1
Monday August 16, 1920
A hot humid day,
with light rain
at the Polo Grounds in New York City
(Babe Ruth was in his first year with the team,
and
it would take a few years as a drawing card
for him to enable The House That Ruth Built)
Neither team had won a pennant
at that time in the American League’s history
(and
there had been some fluky circumstances
in each team’s history along the way,
such as
the single-season winningest pitcher in the twentieth century
tossing a wild pitch to lose a deciding game,
or
losing a pennant by a half-game because
the team ahead didn’t have to make up a game,
or
losing out because a world war ended the season
a month earlier than usual,
a month
when you would have had most of your games at home),
but
both teams were contenders this year
The rain had stopped,
and
the skies were gray,
and
Cleveland led 3-0
as Ray Chapman came to bat
leading off the top of the fifth inning
By a recent directive from the league
dirty baseballs would be replaced less often,
and it may have been a
scuffed
stained
or dirty baseball
that sped toward home plate on submariner
Carl Mays’ first pitch
“I heard that sound
when the ball crushed his skull,
and
I saw him fall”
“I didn’t want
any closer view than that”
(legend says the ball was fielded
as though it had been a batted ball)
The future cliche
“Is there a doctor in the house?”
went through the crowd,
and
two doctors,
including
the Yankees team physician,
responded to the summons
Chapman was revived after some minutes
and helped to his feet,
attempting
to walk off the field under his own power
but
he was unable to walk very far
and had to be carried off the field
An ambulance took Chapman to the hospital
At the hospital,
Chapman told a friend
not to call his wife,
but if he had to,
to
“tell her I’m all right”
before he lost consciousness
And
after his pulse rate continued to drop,
the doctors decided to operate,
the operation
beginning at 12:29 AM on the seventeenth
and lasting an hour and a quarter,
removing
a small square section of Chapman’s skull,
along with some blood clots
The next forty-eight hours would be critical
in determining recovery
but
he would only live about three hours
after the operation ended,
dying
at 4:40 AM August 17, 1920
The morning paper on the 17th,
amid
the headlines of the presidential campaign
and the ongoing ‘Red Scare’ ,
had a Nostradumbass
express his doubt as to whether
Chapman had suffered a skull fracture,
though
in the same article he hedged his bets
by saying x-rays would tell for sure
The headline in that same paper on the eighteenth
(at the top of the page):
CHAPMAN’S BODY ARRIVES HOME TODAY
Chapman was the first,
and
to this day remains the only
major leaguer killed on the field,
and
his death was the beginning
of a string of family tragedies:
his wife committed suicide eight years later,
and his daughter,
born six months after his death,
would die of measles a year after her mother’s death
2
October 7, 1923
A sunny Sunday afternoon
for a semi-pro football game
at Austin Field in Willoughby
along the banks of the Chagrin River
(today,
ninety years later,
on a day
as much cooler-than-usual
as the day back then was,
but overcast,
with
no frost in today’s overnight forecast
as there was frost overnight back then,
I visit the site,
now called Todd Field
and carved up into several ball diamonds
and a soccer field,
and
picture that game)
The Willoughby Merchants team would be playing
the Klesch Sports team from the big city of Cleveland
It was the opening game of the season for the Merchants
(no word on which game it was for Klesch Sports)
Chester Mares,
a twenty-three year-old,
would be playing fullback for Klesch
Mares had played football for,
and
had even graduated from,
Central High in 1920,
which
put him beyond the average level
of education of the day,
though,
having graduated at twenty,
he apparently was not college material
even with his football ability
Nor
was he quite good enough for pro football,
even
with the NFL in its infancy
and
the gap between pro and semi-pro
far less than it is today
Wearing primitive helmets and primitive pads,
or
perhaps having no protection at all,
the year before Mares had suffered
a skull fracture serious enough
to put him in a coma for four days,
and
doctors had advised against playing again
Mares disregarded the advice,
but
this would not be a case of foreshadowing:
what would happen to him was both
less expected and less explicable
With around two minutes left in the game
Mares dropped back to throw a pass
from his fullback position
(down,
distance,
and game score
not recorded,
but
given the prevailing strategy of the day
his team must have been behind
if he was attempting a pass),
and,
after letting the ball go,
he was bumped,
lightly according to the reporter,
and fell backwards
And
during or after his fall
he choked on his chewing tobacco,
and
after a doctor on the scene
was unable to revive him,
he died in the back of the ambulance
on the way to the hospital
3
Tuesday June 24, 1947
A smoke-filled steamy Cleveland Arena,
the marquee outside advertising
a welterweight title fight between
the challenger Jimmy Doyle
(born James Delaney),
just a little
over a month shy of his twenty-third birthday,
coming into the fight with a record
of forty-three wins,
seven losses,
and one draw
(or possibly a record of forty-six and five),
with
fourteen wins by knockout,
and
the champion Sugar Ray Robinson
(born Walker Smith, Jr.),
who
had just turned twenty-six
and had a record of
seventy-eight wins,
one loss,
and one draw
(no dispute here:
champions’ careers are always better documented),
with fifty-two knockouts
“It’s the fear of many of Jimmy’s supporters
that he hasn’t fully recovered from that baleful beating yet”
referring to Doyle being knocked out
by Artie Lange in March 1946
in a fight that took place in Cleveland,
but
after that fight Doyle would proclaim
“If I don’t go back to Cleveland
and fight in the same ring again
I’m not a man”
(Lange
had also knocked down Robinson
in the fourth round of their fight
on November 6, 1946,
though
Robinson came back to knock out Lange
in yet another fight that took place in Cleveland)
As the fight progressed
spectators were wowed by Robinson’s ability
and impressed by Doyle’s toughness
in taking Robinson’s punches,
though
Doyle also earned respect
with some of the punches he threw,
stunning
Robinson in the third round
and opening a cut over his eye
in the sixth round,
possibly
winning both of those rounds,
and
at the end of the seventh round,
in response to the unknown instructions
coming from his corner,
Doyle was heard to say
“I will I will”
“Saved by the bell!”
said the headline in the next morning’s paper,
referring to the round’s ending
before a fighter could be counted out,
but
while it had been true as far as boxing
it was already dubious in a much larger way
by the time the article appeared:
Doyle
had been taken to St. Vincent Charity Hospital
by ambulance immediately after the fight,
having been carried out on a stretcher,
unconscious
At the hospital
the doctors on duty realized
they needed more expertise,
and
they called in brain specialist Spencer Braden
from his home in suburban Chagrin Falls
to perform the necessary surgery
The surgery started at three a.m.,
showing
extensive brain damage,
and
ended after an unrecorded amount of time,
and all settled in to wait for Time
to determine Doyle’s outcome
but
there would be less than a day to wait:
around noon a priest was called
to administer last rites,
and
in the early afternoon on the twenty-fifth
Doyle died,
seventeen hours after being knocked out,
never regaining consciousness,
leaving
the repeated I will at the end of the seventh round
to stand as his last words
In the undignified next-to-last act,
Cuyahoga County Coroner Sam Gerber,
warming up for the Sheppard case seven years later
(no fear of being defeated in the two elections
to be held during that time),
showed
he could generate headlines even then,
first
with his insinuations that ‘the powers that be’
were leaning on him to rule this
an accidental death,
so as
not to jeopardize future title fights
(while of course
never naming a single name of the alleged pressurers),
and
again at the inquest:
“CORONER CALLS CHAMPION ‘EVASIVE’ “
but in the end bringing no charges against anyone
And in the dignified last act
Robinson subsequently fought a few fights
for the benefit of Doyle’s family,
risking
his title in the process,
but
coming through still the champion
and enabling Doyle’s mother
to finally buy the house
she had long dreamed of owning
Postscript: Two Close Calls
August 24, 1919
A Sunday afternoon,
as all games were day games back then
Game 109 of the scheduled 140,
as
the owners in their infinite unwisdom
decided to cut the schedule back
from the usual one hundred fifty-four games,
thinking
the fans would stay away in droves after
the previous year’s war-shortened season,
costing
themselves a fair amount of money
when the fans did return
Ray Caldwell,
called Rube or Slim,
as well as
other unflattering unofficial nicknames,
would make his Indians debut
in today’s game at League Park,
having
been acquired just a few days earlier
in a trade with the Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox were the second team
to throw up their hands trying to deal with Slim,
the New York Yankees having been the first to do so;
he had had a good year or two for the Yankees
back in the early and mid-teens,
but
had been erratic for several years since,
though
he had been pitching decent baseball
at the time of the trade
but
Caldwell suffered from the disease of alcoholism,
then
considered a moral failing rather than a medical matter,
and thus was getting probably his last chance,
starting
with today’s game against the Philadelphia A’s
The A’s were in the midst of what would be
another last-place season,
their fifth straight
in a stretch of seven consecutive such finishes,
and
were pitching Rollie Naylor,
who came into the game
with a record of two wins and sixteen losses
But
given the game’s fine line between good and bad,
anyone can have a good game at any time,
and
Naylor had one of those today,
giving up
only three hits and two runs (one earned)
over his eight innings
But
Caldwell matched him pitch for pitch,
having
given up four hits and one run
when a sudden summer thunderstorm
rolled in off the lake
with two outs in the top of the ninth
A C–R–A–A–A–S–H
was heard in the stands,
though
the first lightning had gone unnoticed
But
the second flash
was seen,
and noted,
and felt,
most players feeling a slight tingle
from their metal spikes being in contact
with the charged ground
But somehow
Ray Caldwell was more affected
(though
no one was sure how or why it was so),
being knocked completely off his feet
without suffering any serious or lasting damage
He got up,
declined
any medical assistance,
declined
to come out of the game,
and
retired the last batter to finish the game,
and
then everybody got the hell off the field
safely—-
September 13, 1948
A Monday afternoon make-up game
against the woeful St. Louis Browns,
and
with the time of day and short notice
only seven thousand and eight fans were on hand,
in a year the team would set the
single-season attendance record,
to witness a near-tragedy
Early in a scoreless game
Don Black came to bat,
and
after fouling off the second pitch,
staggered out of the batter’s box
as though in a stupor,
and
then collapsed,
unconscious,
and
was taken to the hospital by ambulance
Had Black,
who suffered from alcoholism
but seemed to be in recovery,
suffered a relapse?
No
The papers reported
that he had suffered a burst aneurysm
(though it was more likely a leaking one
that had bled into his brain),
reported
that Black’s life hung in the balance,
reported,
in those days before medical privacy,
that doctors were giving him
a fifty-fifty chance of survival
Black did indeed survive the brain bleed,
but
his baseball career ended with that swing,
and
he died just over a decade later
at the age of forty-two
