The Original Curse (36 page)

5
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 12, 1918. Writer James Crusinberry noted that the Cubs would have won the game had Max Flack, who was as sure on a fly ball as any of them, not dropped one in a most critical spot.

6
.
Chicago Daily News
, June 5, 1918.

7
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 10, 1918.

8
.
Chicago American
, July 31, 1918.

9
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 19, 1918.

10
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 19, 1918.

11
.
Chicago Daily News
, June 14, 1918. The bill did not pass, but the committee that slipped it in obviously saw alcohol as a matter of conserving agricultural resources.

12
.
Chicago Tribune
, March 10, 1918.

13
.
Chicago Daily News
, April 6, 1918.

14
. Farwell,
Over There
, p. 131.

15
.
Chicago Tribune
, October 4, 1916.

16
. Chicago History Museum website: encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/352.html.

17
.
New York Times
, October 16, 1916.

18
. Kennedy,
Over Here
, p. 186.

19
. Alcott quote is from PBS’s online version of
Murder at Harvard
. It can be found at pbs.org/wgbh/amex/murder/peopleevents/p_immigrants.html.

20
.
Boston Globe
, April 21, 1918.

21
.
Boston Post
, August 15, 1918.

22
. Ellis,
Echoes of a Distant Thunder
, p. 363.

23
.
Boston Globe
, April 21, 1918.

24
.
New York Times
, April 23, 1918.

1
. The February 5, 1918, edition of the
Boston Globe
reported, “The California papers say that when ‘Dutch’ left there a week ago yesterday, he made the announcement that he was going East to enlist as a yeoman at Charlestown Navy Yard. It is known that before the close of the baseball season he made tentative plans for enlisting, but put them aside because of the illness of his wife.”

2
. Leonard’s World War I draft card can be seen on ancestry.com.

3
. Ritter,
The Glory of Their Times
, p. 301.

4
.
The Sporting News
, June 27, 1918.

5
.
Boston Globe
, May 22, 1918.

6
.
Boston American
, May 11, 1918.

7
. Letter from Harry Hooper to writer Lee Allen, dated May 10, 1963. Located in Hooper’s file at the Hall of Fame.

8
.
Boston American
, May 11, 1918.

9
.
The Sporting News
, May 23, 1918.

10
.
American Journal of Clinical Medicine
, 1914, p. 435.

11
.
Boston Globe
, May, 24, 1918.

12
. Montville,
The Big Bam
, p. 72.

13
.
Boston American
, July 20, 1918.

14
.
Boston American
, May 29, 1918.

15
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 12, 1918.

16
.
Baseball Magazine
, August 1918.

17
. Jones,
Deadball Stars of the American League
, p. 456.

18
.
Boston Globe
, June 17, 1917.

19
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 18, 1917.

20
.
Boston Globe
, August 31, 1915.

21
.
Chicago Daily News
, May 29, 1918.

22
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 30, 1918.

23
.
The Sporting News
, December 26, 1918.

24
.
The Sporting News
, June 6, 1918.

25
.
The Sporting News
, December 26, 1918.

26
. Asinof,
Eight Men Out
, p. 14.

27
. Nowlin,
When Boston Still Had the Babe
, p. 76.

1
. Baker won plaudits for his visit to the front and his willingness to see the war firsthand. His travels were detailed everywhere he went, and he did, indeed, visit trenches and see a bomb explode yards away from his transport. When he returned, in a speech called, “At the Front,” he described the story of the Frenchwoman.

2
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 24, 1918. With the rainout, the Giants reportedly stayed at their hotel and collected news about the work-or-fight edict.

3
.
Washington Post
, May 24, 1918.

4
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 24, 1918.

5
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 27, 1918.

6
. Douglas was a well-known alcoholic. Mann, meanwhile, was something of a health nut, and nuxated iron was a common blood-enhancing supplement. The Mann-Douglas relationship would prove to be fateful, as we’ll later see.

7
.
The Sporting News
, November 20, 1919. Tyler would go to the Mayo Clinic in 1919 and be found to be “in perfect health except for very bad teeth.”

8
.
New York Times
, May 24, 1918.

9
.
Chicago Daily News
, May 23, 1918.

10
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 26, 1918.

11
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 27, 1918.

12
.
Chicago Herald Examiner
, May 27, 1918.

13
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 28, 1918.

14
.
Chicago American
, July 31, 1918.

15
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 1, 1918.

16
.
Chicago Daily News
, June 10, 1918.

1
.
New York Times
, June 4, 1918.

2
.
New York Times
, June 5, 1918.

3
.
New York Times
, May 23, 1918.

4
.
New York Times
, June 6, 1918.

5
. The text, and an audio recording, of Gerard’s speech can be found at firstworldwar.com/audio/loyalty.htm.

6
.
New York Times
, June 2, 1918.

7
.
Boston American
, June 7, 1918.

8
.
Chicago Daily News
, June 8, 1918.

9
. Farwell,
Over There
, p. 127.

10
. Holli and Jones,
Ethnic Chicago
, p. 102.

11
.
Chicago Daily News
, June 1, 1918.

12
.
Boston Globe
, June 6, 1918.

13
.
The Sporting News
, June 13, 1918.

14
.
Boston Globe
, June 7, 1918.

15
.
Boston American
, May 5, 1918.

16
.
Boston Globe
, June 14, 1918.

17
.
Boston American
, June 23, 1918.

18
.
New York Times
, June 12, 1918.

19
.
Boston American
, June 16, 1918.

20
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 19, 1918.

21
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 28, 1918.

22
.
Boston American
, June 29, 1918.

23
.
Chicago Tribune
, February 8, 1921.

24
.
New York Times
, September 27, 1920.

1
. Duffey wrote in the
Post
, “Several of the players are following the movements of the Allies by means of maps clipped from various newspapers and every evening a Board of Strategy including Hooper, Walter Mayer, Strunk and a few more gather after dinner to just see what improvements the day’s doings have produced in the situation over there.” He joked about the players’ mispronunciations.

2
. The
New York Times
reported that the capture of Vaux Village on July 2, was, for the Americans, “the most important military operation they have so far executed.”

3
. Zingg,
Harry Hooper
, p. 39.

4
. Ritter,
The Glory of Their Times
, p. 139. Hooper worked for Western Pacific railroad while playing for Sacramento and explained, “I played with the Sacramento club mainly because they promised to get me a surveying job.”

5
. Jennings did say this—and more—about Hooper in 1913. The quotes are in Hooper’s file at the Hall of Fame.

6
.
Sports Today
, August 1971.

7
. Letter from Harry Hooper to writer Lee Allen, dated May 10, 1963. Located in Hooper’s file at the Hall of Fame.

8
.
Boston Globe
, July 4, 1918.

9
. Letter from Harry Hooper to writer Lee Allen, dated May 10, 1963. Located in Hooper’s file at the Hall of Fame.

10
.
The Sporting News
, July 11, 1918.

11
.
Boston Globe
, July 5, 1918.

12
.
Boston Globe
, July 5, 1918.

13
.
Sports Collector’s Digest
, November 3, 2000. Thomas acknowledged that joining the navy with diabetes wasn’t the smartest thing. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, “but I did.”

14
.
Boston American
, July 13, 1918.

15
.
Boston Globe
, July 10, 1918. Mrs. High was typical. Baseball wives frequently pressured their husbands to join the shipyard so they could make money and avoid the war.

16
. Ritter,
The Glory of Their Times
, p. 145.

17
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 12, 1918.

18
.
Boston American
, July 9, 1918.

19
.
Washington Post
, July 20, 1918.

20
.
Washington Post
, July 21, 1918.

21
.
Boston Globe
, July 21, 1918.

22
.
Washington Post
, July 23, 1918.

23
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 23, 1918.

24
. Zingg,
Harry Hooper
, p. 154.

25
.
Boston Globe
, July 27, 1918.

26
.
The Sporting News
. November 11, 1920.

1
. Allen,
The National League Story
, p. 160.

2
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 24, 1920.

3
.
Boston American
, July 28, 1918.

4
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 29, 1918.

5
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 31, 1918.

6
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 28, 1918.

7
. Ruether’s letter is part of the Chicago History Museum’s Asinof papers collection.

8
. The Department of Labor features an “inflation calculator” at bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

9
. Evenden, E. S.
Teachers’ Salaries and Schedules in the United States, 1918–1919
, p. 109.

10
.
New York Times
, August 28, 1918.

11
.
Boston Globe
, July 26, 1918.

12
.
The Sporting News
, August 13, 1942.

13
.
New York Times
, September 22, 1910.

14
. Lieb,
Baseball as I Have Known It
, p. 98.

15
.
The Sporting News
, June 6, 1918.

16
. From writer Lawrence Ritter’s interview with Roush, available on compact disc at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

17
.
The Sporting News
, August 15, 1918.

18
.
The Sporting News
, April 23, 1947.

19
. Dewey and Acocella,
The Black Prince of Baseball
, p. XII.

1
. The East Coast experienced a brutal heat and humidity wave in early August, and the
New York Times
reported on August 6, 1918, “that some 400,000 persons were at Coney Island and the nearby resorts.”

2
. The details of Jacob Hollocher’s early life can be found in census data on ancestry.com. He did grow up on a farm, began working for his brother (who was 24 years older than he was), and settled into life insurance thereafter. When Charley was young, Jacob pushed him into baseball.

3
. Charley’s brother, Louis Milton Hollocher, did have a middling minor-league career as a second baseman, batting .217 in a brief stint with Spokane in 1918 and then returning to the game after the war from 1920 to 1926, primarily for Terre Haute in the Three-I League. In the October 1918 edition of
Baseball Magazine
, Hollocher told of his brother’s enlistment and the letter he’d sent from Parris Island. According to census data, Milton also got married before joining the marines.

4
. On August 3, 1918, the
Chicago Daily News
reported, “Hollocher was given a box of cigars for getting the first hit of the game. The smokes were presented by a naval officer. Hollocher said, ‘Thank you,’ for the gift, but, as he did not use tobacco, passed them to the sailors in the stands.”

5
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 10, 1918.