High Heat (22 page)

According to esteemed sportswriter Shirley Povich, when Cobb replied that his opinion wasn't the point, Mays said, “Well, if you think I do, Ty, that makes me a better pitcher. As long as you're feeling that way about it, I'm more effective.”

One could argue that Clemens, Ryan, Randy Johnson, and any of the other top fireballers of the more recent past would have said pretty much the same thing. But there's no getting around the fact that as the Yankees prepared to host the Indians that day at the Polo Grounds in New York, most batters in the game didn't trust the submarine-style pitcher.

But behind almost every tragedy there almost always lies seemingly innocent factors brought into play as if by fate—a chain reaction leading up to what in hindsight appears the inevitable. In the years leading up to the Chapman beaning, the lords of baseball had pledged to clean up the game. At the turn of the last century, it was
a more violent sport and there was little question that the ball was often utilized as a weapon. Baseball historian Bill James calculates that about 91 batters were hit by a pitch for every 100 games played in that era. Giving things an added edge, the spitball was often in play despite early attempts to ban it. Putting foreign substances on the ball or scuffing it can make it fly in peculiar, unexpected ways. And as James points out, another result of lathering the ball up with saliva, tobacco juice, or licorice was that it discolored the ball. An offwhite ball, of course, is also much harder to see. When these factors are added together, it was only a matter of time before things went wrong.

“By about 1910, a clean ball was never in play,” James wrote. Yet with the cost of a baseball rising (according to Sowell they doubled in price in the years before the Chapman incident), umpires were under pressure to keep every last one in play. In fact, Ban Johnson, founder and first president of the American League, issued a directive to the men in blue “to keep the balls in the games as much as possible, except those which [are] dangerous.”

The final straw may have been Mays's delivery. James calls Mays a “combination of Dan Quisenberry and Nolan Ryan” because his pitches were the result of an odd sidearm fling that put plenty of speed on the ball.

“Carl slings the pill from his toes, has a weird looking windup and action that looks like a cross between an octopus and a bowler,” described
Baseball Magazine
. “He shoots the ball in at the batter at such unexpected angles that his delivery is hard to find, generally, until about 5 o'clock, when the hitters get accustomed to it—and when the game is over.”

On the game day, Cleveland was in a slump, but it still held a narrow lead over the White Sox and Yankees in the standings. A light rain had been falling as the game began, but when Chapman stepped up to the plate in the top of the fifth inning the scattered showers had stopped, even though the skies remained overcast.

As Mays went into his windup, delivering the first pitch of the inning, he thought he saw a slight shift in Chapman's feet, like he was squaring around to bunt. Mays said many things in the aftermath of
the incident, including the claim that his fastball, high and tight to Chapman, had gotten away from him. He also acknowledged that he had reacted the way any quality pitcher does when he sees a batter squaring to bunt. The proper response is to deliver the ball inside, so the hitter can't get the bat on the ball. Whatever the reasoning that went through Mays's mind at that instant, there's no doubt that his next pitch sailed with stunning speed toward the inside part of the plate, directly at Chapman's head.

As Sowell details in
The Pitch That Killed,
incredibly Chapman just stood there, seemingly transfixed by the pitch's velocity. He made no effort to get out of the way.

“That's the biggest riddle in all of this,” Sowell says. “Chapman was an experienced hitter. He was used to getting out of the way. But this time, for whatever reason, none of his talent, that experience of playing at this level, helped him in any way. He was riveted in place and the ball hit him square on.”

In an effort to find an explanation, Sowell looked through hundreds of player quotations, many from the time period, trying to find an answer to why an experienced hitter put himself in that kind of situation. Finally, he found a possible explanation from infielder Terry Turner, who played 17 years in the majors, most of them in Cleveland.

“I can still remember vividly how I was fascinated by seeing that ball coming toward my head,” Turner said. “I was paralyzed. I couldn't make a move to get out of the way, though the ball looked big as a house. I imagine that a person fascinated by a snake feels much the same way, paralyzed and unable to dodge the deadly serpent about to strike.”

Sowell sighs in agreement after the quote is read back to him. “That's why I made it the first thing in the book,” he says. “What these guys face up at the plate, being transfixed by fear, is something we can all relate to. It happens every day, everywhere. You're stunned by how things are suddenly turning out, how life can snap around on you, and you can't get out of the way of what's about to happen.”

The throw by Mays struck Chapman in the left temple. This was well before batters wore protective headgear, whether it was a shield inside the cap or the helmets that are mandatory from Little League
on up today. Medical inquiries would later determine that a fracture three and a half inches long extended along the left side of Chapman's head nearly to the base of his skull. The blow had also caused the right side of his brain to hit against the inside of his skull, resulting in additional trauma.

Witnesses that afternoon reported that a loud crack echoed throughout the ballpark when Chapman was hit. In fact, Mays fielded the ball and went to throw to first, believing that the pitch had somehow ricocheted off Chapman's bat.

Afterward the Indians' shortstop was revived and began the long walk to the clubhouse, which was located past the center field fence at the old Polo Grounds. But approaching second base, he staggered and had to be accompanied the rest of the way by several teammates. Soon after arriving at the hospital, Chapman lost consciousness and died early the next morning.

Four days later, an estimated 2,000 people attended his funeral at St. John's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Cleveland. Player-manager Tris Speaker, who had been Chapman's best man, and outfielder Jack Graney, Chapman's roommate on road trips, were too distraught to attend. The rest of the ballclub, from players to frontoffice personnel, were there. The legendary fireballer Smoky Joe Wood, now an outfielder with the Indians, was a pallbearer in Graney's absence. Also in attendance were American League president Ban Johnson and several members of the New York Yankees. Mays was not among them.

In the aftermath of Chapman's death, baseball issued a renewed vow to clean up its act. The spitball was outlawed. Baseballs that became discolored, scuffed, or stained were quickly taken out of play. It's estimated that 20 or more balls are discarded in the average professional game today—a direct result of that tragic day at the Polo Grounds. Other safeguards were much longer in coming, however. Days after the incident, a
New York Times
editorial urged that a helmet be developed and soon employed by batters. But such measures would not take effect for another 30 years.

Pee Wee Reese was probably the first major-league batter to wear a helmet when he stepped to the plate in a 1941 spring training game
in Havana, Cuba. Late in the 1952 season, Branch Rickey, who was the Pittsburgh Pirates executive, issued fiberglass batting caps to his entire team. “My dad, who was working for the Pirates back then, was one of the guys who stayed up late gluing in the protective foam,” says scout Mike Berger.

Initially, the players weren't very fond of Mr. Rickey's protective gear. They were required to wear the helmets anywhere on the field, and some fans dubbed the players coal miners. Joe Garagiola recalls that kids bounced marbles off his helmeted head when he was down in the bullpen. Soon Rickey decided the ballplayers only needed to wear the newfangled helmets when up to bat.

In 1956, batting helmets became mandatory in the National League, and the American League followed suit two years later. The only team that voted against the measure was the Boston Red Sox. Slugger Ted Williams didn't like to wear a helmet.

Today, according to Rule 8.02d of the rule book, umpires can eject any pitcher believed to be guilty of throwing at a batter. Usually this happens after the home-plate umpire issues a warning to both teams. Even though the bylaw asks umpires to be clairvoyant, in addition to calling balls and strikes, it's likely made the game safer.

Helmets and new rules were a long way off for the Cleveland ballclub as it tried to move ahead without Chapman. But after the team strung together a few victories, many of the players believed that their fallen comrade was looking down on them. Perhaps that's so. How else to explain the Indians' rallying down the stretch to take the pennant by two games over the White Sox and three over the Yankees? One of the key players for Cleveland was in fact rookie shortstop Joe Sewell, who replaced Chapman in the everyday lineup. The Indians went on to defeat the Brooklyn Robins in the World Series for their first championship.

As for Mays, he became an outcast, a persona non grata. In the weeks after the incident, several teams, including the Red Sox and Tigers, spoke openly about boycotting games in which the hard-throwing submariner participated. Yet like many such grandstanding gestures, the campaign soon lost momentum. Mays went on to pitch
another nine years in the majors, finishing his career with a respectable 207–126 record and 2.92 ERA. In fact, his numbers stack up favorably with those of several hurlers in the Hall of Fame. But Mays would never reach a place of forgiveness and redemption after he retired, let alone a plaque in Cooperstown. To his dying day, he insisted he hadn't hit Chapman on purpose.

“The death of Ray Chapman is a thing I do not like to discuss,” Mays later told
Baseball Magazine
. “It is an episode that I shall always regret more than anything else that ever happened to me. And yet, I can look into my own conscience and feel absolved from all sense of guilt. The most amazing thing about it was the fact that some people seemed to believe I did this thing deliberately. . . .

“Suppose a pitcher was moral monster enough to want to kill a batter with whom he can have no possible quarrel. How could he do this terrible thing? Christy Mathewson in the days of his most perfect control couldn't have hit a batter in the temple once in a thousand tries.”

Almost 20 years after his book about the Chapman tragedy was published, I ask Sowell how he feels about Mays now. Was he the monster that everybody made him out to be? Or was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, throwing the wrong pitch?

“When it first came out, the question I got most of the time was, ‘Did you think Carl Mays threw at Ray Chapman on purpose?'” Sowell says. “I don't think so. That opinion hasn't changed much.

“What has changed for me is that I think I have more respect for him. That's what has grown over time. Carl Mays may have not been the friendliest guy in the world. He sure didn't have many friends. But he was loyal to the ones he had and he played the game hard. A lot of players, including Johnny Pesky, admired him, how he went about his business.

“Over time, I've become more convinced that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. His numbers are as good as or better than many pitchers from his era. But there's this one pitch, this one awful mistake. For that he'll probably never be forgiven.”

 

 

M
ost fireballers intimidate opposing batters. A select few, such as Robert Moses “Lefty” Grove, who played in the majors from 1925 to 1941 for the Philadelphia Athletics and then the Boston Red Sox, terrified their teammates as well. Growing up in the Allegheny Mountains of western Maryland, Grove pretty much taught himself how to pitch. He, like Amos Rusie before him, gained a reputation for throwing rocks “at anything, moving or stationary.” According to the
Baltimore Sun,
sometimes the targets were squirrels and birds, but mostly they consisted of the glass insulators on the telegraph poles. If it hadn't been for baseball, Grove likely would have followed in his family's footsteps and been a coal miner. But he detested going below ground, having to eke out a living that way.

When he was 15, Grove worked with his father in the mines for two weeks. He remembered it being dark when he went down and dark when he came back up. “If it hadn't been for Sundays,” he said, “I'd never know if there was any sunshine. After two weeks, I said,

‘Paw, that ain't my kind of work and I'm going to get some other job.' . . . I didn't put that coal there and I'm not going to dig it out.”

So, Grove went to work at a local glassworks. When it burned down, he found employment at $7 a day at another glassworks and the Klotz Silk Mill. Yet his options were proving to be limited at best. So, in the spring of 1919 legend has it that Grove put on his “store clothes” and pedaled his bike down out of the hills to Martinsburg, West Virginia. The town had a team in the Blue Ridge League and Grove wanted to try out.

After some cajoling, Bill Louden, the manager, gave him a chance. While the kid from the mountains sure could throw hard, too often he had no idea where the ball was going. Still, he made the team.

“[They] offered me $130 a month to play ball over at Martinsburg, more than 50 miles way,” Grove later told the
Boston Globe
. “Would I take it? I jumped at that $130 a month just for pitching. My folks told me, ‘You'll get homesick,' and I told them, ‘I'll not be homesick and I'm never going to be.' I couldn't get away fast enough. And I wasn't homesick, neither.”