Joe McGinnity was truly an “Iron Man” in almost every sense. Though he said that the nickname came from his off-season work in his wife’s family business, an iron foundry in McAlester, Oklahoma, McGinnity became famous for pitching both ends of doubleheaders and led his league in innings pitched four times in the five seasons from 1900 to 1904. He was also an “Iron Man” in terms of longevity: he pitched professionally until age 54, racking up 246 wins in the major leagues and another 240 in the minors, a combined total topped only by Cy Young. A stocky 5’11” right-hander, McGinnity for most of his career weighed a good deal more than the 206 lbs. that is listed in record books. He owed his durability to a style of delivery that saw him alternate between overhand, sidearm, and a wicked underhanded curve that he called “Old Sal.” “I’ve pitched for 30 years and I believe I’ve averaged over 30 games a season, and in all my experiences I’ve never had what I could truthfully call a sore arm,” Joe confided.
Joseph Jerome McGinty (he changed his last name to McGinnity as an adult) was born on March 19, 1871, in Cornwall, Illinois. His early minor-league career gave no indication of the success to come: in 1893-94 he was a combined 21-29 for Montgomery of the Southern Association and Kansas City of the Western League, with more walks than strikeouts and far more hits than innings pitched. Returning to Springfield, Illinois, McGinnity operated a saloon and built a reputation as a tough character, serving as his own bouncer when the need arose. He also pitched at the semipro level for the next three years, and it was then that he discovered Old Sal, the pitch that changed his career. In 1898 McGinnity returned to professional baseball with Peoria of the Western Association, going 9-4 with fewer hits (118) than innings (142) and more strikeouts (74) than walks (60) for the first time in his professional career.
The following year McGinnity made his National League debut with the Baltimore Orioles, establishing himself from the start as a dominant pitcher. The 28-year-old rookie was 28-16, leading the NL in wins and ranking second in games (48), fifth in ERA (2.68), and fourth in innings pitched (366.1). In one stretch in October McGinnity appeared in every game that week, winning five games in six days. In 1900 Joe joined the Brooklyn Superbas, as did several other Orioles, but the change in cities made no difference in his winning ways. His 28-8 record gave him the NL lead in wins for the second time in as many seasons, and for the first time he led the league in innings pitched with 343. After the Superbas captured the NL pennant, McGinnity led them to a three-games-to-one victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup by pitching two complete games without allowing a single earned run.
Turning down an offer of almost twice as much to return to Brooklyn, Joe McGinnity signed for $2,800 with the Baltimore franchise in the new American League, managed by his old manager-teammate on the 1899 Orioles, John McGraw. McGinnity’s career almost ended on August 21, 1901, when he spat tobacco juice in the face of umpire Tom Connolly, precipitating an on-field donnybrook that led to the ejections of teammates Mike Donlin and Bill Keister, as well as Detroit’s Kid Elberfeld. McGinnity was arrested and hauled before a judge, but his bigger concern was AL president Ban Johnson, who wanted his league free from brawls, especially of the umpire-baiting variety. Initially Johnson announced that he was permanently suspending the burly pitcher, but he reduced the suspension to 12 days when a penitent McGinnity agreed to apologize to Connolly. Joe made up for lost time by pitching both halves of two September doubleheaders, earning split decisions in each. Despite mediocre support, he finished the season at 26-20 and led the AL in games (48), complete games (39), and innings pitched (382).
McGinnity started 1902 in Baltimore but followed McGraw to New York in mid-July. The following year, his first full season with the Giants, he again led the NL with 31 wins and pitched an incredible 434 innings, a league record that will probably stand forever. That August McGinnity recorded his most extraordinary feat by pitching complete games in both ends of three doubleheaders, winning all six games. After the last of the three, the New York Times reported that he showed “no signs of fatigue–in fact, he seemed fresh enough to tackle the visitors for a third contest if that were necessary.” The rough-and-tumble McGinnity, who hit opposing batters at the alarming rate of one for every 19, differed greatly from his refined teammate Christy Mathewson, but the two combined for 73% of the Giants’ victories in 1903, making them the 20th century’s most successful pitching tandem. The following year McGinnity enjoyed his greatest season, leading the Giants to the pennant by winning 14 consecutive games en route to a 35-8 record. Again he led the NL in games (51) and innings pitched (408), but he also paced the circuit in shutouts (9), saves (5), and ERA (a career-best 1.61).
Mathewson replaced McGinnity as the NL’s best pitcher in 1905, but the Iron Man contributed 21 wins to another pennant-winning season. The Giants had five pitchers who won at least 15 games that season, but McGinnity started two of the five World Series games against the Philadelphia Athletics. He lost Game Two to Chief Bender by giving up three unearned runs on six hits, but he bounced back in Game Four to pitch a five-hit shutout, winning 1-0. In 1906 McGinnity reclaimed the NL lead in wins with 27 even though he missed 10 days in July while serving another suspension. This time his antagonist was Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Heinie Peitz, with whom he’d been exchanging verbal insults for quite some time. After reaching his breaking point, McGinnity gave chase to Peitz, caught up with him, threw him to the ground, and began punching him. When the dust settled, NL president Harry Pulliam levied a series of fines and suspensions, the heaviest to McGinnity for what Pulliam called “attempting to make the ball park a slaughterhouse.”
The 37-year-old McGinnity finished 1907 with an 18-18 record, his only non-winning season in the majors. His ERA increased almost a full run to 3.16 and he yielded more hits than innings for the first time since 1901, prompting reporters to speculate that he was past his days of big-league usefulness. McGinnity missed the start of the 1908 season, suffering from a severe fever at his home in McAlester. He didn’t pick up his first win until May 30, and shortly thereafter John Brush, the Giants owner, put him on waivers to try to rid himself of the big pitcher’s “ironclad” $4,000 salary (he also received a $1,000 bonus). Brush tried again on August 22 but again found no takers. That afternoon McGraw called on McGinnity after Red Ames walked the first two Reds batters “and the Iron Man performed in his 1903 style,” wrote Jack Ryder in the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Isn’t baseball a funny proposition? Here is a pitcher the Giants are trying to give away. Necessity forces his use a few hours after the gift proposition is made, and the old boy works like a Mathewson.” McGinnity pitched well for the rest of the season, ending up at 11-7 with five shutouts, a league-leading five saves, and a 2.27 ERA.
Down the stretch of that 1908 season, McGinnity played interesting roles in two of the most famous games in history. In the Merkle Game, he quickly recognized what the Cubs were up to so he recovered the ball hit by Al Bridwell and threw it out of the Polo Grounds to prevent Johnny Evers from retrieving it and tagging second base. Evers obtained a loose ball from somewhere, probably the Cubs dugout, and umpire Hank O’Day ruled in favor of the Cubs, necessitating a one-game playoff at the end of the season. “Before the game we talked over in the clubhouse how in the world we could get Chance out of there,” recalled Fred Snodgrass of the Giants. “Matty was to pitch for us, and Frank always hit Matty pretty well. So it was cooked up that Joe McGinnity was to pick a fight with Chance early in the game. They were to have a knockdown, drag-out fight and both would get thrown out. Of course, we didn’t need McGinnity, but they needed Chance. McGinnity did just as he was supposed to. He called Chance names on some pretext or other, stepped on his toes, pushed him, actually spit on him. But Frank wouldn’t fight. He was too smart. And they beat us, with Chance getting a key hit.”
On February 27, 1909, the Giants finally released McGinnity, but that ended only phase one of his baseball career. He went on to spend another 14 seasons in the minors, becoming part-owner and player-manager of teams in Newark, Tacoma, Butte, and Dubuque. At Newark the Iron Man went 29-16 in 1909 and set all-time Eastern League records for innings pitched (422) and shutouts (11). He also continued his doubleheader pitching ways, winning both ends on August 27, 1909, and July 23, 1912. McGinnity racked up five 20-win seasons and one 30-win season in the minors before pitching his last game in Organized Baseball in 1925 at the grand old age of 54, hurling for Springfield, Illinois, where he’d discovered Old Sal some 30 years earlier. In 1926 he joined old teammate Wilbert Robinson as a coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In the spring of 1929 Joe was helping out with the Williams College baseball team when he became ill and returned to Brooklyn where his daughter lived. He died there at age 58 on November 14, 1929, and was buried next to his wife in McAlester. Joe McGinnity was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
On April 11, 1912, the New York American League club opened its season at Hilltop Park in New York City with a new official team nickname, the Yankees. For the first time in the club’s history, the players wore pinstriped home uniforms. The team also welcomed a new manager, Harry Wolverton. He preferred the team’s old name, the Highlanders. He often wore a sombrero with his pinstripes. And when club owner Frank Farrell presented Wolverton with a floral horseshoe display, everyone noticed that it was mounted upside down. Yes, the luck ran out. The Yankees lost to the Red Sox, 5-3. They continued to lose games – 102 in all – and finished the season in last place. Wolverton, who never believed in luck (good or bad), excuses, or apologies, offered no explanations on the dismal outcome to anyone including Yankee owners and fans. Always an optimist, he promised to win the pennant next season.
John the Baptist Wolverton and Amanda Wolverton felt that same optimism when they welcomed their second son, Harry Sterling Wolverton, into the world on December 6, 1873, in Mount Vernon, Ohio. The blond-haired Sterl (his nickname growing up) found the ideal example of the hardworking family man in his father. A Civil War veteran, John married Amanda in 1868 and joined his father, Clement, in the steam dye business, in which he labored for the next forty years. His children had other dreams. The oldest child, Fred, born in 1871, became a successful dentist. A daughter, Birdie, born in 1878, married and moved to Florida. Sterl’s lifelong ambition was to play professional baseball. “As a boy on the Mt. Vernon sandlots, he lived baseball and was always playing or practicing some angle of the game,” reported his hometown newspaper, the Mount Vernon Republican, years later. According to local legend, Harry played baseball so much that after his friends grew tired, he paid other boys a nickel to continue playing with him. He was the captain of his high-school baseball team, but he gained legendary status as the boy who could hit baseballs father than anyone had ever seen.
Wolverton attended Kenyon College in nearby Gambier, Ohio. The small, all-male college was not known for its athletics. Except for a note in the student files listing him as a “special student” with a grade of 60 in a freshman English class, Wolverton made his mark on the football and baseball fields. The star athlete became regular copy in the campus newspaper, the Kenyon Collegian. Although he spent three seasons as a halfback on the football team and once ran a kickoff return for a 40-yard touchdown, his real passion remained baseball. After missing the opening game in 1894 because he flew over the steering wheel of his bicycle and hurt his shoulder, “Wolverton played his usual good game,” reported the Kenyon Collegian in May. The left-handed hitter proved ideal in the cleanup spot in the lineup and his defense at catcher caught everyone’s attention. “As usual Wolverton made some rather phenomenal stops behind the bat,” noted the campus paper the following April. “As usual Wolverton gave us another home run,” reported the Collegian in May 1895. His only shortcoming on the diamond was pitching. “He has not yet gained control of the ball,” the Collegian wrote.
Wolverton’s college career ended during his junior year when he and a few classmates decided to move an unacceptable freshman out of their dormitory. “We were elected to move one of the boys along in college,” Wolverton explained years later. After the freshman refused to leave, they decided to scare him away by means of a small improvised bomb made of twine, piping, and gunpowder. It worked better than anyone expected. The explosion tore apart their target’s room and a chunk of the building. No one was hurt, but the college administration began an investigation. Wolverton did not wait around for the results. Always looking to the positive side of any situation, he admitted that despite costing him an opportunity to gain a college degree, the episode pushed him into professional baseball.
Wolverton finished the summer of 1895 on the local Paulding, Ohio, team as a pitcher and first baseman for $60 a month. Although he preferred playing an infield position, he signed with Columbus of the Western League on February 22, 1896, as a pitcher. His lack of control limited his pitching to the bullpen. On May 10 against Indianapolis, he came in as a reliever and struck out two batters, but he also threw a wild pitch, hit a batter, and walked one. “Wolverton probably needs another year before he will be able to go in and take his turn,” reported Sporting Life on May 23, 1896. He took a few turns behind the plate and hit an impressive .385 in a limited number of plate appearances.
Although Wolverton agreed to another season with Columbus, the club farmed him out to the Dubuque, Iowa, team in the Western Association. His baseball career appeared in jeopardy after he hurt his pitching arm during a game against Rockford. A few weeks later the team needed someone to fill in at third base. Wolverton, despite his misgivings about his ability to throw the ball across the diamond to first base, agreed to try. Sure enough, during the game he had to make the long throw. Just as he threw the ball, he heard something snap in his right shoulder. His arm felt fine. Rather than return him to the mound, Dubuque kept him at third base. “I liked the game so well that I preferred some position where I could play every day,” Wolverton said years later. Now that he had it, the new third baseman had to prove he could play the hot corner every day.
As a regular player Wolverton led Dubuque with a .294 batting average and became the best third baseman in the Western Association. He was the captain of his team and a respected player among fans and sportswriters. On August 28, 1897, Sporting Life declared, “Third baseman Harry Wolverton of the Western Association, is declared to be a fast fielder and hard hitter.” The Dubuque Herald wrote, “Wolverton deserves a good deal of credit for his steady, day in and day out efforts to play winning ball.” The local newspaper also singled him out as one of the few players who did not have to be disciplined for drunkenness or other violations of misconduct.
In October Wolverton was back with Columbus. After a tight pennant race developed between the Eclipse club and the Bryce Nine in the Columbus League, Wolverton was sold to the Eclipse team for $5. Despite Wolverton’s help, Eclipse lost the pennant. After the season he returned to Dubuque, where the local newspaper helped his offseason job search by describing him as “an expert accountant and a thorough gentleman.”
After the death of his father in February 1898, Wolverton reconsidered his options. Grief-stricken, he considered staying out of baseball in the coming season. He also felt disappointed with the contract offered by Columbus. After all, he could provide a consistent defense; he knew how to play every position on the field. Columbus agreed and raised its offer. Once again he proved his value on the field. By July his batting average had soared to .400. He also showed his aggressive nature: When a base runner spiked him at third base, Wolverton broke his opponent’s nose.
On August 10, 1898, the Chicago Orphans (the future Cubs) of the National League purchased Wolverton’s contract but gave him permission to stay with Columbus until its season ended and then report to Chicago. The Chicago Daily Tribune introduced the late-season call-up as “a quiet player, not given to talk, but he goes about his business in a matter of fact way.” Wolverton made his major-league debut on September 25 with two base hits. In 13 games with the 1898 Orphans, he hit .327.
During spring training the following season, the Tribune criticized the “unsatisfactory” work of the entire club with one exception: “Wolverton at third is working in clean, fast style.” Most Chicago fans were surprised when manager Tom Burns made the rookie the starting third baseman and number three hitter in the lineup. On April 16, 1899, in Cincinnati, a large contingent of fans from Wolverton’s hometown of Mount Vernon presented him with a diamond stud and gold watch. They led a standing ovation in his honor.
But if there was an accident waiting to happen, Wolverton found it. On June 12, in a game against St. Louis, Wolverton and backup catcher Art Nichols both chased after a high fly ball in foul territory. The collision between the 5-foot-10, 175-pound catcher and the 5-foot-11, 205-pound third baseman sent Wolverton crashing into the opposition bench. Nichols walked off the field. Wolverton was carried off and rushed by ambulance to the hospital. He received treatment for a deep cut over his right eye, scratches on his face, a lump on his head, and pain in his groin.
Although Wolverton returned to the lineup on June 29 with two hits, three putouts, and four assists, he now had competition at third base. Bill Bradley was the better hitter. During an Eastern trip in July, manager Burns blamed Wolverton’s poor baserunning for the team’s losing more than a couple of games. Again, injuries interfered with Wolverton’s opportunities to prove himself invaluable to his team. On July 22 the Chicago Daily Tribune noted that he was suffering from an injured shoulder that affected his play at third base.
Despite the injuries, Wolverton felt that he had played well during his rookie season. He felt so optimistic about a long career as an Orphan that he moved his mother and siblings to Chicago. Then on April 28, 1900, he was sold to the Philadelphia Phillies. The family moved to Philadelphia.
Wolverton took his place at third base on a team that possessed three future Hall of Fame players on its roster, Nap Lajoie, Ed Delahanty, and Elmer Flick. While the Phillies finished in third place, Wolverton had a good season, hitting .282 with a career-high 58 runs batted in in 101 games, but it was not without injuries. On August 14, while running out a groundball, Wolverton spiked St. Louis first baseman Dan McGann on the foot. Furious, McGann turned around and fired the ball at Wolverton’s head. Harry staggered, then went fists first at McGann. Police officers broke up the fight. Wolverton denied the spiking, but he definitely had a headache. He suffered a second headache on September 5 when he leaned out of a Philadelphia rail car and smashed his head against a pole. He was hospitalized with a fractured skull. Somehow he managed to return to the Phillies’ lineup before the end of the 1900 season.
Injuries continued to follow him. In August 1901 Wolverton was hitting over .300 when he broke his collarbone in a collision with Boston first baseman Fred Tenney. While he recovered at home, rumors about his impending defection to the American League’s Washington club overshadowed his successful season (he hit .309 in 93 games). When asked by the press if he had signed a contract, Wolverton replied, “I defy you to prove it.” That was enough for the Phillies’ management. Team treasurer John Rogers suspended Wolverton and fined him $600, the amount of his salary from the time of his injury to the end of the season. “The majority of players are ungrateful, deceitful and liars and cannot be trusted for even their words,” Rogers said. Wolverton sued the Phillies and signed a two-year contract with Washington at $3,250 per year regardless of whether or not he played any games.
Wolverton soon regretted it, both on and off the field. As the 1902 season progressed, he failed to hit in the clutch and his errors in the field alienated fans. “He was clearly ill. And he showed little interest in his work—not that he did not want to play his best game, but he was simply unable to,” reported the Washington Post on July 20. Court rulings in Pennsylvania and Washington allowed him to play for Washington as long he never played baseball in Pennsylvania unless he took the field with the Phillies. After a week recuperating from malaria, Wolverton sent a telegram to Washington manager Tom Loftus explaining his intention to return to the Phillies. Loftus told the press, “It was a mistake to sign him in the first place.” Washington baseball fans agreed. In 59 games, Wolverton hit only .249 with 24 errors. He finished the season in Philadelphia and in 34 games with the Phillies the returning third baseman hit .294.
Wolverton’s 1903 season in Philadelphia proved that he had made the right decision to return. The veteran player hit .308 with a career high 12 triples in 123 games. Newspapers hailed him as one of the best third basemen in the National League but observed that his temper sometimes hindered his opportunities as he was thrown out of several games during the season. Still, fans and teammates enjoyed Wolverton’s aggressive style of play even though the Phillies stumbled to a seventh-place finish. He also married Philadelphia native Mary Maroney and felt secure that he would call Philadelphia home for many years.
After selling clothes at a department store in Philadelphia during the offseason, Wolverton returned to the Phillies in 1904 expecting to duplicate his numbers and good fortune. He played in 102 games and hit .266, but his season was riddled with injuries including a sprained ankle, a split finger, and a sprained leg. In December 1904 Philadelphia traded Wolverton to the Boston Beaneaters for pitcher Togie Pittinger. At odds over money, Wolverton refused to sign his contract with Boston and considered playing in the independent Tri-State League. He finally signed with Boston in early March. The press cheered Boston’s acquisition of the veteran third baseman. Despite his failing to get a hit in 28 plate appearances in six games against Brooklyn in April 1905, the Boston Daily Globe noted that “Harry Wolverton put up a superb game at third.” He played one of the best defensive games of his career when he handled ten chances at third base without an error in Boston’s 2-1 loss to New York in June 1905. Despite a tough season at the plate (he hit only .225), Wolverton hoped to remain a Beaneater. The feeling was not mutual; the Boston management spent the winter trying to get rid of the weak-hitting third baseman but no one made an offer. The 33-year-old veteran was released, but he was not finished with baseball.
Wolverton spent the next three seasons at Williamsport in the independent Tri-State League. He earned a reputation as the best fielding and hitting third baseman in the league. By the end of his first season, his teammates recognized his leadership skills and made him manager. He rewarded their confidence with a pennant in 1907, their first year in Organized Baseball. “Wolverton has given Williamsport the best baseball team it ever had,” praised the Williamsport Daily Gazette and Bulletin in December 1907. The Cincinnati Reds purchased Wolverton’s contract but now that he was married with an infant daughter and enjoying his role as a player-manager, he requested his release. He stayed in Williamsport for one more season.
In 1909 Wolverton agreed to play third base and manage the Newark club of the Eastern League. He had no idea he would have to manage his boss. That winter Joe McGinnity, the former star pitcher of the New York Giants, and an associate purchased the team. McGinnity announced that he would pitch regularly. Manager and pitcher/owner did not get along. When Wolverton tried to remove McGinnity from the mound during a game, the owner did not approve. Wolverton was demoted to team captain while McGinnity made himself manager
After the season Wolverton purchased his release. He thought he would be hired to manage the Baltimore Orioles, but new owner Jack Dunn had other plans. Sporting Life promoted Wolverton as “a valuable man, who can play any position on a team.” He had several other offers, and hired on to manage Oakland in the Pacific Coast League, a club that lacked fan support and talent. But Wolverton put together a strong pitching staff, disciplined his players, and forced the team to play as a unit. Oakland surged into the heart of the pennant race. “It certainly pays to have a winning ball team,” noted Will Baradori in The Sporting News on June 23. Fans poured into the ballpark to cheer on their Oakland team, which wound up in second place. (At one point, with the turnstiles moving and profits surging – Wolverton claimed the team made $50,000 that year – he offered to buy the Oaks for $48,000, but the owners turned him down.)
The first Easterner to manage in the PCL gained the respect of fans and players and the ire of umpires around the circuit. He earned the nickname Fighting Harry. His heated debates with umpires became legendary over the years, but in 1910 one argument changed the rules. According to a PCL historian, Dick Dobbins, after umpire Eugene McGreevy threw Wolverton out of a game against Los Angeles for arguing a call, the manager forbade his players to take the field. Fans rioted when McGreevy declared Los Angeles the winner by forfeit. The league installed two umpires in every game thereafter to help call plays in the field.
Wolverton was one of the best managers in the minors. He inspired his young players and pushed them to hustle no matter what the scoreboard showed. He taught them that the team came before the individual by disciplining even star players at the cost of winning a game. Wolverton’s reputation as a club leader traveled farther than he expected. When Hal Chase resigned as manager of the Highlanders/Yankees after the 1911 season, Wolverton emerged as the top candidate for the job. He agreed to manage the Oaks again in 1912, but he told the press, “I realize that the management of the New York Americans is an opportunity of a lifetime.” Except for his lack of experience managing a major-league club, Wolverton had the résumé. “Wolverton knows how to lead a club, understands the business thoroughly and is a fine judge of talent,” team owner Frank Farrell said. Wolverton got the job. He was returning to the major leagues.
The 37-year-old Harry Wolverton who took over the Yankees in 1912 was a confident, cigar-smoking, sombrero-wearing father of three little girls. “They are a pretty good family,” he joked, “but there are no ballplayers among them.” He liked to give long dissertations to the press in which he referred to the Yankees by their former nickname the Highlanders and repeated his promises to win the pennant. “I am staking my reputation upon the success of the team,” he said. He blamed their dismal 1911 finish on “the lack of team play.” When asked if he would insert himself into the line up, he replied, “There’s no need of my going in there unless I can sting the ball.” Despite his seven years away from major-league pitching, Wolverton’s confidence in himself had not faded.
The rookie major-league manager felt optimistic as he took his team to Atlanta, Georgia, for spring training. Hal Chase, Birdie Cree, and Roy Hartzell had combined to drive in more than 200 runs and pitching ace Russ Ford had won 22 games the previous season. Unfortunately, Wolverton did not anticipate Georgia rain. The Yankees were rained out during most of their spring training. They spent a total of three days on the field. Spring training was a washout and so was the start of the Yankees’ season. They lost their first six games.
Every month the Yankees lost more games than they won. Injuries, illnesses, batting slumps, fielding errors, and just bad pitching forced Wolverton to change his lineup almost daily. The players who took the field led the league with 286 errors. They made 81 double plays (the fewest in franchise history). Losing became routine but the manager never felt defeated. He brought up rookie players and waited for the veterans to get healthy. He inserted himself into the lineup and proved that he could still “sting the ball” by hitting over .300. He also showed his players how to grind through injuries. On July 6, while playing third base, Wolverton caught a line drive with his face. Despite the bleeding gash, he finished the game.
One newspaper, making a bad pun, called the Yankees “the most Titanic failure of the 1912 season.” The team finished 55 games behind the American League pennant winner, the Boston Red Sox. “Wolverton probably did as well under the circumstances as anyone could have done in his place,” wrote E.D. Soden in Baseball Magazine. Wolverton made plans rather than excuses. He expected to win the pennant the next season with fresh talent and healthy veterans. He never felt that any of his decisions during the failed season warranted his resignation. “I have never quit on a job in my life, and I’m not going to on this one,” Wolverton told Farrell. “If you don’t want me, fire me.” Farrell did. The last place Yankees ended Wolverton’s opportunity of a lifetime.
Wolverton was not out of a job for long. “I accepted the management of the Sacramento club because I like the Coast, its climate, and its people,” he told the Oakland Tribune in December. Once again he rebuilt a California team and renewed fan interest, The Wolves, named after their leader, finished in second place. In November he purchased the Wolves with business partner Lloyd Jacobs for an estimated $20,000. His tenure as an owner did not last long. The team lost $24,000 from spring training through Opening Day. By the end of the season the Wolves were bankrupt. At least Wolverton could console himself with song and family. In the winter of 1914 Clay W. Chapman published his song “That Wolverton Rag” in honor of the Wolves and their manager. Hope was renewed in October, when the 41-year-old became the father of twin girls, expanding his family to five daughters.
In 1915 Wolverton returned to the dugout with the San Francisco Seals. They won the pennant but almost lost their manager after he was run over by his own car on June 10. As he cranked the engine, his car rolled over him and dragged him more than 200 feet. He suffered a broken collarbone and fractured ribs. He managed the team from his hospital bed by telephone and telegraph until he was able to return to the bench.
After a disappointing season in 1916, the Seals returned to first place in 1917, but Wolverton did not enjoy it for long. On June 17 he was fired. “To say that I was surprised is putting it mildly,” Wolverton said. Owner Henry Berry said they disagreed on team expenses. Wolverton believed in investing large sums of money on players, but he insisted that he was “the most economical of managers.” Fans and players wanted him back in the league while sportswriters suggested that he should manage the Detroit Tigers. But in mid-July Wolverton bought a small farm in San Mateo, next to San Francisco. The quiet country life agreed with the 42-year-old ex-player and manager. On October 11, 1917, Wolverton announced his retirement from professional baseball.
No one believed that Wolverton would stay retired from the game that he loved and which had been part of his professional life for more than 20 years. “Get old silver top Harry Wolverton back on the job, give him the key and a decent sized bankroll and what a difference there would be in Oakland wins, patronage and last but not least, gate receipts,” proclaimed the Oakland Tribune in February 1919. In October, Wolverton signed a 10-year contract. Unfortunately for local baseball fans, it was a lease on the Ornbaun Mineral Springs in Mendocino County, a resort he planned to operate. When he gave up his lease a year later, there were rumors that he would manage Detroit or return to the PCL. No offers were made. Of all the disappointments, the worst tragedy struck on April 28, 1920, when his 10-year-old daughter, Mary, died from an illness.
Everything in Wolverton’s life changed again in November 1922 when he returned to professional baseball. He signed a contract to manage the Seattle club in the Pacific Coast League. Despite five years away from the game, the 50-year-old felt healthy and confident. In December he told a sportswriter, “You know I feel younger every year.” He promised that Seattle would fight for the pennant “unless all of the players break their limbs.” Unfortunately, there were enough injuries to interfere with his plans. For Wolverton the highlight of the season was probably a dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in May in his honor. More than 600 people showed up.
On July 8, 1923, Wolverton resigned as manager. He wouldn’t say why, but it was known that he and the team’s new owners disagreed about money spent on acquiring new players. The optimistic Wolverton told the press that he hoped to be back in the Pacific Coast League soon. While he did some work as a scout for the San Francisco club in September, he was also seen back at work as the sales manager of a local automobile company. Five years later, he was still selling cars in San Francisco. No one mentioned him anymore for managing jobs.
By 1931 the aggressive ballplayer who was quick with his fists on the field gave way to Special Officer Harry S. Wolverton of the Oakland Police Department. No one mentioned him anymore in connection with baseball until January 1937, when he attended a local luncheon in honor of former baseball star Duffy Lewis. It was the last time Wolverton enjoyed the company of his former colleagues. On February 4, 1937, while walking his beat in downtown Oakland, he was the victim of two hit-and-run accidents in a single night. In the first accident, Wolverton suffered a head injury, but after getting his head bandaged, he continued his patrol. He should have gone home. Before the end of his shift, he was struck by another car and left to die on the street. Whether the second accident dealt the fatal blow or death came as a result of injuries caused by both accidents, nothing changed the fact that Harry Wolverton was dead at the age of 63.
The following night businesses along his beat in downtown Oakland dimmed their lights in honor of the policeman who worked hard to protect his community and in memory of the baseball manager who never gave up on his team. Wolverton was survived by his wife and daughters. He was buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.
The Player Card: 3B(5) 1901 Stats: .309, 0 HR, 13 SB Replay Stats: .297, 0 HR, 1 SB
John Farrell was a second baseman/outfielder for the 1901 Washington Senators.
He jumped over to the National League and spent the 1902-1905 seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Farrell finished 1901 with an exact 100 OPS+ mark, putting up a .272 batting average with 3 home runs and 25 stolen bases.
All three of those marks turned out to be career highs for Farrell, who was 24 years old that year.
Although he was a perfectly serviceable hitter, posting an OPS+ of 99 or 100 in 3 of his 4 full-time seasons, Farrell struggled in the field.
APBA gave him a 2B(6) in the 1901 season. Among fielders with 40 or more appearances at second base that season, he finished last in fielding percentage with a .915 mark. The league mark was .938 for all second baseman.
On the flip side, he was 3rd in range factor, handling 5.86 chances per game, a good bit better than the 5.36 mark put up around the league.
Farrell was born during the year of Major League Baseball’s first season (1876) in Covington, Kentucky.
He passed away in 1921 in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Player Card: 2B(6) 1901 Stats: .272, 3 HR, 25 SB Replay Stats: .368, 0 HR, 1 SB
A diminutive lefty who was one of baseball’s biggest stars of the rollicking 1890s, Wee Willie Keeler continued to “hit ’em where they ain’t” through the first decade of the Deadball Era. The tiny (5-feet-4½-inches, 140 pounds) right fielder’s career covered 19 big-league campaigns, and in 13 of them – every year from 1894 to 1906 – he hit over .300 and ranked in his league’s top ten in hits. Eight straight times he collected more than 200 hits, and his .424 average in 1897 is the highest single-season mark by a left-handed hitter in baseball history. Keeler compiled a .341 career batting average and racked up 2,932 hits – 85 percent of them singles – in 2,123 games. An amiable Brooklyn native who was the son of Irish immigrants, Wee Willie played for all three New York teams (the Brooklyn Superbas, the Highlanders, and the Giants), and was a key member of the raucous Baltimore Orioles dynasty of the 1890s.
A two-time batting champion and a three-time league leader in hits, he had the speed to leg out infield singles, the bat control to drop down bunts, chops and rollers in front of infielders, and when they moved in, the ability to loft a base hit over their heads. He finished his career with 366 sacrifice hits, the fourth highest total in major-league history. “Keeler could bunt any time he chose,” Honus Wagner remembered. “If the third baseman came in for a tap, he invariably pushed the ball past the fielder. If he stayed back, he bunted. Also, he had a trick of hitting a high hopper to an infielder. The ball would bound so high that he was across the bag before he could be stopped.” Wee Willie wielded a bat that was just 30 inches long, the shortest ever used in the majors, and he choked up so far that Sam Crawford said, “He only used half his bat.” Keeler himself suggested, “Learn what pitch you can hit good, then wait for that pitch,” but he is best remembered for his description of his hitting style to Brooklyn Eagle writer Abe Yager. “I have already written a treatise and it reads like this: ‘Keep your eye clear and hit ‘em where they ain’t; that’s all.’ ”
William Henry O’Kelleher was born on March 3, 1872, in Brooklyn. His father, also christened William O’Kelleher, 12 years earlier had left the farm in County Cork, Ireland, where he had been born, and at the age of 26 settled in Brooklyn and married another recent Irish immigrant, Mary Kiley. He came to be known as Pat Keleher (or Pat Kalaher) and toiled as a trolley switchman on the DeKalb Avenue Line. The couple purchased a home in Brooklyn’s Bedford neighborhood and Mary gave birth to two sons, Tom and Joe, prior to the arrival of William, sometimes known as “W.H.,” but more often as “Willie.” A brother and a sister followed, but only Willie and his two older brothers survived to adulthood.
As a youngster Willie Keleher played early versions of baseball and boxed. He served as captain for his Public School 26 team and at the age of 14 began to play for the Rivals, a local amateur team. He quit school at 15 to play for a factory team, though he never worked in the factory. His father found him a job at a different factory, one that made cheese, and Willie worked there for a week. He earned $2, left early on Saturday, and earned $3 to play in a ballgame at Staten Island. He never returned to the factory or held a job outside of baseball. Later, he would state, “Say, I think I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I get paid for doing what I’d rather do than anything else – play ball.”
At 16 he played for the semipro Acmes for $1.50 a game, and over the next three years traveled on street cars and ferries to play for semipro teams in the Flatbush, Flushing, Arlington, and Ridgeway areas of Brooklyn, and for the Aces, Allertons, and Sylvans in New Jersey. He also sold programs at Eastern Park, home of “Ward’s Wonders,” Brooklyn’s 1890 entry in the Players League. That summer he joined the Crescents of Plainfield, New Jersey, and drew $60 a month as a pitcher and third baseman. By 1891, when he led the Central New Jersey League with a .376 average and guided the Crescents to the circuit’s championship, he was known as Willie Keeler.
Keeler started the 1892 season with Plainfield, and then broke into Organized Baseball in June when Herm Doscher signed him to a contract to play for Binghamton (New York) of the Eastern League for $90 a month. Later that summer, the New York Times reported that “Keeler’s debut as a ball player was very peculiar. Early in the spring the Binghamptons realized that they wanted a short stop, and the Secretary of the club was sent out to find one. In his rambles he visited one of the many parks on Long Island where semi-professionals play Sunday games. Keeler was connected with some obscure team, but his work struck the fancy of the Binghampton man and he decided to engage him right on the spot. He was taken to Binghampton and his work from the start won him many friends in all the cities visited by his team. Keeler was put at the top of the batting list for his club and he remained there all season. At first he played at short, but the man at third was not giving satisfaction, so he was transferred to the corner of the diamond.”
Keeler led the Eastern League in batting with a .373 average, but the little lefty made 48 errors in 93 games for the Bingos. National League scouts were willing to overlook his deficiencies in the field because of his hitting, and on September 27, New York Giants manager Pat Powers purchased his contract for $800. “Nearly every club in the League had an agent here, and Keeler had some flattering offers made him,” the New York Times reported the next day. “Manager Powers’s oily tongue and persuasive manners, however, had the desired effect and Keeler decided to cast his lot with the Giants to the disappointment of the other agents.” After he signed a contract for $1,600, the Times gushed, “In young Keeler the New Yorks have a prize, and he will surely make his mark in the League. … He is a clever fielder, a remarkably fast man on the bases, and as a batter he outranks any other player in the Eastern League.”
Keeler made his big-league debut at the age of 20 on September 30, 1892, at the Polo Grounds with an infield single and two stolen bases against Philadelphia’s Tim Keefe. He appeared in 14 late-season games as a third baseman – he was said to be only the second regular left-handed third basemen in major league history – and stroked 17 hits, including three doubles, in 53 at-bats, a .321 average. He was back with the Giants to start the 1893 season, but John Montgomery Ward had replaced Powers as manager, and limited Keeler’s early-season playing time to just seven games. The little lefty played two games at shortstop, two at second base, and three in the outfield, and smacked eight hits in 24 at-bats, including the first of his 145 career triples and the first of his 33 career home runs. He stroked the inside-the-park circuit clout on May 9 with one runner aboard against right-hander William “Brickyard” Kennedy, a future teammate in Brooklyn. The next day he fractured his leg sliding into second base, missed eight weeks of the season, and on his return, was shipped to the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, who by that time occupied Eastern Park, for $800. Keeler batted .313 for his hometown team, and hit another inside-the-park home run, but opposing batters bunted mercilessly against the little lefty, he committed 10 more errors in 12 appearances at the hot corner, and was banished back to Birmingham, where he made 11 more miscues in 15 games.
Keeler didn’t appear to fit into Brooklyn’s plans because of his small size, but he had caught the shrewd eye of Baltimore Orioles manager “Foxy Ned” Hanlon. On January 1, 1894, Hanlon acquired Keeler and star first baseman Dan Brouthers from Brooklyn in exchange for journeymen Bill Shindle and George Treadway in one of baseball’s most lopsided trades.
Hanlon installed Keeler as the regular right fielder in a lineup that included John McGraw, Hughie Jennings, Wilbert Robinson, and Joe Kelley, launching one of baseball’s great dynasties. Batting atop the Oriole order, McGraw and Keeler – with the help of legendary groundskeeper Tom Murphy – perfected the Baltimore Chop, driving the ball into the infield dirt and beating out the resulting high hop, and though they didn’t invent the hit-and-run, Muggsy and Wee Willie turned it into an art form. Keeler was also an excellent bunter, possessed great bat control, and was a master at fouling off pitches with his tiny bat, reported to weigh just 29 ounces. “Keeler had the best batting eye I have ever seen,” McGraw said. “He held his bat away up in the middle with only about a foot of it extending beyond his hands and he could slap the ball to either field. It was impossible to play for him. I have seen the outfield come in behind the infield or the infielders close up till you’d think you couldn’t have dropped the ball into an open spot if you had it in your hand – but Keeler would invariably punch a base hit in there somewhere.”
Keeler punched at least 210 hits each year between 1894 and 1898. During that five-year span he batted .388, averaging 223 hits, 74 runs batted in, 48 steals, and 278 total bases. A master at reaching base and a wizard on the basepaths, he averaged 150 runs per year and finished second in the National League in that category four straight times. He also became an asset in the outfield. After Hanlon moved the reluctant Keeler to right field and persuaded him to don a glove, he became a fleet and instinctive defender. “He knew his territory like a child its ABC’s,” Orioles center fielder Steve Brodie remembered, and McGraw called Keeler’s diving barehanded catch in Washington in a game in June 1898, for which he had to stick his throwing arm into a barbed-wire barrier, the greatest he ever witnessed.
However, McGraw often needled Keeler for his defensive lapses, and during the 1897 season, the two teammates brawled naked in the shower room of the Orioles clubhouse as teammate Jack Doyle, a Muggsy antagonist, stood guard to prevent interference. As Doyle had predicted, McGraw was the first to “squeal.”
While fighting with their opponents and feuding with one another, the innovative Orioles posted a 452-214-17 record between 1894 and 1898, finished atop the 12-team National League in Keeler’s first three seasons in Baltimore and second in his final two, and captured the Temple Cup twice by winning the postseason playoff series between the league’s top two regular-season teams. Keeler, who didn’t drink or swear, was generally regarded as the genteel, friendly, and polite member of the rough-and-tumble Orioles dynasty, though he wasn’t above using deception to gain an edge. The Orioles were a surly bunch who argued with umpires, intimidated opponents, and brawled among themselves. They were also competitive innovators who developed a brand of “inside baseball” that would define the next two decades of major-league play.
Keeler’s addition made an immediate impact. Hanlon’s Orioles jumped from an eighth-place finish in 1893 to the pennant in 1894, though they lost the Temple Cup to the runner-up Giants, four games to none. Keeler batted .371 with 219 hits (third best in the National League) in 129 games, and established career-high watermarks for runs batted in (94), doubles (27), triples (22), and home runs (5), including two of the three he hit over the fence during his career. He struck out just six times, and reached base 58 times when he either walked or was hit by a pitch. He also stole 32 bases and scored 165 runs, at the age of 22.
The Orioles won another title in 1895, though they again lost the Temple Cup, falling to runner-up Cleveland four games to one. Keeler, by then referred to by newspaper writers as Wee Willie, a turn of a phrase from a popular children’s rhyme, batted .377, collected 213 hits and reached base 254 times in 131 games, stole 47 bases, and scored 162 runs. “Too think that so small a man as Keeler should lead all the League’s sluggers!” Sporting Life gushed. “Truly it is the eye and not the size.”
Wee Willie wielded his tiny bat in a big way again in 1896, when he collected 210 hits and reached base 254 times in 126 games. His .386 average was the league’s fourth best, his hit total ranked second, and he stole a career-high 67 bases, seventh in the league, but just fourth among the aggressive Orioles, and scored 153 runs. Baltimore won its third straight pennant and earned its first Temple Cup when the Orioles dispatched runner-up Cleveland four games to none. After the series, “The Big Four,” Keeler, McGraw, Jennings, and Kelley, celebrated with a tour of Europe.
Wee Willie had hit safely in his final regular-season game in 1896, and he opened the 1897 campaign by collecting safeties in each of the first 44 games of the 1897 campaign to eclipse the previous National League record of 42 straight games established by Bad Bill Dahlen of the Chicago Colts in 1894. Keeler’s 45-game streak stood as the major-league mark until 1941, and is still the National League record.
Keeler continued to hit all summer, collected a league high 239 safeties in just 129 games, and finished with a .432 average. Although it was later adjusted to .424, it remains the best single-season mark by a left-hander and third best by any hitter since a rule change in 1888 decreed that bases on balls would no longer be counted as hits. He reached base safely 281 times in 606 plate appearances, an on-base percentage of .464. Though he never homered during the stellar season, he did smack 27 doubles and 19 triples, and finished second in the league in slugging with a .539 mark. He stole 64 bases and scored 145 runs (second in the league for the fourth straight season). The Orioles slipped to second place behind Boston despite Keeler’s superb season, but Wee Willie extended his torrid season into the Temple Cup series. He collected eight hits in 17 at-bats, a .471 average, and drove in four runs to help Baltimore baste the Beaneaters, four games to one.
In 1898 Keeler won his second straight batting crown with a .385 average and led the league in hits for the third time in four years, with 216. Boston and Baltimore finished one-two again. Keeler stroked just 10 extra base hits and stole but 28 bases. There was no postseason play because the Temple Cup had been discontinued, and forces were at work that would put an end to the Orioles dynasty that had played a key role in the development of inside baseball.
The end began when Hanlon and Orioles owner Henry Von der Horst acquired 56 percent of the stock in the National League’s Brooklyn franchise in exchange for a similar amount of stock in the Baltimore club. By doing so, they formed a partnership with Brooklyn owners Charlie Ebbets and F.A. Abell to gain control of both clubs, and moved to consolidate their strength. By early February the syndicate had transferred the contracts of Keeler, Kelley, Jennings, and other key Orioles to Brooklyn to join Hanlon, though McGraw and Wilbert Robinson chose to stay in Baltimore. Keeler was elated to return to his hometown, and to be near his ill mother. “I can say frankly that I would rather play in Brooklyn, my home, than anywhere else,” he told the Brooklyn Eagle.
Back home in Brooklyn, which a year earlier had become a borough of New York City, and living in his parents’ house on Pulaski Street, Keeler teamed with Kelley and Dahlen, another Brooklyn native, to lead Hanlon’s Superbas to the National League pennant in 1899 by eight games over Boston. Keeler batted .379, fourth best in the league, collected 216 hits, reached safely 262 times and stole 45 bases. He hit just one home run. It was the only grand slam of his career. On May 15 Keeler caught Philadelphia’s Ed Delehanty playing a very shallow left field with two outs in the eighth and the bases loaded, laced a liner past him, and raced around the bases to give Brooklyn an 8-5 win at Washington Park.
Hanlon’s Superbas, bolstered by Jennings’ return from injury and the addition of pitcher Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity, outdistanced Honus Wagner’s Pittsburgh Pirates by 4½ games in 1900 to repeat as National League champion. Keeler again finished fourth in batting with a .362 average, stole 41 bases, smacked four homers, and led the league with 140 runs and 204 hits, a number that brought his career total to 1,567 in 4,114 at-bats through the close of the 1900 season, a batting average of .381, the best in baseball in the 19th century. He also played in one game at second base, and handled his only chance cleanly.
In 1901 Keeler had his eighth straight 200-hit season, finishing second in the league with 202, though his average slipped to .339. He played in 136 games, including 10 at third base and three at second, collected 18 doubles, 12 triples, and a pair of home runs, and stole 23 bases. He sacrificed 22 times and scored 123 runs, second best in the league, and led the league’s outfielders in fielding percentage at .985 (he would repeat in 1902).
The Superbas slid to third place and Hanlon and Ebbets, who now ran the team, struggled to keep their dynasty intact. In its inaugural season, the American League had lured several National League stars with contracts that paid more than more than the $2,400 salary cap imposed by the senior circuit upon its players. With a competitive market for their services, Keeler, Kelley, and Dahlen all demanded raises to stay in Brooklyn. “Keeler, the team’s biggest star, naturally was the most sought after, receiving solicitations from six of the eight American League clubs,” baseball historian Lyle Spatz wrote in his biography of Dahlen. “Chicago was one, with an offer of a two-year contract at $4,300 per year. Another was Detroit, which was willing to pay him $5,000 to play with the Tigers. Hanlon did not expect Keeler to take any of those offers, but did worry about one that came from John McGraw in Baltimore. McGraw, Keeler’s ex-teammate with the National League’s Orioles and now the manager of the American League Orioles, had already lured two old Orioles, Kelley and Joe McGinnity, back to Baltimore. No doubt McGraw lobbied hard for Keeler too when ‘Wee Willie’ served as an usher at his second marriage in January, 1902.” The New York Times reported that “Keeler may be induced by an offer of a stock interest to return to that club, as he has time and again said that he would rather play with Baltimore than with any other club in the country.”
John Montgomery Ward, who as the manager of the Giants had once sold Keeler’s contract to Brooklyn, was one of 50 individuals who contributed a total of $1,000 to help Hanlon and Ebbets keep Keeler, the hometown hero, in Brooklyn. Wee Willie re-signed the sweetened contract in February and told the New York Times. “I expect to play ball for six or seven years longer, and while it is not absolutely necessary for me to continue on the diamond as I have been unusually lucky in my investments, still the questions was whether I should take a chance on a couple of years elsewhere or a longer period here, where I am known and where my future is the brightest. If I ever get out of baseball it is here that I shall be and it is here that I expect to make friends. Consequently, I decided to stick to Brooklyn.”
Dahlen also re-signed, but Kelley jumped to join McGraw’s American League Orioles, and Hanlon designated Keeler team captain. After serving as the Harvard hitting coach early in the spring – Cy Young coached the pitchers – Keeler filled in as acting manager of the Superbas until Hanlon arrived later. Once the season started, Keeler, 30, started to show signs of age. After a record-setting eight straight years of 200 hits, he rapped out 186, second in the league, batted .333, scored 86 runs, and stole 23 bases, but those were all nine-year lows. He was also ejected once, the only time in his career the easy-going Keeler was ordered out of a game. Hanlon’s Superbas finishe second, but a whopping 27½ games behind Pittsburgh, which had been less damaged by American League raids than other teams. Hanlon and Ebbets again hoped to hang on to Keeler, but Chicago’s Charley Comiskey, Philadelphia’s Connie Mack, and the ownership in Detroit – now offering $10,000 – were among those who came courting. When Wee Willie’s contract with the Superbas expired at the end of the season, so did his union with Hanlon that had produced five pennants and two Temple Cup victories.
The day after the season ended Keeler boarded a train for a barnstorming trip in California. During a layover in Chicago, he made a trip to American League President Ban Johnson’s office and asked if rumors that the league would place a team in New York in 1903 were true. Assured that they were, Keeler signed an American League contract for $11,000, a figure suggested by Johnson, and became baseball’s first $10,000-a-year player. “We can count on our fingers the number of years we will be able to play,” Keeler had told the New York Clipper earlier in his career. “That makes it plain that we must make all the money we can during the short period we may be said to be star players.”
Keeler asked that Johnson wait to announce the signing and continued on to California, where he played in exhibition contests against other big leaguers over the Thanksgiving weekend. On that Sunday night, a horse-drawn surrey that carried Keeler, Jack Chesbro, Jake Beckley, and Joe Cantillon overturned. The burly Beckley landed on top of Wee Willie, who injured his leg and throwing shoulder and likely dislocated his collarbone. He felt the effects of the accident through the remainder of his career.
Keeler returned home to recover, and in the early part of 1903, Brooklyn Eagle writer Abe Yager visited him to confirm the news that he had signed with the junior circuit. “Sure,” Willie replied. “The people here can’t give me the money the American League has promised me. I signed with them when I was in Chicago a couple of months ago. I’ve only a few years longer to play ball and the money they offered me was enough to induce me to leave Brooklyn. I signed only a one-year contract with Hanlon and I believed myself free to sign where ever I liked.”
Keeler’s contract was assigned to the “Greater New York Team,” which had originated in Baltimore. McGraw had managed the Orioles in the American League’s inaugural season, but incessantly feuded with the new league’s umpires and president. He released a number of the team’s top players and jumped back to the National League during the 1902 season to become manager and part-owner of the Giants, leaving the depleted Orioles to finish dead last in the American League. That was more than enough motivation for Ban Johnson, who had envisioned an American League presence in the nation’s largest city, to invade Manhattan and cut into the Giants’ box-office revenue.
Johnson moved the league offices to New York, handpicked owners Frank Farrell and William Devery, found a suitable location and built Hilltop Park, orchestrated the hiring of Clark Griffith as manager, and transferred Keeler’s contract to the New York Americans as part of his effort to restock the franchise. Commuting from his home in Brooklyn to Hilltop Park, in the northernmost part of Manhattan, Wee Willie played 128 games in the outfield and four at third base, batted .313, collected 160 hits, stole 24 bases, sacrificed 27 times, and scored 95 runs. Keeler’s batting average was fifth best in the league, but the lowest of his career to that point. Before the season, the American League had changed its rules to count foul balls as strikes on strike one or strike two. The rule affected Wee Willie, who was adept at fouling off pitches he didn’t want to hit. After the rule was adopted, American League batting averages declined from .275 to .255 to .244 in a three-year span.
Keeler and pitcher Jack Chesbro coached at Harvard in the spring of 1904, and then returned to lead the Highlanders to within a wild pitch of the pennant. Chesbro won 41 games. Keeler stroked 186 hits and finished with a .343 average and a .390 on-base percentage, second best in the league behind Cleveland’s Nap Lajoie in all three categories. He finished fifth in the league in sacrifice hits (27) and ninth in slugging percentage (.409).
In 1905 Keeler, at .302, was again the runner-up for the batting title as American League batting averages continued to plummet. He collected 169 hits and reached base at a .357 clip. He led the league in sacrifice hits with a career-best 42, and he made his final infield appearances when he played three games at third and 13 at second base.
Keeler hit .304 in 1906, his final season as a full-time player. He collected 180 hits, scored 96 runs, and sacrificed 26 times. The Highlanders finished second again under Griffith, four games behind Chicago’s Hitless Wonders.
In 1907 New York fell to fifth, and at the age of 35, Wee Willie for the first time in his major-league career failed to hit. 300. He batted just .234 in 109 games as injuries and declining speed took a toll on his ability to beat out infield hits. More and more reliant on his bunting ability, Wee Willie laid down 26 sacrifice hits. Although his bat still measured just 30 inches long, by this time Keeler used a 36-ounce Louisville Slugger.
He revived his career in 1908 by batting .263 in 91 games, but New York slipped into the cellar and Griffith resigned early in the season. Team owner Farrell wanted Keeler to take the helm, but Wee Willie was unwilling, and hid out until Farrell tabbed shortstop Norman “Kid” Elberfeld to finish out the season. Under the Tabasco Kid, the Yankees won just 27 of 98 games. Disgusted by Elberfeld’s “surly managerial style,” Keeler left the team with six weeks remaining in the season, and announced that he would retire, but after the season, Farrell sold Elberfeld to Washington and persuaded Keeler to return. “Yes I am going to quit baseball,” Keeler told Sporting Life with a wink, “but it won’t be until the wrinkles choke me to death.”
Despite missing time with a severe charley horse and a severed tendon in his foot, Keeler, at 37 the sixth oldest active player in the majors in 1909, served as team captain, and batted .264 in 99 games. He ranked among the league leaders in just one category, sacrifice hits, where he was fifth with 33. The Highlanders climbed to fifth place under new manager George Stallings.
After the season Farrell offered to trade Keeler, but out of respect to the veteran player released him to make his own deal. On May 6, 1910, Wee Willie moved to the other side of Manhattan to reunite with McGraw, who routinely reunited with his old teammates and former players for sentimental reasons. Keeler served as batting coach and pinch-hitter, and on August 25 stepped in to help umpire a game in Chicago. He appeared in just 19 games, collected the final three hits of his major-league career, and stole a base for the 495th time. He played in his final major-league game at the age of 38 when he unsuccessfully pinch-hit in the ninth inning of the morning game of a September 5 doubleheader at Washington Park, his first appearance in a game in Brooklyn since he left Hanlon’s Superbas. As only one player, Cap Anson, had amassed 3,000 hits up to that time, the fact that Keeler was just 68 hits shy of 3,000 went virtually unnoticed. Wee Willie played one more year of Organized Baseball. He joined old teammate Joe Kelley, who was manager of the Eastern League’s Toronto Maple Leafs, and collected 43 hits in 39 games in 1911.
Keeler could always count on old teammates for a job, and he returned to Brooklyn in 1912 to rejoin Dahlen, who was in the third of four seasons as Dodgers manager. The Chicago Defender reported that “Willie Keeler, who is the Brooklyns’ coach and scout, is receiving $600 a month for his valuable services. Keeler and Dahlen, old pals, keep their heads close together. They are trying to make the Brooklyns play some inside ball.”
Ebbets replaced Dahlen with another old teammate, Wilbert Robinson, after the 1913 season. Keeler served with the Brooklyn Federal League team, the Tip-Tops, as a coach in 1914 and the early part of 1915, and was a scout for George Stallings’ Boston Braves later in 1915.
Keeler was known as the Brooklyn Millionaire when he retired from baseball, though his actual net worth was likely less than $200,000. He had invested his baseball earnings in mining stocks, a number of successful business ventures, including some with teammates, and real estate, purchasing commercial lots in New York City, and when he retired he bought a gas station in Brooklyn. But Willie contacted tuberculosis, his lifelong allergies worsened, the gas station failed, and when the real-estate market lost its speculative value after World War I, Keeler found himself broke and he and his brothers were forced to sell their childhood home.
By the early 1920s Keeler suffered from heart disease, and endured chest pains and rapid breathing. He attended a major-league game for the final time when he visited the Polo Grounds for Game Six of the 1921 World Series between the Yankees and Giants. Two months later Ebbets presented him with a check for $5,500 after the owners in the two leagues each contributed to a fund to help him pay off his debts. His health continued to fail and Keeler was too ill to attend a reunion of the old Orioles in Baltimore, though many of his old teammates later visited him. He knew he was losing the battle for his life during the holiday season of 1922, but vowed to see 1923. On New Year’s Eve, several well-meaning friends stopped by to congratulate him and cheer him up. When Willie became exhausted, they left him alone, rang in the New Year, and returned to find that he had died. He was 50 years old. The cause of death was chronic endocarditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart that Keeler had probably suffered from for at least five years. He also appeared to suffer from dropsy, better known today as edema, swelling of tissues because of an excessive accumulation of watery fluid, another symptom of heart trouble.
Though Willie was a lifelong bachelor, he lived the final years of his life as a boarder in a house on Gates Street that belonged to Clara Moss, and left his entire estate of $3,500 to her. “The newspapers said he was living with his sister, but Willie Keeler had no sister,” Burt Solomon wrote inWhere They Ain’t, a history of the Orioles. “All that he had, he left to Clara. In the end, Willie Keeler found love.”
Although he died less than 13 years after his final major-league game, Keeler was remembered as an “Old Time Ballplayer” in his New York Times obituary. Keeler died without money but with a wealth of friends, and his funeral was attended by many of his old teammates as well as some of baseball’s greatest players and managers. Keeler was laid to rest in Brooklyn’s Cavalry Cemetery in the grave of his beloved mother, at his request. To place a memorial to the former baseball star on the grave, her headstone was moved to become a footstone.
In 1936 Keeler’s name was on the initial ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He received 18 percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America, and he was named on 42 percent of the Veterans Committee ballots. The following year, he received 57 percent of the BBWAA vote, then 68 percent in 1938, and was elected in 1939 when he captured 75.5 percent of the vote. In June 1939 Keeler was one of 26 baseball immortals inducted at the formal opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
In 1941 the nation followed Joe DiMaggio’s pursuit of Keeler’s record 45-game hitting streak as the Yankee Clipper drew near the mark, matched it , and then extended the record to 56 games. In 1978 national attention focused on Philadelphia’s Pete Rose, who matched Keeler’s National League single-season hitting streak of 44 games but ended one shy of Wee Willie’s NL mark of 45 over the 1896 and 1897 seasons.
In 2008, more than a century after Keeler used his tiny bat to rap out 200 hits in eight straight seasons, Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki matched his mark. He broke Keeler’s record in 2009 and extended the major-league record to 10 by the end of the 2010 season. Wee Willie continues to hold the National League record.
Keeler was named the center fielder (and McGraw the manager) for the All-Irish team, one of five ethnic squads selected by sportswriter Harry Stein in 1976 for his “All Time All-Star Argument Starter,” for Esquire magazine. Because of space limitations the All-Irish team was edited out, though it later appeared in print.
Keeler was also immortalized in Ogden Nash’s classic 1949 poem, “Line-Up For Yesterday,” matching a baseball legend to each letter of the alphabet:
K is for Keeler,
As fresh as green paint,
The fastest and mostest
To hit where they ain’t.
Keeler ranked 75th on The Sporting News list of the 100 greatest baseball players, and in 1999 he was named as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, though he had spent his best years in the 19th century.
The Player Card: OF(2) 1901 Stats: .339, 2 HR, 23 SB Replay Stats: .341, 0 HR, 1 SB
Frank Scheibeck started 93 games at shortstop for the 1901 Cleveland Blues.
He disappeared from Major League Baseball after a woeful .213 season with just 11 doubles, 3 triples and 3 stolen bases.
Scheibeck returned in 1906 at the age of 41 to make 3 appearances with the Detroit Tigers and then was out for good.
His only full season came in 1890, when he hit .241 in 134 games for the Toledo Maumees of the American Association.
In 8 seasons, Scheibeck hit .235 with 2 HR across 390 games, most of which were played at shortstop.
Per Wikipedia:
Scheibeck was born in Detroit in 1865. He played professional baseball in Detroit in three decades and three leagues, for the Detroit Wolverines of the National League in 1888, for the Detroit Tigers of the Western League from 1895 to 1896, and for the Detroit Tigers of the American League in 1906. When he signed with the Tigers in April 1895, the Detroit Free Press wrote: “Scheibeck is not only a daring and good fielder, but he is fast on the lines and can do his share of hitting.”
Scheibeck began his professional baseball career in 1887 playing shortstop for the Duluth Freezers in the Northwestern League. He compiled a .335 batting average and stole 47 bases in 94 games at Duluth. He played the next two seasons for the London Tecumsehs in the International League. In 1888, he had a .305 batting average and 81 stolen bases in 92 games for London.
While Scheibeck appeared in three games for the Cleveland Blues in 1887 and one game for the Detroit Wolverines in 1888, his first extended playing time in Major League Baseball was in 1890 with the Toledo Maumees of the American Association. That year, he led the league with 134 games played at shortstop, 282 putouts at shortstop, and 412 assists at shortstop, but also led the league with 92 errors. He also compiled a .350 on-base percentage, drew 76 bases on balls, and stole 57 bases for Toledo in 1890.
After a full season in a major league in 1890, Schebeck spent the next three seasons in the minor leagues, playing for the Sioux City Corn Huskers (1891), Atlanta Firecrackers (1892), Omaha Omahogs (1892), Erie Blackbirds (1893), and Los Angeles Angels (1893).
Scheibeck returned to the major leagues in 1894 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He compiled a .353 batting average and .421 on-base percentage in 116 plate appearances for the Pirates. In 1895, his batting average plummeted to .180 while playing for the Washington Senators.
Between 1897 and 1900, Schebeck played in the Eastern League for the Syracuse Stars (1897) and Montreal Royals (1898–1900).
In 1901, Sheibeck again returned to the major leagues as the starting shortstop for the Cleveland Blues. He appeared in 93 games for the Blues as the seventh oldest player in the American League.
Scheibeck began the 1903 season playing for the Rochester Bronchos in the Eastern League. In June 1903, Scheibeck quit the Rochester club and signed with the Denver Grizzlies in the Western League.
At the time of the 1920 U.S. Census, Scheibeck was living in Detroit with his wife, Josephine, and their daughter, Josephine. Scheibeck was employed at the time as a real estate salesman.
At the time of the 1930 and 1940 U.S. Censuses, he was living in Detroit with his second wife Theodoshia (Phillips) Scheibeck. He was employed as a real estate salesman in 1930 and as a busher in an auto buckling department in 1940.
In October 1956, Scheibeck died at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Detroit at age 91.
The Player Card: SS(8) 1901 Stats: .213, 0 HR, 3 SB Replay Stats: .100, 0 HR, 0 SB
1901 MLB 