended, the Royal Giants split up. Bullet Rogan and the other Kansas City Monarchs headed back east to start the 1927 Negro National League season, but Biz Mackey, Frank Duncan, Rap Dixon, Andy Cooper and a handful of others boarded a ship to Japan. Touring baseball teams were not all that uncommon in Japan; American college, Japanese-American semi-pro and white professional teams had been doing it since the turn of the century, but this was the first major tour of black ball players.
Like every other American ball club that toured Japan, The Royal Giants won nearly every game; 47 out of 48 games. Their single loss to the Daimai Club serves as an example of what made the Japanese appreciate the black players so much. In a close game against the
Daimai Club, a bad call by the local umpire gave the game to the Japanese: with one out and two on base, a Royal Giant hit a long fly ball to sacrifice score a run, but the second runner was doubled off first and tagged out. The umpire refused to allow the run to count and Daimai won. The Royal Giants took the loss in stride, something the Japanese deeply appreciated.
While other visiting teams came to the island and beat the hell out of the inexperienced Japanese, the Royal Giants subtly kept their scores low to not insult the locals. The blackball players knew how to play "the game", they'd done it countless times back in the states against white semi-pro and town teams where to run up the score and embarrass the locals could cost them their part of the gate receipts, or worse, a beating. The black ballplayers also knew that by keeping the score close, the possibility to see a win would keep fans interested and coming to the park. The 1922 Major League tour realized this too late and gate receipts greatly diminished by the time their tour ended. When the big leaguers did let the Japanese win a game, it was such a farce that it only embarrassed the locals even more.
The Royal Giants also brought some good old barnstorming entertainment to the island,
driving the fans nuts with their shadow ball routines. The Japanese watched in amazement as the Royal Giants whipped the invisible ball around the field. The team also
shared their knowledge of the game with the Japanese, Mackey's exhibition on how
to throw to second base from a crouch especially drew eager students.
When the Royal Giants played in Tokyo's brand new Meiji Shrine Stadium, Mackey became the first man to hit a ball out of its massive environs. The blast was estimated at 427 feet and before the tour ended he'd hit two more out of the ball park, each to a different field.
The Japanese deeply appreciated the kindness of the Royal Giants and the tour did much to spread the game's popularity. Many of the college players who faced the Royal Giants in 1927 went on to have roles in the founding of the Japanese Baseball League in 1936. By keeping the scores low and not embarrassing the locals, the Americans played to the Japanese sense of honor and dignity, something no other team of Americans had in the past. The gesture helped bolster the Japanese player's confidence, which when dealing with a game as complex as baseball, becomes very important.
Mackey returned to Hilldale half-way through the 1927 season. In his absence, the team had finished dead-last in the league's first half, but climbed back to 3rd place in the second half with him behind the plate. If the catcher had been a major leaguer who abandoned his team to barnstorm for half a season, he'd have been banned from the game. But, Mackey was in the Negro Leagues, and it speaks volumes of the precarious nature of the league that his only punishment amounted to little more than a scolding. Biz Mackey was a superstar of black baseball and the Negro Leagues need him.
For the rest of his long career, Mackey continued to be among the best ball players in outsider ball. When the Negro Leagues had their first East-West All-Star Game in 1933, it was Mackey, not Josh Gibson, who received the most fan votes and was the game's starting catcher. When Mackey was playing for the Philadelphia Stars in 1935, there was a chubby local kid who kept hanging around the star catcher. Through persistence, a little raw talent and Mackey's mentoring, the kid showed promise. By 1938 Mackey was in Baltimore with the Elite Giants and had the kid take the train down to Charm City on weekends to play in exhibition games under his watchful eye. Over the course of a summer the boy transformed into Mackey's "mini me". Veterans said that unless the kid took the mask off, you swore it was the ol' Biz himself behind the plate. When Mackey went to the Newark Eagles in 1939, the Elite Giants' catching was left in the able hands of that kid: Roy Campanella.
In Newark Mackey found a whole new crew of youngsters to mentor and over the next decade brought Larry Doby, Monte Irvin and Don Newcombe's skills up to major league standards. With collapse of the black teams in the early 1950's, Mackey drove a forklift but was brought into the national spotlight when on May 7, 1959, Roy Campanella introduced his old mentor before a crowd of over 90,000 Dodgers fans as the man who made him who he was. It was a tremendous compliment to a man whose generosity and kindness helped influence ballplayers of many colors and nationalities.
And that's who Biz Mackey was.
SOURCES
- Holway, John B., Blackball Stars (Meckler Books, 1988)
- Fitts, Robert K., Banzai Babe Ruth (University of Nebraska, 2012)
- Lanctot, Neil, Fair Dealing and Clean Play (Syracuse University, 2007)
- Gary Ashwill, Agate Type Website
I said it before, but I'll say it again: the greatest thing about writing and illustrating this blog has been all the friends I've made through it. While I started this out of my feeling of loss and loneliness after my Dad died, the many acquaintances I've made through this site have been an unexpected blessing. This week's story comes from one of those new acquaintances. Writing back and forth, he (name withheld by his request) asked me if I'd thought about doing a card of Larry MacPhail. While I never wanted to do cards of owners or executives, MacPhail would prove to be the obvious exception. I thought I'd like to concentrate on his early years in Columbus and Cincinnati, before the Dodgers and Yankees, but I didn't have any reference to start my research. A few weeks later a box arrived at my studio with a big book on MacPhail and some other photocopied material on his Columbus and Cincinnati period. It was all I needed to start writing about this underrated baseball savant - the only thing left was to figure out how to illustrate loud plaids in the Infinite Baseball Card style...
Since baseball became the National Pastime, there have been countless innovators that have moved the game forward: Branch Rickey with integration and the farm system, Dummy Hoy with universal hand signals for umpires, Roger Bresnahan's invention of catching equipment... but perhaps no man had more to do with the advancement of the game, and at the same time is more overlooked, than Larry MacPhail.
Columbus, Ohio 1931.
Larry MacPhail was busted out. After pouring his life's savings into developing a medical arts building that went under after the stock market crash, he was without a job and available. But that didn't worry Larry MacPhail: something would turn up, it always did. He lived his life on the edge, a brilliant mind coupled with a gambler's wit. He followed genius moves with stupid mistakes and each time rebounded to greater height. He was a banker's son from Michigan. Started out as a lawyer in Chicago, then the manager of a Nashville department store. Restless, he wrangled a commission in the army and went to France with an artillery regiment. Six months later he was wounded, promoted to captain and helped lead a daring and booze-fueled raid to capture the Kaiser who was hiding out in neutral Holland. Getting away with his life and one of the Kaiser's ashtrays, MacPhail returned to America and settled in Columbus, Ohio. That's where he was living when he went bust.
As smooth a networker as a Southern senator, MacPhail made friends easy and it wasn't long before some of them came through with his next opportunity. The minor league Columbus Senators were hemorrhaging money like a bottomless boat and hadn't been above 5th place in decades. Fans stayed away from their dumpy ballpark like it was festering with the plague and there was every reason to believe the team would either fold or move away. Local businessmen believed that this would be a tragedy. With the country slipping deeper and deeper into the depression, the Columbus business community believed that the population needed baseball as a diversion from the economic disaster around them and help restore their morale. But they needed a winning team. With Larry MacPhail out of a job, he was asked to see what he could do with the Senators.
Like everything in his life, MacPhail threw his entire weight behind re-forging the franchise into a success. Like a whirlwind of action, he was soon called "Hurricane Larry". Within weeks he'd convinced Branch Rickey to make the Columbus club part of the Cardinals farm system. MacPhail knew that doing so was the future of minor league baseball and the constant flow of players provided by being a part of the Cardinals organization would make his team competitive. The Senators became the Red Birds and soon a steady stream of fresh young talent were putting on Columbus uniforms.
MacPhail slapped new paint on the beat up ballpark, dressed the ushers in colorful uniforms and started fun promotions to lure the fans to the park. At the end of the season the Red Birds were perched in 4th place - the highest in the standings that anyone could easily recall.
By the time the 1932 season started, MacPhail was named to the league's governing body and led the initiative to revamp the play-off system. He instituted a player-incentive program to ensure teams stayed competitive to the end of the season. It was all new and brilliant and by the following season other minor leagues had adapted it to survive the depression.
In June of 1932 he put his team in a brand new stadium which was opened up with unprecedented fanfare and even attracted the Commissioner of Baseball Kennisaw Mountain Landis. Not content with just a merely new stadium, MacPhail insisted lights be permanently installed atop the new ballpark. He began special days where he let unemployed fans see a game for free and started Red Birds fan clubs to get the local kids involved. The Red Birds finished second and actually drew in 100,000 more fans than the parent Cardinals did! It was pure genius and he made headlines from coast-to-coast, but, like every stage in his life, it would come crashing down.
The Red Birds jumped off to a spectacular start in 1933 and were tabbed as the league's favorite. MacPhail continued to make headlines but not always in a good way. Always a first-class boozer, MacPhail sometimes lost control during a binge, such as the time he accompanied the team on a road trip. After an all-night drinking session with the hotel manager ended with an argument, MacPhail made his team pack up and move lodgings right then and there. While some laughed it off, in St. Louis someone was watching.
While Branch Rickey found much to admire about Larry MacPhail, he also had much to despise. Rickey was a teetotaler; MacPhail, of course, drank to excess. The Cardinals president was a model of modesty, the Red Birds' president dressed in flashy clothes to match his personality. And worst of all, MacPhail was quickly out-shining Rickey in the baseball world.
There were two things that ended MacPhail's reign in Columbus. The first was when Rickey saw how well-appointed MacPhail's office was in the new ballpark: walnut paneled walls and plush Oriental carpets. It was more extravagant than any of the major league owners and Rickey seethed with resentment when he thought of how much club money MacPhail had spent on his own regal comfort. When the Red Birds president tried to explain that the walnut panels were installed at a discount by a grateful contractor and that the rugs were obtained after a furniture store had a fire-sale, Rickey was too upset to listen. This brash display of immodesty coupled with the hard time MacPhail gave Rickey when he wanted to promote one of the Red Birds' players during the pennant race sealed the new president's fate. By mid-1933 MacPhail was unemployed.
And, like every other time, he bounced back higher: 100 miles south of Columbus, a ball club was in trouble; a Big League ball club.
The Cincinnati Reds were a miserable club in 1933. Ever since the early 1920's, the team had dived deeper and deeper into the second division. The owner Sidney Weil lost all he had and turned the team over to a local bank. Now in last place with no where else to go, they needed a miracle. They sent for Hurricane Larry.
As he had in Columbus, MacPhail's first months in Cincinnati was a whirlwind of re-painting and re-thinking. He dressed the ushers in fancy garb, hired pretty girls to roam the stands selling cigarettes and cigars. Promotions abounded - ladies nights, kid's days - but still he needed a winning team. MacPhail took stock of his surroundings and set his sights on the richest man in town: Powell Crosley. The local businessman owned a radio and appliance manufacturing company and a brace of radio stations. He took risks, was an innovator in his field and loved his hometown. He was the perfect match for MacPhail. After bombarding the businessman for weeks with reasons he should buy the team, Crosley finally purchased the struggling Reds from the bank. Now MacPhail now had his bankroll.
He got rid of every malcontent and slacker in a Reds uniform. Good, bad, it didn't matter, to MacPhail they were all losers. When star outfielder Babe Herman complained he didn't receive a bonus for hustling that he had in his contract, MacPhail bad mouthed him to the press and kicked him off the team. When he found manager Bob O'Farrell more infatuated with a new golf club than with his team which was on a losing streak, MacPhail fired him then and there. Trades were announced on what seemed like a daily basis. To
cut down on train travel, he occasionally put his boys on a pair of
Ford Tri-Motors and flew them to far away cities. Using St. Louis as a model, the Reds created a sprawling farm system to harvest new ballplayers at a minimum cost. The sportswriters ate
that stuff up, and to make sure they continued to do so, MacPhail built a well-stocked open bar lounge just for them.
Utilizing Crosley's pioneering radio empire, the Reds hired a Floridian announcer named Red Barber and began broadcasting every single game. Major league owners resisted broadcasting their games, fearing fans would just stay home instead of journeying to the ballpark. MacPhail knew they were wrong: the 50,000 watt station WLW could be heard from Texas to Manhattan and soon the broadcasts created a whole legions of Reds fans around the country. Then he allowed three other stations to carry the games as well - the more broadcasts the more Reds fans - and he charged each station two grand for the right to do so. MacPhail
worked with the railroad companies for special excursion trains to
bring all the new Reds fans created by the radio broadcasts to
Cincinnati at a reduced rate.
And then he brought lights to the big leagues. Backed by Crosley's cash, MacPhail installed lights on the re-named Crosley Field. First, he had to convince the other National League owners who were vehemently against the lights. Through deals, arm twisting and flattery, MacPhail managed to have 7 night games for 1935, one with each National League team. It was a smash hit. The first game was linked by a remote link to the White House where President Roosevelt threw the switch lighting up Crosley Field. Every game was a sell-out and though wary, the other team owners agreed to continue the idea.
When Puerto Rico invited the Reds to spend spring training on the island, MacPhail flew the team down there and became the first major league team to visit that Caribbean territory. And through it all, the Reds started to rise. 8th place in 1934; 6th place in 1935 and then 4th place in 1936.
But then, like every stage in his life, it would come crashing down.
Always a boozer and prone to making a scene, MacPhail was on a collision course with Cincinnati's Midwestern values. As his grandson famously said about him:
"My grandfather was bombastic, flamboyant, a genius when sober, brilliant
when he had one drink and a raving lunatic when he had too many."
For a while everyone looked the other way, but by 1936 he had reached the level of "too many. When a drunken MacPhail slugged it out with a police sergeant in the elevator of the Netherland Plaza Hotel, Powell Crosley sent him packing.
It was an inglorious way to exit the big leagues, but to Hurricane Larry, it was the only way. And,
like every other time, he bounced back higher: by 1938 he was running the Brooklyn Dodgers.
That's where I'm ending this story. Most fans of baseball history know how MacPhail assembled the great Dodgers teams of the 1940's and then the post-war Yankees dynasty of the late 40's and 50's. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978. He started his own personal baseball dynasty as his kids and grand kids went on to great heights on the business end of the game. But, as far as an innovator, no one can ever match Larry MacPhail.
Thanks again to the baseball fan who sent me the book and photocopies without which this story could never have been done. It was a fun one to draw, Larry MacPhail was notorious for his loud and flashy clothes. Illustrating baseball uniforms gives me great artistic pleasure, but the chance to draw a sharp suit of clothes, well, that I really couldn't pass up!
SOURCES
- Warfield, Don, The Roaring Redhead (Diamond Communications, 1987)
- McKelvey, G. Richard, The MacPhails (McFarland & Company, 2000)
- Golenbock, Peter, Bums (Putnam, 1984)
- Grandson's quote on Larry MacPhail (Baltimore Sun, November 9, 2012)
Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes on my marriage, it means a lot to Andrea and I. After a beautiful wedding (Andrea looked amazing) and a relaxing honeymoon on Coronado Island (where the new Mr. and Mrs. Cieradkowski took in a Padres-Mets game at Petco Field), I'm back in my studio in Kentucky. As such, I'd like to introduce you to a little-known part of Hall of Famer Casey Stengel's baseball career. Of course known by all as the long-time manager of the 1950's Yankees, Stengel had a long career before that as a manager of last place ball clubs, and before that as a decent major league journeyman outfielder with Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. But before even that, Stengel got his start in professional baseball right here in Kentucky playing in the aptly named Blue Grass League.
Before he was Casey, he was known as Dutch. At the turn of the century all peoples of Germanic stock were called "Dutchmen" or "Dutch" (case-in-point, the "Pennsylvania Dutch" actually hail from Germany and Honus Wagner, of German decent, was called "The Flying Dutchman"). The nickname came from the German word "Deutsch" meaning "German people", but disinterested Anglo ears simply heard "Dutch" instead. So all Germans became Dutchmen. Enjoying a comfortable middle-class upbringing, Stengel's old man was an insurance salesman and while he tolerated his son's interest in sports, he pushed the boy to aspire to higher goals in life.
At Kansas City's Central High, Charley was an outstanding athlete, playing football, basketball and baseball with equal ease. In the summer of 1908 at age 16, Stengel joined the semi-pro Kansas City Benton's. The Benton's barnstormed as far west as Utah and Wyoming playing army and factory teams every day to turn a profit. While it was a great learning experience for the teen and a step towards becoming a pro-ballplayer, a career in baseball wasn't Stengel's ultimate goal: Dental college was his aim and baseball was a great way to save up for the tuition.
In his junior year, the 18 year-old's pitching garnered a bit of regional notoriety when the
Central High baseball team became the Missouri State champions. In the deciding game Stengel, the team's left-handed ace, injured his pitching arm. When summer came, Stengel rejoined the Benton's, now re-named the Red Sox and embarked on another season barnstorming around the west. To rest his arm he took to playing the infield and outfield to stay in the lineup.
Dutch returned to Central High for his senior year but dropped out in February when he was offered a tryout by the local Kansas City minor league team. The Kansas City Blues played in the Class AA (equivalent to today's AAA) American Association, one of the country's three
top minor leagues. When the team sent Dutch a contract calling for a $135 a month salary, the teen was so overtaken with nerves that he turned pale. Being under age, his father reluctantly signed it for him. It was after all temporary, his boy was going to become a dentist.
Joining the Blues, Stengel soon found the competition to be way over his head. Seeing that the 19 year-old's pitching wasn't close to Class AA league standards, Danny Shay, the team's manager, put Stengel in the outfield to see what he could do. Though still not up to American Association quality, he showed significant promise and Kansas City sent kid to Illinois to play for the Class D (equivalent to today's A) Kankakee Kays. Stengel got into 59 games and was batting .251 when the league disbanded in July.
With the summer half over, Stengel was assigned to the Class D Blue Grass League in Kentucky. By the end of July he was roaming the outfield for the last place Shelbyville Blues. The low minors being a precarious business back then, the Shelbyville team couldn't turn a profit and was soon bought by a group of businessmen from nearby Maysville for $500.
It was with the Maysville Colts that Stengel began to learn the trade of a professional ballplayer. Though mired in last place, the citizens of Maysville showered their new team with enthusiasm usually saved for a pennant winner. Stengel even had his first fan, a young Maysville boy named Robert Willocks who would carry his spikes and glove to the ballpark where his idol would in-turn get him into the game for free. Though he was barely hitting .220, Stengel earned himself a few prizes with his bat: in September he hit the team's first home run and received a box of candy and safety razor shaving kit. A second round-tripper the next week added a $3 hat to his prize winnings. Late in the summer the Old Mill Tobacco Company included the rookie outfielder in the set of trading cards they inserted in their cigarette packs. The grim faced boy who stares back at you from the orange-boardered 1910 card is a far cry from the grizzled and wrinkled old man who appears 54 years later on his last baseball card as manager of the New York Mets.
It was also in Maysville that Stengel began showing his gift for colorful shenanigans which he later became famous for in the majors. The Colts' home field, League Park, had an insane asylum just beyond its outfield wall. Running to the dugout from his center field position after each inning, Stengel, who was told that he needed to work on his sliding technique, would make a practice slide into third base. The inmates of the asylum watched from their windows and cheered him on with enthusiasm - they thought he was one of their own. On another occasion Stengel drew attention to himself when he pursued a fly ball past the boundaries of an un-walled in ballpark and caught the ball standing ankle-deep in a moving stream.
When the Bluegrass League season ended, the Kansas City Blues called him up for the rest of their season. Stengel got into 4 games and hit .273 with a double. The 19 year-old ended his first season in professional baseball with a combined .237 with 18 doubles, 6 triples and 3 homers spread out over 4 teams and 3 leagues and was retained by Kansas City for the next season. But more than that, Stengel had made enough money playing ball during the 1910 season that he was able to enroll in Kansas City's Western Dental College, his ultimate goal.
And so, that might have been the last we ever heard of Charley Stengel had it not been for his being left-handed: most dental tools were manufactured for righties and Stengel had a terrible time trying to use the equipment. After 2 winters studying at Western, Stengel gave up and decided to become a professional ballplayer. And the rest, as they say, is history - but wait - where did he get the name "Casey" from? Well, as a rookie with Brooklyn in 1912, his teammates took to calling him "Kansas City" after his hometown, later shortened to "K.C." and still later to "Casey".
As some of you may know, I got married on the 10th of August, hence the hiatus in recent posts. Once I get back to the real world next week I'll begin writing and drawing again. In the meantime, I thought I'd post a picture of the little appreciation gift I gave to my groomsmen in appreciation of their honoring me by standing up with me on the most important day of my life. Since I started the Infinite Card Set over 3 years ago, I've had many people commission me to do cards of themselves or relatives, but I'd never done one of my friends. Instead of giving the boys' a flask or pocket knife, and since they're all big baseball fans, I thought I'd say thanks by doing their portrait in the uniforms of their favorite baseball teams, wrap up the set of 5 cards in a special wrapper with a stick of gum and voilà ! - a special limited edition set of The Inifinite Baseball Card Set - Groomsmen Edition!
One of my other passions in life, besides baseball, drawing and my soon to be wife, is military history. I'm especially drawn towards the United States Navy in China due to watching Steve McQueen in "The Sand Pebbles" as a kid. It's a fascinating topic, so don't get me started. Anyway, while working on a series of illustrations depicting the various uniforms worn by our Navy in China, I picked up a rare 1933-34 Navy Sports Annual. It's a nicely done hardback yearbook that depicts all the Navy's sports teams from golf and swimming to football and baseball. While flipping through it, I found a reference to a sailor named Torpedo Mills who was "going on to make good in the majors..." I was intrigued and looked him up - sure enough he did make it to the majors. So, thanks to obscure military history, a rare book and countless hours in newspaper archives, I bring you Howard "Torpedo" Mills...
The ex-sailor was big - 6-1, 190lbs - so the St. Louis sports writers gathered around him listened: you can call him "Lefty" or even "Torpedo", but you'd better not call him "Popeye The Sailor Man". Sitting in the Browns dugout at Sportsman's Park that August afternoon in 1934, Howard "Torpedo" Mills had sure come a long way...
Growing up in Dedham, Massachusetts, Howard Mills missed all the best parts of being a kid. Always on the scrounge for money, he chose odd jobs and caddying for swells at a golf course over playing baseball or football with the boys. He liked mechanics and tinkering, but regular school work just didn't interest him - years later they said someone had to burn down the schoolhouse to get Mills out of the 5th grade. When the Great Depression loomed over his corner of Massachusetts, the big 17 year-old found himself with no education or trade to speak of. With an eye to the future, the only viable option was the service. At least there he'd get a bed, three squares and learn a trade. Army, Navy or Marines? Throw in a young man's thirst to see the world and the choice was obvious: Navy.
Mills got his father's signature on the enlistment papers and set off to see the world. With his interest in mechanics, Mills gravitated towards airplanes and he was sent to training at North Island Navy Base in San Diego. Much to his chagrin, there he remained ashore for over 2 years before finally being posted to the U.S.S. Lexington, the Navy's premier aircraft carrier.
Life aboard the Lady Lex wasn't bad, especially considering that all around the country men were out of work and scrounging just to get by. The Lexington was based out of San Pedro, just south of Los Angeles, where the weather was as near perfect as could be and the Navy provided everything he needed. Still, every day while on the flight deck repairing the Boeing F4B-2's and Martin BM-1's, Mills could see a bunch of gobs who had it even easier than him - the sailors who played for the Lexington Minutemen - the carrier's baseball team.
Between the wars, the Navy as well as the other services fielded extremely competitive athletic teams. Winning trophies was a feather in any commanding officer's cap and soldiers and sailors who were especially adapt at athletics could expect fast promotions and easy duties. If you've ever read the book or seen the movie "From Here To Eternity", you can get the idea of how rampant the favoritism showered on athletes was in the interwar military. In the Navy, the ships in the different fleets competed against each other and the winners advanced to championship series. MVP's were chosen and trophies awarded, it was a big moral booster for the thousands of sailors who cheered on their ships, helping to forge a tight esprit de corps. Football, boxing, rowing, golf, swimming and baseball all had a year-end series with the winning ship awarded the title of All-Navy Champion.
So every afternoon, Aviation Machinist's Mate 2/c Mills, wiping the grease from his hands after a hard day of keeping Boeing F4B-2's running, couldn't help but envy the boys who got off duty just to throw a ball around. Win or lose, the ballplayers even got extra shore leave. One morning Mills told his Chief Petty Officer he wanted the day off to try out for the baseball team. The Chief looked him over and eventually acquiesced - if a sailor from his section panned out, it would look good on the Chief. In the Navy, the good as well as the bad, tended to trickle down like that.
Mills, who had never played baseball before, went ashore and headed towards the base ball fields.
The Lex had a pretty good baseball team. The bigger ships of the fleet - the carriers, battleships and cruisers - tended to have the best teams due to their larger compliment of sailors. Plus, the larger ships could afford to carry a few extra ringers aboard who just played ball. The smaller ships didn't have that luxury. While the Minutemen had a decent team, since 1926 the U.S.S. Wright held the All-Navy Championship title. Try as they might, for seven long years the aircraft tender beat off all challengers to their trophy. That afternoon on the ball field at San Pedro, no one on the team figured the key to the All-Navy Championship was the tall, sturdy aircraft mechanic who asked for a tryout.
By all reports, Mills was terrible at first. Remember, he'd never played the game before. Still, visions of all the extra time ashore in San Pedro danced in his head and Mills set his mind to making the club. After a few days practice, it became evident that the newcomer could throw pretty fast from the port side. The coach, an old Chief Gunner's Mate by the name of Fenton, took the eager gob aside and taught him some pitches. Chief Fenton had coached Navy ball clubs for 32 years and knew a thing or two about pitching. Mills couldn't have asked for a better teacher and the Chief couldn't have asked for a better pupil. His fastball had something natural to it - someone said it "hops like two frogs going somewhere". And once the season started, it was soon clear that Mills' fastball wasn't the only thing going somewhere...
The 1933 Pacific Fleet Baseball League was made up of the Navy's most imposing ships, the battleships Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, Nevada, Pennsylvania and the Lexington's sister carrier Saratoga. One by one, Mills, now nicknamed "Torpedo" by his fellow gobs on the Lexington, mowed them down.
It was obvious by the third game of the season that Mills was something special. Against the U.S.S. Maryland, the lefty beat the powerful battleship 8-1, his own throwing error being the only thing that kept him from tossing a shutout. On June 7, the Minutemen faced the California Bears, defending Pacific Fleet Champs. In front of two thousand bluejackets, Mills pitched a three hitter and struck-out 15 to beat the mighty battleship 4-2.
Meanwhile, the perk of being a ball playing bluejacket began to pay off. All that extra shore leave gave Mills the time to court Dana Rhodes, a local L.A. girl who would eventually become his wife.
Easily taking the Pacific Fleet title, the Lexington now faced the U.S.S. Wright, undefeated for seven years in the Battle Force Championship. In the whole history of the series, no Pacific Fleet ship had won. The Lexington aimed to change that. The best of three series was held at Trona Field in San Pedro. Over 8,000 sailors and civilians packed the ballpark for the first game. In every port that had a U.S. Navy ship in it, money changed hands over the big game. The odds were pretty even, the Wright was the seasoned veterans, but the Lexington had Torpedo Mills, undefeated all year. From Shanghai to Newport News, navy men crowded around their ships radio shack for the play-by-play transmitted over the wire.
From the start, Mills and the Minutemen were in control. After setting down the Wrights 1-2-3 in the top of the first, the Minutemen got a hit, followed by a sacrifice and a homer and by the time Mills took the mound to start the 2nd, he had a for run lead. The Wrights scored a run thanks to a single and two errors by the second baseman in the fifth but came back with three more runs to wrap up the game 7-1. Mills struck out 15 and went 2 for 1 at the plate, a double.
A few days later Mills took the mound again for the Lexington. As 8,000 sailors watched from the stands and countless others followed around the world, Lefty Mills no-hit the Wrights as the Minutemen scored 14 runs to sweep the Battle Force Championship.
Among the ecstatic bluejackets in the crowd was Willis Butler, west coast scout for the St. Louis Browns. Within weeks he had Mills' signature on a Browns contract. Problem was, to the Browns he may be Torpedo Mills - pitching prospect, but to the U.S. Navy he was still Aviation Machinist's Mate 2/c Mills. The Browns, perennial losers in the American League, were desperate for anyone who could put a spark in their line up. To the front office in St. Louis, Mills looked like that shining star every struggling ball club hopes for, except for one thing: his Navy contract.
Mills had reenlisted for a two-year hitch the year before he picked up a baseball and was due to be discharged in the summer of 1934. The Browns wanted him asap and went so far as to enlist the help of congressman John J. Cochran to lobby the Navy for Mills' emancipation. The Navy refused to budge. Besides the fact that trained aircraft mechanics were highly prized, there was still another series to be played.
All across the globe, Navy and Marine Corps ball clubs competed in their divisions, vying to get to the All-Navy Championship, the best of three series held in September. The U.S.S. Dobbin, a destroyer tender, emerged the winner. The San Diego-based Dobbin was a dark horse - back then the Navy's fleet was based in San Pedro and no one knew much about the Dobbin. With a dearth of Navy ships to play against, the Dobbin's men honed their skills playing against strong San Diego semi-pro teams - the same baseball hotbed that gave birth to Ted Williams. First winning the Destroyer Squadron title, then the Scouting Force Championship, the Dobbins weighted anchor and headed to San Pedro to face the Lexington.
The first game was a slug fest. Mills gave up 10 runs on 10 hits but still the Minutemen prevailed, scoring 16 runs. It wasn't pretty but it was a win. With the next game in 2 days, Mills' season was through. Anderson took the mound for the Minutemen and held fast as the Lex won 13-6. The U.S.S. Lexington were the Champions of Navy baseball.
In 14 games Mills was undefeated and with the exception of a 17-10 win over the Texas, he'd kept the opposition to under 3 runs a game and averaged 16 strike-outs every time he took the mound. At the end of the year a service-wide pole conducted by Navy Magazine voted him "The Navy's No. 1 Athlete". Better yet, a trophy and new Ford Coupe came with the title. It was a hell of a season for a guy who never played the game before and with a big league contract waiting for him when he got out of the service, the future looked bright indeed.
As most baseball fans know, the St. Louis Browns were one of the lowliest franchises in the history of the game. Once more popular than the Cardinals who shared their ballpark, the Browns began a quick decline in the 1920's that soon made then the worst team in the American League. While other teams embraced the farm system, the Browns tried to trade their way to the first division resulting in even more humiliating losing seasons. Time after time decent pitchers were sent to the Browns only to become run-down and discouraged by the lack of defense and run support. It was into this maelstrom that the newly civilianized Torpedo Mills stepped in 1934.
First he was sent to the San Antonio Missions of the Texas League. The newly civilianized Mills went 3-3 in 15 games and the Browns called him up to St. Louis in August. He got into his first game in Cleveland on August 10th when manager Rogers Hornsby threw the newcomer in to relieve Dick Coffman in the 8th inning. Down 4-1, Mills gave up 4 hits and two runs before he was able to get out of the inning. It wasn't an ideal start, but it was the major leagues.
The rest of the summer Mills pitched batting practice and rode the pines as Hornsby used the former bluejacket sparingly in 3 more games. He worked 7 .2 innings and gave up 6 hits and 2 runs, but walked an unacceptable 11 batters. The old wildness was a continual hindrance in the majors against patient and seasoned batters. The Browns sent him back down, this time to the St. Paul Saints. Used as a starter, Mills turned in a 7-8 record for a miserable team. His control seemed to improve though, and in 146 inning he gave up 84 walks.
In the off season Mills returned to Southern California and married his girlfriend Dana, a by-product of his bonus baseball shore leave from the Lexington. Making their home in Manhattan Beach, Mills used his spare time to coach his younger brother, also called "Lefty" and making a name for himself in Navy baseball as a first baseman. When spring came, Mills headed to San Antonio for the 1936 season.
Things started to come together now as he got a little more control of his fastball and finished the season 12-6, followed by 14-12 the next year. The Browns brought him up at the end of the 1937 season to give him a look. Mills started 2 games and split the decisions. In 12 innings he struck out 10 but walked the same number and relinquished 16 hits. It was a mixture of promise and catastrophe, but on the Browns, who managed to win only 46 games that year, it was a fresh arm.
When the 1938 season opened Lefty Mills was a Browns regular and the most promising thing on the team. Early on, the sports writers who covered the Browns seized on the former sailor's story. It was a feel-good tale, tailor-made for a country still stuck in the doldrums of the Great Depression. Mills was open with the writers who covered the Browns but cautioned them: calling him "Torpedo" or "Lefty" was fine, but "Popeye The Sailor Man" was out of the question. At 6-1, 190lbs, none of the writers argued the point. Once the season started, compared to anything else wearing a Browns uniform, Lefty Mills was the team's star.
In his first start Mills beat the Washington Senators 4-3 in a 13 inning stand-off, scattering 10 hits before the Brownies could eek out the winning run. He then pitched 5 innings of shut-out ball against the A's before the game was called by rain, followed by a heady 1-0 blanking of the Yankees, out-dueling their ace Lefty Gomez. Unfortunately, the Browns were still a terrible team and Mills' 10 wins were accompanied by 12 losses. He was still wild, as the August 31st game in Boston showed. Allowing only seven hits, Mills put 5 Red Sox on base, 4 of whom scored as the Browns lost 6-3. But, wild or not, he was the second best hurler the Browns had, next to Bobo Newsom who somehow managed 20 wins that year.
When spring came, Mills' refused to sign with St. Louis unless he received a raise. After he and Newsom held out, the Browns relented and bumped their ace lefty from $2400 to a staggering $6000. Not a bad increase from the $1000 a year he was banking as an Aviation Machinist's Mate 2/c.
1939 just didn't turn out the way Torpedo Mills expected. On May 18th he got pounded off the mound at Yankee Stadium, unable to get out of the third and giving up 6 runs on 4 hits, 3 walks and a wild pitch. He continued to pitch erratically throughout the summer, the wildness compounding the inept backing he received from his teammates. On July 2nd a little of the old magic came back as Mills tossed a 5 hitter against a strong Cleveland team, but lost his next 7 starts.
September 17th he pitched a complete game win over Lefty Gomez, winning 3-1. He spread 6 hits over 9 innings, the only Yankee run coming off a Babe Dahlgren solo homer in the 5th. It brought his record to 4-11 and was the last game he'd ever win in the majors. The Browns finished dead last again, managing only 43 wins, a staggering 64.5 games behind the first place Yankees.
By the beginning of the 1940 season it was obvious that Mills' career in the big leagues was nearing its end. In first game of the season Cleveland roughed him up for 5 runs in the first and sent him to the showers without retiring a batter. He was relegated to the bullpen, the lowliest spot on the lousiest ball club in the majors. In 59 innings he walked 52 and gave up 55 runs. During the winter St. Louis sold him to Brooklyn, who added the condition that the Browns would buy him back if he failed to make the Dodgers.
Spring, 1941 found the Brooklyn ball club getting into shape in hospitable Havana, Cuba. Torpedo Mills was in camp, vying with a dozen other left handers to make Leo Durocher's rotation. With a pitching staff that included Whit Wyatt, Kirbe Higbe, Kurt Davis, Freddie Fitzsimmons and Hugh Casey, Brooklyn had no use for Mills and he was returned to the Browns in April. St. Louis in turn sent him to their Toledo club, but there's no evidence that he ever pitched for the Mud Hens. In fact, there's no evidence of anything else from Torpedo Mills.
Not to leave you hanging, but as so often happens when researching obscure ballplayers, Mills just disappears from the record. He and his wife Dana are in the 1940 census, living together in Manhattan Beach, California. I tracked down his date of death as September 23, 1982 in nearby Riverside. Online, there's even a photo floating around of his headstone, but oddly enough, while there's room for a spouse, Dana's name is not on it. Perhaps she's still around or their marriage just didn't go the distance, I can't say.
Most of the big battleships whose baseball teams Mills defeated in 1933 were at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. The Arizona and Oklahoma were destroyed but the others went on to have admirable war records. The Dobbin, who the Lady Lex defeated for the All-Navy Championship, was also at Pearl Harbor that fateful morning. Her crew heroically manned their small boats and under fire rescued countless wounded sailors adrift in the harbor set aflame by burning oil. His old ship, the U.S.S. Lexington went down fighting in the Battle of Coral Sea in May, 1942.
Regardless what happened to Torpedo Mills, his was a fun story to research, illustrating a heck of an off-beat way to make it to the big leagues!
This is the second and last part of the Willard Hershberger story. For part one, please start HERE.
The Sunday morning traffic that moved through the lobby of the Copley Plaza Hotel surged and flowed around the group of ballplayers who sat in the plush arm chairs. Some fiddled with cigarette lighters and watches but most pretended to study the newspapers they hid behind. None were open to the Sunday sports section. A handful of newspaper men went from man to man only to be quietly shooed away after scribbling a few lines in their notepads. After a while, most simply took seats next to the men they were trying to talk to and sat silently as well. Though everyone wanted to be alone, no one took the elevator to their rooms, for upstairs was where Willard Hershberger, catcher for the Cincinnati Reds, had killed himself yesterday afternoon.
Three years earlier when Willard Hershberger arrived at the Cincinnati Reds spring training camp, he found a team in transition. Once the whipping boys of the National League, the Reds had begun a quick resurgence under general manager Larry MacPhail. In a whirlwind of activity he restructured the farm system, installed the first lights in the majors atop Crosley Field, discarded lazy and defeatist players and instilled a winning attitude to the clubhouse. He had moved on to Brooklyn by that spring but the changes he put in motion would bring Cincinnati back-to-back pennants in less than a year. It was an exciting time and the arrival of Willard Hershberger was expected to be a harbinger of future Reds success.
Through the Reds worst years the one bright spot in the line up was future Hall of Fame catcher Ernie Lombardi. Big and cumbersome, he was called "Slug" for his sloth-like speed on the bases and fielding his position. None-the-less was a bonafide slugger and all-star. What he lacked in speed Lombardi made up in his quick, accurate arm. You simply didn't steal against Lom. With his years of experience the pitchers loved having him call the game.
The big man was also a character. He was gregarious and especially popular with the ladies of Crosley Field. His large nose would unleash a snoring barrage that was legendary in both leagues. He was a friendly veteran and was just the kind of mentor Hershie needed in his first year in the big leagues.
The summer of 1938 was exciting indeed. As Hershie rode the pines observing the veteran Lombardi work, the Reds surprised everyone by making a run for the pennant. New manager Bill McKechnie had come over from the Boston Bees and took over the re-made ball club. He was a kind and wise man, known throughout his career as "The Deacon". Though thoroughly in control, he kept the club loose and very quickly they had gelled into a tight-knit group. When Johnny Vander Meer tossed his back-to-back no hitters in June, the city exploded into a Reds fever that hadn't existed since 1919. The pennant race between Chicago, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn and Cincinnati went right down to the wire, Gabby Hartnett's "homer in the gloamin'" famously bringing victory to the Cubs.
Hershie got into 49 games that first year and batted a nice .276. He caught in 39 of those games and proved himself a reliable backup to Lombardi. Smaller and more agile than the lumbering Lombardi, Hershie quickly became a favorite of the Crosley Field fans. He was constantly in motion and soon earned the nickname "Herky-Jerky". It was meant in a good way since his defensive play on pop-ups and covering the bases surpassed Lombardi's skills. As loved as the big catcher was in Cincinnati, many fans were heard to exclaim "Hershie would have got that one!" when Lombardi was slow to catch a fly ball.
When he wasn't catching, Hershberger was the Reds secret offensive weapon off the bench. For a guy who wasn't comfortable with pressure, he excelled as a pinch hitter. Blessed with a good eye and patience, it was almost impossible to strike him out. In his 402 at bats in the majors he whiffed only 16 times. With men on base, Hershie put the ball in play and the fans appreciated him for that.
With Lom and Hershie, the Reds had themselves the best catching staff in the majors.
1939 was the Reds' year. The team MacPhail put in motion finally came together with the addition of Billy Werber at third and Bucky Walters finding his feet as a starting pitcher. The Reds charged through the summer, all the while beating back a strong St. Louis club which would turn into a powerful dynasty during the war years.
Again the Reds' backup catcher turned in a strong year. He came into his own, performing particularly well off the bench with runners in scoring position. In 174 times at the plate he batted a .345, the best average on the team. Still, he was prone to being inconsolable after a Reds loss and a bad day at the plate ate him up inside.
Off the field his behavior was as quiet and secretive as it was in the minors. He would occasionally take in a movie with his teammates but more often than not he stayed in and read books and magazines about hunting and guns. While the other Reds thought him pleasant enough, his only close friend on the club was Johnny Vander Meer, whose love of fishing and hunting gave the two a common bond. For Hershie, his idea of a good time was scouring the countryside in his new car in pursuit of antique firearms for his collection. As in Binghamton and Newark, the fans gravitated to the quiet catcher and women surrounded him for autographs, hoping for a date. Indeed in a contest, Lombardi and he came in first and second for the ladies' favorite Reds player. Yet he never dated and remained a solitary figure. More than one teammate used the word "loner" to describe him.
He was diligent at putting his money aside and sent much of it home to his mother. In an age when most ballplayers boozed heavily, Hershie drank in moderation, a fact his teammates later made a point of mentioning. On the long train trips between cities, the other players would find him alone, staring out the window at nothing.
Ably handled by Lombardi and Hershberger, the five Reds starters won a combined 87 games between them. Bucky Walters won 27 and won the National League MVP Award. Paul Derringer won 25 and came in 3rd in the MVP vote. Timely hitting combined with the team's air-tight infield defense helped the Reds take the pennant by 4 1/2 games.
Unfortunately for Reds fans, the post season excitement ended almost as soon as it began. In what was one of the most disappointing losses in Reds history, the Yanks swept the series in 4 straight. Hershie had two at bats with a hit and an RBI. He took his series check and commissioned a house for his mother. Back home in California he spent long hours drawing up the plans for the new home. After the season began he would proudly tell his teammates the fine details of its construction.
The Reds of 1940 was a modified, suped-up version of the '39 team. Jim Turner and Joe Beggs bolstered the already strong pitching staff and rookie Mike McCormick replaced aging outfielder Wally Berger. The superb infield of McCormick-Frey-Myers-Werber was even tighter their second summer together which made all the difference: 41 of their 100 wins were by a 1 run margin. Brooklyn stayed close to the Reds all summer, the two teams trading first place no less than 7 times. It was a strenuous time. With the country still suffering from the great depression, the player's share of the World Series money was a huge incentive to win the pennant again.
As spring turned to summer, Hershberger began acting even more odd than his teammates were accustomed to. Vander Meer, his closest pal, was sent down to Indianapolis to work out his control problems. Though he was consistently hitting over .350, each time he failed to deliver at the plate he sulked inconsolably. Hershie's hypochondria reached new levels and he was constantly badgering the team doctor to the extent of visiting his hotel room in the evening reporting new symptoms. As a matter of course, the other Reds kidded him about it, it was a way to blow off the pressure of a tight pennant race. Stuffing pill bottles in his locker or telling the hypochondriac he didn't look well was all good-natured fun - to everyone but Hershberger.
On the long train trips he told a few players he thought about killing himself. In 1940, suicide wasn't all that common or talked about. It was something sick or financially ruined people did, not a ballplayer in the prime of his life on a pennant-bound team. As usual, no one took him seriously.
In late July the Reds were about to begin a crucial eastern road trip. Before they left, Hershberger bought a $500 government savings bond and deposited it in the safe of the Cincinnati hotel where he lived. He made a point of pulling aside roommate Lew Riggs and tell him that if anything happened to him on this trip, he could find that bond in the hotel's safe and that it should be delivered to his mother in California. Like everyone else, Riggs shrugged off the fatalistic talk.
As August loomed, a record heatwave enveloped the eastern half of the country, and Cincinnati began to falter.
Ernie Lombardi was the first pillar that fell. On July 23rd the big man severely sprained his ankle in Brooklyn and was out of commission. Then pitcher Junior Thompson, winner of 10 games so far, was spiked during an bench-clearing brawl with the Dodgers and was on crutches. It was broiling up and down the east coast and the Reds were at the beginning of a grueling schedule that would take them to Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Hershberger taking over the primary catching duties shouldn't have been a big deal, in fact any other catcher would have killed a man to get that spot on a pennant bound team. But for a guy with a severe inferiority complex and nervous disposition, it was a recipe for disaster. At the time Hershberger was batting well over .350, the best on the team. But as the temperature rose and the pressure mounted, Hershie started to melt.
First, he began to waste away; reports claimed he lost 15 pounds in the heat. Then the Reds split a four game series against the lowly Phillies. Hershie went 1 for 13 at the plate and his average nosedived. Off the field he was inconsolable. Then the Dodgers started winning. The Reds headed back to Manhattan and pulled into the Polo Grounds. The catcher told a few incredulous teammates that he thought certain unnamed players were conspiring against him. The losses were all his fault he said, and everyone knew it. At the Polo Grounds the Reds lost the first game by a single run and Hershberger went 0 for 4. The morning papers were all full of Brooklyn's winning streak and Hitler's blitzkrieg of France. The world was falling apart before his eyes. The next day he bounded back with 3 hits and an RBI as the Reds won 6-3. The sports page on the morning of Wednesday, July 31st showed the Reds were 8 games up on Brooklyn. It was a good lead but not something to get comfortable with.
Then came the breaking point.
That afternoon, up 4 to 1 going into the bottom of the 9th with 2 out, the Reds came within 1 strike of winning the ballgame. Instead Bucky Walters put Bob Seeds on base with a walk. Then Walters ran a full count on Burgess Whitehead before he put his fastball into the stands making it a 4-3 ballgame. Bucky Walters was the best pitcher the Reds had and with the game still only one out away from a win, McKechnie left him in. Now Mel Ott stood ready. In the sweltering heat, Walters again ran the count full. Ott kept the bat on his shoulder and was soon standing on first with another walk. Still, McKechnie left Walters in to finish the job.
In today's game, there would have been no way this scenario could have played out. First of all, today it's rare that the starter lasts past the 7th inning, but in 1940, pitchers were expected to finish the games their own games. If McKechnie would have yanked Walters with 2 outs in the 9th, it would not only have been odd, it would have been insulting to Walters. Today, by the time Walters' walked the second batter, he would have been replaced by a relief pitcher, but this was 1940, not 2013. He stayed in.
With Ott on first, that brought Harry Danning to the plate. The Giants' catcher batted a solid .300 but wasn't a power hitter. Walters bore down and got 2 quick strikes on him. Hershie called for Walters to throw his fastball. The pitcher shook off the call but Hershie insisted. Fastball. Danning saw it coming a mile away and launched it into the stands for a home run to end the game. Hershberger stood motionless behind the plate, frozen in horror at the loss he caused.
That evening the team rode the train up to Boston. A gruelling series of 3 days worth of double headers awaited them. Still, even with the slump and ceaseless humidity, six games against the Boston Bees wasn't so bad - simply put, Boston stunk. It could be just the thing to help the Reds shake off their slump and gain ground in the standings. As the train roared towards Boston, Hershberger told anyone who'd listen that it was all his fault. When Billy Werber tried to talk him out of it he told the third baseman that Walters had won 27 games the previous season; he was too good of a pitcher to have lost the game himself. No, Hershberger claimed he called all the wrong pitches. Lombardi would have called the right ones, he and his bad judgement was solely responsible for the Reds predicament.
The Reds had Thursday off before the 3 straight days of double headers. To pass the time and unwind, many of the players took in movies and that's what Hershie and Werber did. In the darkness of the theater, instead of relaxing Hershberger grew more anxious. Through out the feature he kept getting up to pace the lobby. He couldn't shake the idea that he was dragging the club down. Besides losing the pennant, he was taking money from the player's pocket - that World Series check was like getting a second year's salary. Now all because of him they would lose that as well.
The weather on Friday August 2nd was mild compared to the last couple weeks. The morning paper was full of war talk. Congress was hammering out the final details on re-instituting the draft, Japan was taking over French Vietnam and the previous night Hitler's Luftwaffe flew over London unopposed, dropping leaflets warning the populace of the hell that was to come. In the sports pages, Brooklyn was 6 1/2 back, playing the Cubs who were barely playing .500 ball. In the lobby of the Copley Plaza Hotel, Hershie stopped at the drug store and bought a small bottle of medicine and brought it up to the room he shared with Bill Baker. Then he took a cab to Braves Field for the double header.
The first game was a disaster. The Bees jumped all over Jim Turner in the first scoring 4 runs. By the time it ended Cincinnati lost 10-3. At least Hershberger couldn't blame himself for this one, he sat out the game as third-string catcher and roommate Bill Baker worked the loss. Game two was Hershie's.
Though the Bees stung early with a run in the first, the Reds scored 3 in the 5th to take the lead. The game proceeded easily until the 8th when with 2 away the Braves tied it up with a pair of singles and a double by Max West. Now the game went into extra innings as neither team could score. Hershie came to the plate five times with men on base - his old specialty - and all five times came up empty. That the rest of the Reds bats were silent didn't register in his mind, Hershie carried the weight of the entire team on his back and it began to show. When he failed to field a slow roller in front of the plate, forcing the pitcher to come off the mound to make the play, Bill McKechnie came out of the dugout to see what was wrong with his catcher.
The Cincinnati fans didn't call him "Herky-Jerky" for nothing, it was an easy play that Hershie should have been all over. Pointing to the area in front of the plate where the ball was fielded, McKechnie asked Hershberger if something was wrong.
"There's plenty wrong with me" he said. "I'll tell you about it after the game."
In the bottom of the 12th the Bees loaded up the bases on reliever Joe Beggs. With two out, rookie Chet Ross knocked a 3-2 pitch into left field scoring the winning run. A glance at the out of town scores showed that Brooklyn lost to the Cubs 4-3. Still, Brooklyn gained a half game and was now 6 games back.
As the Reds players showered and dressed in silence, McKechnie kept Hershberger behind. He wanted to get to the bottom of what was troubling his catcher. Along with coach Hank Gowdy, the three men walked out into the empty stadium and sat down in the bleachers. Hershberger broke down and talked about how he blamed himself for the Reds' slump and his inability to hit and call the right pitches. The skipper and coach attempted to raise his spirits. Hell, the two of them had been around the game for more than 30 years. They'd seen it all before, the slump was just temporary, the Reds will snap out of it. The two men tried to get the catcher to see the bright side of things: he was batting over .300, was still the teams best pinch hitter and though they'd lost some ground, the Reds were still on top of the standings. But, as the sun set behind the bleachers, McKechnie could see that something deeper was bothering Hershie.
Returning to the Copley, McKechnie brought Hershberger back to his suite. Laying on his managers couch, Hershie broke down. Punctuating his story with tears, he told McKechnie he planned on killing himself. It wasn't something new, his father had done it before him and he was going to do it, too. He told the speechless manager that he had purchased a bottle of iodine at the drugstore that morning and was going to drink the poison before he lost his nerve. Then he settled on using a razor but all he had with him was his brand new electric shaver. By then it was time to go to the ballpark.
All this must have been shocking to Bill McKechnie. In 1940, men didn't talk about their feelings, let alone cry and reveal thoughts of suicide. Fortunately McKechnie was a kindly man and something of a father figure to his boys. Still, this was something deep that even he couldn't completely comprehend. All he could do was listen.
In a stream of consciousness, Hershberger went from the inescapable thoughts of taking his life and the recent Cincinnati losses to his father's suicide and how he knew the other players blamed him. In between he cursed Hitler and sobbed freely. After a few hours, he'd talked himself out. The tears dried up and McKechie felt he'd recovered his senses. He knew the catcher was a sensitive man and different than his other boys, and that the last couple of weeks had been hard on all of the Reds. Talking about suicide was one thing, but doing it was quite another. McKechie felt that all Hershberger needed was a good outlet to blow off steam. Since he didn't drink or carouse like most of the other guys, he didn't have that time-honored outlet for his emotions. This long talk, no matter how unorthodox it was, probably did the trick. Grabbing his hat, he took Hershberger out for a good dinner.
Arriving back at the Copley after eating, Hershie paused to joke with some of the Reds who were lounging around the lobby. Everyone said he appeared fine.
Later that evening, Bill Baker returned to the room he shared with Hershberger. At first he thought his roommate was sleeping or out, but soon realized he was over by the window, sitting in the dark smoking a cigarette. Turning on the light, Baker could see Hershie staring at something on the floor. He followed his gaze to a coil of radio antenna wire that lay at his feet. The whole scene was odd, didn't make sense. But it wasn't the first time he'd seen his roommate like this. Leaving Hershie to his thoughts, Baker turned in.
On Saturday morning Hershberger woke up and told Baker he didn't feel well. Dressing, he went downstairs and had breakfast with Cincinnati Enquirer sports writer Lou Smith. When Smith tried joking around with the catcher to raise his spirits, he found him unresponsive. Later, he sat in the Copley Plaza's vast lobby. His teammates strode past in small groups, each pausing to ask if he wanted to grab a cab with them. No, he said, he was waiting for a friend. When pitcher Paul Derringer stopped to chat, Hershie smiled and told him he was going to go 4 for 4 that day. When asked if he wanted to share a taxi, Hershie said no. As Derringer's cab pulled away from the curb, Hershberger took the elevator back upstairs to his room.
When Hershberger didn't arrive at the ballpark, McKechnie began to worry. He asked Gabe Paul, the team's traveling secretary, to call his room. After ringing a long time, Hershberger picked up. Sounding annoyed, he told Paul he was sick and couldn't play. The secretary said that was ok, McKechnie said to just come out to the park, he could sit in the stands and watch the games. Hershberger said he would and hung up.
Derringer pitched well in the first game, scattering 11 hits and keeping the Bees scoreless until the 7th inning. The Reds scored first in the 4th, again in the 6th and added another in the 9th to win 3-1. Between games, McKechnie scanned the stands for Hershberger. Realizing that he never showed, the skipper became both annoyed and worried. Being depressed over his performance was one thing, but failing to show up at the ballpark couldn't be tolerated, it set a bad example. He asked Daniel Cohen, a Cincinnati businessman who sometimes tagged along on road trips, to go back to the Copley and bring Hershberger to the ballpark. Meanwhile, McKechnie called his players together in the locker room. He told them that they had a sick man amongst them, a man that should be treated differently from the rest. Everyone knew he was talking about Hershberger. He told them to stop asking him how how he was feeling and to cease playing jokes. This was a man who needed his spirits lifted back up to normal. The players knew this was serious. Playing jokes and needling other ballplayers was an expected part of locker room life. It was unheard of to have a manager ask something like this. As the Reds filed out for the second game, a solemn mood overtook the players.
Earlier, while the first game was entering the 6th inning, Hershberger went into the bathroom and shaved with his new electric razor. While his portable radio broadcast the ballgame in the other room, Hershberger rifled through his roommate's shaving kit. Finding Baker's safety razor, he unscrewed the head and set the blade on the sink. He gathered all the towels and carefully spread them seamlessly across the cool tile floor. Standing, Hershberger took off his shirt and stood bare chested before the mirror above the sink. He picked up the razor, felt for his jugular vein and sliced repeatedly at the side of his neck until he finally hit it. He then knelt down on the towels and leaned over the tub. By the time the Reds scored another run in the 9th, Willard McKee Hershberger was dead.
Dan Cohen banged on the door. He knew Hershie was ill, but had no idea of what he had discussed with McKechnie the night before. Thus, when he got a hotel porter to unlock the door, Cohen wasn't expecting the scene that unfolded before him. Hershberger's lifeless body was draped over the tub, the towels and the drain limiting the mess to the bare minimum. Willard couldn't bare to leave behind the kind of mess his father had done 10 years before.
When Lew Riggs saw Dan Cohen running towards the Reds' dugout in the 4th inning of the second game, he knew something bad had happened. McKechnie spoke hastily with Hank Gowdy, grabbed the team doctor and Dan Cohen and left. Already behind a few runs, all the air left the team and they lost 5-2. In the locker room, Gowdy gathered the players.
"I want to tell you something. Willard Hershberger has just destroyed himself".
The aftermath affected each player differently. That night, McKechnie called a team meeting in his hotel suite. Devastated by the suicide and his failure to prevent it, he reassured his boys that Hershie was a sick man, that all the kidding had nothing to do with his destruction. He told them about his father's suicide and how it affected his mind. More over, the manager revealed that in the talk the previous evening, the catcher revealed other, more personal problems he was dealing with. While McKechnie reassured the players it had nothing to do with anyone on the team, he promised Hershberger he would never reveal what they were. Still, many players, like Eddie Joost and Junior Thompson, resolved never to poke fun at another man so long as they lived.
In the years since that August afternoon in 1940, rumors have swirled around what caused Hersberger to take his life, and what exactly those personal issues were he revealed to McKechnie. For his part, the manager kept his word and never spoke about it. Silence breeds speculation, and while I was going to list all the suspected reasons other writers have posed for his suicide, I decided it wasn't appropriate or responsible, since there was no evidence to come close to proving any of the theories.
The memory of Willard Hershberger hung over the Reds for the rest of the summer. McKechnie told the team that they owed it to Hershie to go forward and win the pennant. In tribute to the catcher, each man wore a black armband on the right sleeve of their jerseys. In a novel tribute for the time, the Cincinnati Reds even retired Hershie's number 5 for the rest of the season. Unlike today, numbers weren't taken out of circulation by a ball club after being worn by a good player, but simply handed over to the next guy who needed one. While the retirement of Hershberger's number 5 wasn't permanent, in 1984 it was finally hung up for good - after Johnny Bench, who wore it on his own back for 17 seasons, retired.
As McKechnie predicted, the Reds started winning again, held off the Dodgers and finished 12 games in front. Hershberger's suicide left the team's catching staff in a terrible state, Lombardi was still not completely healed and Baker was not experienced enough. Going into the World Series against Detroit, the Reds activated their coach Jimmy Wilson, a former catcher. Though he hadn't caught a game in years, he became the hero of the 1940 World Series, catching 6 of the 7 games and batting .353 as Cincinnati won. At the end of October, 1940, the Reds sent Willard's mother a check for $5,803.62 - Hershie's full share of the World Series winner's money.
Carrying the weight of the whole ball club on his shoulders, the boys felt he earned it.
SOURCES
- Mulligan, Brian The 1940 Cincinnati Reds: A World Championship and Baseball's Only In-Season Suicide (McFarland and Company 2005)
- Bradley, Leo H. Underrated Reds: The Story of the 1939-40 Cincinnati Reds, The Team's First Undisputed Championship (Fried Publishing, 2009)
- Nack, William The Razor's Edge (Sports Illustrated May 6, 1991)
- Mayer, Ronald A. The 1937 Newark Bears: A Baseball Legend (Rutgers University Press, 1980)
- Various Contemporary newspaper sources including Binghamton Press, Newark Evening News, The Sporting News, Cincinnati Post.
