With baseball right around the corner I thought we could use a blast of baseball past. I recently reread John McGraw’s bio by Charles Alexander and at the end, they give the street address of McGraw’s palatial home, where he spends his last days dying of prostate cancer. The address was right around the corner from the Bronx office where I work. In fact, I passed it every day while going for pizza or the garlic eggplant at Number One Chinese in Pelham.
So one day, I had the digital camera and swung down his street and took this photo.
Not a big deal really but I couldn’t help but think that Casey Stengel and Bill Terry and Mel Ott all walked up that path. And in the 1920’s, that was a big mansion. And it’s just so absurdly close to the Bronx now that it makes you laugh. Pelham was THE place for the rich New Yorkers to settle but it’s proximity to the Bronx would unsettle me now.
In fact, just a half mile down the road from McGraw’s is the Bronx OTB, where I placed my last bet on Barbaro (an Exacta Box with the eventual winner)
I think that McGraw would have liked the proximity to the OTB as he was a big horse player and all around gambler. In fact, in his early days with the Giants in the early oughts, it was not uncommon for him to leave the team in a coach’s hands and go to Belmont Park to the races. In fact, Giants’ owner John T. Brush had to discipline him for doing just that.
In the 1905 World Series against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics, McGraw could be seen openly betting with A’s fans down the first and third base lines. The Giants won a classic series (the second ever as McGraw refused to play in 1904) and McGraw cleaned up on his bets.
A few things struck me while reading the book. One, was the preponderance of Irish-American ballplayers. Back then in the 1900-1910’s, you could probably still find signs in windows saying “NINA” or “No Irish Need Apply”. Baseball was considered fairly lowly work and this image was only starting to be flipped by the rare college educated players like Eddie Plank and Christy Mathewson. Otherwise, some hotels wouldn’t take “ballplayers and actors”. There were Italian immigrants pouring in at that time as well, but the names on the rosters were mostlsy Irish. The Italians don’t get into it until more like the 1920’s and 1930’s.
The other thing that is amazing about the era is the number of times that guys like McGraw and McGinnity and Bresnahan would get into these near riots and fistfights. It’s a wonder they could play the games. They’d have to dress at the hotel and ride to the park in wagons sometimes, while the home town fans threw things at them, often as big as bricks. It was a whiskey-soaked, rough-and-tumble time for sure.
He managed the Giants from 1902 to 1932 and with the dead ball and lively ball. Between he and Connie Mack, you have 80 years of major league managing experience. An interesing character in American History. –fog
I haven’t read the McGraw biography yet. Any good? I presume it is seeing as you’re rereading it.
I did read “Where They Ain’t” about the old Baltimore Orioles, which I really enjoyed. It was definitely rough and tumble back then. Decent people didn’t go to baseball games.
Wasn’t there one big time player who got so drunk on a train near Buffalo that it’s assumed he fell off into the Niagara River? He was on the train when it left the station, but not when it arrived and no body was ever found. Maybe his name was Donovan. Maybe.
Comment by Eagle — February 9, 2007 @ 5:14 am
There’s a guy who writes for National Review who likes to quote some academic who claims that the “No Irish Need Apply” signs, etc. are all a myth. Mark Krikorian is his name (or something like that). When I was in Cooperstown last summer they had a newspaper clipping from the 1860s for a ball club looking for a first baseman. In the Help Wanteds - imagine that. Anyway, the last line in the ad was “No Irish Need Apply”. I took a picture of the clipping, but it didn’t come out (not a good camera). I wrote to Krikorian anyway and told him what I’d seen and where he could find it if he was interested. He wrote back saying he was only quoting an academic and that he didn’t know if it was true or not. Talk about walking away from what you write.
Comment by Eagle — February 9, 2007 @ 5:18 am
Wasn’t that Big Ed Delahanty who fell out of the train in Niagra, NY? Academics rewrite a lot of history to suit their personal political agendas, so no, it doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is how, in this information age, the media doesn’t call them on it more and discredit them.
I use the digital camera to take photos of close up stuff all the time. I use it as a scanner basically. What you need is a digital camera with a good “Macro” or super close up setting. Then all you have to worry about is if the flash glare will ruin it. Usually just taking the snap at an angle handles that.
Most people don’t realize it but in Cooperstown, around the back of the HOF, there is a research library and you can go in for nothing and ask for the folder on a guy and they’ll come out of the back with a folder and you can sit down and go through it and order 8×10’s if you like or whatever. I used to go up to research my statues–epecially Eddie Gaedel, as there weren’t any good photos of the guy’s face I could work from.
Gotta go to work. Lunchtime for you. I’m jealous. –fog
Comment by mcgonnigle — February 9, 2007 @ 6:21 am
Interesting about the library. I have been to Cooperstown probably 15 times and never went to the library. I’ll have to check it out next time I’m there.
I have a new digital camera now. At that time I was “trying out the digital thing”. That was 2006. I guess I’m kind of late to the party.
Comment by Eagle — February 12, 2007 @ 10:12 am