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A Game of Inches Updates, Chapter 14
The nature of a book of firsts is that it is always a work in progress. Although A Game of Inches was published only last year, I have already
received and uncovered a great deal of new information. I encourage anyone who
has read the book to contact me with questions,
concerns, comments, updates, and corrections. A few simple corrections have been
made in new printings, but longer updates will have to wait for the next
edition. For now, I’ll be putting such updates to both volumes on these pages on
an ongoing basis, so check back frequently if interested.
Links to Updates to Other Chapters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapters 4-5
Chapters 6-8
Chapter 9
Chap. 10-12
Chapter 13
Chapters 15-17
Chapter 18
Chapters 19-21
Chapters 22-26
14.1.2 Fireproof Stadiums
In the first sentence, I’ll add “were almost always made
primarily of wood and” after “stadiums.”
Then I’ll add this new paragraph: “In 1887 Philadelphia
National League owner Al Reach built the first ballpark that was not wholly
constructed of wood. The Philadelphia Base Ball Park, also known as the
Huntington Street Grounds, had a brick exterior, but the interior was made of
wood. In 1894 this ballpark burned down, so that off-season Reach had a
brick-and-steel structure built on the same site. The facility, which was later
known as the Baker Bowl, remained the home of the Phillies until 1938 (John
Shiffert, Base Ball in Philadelphia, 121-122, 166-167).”
14.1.3 Night Games
I intend to add this sarcastic reaction to the 1883
experimental night game in Fort Wayne: “it is something that Manager Mutrie of
the polo grounds should by all mean go into, as there are thousands of people in
New York who would gladly visit the polo grounds to see the Metropolitans and
the New Yorks swooping around over the grounds with lanterns in their hands,
looking for the ball.” (National Police Gazette, June 23, 1883)
To the part about the 1888 experiment in Indianapolis, I
need to add that the problem wasn’t a lack of light – in fact, there was too
much according to John Brush. Rather, the issue was that the light didn’t quite
reach the surface of the playing field, with the result that pitches and fly
balls were easy to see but that ground balls “cannot be seen with any
satisfaction.” There was talk of repositioning the lights, but nothing
happened. (Indianapolis Sentinel, September 7, 1888; quoted in Al
Kermisch, “Indianapolis Experimented with Baseball by Gaslight,” Baseball
Research Journal 1982, 66-67)
After the paragraph about Robert Ward’s death, I’ll make
this important addition: “As Stuart Shea points out, the first major league
night game took place on July 1, 1918, when the Boston Braves hosted Brooklyn in
a six p.m. start. Since Braves Field did not have lights, every effort was made
to expedite play and the game lasted only seventy-two minutes. Only 1,500
showed up for the game, even though soldiers and sailors were admitted free.
The Boston Globe succinctly forecasted, ‘Twilight games are not likely to
become a fixture’ (Stuart Shea, Wrigley Field, 86-87; Boston Globe,
July 2, 1918, 5)
Then I’ll revise the first sentence of the next paragraph
to read: “Of course evening games had no chance to become regular occurrences
until a major league stadium had lights. With no major league owner ready to
carry on Ward’s legacy, no progress toward night baseball was made during the
1920s.”
Before the paragraph about Wilkinson’s portable lighting
system, I’ll add this: “Negro League teams were the first to recognize and
capitalize on the new opportunity, in part because they already had a tradition
of working into the evening. As Donn Rogosin explained, many Negro League teams
of the 1920s played ‘twilight games,’ which began when day shift workers got off
for the day and ended when the sun set (Donn Rogosin, Invisible Men,
23).”
In the paragraph about Wilkinson’s portable lighting
system, I’ll expand sentence three to read: “The portable lighting system was
unveiled in Enid, Oklahoma, on April 28, 1930, and was an immediate success.
Chet Brewer, who played in the first game, marveled, ‘people would come from
miles around to see that baseball could be played at night! In Enid, Oklahoma,
you never saw so many people (Donn Rogosin, Invisible Men, 128). The
excitement continued at the team moved to other towns, causing the Kansas
City Star to rave …”
Two paragraphs later, following the one about the Monarchs’
generator, I’ll add this new paragraph: “As so often happens, once the momentum
shifted it was the holdouts who came under pressure. Four of the six teams in
the Piedmont League added lights in 1930 and soon the other two were struggling
to stay competitive. But rather than being sympathetic, the four clubs with
lights told the holdouts to either install lights or leave the league.
Nonetheless major league owners remained steadfast – Sam Breadon of the
Cardinals was the only one who favored night ball and he was powerless to act
because his team was playing in a stadium owned by Browns owner Phil Ball
(William B. Mead, “The Year of the Hitters,” National Pastime Spring
1985, 31).”
I’ll incorporate Brad Snyder’s comments on page 95 of
Beyond the Shadow of the Senators about the reasons for Griffith’s change of
heart about night baseball into the discussion of President Roosevelt’s
“green
light” letter.
14.1.4 Twinight Games
I’ll start the entry with this new paragraph: “As described
in the previous entry, the first major league night game was a Boston-Brooklyn
contest on July 1, 1918, which started at six p.m. and was completed in a mere
seventy-two minutes. But obviously such games could not become regular
occurrences
until major league stadiums had lights.”
14.2.3 Tailoring a Park to a Team or Player
I need to modify the last sentence of the first paragraph.
Chicago changes home parks after the 1884, so the league did not need to take
any action.
14.3.2 Home Plate
Researcher Marty Payne found a
note in the Baltimore Daily News on March 9, 1887, crediting Keating with
inventing the home plate. It turns out that Keating invented the plate in
1886, patented it in 1887 and then went on to become a noted inventor,
eventually holding more than 40 patents for motorcycles, shaving device,
flushing valves, bicycle wheels and many other things (Daniel E. Ginsburg,
“Robert M. Keating, Inventor,” Baseball Research Journal 1982, 135-136).
14.3.5 Batters’ Boxes
Before the last sentence, I want to add a cross-reference
to the curve ball (3.2.3) and suggest that the advent of that pitch was probably
responsible for moving the batter’s box. As evidence, I’ll cite this 1878
article: “the legislation has been one-sided, always in favor of the pitcher and
never in favor of the batsman, with the single unimportant exception of giving
him (practically) four strikes in certain cases. The rules have penned him up,
restricted the size of his bat, and raised all the trouble they could with him.
Now, if you want more batting without destroying the characteristics of the
game, let the batter loose at curved balls; let him go where they are, and if
one of them shoots away from him let him have a chance to go where it is and hit
it. If that one thing were done the game would be improved wonderfully.” (Chicago
Tribune, July 28, 1878, 7)
14.3.8 Pitching Rubbers
I’ll add this quotation to paragraph six to illustrate the
contention that the idea captured people’s imaginations: “Caylor’s flag-stone
patent would be of wonderful service were it used on Lee, of the Baltimore
Unions, as he jumps out of the box every time he pitches a ball.” (National
Police Gazette, September 13, 1884)
14.3.9 Mounds
I’ll add these comments to the paragraph on the 1903 rule
change: “Manager Loftus won what he considers a signal victory in the meeting of
the rules committee last week. He was bitterly opposed to the action of some
club managers building a mountain out of the pitcher’s box and making the base
lines from the plate to first and third bases mere gutters for the convenience
of the players who could dump the ball into the diamond and have it stay there.
Teams which contain several good bunters made troughs of these base lines, so
that when a ball rolled to them it would not go into foul territory unless there
was force enough behind the ball to carry it out of the trough. There certainly
was a great advantage in that scheme to a team of bunt hitters. The practice of
raising the pitcher’s box to a dizzy height was another abuse that aided some
clubs and pitchers. A twirler like Cy Young, who depends upon wonderful speed,
found a great advantage in the high box, for he would shoot the ball down to the
batter, and in descending to the plate it was given added force. It was a trick
more than an innovation.” (Washington Post, March 1, 1903, 32)
14.4.1 On-deck Circles
I plan to add something to the start of the entry to indicate that the idea of
keeping the next batter a respectable distance from the plate started early, but
that it took some time to come up with a good way of doing so. To illustrate,
I’ll use this description: “A space of ground has been laid out under the new
code within which no player or person other than the batsman, catcher or umpire
is allowed to enter during the contest. This space is included in the
triangular portion of the field in which the line of the catcher’s fence is the
base, while the continuation of the foul lines frtom the home base to the
catcher’s line form the side lines. This was done for the purpose of preventing
players of the batting side from standing behind the umpire and judging the
balls sent in over home base. Even the captains are kept from entering this
space.” (Brooklyn Eagle, January 22, 1878, 3)
14.4.5 Backstops
To the end, I’ll
add a new paragraph about how backstops became more popular as they began to be
constructed so as to be less of an impediment to spectators trying to watch the
game. An 1890 article quoted in W. Harrison Daniel and Scott P. Mayer’s
Baseball in Richmond, page 28, for instance, explains that wire gauze was
being used to protect fans without obstructing their view.
14.4.7 Dugouts
While it’s not strictly relevant, I’ll probably add a
paragraph near the end to mention an anecdote from Troy Soos’s Before the
Curse, page 138. With overwhelming demand for tickets to the
celebrated 1912 duel between pitching aces Walter Johnson and Smoky Joe Wood,
the Red Sox sold dugout space for the game and players were seated on the field.
I’ll also add a citation for the 1899 rule: Indiana
State Journal, February 22, 1899.
14.4.10 Batting Cages
There is quite a bit more to add about the cages used by
college teams in the 1880s.
Here’s one nice description: “Who has not seen the members
of a nine at work in the cage of a gymnasium has missed a royal spectacle. … The
cage, though it is quite possible that the room for base ball practice is not
known by that name everywhere, is so called because the walls are protected from
injury by a great netting that, attached to the cornice, hangs clear to the
floor at a distance of a foot or more from the wall. The candidates for the
position of pitcher stand near one end of the cage and fire away at the batsman
at the other end. The catcher, with his mask, sometimes takes his appropriate
position back of the batsman, but generally the ball is allowed to go by if he
fails to hit it, and, striking the net, it falls sluggishly to the floor and is
tossed back to the pitcher. The batting is as vigorous as if the men were in an
open field and a game were in progress. Bang! and the ball whizzes past the
pitcher’s head with force enough to make a three-base hit if no enterprising
fielder gathers it in, and whuff! it goes against the net, loses all its energy,
and rolls lazily along back to the pitcher. They don’t practice base running,
but nearly every other feature of the game attracts the attention of the players
in the gymnasium.” (New York Sun, January 9, 1887)
Mike Roer also includes a good description of the one built
at Yale on page 125 of his Orator O’Rourke.
I need to make clear that the term cage was being used
quite loosely to describe a variety of structures.
Mention will also be made that George Wright built a cage
of sorts on one of the ships used by the 1888-89 world tourists so as to keep
them from losing too many baseballs overboard. (Mark Lamster, Spalding’s
World Tour, 117)
14.4.11 Pitching Machines
After the first sentence of paragraph five, I’ll add this
one: “A very detailed description of the gun’s development appeared in the
Chicago Tribune (Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1896, 29).”
I plan to replace the brief reference to the pitching gun
used in Washington in 1903 with this longer description: “A year ago Mr. R. H.
Lake of Washington, an enthusiastic base ball ‘fan,’ patented a machine to be
used in practice games that would do the work of any pitcher. It was nothing
less than a pneumatic gun that can shoot any kind of a curve at moderate speed.
It looks somewhat like a telescope mounted on a frame and contains a tube 36
inches long, it diameter slightly longer than a baseball. The rear end is
fitted with a breech cap, and by this means any desired curve may be produced at
the will of the operator. It is a very ingenious machine and the inventor hopes
to get the baseball men interested in it so that the clubs may adopt it for
giving the batters practice and saving the pitchers.” (“Baseball Inventions,”
Boston Globe, April 24, 1904, 24)
14.4.15 Clubhouses
I need to mention in the first paragraph that the Olympics
of Philadelphia also had a clubhouse. Although when it was built it unclear, it
was certainly one of the earliest.
I’ll also try to integrate this quotation into the entry:
“In the club house which the Alleghenys propose building will be two large
dressing-rooms for the players – one for each nine. They will be fitted up in
good style, and will contain a large closet for each of the men to keep his
uniform in. In the center of these rooms a huge shower bath will be
constructed, with vulcanite pavement, so that the players, as soon as they get
through practice, can get a good shower bath and rub themselves down.” (Milwaukee
Sentinel, February 11, 1884) The fact that these provisions were deemed
noteworthy tells us much about how spartan most such facilities were at the
time.
14.5.2 Luxury Boxes
There are a couple of additional examples from 1883 that
could be added to the third paragraph. One note commented: “The row of opera
seats along the edge of the Philadelphia pavilion is a great improvement.” (National
Police Gazette, April 28, 1883) David Fleitz, on page 108 of Cap Anson,
mentions similar efforts in Chicago that year.
Another note that I’d like to fit in: “The private boxes on
the Philadelphia grounds will sell at $150 for the season. They hold eight
people.” (Chicago Inter-Ocean, April 17, 1887) $150 was a lot of money
then!
Here’s an 1891 description of new grounds in San Jose that
would be a nice addition to the fourth paragraph: “The grand stand will be two
stories in height, and in the upper part of the structure will be located a
number of private boxes, similar in construction to those at the Haight-street
grounds in San Francisco. A sufficient number of these private apartments will
be erected to supply the demand of all who desire the privacy afforded by this
arrangement. Access to these boxes will be had from the rear of the grand stand
and over the roof of that structure, which will be facing westward.” (San
Jose Evening News, February 17, 1891)
14.5.3 Press Boxes
After paragraph eight, I plan to add this new one: “And the
stakes were high. As the start of the 1877 season approached, the
Indianapolis Sentinel gave bountiful coverage to the local club. But then
in its April 8th issue came this angry denunciation: “After all the
free advertising the papers have given the base ball club, the reporters are
being very scurvily treated by the managers of the park. There is scarcely any
accommodation provided for representatives of the press to take reports of the
game, and what few there are, are monopolized by the official scorer of the
clubs and his cronies.” (Indianapolis Sentinel, April 8, 1877) The
paper’s reports on the team decreased rapidly after that and four weeks later it
referred to baseball as the “National Nuisance.” (Indianapolis Sentinel,
May 6, 1877)
14.5.8 Folding Chairs
I need to add
the mention of opera chairs at Philadelphia’s park in 1883, mentioned above in
the additions to entry 14.5.2.
14.5.12 Music
Another example
to cite in the first paragraph is that the “Silver Ball March” was played at
matches in New England for the silver ball that symbolized the championship of
the region. (Troy Soos, Before the Curse, 23)
Then I’ll break up paragraph one after the Philadelphia examples and start the
new paragraph as follows: “When the Federal League debuted in 1914, for example,
Chicago Whales owner Charles Weeghman hired no fewer than ten brass bands for
the April 23rd opening of the ballpark now known as Wrigley Field”
(Stuart Shea, Wrigley Field, 47).
And I’ll add
this new paragraph before the last one: “St. Louis Cardinals owner Helene
Britton was another believer in music at the ballpark. She turned the team’s
home field into a ‘baseball cabaret’ by hiring bands and a singer whose daily
routine included ‘parad[ing] in front of the bleachers, singing at the top of
his voice into a large megaphone’ (Bill Borst, “The Matron Magnate,” Baseball
Research Journal 1977, 28).”
14.5.13 Public Address Systems
After the
description in the Times I want to add this one by Dan Krueckeberg: “He donned a
mask equipped with a microphone connected by wires to metal soles fastened to
his shoes. Behind the batter’s box a copper plate was installed from which a
network of hidden wires led to an amplifier, or what one New York paper called
‘an umplifier.’ The moment Cy stepped on the copper plate his voice could be
heard in all parts of the park. Cy announced the batteries before the game as
well as the strikes, fouls, and balls which he called throughout the game.” (Dan
Krueckeberg, “Take-Charge Cy,” National Pastime Spring 1985, 10)
14.5.16 Electronic Scoreboards
After the second paragraph, I’ll add this new one: “Ren
Mulford, Jr., added this description two years later: ‘A yellow sign-board at
the end of the right foul line stares one in the face. The inscription
‘Base-ball Register’ is seen at the top, and below are four black openings –
well, to be expressive, about as large as ‘one-eighth.’ There are the words
‘Strike,’ ‘Ball,’ and ‘Out’ over the first three spaces – the last is blank, but
if the umpires announces a tip behind the bat, ‘Foul’ mysteriously tumbles into
place with magic rapidity. The echo of the umpire’s voice in calling balls and
strikes scarce reverberates from far in the distance before you see the figures
roll into the spaces marked off. The idea is truly Bostonian, and the
registering is done by electricity by a young man who touches a series of
buttons in the grand stand’ (Chicago Inter-Ocean, September 4, 1890).”
I’ll revise the start of the current third paragraph from
“The first electronic scoreboard …” to “An electronic scoreboard …”
Before the 1907 season, American League President Ban
Johnson was quoted as saying: “I shall endeavor for the benefit of the fans to
have the club owners adopt the electrical score board. It is an excellent
device in that it will make the work of the umpires easier. I am sure it will
be appreciated by the public, especially on the days when the crowds are large.”
(Detroit Times, February 25, 1907) Does this mean that St. Louis was no
longer using one? I don’t know for sure.
14.5.22 Parking Facilities
Before the last sentence of the final paragraph, I’ll add
this: “A ballpark built in Evansville, Indiana, in 1877 was fifty feet wider and
one hundred feet longer than strictly necessary “in order to accommodate those
who will attend in carriages, and who would prefer occupying them to taking
seats in the amphitheatre’ (Evansville Journal, April 30, 1877).” |
