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A Game of Inches Updates, Chapter 18
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
Chapter 14
Chapters 15-17
Chapters 19-21
Chap. 22-26
CHAPTER 18: MONEY
18.1.1 Organization
I want to mention that the January 1857 convention was the
result of a resolution adopted by the Knickerbockers on December 6, 1856, with
the aim of “getting up of grand matches on a scale not hitherto attempted.” (Spirit
of the Times, January 3, 1857)
18.1.3 Professional Players
John Thorn notes that George Flanley moved from
the Stars to the Excelsiors along with Creighton and may well have also been
paid.
He had also
identified a few earlier players whose change of clubs suggests the possibility
of some sort of compensation: Lewis Wadsworth (who switched from the Gothams to
the Knickerbockers in 1854) and third basemen Pinckney (who left the Union club
to join the Gothams in 1856). (cited on Protoball website). There is, of
course, no way to be certain that any of these players received any financial
inducements.
18.1.7 Player Banned for Accepting Money
Brian McKenna let me know that James Roder’s surname was
probably actually Ryder. Spink’s book is full of errors of that sort, so that
is very plausible.
18.2.1 Reserve Clause
I’m going to add this source note to the end of the second
paragraph: Brooklyn Eagle, January 27, 1878, 3.
I’ll probably incorporate these comments by A. G. Spalding
on the origin of the reserve clause: “the most unwarranted feature of the
criticism of the Chicago management is this: ‘The purchase and sale of human
beings was inaugurated by the directors of the Chicago club.’ The Chicago club
was the best club in the League to sell the release of a man. Every other club
in the League had sold the release of players before we did. Don’t you see how
unjust that statement is to us? The same paper charges us with originating the
reserve rule. The fact is the reserve rule was aimed squarely at the Chicago
management. It was adopted more as a curb to Chicago than for any other
reason. I can make this as plain as A B C. At the time the reserve rule went
into effect the Chicago club was about the only one in the country that was
self-supporting, and for a number of years the attendance we did there. The men
who put up money for clubs in smaller cities became discouraged. They said:
‘It’s no use for us to get together a good team, for as soon as we develop some
good crack players Chicago comes and gets them away from us by offering a bigger
salary than we can afford to pay.’ The complaint against us was a natural one,
and so I repeat what I know to be a fact when I declare that the reserve rule
was aimed against Chicago. The sale of the release of players is the natural
outgrowth of the reserve rule, and that the reserve rule is absolutely necessary
is a fact recognized by both players and managers.” (Base Ball Gazette,
April 22, 1887) I will have to make clear, however, that Spalding’s remarks are
self-serving and, as with most of his commentary, must be taken with a
considerable dose of salt.
18.2.2 Blacklists
I need to say more about how the National League agreed
upon most of the essentials of the blacklist during its first two seasons. From
the start, a player who had been let go by one of the league’s teams was
required to show that he had received “an honorable release” before being
eligible to play with or against any of the league’s other clubs. The
National League continued to fine-tune and expand this powerful tool. At the
league’s annual meeting following the 1877 season, all of the clubs all agreed
to charge each player $30 for his uniform and fifty cents per day for
transportation while on the road. The agreement was sealed with this clause:
“And we further agree that we will not engage or play and player that may be
released by any club subscribing hereto on account of disagreement between such
player and his club growing out of any stipulation of this agreement.” (Chicago
Tribune, December 9, 1877, 7)
18.2.4 Territorial Rights
David Ball assures me that the thrust of the fourth paragraph is incorrect and
that the basic concept of territorial protection was incorporated in the
National League’s constitution when it debuted in 1876. What did evolve in the
ensuing year was the idea of rival leagues agreeing to respect one another’s
territorial exclusivity. So obviously this whole entry needs work.
I also want to mention this at some point: “In 1947, after
the signing of Jackie Robinson and other stars by white teams threatened the
future of the Negro American and National leagues, both leagues applied to
become part of organized baseball. They were turned down, however, with George
Trautman, president of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues
(NAPBL), citing territorial rights (Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball,
326-327).”
18.3.1 Unions
Here’s another intriguing early example: “The Chicago
Journal has heard of a movement on foot to establish a protective society by
which ball-players are to protect themselves against untrustworthy clubs and
managers. The best organization of that kind possible is the National League,
which provides, as the Journal evidently does not know, that a club may,
and must, be expelled for not paying its players. Can the Journal
suggest any society which would have the same power?” (Chicago Tribune,
December 2, 1876, 7). As should be evident from these comments, the Tribune
was the house organ for the National League owners during its early years.
18.3.2 Player Strikes
Researcher Dennis Pajot has discovered some additional
information on the 1878 Milwaukee strike that I plan to include.
I want to reword the paragraph toward the end about minor
league strikes and, instead of saying that they were less common, stress that
minor leaguers’ lack of leverage made them different in nature. I’ll also refer
to a couple examples from William Akin’s fine history of West Virginia
baseball. The new material will look something like this: “But strikes did
occur when conditions became intolerable. William Akin, for example, describes
strikes by West Virginia minor league clubs in 1897, 1907 and 1909
after the players
had experienced lengthy waits for paychecks (William Akin, West
Virginia Baseball, 45, 61-62, 65).”
There are some additional details on the Bobo
Newsom-inspired strike in Lee Lowenfish’s Branch Rickey, pages 332-334,
that I intend to cite.
I plan to replace the words “Von der Ahe suspended
Robinson. The team” with “Von der Ahe fined Robinson. Robinson refused to play
again until the fine was withdrawn, and his teammates planned to join his
strike. The other Browns”. And at the end of that paragraph I’ll add this
source: Al Kermisch, “Yank Robinson’s One-Man Strike in 1889,” Baseball
Research Journal 1981, 66-67.
18.3.4 Pension Fund
This will be added at the end of the first paragraph:
“Jocko Conlan decided to end his playing career and became an umpire in large
part because of the pension (Jocko Conlan and Robert W. Creamer, Jocko,
19).”
18.3.5 Player Agents
An addition to the end of the third paragraph: “Syd
Pollock, later the owner of the barnstorming Indianapolis Clowns, ran a player
placement agency in Westchester County, New York, in 1922 (Alan Pollock,
Barnstorming to Heaven, 72).”
In the final paragraph, I intend to change the word
“owners” to “management” and then add: “Joe Medwick and Johnny Mize both
antagonized Rickey by trying to use agents to negotiate their contracts and
Rickey subsequently traded away both future Hall of Famers (Lee Lowenfish,
Branch Rickey, 302, 314).”
Finally, researcher David Arcidiacono discovered this
additional example: “ ‘Base Ball Agency - For Ball Players and Managers wanting
engagements and players. Will handle business for players who wish a transfer
from one club to another. Would like to hear from all disengaged players.’ W. R.
Harrington – Chicago.” (Sporting News, January 10, 1891, p. 5)
18.4.1 Rival Major Leagues
I need to mention Al Lawson’s short-lived efforts to form
the Union League in 1907-1908. And I’ll also note that Al Lawson was the
brother of George Herman “Andy” Lawson,
whose Continental
League of 1921 is already mentioned in the entry.
There’s a wealth of information about Al Lawson in Lyell Henry’s fascinating
biography of him, entitled Zig-Zag and Swirl. More recently, Jerry Kuntz
has done impressive work on G. H. Lawson, some of which appeared in an article
in the second issue of the new journal Base Ball.
18.4.3 Salary Caps
I intend to add this at the start: “Salary caps for the
major leagues were proposed after the 1882 and 1884 seasons but not implemented
(Sporting Life, December 3, 1884, 5; Mike Roer, Orator O’Rourke,
148).”
And three additions to the third paragraph:
(1) After the word “making”: “(As will be discussed under ‘Performance Bonuses,’
(18.5.12), an exception was made for captains.)”
(2) At some point: “To add insult to injury, players in the lower ranks could be
assigned to sell tickets or sweep the ballpark (Troy Soos, Before the Curse,
86).”
(3) And I want to mention that, as described in Mark
Lamster’s Spalding’s World Tour, pages 168-169, the world tourists did
not learn of the plan until February and were understandably outraged when they
did.
18.4.5 Free Agency
I may note that Tommy Henrich (in Five O’Clock Lightning,
page 2) claims to have been the first free agent, yet another indication that
baseball firsts remain a confusing topic.
In the third
paragraph, I will change “may” to “appears” and add “O’Rourke biographer Mike
Roer confirms this version of events (Mike Roer, Orator O’Rourke, 85,
117).”
18.4.6 Collusion
I’ll add this new paragraph after the fifth paragraph:
“Likewise, when Jim Brosnan’s diary of the 1960 campaign, The Long Season,
was published, Gabe Paul expressed concern that Brosnan’s description of
agreeing with former teammate Ernie Broglio to pitch high fastballs to each
other might be considered collusion. ‘Collusion?’ Brosnan later asked
rhetorically. ‘Nobody even knew what that was back then’ (John Skipper,
Inside Pitch, 59).” Then I’ll revise the opening of the next paragraph from
“That only changed” to “The situation only changed.”
18.4.9 Joint Holdouts
This will be added to the start of the second paragraph:
“Jim O’Rourke and his brother John negotiated as a pair before the 1880 season,
a tactic that enabled them to avoid the then-new reserve clause (Mike Roer,
Orator O’Rourke, 83-85).”
18.5.3 Contract Perks
This will be added to the end of the first sentence of the
second paragraph: “, especially in Boston, where penny-pinching owner Arthur
Soden was already charging players’ wives for tickets to games. When Soden
added yet another fee – a $20 deduction to clean players’ uniforms – Jim
O’Rourke rebelled. O’Rourke prided himself on keeping his uniform immaculate,
and therefore found the policy both unfair and insulting (Mike Roer, Orator
O’Rourke, 71).” Then I’ll delete “Jim” from the next sentence, and end the
paragraph at the end of that sentence.
18.5.4 Multi-Year Contracts
I need to rewrite paragraphs 2 through 4 to reflect that
I’ve now found conclusive evidence that the additional years in Borden’s
contract were guaranteed: Boston Herald, September 15, 1876, “The Boston
managers have hit upon a plan for utilizing ‘Josephs,’ or Borden, their useless
whilom pitcher. Failing to induce him to throw up his contract, they have now
given him a daily round of duties to perform, such as overseeing the ground,
keeping the grass neatly trimmed, etc.; also compelling him to practice daily,
mornings and afternoon, and, in short, keeping him much busier than he would be
if on the nine. ‘Joe’ doesn’t relish this kind of work much, but he is bound to
stick.” Sunday Mercury, February 11, 1877: Soden and Borden met and
compromised on a payoff on his contract.
I’ll rewrite
the paragraph about the Depression as follows: “During the Great Depression
multi-year contracts again became rare. Marty Marion signed a four-year
contract in 1936 and claimed that this was one of the first long-term contracts
(William Mead, Even the Browns, 43). In fact it was just the latest
revival of a sporadic tradition that was sixty years old (although Marion’s case
was unusual in that Branch Rickey signed Marion and high school teammate Johnny
Echols to four-year contracts straight out of high school) (Lee Lowenfish,
Branch Rickey, 304). Bill Werber offered a surprising explanation for the
disappearance of multi-year contracts, maintaining that players of the era
didn’t want them: ‘ballplayers in those days, they would not sign a contract for
two or three years and you know why they wouldn’t? Because they felt they were
going to have a great year and they’d ask for more money the next year. I
played thirteen years and I never had more than a one-year contract – never
wanted more than one year. I felt like I was going to have a hell of a year
and next year I’d stick ’em’ (quoted in Brent Kelley, In the Shadow of the
Babe, 117).”
I need to mention Bobby Wallace’s five-year 1902 contract
in the paragraph that begins “The pendulum swung …” (Scott E. Schul, “Rhoderick
John ‘Bobby’ Wallace,” in David Jones, ed., Deadball Stars of the American
League, 777)
18.5.6 Pay for Injured Players
Another example to add to the first paragraph: “The
Athletics have only $847.21 in the treasury. Sutton has been refused his pay on
account of his inability to play third base. He said that his arm was bad and
he could not play there, but he was willing, while disabled, to take half pay.”
(Boston Daily Advertiser, June 16, 1876)
And to the end: “As was always the case with financial
matters, the Negro Leagues lagged far behind their white counterparts. In 1940,
Newark Eagles pitcher Daltie Cooper broke his foot during a game and was
promptly released by team owners Abe and Effa Manley. Cooper appealed to the
New Jersey Workmen’s Compensation Board and an arbitrator found the team liable
and forced the Manleys to admit that they were violating the law by failing to
provide disability insurance (Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball,
183-184).”
18.5.10 Signing Bonuses
Somewhere in the entry I plan to add this: “Players also
had another reason for insisting on advances. ‘There was a time,’ explained Tim
Murnane, ‘when all players were looking for at least one month’s salary in
advance, not that they were in actual need of the money, but they wanted to be
on the safe side should the club prove slow in meeting their obligations. Years
ago a ball player would consider the advance money the only indication of a
club’s soundness, and would name the price they would work for along that basis’
(Boston Globe, January 20, 1907, 52).”
I’ll probably also mention an 1884 note stating that the
Chicago club charged players eight percent interest on advances. (Chicago
Tribune, March 23, 1884, 3)
After the second paragraph, I’ll add: “Jack Barry, for
example, demanded a $500 signing bonus to sign with the Athletics in 1907.
Connie Mack acquiesced, but requested that Barry keep the bonus a secret, since
it was his policy not to pay signing bonuses (Norman Macht, “John Joseph Barry,”
in David Jones, ed., Deadball Stars of the American League, 625).”
18.5.12 Performance Bonuses
I need to rework the nineteenth-century part of the entry.
The first paragraph will be replaced with something along these lines:
“Performance bonuses were also relatively uncommon in the
nineteenth century, although there were some notable exceptions. In 1884, the
Brooklyn Eagle reported, ‘Should the Louisvilles win the championship,
the players of the team are each to receive a handsome cash bonus, and [Guy]
Hecker will be given a house and a lot’ (Brooklyn Eagle, August 10,
1884). A. G. Spalding gave every Chicago player a $100 bonus after the 1885
season ‘for having abstained from intoxicating drinks and orgies and for winning
the pennant’ (Washington Post, October 7, 1885; quoted in David Fleitz,
Cap Anson, 129).
“The next few years saw bonuses emerge as a way for owners to get
around their own efforts to keep salaries low. Most commonly this was done by
appointing a star player as team captain and increasing his salary accordingly.
Such bonuses became common enough that the effort to adopt a firm salary cap
after the 1888 season (see 18.4.3) was accompanied by a clause explicitly
permitting ‘the payment of extra compensation for the services of one person to
each club as field captain or team manager’ (Chicago Tribune, November
23, 1888, 5).
“While there were real duties associated with these positions, it
was generally understood that the extra pay was a way to avoid salary caps.
After Jack Glasscock resigned as Indianapolis captain he complained about a $500
pay cut and had to be reminded that that amount had been his captain’s pay (Chicago
Inter-Ocean, March 11, 1888, 12). Indeed, if the captaincy was already
occupied, other approaches were liable to be used. Onetime college star Jim
Tyng, for example, was lured out of retirement by a unique contract offer that
called for him to receive the maximum ‘$2000 a year as a player and $1000 a year
as director of athletic sports’ (Philadelphia Inquirer, July 7, 1888).
“Bonuses became rarer in the penurious nineties. Captains continued
to receive bonuses for fulfilling their duties, but by and large owners took
advantage of the single major league to pinch pennies.”
After the first sentence of the next-to-last paragraph, I
want to add: “The issue was a contentious one at the owners’ meeting following
the 1908 season, with National Commission chairman Garry Herrmann blaming
Detroit owner William Yawkey for creating a precedent by giving his players a
$15,000 bonus after the 1907 World Series. But the Detroit Free Press
maintained that White Sox owner Charles Comiskey had in fact started the
practice by giving his players a similar bonus after the 1906 World Series (Detroit
Free Press, February 19, 1909). The dissent was an apt illustration of the
difficulty of eliminating such bonuses.”
18.5.13 No-Trade Clauses
According to Scott Schul, Bobby Wallace signed a five-year
contract with a no-trade clause when he jumped to the American League in 1902.
(Scott E. Schul, “Rhoderick John ‘Bobby’ Wallace,” in David Jones, ed.,
Deadball Stars of the American League, 777)
18.6.1 Commercialization
As best I can tell, the Hop Bitters assumed that name in
1877, not 1879, so the information about them needs to be revised. I also want
to add this quotation about them before the description of Henry Chadwick’s
protests: “The manager of the Rochester club says they were admitted into the
National Association under the name of Hop Bitters, and the name of Flour Citys,
which has been attached to them, arose from an expression of their willingness
to go by that name if the other did not prove acceptable.” (Rankin Scrapbooks)
Before the final paragraph, I plan to add this amusing new
item:
“The most bizarre advertisement of the era – maybe in the
history of baseball – was one that appeared in Kansas City in 1888 when that
city had entries in both the American Association and the Western Association.
The latter club ‘paid $300 for the privilege of printing a sign on the inside
fence of the American association club. The sign, in immense letters, read as
follows: “If you want to see a lively game of base ball go to the grounds of the
western association club”’ (Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 29, 1888).”
18.6.2 Endorsements
A slightly earlier commercial endorsement appeared in the
Davenport Gazette on March 26, 1877, with John Dolan, catcher of Red
Stockings of St. Louis, offering this testimonial for Vordick’s Rheumatic
Liniment: “I had a very sore hand, sprained while catching a fly ball.”
18.6.6 Naming Rights
I’ll add this new paragraph to the start: “At least one
nineteenth-century ball club did something akin to today’s practice of selling
naming rights. The ballpark in Vincennes, Indiana, was ‘called Peabody park in
honor of Captain W. W. Peabody, who gives the ground rent free, and who has
otherwise encouraged the enterprise’ (Evansville Journal, June 15,
1883).” |
