agate type

rube vs. rube

“It was during this period [the early 1900s] that the nickname ‘Rube’ was attached to the young pitcher.  Legend has it that his teammates began calling him Rube after he defeated George E. (Rube) Waddell and the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-2, in a game in New York.”
    --Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (1970), p. 107.

“By his own recollection, that’s the year [1902) he met and whipped the great Rube Waddell, who was 25-7 with the pennant-winning Athletics.  Other reports say the Waddell game was in 1903 or 1905.  No box score has yet been found.  However, since there was no Sunday baseball in those years, the Athletics were in the habit of playing exhibitions outside the city every Sunday, and it is not unlikely that they played Rube’s club on one or more of those occasions.”
    --John Holway, Blackball Stars (1988), p. 11.

“As a raw-talent rookie pitcher soon after the turn of the century, the big Texan was credited with 51 victories in 1902, including a win over the great Rube Waddell, the game in which Foster received his nickname.”
    --James Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (1994), p. 290.

“One postseason contest against the Athletics saw Foster go head-to-head against Connie Mack’s star southpaw, Rube Waddell.  Foster won 5-2, and as a consequence, he later recalled, ‘they gave me the name of the colored Rube Waddell’.  News accounts, starting in 1905, first began referring to the Philadelphia Giants’ ace as Rube Foster.”
    --Robert Cottrell, The Best Pitcher in Baseball: The Life of Rube Foster, Negro League Giant (2001), p. 19.

 

Andrew Foster, it is said, acquired his nickname on the field of battle, defeating Rube Waddell and taking it from him in what sounds like some kind of ancient warrior ritual. As far as I can tell, nobody has identified the actual exhibition game against the Philadelphia Athletics, and accounts vary considerably about the year in which the legendary contest occurred, anywhere from 1902 to 1905.

I haven’t been able to find the game against the A’s either, though I wouldn’t rule it out (see Holway’s comment above).  The earliest example I’ve found of Foster himself telling the story of his nickname appears in an article by Frederick North Shorey in the September 14, 1907, issue of the Indianapolis Freeman.  Shorey quotes Foster saying, in part:

The order of the sentences kind of implies it took place in 1905, though I’d say it’s still more than a little ambiguous.  Phil Dixon doesn’t record any exhibition games between Waddell’s A’s and Foster’s Philadelphia Giants in his thorough account of the Giants’ 1905 season, though there are lots of blank spaces in October, and again, I wouldn’t rule it out. 

But Foster was called “Rube” before 1905.  The earliest example I’ve found so far is from the July 26, 1904, issue of the Trenton Evening Times, in a story about a game between the Philadelphia Giants and the Trenton YMCA:

So perhaps it took place earlier in 1904, or possibly in 1902 or 1903.  In 1902, Foster played for the Chicago Union Giants and a white semipro team in Otsego, Michigan; so far, I haven’t found any indication that either of these teams ever faced Rube Waddell, though my search has hardly been exhaustive.  In 1903 Foster joined the Cuban X Giants on the east coast.  I haven’t found them playing the Philadelphia A’s yet, but there is this, from July 28, 1903:

(New York Evening World, July 28, 1903, p. 8)

The Murray Hills were a fairly prominent Manhattan semipro team managed at the time by Nat Strong.  And the following Sunday (August 2) they did indeed meet the Cuban X Giants at Olympia Field (see below), with Foster on the mound for the Giants, vs. “Wilson” for the Murray Hills.

(New York Sun, August 3, 1903, p. 6)

It happens that Charles Dryden of the Philadelphia North American, one of the most famous baseball writers in the country, wrote up an account of this game.  I haven’t seen the original, but a passage from it was quoted a couple of days later in the Pittsburg Press:

(Pittsburg Press, August 5, 1903, p. 10)

The Philadelphia Athletics were in town to play the Highlanders, but at that time Sunday baseball was illegal in New York, so Waddell spent the enforced day off pitching as “Wilson” for the semipro Murray Hills in an illicit game (although results were still reported in some newspapers) against Andrew Foster of the Cuban X Giants.  Waddell struck out 12 but was dinged for 11 or 12 hits, while Foster scattered 7 hits and won, 6 to 3.  At one point Foster hit Waddell in the head, to the apparent entertainment of the crowd.  Later a foul tip from Waddell supposedly hit a fan and ignited a box of matches in his pocket, setting his clothes on fire.

On the top of that, this game appears to be the only documented instance of Foster pitching against Waddell.  Even though it was against the Murray Hills and not the Athletics, and the score was 6 to 3 and not 5 to 2, it seems to me quite possible that this was the game that led to Foster being forever after known as Rube.

Some closing notes:

• I still think it’s not unlikely that Foster was really called Rube because he was a new arrival in the North from rural Texas, and that the story that it came from his victory over Waddell is a case of retconning.

• You’d think that Nat Strong and the Murray Hills would have wanted it known widely that Waddell was pitching for them that Sunday.  This would be complicated by the blue laws, obviously, and by the fact that Connie Mack would probably have frowned on his star pitcher throwing nine innings on his off day.  So I’m wondering what kind of guerrilla marketing techniques Nat Strong used to evade detection by the authorities but still pull in a good crowd.

• The address given for Olympia Field (135th St. and Lenox Avenue) was only a long block away from the address later commonly given for Olympic Field (136th St. and Fifth Avenue), eventually the home of the New York Lincoln Giants.  I don’t know if they were really the same ballpark, or related in some way.

rogelio valdés at bat, atlantic city 1905

Here’s an extreme rarity—an action photo of a game involving a black baseball team, published in a mainstream newspaper in 1905.  It shows Rogelio Valdés of the Cuban X Giants batting against the Atlantic City club at Inlet Park in early July.  Assuming the image hasn’t been reversed, this would mean that Valdés, a right-handed batter according to Jorge Figueredo, actually hit left-handed, or at least switch-hit.

(Philadelphia Inquirer, July 5, 1905, p. 13)

earliest known photo of pete hill?

In honor of the dedication of Pete Hill’s historical marker in Buena, Virginia, here’s a photo of the 1904 Philadelphia Giants I ran across recently.  It was printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer on September 2, 1904, on the occasion of Rube Foster’s great victory over the Cuban X-Giants in the three-game series they played for the “Colored Championship of the World.”  (Foster’s 18 strikeouts, by the way, could be considered the all-time “Negro league” record, beating Satchel Paige’s 17 strikeouts against the Cuban Stars on April 29, 1929, though I suppose it depends on how you define “Negro league record.”)

The evidence suggests that 1904 was Pete Hill’s first full season in big-time black baseball (he had played for the Cuban X-Giants in Havana the previous fall), so this could be the earliest photo of Pete that we have.  Pete is in the middle row, second from left.

(Apologies again for the poor quality of this microfilmed-then-scanned image; I’m sure, or at least I hope, that actual prints of this picture exist somewhere.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen one, though.)

There’s another photo of the Philadelphia Giants floating around that’s commonly dated to 1904.  It can’t be, though, as Grant Johnson (top row, far left—the only player not identified in the handwriting on the photo) did not join the Giants until 1905—he was with the Cuban X-Giants in 1904.  In fact, Johnson only played for the Philadelphia Giants in 1905 (and for a short time in Cuba in the fall of 1907), so this photo certainly dates from 1905 rather than 1904.

UPDATE 6/16/2011  Here is a much better image of the 1904 photo.

black ballplayers in 1900

Check out these charts prepared by the sociology students of W. E. B. Du Bois at Atlanta University for the “American Negro” exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition:

I’m not sure under what category professional ballplayer would be listed (not the “professions,” which I think would mean mostly medicine, law, education, and the pulpit).  Most likely there weren’t any black professional ballplayers in Georgia at the turn of the century.  There weren’t that many in the county at large, at best a few dozen, probably—though there would have been many, many semi-professional or amateur players, of course.

In the 1900 U.S. Census, I’ve located a total of nine.  I wouldn’t claim that this is anything like a comprehensive accounting, since my research mostly focuses on later eras, and it’s not actually that easy to search my notes for exactly this information.  But here are the black men I’ve found in the 1900 census whose occupation is listed as ballplayer:

Sherman Barton (listed as a “Base Ballist,” a phrase that would have sounded antique even in 1900)
John Bingey (sic; could be the same as William Binga)
Harry Buckner
Peter Burns, a key figure in the Tokohama affair
Charles Grant, “Tokohama” himself
William Holland
Grant Johnson
John Patterson
Solomon White

For whatever reason, all lived in Chicago as of June, 1900, when the census was enumerated, except for Barton, who lived in Normal, Illinois, and Johnson, who appeared in his hometown, Findlay, Ohio.  All played for the Columbia Giants or Chicago Unions around this time.

Occupations of Charles Grant and Solomon White as listed in the 1900 U.S. Census.

Walter Ball can be found living in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he was playing professional ball, but in the census he is listed as a “R. R. Porter.”  A couple of guys who might be Bill Monroe can be found in Chicago, but aren’t listed as ballplayers.  The 17-year-old Pete Hill, who by some accounts started playing professionally in 1899, is listed as a “day laborer” in Pittsburgh.  Many others who were definitely professionals at the time, especially in the East, can’t be found for certain in the census, including nearly the whole roster of the Cuban X Giants (Frank Grant, Clarence Williams, etc.).  It seems likely that the Cubans were on the road and were missed by the census takers.

Going beyond the census, I’ve found one official document that lists a black man’s occupation as ballplayer in 1900: the death certificate of Andrew Jackson, who had been for several years the third baseman and captain of the Cuban X Giants.  Jackson, who had led his team on a Cuban tour a few months earlier, died of heart failure at the age of 34 in New York City on May 15, 1900.  (Apologies for the poor quality of the image.)

In the sideways portion of the form at the bottom we are given Jackson’s profession:

I have to say I know virtually nothing about Andrew Jackson, or for that matter about the Cuban X Giants, which seem to be one of the least written about great teams in African-American baseball history.

stoney mcglynn vs. cuban X giants, 1902

Looking for something else entirely I ran across this account of a 1902 game between the Cuban X Giants and the local team in Chester, Pennsylvania.  On the mound for Chester was Stoney McGlynn, a minor league superstar and sometime St. Louis Cardinal who is supposed to have been a distant relative of mine.  Although the game was close, the X Giants smashed four home runs off poor Stoney in their 5-to-3 win, three of the long balls coming from the bat of the almost completely unknown Ed Wilson.

You should be able to enlarge the story by clicking on it; be sure to read the notes on the game in the far right column.

1900 cuban X giants in cuba

Paul Wendt has found two box scores for the 1900 Cuban X Giants’ trip to Cuba, printed in (of all places) the Chicago Tribune.  This is the first time I’ve seen any boxes for that series; even Severo Nieto didn’t find any.

(Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1900)

(Chicago Tribune, March 4, 1900)

Given that someone was sending box scores to the U.S. (likely the team’s organizer, Edward B. Lamar, who also put together the 1920/21 Bacharach Giants’ trip to Cuba), it’s entirely possible they turned up in other newspapers.  I haven’t been able to find any in the New York Times, Washington Post, or Los Angeles Times; but if anybody is doing research on the early months of 1900, you might keep your eyes peeled for any mentions of the X Giants in Cuba.

UPDATE 11:24 p.m. Paul has also established that the X Giants’ Grant is probably not Charlie Grant, who played for the Columbia Giants of Chicago at that time, but rather the veteran Frank Grant, who was based in New York.

severo nieto: negro leaguers in cuba

Severo Nieto’s Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba, featuring box scores and statistics for Negro League teams in Cuba, is finally out.  I’m reviewing the book for publication, so I’ll probably hold off on detailed commentary for now.  One thing to note, though, is that Nieto does have box scores for the 1903 Cuban X Giants series, which I haven’t found (my coverage starts in 1904).

cuban x-giants in cuba, 1906

Here are the statistics for the Cuban X-Giants’ 1906 visit to Cuba.  This is the fall before the spring 1907 Cuban League season I’ve posted before. 

Download 1906_cuban_x_giants_in_cuba.xls

Included is an odd bonus: a special exhibition game between Habana and Almendares played at the end of November, after the X-Giants’ series was concluded.  I had meant to remove this game before posting these stats here, but didn’t have time tonight.  Anyway, the game is included in the “Games” tab, so if you want to take the stats out yourself, you can.  (By the way, as is common with “exhibition games” at that time, it appears to have been as seriously contested as any of the regular season games between the two rivals.)

cuban x-giants in cuba, 1905

Here are the statistics for the Fall 1905 visit of the Cuban X-Giants to Havana.  They faced the Cuban League’s three standard clubs, winning five of nine this time.  Almendares is here called the “All Cubans,” the name under which the club had just toured North America.  José Muñoz was loaned to Fe for much of the series.

Download 1905_cuban_xgiants_in_cuba.xls

By the way: while each of these Negro League series in Cuba, by itself, doesn’t amount to much, in the aggregate they add quite a bit to the records of black North American players.  Clarence Williams, for example, whose career started out in the 1880s with the original Cuban Giants, the first famous black professional team, played over 50 games in the American Series, all documented in box scores.  It’s a precise statistical portrait you don’t get anywhere else.

cuban x-giants in cuba, 1904

I’m going to go ahead and post all the statistics for Negro League American Series in Cuba, 1904 through 1912.  The Cuban X-Giants visited in both 1900 and 1903, but I haven’t found box scores for those series (yet).  Starting in 1904, though, I have them all.

In 1904, the Cuban X-Giants, led by Danny McClellan, won six of eight encounters.  If you’ve got Jorge Figueredo’s Cuban Baseball, he’s got all the scores correct, with one exception: the last game, held on October 30, was in fact a 12 to 0 win for Habana over the X-Giants, and a no-hitter for the great pitcher José Muñoz.

Download 1904_cuban_x_giants_in_cuba.xls

Somewhat unusually, the Cuban players switched teams quite a bit during this series—Muñoz played for three teams, for example.  So in the stats I’ve also included combined totals for the Cuban players, and a tab with fielding totals by position (I usually don’t bother with this for short series).  The X-Giants faced four Cuban squads: Habana, Almendares (called “Azul” in the papers), Fe (called “Carmelita”), and the old San Francisco club, apparently reconstituted for this occasion (also called “Nuevo Criollo”).  San Francisco was the first all- or nearly all-black team in the Cuban league in 1900, winning the pennant that year.

If you’re reading this, you already known that the “Cuban X-Giants” (as well as the original Cuban Giants) were North American black teams, and had no Cuban players, no connection to Cuba whatsoever.  There are many reasons they might have called themselves “Cuban” in a U.S. context: it might have been an attempt to bypass racial attitudes by claiming to be foreign rather than domestic, a notion bolstered by reports that early in their career the original Cuban Giants affected a kind of fake Spanish gibberish on the field.  Maybe Cubanness was considered a costume of sorts, rather (ironically) like blackface for white performers, intended to lend a certain panache or style to the players’ performance.

One thing I haven’t seen at all yet: the Cuban reaction to this North American appropriation of their name.  It’s possible that at least part of the marketing idea behind the X-Giants’ tours of Cuba in the 1900s was this novelty factor: come see the fake North American Cubans!  But I have seen nothing in the newspapers about it so far.