The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the Deadball Era

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There is a lot of baseball history mixed in, but some of the facts have been altered to fit the story. Don't base your school paper or bet a buddy a case of beer on what you read here.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>LINKS</b></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.sportsmogul.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.sportsmogul.com"><U><U>Baseball Mogul</U></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.baseball-reference.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.baseball-reference.com"><U><U>Baseball Reference</U></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.baseballlibrary.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.baseballlibrary.com"><U><U>Baseball Library</U></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.baseball-almanac.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.baseball-almanac.com"><U><U>Baseball Almanac</U></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.thatsbaseball.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.thatsbaseball.org"><U><U>That's Baseball</U></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>PAGE</b></div> <div> <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>2</U></A>   <A HREF="id4.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>3</U></A>   <A HREF="id7.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>4</U></A>   <A HREF="id10.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>5</U></A>   <A HREF="id11.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>6</U></A>   <A HREF="id16.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>7</U></A>   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>8</U></A>   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>9</U></A>   </div> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>10</U></A>   <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>11</U></A>   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U>12</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <U>A Journal of the Deadball Era</U></div> <div> <B>by Boone Tasker, Manager, Brooklyn Dodgers, 1909-</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>December 24, 1908</b></div> <div> I was in my home in Albany when I got the call* from Charles Ebbets, Jr. It was the day before Christmas, and I was thinking about my wife, dead now nearly a year, and wondering how best to get my 12-year-old son Harry -- and myself -- through the holidays without her. The last thing on my mind was baseball. Ebbets offered me the job of managing the Brooklyn ballclub that had recently been renamed the Dodgers.** He said Patsy Donovan, who had presided over a 53-101 season this year, was going to leave, and I was the first choice to be his replacement. I didn't believe the part about being the first choice. I'd played eleven years in the National League, all but two of them with the forgettable Cleveland Spiders, and since then I'd skippered a couple of independent league teams. I couldn't figure out how Ebbets even knew me, much less why he would offer me the job when there were many who were better qualified.</div> <bR> <div> You could say I was ambivalent about the opportunity, but, as I would soon discover, Charles Ebbets was not a man who would take no for an answer. He urged me to consider the offer, else he would have to appoint a player, probably Harry Lumley, as manager for the '09 campaign. There wasn't anything wrong with Lumley, he said, but he didn't really want another player-manager. I told him I would think about.</div> <bR> <div> * <FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" >Yes, they had telephones back then, particularly in the Northeast.</FONT></div> <div> ** <FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" >Actually, the Brooklyn club remained the Superbas until 1912, when the name was changed to the Dodgers.</FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>December 31, 1908</b></div> <div> For a week I mulled over what Ebbets had said. I liked my life the way it was. I was managing a team in an independent league and I'd bought a home in Albany. After so many years of living the footloose life of a ballplayer, I was trying to put down roots, more for my son Harry than for myself. Being a widower, it was my job to give him as much security as I could now that his mother was gone.</div> <bR> <div> I knew that the Brooklyn club had fallen on hard times -- eight straight losing seasons since back-to-back championships in 1899 and 1900. Charles Ebbets had gone into debt to buy the team from Ned Hanlon and company when they decided to move the club to Baltimore. Ebbets was determined to keep it in Brooklyn. I assumed he didn't have a lot of working capital, and without money you couldn't get the best ballplayers to boost your record, not to mention gate receipts. Patsy Tebeau had managed the Spiders for eight years while I was with Cleveland, and I'd seen the toll that being at the helm of a perennial loser could take on a man. </div> <bR> <div> Naturally, Harry wanted me to take the job. To him it sounded like a great adventure, especially since he aspired to be a professional ballplayer. He begged me to let him be the team's bat boy. When Ebbets called back today I told him I still hadn't made up my mind, half hoping he'd say he couldn't wait any longer and would find somebody else. Instead, he urged me to come to Brooklyn in a couple of weeks, and I agreed.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="007b5fa0.jpg" border=0 width="181" height="250" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Charles Ebbets</div> <bR> <div> <B>January 14, 1909</b></div> <div> Harry and I went by train to Brooklyn. I treated the trip more as a vacation than as an appointment to see a man about a job. I met Mr. Ebbets as his home on First Street in south Brooklyn. He was a courteous man of about forty years, clearly passionate about baseball in general and the Brooklyn Dodgers in particular. After Harry went off to play with the Ebbets children, a son and trio of daughters, I asked Ebbets why he wanted me to manage the club. After all, I had been out of the league for years. I didn't know any of his players. In most of the cases I hadn't seen them play. He said that was an asset, not a liability. The team needed to be assessed objectively. He told me that he'd paid a very large team salary in '08 and gotten a miserable team performance in return. Patsy Donovan was a good man, but he shied away from tough decisions because he'd played with many on the squad. Ebbets then leaned forward and proceeded to tell me about the team, player by player, rattling off statistics right and left. I took as many notes as I could.</div> <bR> <div> Nap Rucker lhp - Third year in the league, went 17-19 with a 2.08 ERA last year and 15-13 with a 2.06 ERA the season before. Far more strikeouts than walks.</div> <div> Harry McIntyre  rhp - in his 6th year, seems to have great skills, but in four seasons with Brooklyn has accumulated a record of 39-81.</div> <div> Jim Pastorius  lhp - Was 16-12 in '07 but 4-20 last year. Gave up too many walks and didn't strike out enough batters.</div> <div> Gus Bell  rhp - Was 4-15 last year and 8-16 the year before.</div> <div> Kaiser Wilhelm  rhp -- Had a 1.87 ERA last year but still ended up 16-22. "He gets more than twenty-five percent of the team salary," saud Ebbets, "and I've been thinking I could find somebody who'd go 16 and 22 for a lot less."</div> <div> Doc Scanlon  rhp -- Didn't have the best numbers, but seemed to know what it took to win. In four years with Brooklyn had a won-lost record of 44-39.</div> <bR> <div> The bullpen, as it looked now, consisted entirely of rookies, all right handers -- Eddie Dent, Sam Fletcher, Pembroke Finlayson, Frank Schneiberg and Elmer Knetzer. Ebbets could not tell me much about any of them.</div> <bR> <div> As for the rest...</div> <bR> <div> Catcher Bill Bergen had a strong arm -- he'd thrown out 137 runners in 99 games last year -- but he could not hit.</div> <div> Catcher Doc Marshall hit a little better than Bergen but didn't have Bergen's arm.</div> <div> Catcher Joe Dunn was like Marshall and Bergen, better defensively than at the plate.</div> <div> First baseman Tim Jordan had hit twelve homers last year and was adequate defensively.</div> <div> First baseman Jake Daubert was a rookie who'd hit for power in the minor leagues but was only an average fielder.</div> <div> Second baseman Whitey Alperman had tremendous range but was a light hitter.</div> <div> Third baseman Pryor McElveen was a rookie, and seemed to be pretty average in every department.</div> <div> Shortstop Tommy McMillan, in his third season, was excellent defensively, and could develop into a good hitter.</div> <div> Shortstop Leo Meyer was a 21-year-old rookie with above-average defensive skills but below-average hitting capability.</div> <div> Leftfielder Al Burch was solid defensively and in four seasons in the league had a .254 batting average.</div> <div> Rightfielder Harry Lumley had had a poor year in '08, batting .216, far below his .277 career average. He had a great arm.</div> <div> Centerfielder Hy Myers was a 19-year-old rookie with real promise.</div> <div> Leftfielder John Hummel, in his sixth season, was a good outfielder but only fair at the plate.</div> <div> Rightfielder Jimmy Sebring was a borderline prospect, but had hit .286 with a pair of homers last season, his best year since 1903, when he was with Pittsburgh.</div> <div> Leftfielder Zach Wheat had been discovered by Larry Sutton -- a former umpire hired by Ebbets as a scout -- in Mobile, Alabama. Sutton had persuaded Ebbets to buy Wheat's contract for $1,200. "I can only hope he's worth it," Ebbets told me.</div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="402" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#A6CAF0 HEIGHT= 128 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="0145d790.jpg" border=0 width="93" height="121" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Zach Wheat </b>("Buck")</div> <div> Born May 23, 1888 (Hamilton, MO)</div> <div> Debut: September 11, 1909</div> <div> Bats Left</div> <div> Throws Right</div> <div> 5'10"   170 lb</div> <div> 132,1248, .317 (1909-1927)</div> <div> Hall of Fame</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <B>January 15, 1909</b></div> <div> This morning I took Harry to see one of the man-made wonders of the world, the Brooklyn Bridge, regaling him with the story of how its creator, John Roebling, along with about twenty construction workers, died during its construction. I promised to take him to Dreamland at Coney Island the next day. This afternoon I met Charles Ebbets at Washington Park, located between Third  and Fourth Avenues and First and Third Streets, not far from the original Washington Park, where the club had once played. It was there that he told me (after swearing me to secrecy) of his plans to build a grand park worthy of Brooklyn, and that he had already begun buying up parcels of land in an area known as Pigtown (which didn't sound like a very nice area to me, but I said nothing). "I want the Dodgers to be a team this great city can be proud of. Will you help me?" I told him I would try. </div> <bR> <div> Why did I agree to uproot myself and my son and return to the big league, where failure was more common than success? One reason was the money. Ebbets was willing to pay me far more than I was making in Albany, and I was tired of scrambling to make ends meet. I'd done that my whole life. Part of it, too, was the challenge. And part of it was Brooklyn itself. I liked the city. It was vibrant and growing. A good place, seemed to me, for a kid like Harry to grow up.</div> <bR> <div> Excited, Ebbets said we would sign the papers and notify the press tomorrow. I told him it would have to be the following day -- I had a prior commitment tomorrow.</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Journal of the D"><U><U>next page>>></U></U></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>