Chapter 19

Lajoie's Best Cleveland Team

It wuz in March of '08 while we wuz in spring training that the Collinwood School fire occurred. Most people no longer remember it, but it wuz just a horrible, horrible event. I believe some 172 children and two teachers perished. Seems an overheated steam pipe came in contact with the wooden joists under the front stairs, and only 194 of the students enrolled escaped the blaze. The others were trapped inside the rear first-floor exit. By the time volunteer firemen arrived, nothing could be done to save them. Nineteen bodies could not be identified and were buried in a common grave in along with 150 students whose identity was known.

The initial report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer claimed that the rear doors of the school opened inward, and the children were unable to open them because they were jammed against the doors by the other panic-stricken children pushing from behind. However, the coroner's inquest included reports from witnesses and the architects who designed the building as well as a physical examination of the building proved that the outer doors did open outward in accordance with the law at that time. The report on the fire concluded that the children's failure to escape resulted from their own panic. The fleeing children became wedged tightly on the stairs behind a set of inner vestibule doors which were narrower than the outer doors. I knew five of the victim's families, and three families with children that survived. It left the entire community shaken. Hell, it left the nation shaken. The horror of the Collinwood fire caused numerous school inspections across the country, which resulted in stricter laws. Better late than never, I guess.

"Let's talk about baseball, Roy; I got a bad taste in my mouth."

I found this surprising coming from Jack the Ripper, and god knows who else he'd assisted in murder, but went along, knowing my turn would come in learning more about his serial killings over the years.

So I asked, "Wasn't 1908 a special season for the game, Bill?"

He didn't respond right away. Perhaps a full minute passed before he looked at me and nodded his head. Then he spoke continuously for twenty minutes in as concise a monologue as any I've heard since Will Shakespeare was putting pen to paper.

"Well sir, I seen a lot of games, and I've played in, or looked in on most every season ever played, and in my opinion 1908 had to be the best season by far. It had two agonizing pennant races, probably the finest pitching duel in the history of the game; and in the heat of that October's stretch drive, maybe the most controversial game ever played. Picture them: Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance in their prime. Honus Wagner having what might have been the greatest season anyone ever had. Ty Cobb rising up snarling, and kicking; manhandling his Tigers into contention. Christy Mathewson had his finest year, and his most sorrowful one. Cy Young had his last good season, while Walter Johnson was enjoying the first of his long career.

"As for me? Why old Nappy, well, I'd never come closer to winning the pennant."

Then Bill swore aloud, "SHIT!" Wiping what must have been a tear from his jaundiced eye, "That season wuz like a Dickens novel, it developed in kind of installments, until, in the final chapter, or World Series, all the loose ends wuz tied up and the heroes went home, tired but happy. That year there wuz simply more characters, more incidents, more surprises and more fucking drama than any other. Just imagine six teams in contention with two days left. Each league's pennant wuz decided on the last day, culminating six months of hard fought and sometimes very bitter baseball.

"In the National League, the Cubs would win four pennants and two World Series between 1906 and 1910, driven by a toughness and competitive fire that made them the dominant team of the era. Only boxing and horse racing rivaled baseball in popularity back then and since both had been known to be controlled by gamblers, well, the fans didn't fully accept them as they did baseball.

"In the American League, the Yankee's had restocked their roster. Jack Chesbro was back in form; along with a flame throwing rookie named Manning. And there wuz was a kid from Jersey City, Joe Lake, who, between you and me, reminded me of Matty[1] at his best. Why, Fielder Jones, the manager of the White Sox told me and the newsies toward the end of Spring Training he wuz picking the Yankees instead of his own team to win the pennant.

"To be sure, the Yankees did start well. They wuz in first place as June opened, but there wuz some muttering amongst them in the know that the race wuz fixed, with Ban Johnson telling his handpicked umpires to give the close calls to the Yankees.

"Ah, but then the damn wheels fell off their trolley. They lost eighteen of their next twenty-two games. Griffith quit, and his replacement? None other than Kid Elberfeld, yup, same guy wuz suspended the year before for not giving his all. I knew then they wuz at the crossroads of something rotten. The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote "the team is a cesspool of animosities, riven by factions." They proved it by stumbling into last place to stay in mid-July.

"Now, maybe, just maybe, Elberfeld tried to inspire his team with his fury. But it turned around and bit him on the ass, and he wound up alienating them. He had plenty of help from Prince Hal Chase, his star first baseman, who sorely wanted the manager's job when Griffith left. Chase wuz the team's first home grown star. I for one knew he wuz playing at far less than his best and it wuzn't long before people began to wonder if he wuz strictly honest.

"It wasn't the last time, that's for sure, and I ain't crying wolf. A decade later, he would be considered the most crooked player in baseball history. It's a shame in a way. He was handsome, intelligent, articulate, and most of all, a ballplayer of extraordinary skills. He came up to the Yankees in '05, I believe ... a spectacular fielder ... and it was superlative, believe you me. I saw him playing first and field a bunt on the third base side of the bag more than once. His defensive skills were such that his teammates couldn't keep up with his thinking and turned brilliant plays into errors. I can't tell you how many times I wished he wuz playing alongside me. That is, until his play started to smell.

"He wuz a generous man and befriended the younger players, inviting them to his home for dinner and the like. Many of them worshipped him. This appeal carried over to his days of outlaw ball in Douglas, Arizona, where men whose wives and girlfriends wuz seduced by Chase were still in awe of him 50 years later.[2]

"When he was trying, he was the best I ever saw. Even Babe Ruth said, 'For my dough, Hal Chase was the greatest first baseman who ever lived.' Ty Cobb refused to run wild on him because he respected his arm, never trying to go from first to third on him. And Chase could hit too. But during that 1908 season, rumors surfaced and wouldn't go away that he was throwing games. Course the owner of the team, Frank Farrell, wuz the biggest gambler in New York and that might have had something to do with it, Chase being his favorite player.

Then, in September, Chase left the team complaining that his integrity had been impugned. Some in the game figured he wuz just sick of playing out the string with a rotten team, others like me, thought otherwise. The thing is, he took off for California and played out there making good money, him being a star player and all. As for the Yankees, they lost seventy of their last ninety-eight games, often in humiliating fashion.

"There is," Bill went on to say, "an evil, a lust and greed that lives inside each of us. The secret of Hal Chase, I believe, wuz that he was able to reach out and embrace that evil. And he had so much class, don't you see? He wuz a man of such dignity and bearing, such wit, charm and grace, that he made you feel it wuz all right to have that in you. It's okay," he'd say; "it's just the way we are. We're all professionals aren't we? We're in this game to make a living, aren't we?"

"I would go back to this statement by Bill many times and wonder if he was truly speaking of Hal Chase, or himself.

"What about your team that year?" I asked, Bill.

"The Nap's?" He grinned at me, lit another Chesterfield and then said laconically, "The fans named the team after me. Ain't that the damnedest thing you ever heard? I mean, wuz there a Philadelphia Mack's? A New York McGraw's? Nope. But then again we're talking about Cleveland. So they dropped the name Bronchos and became the Naps. Hell, they named the team after a drunken Indian named Sockalexis in 1915 for some arcane reason after I left. I wuz sent off to Philadelphia."

He looked me in the eye, and said, "I wuz at the end of the line then, and I knew it. Philadelphia wuz where I started, it seemed right to me. Anyways, they're still called the Indian's and I think it's as good a name as they deserve.

"Not being one to rub salt into a wound, I should tell you that not landing Cobb wasn't the worst thing to happen to my Cleveland team, no, sir. In a typical season they say things have a way of evening out. For example, every team wins games they deserve to lose; or the umpire blows a call in favor of the other team. Well, the thought is that the next day, or the next week the ump will make an error in your favor, kind of evening things up. In 1908, though, the balance of fortune didn't come close to evening out for Cleveland.

"We wuz hexed, plain and simple. It started with a brick being thrown at the train we wuz riding during Spring Training. Two weeks later, a couple of Naps wuz doing a little night fishing, an activity so suspicious they wuz rousted by the Macon police, revolvers drawn.[3] On a steamy day in New Orleans we're taking batting practice when a swarm of vultures swooped down on us, I swear to god![4] Do you see where I get the idea we wuz hexed?

"We didn't play a regular season game with the planned starting lineup. Terry Turner, our shortstop missed 98 games; he wuzn't no Honus Wagner, or even Joe Tinker, but by God he wuz my best shortstop. As I said earlier, Flick wuzn't worth a damn on account of his sore belly, and to make matters worse, I stunk too. I had a miserable season, never getting into my normal stride as a hitter.

"So, as the season got rolling, we surprised everyone, including myself, by starting off strong. And we didn't fold. The Yankees did that, as I mentioned earlier. Oh, we had our usual July horror streak, losing games we should have easily won, but that's how the game plays out.

"Maybe I wasn't hitting worth a damn, but my fielding wuz never better. For the first time I began to understand why Grantland Rice had called my play in the field ballet-like. [5] I played every game, and in late July got my 2000^th hit. Turns out I wuz the first to do it in the new century, but, my .289 batting average wuz nearly fifty points below my career average. Aw, shit, let's be honest about it; it wuz the worst year of my career.

"Well, we suffered from bad break after bad break, for instance, there's this game in June. We're winning, when a pop-up is lofted to third baseman Bill Bradley. He settles under it to make a routine catch, then decides to mess around and pretends to miss it. But he fucked up, dropped the ball and the runner wuz safe. Washington goes on to tie the game and ultimately win it."

"It had to be Washington, a team that everyone else loves to play because of their poor hitting, poor fielding, and except for Walter Johnson, piss poor pitching. But that year Washington had our number. They beat us fourteen out of twenty-two, more than any other team and that includes the damn Yankees.

"A couple days later, we're still in June, mind you, we lost the services of "Nig" Clarke, our starting catcher. Now, as with Mr. Flick, "Nig" and me weren't fond of one another. Don't get me wrong, most all the other players did like me. I really was quite popular. I mean, they named the team after me and all. Anyway, it seems that "Nig" wuz overly devoted to his new wife, and sought a few days off to be with her. Of course I refused his request. We wuz in the middle of a pennant race and there wuz nothing wrong with her. So "Nig" stick his finger in the path of an incoming fast ball, broke it and missed the next five weeks.

"Now, I firmly believe that when it comes to bad luck, I mean if it goes on and on, that people grow to expect it, even when your luck has turned and that's the way it wuz for the team that year. I mean, damn it, we were leading the league, or close to it most of '08. But you'd never know it. The "Dealer" chided us for "listless play," or "looking disinterested." Yet there we wuz, in first place!

"Attendance wuz lousy; it wuz considered a good crowd if we drew three thousand. Without me beating the starving horse to death, let me just say that we wuz hot as a whorehouse on nickel night down the stretch, going 22-5-1 over the last month of the season. And most of those games wuz against the other contenders.

"When the team suffered not one, but two train accidents rushing home for a Labor Day doubleheader, I knew the fates had turned against us. On September 9^th we drew 2,429 fans. The same day, the seventh place Senators hosting the sixth place Red Sox, pulled in a crowd of 3,200. But ... and I'll never forget this, when we returned home after taking four out of five from Chicago, the fans quietly went mad.

"Almost eleven thousand turn out to see our ace, Addie Joss out duel Boston's Cy Young, 1-0. A week later, Dusty Rhoades does Joss one better, tossing a no-hitter, and with another victory the following day, we found ourselves within two percentage points of the first place Tigers."

"I feel like crying at what came next," Bill said somberly, "On September 21, we wuz in first place all by ourselves. The Cleveland Plain Dealer had a headline on the front page that said simply, "HOORAY!" Farmers began driving miles to come to the games. We had won sixteen out of eighteen when we met up with Washington, our jinx team. Inconceivably we lost two games to them. They won with a hit, a bunt that almost but never quite went foul; followed by an error, and some dubious calls from the umpire. Former owner, Frank Robinson, listening to a friend give the play-by-play over the telephone, got so excited he died of a heart attack.

"But we were made of sterner stuff and rebounded, ripping off five straight victories. On October 2nd, we're a half game behind the Tigers, and a half game ahead of the White Sox, who we happen to be playing. I sent Addie Joss out to beat them. Joss finished the year with a 24 – 11 record. Addie wuz a tall, lanky guy, well liked and kind of smart and known for his remarkable control – he gave up less than a walk a game that year. Addie had a distinctive pitching motion, hiding the ball on his hip until the last moment, and then delivered the pitch using an exaggerated windup that had him with his back to home plate. I sure had trouble picking up his pitch during batting practice, and I wuz glad he wuz on my team. In nine years, some 286 games, Addie gave up just nineteen home runs."

"Joss took the mound against the White Sox that day, and his opponent was another pretty good pitcher, Big Ed Walsh. Now the Chicago team had had a curious year. Out of the box they wuz 18 – 20. But in early June, they got hot and went from sixth to first in less than a week. They went back to lose a few, then won a few, and that's how their season went. On August 20^th they sat comfortably in fourth place, seven games out. Trust me; I've had this stuff memorized for almost forty years now. I've got it down. It's all in apple pie order, or else I'd have hobbled my lip by now." [6]

"Then, they take off, winning two thirds of their remaining games. Their pitching stabilized. The previously porous infield is suddenly cohesive. And the ball started bouncing their way. Little things, you say? Maybe not so little when you consider the ground they made up and the short time they did it in."

"On September 29, the last week of the season begins, and the top three teams are only a game apart. That day, all three win doubleheaders. Walsh won two for the White Sox, giving up one run and picking up his thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth victories. He would pitch 464 innings that year, a feat not likely to be broken – ever.

"That year, Walsh might have had the best spitball ever thrown. I can still see him; I musta hit about .350 against him. I mean, I owned him, but he owned the rest of the Cleveland players, and that's no blow, either. He would raise his glove in front of his mouth on every pitch so you couldn't tell if he wuz loading up or not. He'd lick his index and middle fingers, place 'em on top of the ball with his thumb underneath, and squirt the ball through. Of course he used the same motion as he did with the fastball, only his spitball broke in three different directions – down and away, straight down, and down and in."

"The other spitters did it differently. For example, Jack Chesbro of the Yankees licked the leather hide of the baseball. Rookie Joe Lake, also of the Yankees, was said to "eat the ball." The sight of a man licking, or eating the filthy baseball could turn a man's stomach, and some claimed that it caused tuberculosis. That last part is horse ... feathers," Bill ended with a sheepish grin.

"Baseball players are always spitting, that is when they're not scratching themselves. I could tell you a story about a young thing came to the games just to see us scratching our nuts. I met her after a game and when I learned that she was fascinated by the sight, offered to let her scratch mine." He paused, probably recalling the event in greater detail and then said, "Where wuz I?"

"You were speaking of the spitball pitchers, and Ed Walsh," I said.

"Yeah, well, Walsh would throw it constantly. Maybe slipping in a fastball every tenth pitch or so. I would look for one type spitter. It didn't matter which, although I did love to swing at his down and in spitter. And like I said, I hit him well."

"Now I wuz going someplace with this story, guess I got sidetracked. Can you make that machine back up?"

I could and I did.

As soon as he heard his voice saying: "I sent Addie Joss out to beat them." He exclaimed, "That's it! Hold it right there!"

"You're back on track?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure, the October game, Joss versus Big Ed Walsh. The game of the century some called it. I don't know about that, but it wuz the best pitched game I ever saw.

"You know these two pitchers were the best of friends, and together have the lowest lifetime ERA's of anyone ever played the game. Anyway, it wuz the biggest crowd of the year, and why not, with the pennant on the line and all. So Walsh doesn't disappoint, with his spitter breaking even more than usual, he strikes out fifteen Clevelanders and gives up four hits, allowing us one run, and that wuz unearned, coming when he uncorked a pitch that glanced off catcher Schreckengost's mitt. Schreckie wuz playing with a busted hand and calling it a wild pitch probably did Walsh an injustice. Anyway, it wuz the only run to cross the plate that day.

"Addie wuz a tad better, for the first six, he allowed Chicago nothing, and as word flowed from fan to fan, the ballpark went quiet. The cow bells didn't ring – in fact, all the noisemakers wuz silent. Shit, fans wouldn't even light their cigars. In the seventh, Joss had a dangerous moment, falling behind in the count, three and one to Fielder Jones, before striking him out looking. In the eighth, I made two difficult plays look easy and we were out of the inning.