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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 14:25:52 GMT -5
MLB's only death from a play at the ballpark
August 16,1920-At the Polo Grounds, Indians shortstop Ray Chapman, 29, is beaned by aYankees pitcher Carl Mays pitch. Ray Chapman is a right-handed batter who likes to crowd the plate, Chapman freezes and fails to get out of the way of the submarine delivery. He is carried from the field and dies the next day from a fractured skull. Carl Mays, a surly, unpopular pitcher, is the target of fans' and MLB players' outrage.
Ray Chapman, is a Cleveland fan favorite since breaking in with the team in 1912, had been married the previous year. In October, his wife will receive a full 1920 World Series players share of $3,986.34. This incident has no effect on Carl Mays's pitching. One week later, he will blank the Tigers by the score of 10-0 and go on to win 26 and lose 11 during the 1920 AL season. Cleveland Indians Rookie 2B Joe Sewell will be called up to take Chapman's place at 2B, for 14 years he will be the hardest man to strike out in MLB. He will finish up his long MLB player career with the Yankees (1931-1933), after playing for the Indians from 1920 to 1930.
At the time of Chapman's death, "part of every pitcher's job was to dirty up a new ball the moment it was thrown onto the field". By turns, they smeared it with dirt, licorice, tobacco juice; it was deliberately scuffed, sandpapered, scarred, cut, even spiked. The result was a misshapen, earth-colored ball that traveled through the air erratically, tended to soften in the later innings, and as it came over the plate, was very hard to see.
This practice is believed to have contributed to Chapman's death. He was struck by a pitch by Carl Mays on August 16, 1920, in a game against the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Mays threw with a submarine delivery, and it was the top of the 5th inning, in the late afternoon. Eyewitnesses recounted that Chapman never moved out of the way of the pitch, presumably unable to see the ball. "Chapman didn't react at all," said Rod Nelson of the Society of American Baseball Research. "It was at twilight and it froze him." The sound of the ball smashing into Chapman's skull was so loud that Mays thought it had hit the end of Chapman's bat, so he fielded the ball and threw to 1st base.
The book "Ray and Me" by Dan Gutman, says that after Mays threw the ball to 1st base, the Yankees fielders threw it around the diamond. Chapman then took 3 or 4 steps before he collapsed. Mike Sowell's book, "The Pitch That Killed," however states that Yankees 1st baseman Wally Pipp caught Mays' throw to 1st and then realized something was very wrong. Chapman never took any steps, but rather slowly collapsed to his knees and then the ground with blood pouring out of his left ear. The umpire quickly called for doctors in the stands to come to Chapman's aid. Eventually Chapman was able to stand and try to walk off the field, but he could not speak when he tried to do so, but only mumbled. As he was walking off the field his knees buckled and he had to be assisted the rest of the way. Chapman would died 12 hours later in a New York City hospital, at about 4:30 A.M. He was replaced by Harry Lunte for the rest of the game.
In tribute to Chapman's memory, Cleveland players wore black arm bands, with manager Tris Speaker leading the team to win both the AL pennant and the 1st World Series Championship in the history of the club. Rookie Joe Sewell took Chapman's place at shortstop, and went on to have a Hall of Fame career (which he coincidentally concluded with the 1931-1933 Yankees). Ray Chapman is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, not far from where his new home was being built on Alvason Road in East Cleveland. He and his wife visited the home as it was being built several hours before he departed for New York City on his final road trip.
Not long after Chapman died, a bronze plaque was designed in his honor. The plaque features Chapman's bust framed by a baseball diamond and flanked by 2 bats, one of them draped with a fielder's mitt. At the bottom of the tablet is the inscription, "He Lives In The Hearts Of All Who Knew Him." The plaque was dedicated and hung at League Park and later at Cleveland Stadium before being taken down for unknown reasons.
In February 2007, the neglected plaque was re-discovered by workers cleaning out a storage room at Jacobs Field. Covered by years of dust and dirt, the bronze surface had oxidized a dark brown; the text was illegible. The plaque was refurbished and hung in Heritage Park, an exhibit of Indians history at Progressive Field. Jim Folk, Indians' Vice President of Ball Park Operations, said, "It was in a store room under an escalator in a little nook and cranny. We didn't know what we were going to do with it, but there was no way it was just going to stay there when we moved to Jacobs Field. We had it crated up and put on a moving truck and it came over along with our file cabinets and all the other stuff that came out of the stadium." Chapman was inducted into the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame in 2006.
Leading off the 5th inning in New York on 8/16/1920, Ray Chapman, a right-handed batter, took a ball and a strike from Yankees pitcher Carl Mays. The 3rd pitch, a rising fastball, from the right-handed submariner struck Chapman in the head with a thunderous crack. The ball rolled toward 3rd base, where Mays, believing the ball hit Chapman’s bat handle, fielded it and threw to first. Yankees manager Miller Huggins and the Indians Ray Caldwell both said that Chapman ducked into the pitch. Chapman immediately dropped in the batter’s box, bleeding from his left ear. Umpire Tom Connolly called for medical assistance. Several doctors from the stands attended to the fallen player. Chapman responded after several minutes and was assisted by two teammates to the clubhouse in centerfield; however, Chapman collapsed again on the field and was quickly carried to the clubhouse and whisked away to St. Lawrence Hospital in Manhattan. Muttering and unable to speak, Chapman signaled to the Indians’ trainer Percy Smallwood for a ring that the trainer kept during ballgames. It was given to Chapman by his 17-year-old wife, Kathleen, of ten months. Smallwood retrieved the ring and gave it to the player.
X-rays were taken which disclosed a depressed 3.5 inch skull fracture on the left side of his skull and an additional facture on the right side. He was hastily prepped for surgery. The operation began at 12:29 am on the 17th and ended at 1:44. Dr. Merrigan removed a 1.5” square piece of the ballplayer’s skull and found that blood clots due to the severe jarring of his brain. The shock of the blow lacerated both sides of the brain where the collision occurred on the left side and where the brain was jarred into the skull on the right side. Chapman marginally recovered after the surgery as his breathing eased and his pulse improved. Relieved, his teammates returned to their hotel. The players awoke to hear of their 2nd baseman’s death at 4:40 am that morning. Mrs. Chapman had been phone shortly after the beaning at a time when the seriousness of the injury was unknown. She had hopped a train, arriving in New York at 10 am on the 17th. She was met at the train station by Father Connors, a Philadelphia friend of Chapman’s, who had himself hurried to New York after hearing the news. Connors accompanied Mrs. Chapman to a hotel and gave her the fatal news there. That afternoon, Chapman’s body was taken to the New York funeral home of James F. McGowan at 153rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Fans and Yankees and Indian players flocked there instead of the scheduled ballgame which was cancelled. Cleveland Manager Tris Speaker was too distraught to leave his hotel room. Carl Mays heard of Chapman’s demise from a phone message left by a reporter. He had stayed away from the hospital as not to cause an incident. Mays met with Assistant District Attorney Joyce of the Homicide Bureau at 1 pm. After hearing Mays’ version of events, Joyce exonerated Mays of all legal blame. It was ruled an accident and the case was closed. National League President John Heydler had ordered flags at all the stadiums to be flown at half-mast for a week, as did AL President Ban Johnson. Chapman’s body was transported to Cleveland, where a memorial service was held at St. John’s Roman Catholic Cathedral on August 20 at 10:15 am. Chapman was carried to the altar and the last rites of the church were performed. Chapman’s casket was carried by his closest teammates. Among the mourners were: Mrs. Chapman accompanied by her father, M.D. Daly; Chapman’s parents and his brother Roy and sister Margaret; Ban Johnson and Indians Owner James Dunn; 3 Yankee players; and, the Cleveland squad and a few of their wives. Tris Speaker and Jack Graney had collapsed and could not attend the services. Chapman’s body was first laid out at Daly’s residence. The Cleveland players first met there to view the body and accompanied the funeral party to the church in automobiles. The Indians marched in pairs into the cathedral. At the end of the service Chapman’s body was placed in a cemetery vault to be interred at a later time at Lake View Cemetery. Kathleen Chapman would give birth to Ray’s only child, daughter Rae Marie, in February. Neither Kathleen nor Rae Marie lived out the decade (see below). There had been some talk in the Chapman household about Ray retiring from the field. Ray had just married a young woman from a wealthy family and was deciding whether to join his father-in-law’s company.
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 14:39:00 GMT -5
Carl Mays
This article was written by Allan Wood, SABR, Re-Edited by Clipper
Carl Mays is best remembered for throwing the pitch that led to the death of Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman in August of 1920. But he also had a career record of 207-126 and a 2.92 ERA over 15 seasons, and remains one of the best pitchers not honored in the Hall of Fame. Throwing with a submarine motion so pronounced that he sometimes scraped his knuckles on the ground while delivering the ball, Mays looked “like a cross between an octopus and a bowler,” Baseball Magazine observed in 1918. “He shoots the ball in at the batter at such unexpected angles that his delivery is hard to find, generally, until along about 5 o’clock, when the hitters get accustomed to it — and when the game is about over.”
Perhaps the most disliked player of his era, Mays was once described by F.C. Lane as “a strange, cynical figure” who “aroused more ill will, more positive resentment than any other ballplayer on record.” A noted headhunter even before the Chapman beaning, Mays refused to apologize for how he pitched. “Any pitcher who permits a hitter to dig in on him is asking for trouble,” he once said. “I never deliberately tried to hit anyone in my life. I throw close just to keep the hitters loose up there.” One teammate said Mays had the disposition of a man with a permanent toothache. Throughout his professional career, Mays had trouble making friends — even on his own teams. “When I first broke into baseball, I discovered that there seemed to be a feeling against me, even from the players on own team,” Mays said after a few years in the big leagues. “I always have wondered why I have encountered this antipathy from so many people wherever I have been. And I have never been able to explain it, even to myself.”
Carl William Mays was born on November 12, 1891, in Liberty, Kentucky, one of eight children. The family soon moved to Mansfield, Missouri, where Carl’s Father William was a traveling Methodist minister. After his death when Carl was 12 years old, Mays’s Mother moved the family to Kingfisher, Oklahoma. It was there that Carl met his Cousin, John Long, a catcher who introduced him to the game of baseball.
In 1912, Mays signed with Boise, Idaho, in the Class D Western Tri-State League, for $90 a month; he finished the season 22-9 with a 2.08 ERA. He played the next season in Portland, Oregon and in 1914, he was drafted by the Providence Grays, a team the Detroit Tigers owned in the International League. During his stay with Providence, the Grays were sold to Red Sox Owner Joe Lannin.
Mays’s 24 victories led Providence to the 1914 IL pennant; in the final month of the season, he was ably assisted by Babe Ruth, who had made his debut in Boston that summer. The 2 young men were called up for the final week of the Red Sox’s season, but Mays did not appear in any games.
Mays joined the Red Sox staff in 1915 and made his debut on April 15. During the Red Sox’s pennant-winning season, he was used mostly in relief, appearing in 38 games. He went 6-5 with a 2.60 ERA, and (though the statistic hadn't been invented yet) led the league with 7 saves. He did not appear in the World Series.
Mays’s abrasive personality grated on opponents. In his rookie season, Mays often sparred with Detroit’s cantankerous Outfielder Ty Cobb. In 1 game, after Mays threw high and inside on Cobb, the Tiger laid down a bunt along the 1st base line for the sole purpose of spiking Mays and cutting his leg. Though bitter rivals — the Red Sox and Tigers battled for the American League pennant that season — the men held a grudging respect for each other’s single-minded pursuit of victory.
In 1916, Mays split his time between the rotation (24 starts) and bullpen (20 other appearances), winning 18 games and posting a 2.39 ERA. In that fall’s World Series against Brooklyn, Mays recorded a save in Game 1 — bailing out Ernie Shore by recording the final out with the bases loaded and the tying run on 3rd — and was the losing pitcher in Game 3, the Red Sox’s only loss in the series.
In 1917, Mays became a star. His 1.74 ERA was the 3rd-lowest in the Major Leagues, and he ranked among the top 5 in the American League in fewest walks and hits allowed per 9 innings, and lowest opponents’ batting average and on-base percentage. But Mays also hit a league-high 14 batters and earned a reputation as a headhunter that dogged him for the rest of his life. “Mays is a low-ball pitcher,” one opponent noted. “How does it happen that when he puts a ball on the inside it generally comes near the batter’s head?”
Mays would often berate his fielders for making errors behind him. “I have been told I lack tact, which is probably true,” he said. “But that is no crime.” Late in his career, Mays praised another pitcher: “This fellow has no friends and doesn’t want any friends. That’s why he’s a great pitcher.” He could have easily been talking about himself.
Yankees Infielder Roger Peckinpaugh said Mays threw “ a very ‘heavy’ ball. It sinks and when you catch it, it feels heavy enough to almost go through your glove.” Horace Ford, who batted against Mays in the National League, said that hitting Mays’s fastball “was like hitting a chuck of lead. It would go clunk and you’d beat it into the ground.”
Mays got an incredible amount of outs via ground balls, especially with the Red Sox. From 1916-1918, he recorded 117, 118 and 122 assists, which remain the top 3 season totals in Red Sox history. In 1918, Mays, then 26 years old, was the ace of the Boston staff, winning 21 games with a 2.21 ERA. He tied Walter Johnson for the league lead with 8 shutouts and tied Scott Perry for the lead with 30 complete games. He finished 5th in strikeouts and 5th in fewest hits allowed per 9 innings. He also hit 11 batters, the 2nd-highest total in the league.
Mays started and completed Games 3 and 6 of the 1918 World Series against the Cubs; Boston won both games by a 2-1 score. Seven days after he pitched the Red Sox to the World Series championship, Mays married Marjorie Fredricka Madden, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music whom he had met at Fenway Park during his rookie season.
But things went downhill for Mays in 1919. While he was at spring training, his farm house in Missouri burned to the ground; he suspected arson. During a Decoration Day series in Philadelphia, when Athletics fans were pounding on the roof of the visitors’ dugout, Mays threw a baseball into the stands, hitting a fan in the head. He also ran into a lengthy streak of bad luck on the mound, as the slumping Red Sox gave him almost no run support. Over a 15-day period in June, Mays lost 3 games by a combined score of 8-0. The last straw came on July 13, during a game against the White Sox. When Eddie Collins tried to steal 2nd base, Catcher Wally Schang’s throw hit Mays in the head. At the end of the inning, the pitcher stormed off the mound, left the team and headed back to Boston. Mays told Sportswriter Burt Whitman that he needed to make a fresh start with another team. “I’m convinced that it will be impossible for me to preserve my confidence in myself as a ballplayer and stay with the Red Sox as the team is now handled,” he said. “The entire team is up in the air and things have gone from bad to worse. The team cannot win with me pitching so I am getting out. … Maybe there will be a trade or a sale of my services. I do not care where I go.” On July 30, 1919, the Red Sox would traded Mays to the New York Yankees for Pitchers Allan Russell, Bob McGraw, and $40,000 in cash.
A fierce legal battle ensued, as enraged American League President Ban Johnson attempted to block the trade. Several days before Mays was dealt, Johnson had privately suspended Mays and issued a secret order to all 8 American League clubs prohibiting them from acquiring the pitcher until his suspension had been served. Johnson feared that Mays’s actions could set a bad precedent for the league, by giving players the power to subvert the reserve clause and force trades simply by refusing to play for their clubs. “Baseball cannot tolerate such a breach of discipline,” Johnson said of Mays’s abandonment of the Red Sox. “It was up to the owners of the Boston club to suspend Carl Mays for breaking his contract and when they failed to do so, it is my duty as head of the American League to act.”
The league’s owners fractured over the matter, with 5 franchises (Cleveland, Detroit, Washington, St. Louis and Philadelphia) siding with Johnson, while 3 (New York, Chicago and Boston) defied him. Because the 3 “Insurrectionist” clubs held control over the league’s 5-man board of directors, Johnson was forced to back down from his stance on the issue, particularly after the 3 clubs began holding meetings with the National League to discuss the formation of a new 12-team circuit. Mays reported to New York, and the incident marked the 1st time in his long tenure as AL President that Ban Johnson had been outmaneuvered on a major issue. Mays would pitch in 13 games for the Yankees in the 2nd half of 1919 season, posting a sterling 1.65 ERA. Mays would win 26 games for New York in 1920 and in 1921, he would led the American League in both wins (27) and saves (7). Also, he had hit .343 that year. Mays batted .268 over his MLB playing career and, despite his reputation, was hit by a pitch just 4 times in 15 years and only once after 1918 season.
On August 16, 1920, a dark, overcast day at the Polo Grounds, Mays would hit Indians Shortstop Ray Chapman in the temple with an inside fastball leading off the 5th inning. A loud crack resounded through the stadium, and Mays, thinking the pitch had hit Chapman’s bat, fielded the ball and threw it to 1st base. Chapman was helped off the field, but collapsed in the clubhouse; after a late-night operation on his fractured skull, he died early the following morning. As Chapman staggered off the field, Mays pointed out to the umpires a scuff mark on the baseball which he claimed had caused the pitch to sail inside. Later that day, Mays would also claim the ball was wet from the rain that had fallen earlier. A few hours after Mays was informed of Chapman’s death, he told a Manhattan District Attorney: “It was a little too close, and I saw Chapman duck his head in an effort to get out of the path of the ball. He was too late, however and a second later he fell to the grounds. It was the most regrettable incident of my career, and I would give anything if I could undo what has happened.” Almost all other witnesses to the incident, however, reported that Chapman never moved an inch and probably never saw the ball.
Sorrow over Chapman quickly turned to anger against Mays. Several teams, including the Red Sox, Tigers and Browns, sent petitions to League President Ban Johnson, demanding Mays be thrown out of baseball. Mays spent a week in seclusion, then returned to the mound on August 23rd. Yankee fans were supportive — a clearly nervous Mays defeated Detroit 10-0 at the Polo Grounds — but there was an increase in calls for a boycott of any game pitched by Mays. He would make 3 starts in New York before his 1st appearance on the road, on September 3rd, in a relief stint at Fenway Park. He was greeted with a mixture of boos and cheers, but by the time he had pitched the 2nd game of a doubleheader the following day, most of the crowd was on his side. He decided, however, to not accompany the Yankees on a road trip to Cleveland later that week. In the 1921 World Series against the Giants, Mays had pitched 3 complete games without allowing a walk, but he was charged with 2 losses as the Yankees lost the series. According to sportswriter Fred Lieb, there were suspicions Mays may have lost those 2 games on purpose. In "The Pitch That Killed," Mike Sowell details the concern among several writers and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after Mays’s meltdown in Game 4. Sowell also quotes Yankees Co-Owner Cap Huston as saying many years later that Mays and others (possibly Joe Bush) had deliberately lost World Series games in both 1921 and 1922. Lieb believed the unanswered questions about those 2 series were what really kept Mays out of the Hall of Fame. The rumors also were a likely reason that, despite Mays’s 66 wins in 3 years, the Yankees tried to dump him before the 1923 season. That didn’t work, so Manager Miller Huggins simply refused to use him. Mays had appeared in only 23 games for the Yankees in 1923, and at the end of the season, he was sold to the Cincinnati Reds for $85,000. He would pitched for the Reds for 5 years, rebounding to a 20-9 record in 1924. He would end his MLB playing career in 1929 with the New York Giants. After his retirement from the Major Leagues, Mays would pitched in the PCL and American Association for 2 seasons, then he would worked as a Scout for 20 years for the Cleveland Indians and the Milwaukee Atlanta Braves. He died on April 4, 1971, in El Cajon, California at age 79 and was buried in Riverview Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. He was survived by a 2nd wife, Esther, and 2 children.
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 15:13:30 GMT -5
Ray Chapman
This article was written by Don Jensen, edited by Clipper
Ray Chapman, star shortstop for 9 seasons with the Cleveland Indians, might have ended up in the Hall of Fame had he not been fatally injured by a Carl Mays fastball on August 16, 1920, at the Polo Grounds. An ideal number2 hitter who crowded the plate, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound Chapman led the league in sacrifice hits 3 times. His total of 67 sacrifices in 1917 is a MLB record, and he stands in 6th place on the all-time career list with 334. Chapman was also a legitimate offensive force in his own right: the right-handed batter led Cleveland in runs scored 3 times during his career. He had paced the entire American League in runs and walks in 1918, with 84 of each. He also led the Indians in stolen bases 5 times and his 52 thefts in 1917 would remained the franchise record until 1980. In addition to his offensive skills, Chapman was also an excellent fielder who led the AL in putouts 3 times and assists once. Put it all together, and Chapman was, in the view of the Cleveland News, the “greatest shortstop, that is, considering all-around ability, batting, throwing, base-running, bunting, fielding and ground covering ability, to mention nothing of his fight, spirit and conscientiousness, ever to wear a Cleveland uniform.” As good as Chapman was on the field, he was even more beloved for his infectious cheerfulness and enthusiasm off of it. One of the most popular players in Cleveland Indians history, Chapman was a gifted storyteller who played the piano and once won an amateur singing contest. The good-humored shortstop also had a wide circle of admirers outside the game — his show business friends included Al Jolson, William S. Hart and Will Rogers. One newspaper described Chapman as a man who “was as much at home in the ballroom as on the ball diamond.” His tragic death in 1920 sparked one of the largest spontaneous outpourings of grief in Cleveland history.
Raymond Johnson Chapman was born to Everette and Barbara Chapman on January 15, 1891 on a farm near Beaver Dam, Kentucky, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville. The family settled in Herrin, a town in southern Illinois in 1905. Ray, the middle of three surviving children, did odd jobs as a boy and sometimes worked in the mines. Young Chapman played his first organized ball in 1909 for the semipro club in Mount Vernon. In 1910 he went to Springfield, Illinois, where he played every position except pitcher and catcher. “He was a very flashy player,” recalled a Springfield teammate. “And he could run. He was a beautiful runner, the way he could pick up his knees. He was very fast, had a good arm, and was a good fielder, although at times a little erratic. And he was very jolly, a jolly guy. Always laughing, talking, singing.” From Mount Vernon, Chapman went on to Davenport of the 3-I League, where he hit .293 with 75 runs scored and 50 stolen bases in 1911. Cleveland had purchased Chapman’s contract toward the end of the season and assigned him to the Toledo Mud Hens in the American Association.
Chapman faced a traffic jam at shortstop when Cleveland brought him up to the big club in August 1912. He had batted .310 for the Mud Hens in 140 games, with 49 steals and 101 runs scored, but the Naps had 2 other promising shortstops. One rival, Roger Peckinpaugh, had played 15 games for Cleveland in 1910, but he spent 1911 in the minors. The 2nd, Ivy Olson was the team’s regular shortstop the previous year (3rd baseman Terry Turner had played shortstop for the team from 1904 to 1910). Cleveland began the 1912 season with Olson at shortstop and Peckinpaugh, a favorite of manager Harry Davis, in reserve. Just 2 days after Chapman’s arrival, however, Davis was replaced as Manager by CFJoe Birmingham, who doubted Peckinpaugh’s ability to hit MLB pitching. Birmingham would also benched Olson, who had 27 errors at shortstop in 56 games and was nagged by minor injuries. Birmingham then turned to Chapman, who, though shaky in the field, took advantage of his opportunity by hitting .312, as Cleveland won 22 of the 31 contests that he had appeared in.
Chapman hit .258 in 1913, his 1st full season with Cleveland, and led the AL with 45 sacrifice hits, to form a strong middle infield with the Naps’ legendary 38-year-old 2nd baseman, Napoleon Lajoie. In 1914, Chapman broke his leg in the spring and only played in 106 games. With Lajoie no longer on the club, the team would collapsed. Chapman bounced back the next season to hit .270 and his 101 runs scored were 59 more than anyone else on the team. He was again plagued by leg ailments in 1916, when he hit only .231 in 109 games. Despite his physical problems, Chapman’s prowess was widely recognized. In 1915 the Chicago White Sox tried to obtain him from Cleveland, but, after being rebuffed, had to settle for acquiring OF Shoeless Joe Jackson instead. In 1917, Cleveland would finished well back of Chicago in the standings, but Chapman blossomed. Sparked by his all-round play, the Indians won 32 of their last 47 games to finish 88-66 in 3rd place. From August 31th to September 24th, they would win 17 of 20 games, including a 10-game winning streak in which Chapman hit .517 with 4 steals of home. In an exhibition game against the Braves in Boston on September 27th, Tim Murnane Day, Chapman won a loving cup for the fastest time circling the bases, 14 seconds. Chapman would finished the year with a .302 batting average and 98 runs scored to go along with his club-record 52 stolen bases.
Chapman’s production had declined in 1918, as he finished the year with just a .267 average and 28 extra-base hits. Despite those numbers, Chapman led the AL in runs scored with 84, thanks in large part to his league-leading 84 walks, which helped him post a career-high .390 on-base percentage. After the season ended in September, Chapman complied with the War Department’s work-or-fight order and enrolled in the Naval Auxiliary Reserve as a 2nd-class seaman. He spent 3 months as a deckhand on the steamer H.H.Rogers, which sailed on the Great Lakes. He was captain of the Naval Reserve baseball and football teams. Chapman was also a sprinter on the track squad, where he specialized in the 20- and 100-yard dash. His best time in the latter event was 10.0 seconds. His service ended with the armistice in November 1918. The following year, Chapman would rebounded to hit .300 in 115 games for the Indians, who had finished in 2nd place with an 84-55 record, their best showing in franchise history.
After the season, Chapman had married Kathleen Daly, daughter of the millionaire president of the East Ohio Gas Company. Tris Speaker, Ray’s closest friend on the Indians, was the best man. Before the 1920 season began, Chapman gave some thought to retirement from baseball, he was already secretary-treasurer at the firm Pioneer Alloys. Speaker was the new Indian manager, however, so Chapman decided to play at least 1 more year to help his pal and Owner James Dunn win the team’s 1st pennant. During the thrilling 1920 season the scrappy White Sox were again contenders for the AL pennant, though they would soon be gutted for having thrown the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The surging New York Yankees, who like the Indians had never won a pennant, were led by Babe Ruth‘s unprecedented slugging. In mid-August, however, Speaker’s club clung to slim leads over both teams and Ray Chapman was having one of the best seasons of his career. On the morning of August 16th, he had a batting average of .304, with 97 runs scored, 52 walks, 27 doubles and 49 RBIs.
That afternoon-rainy and dark, the Indians were in New York for a game against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds. The Yankees’ starting pitcher, right-hander Carl Mays, was a surly man unpopular with both his teammates and other players. One of the few hurlers who threw underhand, Mays had a reputation as someone who liked to pitch batters tight. “Carl slings the pill from his toes,” wrote Baseball Magazine in 1918, “has a weird looking wind-up and in action looks like a cross between an octopus and a bowler. He shoots the ball in at the batter at such unexpected angles that his delivery is hard to find, generally, until along about 5 o’clock, when the hitters get accustomed to it — and when the game is about over.” Chapman was 0 for 1 when he led off the 5th inning with Cleveland ahead 3-0. With a count of 1 ball and 1 strike, Chapman, who batted and threw right-handed, hunched, as usual, over the plate, waiting for the next pitch. He always popped back when the ball was thrown. Mays looked in and, detecting that Chapman was slightly shifting his back foot, probably to push the ball down the 1st base line, he released a fastball, high and targeting the inside corner. The gray blur sliced through the heavy, humid air, possibly a strike. Chapman did not move.
Many of the players and 20,000 fans heard an “explosive sound”- Babe Ruth said it was audible where he stood far out in right field. Sportswriter Fred Lieb, sitting in the downstairs press box about 50 feet behind the umpire, heard a “sickening thud.” The ball dribbled out toward the pitcher’s mound on the 1st base side. Mays fielded it and threw it to 1st baseman Wally Pipp for the out, apparently thinking the ball had struck the bat. Pipp turned to throw the ball around the infield, but froze when he glanced home. Chapman had sunk to his knees, his face contorted, blood streaming from his left ear. Yankee catcher Muddy Ruel tried to catch Chapman as his knees buckled. Umpire Tommy Connolly ran toward the grandstand yelling for a doctor. Speaker rushed over from the on-deck circle to tend to his stricken friend, who was trying to sit. Speaker thought Chapman wanted to get up and rush Mays. Finally, 2 doctors (one of them a Yankee team physician) arrived, applied ice and revived Chapman. He walked under his own power across the infield toward the clubhouse in CF, but his knees gave way again near 2nd base. Two teammates grabbed the shortstop, put his arms around their shoulders, and carried him the rest of the way.
Mays remained near the mound, showed the ball to umpire Connolly, and told him that the fateful pitch had been a “sailer”; a rough spot on its surface had caused it to move further inside than he expected. (That summer AL owners had complained to League President Ban Johnson that umpires were running up expenses by throwing out too many balls unnecessarily, so Johnson issued a notice ordering umpires to “keep the balls in the games as much as possible, except those which were dangerous.” Thus, teams often played with balls that were scuffed and browned by dirt and tobacco juice.) The game continued, eventually a 4-3 Indian victory.
After the game New York manager Miller Huggins, a lawyer, took Mays to the police station nearest the Polo Grounds to file a report on the incident. Mays was later cleared of all wrongdoing in the incident. The stricken Chapman, meanwhile, was at St Lawrence Hospital nearby on 163rd Street, where doctors, operating on Speaker’s authority, made a 3-inch incision in the base of Chapman’s skull, finding a ruptured lateral sinus and plenty of clotted blood. They removed a small piece of his fractured skull. Kathleen Day Chapman, pregnant with the couple’s 1st child, was immediately summoned to New York. Chapman rallied briefly, but he died early the next morning before his wife’s arrival.
Kathleen, Speaker, and Joe Wood accompanied the body back to Cleveland; Chapman was seen off on his final journey by a large crowd of mourners at Grand Central Station. As word of Chapman’s death spread around the League, players on the Boston, Washington, St. Louis, and Detroit rosters, with Ty Cobb among the loudest demanded that Carl Mays be banned from baseball. A few Indians players warned Mays that he should not show his face in Cleveland again. Many newspaper editorials railed against the bean ball and the New York Times called for batting helmets to be required. The league soon took steps to keep cleaner balls in play. Chapman’s funeral was held at St. John’s Cathedral on August 20th, Cleveland’s largest in years, was attended by many baseball dignitaries and thousands of Indians fans. Thirty-four priests participated in the service. A blanket made of more than 20,000 blossoms purchased by mourning fans was placed on his grave. Flags in the city were flown at half-staff. Tris Speaker and Jack Graney were so overwhelmed by grief that they did not attend.
The Cleveland-New York game of August 17th was canceled because of Chapman’s death. (Cleveland’s victory in the tragic game had kept the Indians in 1st place.) The demoralized Indians lost to the Yankees 4-3 when play resumed on August 18th and dropped 7 of 9 games after the incident. Graney said, “We feel as if we did not care if we ever played baseball again. We cannot imagine playing without Chappie.” It “looks now very much like the White Sox will win out,” noted The Sporting News. But Speaker, almost too weak to hold a bat, rallied the club when he returned on August 22nd. With the addition of pitcher Walter (Duster) Mails, and future Hall of Famer Joe Sewell, who took Chapman’s place at shortstop, the Indians won 24 of their final 32 games and defeated Brooklyn in the World Series. The team awarded Mrs. Chapman a full World Series share.
Speaker never blamed Mays for Chapman’s death, but many others, including Graney, held him responsible. Miller Huggins left Carl Mays at home during the Yankees’ September road trip to Cleveland. “It is an episode which I shall always regret more than anything that has ever happened to me,” Mays said, “and yet I can look into my own conscience and feel absolved of all personal guilt. I have long ceased to care what most people think about me. I have a few good friends I can depend on and that is all I need and all I want. In the meantime I have a wife and a family to support.”
Kathleen Daly Chapman, once a baseball fan, never attended another game. On February 27, 1921 she gave birth to a daughter, Rae-Marie. She married a cousin two years later. The former Mrs. Chapman died in Los Angeles on April 21, 1928 after swallowing a poisonous fluid. She was accompanied at the time by her mother, who said her daughter had been recovering from a nervous breakdown. The Daly family insisted that Kathleen had taken the poison accidentally. The Chapmans’ daughter went to live with her grandmother, but died a year later during a measles epidemic. Ray Chapman is buried in Section 42, Lot 16 of Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Chapman’s younger sister Margaret Joy visited the site for many decades afterward to pay her respects. “Ray is there all by himself,” she told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1995. “Ray loved Cleveland. He thought it was such a wonderful place. So did I. I still look in the papers to see how the Indians are doing.”
This biography originally appeared in SABR’s “Deadball Stars of the American League” (Potomac Books, 2006), edited by David Jones.
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Post by bigjeep on Dec 30, 2023 17:06:40 GMT -5
Smokey Joe Wood! Read about him in the book "When the Grass was Green! He hurt his arm and came back as a hitter! This is from memory, so give me a break!
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 22:20:23 GMT -5
Smokey Joe Wood! Read about him in the book "When the Grass was Green! He hurt his arm and came back as a hitter! This is from memory, so give me a break! Good memory! He later became a successful college baseball coach. Clipper |
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Post by bigjeep on Dec 31, 2023 10:30:56 GMT -5
Smokey Joe Wood! Read about him in the book "When the Grass was Green! He hurt his arm and came back as a hitter! This is from memory, so give me a break! Good memory! He later became a successful college baseball coach. Clipper Also there was a TV special with the tapes of the players interviewed for the book! He taped them all! Would love to hear those tapes again of those fascinating stories when baseball was young! |
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Post by pippsheadache on Dec 31, 2023 11:17:09 GMT -5
There is an excellent book on the Ray Chapman incident called "The Pitch That Killed," by Mike Sowell. You could hardly have had two more opposite personalities -- the popular, fun-loving Ray Chapman and the dour anti-social Mays who was never well-liked by his teammates and had a reputation for throwing at people. He was never coming out of that incident as a sympathetic person. However, I don't think any objective person believes Mays was deliberately trying to bean Chapman.
For many years Mays was the only pitcher with over 200 wins and won-lost percentage over .600 who was not in the Hall of Fame. I think that other than Roger Clemens, that may still be true. Curt Schilling is close, with 216 wins and a .597 ERA.
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Post by pippsheadache on Dec 31, 2023 11:25:23 GMT -5
Smokey Joe Wood! Read about him in the book "When the Grass was Green! He hurt his arm and came back as a hitter! This is from memory, so give me a break! Good memory! He later became a successful college baseball coach. Clipper Yep, Wood was the coach at Yale for many years. He was on track for a Hall of Fame career when his arm injuries derailed him. He always said the best-pitched game he ever saw was the 1981 Yale-St. John's duel between Ron Darling and Frank Viola, which Viola won in 12 innings by a score of 1-0. Darling had a no-hitter through eleven. Wood was in the stands for that one. |
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 31, 2023 15:13:05 GMT -5
There is an excellent book on the Ray Chapman incident called "The Pitch That Killed," by Mike Sowell. You could hardly have had two more opposite personalities -- the popular, fun-loving Ray Chapman and the dour anti-social Mays who was never well-liked by his teammates and had a reputation for throwing at people. He was never coming out of that incident as a sympathetic person. However, I don't think any objective person believes Mays was deliberately trying to bean Chapman. For many years Mays was the only pitcher with over 200 wins and won-lost percentage over .600 who was not in the Hall of Fame. I think that other than Roger Clemens, that may still be true. Curt Schilling is close, with 216 wins and a .597 ERA. In the 1921 World Series against the Giants, Mays had pitched 3 complete games without allowing a walk, but he was charged with 2 losses as the Yankees lost the series. According to sportswriter Fred Lieb, there were suspicions Mays may have lost those 2 games on purpose. In "The Pitch That Killed," Mike Sowell details the concern among several writers and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after Mays’s meltdown in Game 4. Sowell also quotes Yankees Co-Owner Cap Huston as saying many years later that Mays and others (possibly Joe Bush) had deliberately lost World Series games in both 1921 and 1922. Lieb believed the unanswered questions about those 2 series were what really kept Mays out of the Hall of Fame. Clipper |
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Post by rizzuto on Dec 31, 2023 19:35:26 GMT -5
There is an excellent book on the Ray Chapman incident called "The Pitch That Killed," by Mike Sowell. You could hardly have had two more opposite personalities -- the popular, fun-loving Ray Chapman and the dour anti-social Mays who was never well-liked by his teammates and had a reputation for throwing at people. He was never coming out of that incident as a sympathetic person. However, I don't think any objective person believes Mays was deliberately trying to bean Chapman. For many years Mays was the only pitcher with over 200 wins and won-lost percentage over .600 who was not in the Hall of Fame. I think that other than Roger Clemens, that may still be true. Curt Schilling is close, with 216 wins and a .597 ERA. In the 1921 World Series against the Giants, Mays had pitched 3 complete games without allowing a walk, but he was charged with 2 losses as the Yankees lost the series. According to sportswriter Fred Lieb, there were suspicions Mays may have lost those 2 games on purpose. In "The Pitch That Killed," Mike Sowell details the concern among several writers and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after Mays’s meltdown in Game 4. Sowell also quotes Yankees Co-Owner Cap Huston as saying many years later that Mays and others (possibly Joe Bush) had deliberately lost World Series games in both 1921 and 1922. Lieb believed the unanswered questions about those 2 series were what really kept Mays out of the Hall of Fame. Clipper Good stuff, Clipper!  |
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