Arlington, VA (PRWEB) March 31, 2005
Politics and baseball clashed recently in the halls of the U.S. Congress, where lawmakers looked into steroid use by major league players. The interplay between baseball and politics goes way back, and 100 years ago saw the election of the first former big league star to high elective office, beyond the likes of small-town mayor. The star was Cap Anson, who held Chicago’s third-highest post, city clerk, from 1905 to 1907.
After a colorful career on the diamond, Anson, the lone player to reach 3,000 hits before 1900, was elected on April 4, 1905, and served two years. A 1906 bid to be elected sheriff failed miserably, as he lost in the primary. His city clerk tenure, by all accounts, had been lackluster at best. For example, in an editorial, the Chicago Tribune said, “When an elective officials eagerness for some other elective office is of the sort that makes him a coward in his present office that cowardice is not a good qualification for another job. The stories which Capt. Anson told on the platform during his campaign a year ago seemed then to win him votes, but the people may not be so `easy a second time. They may turn the light on the captains record. While the captain is in his present office he should try to be a real city clerk.
Anson’s colorful persona had shined while leading the Chicago White Stockings/Colts of the National League from 1879 to 1897. He was often gruff in commanding his players, a far cry from the new touchy-feely style of modern-day chieftains. For example, new Washington Nationals manager Frank Robinson recently said, “I knew that, coming back [to manage], I couldn’t be the same type of manager I was when I left.” For one thing, “You have to listen first. You can’t just tell people: ‘Because I’m the manager, that’s why.’ You have to explain things to them. You have to listen to them. You have to, sometimes, adjust, and say, ‘Okay, you’re right. Maybe we’ll try it that way.’”
The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga, who reported the above comments, added, “Take infield practice. When Robinson played, the regulars took infield every day. He still feels that’s the best way to go about things, that it loosens you up, gets you focused. But during his time in Montreal [2002 to 2004, after not managing for more than a decade], the players asked him whether it was necessary. They do so much work to prepare, they said, that infield every day could tire them out. “I said, ‘Okay, we’ll try it,’” Robinson said. “In the past, I’d have said, ‘No. We’re doing it each day.’”
On exactly the 100th anniversary of Anson’s election, definitive Anson biographer Howard W. Rosenberg will be releasing his third book related to Anson (Cap Anson 3: Muggsy John McGraw and the Tricksters: Baseball’s Fun Age of Rule Bending) at http://www.capanson.com/cap_anson_books.html and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0972557423/qid=1112133372/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7500898-7178332?v=glance&s=books.
Cap Anson 3 closely surveys tricky and dirty play over the first quarter-century of the National League, 1876 to 1900, in addition to being the definitive biography of McGraw through 1900, covering about 85 percent of his playing career. For their on-the-field play during that period, the book gives special focus to Baltimore of the 1890s (McGraw was its third baseman) and Chicago of the 1880s and 1890s (Anson was its captain-manager).
Today, the 1890s Baltimore Orioles are remembered for having toyed with the playing rules, which used to be more liberal and more liberally enforced. For one, McGraw was especially skilled at fouling off pitches, in an age before batters incurred strikes for doing so. The 1880s and 1890s Chicago teams are hardly thought of in a tricky or dirty light; they are mostly cast as a study in contrasts: Chicago won several pennants through 1886 and then none into the early 20th century. However, Chicago players did lots of tricky stuff too. One of Anson’s notable tricks was doing what Barry Bonds (when he’s healthy) cannot: when being intentionally walked, jump from one batter’s box to the other, to try to hit the ball. Sometimes in doing so, Anson succeeded in making hits.
Also featured in the book is Tommy Tucker, a first baseman who played mostly for the Boston Beaneaters. Tucker was arguably the 19th century’s dirtiest player, especially because he liked to block runners on pickoff tries. Also studied closely is the singular Mike Kelly; Cap Anson 2: The Theatrical and Kingly Mike Kelly: U.S. Team Sport’s First Media Sensation and Baseball’s Original Casey at the Bat (2004), Kelly’s otherwise-definitive bio, omitted the vast majority of his trickery. Instead, Cap Anson 2 focused on Kelly’s personality, including by arguing that he was the most likely model, if any single player was, for the baseball situations of Casey in the 1888 poem “Casey at the Bat.”
Kelly, by the way, was the first baseball player to be paid a lot of money to perform a bit part on stage (in 1888), while Anson was the first to receive star billing (in 1895). A new Web site honors the playwright responsible for casting them: Boston Elk and former Boston baseball writer Charles Hoyt (http://users.erols.com/choyt/chhoyt_run.htm). A great Web site to read up on “Casey at the Bat,” with a prominent mention of Kelly and the correct spelling of the name of actor De Wolf Hopper (husband of former Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda), is http://www.joslinhall.com/casey_at_the_bat.htm.
Author Rosenberg’s first book, Cap Anson 1: When Captaining a Team Meant Something: Leadership in Baseball’s Early Years (2003), featured the more active roles that players used to take in leading teammates. Into the 20th century, a team’s captain, not its manager, was in charge of arguing with the umpire.
A future book in the Anson series will be his full-blown biography. It will contain detail about his city clerk tenure, which the author can make available to media with an immediate interest in the subject.
Noteworthy about his presence on the Chicago Democratic slate in 1905 is that he added geographic balance, as he was the only one of its top four candidates to be a resident of the South Side. A likely help to his electoral image was his reputation for rugged honesty. As a player, he had regularly bet on baseball, but only on himself or his team to do well, and did not associate with gamblers. In recent years, Pete Rose’s association with gamblers, while betting on baseball as Cincinnati’s manager, was arguably what most justifies his current ineligibility for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Anson and John McGraw, perhaps best known for his 20th-century managing of the New York Giants, had a lot in common, including in playing billiards (they enjoyed each other’s company) and betting. However, while Anson was squeaky clean, at least when not bending the playing rules during his big league career, McGraw, a main subject of a pair of new books (the other is Frank Deford’s enjoyable The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball), maintained a close business relationship with well-known gamblers including Arnold Rothstein, the inspiration for the throwing of the 1919 World Series.
Beyond Cap Anson 3’s totally new take on trickery and dirty play in baseball’s first decades, the book contains one major piece of news: Its second appendix refutes at least 66 years of prevailing thought that McGraw and Wilbert Robinson, co-owners of a Baltimore bowling alley, were responsible for the origin of the sport of duckpins. Cap Anson 3 traces quackery on the subject as far back as future legendary writer Shirley Povich in 1939. Instead of finding support for McGraw and Robinson as originators, Cap Anson 3 cites an article on the subject that precedes their going into business together.
Book specifications:
Hardcover ISBN 0-9725574-2-3 $ 30.00
viii (8 introductory pages), 472 regularly numbered pages
7 x 10 inches
Publication Date: April 2005
110 drawings, index, full endnotes, two appendices
Chapter Titles:
Introduction
Intimidating the Batter
Spiking
Playing Dirty at the Bases
Tucker at First, McGraw at Third
Orioles Besides McGraw
Tricky Play by the 1890s Orioles
A Little Fun Chapter
The Wild Twentieth Century
More Legacy Rhetoric
Chicago With Anson
The Final Call
Appendix A: Manipulating the Ball
Appendix B: Duckpins
Contact Information:
Howard W. Rosenberg
1111 Arlington Boulevard
Number 235 West
Arlington, Virginia 22209
703-841-9523
For short biographies of McGraw, especially that note his negative influence on the game, in a gambling context, see:
http://www.historicbaseball.com/players/m/mcgraw_john.html and http://www.thebaseballpage.com/past/pp/mcgrawjohn/ (look for “The Dark Side of Muggsy” discussion that cites the 2004 biography of Hal Chase by Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella)
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