Baseball Firsts

The 1943 Midsummer Classic at Shibe Park in Philadelphia was the first All Star Game held at night.

• The game didn't start until 9 pm E.W.T. (Eastern War Time) in order to attract more fans who had to work during the day.
• This remains the only All-Star game in which no New York Yankee played. Joe McCarthy, the Yankee skipper who was managing his seventh All-Star game, had been criticized in past year for selecting his own players as starters. So he reacted in 1943 by not even playing any of the five Yankees on his roster.
• A crowd of 31,938 contributed $115,000 to the war effort.
• The AL won 5-3 over the Senior Circuit team managed by Billy Southworth of the St. Louis Cardinals, who started five members of his defending World Series champs.
• The NL batting leader at the break at .331, Stan Musial appeared in the first of his 24 All-Star games. The Man singled in a run in the first inning.
• The classic was played under the lights again in 1944. After cancellation in 1945, the final year of the war, the game returned to the afternoon in 1946. It was not played at night again until 1968 but has been played after dark ever since.

Cy Rigler

John McGraw

Dutch Ruether

Zack Wheat

This the third installment on the perils of umpiring in the early 20th century. The first two pieces involved umpire Charley Moran. The two incidents described here pertain to one of his colleagues, Cy Rigler. The New York Times is once again our source.

September 17, 1917: New York Giants @ Pittsburgh Pirates, second game of doubleheader

All had gone smoothly in the two games until the seventh inning of the nightcap.

• Giants Manager McGraw "was sent from the field by Umpire Rigler for making undue noise on the bench while the Pirates were at bat. A little later the spectators were surprised to see the entire squad of Giants leaving the field, headed by Christy Mathewson. With a vigorous sweep of his arm, Rigler compelled every one of the visitng players to march away, leaving not a Giant on the grounds except those in the game."
• "Luckily Jacobson and Schauer were out warming up when Rigler issued his exodus order, and both were made use of later. ... Counting McGraw, there were altogether nineteen players who were sent from the grounds."

The Pirates swept the DH from the last place Giants, 9-6 and 5-0.

The second incident involving Umpire Cy Rigler was much more serious and brought the wrath of the home crowd down on him.

May 22, 1921: Chicago Cubs vs. Brooklyn Dodgers @ Ebbets Field

"Pop Bottles Rain as Dodgers Lose"

That was the headline in the Times for the article on the Cubs 6-4 victory before 10,000 fans. "The most shameful demonstration of rowdyism witnessed at the Flatbush ball yard this season" came at the end of the seventh inning and continued into the eighth.

• RF Turner Barber made "a wonderful catch" on P Dutch Ruether's liner closed the seventh leaving two Dodger runners stranded and the Cubs still leading 2-1. However, in making the catch, Barber, "running like the wind ... dug his nose into the ground as he described a somersault after grabbing the ball."
• The crowd thought that Barber dropped the ball, but Umpire Rigler, working the bases, ruled it a catch.
• "Immediately bedlam broke loose. As one man, the Brooklyn team rushed on to the field to protest and to illustrate to Rigler just how the catch was impossible. Disgruntled fans in the stand back of first base shied a few bottles at the umpire. Though several came near hitting the mark, the 'Flatbush confetti' fell harmlessly on the turf."
• As the Dodgers finally took the field, fans in the LF bleachers began throwing pop bottles also, causing LF Zach Wheat to seek shelter in the unoccupied "circus bleachers." The demonstration continued for ten minues until the ammunition supply was exhausted. "A staff of special policemen and vendors made short work of removing the debris and broken glass." But even after the game resumed, several more bottles were tossed at Rigler as he worked behind 1B.
• At the end of the game, two policemen trailed the ump as he exited the field to assure his safety.

Rigler umpired in the NL from 1906 to 1935. He worked ten World Series.

Hall of Famer Earl Weaver wasn't a conventional manager - at least if believing in the hit-and-run and bunt makes you conventional. He also didn't believe in removing his starters because of a pitch count.

• Weaver won one pennant by making only 167 pitching changes in 159 games. Another year he used only 12 pitchers for an entire championship season.
• He enunciated his famous mantra "Pitching, defense and the three-run homer" after a 1979 game in which his pinch-hitter hit a walkoff 3-run HR in the tenth.
• "Before Moneyball, before Beane, before Bill James .... Weaver, a white-haired gnome who never played a day of MLB, knew what worked." Red Sox GM Theo Epstein: "He would develop arms on the big league level by bringing up a young P and putting him in the bullpen, mostly out of long relief. Once he got some experience he could move into the rotation."
• After managing in the minors, Earl was hired by the Orioles midway through the 1968 season. He immediately asked the PR director to compile stats on how each Oriole batter did against opposing Ps and vice-versa. Before each series, the stat crew would give Weaver the batter-pitcher matchups handwritten on sheets of paper. (No PCs in those days. Earl probably wouldn't have used one anyway.) On many occasions, Weaver went against conventional wisdom because the stats told him that, for example, weak-hitting SS Mark Belanger could hit Nolan Ryan. So in a tie game in the 10th with runners on second and third, Earl let Belanger face Ryan, and Mark drove in both with a single.

Earl Weaver confronting the umps

Jim Palmer

• Bill James wrote: "He used everybody. Probably more than any other manager in history, Weaver had carefully defined roles for every player on his roster - not because he cared about the players, but because he cared about the games." Earl was not a "players' manager." He spoke to his charges only when necessary. His feud with star P Jim Palmer is legendary. "Weaver liked winning a whole lot more than he liked ballplayers. He never shook his winning P's hand after a game. He wanted nothing to do with emotion or friendship." Palmer's explanation: "I don't think Earl ever wanted anything to do with anything that interfered with him winning baseball games."
• Weaver is best remembered for his clashes with umpires. He was thrown out of more games than any AL manager in history. He was thrown out in spring training. He was tossed twice in the World Series and twice in one day. (YouTube video of Earl at his best/worst - not for sensitive ears.)
• Weaver was no fan of team speed (except on defense). Once, when asked a question by the host on his radio show about why the Orioles didn't have more team speed, he replied: "Team speed, for crissakes! You get *** little fleas on the *** bases getting picked off, trying to steal, getting thrown out, taking runs away from you. Get some big ***s who can hit the *** ball out of the ballpark and you can't make any *** mistakes." (The diatribe didn't actually air but was taped as a joke. Hear it on YouTube - foul language galore!)
• "I never had a hit-and-run. No sign. ... I hear it on the radio. Get a guy on first. He walked. The pitcher is 2 and 0 on the next batter. 'Perfect time for a hit-and-run,' the announcer says. If the P could throw a strike, don't you think he would have thrown it to the guy on first?"
• Earl managed Baltimore for 12 full seasons (1969-1980) during which the team failed to win 90 games only twice (and won 88 in one of those years). After he retired from the Os, Weaver turned down George Steinbrenner who asked him to manage the Yankees in 1985. That would have been quite an act! Weaver and Steinbrenner would have outzanied Billy Martin-Steinbrenner.

Reference: "Earl Weaver: A Mind for the Game," Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, July 13, 2009
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