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NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN<\/P>
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Observations from Outside the Lines<\/P>
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By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)<\/P>
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#366 December 23, 2005<\/P> HOLIDAY READING<\/P> I’ll save my look back at 2005 for next issue … after all, it’s been such an amazing year, filled with surprises — if I summed it up now, surely something<\/I> major would happen in the next eight days.<\/P><\/p>\n This issue is a kind of mixed bag of holiday goodies. The biggest package (remember when we were kids and the size<\/I> of the presents under the tree determined which got opened first?) is the leadoff essay about Shoeless Joe Jackson — but an aspect I don’t see treated much anywhere. And I’m suggesting that from now on, in the country of baseball, when we think of The Curse, let’s focus on something really important. <\/P><\/p>\n That item was triggered in part by the coming of a new baseball library in Greenville, South Carolina, and if you are so moved by my little piece that you decide to contribute your own baseball library (or its leftovers) to this project, then contact Arlene Marcley, Office of the Mayor, City of Greenville, 206 South Main Street, Greenville, SC, 29601. (Receipts for tax write-offs are available.) <\/P><\/p>\n I’m going to recommend another essay, too, by Hugh Fullerton expert Steve Klein. It appeared at the web site of Poynter online<\/B>, so it is easy to look up, just search for The Poynter Institute. This essay is related to mine on Jackson. Steve is a college teacher, and is concerned that “way too many of my students can’t write well.” This is scandalous<\/I>, in an age when there is so much information to process. Writing and reading are related, in my opinion. Steve makes so many excellent points about the lessons of video games, blogs, podcasts (and other words just barely in my vocabulary) — well, you can look it up. I’ll just add one more excerpt, with Steve’s permission, and I can’t help wondering if Fullerton was an influence:<\/P> Good journalism today — heck, yesterday and tomorrow, too — is about three basic things: your ethical compass; knowing your audience; clarity in communication. <\/P> I especially encourage young men and women just getting into journalism — writing — to track down this essay. If you need help, email me.<\/P><\/p>\n <\/P> THE CURSE <\/P> In the country of baseball, the word “curse” usually refers either to the foul language of a Casey at the Bat fanning in the clutch, or to the explanation for a long drought between championship seasons. The latter is pure superstition, of course, and with the Curse of the Bambino and the Curse of the Black Sox erased in successive Octobers, baseball is left with only a few puny Curses: that of the Goat (explaining the Cubs’ lack of a world crown since 1908) and of Rocky (Colavito, a trade that has kept the Clevelanders crownless since 1948). <\/P><\/p>\n So it may be a good time for baseball to look at a real curse, one that has plagued a few ballplayers down thru history, and which continues to dog the game: illiteracy. I’m going to talk here about Shoeless Joe Jackson, but let’s be honest, the Nuke LaLoosh character that Tim Robbins played in Bull Durham<\/I> is not that cartoonish — many ballplayers today do not express themselves very well, and prefer the safe cliches recommended by the team’s PR staff or by their agents, to candid remarks. In this, they are like politicians and many other groups, so let us not be overly harsh with today’s athletes.<\/P><\/p>\n Instead, think about what happens to a person’s vocabulary when they devote their entertainment hours to video games. Do they learn any new words? Can these words be used in public? I honestly don’t know, I don’t play those games. But I’ve read some about them, and have seen a few TV ads.<\/P><\/p>\n Illiteracy:<\/B> it is not stupidity, it is not moral innocence. Rather, it is a handicap, a negative, an inability to read or write, or at least to be unable to read and write well enough<\/I>. Now we all know bright folks who cannot spell or whose grammar is horrible, or perhaps who are dyslexic; they may be technically illiterate, but many find ways to overcome their handicap. Real illiteracy plunges one into ignorance, and the cliche has always seemed valid to me, it is what you do not know that can hurt you<\/I>. The unenlightened may be ignorant because they have never been properly instructed or informed by others; but in many cases, they simply have not informed themselves.<\/P><\/p>\n News Item: Greenville, S.C., to honor Shoeless Joe Jackson with a museum, library and research center<\/B>. I am delighted to report that this is not fiction — if you are in Greenville, you can visit Joe Jackson’s old home (now a museum-in-progress), late next summer, and check out a book at the library. I know this because I had a small role in the donation of a starter library of baseball books to the project, via the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). But I have thought for some time that “nothing could be finer” than to honor this man from Caroliner (pardon the theft of lyrics), than a library.<\/P><\/p>\n Joe Jackson’s illiteracy is one of the most famous cases in baseball, perhaps in American history. Less famous is the trouble it caused him in his career. It made Jackson sympathetic is some circles: an obviously innocent victim of slick gamblers and cunning, unprincipled teammates? I don’t think so. But it certainly meant that he was less knowledgeable about society and survival in the big northern cities. And in its courtrooms. <\/P><\/p>\n That Jackson may have signed a three-year contract in 1920 without noticing the “Ten Days Clause” (something his wife Kate would have spotted, if she had looked over the document), is not so important in the big scheme of things. True, it led to that 1924 trial, meaning we have a lot more information today on the record from the main characters in the Fix and the Cover-Up. A greater problem for Jackson was his signing, “blind,” the waiver of his immunity, at the 1920 grand jury hearing — on the advice of Comiskey’s lawyer. I think he was so relieved at being able to finally tell what he knew about the Fix, that he might have signed it anyway — but maybe not. (Cicotte and Williams did the same thing, also on Alfred Austrian’s advice, and they could read well enough, as far as we know.) <\/P><\/p>\n So perhaps the greatest problem Jackson’s illiteracy caused him was not his inability to read contracts or court documents (that ain’t easy for anybody, even today!) — but rather, the lack of knowledge he must have had about testifying under oath, and how to handle questions, and how to tell his story despite<\/I> those questions. From all accounts, the picture I get of Joe Jackson on September 28, 1920 — once he decided to follow Eddie Cicotte to the courthouse — is that of a man being led. It was hard to sneak a good pitch past Joe Jackson when he was at bat — but words were not baseballs. They were invisible, strange sounds, some just disembodied syllables with fuzzy meanings. They come from a lawyer, he must know the score.<\/I> <\/P><\/p>\n Me and Joe Jackson.<\/B> Before my research, I probably knew as much about Shoeless Joe Jackson as the average fan, maybe a little more. I had never read a book about him, nor seen his grand jury testimony, and had never heard of that 1924 trial. That he was one of the “eight men out” was common knowledge; I doubt that I could have named the others, except for Buck Weaver, the guy everybody but Baseball seemed willing to forgive.<\/P><\/p>\n During my research, it became clear that Joe Jackson’s case was perhaps the most complicated of the 8MO, and along with Eddie Cicotte’s and Weaver’s, one of the most intriguing. And, because of his rank of #3 on the all-time-high-average list, behind Cobb and Hornsby (and ahead of Ruth and everyone else), he was the one most fans cared about most today. The film Field of Dreams<\/I> has much to do with that, I’m sure. <\/P><\/p>\n And now, after the research that will be in my book, I am interested to see if exposure to more information will make a difference in the way others see Joe Jackson. (They’ll have to read it, of course — until my book is turned into a movie, that is!) I think it will, but let’s see.<\/P><\/p>\n I tried hard not<\/B><\/I> to advocate for or against Joe Jackson in my book. Not easy, and in the end, I think readers want to know where I stand. Well, I devoted a short chapter (the one between the Cover-Up, and its coming undone) to the role of Joe Jackson. And in the long chapter on the players (ultimately split in half), Joe bats lead-off and his section is long. And it could be longer — more has already been written about him, than any of the others in this story. Not just articles, either, I mean whole books. Yet, I think much in my book will be new to Jackson fans (and in that group I include those who think he’s guilty as hell, but follow his case anyway, just to be sure he never gets into Cooperstown).<\/P><\/p>\n I also did not protest when my publisher put a photo of Joe Jackson on my book’s cover (superimposed over a larger photo of the owners signing up Kenesaw Mountain Landis to repair the game’s image. Not the game, necessarily, just the image.) I could have — my book is not about Joe Jackson<\/I>.<\/P><\/p>\n I believe Jackson will benefit more from the telling of the larger story surrounding the Fix, than from six new biographies, five new petitions, four congressmen lobbying, three TV specials, two more White Sox pennants, and a partridge in a pear tree that declares him innocent on Sixty Minutes<\/I>. It is naive to think that Major League Baseball and its current Commish do not pay attention to public pressure, or that advocacy and media events and other such hoopla have no role. The problem is that that<\/I> is the way we elect our leaders, we market them like products, we watch candidates out-spend each other, Dueling With Dollars for a job that pays many times less than they spend. And we watch our elected officials do something similar, spinning and creating news, to shape public opinion. <\/P><\/p>\n But I think I will help Joe Jackson more by staying out<\/I> of his corner. Jackson was never accused of being a mastermind in the Big Fix, he was caught up and pulled in, so that his name — the biggest, with Cicotte’s — made it look like it was indeed safe enough to bet the house on the Reds. (Having Rothstein’s name in the deal on the fixers’ side had a similarly reassuring effect, for those plunking down their cash in October 1919. How ironic is it that the uneducated Jackson, and the shrewd A.R., both complained that their names were used<\/I>, without their knowledge or permission? Yet both profited from this borrowing by Rothstein’s underlings and Jackson’s teammates — if that is what happened — Rothstein ending up about $345,000 ahead of Jackson, if A.R. biographer Leo Katcher had it right.)<\/P><\/p>\n I don’t think Jackson’s case will ever be crystal clear, but I am convinced that it is a lot less murky than most people think. Jackson is often described as a simple man, and if we see that as a nice contrast with the complicated, scheming men who decided to fix the Series, then his simplicity is a virtue. But simpleness, due to illiteracy, is no virtue. It is a curse.<\/P><\/p>\n A Postscript on Libraries.<\/B> My father saw to it that I was no stranger to libraries, and thanks to Andrew Carnegie, Pittsburgh had a terrific library system from ‘way back. (An immigrant from Scotland, so the story goes, Carnegie worked in a cotton factory as a boy, earning $1.20 a day — kind of like Joe Jackson. We don’t know if he batted or threw left or right. But he learned how to learn, became a billionaire with more money than he could spend at the ballpark, so he gave away millions — to schools, libraries, universities and the world peace movement. Looking back, maybe it all should have gone to world peace, but that’s just hindsight. Carnegie was no saint, but neither was Comiskey. Carnegie died in 1919. He never knew that last Series was fixed.)<\/P><\/p>\n I’ve visited libraries all of my life, but never as many or as often as during the past three years. The internet is great for looking things up, but when it comes to getting your hands on the books and articles you want, you can’t beat libraries. If ballplayers read books, the libraries of America would not be in such collectively awful financial shape, being forced to cut staff and hours, even as they get better and better at what they do — put people in touch with information.<\/P><\/p>\n To borrow a line from The Travel Channel<\/I> — now here’s a secret about my book. I think it could have been written and researched by anyone who knows how to use a library. <\/P><\/p>\n And that is another reason I’m delighted to see Joe Jackson’s name go on a library. Reading increases information. Some of that info will be wrong, or outdated. But more reading will correct that. When should one stop reading and settle for what one knows? Never.<\/I> My book got written — I can say this by looking back — because I followed Hugh Fullerton’s “First Commandment of Sport (And Everything Else in Life)” — Thou shalt not quit.<\/I> <\/P><\/p>\n I should insert here a comment on the folly of term papers, or any short articles that pretend to cover a subject. Articles are great, but they cover only aspects, never a whole thing. The problem is, neither do books. But they should lead to other books. And not just<\/I> other books, but all the other sources of information: newspapers, lectures, video documentaries, the notes of other researchers, and of course, other people<\/I>. The internet can not only help us find the right books, but it can help us find the authors, to ask follow-up questions. <\/P><\/p>\n Having a research center dedicated to Joe Jackson seems like a good idea, too. I hope my research is a starting point, and not the final word. Gathering a lot of stuff together to make it easier for others to get on the trail of knowledge can’t be all bad. Yet, I would be happier to see a kid take out a book by Ring Lardner or John Tunis or Roger Angell, and get hooked on reading<\/I>, than to see him get hooked on the B-Sox. Reading can make you think, and we need more thinking people in the world. Don’t you think?<\/P><\/p>\n <\/P> QUANTUM LEAP <\/P> When I started following baseball in the fifties, “baseball history” stretched back just a bit over half a century. Someone had drawn a thick line at 1900 — anything before 1900 was “pre-historic” (played then, I assumed, by cavemen among the dinosaurs). The record books respected that line, mostly — Cy Young’s several hundred prehistoric wins were counted in his record 511, but the modern batting marks were all post-1900. I vaguely knew there was a Dead Ball Era, that ended with Ruth and the lively ball of the 1920s. <\/P><\/p>\n The history was always important to me, for some reason — maybe because that’s where my team, the Pirates, had their best success, back in Honus Wagner’s time, then Pie Traynor’s. There was not much to brag about after 1927, except Ralph Kiner’s home runs, and by the time I was rooting, even Ralph was gone. So I got interested in history, and stayed interested even after the Pirates started competing again, at the end of 1957.<\/P><\/p>\n I mention this here because today’s fans have so much more baseball history to explore and enjoy, than we did in the fifties. Every year there are dozens of new books that shed new light on the nooks and crannies of almost every decade, including those that were once shrouded in prehistory. So today any fan can jump into a time machine, so to speak, and whisk themselves back into whatever era they choose — Dead Ball or Lively, Cobbian strategy or Ruthian clouts. We can even visit whole Leagues that I barely heard about growing up — the Negro Leagues, the Federal League, and various major leagues that vanished before 1900. We are spoiled, and overwhelmed with choices.<\/P><\/p>\n Passengers on the time machine who wish to explore the World Champion White Sox’ history need to be careful when setting the dial. Because if they want to poke around in the scandalous days of 1919-20, but punch in a typo, winding up instead in 1917 — well, they will be in a whole different world.<\/P><\/p>\n That’s a long intro to the book The 1917 White Sox<\/B>, by Warren N. Wilbert and William C. Hageman (McFarland, 2004). I mentioned it briefly last issue, on the question about the Cicotte Bonus. (In 8MO, Asinof says Cicotte was so upset about being denied a bonus for winning 30 in 1917, that he decided to get even with Commy and earn his $10,000 the old-fashioned — no, make that the under-handed<\/I> way, by tossing the 1919 Series. But Cicotte had his shots at #30 in 1917 and was never held back — except in the 1917 Series. See Notes #365<\/I>.)<\/P><\/p>\n Since I’ve pretty much taken up residence in 1919 the last three years or so, I was distracted by everything and anything in the W & H book on 1917<\/B> that seemed to connect. Like the Cicotte bonus. And that is too bad, in a way — the 1917 season was such a high for the Sox and their fans, that it deserves its own celebration, untainted by the future. So yes, I recommend setting the dial on 1917 and using this book to make a visit.<\/P><\/p>\n The other big distraction for me was the little problem of tossing games that came up at the end of that<\/I> summer. W & H do a good job of researching the years ahead, when this scandal broke. It is a worthwhile subject for B-Sox addicts. The scandal REALLY hit the press at the tail-end of 1926, when Swede Risberg, of all Sox, went public with what were really old charges. “Cobb-Speakergate” was in the news at the time, and I think that was the catalyst for Swede: if those icons were going down, then by golly, that squeaky-clean Eddie Collins ought to get a little mud on his image, too. Landis was firmly in charge as this drama played out during January 1927, with a hearing called in the dead of winter for 30-some Tigers & Sox to testify about some shady games that were played way back in September 1917.<\/P><\/p>\n I spend some time on this in my book because Swede and Chick and Buck were back in the spotlight, on the other side of The Ban, still not shedding a LOT of light on the Big Fix of 1919, but talking some to reporters about it. And I think we also get a glimpse in 1927 of how Landis would have handled 1919, if that had been dropped in his lap. Anyway, the recap in 1917<\/B> is a good one, and I’m glad the authors took the time to do the research “outside the lines” that they could have drawn around their book.<\/P><\/p>\n The nature of the baseball season is that it unfolds day by day, month by month, building to a climax in each league, and culminating with the best teams playing off in October for the bragging rights to the claim of being the World’s Best. Any season can read like a Russian novel — hundreds of characters, old and new, are woven into the plot. Some shine brightly, then fizzle away. Some are casualties of the battles, some grow too old to compete and are replaced with promising rookies. I think the trick for an author(s) writing about one season, is to read all about it, then focus on what we know — looking back — were the turning points. The trades (maybe pre-season), the little changes in the pitching rotation, moving a player from short to third, taking a key double-header (look it up, younger fans) from your closest rival. <\/P><\/p>\n Wilbert & Hageman honor the Sox by doing a nice job covering “Their World Championship Season” in just around 200 pages. It’s a brisk read, and there’s no need to plod along — fans know where to find those turning points. I enjoyed the little profiles of the players, all along the way. This 1917 team was not a carbon copy of the more famous 1919 gang, and Pants Rowland is not the only character, gone in ’19, worth meeting. Of special interest will be Commy — Charles A. Comiskey, truly in his glory as he sits with his Sox, his fans, his city, on top of the world.<\/P><\/p>\n There is not much in the W & H book about the problems the players on both sides in the Series (Sox & Giants) had, when it came time to collect their pay for that October. (See Notes #362-363<\/I> for more on this.) I wish there was, because Comiskey has taken an awful beating (thanks mostly to Eight Men Out<\/I>, I think) for being a Scrooge, and the whole story of 1917 can help him out. Nice to de-bunk a Scrooge near the holidays.<\/P><\/p>\n Not much else to day. It’s a book worth the look, with lots of photos, which help readers know the players a little better. Sometimes I wish baseball had set a rule — maybe around 1900 — that limited images in the media to B & W photos — no color, no video, no film. <\/P><\/p>\n This doesn’t exactly fit in here, but maybe it does. I ran into this quote from Jack Kavanagh recently (it’s in his Walter Johnson biog) in Notes #115<\/I>. And it’s true of 1917.<\/P> Baseball belonged to the warm-weather months, to sunshine and grass. Now [it] is extended to preposterous lengths, played indoors, on synthetic turf, conducted almost clandestinely after dark, and denies youngsters the chance to watch the World Series even on weekend afternoons. Hypocritically, organized baseball postures as the heritage of American youth, while shutting them off from participation in anything other than merchandised trash. If baseball truly cared about its roots, there would be knothole-gang days, the All Star game would take place when kids could play hooky to watch, and the World Series games would be played when youngsters could see them.<\/P> <\/P><\/p>\n THE TROUBLES WITH DOUBLES <\/P> Longtime Notes<\/I> readers may hear an echo of one of my favorite headlines, “The Trouble with Triples” — actually it’s one of my favorite essays, highlighting Ed Luteran’s research on the 36 triples that the Pirates’ Owen “Chief” Wilson legged out in 1912. (Of course, he only played in 152 games, so give the stat an asterisk, think of what he could have done with another 10 G.) I have written some on BoSox Earl Webb’s 67 doubles in 1931, too, but not so much — I still have to look that up, to be sure. <\/P> I haven’t explored minor league records much, except for Joe Bauman’s old record of 72 HRs. But my 2005 desk calendar — almost gone now — coughed up a little gem on December 12. It said that a fellow named Lyman Lamb, playing for the Tulsa Oilers in the Western League in 1924, hit an even 100 doubles<\/B>. That is impressive all by itself, but even moreso when you learn that the next highest total (in the minors) is 75. <\/P><\/p>\n Lyman Lamb apparently thrived on minor league pitching, but when he got a tryout with the St Louis Browns in 1920-21, he couldn’t stick in the bigs. 54 games (11 doubles) and his cup of coffee was emptied.<\/P><\/p>\n But with Tulsa in 1922, Lyman lambasted 68 doubles, and the next summer he launched 71 more. But he was just warming up to that magical 100 two-baggers in ’24. <\/P><\/p>\n But Lyman was on his way down<\/I> the ladder. When I searched the major newspapers for any mention of his amazing 1924 feat, using ProQuest<\/I>, all I found was a story about a minor league named Charlie Dressen, a fellow who would become famous later as a major league manager. In July 1924, Dressen got hits in eleven straight at bats, tying the record then held by Tris Speaker and — Lyman Lamb. (Dressen got aboard on a error to end his streak, then followed with a homer and two singles. Wonder if the official scorer took much heat that day!)<\/P><\/p>\n And that was all the national press had to say about Lyman Lamb in 1924. <\/P><\/p>\n So this holiday season, let’s hoist an egg nog and toast Mr Doubles, whose 100 is one of baseball most buried treasures.<\/P><\/p>\n <\/P> COLLYER’S EYE, 1919 <\/B><\/U> <\/P><\/p>\n Maybe more on this next time … I know some of you are waiting to read more about what Collyer’s Eye<\/I> reported in its high-risk investigations after the Fix of October 1919. (The risk was libel suits. Fear of being sued for libel was very real in 1919 — and it also provided a handy excuse for editors to bury the Fix rumors before they gained too much credibility. That the Eye<\/I> went ahead with its stories is evidence that it did not fear being sued, because turning the microscope on the Fix could only add to the facts the Eye<\/I> was digging up.)<\/P><\/p>\n In case this is the last NOTES<\/B> of 2005 — Happy 2006!<\/P><\/BODY> NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN Observations from Outside the Lines By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net) #366 December 23, 2005 HOLIDAY READING I’ll save my look back at 2005 for next issue … after all, it’s been such an amazing year, filled with surprises — if I summed it up now, surely something major would happen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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