American Giant

RUBE FOSTER

    
     Andrew "Rube" Foster was easily the finest black pitcher before Satchel Paige, and perhaps the best, black or white, of his day. Cubs manager Frank Chance called him “the most finished product I have ever seen in the pitcher’s box.” Alas, Foster was born a couple generations too early to play in the white major leagues.
     Foster was a master of the psychological aspects of pitching. “The real test comes when you are pitching with men on bases,” he explained. “Do not worry. Try to appear jolly and unconcerned. I have smiled often with the bases full with two strikes and three balls on the batter. This seems to unnerve them. In other instances, where the batter appears anxious to hit, waste a little time on him, and when you think he realizes his position and everybody is yelling at him to hit it out, waste a few balls and try his nerve. The majority of times you will win out by drawing him into hitting at a wide one.”
     Foster was already the most famous black player in baseball when he started up his own club, the Chicago American Giants, in 1910. He leased South Side Park, an 8,000-seat facility at 39th and Wentworth, from John Schorling, a saloonkeeper and the son-in-law of Charles Comiskey (whose White Sox were just moving into their palatial new home at 35th and Shields). For years, Comiskey would happily reap tidy profits from black baseball while stressing the need to keep the major leagues all-white.
     Foster's new team was a juggernaut. “He put on all the plays and he had the type of men that could do just what he wanted them to do,” Buck O’Neil said. “Can you imagine a ballclub with eight or nine Rickey Hendersons? This was the Chicago American Giants in 1911, 1912."
     The American Giants played few games in Chicago. Instead, they traveled throughout the Midwest, West, and even the South, going to places where few black teams had dared to play. They dressed in the most stylish suits, rode the rails in a private Pullman car, and became black America’s team. In every dusty town they went through, the African-American community greeted Foster as a conquering hero. “I shall never forget the first time I saw Rube Foster,” said Dave Malarcher of Louisiana. “I never saw such a well-equipped ballclub in my whole life. I was astounded. Every day they came out in a different set of beautiful uniforms, all kinds of bats and balls, all the best of equipment.” If one of the local players showed especially well against his club, Foster was liable to sign him up on the spot; this was the equivalent of winning the lottery for a young black man living in the Deep South at the time. Malarcher was among the players who experienced this miracle.
     The American Giants went 123-6 in 1910. They were the dominant force in black baseball throughout the teens, although they were challenged for supremacy by clubs such as the Indianapolis ABCs, Detroit Stars, and St. Louis Giants. These stronger clubs tended to play each other only rarely, because games against white semi-pro and industrial teams generally drew better crowds than all-black contests. Taking note of this, the Chicago Defender complained that it would not be surprising if the American Giants soon “depended on the other race altogether.” But the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South into northern cities during and immediately after World War I changed all that. Suddenly there were hundreds of thousands of new fans available for black baseball.
     Throughout 1919, Foster loudly campaigned for a league that would serve this burgeoning pool of potential fans, stop the merry-go-round of players jumping from club to club for a few extra dollars, and eliminate the presence of white investors in the black game. (On these last two points, Foster would have had to be taken with a large pinch of salt. He had built his club by blithely raiding the rosters of others, and he remained heavily dependent on the financial backing of his silent partners, Schorling and Comiskey.)
     The Negro National League was founded in February 1920 in Kansas City. In addition to the American Giants, the league included the Chicago Giants, Cincinnati Cuban Giants, Dayton Marcos, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis ABCs, Kansas City Monarchs, and St. Louis Giants. Its letterhead proclaimed “A.R. Foster” as Chairman of the Board of Directors and as Chairman of the league’s governing body, the National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs. It also carried, in a swirling script, the motto “We Are the Ship, All Else the Sea.”
     The NNL’s first game was played on May 2, 1920, with Indianapolis beating the American Giants 4-2. Each of the eight teams was supposed to have a permanent home ballpark and was scheduled to play 100 games, but these plans soon went awry. The Cincinnati Cuban Giants never did line up a suitable ballpark, so they played all their games on the road. Some teams skipped league games on Saturdays and Sundays in favor of more lucrative dates with local white clubs. “Foster spent long hours in his office,” Mark Ribowsky wrote, “seeking to solve every problem in the operation. When teams ran out of money and were stranded on the road, Rube would wire them enough to get home. When teams were on the verge of going bankrupt, Rube would send a payroll advance to keep them afloat. Still trying to pump up weak clubs, he continued to rearrange player rosters.”
     It was rocky going at first, but the Negro National League survived and even flourished. The eight teams drew a total of 616,000 fans the first year, and each made a profit. Foster did not take a salary to run the league, but an entity called the Western Booking Agency, of which he was sole owner, collected 10 percent of all gate receipts; this meant an $11,000 windfall for Rube in 1920, and considerably more in later years. Foster stayed on as manager of the American Giants for the first two years of the NNL’s existence. In the absence of a balanced schedule or official record keeping, and with newspaper coverage of the league spotty at best, no one could say for sure which team had won the first NNL pennant. When the league office declared that the American Giants had, no one complained.
     Foster’s league prospered throughout the early twenties. Total player salaries soared from $30,000 in 1920 to $275,000 in 1925. The first Negro World Series was played in 1924. It matched the Kansas City Monarchs against the Philadelphia Hilldales of the new Eastern Colored League. The 10-game series was a traveling show, with two games played in Philadelphia, two in Baltimore, three in Kansas City, and three in Chicago. Kansas City won the series five games to four with one tie.
     The series was a huge success, both artistically and financially, but it marked the last hurrah for Foster. The Eastern Colored League, which had been formed by white entrepreneurs impressed by the profits Foster’s league had rung up, soon began luring NNL players with its higher salaries. Foster worked harder and harder trying to stanch the flow of stars to the rival league. By 1926 he was physically and mentally exhausted; he had to be institutionalized. He remained in the state hospital at Kankakee for the rest of his life, convinced that he would soon be summoned to pitch in the white World Series. On December 9, 1930, Foster suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 51. Three thousand persons attended his funeral in Chicago.
     Foster had aimed for nothing less than creating a stable, self-sustaining league for black ballplayers that was on a par with the white major leagues. He didn’t quite pull it off, but he came as close as anyone ever would. In the thirties and forties, the Negro Leagues featured players such as Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Satchel Paige, and a few dozen others who were at least the equal of their white counterparts. The undeniable quality of the play on the field, however, was usually accompanied by the same casual approach to contractual commitments, financial management, and other formalities that Foster had fought so hard to overcome.
     After Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, the black leagues survived, barely, for another decade while the likes of Larry Doby, Roy Campanella, Joe Black, Don Newcombe, Luke Easter, Sam Jethroe, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, and even the forty-something Paige became part of a mass exodus to the major leagues.

Excerpted from Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports
(c)2009, 2010 by Christopher Tabbert

Splendid Seasons: Cubs MVPs, Part 2

We're remembering the 19 Chicago athletes whose splendid seasons have earned them the Most Valuable Player award for their respective leagues. Nine of these players have represented the Cubs, and three of them are introduced below.

Phil Cavarretta,
1945

     Soon after graduating from Lane Tech High School in 1934, Phil Cavarretta moved two miles east on Addison Street to Wrigley Field. He played seven games for the Cubs in 1934 and was an everyday player in 1935, when he was still 18 years old for the first half of the season. Although he had very little power for a first baseman (he averaged less than five homers a year), Cavarretta was an excellent contact hitter who finished his career with a .293 average and more walks than strikeouts. He played on three pennant winners. For the last of these, in 1945, he hit a league-leading .355 with 94 runs scored and 97 runs batted in to take MVP honors.
     It was no fault of Cavarretta’s that the Cubs lost the World Series to the Detroit Tigers in seven games. He homered and scored three runs in the Cubs’ 9-0 rout of American League MVP Hal Newhouser in Game 1, and he ended up batting .423 (highest on either team), with seven runs scored and five RBIs for the Series.
     Cavarretta is the last Cub, so far, to hit a World Series home run. He was also the last in a long line of player-managers for the Cubs—which extended back to Cap Anson in 1879, and included Frank Chance, Rogers Hornsby, Charlie Grimm, and Gabby Hartnett. It was Cavarretta who, in 1953, wrote the name of Ernie Banks on the Cubs’ lineup card for the first time. The next year, he became the first manager ever to be fired in spring training, after he bluntly informed Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley that the club had no chance to contend. The Cubs finished seventh, but being proven right did not get Cavarretta his job back.

Hank Sauer,
1952

     Slow-footed outfielder Hank Sauer was the archetypal ballplayer of the early fifties, an era which decidedly emphasized power over speed. Sauer had a few brief trials during the war years, but it wasn’t until 1948, when he was 31, that he reached the majors to stay. After a season and a half with Cincinnati, he was traded to the Cubs, and he quickly made himself at home: he hit 11 home runs his first month in Chicago.
     Sauer was equally potent to all fields. He averaged a solid 32 homers and 97 RBIs for his first four seasons, then really busted out in 1952. His 121 RBIs topped the league, and his 37 homers tied him for the league lead with Pittsburgh’s Ralph Kiner. He also hit a two-run homer to give the National League a 3-2 win in the All-Star Game. Bleacher fans in the Friendly Confines acclaimed Sauer as the “mayor of Wrigley Field” and showered him with packets of his favorite chewing tobacco after each home run. Although the Cubs finished fifth, well out of the race, Sauer’s performance resonated enough to bring him MVP honors.
     In 1953, the Cubs traded for Kiner, who had won or shared the league’s home run title for seven years running. Alas, dreams of a one-two punch reminiscent of Ruth and Gehrig went unfulfilled. Kiner blasted 28 homers after joining the Cubs in June, but Sauer suffered broken fingers on three separate occasions and had just 19 round-trippers. While Sauer rebounded for a career-high 41 homers in 1954, Kiner managed only 22 and was gone the next year. Kiner later made a droll remark about his and Sauer’s lack of mobility in the outfield, which had made life miserable for Cubs center fielder Frankie Baumholtz: “Between us, we shortened Baumholtz’s career by three years.”

Ernie Banks,
1958, 1959

     Ernie Banks came to the Cubs from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues in September 1953—a wiry, soft-spoken kid from Dallas who in appearance and experience was even younger than his 22 years. A smooth-fielding shortstop and a devastatingly powerful hitter, Banks averaged 44 home runs a year from 1957 to 1960 and didn’t miss a game in that time.
     He was tougher than his genial attitude would have suggested. “In 1957,” umpire Tom Gorman recalled, “Banks was knocked down four times by four different pitchers—Don Drysdale, Bob Purkey, Bob Friend, and Jack Sanford. And each time he was knocked down, Banks hit the next pitch out of the park.”
     In 1958, Banks clubbed 47 homers (the most ever by a shortstop to that time), batted in 129 runs, scored 119, and hit .313, and became the first player in National League history to win the Most Valuable Player award with a losing team. The next year, he had 45 homers, 143 RBIs, and a .304 average, and became the first player in National League history to win back-to-back MVPs.
     His nickname said it all: Mr. Cub. Although the Cubs were often a laughingstock, Banks carried the sobriquet with pride. He played more games for the Cubs than anyone else before or since (over 2,500) but he never made it to the World Series or even the playoffs. He didn’t complain. He kept smiling and kept repeating his motto, “Let’s play two.” Players of later generations could have learned a lot from Ernie, who genuinely respected the game and loved its fans.
     Banks was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1977.

Here Come the Hawks

Few players in any sport have had a rookie season to equal Tony Esposito's with the Blackhawks in 1969-70. He broke the NHL record for shutouts in a season and carried the Hawks from worst to first in the standings.

TONY ESPOSITO

     Sunday, April 5, 1970, was one of the most memorable days in the NHL’s long history. It was the final day of the regular season. The Hawks and Boston were battling down to the wire for first place in the Eastern Division, Detroit had clinched third place, and Montreal had the upper hand over New York for the fourth and last playoff berth. The Rangers not only had to win and hope the Canadiens lost, but they also had to finish the season with more goals scored than Montreal (a tall order, since they were five goals behind entering play).
     New York held up its end of the bargain, blitzing Detroit 9-5 to finish the season 38-22-16 for 92 points. Boston defeated Toronto. So when the Hawks and Canadiens took the ice at the Stadium, each team knew what it had to do. If the Hawks won, they would tie the Bruins with 99 points but would be division champions because their 45 victories exceeded Boston’s 40. If the Canadiens won or tied, they would be in the playoffs and New York would be out. If the Canadiens lost, their record would be identical to New York’s but they could still make the playoffs by scoring five or more goals to top the Rangers’ total of 246 for the season.
     Before a standing-room-only crowd, the Canadiens struck first. Yvan Cournoyer’s goal off a nice feed from Jean Beliveau gave Montreal a 1-0 lead at 9:12 of the first period. Fans began to wonder if perhaps the Hawks’ Cinderella story wasn’t meant to have a happy ending. Tension mounted as Montreal goalie Rogatien Vachon repelled one assault after another until 15:49 of the period, when Jim Pappin’s slapshot from the blue line lit the lamp. Thus reassured, the Hawks took the lead just 95 seconds later when Doug Mohns set up a goal by Pit Martin. “I took my time, and I picked my spot,” Martin said. “I didn’t even see where the goalie was; all I saw was about eight inches of net.”
     The Hawks led 2-1 at the first intermission. Bobby Hull made it 3-1 at 1:24 of the second period, but Beliveau’s tally put the Canadiens back in the game just two minutes later. For the rest of the second period and well into the third, the Hawks clung to a 3-2 edge.
     Then it was Pit Martin time. After the previous season, Martin had called the Hawks the most selfish, underachieving team he’d ever seen, rubbing more than a few teammates the wrong way. Now Martin put his money where his mouth was. At 7:15 of the third period, he scored the goal that gave the Hawks a commanding 4-2 lead. Three and a half minutes later, he scored again to complete the hat trick.
     The game was now out of reach, the champagne was on ice, and the Stadium rocked with chants of “We’re Number 1!”
     Montreal coach Claude Ruel realized that the Canadiens could not win the game, so he hatched a desperate plan to get the three more goals needed to surpass the Rangers for fourth place. For the last eight minutes of the game, goalie Vachon was replaced by an extra attacker each time Montreal got possession of the puck; this was the only way the Canadiens could get anything going.
     Ruel’s gamble backfired, to say the least. Almost every time Vachon skated to the bench, the Hawks stole the puck and gleefully swatted it into the empty net—first Eric Nesterenko, then Bobby Hull, Dennis Hull, Cliff Koroll, and Gerry Pinder. The fans were beside themselves, roaring more loudly after each goal. The final score was 10-2.
     The somewhat bizarre ending disguised the fact that the game had been hard fought and well played for over 50 minutes. When the horn finally sounded, the Hawks had become the first team in NHL history to go from last place to first in one year—and they had earned it, winning twice against the fabled Canadiens to end the season. Beginning with Tony Esposito’s shutout in Montreal on October 25, the Hawks had gone 45-17-8. For the last 12 weeks of the season, they had gone 30-7-4.
     Although their record of 38-22-16 would have easily won the Western Division (home of the six three-year-old expansion teams), the Canadiens were out of the playoffs for the first time since 1948. For the first time ever, the postseason would not include either Montreal or Toronto.
     While his teammates showered each other with champagne and beer, Esposito sat quietly in a corner of the Hawks’ dressing room, exhausted. “He’s the guy who made the difference,” said Martin, indicating the man who seemed oblivious to the celebration going on around him. “He has made stops nobody could believe in game after game. He is the guy we’ve rallied around. I don’t think there ever has been a goaltender with a season like the one he’s had.”
     Esposito’s season for the ages had carried the Hawks from last place the year before to first place in 1970. It had also earned him the Vezina Trophy as outstanding goalie and the Calder as rookie of the year (he finished second to Boston’s Bobby Orr in the MVP balloting). He had played 63 games, allowing just one goal in 15 of them and setting a record with 15 shutouts. As quick to refuse credit as he was to accept blame, “Tony O” was matter-of-fact about his feats. “All the guys worked so hard for me,” he said. “They have all year. I kept thinking, ‘Don’t ease up; you don’t want to let them down.’”

Excerpted from Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports
(c)2009, 2010 by Christopher Tabbert

Sweet Swingin' Billy Gets His Due

Billy Williams is a prime example of that rare species, a player who is both a Hall of Famer and underrated. The Cubs' recent decision to erect a statue in his honor is as appropriate as it is overdue. Below is an appreciation of Williams from the forthcoming book Quotable Cubs.

 

BILLY WILLIAMS

     Billy Williams signed with the Cubs in 1956 for “a cigar and a bus ticket,” in his words. He came up to the majors for good in 1961, winning the National League Rookie of the Year award. He was a six-time All-Star, runner-up for the Most Valuable Player award twice, and established a National League record (since broken) by playing in 1,117 consecutive games from 1963 to 1970. His peers voted Williams The Sporting News Major League Player of the Year in 1972, the same year he won the National League batting title. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1987.
     Most quotes by Billy Williams are not particularly memorable, because he refused to toot his own horn, preferring to let his performance speak for itself. Quotes about Williams are similarly one-dimensional, for the simple reason that no one has ever been heard to say a bad word about him. The acerbic Cubs manager Leo Durocher—who didn’t dispense compliments too freely—was effusive in his praise of Williams, whom he called a “double professional,” meaning that Billy conducted himself as a professional both on and off the field.
     If Williams resented that he toiled for most of his career in the shadow of Ernie Banks, he never let on. He was and has remained a model of dignity, humility, and class.

“You can hit in the major leagues right now.”
--Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby, then a Cubs minor-league instructor, speaking to Billy Williams when the latter was playing Double-A ball in 1959

“Rogers Hornsby told me, ‘If you keep working, you’ll win a batting title.’”
--Billy Williams

“I have never seen a better left-handed hitter than Billy Williams.”
--Ron Santo, Cubs third baseman, 1960-1973

“A manager’s dream. For six years I was able to walk into my office and start the day by writing his name in the #3 slot of the lineup card. Never had to say a word to him. He’d be out on the field early every day practicing. Like clockwork.”
--Leo Durocher, Cubs manager, 1966-1972

"Just write his name in the lineup and watch him hit."
--Glenn Beckert, Cubs second baseman, 1965-1973

“He didn’t hit for just one or two days, or one or two weeks. He hit all the time.”
--Don Kessinger, Cubs shortstop, 1964-1975

"He wasn't flamboyant. He just went out and did his job day after day after day."
--Fergie Jenkins, Cubs pitcher, 1966-1973

“That’s up to you guys. I can’t write about myself.”
--Billy Williams, when asked by a sportswriter why he didn’t get more publicity

“Billy had a saying, ‘When fish open their mouths, they get caught.’ Billy didn’t talk much. Billy just played.”
--Ernie Banks, Cubs shortstop and first baseman, 1953-1971

“He enjoyed playing in Wrigley Field, enjoyed playing day baseball, enjoyed hitting, enjoyed playing the field. But unlike Banks, he wouldn’t go out of his way to tell you about it.”
--Bill James, baseball writer

“Billy Williams was everything Banks was supposed to be.”
--Leo Durocher

“I often tell [young players], your playing career goes by so fast. Give it all you’ve got while you’re on the field. Don’t say if I coulda, woulda, shoulda. Try to leave it all out on the field.”
--Billy Williams

“Cream and sugar. Billy Williams is in a class all by himself.”
--Leo Durocher

Splendid Seasons: Bears MVPs

We're remembering the 19 Chicago athletes whose splendid seasons have earned them the Most Valuable Player award for their respective leagues. The two Bears who rank among them also rank among the greatest football players of all time.

Sid Luckman, 
1943

     Like Pittsburgh’s Terry Bradshaw in the 1970s and San Francisco’s Joe Montana in the 1980s, Sid Luckman of the Bears quarterbacked four world championship teams in one decade. People tend to forget that the NFL existed for almost fifty years prior to the first Super Bowl in 1967—but, as they say, you could look it up. Luckman led the Monsters of the Midway to championships in 1940, 1941, 1943, and 1946.
     Luckman came to Chicago in 1939 after earning All-America honors at Columbia University, and he quickly proved to be the ideal quarterback for the Bears’ vaunted T-formation. He also played defensive back (hence his uniform number—42) and punted. In his first five seasons, the Bears went 49-9-1. They won their first championship of this period in a fashion that still defies belief, demolishing the Redskins 73-0 in the 1940 title game. They repeated in 1941, routing the Giants 39-7 in the championship game. In 1942, they stormed through a perfect 11-0-0 regular season but lost the title game to Washington.
     Luckman had his finest year in 1943, throwing for 28 touchdowns against just 12 interceptions, as the Bears reclaimed the championship. The highlight came on November 14, Sid Luckman Day at the Polo Grounds in New York. After being honored by the hometown folks in a pre-game ceremony, he went out and threw for 433 yards and seven touchdowns (breaking the NFL single-game records in both categories) as the Bears defeated the Giants 56-7.
     Luckman was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965. "My boy," George Halas wrote to him when both were old men, "my pride in you has no bounds." Luckman was the first—and last—great quarterback for the Bears. The search for his successor continues.

Walter Payton,
1977

Although he played in an age of very specific roles, Walter Payton had all-around football skills—and a furious desire to succeed—that would have come in handy in any era. “He’s the very best football player I’ve ever seen,” Mike Ditka said. “At any position, period. He’s a complete player. He does everything you ask.” Not only did Payton rush for more yardage than anyone ever had before, but he was also a punishing blocker, a sure-handed receiver, a strong and accurate passer, and even an exemplary tackler.
     Early in his career people joked that the Bears’ typical offensive sequence consisted of Payton, Payton, Payton, punt. It wasn’t so funny—Payton broke the NFL single-season record for rushing attempts twice in three years. Though he was running behind a mediocre line, against defenses specifically geared to stop him, Payton led the NFC in rushing five straight times.
     In 1977, he ran for 1,852 yards and 14 touchdowns (with a staggering average of 5.5 yards per carry) and led the Bears to their first playoff appearance in 14 years. He gained 205 yards at Green Bay on October 30, and followed that with a record-shattering 275 against Minnesota three weeks later at Soldier Field. “You Chicago people are spoiled by Payton,” said Vikings coach Bud Grant. “He’s a phenomenon.”
     By 1984, Payton had become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher and the Bears had turned the corner. They pulled off an upset at Washington—the only playoff game the Redskins ever lost in RFK Stadium—and advanced to the NFC championship game in San Francisco. When the Bears lost 23-0, Payton was disconsolate. He didn’t know if he’d come so close to the Super Bowl again. “Tomorrow is never promised to anyone,” he said. Fortunately, the 1985 Bears turned out to be one of the most dominant teams ever assembled, and Payton got his Super Bowl ring.
     When he retired in 1987, Payton was the leader in career rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, and all-purpose yards—but even more impressive was that he had missed only one game in 13 years of giving everything he had on every play. He had become an idol not only to fans but also to his teammates and even opponents.
     Payton was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993. He died, tragically, at the age of only 45 six years later. “When I'm older and I talk to my grandkids,” said former teammate Dan Hampton, a Hall of Famer himself, “I'll tell them I played with Walter Payton.”