1923 and the June 15 Trade Deadline

My publisher has asked me to do some editing on my latest manuscript, It Ain’t So: A Might-Have-Been History of the White Sox in 1919 and Beyond, so I don’t have much time to write anything fresh for Seamheads.  Here’s an article I posted to the site over a year ago.  I’ll post some new material soon.

Most baseball fans are aware that the current trade deadline is July 31, but from 1923 to 1985, the deadline was June 15, a date that’s often attributed to Harry Frazee’s alleged “Rape of the Red Sox,” in which he traded or sold most of his star players to the Yankees. Prior to 1923 the trade deadline was August 1, but when Frazee sent third baseman Joe Dugan to the Yankees on July 23, 1922, the transaction invited a storm of protests, especially from St. Louis, whose Browns held a slim game and a half lead over the second place Yankees. Most felt that adding Dugan to its roster gave New York a decided edge over the Browns and that the Yankees were attempting to buy the pennant. American League president, Ban Johnson, who despised Frazee, immediately called for a ban on mid-season trades. Commissioner Landis refused to entertain the suggestion— Landis despised Johnson as much as Johnson despised Frazee— but he agreed that a new deadline was in order and chose to adopt the June 15 recommendation of Pittsburgh Pirates magnate Barney Dreyfuss.

But contrary to popular belief the June 15 trade deadline had as much to do with the New York Giants’ mid-season deals as it did the Yankees’. The following includes excerpts from my book, Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson, and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League, as well as details of the trades that were made that prompted Commissioner Landis to adopt a new trade deadline.

Editor’s note: some material unrelated to the trade deadline has been removed from the following excerpts.

Chapter Nine

The Cause of All the Trouble: “Jumpin” Joe Dugan and a New Trade Deadline

Harry H. Frazee…turned down an offer to send Joe Dugan to Detroit on the ground that he didn’t want to take his life in his hands…Frazee declared with equal frankness, and a touch of sadness, that he had no desire to be crucified in Boston, and that already he was as popular in Beantown as the scurvy.—Gordon Mackay in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Although opinions about the latest trade with the Yankees were relatively mixed, Frazee was taking a lot of criticism; the New York Times called the Red Sox owner the “target for harpoons, buckshot and 120 mm. shells ever since he traded Everett Scott, Sam Jones and Joe Bush to the Yankees.” He also expressed surprise that Ban Johnson would call him the “champion wrecker of the baseball age,” considering that when Kenesaw Mountain Landis was named commissioner of baseball a truce had been signed whereby the league officers and club owners agreed to abstain from criticism of each other while Landis was in office. “If I find that Mr. Johnson was the author of this criticism and he is not reprimanded,” said Frazee, “then I consider…the agreement broken, and hereafter we will be free to express our opinion of anyone concerned in the signatures to that agreement.” It didn’t take long for the bickering to begin anew.

Less than two weeks after responding to Johnson’s attack, Frazee brokered a three-way deal with two of the Loyal Five on January 10, 1922, sending Roger Peckinpaugh to Washington for shortstop Frank O’Rourke and third baseman “Jumping” Joe Dugan, who went to Boston via the Athletics. The Senators sent pitcher Jose Acosta and outfielder Bing Miller to Philadelphia to complete the deal. There was also a rumor that $50,000 exchanged hands, although none of the participants would elaborate as to who the recipient was.

Dugan was the key to the deal. His first two years in the big leagues were horrendous; he batted only .194 in his first 545 major league at-bats, prompting Philadelphia fans to boo him unmercifully. After taking more verbal abuse than he could stand, Dugan jumped the club and headed home to New Haven, Connecticut, where he decompressed for a few days before returning to the Athletics. After repeatedly going AWOL only to eventually return to the team, Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter Tony Maxwell dubbed Dugan “Jumping Joe” and the name stuck. In 1919, at the age of 22, Dugan finally got his footing and batted .271. Over the next two seasons he hit .322 and .295 and set a career high with 10 home runs in 1921. He also settled in at third base after spending most of his time at shortstop and became a solid, if unspectacular, glove man.

Most thought the Dugan trade was a great one for the Red Sox. The Times was of the opinion that Frazee came out of the transaction with “flying colors” and that Dugan’s arrival in Boston was “likely to change the recent hisses for the Red Sox owner to a storm of cheers.” Even Johnson’s mouthpiece, The Sporting News, gave Frazee credit and observed that the Red Sox owner was being praised for bringing Dugan, a graduate of Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Boston, and that the third sacker would help put fans in the Fenway Park seats. “As for the effect on the Red Sox team itself, it must be admitted that the addition of Dugan, along with O’Rourke, helps the Red Sox, and the Boston fans are of the opinion that it was a good trade.”

But rumor was that Frazee had only acquired Dugan so he could turn around and sell him to the Yankees for $50,000, an amount New York had offered Connie Mack before the A’s owner sent Dugan to Boston. Mack demanded $100,000 for his third baseman, the Yankees balked, and the three-cornered deal with the Red Sox and Senators was consummated. It was even speculated that Frazee had received $50,000 in the deal already, although most reports claimed no cash was involved, and was set to make an additional $50,000 upon transferring Dugan to New York. Clark Griffith cryptically alluded to a $50,000 payment in the Dugan deal, but refused to give details except to allow that the third baseman “cost a pretty penny in money and players” and that Frazee “got a bargain.” The money most likely landed in Connie Mack’s pocket and not in Frazee’s.

The Sporting News seemed to delight in the fact that the Yankees had failed to acquire the third baseman. “If Frazee does not sell him [Dugan], then for once New York has been fooled and will not get what it wants to make the American League divided.” But Dugan allegedly issued a statement that he preferred to play with the Yankees and was expecting Frazee to trade him to New York or Detroit before the season started.

While Frazee was able to strengthen his team by dealing with two of Johnson’s loyalists, things were still less than amicable between them. Supposedly Griffith had indicated that he wanted to offer Peckinpaugh a chance to manage his Senators as well as play shortstop, which was the only reason Frazee consented to the deal. When Clyde Milan was named manager instead, Frazee cried foul and Griffith issued a sharp rebuke. He called the report “the most ridiculous I have ever heard,” and insisted he paid the price for which Frazee asked. Then he took a back-handed slap at the Red Sox owner and his relationship with Colonels Ruppert and Huston. “Don’t let any one kid you into believing that because Frazee may have given the Yankees something that he is extending his generosity to all the other clubs.”

Dugan hadn’t been a member of the Red Sox for even a month before rumors began to swirl about his impending trade to either the Tigers or Yankees. The Washington Post reported that another three-way deal was in the works, in which the Red Sox would acquire shortstop Johnny Mitchell, Dugan would go to Detroit, and the Yankees would land outfielder Bobby Veach from the Tigers, but Frazee wanted more than the Yankees would part with. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported there was more to the story, however, and that Frazee was hesitant to trade Dugan to Detroit out of fear of the public’s reaction if he did. “I couldn’t trade Dugan if I wanted to,” Frazee told Tigers player-manager Ty Cobb, “they would ride me on a rail out of Boston, because they’re riding me to death now. If I let Dugan go, that would be my finish.” Needless to say, Cobb left the winter meetings without Dugan.

The Red Sox held their own through the first 18 games of the season, playing .500 ball and staying within three and a half games of first place, but things went downhill from there. By the time Babe Ruth and Bob Meusel returned to the Yankees’ lineup on May 20, Boston was tied for fourth place with a 13-15 record, and was six games behind the front-running Yanks, who jumped out to a 22-11 mark thanks to the hitting of center fielder Whitey Witt and the pitching of Jones and Waite Hoyt.

The first seven weeks of the season had been unkind to Ruth. “The picture of the hero, hanging so well in the living rooms of America during the past two or three years, had been knocked askew,” wrote Leigh Montville. “Everything seemed off-kilter.” But the fans slowly returned to his corner and Ruth began to hit. He knocked in the winning run in the Yankees’ 4-3 victory over the Athletics on May 29, went 2-for-4 with a double in the first game of a Memorial Day doubleheader, then blasted his second homer in the second game of the twin bill.

Unfortunately things were not going as well for Frazee and his Red Sox. They lost both games of a doubleheader to Washington and dropped into last place with a record of 16-22. Del Pratt was hitting well, leading the team in batting at .330 and in doubles with 12, and his fielding was outstanding. Elmer Smith was hitting .306 and his three home runs tied Joe Harris for the team lead, but he struggled in the outfield, fielding at a .937 clip in his first 30 games. And Dugan was hitting .290 with 11 doubles and two home runs, but was atrocious in the field, committing 14 errors in 32 games. The pitching was in such disarray that nine different starters were used in the team’s first 38 games.

On May 31, the Globe brought the Yankees’ offer for Dugan back into the spotlight and, though the paper acknowledged that nothing had recently been said about it, the Globe insisted there should be a fine for tampering with players and offering so much money for their services. Why it waited so long to offer an opinion on the matter is anyone’s guess, but it might have gotten wind of more rumors of Dugan’s inevitable transfer to New York.

The first half of June was more of the same. The Red Sox lost 11 of 17 to fall farther off the pace, not from the Yankees, but the surprising St. Louis Browns, who had a two and a half game lead over New York. The Browns jumped into the lead on June 16 with a 15-2 drubbing of the Senators, coupled with a 9-4 Yankees loss at the hands of the Tigers, and had extended their cushion with consecutive wins over the Athletics, coupled with back-to-back Yankees losses to the Indians. Then Ruth snapped again. On June 19 in a game against Cleveland, the Yankees slugger sprinted in from left field to argue a call made at second base by umpire Bill Dineen. In the eighth inning, with New York up by a score of 2-1, Cleveland backstop Les Nunamaker doubled to right field, arriving at second base just ahead of Bob Meusel’s throw. When Dineen called Nunamaker safe, the Yankees began arguing the call, but Ruth was particularly belligerent, calling the umpire “one of the vilest names known,” according to Ban Johnson, and Dineen was forced to eject Ruth.

Johnson suspended Ruth again, levying a three-day penance. Ruth didn’t find out about the penalty until batting practice the next day and when he did, he was furious. He spied Dineen in the Indians’ dugout and went after him. “If you ever put me out of a game again,” Ruth shouted, “I’ll fix you so you’ll never umpire a game again, even if they put me out of baseball for life.” Words were exchanged and Ruth invited the umpire to meet him under the stands, which Dineen was preparing to do before Tris Speaker, Steve O’Neill and Stuffy McInnis stepped between the combatants. When Johnson heard about the second incident he tacked on an additional two days to Ruth’s suspension and though he didn’t fine him as promised, Ruth had to serve his expulsion without pay, costing him $1,500.

The Yankees were a talented bunch, to be sure, but they were giving manager Miller Huggins all kinds of problems. They were fighting amongst themselves—Wally Pipp and Ruth got into an altercation after Ruth criticized the first baseman’s fielding; Aaron Ward and Braggo Roth squared off with each other, and backup catcher Al DeVormer counted Carl Mays and Fred Hofmann among his sparring partners. When they weren’t fighting they were partying non-stop. “The players, a rowdy, independent group of drinkers, gamblers and wenchers—most of them anyway—raised hell every night,” wrote Robert Creamer. “Poker games went on until dawn. Empty bottles of bootleg liquor piled up in the halls. Some players were never in their rooms all night. Huggins looked littler than ever trying to control his willful troupe.”

When the Colonels got wind of the goings on of their players, they hired a private detective to keep his eye on them. Then they decided to watch them personally. “Bookmakers and bootleggers are around wherever they go,” they warned Huggins. One Yankees pitcher had reportedly won thousands of dollars at the racetrack and was a frequent bettor, and Ruth was a regular at the track. Prior to his return, Ruth bumped into his former International League manager Jack Dunn while wagering on the horses and admitted that he had cleaned up to the tune of $18,000. He then laid $13,000 more on bets while Dunn watched. Landis decided it was time to offer guidance to the players and accosted the Yankees and Red Sox before a game at Fenway Park. “Gamblers have no place in baseball,” he began. “I can see by your faces how repugnant, how abhorrent would be thought of selling a ball game, but…some weakling, who started first by betting on horse races, and associating with others who do the same thing, will be selling ball games.” He then warned those who were betting on horses to cease and desist or he would “gather them in as surely as the sun rises in the morning.”

June ended with the Red Sox still in last place and the Browns holding the same two and a half game lead they had in the middle of the month. July didn’t go much better; in fact it was the team’s worst month of the season. After an 8-0 drubbing to the White Sox on July 19 dropped the Red Sox to 36-51, Frazee read his team the riot act and threatened to start trading off players if they didn’t improve. The players responded by drawing up a petition that cited their dissatisfaction with how Frazee was running the team and invited him to sell his interest in the club. Instead the Red Sox owner did what many believed he would before the season started—he traded Joe Dugan to the Yankees. On July 23, Frazee sent Dugan and hard-hitting right fielder Elmer Smith to New York for outfielder Elmer Miller, shortstop Johnny Mitchell, utility man Chick Fewster, a player to be named later—pitcher Lefty O’Doul would eventually go to the Sox to complete the trade on October 12—and the previously rumored $50,000.

Dugan was hitting .287 with 22 doubles at the time of the trade, but had struggled in the field, posting below average fielding percentages at both third base and shortstop, and had established a reputation as being temperamental. Smith was second on the team in homers with six and in slugging at .472, but he’d also struggled defensively. They were both regulars in the Red Sox lineup, though. The Yankees who went to Boston in return had been bench warmers in New York. Miller hit .267 with three homers in 51 games and Fewster hit only .242 in 44 games, but both played well in the outfield in Ruth’s absence; Mitchell had only four at-bats in four games, and O’Doul was a highly touted hurler and batter who’d gone 25-9 for the Pacific Coast League’s San Francisco Seals in 1921 while batting .338.

Neither Dugan nor Smith were happy in Boston and there was speculation that the former hadn’t been giving his best out on the field. Regardless James O’Leary predicted the trade would cause an uproar around baseball. “The trading of Dugan, who was regarded as one of the best players on the Boston club, will undoubtedly cause a howl from the fans, and the fact that he goes to New York whither so many other Boston stars have gone will not have a tendency to reconcile the Boston fans to the change.” But it wasn’t just the fans that started to howl; backlash from the deal came from all directions. Tris Speaker called the trade a “crime” and claimed that Dugan and Smith by themselves, let alone both of them together, were worth more than the four players the Red Sox received in return and insisted that he would have parted with better talent for Smith alone had Frazee been more reasonable during negotiations. White Sox manager Kid Gleason recounted how he had been rebuffed in his efforts to acquire Dugan and that Frazee had told him the third baseman wasn’t available. Suddenly Dugan was a Yankee.

In an article titled “Dugan Deal Causes Storm of Protests,” the New York Times quoted Paul Shannon of the Boston Post and Burt Whitman of the Boston Herald, neither of whom was happy with the trade. Shannon corroborated Gleason’s account and went so far as to report that the White Sox had allegedly offered more money for Dugan than the Yankees had for Ruth, but Frazee turned them down to acquire “three or four players of doubtful ability.” He also called Frazee’s insistence that no money was involved in the transaction “laughable.” Whitman called the deal “disgusting” and insisted that it offended good sportsmanship. He too commented on Frazee’s claim that the deal only included players, stating that if he didn’t get at least $50,000 in the deal he was “sorely worsted by the Yankees.” Lastly Whitman echoed Johnson’s sentiments that Frazee was, indeed, the “Champion Wrecker of the Baseball Age.”

W.C. Spargo wrote in the Boston Traveller, “General sentiment around town yesterday was strictly against the deal, but it was expressed with a ‘what difference does it make’ attitude that would be entirely pleasing to Frazee if he happened to be in Boston long enough to get the drift of opinion, which he never is.” The Los Angeles Times said the deal, combined with previous transactions between the two clubs, “rocks the very foundation of the game” and wondered what baseball was coming to. “Frazee now has completed—with two exceptions—the transfer to New York of every really great athlete he ever owned…but he has gained in his pocketbook what he has lost on the diamond.”

Ban Johnson called the trade “regrettable” and recommended that new legislature be adopted to put a halt to mid-season trades. Baseball Magazine agreed. “The sale of prominent players in mid-season is a bad thing, quite apart from the fact that it breeds popular suspicion,” wrote the magazine. “It is a bad thing because it is a rank injustice to the weaker clubs with poor financial backing.”

At the time of the deal the Yankees were only a game and a half behind the first place Browns, prompting F.W.A. Vesper, president of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, to send out a scathing letter to Commissioner Landis, and presidents Johnson and Heydler. The letter accused Organized Baseball of allowing the richest teams to buy the pennant at the expense of “more moderately financed clubs” and insisted that Frazee’s financial indebtedness to Ruppert gave the Yankees an unfair advantage. “Certainly organized baseball can obviate the condition that permits one competitive club to be indirectly under permanent financial obligation to another club…Can the debtor be expected to participate while under threat of foreclosure?”

Whether Ruppert was using his $300,000 loan to Frazee as psychological leverage in deals with the Red Sox owner or not, there was nothing that could be done about the Dugan trade. The deal came before the August 1 trading deadline and, unsportsmanlike or not, it was perfectly legal. Johnson immediately proposed a new trading deadline of July 1, an idea that had been recommended in 1920, but had been vetoed by Commissioner Landis in favor of one more to the National League’s liking. Barney Dreyfuss insisted on a more stringent deadline and suggested June 15, which received unanimous approval.

A new trading deadline was recommended as much to stop the Giants from buying pennants as it was to curb the Yankees’ alleged “rape of the Red Sox”. Since Frazee took over the Sox in 1917 only Carl Mays and Joe Dugan went to the Yankees in “late season” trades; all the other transactions took place in the winter, typically in December, months before the beginning of the season. The Giants, on the other hand, acquired pitchers Art Nehf and Hugh McQuillan, and outfielder Irish Meusel in late season trades in three different seasons from 1919 to 1922. Ironically they had as much a connection with Boston as the Colonels had with Frazee. Nehf came over from the Braves on August 1, 1919, Meusel from the Phillies on July 25, 1921, and McQuillan from the Braves again on July 30, 1922.

The Braves’ owner, George Grant, was linked to Giants manager John McGraw, with whom he partnered in an attempt to purchase a race track in Havana. He also had an office on Wall Street and a box at the Polo Grounds that sat right next to those of Giants owner Charles Stoneham. Like Frazee, Grant was grounded in New York and ran his team from a distance. Unlike Frazee, Grant was mostly immune to the press’ ire. He traded Nehf for four stiffs, one of whom enjoyed brief success with the team before completely flaming out, and $55,000, but the deal barely made a splash in the papers. And he received a free pass when he dealt McQuillan to the Giants for two pitchers of limited value and $100,000.

“Had Grant been sending his best material in a stream to the Giants there would be more bitterness felt,” wrote the Boston Herald. “But Grant’s attitude is different than Frazee’s toward the Yankees. Grant never had a great team and did not dismantle it…the owner of the Braves would need to be more than human to turn down a sum of money which probably is considerably more than he has taken in at the gate at the Wigwam all this unfortunate year.” The only backlash came from the Boston Globe and it was directed at the Giants. “The deal will give rise to talk about the Giants buying another pennant and that baseball is being commercialized too extensively.” The paper also acknowledged a need to abolish late season trades.

All the while Frazee defended his latest trade and insisted it made the Red Sox better. Had he the benefit of Mitchell’s services all along, he contended, the team would be in the first division. “I was tipped off that Mitchell…was a remarkable player. I can’t figure out where I got the worst of the deal.” Boston had 63 games left to play and Frazee honestly expected his Red Sox to climb to at least fourth place. Or so he said.

They went 23-40 the rest of the way and finished in last place for the first time since 1906. Mitchell played a solid shortstop, but was the worst hitter on the team, recording only six extra-base hits in 203 at-bats. Miller hit four home runs in only 147 at-bats, but batted an anemic .190. Fewster was actually pretty good, hitting .289 and stealing eight bases, while providing excellent range at third base, but he appeared in only 23 games. O’Doul spent the season with the Yankees and didn’t come to Boston until October 12. Contrary to popular belief, the “fence-busting” Red Sox had a weak offense, which couldn’t make up for their weaknesses; they were the only American League team that failed to score at least 600 runs, the pitching staff finished sixth in ERA and was last in strikeouts, and the team posted the worst fielding percentage in the league.

Meanwhile the Yankees and Browns engaged in a pennant race that went down to the wire. St. Louis boasted the league’s best offense. They hit .313 as a team, scored 867 runs, and featured the league batting champ in George Sisler, who hit .420, and the home run and RBI champ in Ken Williams, who belted 39 round trippers and knocked in 155 runs. Marty McManus hit .312 with 11 homers and 109 RBIs, Jack Tobin hit .331 with 13 homers, and Baby Doll Jacobson hit .317 and drove in 102 runs. They also had the league’s best pitching staff, led by 24-game winner Urban Shocker. The Yankees were just behind the Browns in the arms department, led by Joe Bush at 26-7 and 20-game winner Bob Shawkey, and had the fourth best offense in the junior circuit, scoring 4.92 runs a game. Ruth hit .315 with 35 home runs in 406 at-bats, Meusel .319 with 16 homers, Pipp hit .329 and drove in 90 runs, Schang hit .319, and Dugan hit .286 and improved his fielding considerably.

From July 23 to September 19 neither team was more than two and a half games from the top as they traded places throughout the summer. On September 20, the Browns fell three and a half games off the pace when they were shut out by the Senators and the Yankees beat the Tigers. On September 23 they lost to the Athletics and the Yankees beat the Indians to put them four and a half games back with four to play. New York still had five games left, though, giving the Browns a sliver of hope. Four straight wins combined with five Yankee losses would give them a tie and force a playoff. The Red Sox beat the Yankees 3-1 behind Rip Collins on September 28 to pull St. Louis to within three games. Another Red Sox defeat of New York, this time by a 1-0 score, coupled with a Browns 3-2 win over the White Sox on September 29 brought St. Louis to within two games of first place with two games to go. “It is the right of every other club in the league to trample the restless inmates of Harry Frazee’s auction corral,” wrote Westbrook Pegler. “But when Boston plays the Yankees form is at a discount and the mathematical dope is honored only in the breach. Those losses to the Red Sox will fully account for the losing of the pennant if the Yanks are beaten in the driving finish now transpiring in the west.”

But Boston couldn’t help the Browns any more and lost the third game of the series, giving the Yankees the pennant. Ironically New York was the only team the Red Sox beat more often than not, losing 13 times in 22 games.

New York held on to win its second successive AL pennant, but again lost to the Giants in the World Series, failing to win even one game (Game Two ended in a tie). For the third straight season, the Yankees drew over a million fans and for the second straight year, the Red Sox failed to draw even 300,000, pulling in only 259,184 customers. They averaged only 3,550 per game, the lowest figure in team history.

At the winter meetings in December Landis’ grasp on the commissionership was strengthened even further when it was resolved to give him the power to “take preventative, remedial or punitive action against any minor league club, official or player who acts against the best interests of baseball.” Prior to the ruling, several in the minor leagues doubted Landis’ power to rule over the minor leagues as well as the major leagues. Now there could be no doubt. Barnstorming was allowed until October 31 and would only require consent of the team owner, and a new trading deadline of June 15 was officially adopted. “The effect of the action yesterday will be to confine most of the trading and buying to the winter season,” reported the Times. “Such deals as those the Giants made for Arthur Nehf, Dave Bancroft, Irish Meusel and Hugh McQuillan and the Yankees for Joe Dugan will now be under the ban.”

The Giants’ impact on the trade deadline

While there is little doubt the Yankees benefited more from their dealings with the Red Sox than the Giants did from their dealings with the Boston Braves, it’s unfair and inaccurate to say that Frazee was the reason a June 15 trade deadline was adopted prior to the 1923 season. Of the trades Frazee made with the Yankees, only two were consummated as late as July 29 (Carl Mays was sent to New York on July 29, 1919 and Joe Dugan was sent to New York on July 23, 1922); the rest were made in December or January. Ernie Shore, Duffy Lewis, and Dutch Leonard were traded to the Yankees in December, 1918; Babe Ruth was sold in January, 1920 (the deal was actually agreed upon in December, but wasn’t announced until January 3); Waite Hoyt, Harry Harper, Wally Schang, and Mike McNally were traded in December, 1920; Everett Scott, Joe Bush, and Sam Jones were traded in December, 1921; George Pipgras and Harvey Hendrick and, a few weeks later Herb Pennock, were dealt in January, 1923.

Over the same period of time (1917 to 1922), the Giants made several trades either at the trade deadline or just prior to it.

On July 31, 1917, the Giants acquired pitcher Al Demaree from the Cubs for shortstop Pete Kilduff. At the time of the trade the Giants already boasted a 10-game lead over the second place Cardinals and would win the pennant by 10 games over the Phillies. Demaree went 4-5 with a 2.64 ERA in 78 1/3 innings (ERA+ of 96), while Kilduff batted a team-leading .277 for the Cubs in 202 at-bats and stole 11 bases (he also posted a 106 OPS+). Demaree didn’t really do much to help the Giants win the pennant, but he was more productive for New York than Kilduff. Though Kilduff did well for the Cubs, he was an expendable spare part who was horrible defensively and the Giants could afford to lose him.

Two years later in mid-July 1919, the Giants pulled off a series of deals that strengthened them considerably, although not enough to propel them over the Cincinnati Reds, who eventually won the pennant by nine games. On July 16 the Giants traded struggling hurler Ferdie Schupp to the Cardinals for catcher Frank Snyder. Eleven days later they traded outfielder Dave Robertson to the Cubs for troubled pitcher “Shufflin” Phil Douglas, then on August 1 the Giants made a blockbuster deal with the Braves that netted them pitcher Art Nehf for pitchers Joe Oeschger, Red Causey, and Johnny Jones, catcher Mickey O’Neil, and $55,000.

Snyder didn’t hit much in 1919, but his addition to the team solidified the Giants behind the plate and he would go on to have some very good years for the Giants over the rest of his career. That season, however, he was just a good defensive backstop who shared catching duties with a couple other guys. Schupp, whom the New York Times dubbed the “pitching sensation of 1917,” was better in St. Louis (ERA+ of 75) than he’d been in New York (ERA+ of 50) and he would win 16 games for the Cardinals in 1920, but his loss was hardly felt by the Giants. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Schupp was one of the most promising young pitchers of the National League before he joined the army in 1918 but he had been “unable to regain the control which made his box work so effective.” He would win only nine more games after 1920.

The Times speculated that Giants manager John McGraw had so many catchers already that Snyder was most likely acquired as trade bait. Indeed, McGraw had inquired about the availability of Phillies hurler Eppa Rixey and Pirates hurler Wilbur Cooper, both southpaws, and it was widely known that both clubs needed help behind the plate. But neither team would part with their pitchers.

Douglas didn’t return immediate dividends either, winning only two of six decisions in eight games, but he posted a 2.10 ERA and would win 14, 15, and 11 games for the Giants from 1920 to 1922 before being ushered out of baseball amidst a scandal that found him willing to abandon the team during the 1922 season for the right price. Robertson had been a hold out since the end of the 1917 World Series and had refused to play for the Giants while also refusing to report to Washington, to whom he’d been traded the previous spring. The Chicago Tribune called Robertson a star and opined that when he quit the Giants he was “the best fly chaser of the old league,” but the paper also admitted that “the deal weakened the Giants in no way, as Robertson refused to play for McGraw…” and that “the trade gave McGraw the pitcher he has been seeking for some time.”

Robertson struggled through 27 games with the Cubs in 1919, but had a good season in 1920, hitting .300 with 10 homers and 75 RBIs while posting an OPS+ of 131. He played in only 124 games the rest of his career, however, and was out of baseball following the 1922 season.

It was the Nehf deal, however, that was supposed to push the Giants past Cincinnati and into first place. The Boston Globe predicted that the Giants’ chances of winning the pennant increased by 25% with the acquisition of Nehf, who was only 8-9 with a 3.09 ERA for Boston. But Nehf had won 52 games with the Braves since 1915 and owned the ninth best ERA in the National League from 1915 to 1919 among pitchers with at least 750 innings pitched. The Giants, who were only a game and a half behind the Reds at the time of the deal, definitely got the better of the deal as Nehf went 9-2 down the stretch with a nifty 1.50 ERA in 102 innings. But the Reds pulled away from New York and won the pennant with relative ease, finishing ahead of the Giants by nine games.

Nehf would go 107-60 with the Giants over parts of the next eight years before being sold to the Reds in May, 1926. Oeschger went 50-65 for the Braves over five seasons; Causey went 4-5 in his only season in Boston with a 4.57 ERA; Jones went 1-0 in three games with a 6.52 ERA; O’Neil hit .245 with slugging and on base percentages below .300 in 1,750 at-bats for the Braves before going to Brooklyn in 1926.

Although the Giants acquired a top-notch pitcher right at the trade deadline, there was no outcry from any of the major newspapers. In fact, all of them commended the Giants on their acquisition and figured they were a lock to win the pennant.

The very next season on June 8, 1920, the Giants acquired shortstop Dave Bancroft from the Phillies for shortstop Art Fletcher, pitcher Bill Hubbell and an undisclosed amount of cash (it was eventually reported that McGraw parted with $100,000). Again the Giants came out ahead, although Bancroft’s presence wasn’t enough to make up the eight-game hole New York was in at the time of the trade. New York went 67-43 after acquiring Bancroft, but still finished seven games behind the pennant-winning Brooklyn Robins. Bancroft played a key role for the Giants during a three-year stretch from 1921 to 1923 in which the Giants won three NL pennants and two World Series titles and he’s ranked 28th among shortstops in Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract.

Fletcher played well for the Phillies in 1920 (113 OPS+), but he missed the 1921 season, was sub par in 1922 and retired after the latter campaign. Hubbell was awful for the Phillies, going 36-55 with a 4.77 ERA before being shipped to Brooklyn in 1925. The cash the Phillies received was the best part of the deal.

The New York Times called Bancroft one of the best shortstops in the National League and predicted that he would strengthen the Giants. Again there was hardly any criticism towards the Giants for stripping teams of their better players for spare parts and lots of cash. The Washington Post opined that the Phillies got “the razz” in the deal, which is slang for a beating (Ireland) or a verbal show of contempt (U.S.), but otherwise the media was silent on the issue.

A year later on July 1, 1921 the Giants were in second place, five games behind the front-running Pittsburgh Pirates. In typical fashion New York orchestrated a series of trades over a three-week span that again strengthened the club, except this time they were able to parlay those deals into a pennant. The Giants sent third baseman Goldie Rapp, outfielder Lee King, and second baseman Lance Richbourg to the Phillies for veteran outfielder Casey Stengel and second baseman Johnny Rawlings. On July 10, the Giants sent pitcher Jesse Winters and second baseman John Monroe to the Phillies for pitcher Red Causey, whom they traded away in 1919. Then two weeks later they pulled off another blockbuster when they sent outfielder Curt Walker, catcher Butch Henline, and $30,000 to the Phillies for outfielder Irish Meusel.

The acquisition of Rawlings and Stengel was met with little fanfare. Rawlings was expected to take over second base from Frankie Frisch, who would be moved back to third, while Stengel was expected to serve as a utility outfielder. Rawlings turned out to be a sure-handed fielder but didn’t hit much and lasted with the Giants for only two years before going to Pittsburgh. Stengel was brilliant in a part-time role with the Giants before going to Boston in 1924. Neither Rapp, King, or Richbourg did much of anything for the Phillies, although the latter enjoyed a very good 1928 campaign with the Braves.

Winters and Monroe were busts in Philly (Winters posted a 116 ERA+ in 1921, but went only 5-10 and was out of baseball within two years) while Causey pitched very well for the Giants, especially in 1922, before leaving the game at the age of 28 following the 1922 season.

The big acquisition, however, came in the person of Irish Meusel, who was hitting .353 with 12 homers at the time of the deal, but was also in Phillies manager Bill Donovan’s dog house for “indifferent play,” causing him to be benched. In what appeared at the time to be a massive understatement, the Washington Post claimed the Giants got the better of the deal. Meusel “slumped” a bit with the Giants, hitting “only” .329 and managing only two more home runs the rest of the way, but he helped the Giants erase a four-game deficit to the Pirates and turn it into a four-game advantage and a pennant.

Meusel had some very productive years with the Giants, but Walker and Henline gave the Phillies five combined above average seasons before either declining, going elsewhere, or both and Philadelphia had an extra $30,000 in its coffers.

Still, other than a charge by Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss in 1927 that Giants players offered money to Brooklyn pitchers if they beat the Pirates towards the end of the 1921 pennant race, there was still no condemnation of the Giants and their one-sided mid-season trades.

That would change in July of 1922. On July 30, the Giants, sporting a slim game and a half lead over the Cardinals, made yet another deadline deal in which they acquired pitcher Hugh McQuillan from the Braves for pitchers Larry Benton, Fred Toney, and Harry Hulihan and $100,000. McQuillan was only 5-10 with a 4.24 ERA at the time of the deal and had gone 32-45 with a 3.83 earned run average for the Braves in his first five seasons in Boston, but he was considered an up-and-coming young pitcher and the ace of the Braves’ staff. The uproar caused by the deal could be heard from all corners of the National League.

The Boston Globe reported on July 31, “Already the roars of protest and the derision at another effort by a New York club to ‘buy a pennant’ are going up. The Pittsburgh and the St. Louis clubs are staying here and loud were the cries from Branch Rickey of the Cardinals and Bill McKechnie of the Pirates tonight that the Giants ‘had put one over’ by the use of the Stoneham bankroll.” Later it wrote, “The deal will give rise to talk about the Giants buying another pennant and that baseball is being commercialized too extensively. Every one who has the best interest of the great national game at heart will agree that it would be a good plan not to permit deals of this kind in the latter part of the season when two or three tams are fighting for the championship and all the others are out of the race.”

The Chicago Tribune wrote that the McQuillan deal had “already drawn bitter expressions of protest by leaders of the St. Louis and Pittsburgh Nationals,” and detailed how even the New York scribes were critical of the deal. Frank Graham of the New York Evening Sun wrote, “The Giants, top-heavy favorites, have waged with the Cardinals a thrilling fight for the leadership over a stretch of several weeks. This fight, still on, should be decided strictly on the merits of the contending teams, and not on the purchasing power of a wealthy club.”

Although McQuillan helped shore up McGraw’s staff he was by no means the difference between the Giants winning a pennant and finishing in second place. He went 6-5 in 15 games with a 3.82 ERA and posted an ERA+ of 105, which is hardly the stuff of which legends are made. In fact, the Giants had a better winning percentage before the McQuillan deal (.617) than after it (.593).

Benton had one good year for the Braves (130 ERA+ in 1925) and one below average year before returning to the Giants in 1927. He went 25-9 for the Giants in 1928 and posted a stellar 2.73 ERA and finished fourth in MVP voting, but he shot his wad that season and was terrible over the remaining seven years of his career. Toney never pitched for the Braves and was selected off waivers by the Cardinals, for whom he went 11-12 with a 3.84 ERA in 1923, his last year in the majors. Hulihan went 2-3 with a nice 3.15 ERA in seven games with the Braves, but, despite loads of promise and confidence, he wasn’t able to stick with the Braves and was out of the majors after only one season.

Although the trade deadline was moved up to June 15 beginning in 1923, that didn’t deter the Giants, who sent pitcher Jesse Barnes and catcher Earl Smith to the Braves for catcher Hank Gowdy and pitcher Mule Watson on June 7.  The Globe opined that the deal was not “one of major importance.”  The Tribune barely mentioned it other than to say the city of Boston felt the Braves got the better of the deal.  The Times disagreed and thought the Giants were strengthened considerably, although it predicted that there would be backlash not because of the timing of the trade, but because it involved the Giants and Braves, who appeared to be in bed together as much as the Red Sox and Yankees.  The Post simply reported the trade and offered no opinions about it.

The trade deadline remained untouched until 1986 when it was moved to July 31 as part of the new collective bargaining agreement.  For more information about the history of the trade deadline click here.