If there ever were a batter that was bound together in life
and death, it was probably pitcher Rube Waddell and catcher Osee
Schrecongost. They were both born in
small communities in western Pennsylvania, on opposite sides of the Allegheny
National Forest, and a little less than 100 miles from each other. They both broke into the majors with the same
team on the same day. For four seasons
(1902 though 1905), they both served for the Philadelphia Athletics as
teammates, batteymates, and roommates.
They both ended their professional careers in the same year, 1910, and
they both died within a little more than three months of each other – neither
of them having reached the age of 40.Waddell was a star pitcher, and has been a member of the
National Baseball Hall of Fame since 1946.
“Schreck” – as he was typically called – was often a team’s backup
catcher, both in the minor leagues and the majors, but he got in a fair amount
of work and was both a good hitter and an excellent defender.
Osee Freeman Schrecongost is an unusual name, though his
surname was not uncommon, particularly in Pennsylvania in his day. With a brother two years older name Harry and
a sister two years younger named Annie, one might wonder today where the Osee
came from. there have been numerous
spellings of his name, both first and last, and the spellings differ on some
records to this day. He was born on
April 11, 1875, in New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a Clarion County borough about
60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Two
years later he was baptized in Mt. Lebanon (under 10 miles from Pittsburgh in a
southwesterly direction) and is listed in the baptismal records of the Mt.
Lebanon United Presbyterian Church as Osie Freeman Schreckenhost.
His family appears in the 1880 United States census living
in Redbank Township, Clarion County, Pennsylvania, not be confused with another
Red Bank about 20 miles further east.
His parents were listed as Naman Shrecongost, a miner age 29, and his
wife, Sarah C. Shrecongost, 26. Their
three children were Harry H., Osee F., and Annie I. They also had three boarders in their
household at the time, all three of whom were miners: Adam and John Huffman and
Emet Murphy. The area was one of coal
mines and most of the people in their neighborhood were miners. Listed only a couple of residences away was
another Naman Shrecongost and his wife, Sadie, both a few years younger but
without children. Newspapers of the day
did refer to Osee’s father as “Big Norman.”
On our man’s gravestone in nearby Kittaning Cemetery, the
marker – not infallible itself – presents his name as Osee F.
Schrencongost. SABR member Dan O’Brien
interviewed grandson Charles Dundas and family genealogist Christine
Crawford-Oppenheimer and concluded that the correct rendition of his name is F.
Osee Schrecongost, that his father’s name was spelled Naaman and that his
mother Sarah was born Sarah Caroline Protzman.
The Schrecongost name was German.
Osee was pronounced “Oh-See.”[1]
What we’re most interested of course, is his life in
baseball. Josh Walzak, a writer for the
New Bethlehem newspaper, the Leader-Vindictator, wrote a lengthy feature
on Schreck in its September 8, 1999, issue.
He says the family lived in Fairmount City, less than two miles from New
Bethlehem, and that the young man attended school there until about the age of
10, when the family moved to an apartment on Broad Street in New
Bethlehem. Osee went to work in the
mines as a teenager, but played baseball too, and was a standout with the town
teams of 1893 and 1894. The newspaper at
the time spelled his name Ossee Scheckengost.
In 1895 Osee struck out on his own, moving to Williamsport
to play semipro ball for a team sponsored by the Domestic Sewing Machin
Co. He wound up playing for the Demorest
Base Ball Club of Williamsport, which became the championship team in Central
Pennsylvania League ball that year. The Philadelphia
Inquirer carried him in box scores as Schrencongost, though more often in
the lineups as “Schr’st” and “Sch’st,” and the like. Virtually the whole Demorest team was signed
again for 1896[2]. Schreck started 1896
by hitting a home run on Opening Day, May 16.
While no league statistics could be located, Sporting Life did
note at year end, in its December 2, 1896, issue, that the ”Demorest
Manufacturing Company will put one of the strongest ball teams in the field
next year that has ever represented the city of Williamsport on the local
diamond. If the Centra Pa. League in not
reorganized again the team will play independent ball, and will probably travel
in a private car and make trips through the South and West, and will rival the
Page Fence Giants. [The Giants were one
of the best black teams of the 1890s.]
The Demorest team will be composed of a set of gentlemanly players, and
will contain some of last year’s players.”
Among them, it was noted, was F.O. Schrecongost, the young and coming
player, [who] will cover first bag and act as change catcher.”
Schrecongost had an active year in 1897 and it’s a little
difficult to track just where he played and when. His record shows him playing for Augusta in
the Maine State League, possibly as early as the later part of 1896[3]. He’s been on a Brockton (Massachusetts)
contract, somehow, but was released to Augusta on a temporary contract on May
6[4]/ he was returned to Brockton and
then released by Brockton on July 6[5].
He next turned up with Fall River, Massachusetts, the New England
League, playing on July 10 but appearing in only four games for the Indians,
hitting .353. A few weeks later the Boston
Herald noted that he was now playing for the Shamokin club in the Central
Pennsylvania League[6]. The Coal Heavers
folded, though, “owing to lack of patronage," September 7[7]. The paper noted that Osee had received offers
from both Louisville and Philadelphia.
Indeed, the very next day – September 8 – he shows up catching for
Louisville (presented as Sch’t in the box score).
That was the day Schrecongost first played in the major
leagues, debuting with the National League’s Louisville Colonels on September
8, 1897. He was 0-for-3 in the game, his
only one that year. He was charged with
a passed ball. Pitcher Rube Waddell made
his big-league debut in the same game, Baltimore beating Louisville, 5-1. The syndicated news report from Baltimore
described it as “a dull and uninteresting game.: Waddell, it was written, “pitched a good
game, but worked against some very hard luck.”[8] How good it was could be debatable, given the
four bases on balls Rube doled out and the 11 hits he surrendered. Waddell also hit a batter. He struck out two.
The Baltimore Sun noted, “Catcher Schrecongost was
merely given a trial by Louisville yesterday, and while he caught a good game
he did not show any extraordinary talent, and his batting was rather weak. President Harry Pulliam refused to buy
him, and Schrecongost left for home in Fall River, last night. Mr. Pulliam said, ‘He caught well, but we
have two catchers already who are just as good, if not better, and we did not
need him.’ The Sun said that Pulliam did like Waddell and would keep
him. “He has much to learn, but shows
promise….”[9]
The Sun also reported that a Chicago paper had sent a
telegram to Pulliam asking, “Is that catcher’s name on the level?” It was only one of a number Pulliam received
when sports editors at various newspapers saw the full name Schrecongost.
That this first meeting between Schrecongost and Waddell
ultimately led to a lifelong, intertwined relationship is remarkable in that
they’d only been in the same place at the same time for about 24 hours, and, as
noted in the newspaper, neither of them knew the other and hardly had anyone
else known who they were. The Washington
Evening Star reprinted a story from Baltimore:
“That was a peculiar state
of affairs in the Louisville team on Wednesday; in which the pitcher did
not know his catcher’s name, the catcher was ignorant of the pitcher’s name,
and the members of the team, including the manager himself, were unacquainted
with the names of either of the young men
composing the club’s battery for the day. Waddell only joined the team in Washington
and Schrecongost joined the team a short time before the game, having come here
on trial. This all-around ignorance of
names was shown when some spectators in the grand stand asked the catcher who
was pitching. ‘I don’t know. I never saw him before,’ was Schrecongost’s
reply. Presently Waddell came back to
the bench and some one asked him who the catcher was, and he replied, ‘Couldn’t
tell you – first time I ever saw him.’”
“ ‘Who will be in the points today,’ was asked of Manager
Clarke before the game by the Sun reporter. ‘This man will pitch’ he replied, pointing to
the name ‘Weddell’ in the score card, and that tall fellow over there will
catch. I don’t know what his name is,
‘But he called to Schrecongost and got that young man to spell his name out for
the newspaper man, regardless of how long it delayed the game.
“When asked if ‘Weddell’ was the correct name, Manager
Clarke replied, ‘Don’t know; you will have to ask him.’ “[10]
Some listings also show Schreck as having been with both
Williamsport and the Sunbury Pirates (both of the Central Pennsylvania League)
at one point or another, in addition to Shamokin. There were quite a few shifts in team within
the league that year. Once again, in a
postseason (November 6) issue, Sporting Life anticipated him playing for
Williamsport in 1898.
It had been quite a year.
“My minor league experience was a nightmare,” he said. “I played with four different minor leagues
in one season. The manager of the
Augusta club of the Maine State league owed me $70. When I asked him for it he told me that I had
been fined that amount, and I didn’t get a cent. When I hooked up with the Williamsport team
the manager soon owed me $50, and he just tacked a fine that took all that was
coming to me. I have no growl coming
about my experience in Youngstown.”[11]
Schreck played for three teams in 1898. He began the season with Cedar Rapids (Iowa)
in the Western Association, but Cedar Rapids disbanded on June 9 and the whole
league followed suit on the 26th.
Between the two June dates, Schrecongost caught for the team in Ottumwa,
Iowa. After the league folded, he played
the rest of the time with the last-place Youngest (Ohio) Puddlers in the
Inter-State League.
Baseball-Reference.com has him hitting .280 in 78 games for Youngstown,
but the October 8, Sporting Life said he had led the team with a .310
average. He hit a couple of homers, on
July 5 and September 14. As it happened,
the very next day, Stanley Robison, owner of the NL franchise in
Cleveland, came to look over both him and pitcher Charlie Knepper.
Schreck was described as “the premier backstop of the
league” and was sold to the Spiders for $300 in a deal announced on September
27, getting into ten games for them and hitting .314 with ten RBIs[12]. Cleveland manager Patsy Tebeau was high on him: “We will use Schrecongost
in almost every game next year … for his hitting ability. He is an Indian at the bat, biting at
everything, high, low, out, or in, and very often making doubles and triples
off wild pitches. It is next to
impossible for a twirler to get ‘Schreck’ in a hole, for all pitching looks
alike to him.”[13]
In 1899,
Schrecongost trained with Tebeau’s team in Hot Springs, Arkansas, but shuttled
back and forth from Cleveland to St. Louis during the year. Tebeau continued to boost him in the
springtime and it was written that even as they arrived for training, “[w]hen
Tebeau introduced Schrecongost to the people at the depot he added after each
hand shake: ‘Here is the little boy who is to lead out team in batting this
year.’ Patsy hopes to make a change
first baseman out of Schreck, and to use him in nearly every game.”[14] Schreck wasn’t all that little; at 5-feet-10
he stood two inches taller than Tebeau, and at 180 (a weight he admittedly may
not have yet attained) he had nearly 20 pounds on his manager.
Early on, on March
28, 1899, the entire Cleveland ballclub was transferred to St. Louis after the
league expelled the earlier St. Louis owners and installed a new group in its
place. Schrecongost was one of 16 Spiders
– including Tebeau – so assigned. It’s a
story we’ll not go into here, but brothers Frank DeHaas Robison and
Stanley Robison each owned shares in both ballclubs in 1899, Frank had founded
the Cleveland club, and he and Stanley were part of a group that purchased the
bankrupts St. Louis Browns, and then moved most of the better players to St.
Louis, loading up the team they dubbed the Perfectos but leaving Cleveland with
a team that finished 12th with a record (the worst in major league
history) of 20-134.
In the early going,
Osee appeared in six 1899 games for St. Louis without a hit. On June 5 he and Frank Bates were assigned
to Cleveland. There were “Rumors of a
Rumpus” between Tebeau and Ed
McKean which led to the trade. In any event, once he joined the Spiders in
New York, in time to get into the June 7 game, it was soon reported that
“Schrecongost made an instantaneous hit here.
Like Tebeau, Schreck plays ball all the time.”[15] The trade came in time for him to get his
photograph published in Base Ball magazine over the caption: “Ossee
Schrecongost, The Rising Young Catcher of the Cleveland Club.”[16] He had “fought his way into popularity here
[Cleveland] by the desperately earnest manner in which he plunges into every
game. He is a second Pat Tebeau in this
respect, forgetting everything else when he is playing ball, but the desire to
win.”[17] The Cleveland club was
sometimes given the nickname the Exiles in the national press, and the Washington
Post called the catcher the “Ghost.”[18]
Schreck even beat St. Louis, winning one of those 20 games for the
Exiles, with three hits – including a triple – in a 3-1 win over the Perfectos
on June 25 in St. Louis.
But then, on July
31, Osee was back with St. Louis, having arrived that morning. Though indeed both clubs were owned by
Robisons, it was reported that “Tebeau ‘purchased’ him yesterday from President
Stanley Robison of the Cleveland Club.”[19]
Schrecongost played the rest of the ’99 season for St. Louis, and is
listed as – overall – hitting .313 in his time with Cleveland and .286 for St.
Louis, with two homers but otherwise not that much power though August 28 he
hit a double and a triple in the same game, a 14-12 loss to Washington. He played a mixture of first base and
catcher, sometimes playing first when Lou Criger was catching. And there was some passion in Schreck’s
play. He even got into a fight with
teammate Mike Donlin at the Grand Central depot in Cincinnati on
August 7 just before the train pulled out for Pittsburgh. Schreck was upset that two of Donlin’s
“rifle-shot throws to the plate” had been low and struck Schreck in the shins. He said something to Donlin, three years his
junior, at the station and “quick as a flash the Californian turned and whipped
his right across the catcher’s jaw, who went down in a heap. When he regained his feet he started for
Donlin, who again felled him like a log.
Schrecongost again got up and an exchange of vicious blows followed, but
Donlin was getting the best of it when Schrecongost stopped to pick up a
coupling pin.” Several players and some
bystanders stepped in at that point to disarm Schreck[20].
In 1900 Schrecongost
played for Buffalo, in the one year that Ban Johnson’s Western League was named
the American League but considered a minor league. In 1901 Johnson founded a different American
League, the first year of the AL, which has lasted into the 21st
century. The 25-year-old Schrecongost
had been farmed out to the Buffalo Bisons by St. Louis before the season began
in May. He played in 125 games, batting
.282, catching more than 75 percent of the games and playing first base the
rest of the time[21].
Schreck joined that
new American League in 1901, signing on early with the Boston Americans
(manager Jimmy Collins, a Buffalo-area native, knew of his work),
but destined from the start to be backup catcher behind Lou Criger. On March 4 it was reported that
he would break his contract with St. Louis and jump to the new league to play
for Boston[22]. Acknowledging that he
was a hitting catcher, the April 14 Boston Journal ran a trick
photograph showing two overlapping images of Schrecongost both batting and
catching at the same time.
In fact, he
performed admirably, appearing in 86 games – ten more than Criger – and hitting
for a .304 average, exceptional for a catcher in those days and well above the
.278 team average. Criger was surer on
defense, however, and – no small consideration – was Cy Young’s favorite
catcher. Cy Young was 33-10 that
year, and if he wanted a personal catcher, that was fine with manager Jimmy
Collins. All three – Schreck, Criger,
and Young – had been on the Perfectos in 1899, and the latter two played for
St. Louis in 1900 while Schreck was in Buffalo.
Charlie Hemphill was the fourth St. Louis player to jump
leagues and come to Boston.
Scheck did take part
in the first triple play in franchise history, on August 7, 1901, at Baltimore,
a 1-5-2-6-1 affair.
The day before the
season ended, owner Charles
Somers re-signed Criger and Young
for 1902, but not Schrecongost, Hemphill, or Tommy Dowd. Schreck played for Cleveland (an America
League city from the start), and then the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902. Exactly why Somers didn’t want to retain
Schrecongost, we don’t know, but a Boston Herald report a year later –
enthusing over his 1902 season – said that Schreck had ”proved a most
unreliable man for Boston last season.”[23]
In any event Boston traded him to Cleveland on November 16 for Candy LaChance, who became the first baseman for the Bostons for the next few
years. Cleveland fully intended to use
Schreck at first base, rather than a catcher.
Schrecongost picked
up a little extra work in the preseason of 1902, coaching the batteries and the
hitters for the University of Virginia baseball team in Charlottesville[24].
Though he was
hitting .338 for Cleveland after 18 games, playing first base exclusively,
Schrecongost was released on May 13.
It’s a bit of a mystery why, but as it worked out Cleveland added Charlie Hickman a few weeks later and Hickman wound up batting .378[25]. Schreck signed as a free agent with the
Philadelphia Athletics on May 22, and appeared in 79 games for them (71 as
catcher), batting .324[26]. For a
catcher, who presumably had a good eye for the strike zone, he didn’t walk that
much, just 102 times in 3,501 career plate appearances. His career batting average was .271 and his
on-base percentage .297.
Athletics manager Connie Mack had tried to get Schreck the year before, according to a few April 1901
newspaper stories[27]. Now, in 1902,
Mack had his man. In the first few years
of building the American League, there were transactions and transitions that
occurred for reasons that are opaque to us today.
A few weeks after he
joined Philadelphia Schreck became reunited with Rube Waddell, who joined the
Athletics on June 19. One of their most
productive pairings on the field in 1902 came against Boston on July 9 when Bill Dinneen and Waddell each pitched all 17 innings in Boston, a game that went to
Waddell, 4-2. Schreck was 4-for -6 and
was involved in couple of the runs. He
drove in the first Athletics run and then tripled in the top of the 17th
and came in on Rube’s long fly for the fourth run of the game. His two=out double (some papers had it as a
triple) in the ninth won another game for Waddell on July 18 against the White
Sox. He was literally carried off the
field on the shoulders of the crowd[28].
And on the 21st, his single in the ninth gave Waddell another
“W.”
Philadelphia won the
1902 pennant and Waddell was 24-7, with a 2.05 ERA, both being the best marks
on the club – all those victories coming in two-thirds of a season, given that
he’d only arrived a little after mid-June.
Waddell was a pretty good hitter, too, batting .286 in 1902. Winning the pennant didn’t take the team to
the World Series. It was only the
following year, in 1903, when Boston and Pittsburgh squared off in the
postseason that the modern “World Series” began. Schreck and Rube had become roommates and
began to have associations away from the Athletics, too. The two picked up a little more cash playing
a pair of later September and early October games for the Camden, New Jersey,
ballclub.
Newspapers had
generally dropped “Schrecongost” in their stories. Baseball researchers need to hunt for all
three names. one of Osee's nicknames was
"Rocking Horse,” which began when Williamsport teammate Humphries had
called him that, in mispronouncing his name, wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer
in explaining why cartoonist Charles Bell always showed Schreck on a rocking
horse[29].
Boston won the
pennant and the World Series in 1903; the Athletics finished second, but 14 ½
games behind. Schreck fell off sharply
in his batting, dropping from .324 to .255.
He played in 13 more games than in 1902, bur drove in 30 percent fewer
runs (30 instead of 43) and scored 42 percent fewer runs (26, down from
45). And in 1904, he played in 75 games
and saw his production drop yet further: hitting just .186, driving in 21 and
scoring 23. He improved his defensive
work behind home plate, however, climbing in fielding percentage from .960 to
.975 and .979. Schreck had an unusual
style of catching one-handed, and somehow managed to deal quite well with
Waddell’s unpredictable pitches. The
eccentric pitcher didn’t always throw the ball as signaled. Teammate Harry Davis wrote of
Schreck after Waddell and the catcher had died, “There are very few catchers
today who can catch one ball if they are crossed in this manner, particularly
with the gloved hand alone, as Schreck invariably did.”[30]
Schreck was also
noted for his success in throwing out would-be basestealers. there was even one time that injuries to the
other catchers forced him to play despite a broken finger on his throwing hand,
and he managed to throw out a St. Louis batter attempting to steal second on
him. Davis recalled opposing manager Jimmy McAleer exclaiming, “What is the use, they can beat us with a one-armed
catcher.[31]
Waddell was clearly
a great pitcher, accurate but also deceptive.
Schreck had been known to say that “on days when Rube’s fast ball was
right all the batsmen would hit so far under it that he could see an inch or two
of daylight when the bat and the ball as the latter shot by.”[32]
Waddell was
fortunate to be able to pitch it all in 1903.
During spring training in Jacksonville, he and Schreck were sitting on a
pier watching the waves, when Waddell suddenly said, “Ossie, I believe I will
jump in here and commit suicide.”
Schreck said, “Go ahead, it will be a good thing.” He jumped, fully dressed, and narrowly missed
several piles sticking out of the water which had long spikes on them. “When he came up he walked out on the beach
and, taking a soggy baseball, proceeded to amuse the spectators by splitting a
board with terrific drives from his arm.”
He then went out on the pier and plunged off it again[33].
In July Rube
suddenly left the Athletics and started playing for a team of college players
in Atlantic City. He said Schreck was
going to join him[34]. Cooler heads
prevailed, and Waddell got married and instead and spent Sunday, July 12, with
Mr. and Mrs. Schrecongost and a volunteer fireman from Atlantic City name
William Stephany[35]. He threw a 2-0
shutout against the White Sox on the 14th.
They were roommates,
but the notion that they were inseparable was decried by Athletics first
baseman Harry Davis: “This was not
so. ‘Rube’ seldom went anywhere with any
of the ball players. He preferred to
travel with the many friends he had who were in on way connected with the
game. Schreck only went along when
Waddell was asked to bring his catcher with him, and that might happen more
than once or twice in a season.”[36]
They were both
eccentric, though, and the most widely circulated story regarding them as
roommates (sharing a double bed, as baseball roommates often did in those days)
is that Waddell refused to sign an Athletics contract one year unless manager
Mack agreed to prohibit Schreck from eating animal crackers in bed. Another version had Schreck voicing that
complaint about the Rube[37].
There’s another tale
that had Schreck getting a very tough steak at a hotel restaurant in
Cleveland. He sent it back, and the same
steak came back again, presented differently.
After the third visit of the steak proved equally difficult to cut, he
asked the waiter, “Say, can you get me a hammer and some nails?” he then took the steak, and the hammer and
nails, into the hotel lobby and nailed the steak to the wall[38].
Schreck sold cigars
during the winter after the 1902 and 1903 seasons[39]. His application for a liquor license was
rejected in April 1904[40]. And the
cigar business was said to be why his last name became truncated: “Owing to the limits of the building in which
he does a cigar business, the Athletic backstop sawed his sign name down O.
Schreck.”[41]
The year, 1904, had
been a true down year, with Schreck hitting that .186, and three of the outs he
made came early in the season, on May 5, when he, Waddell and the other
Athletics were victims of Cy Young, who pitched a perfect game in Boston.
Osee’s 1905 season
got off to a halting start. He missed
most of spring training, with his father dying and then, not long after he
returned to camp, his sister, Annie, died and he had to go back home once
more[42].
Things turned around
1905. Schreck hit .271, drove in 45
runs, improved his fielding percentage to .984 in 123 games, and helped
roommate Waddell post a 27-10 record with an ERA of 1.48 (leading the league in
wins and ERA), and helping boost the Athletics from 1904’s fifth place to the
pennant. He set a record, catching 29
innings in one day, on July 4, 1905, in Boston.
This year was his worst one, though, for working bases on balls. He came to the plate 429 times and walked
just three times.
Schreck caught the
first three games of the 1905 World Series against the New York Giants, hitting
.222. Waddell missed the last month of
the season and the Series, and the Giants won it in five games. Alcohol played a factor in things falling
apart near the end of Waddell’s season.
Connie Mack was reported to have felt compelled to hire a bodyguard for
Waddell “to keep the Rube straight as possible, and now the latter’s catcher,
Ossie Schreckengost, has also fallen from grace.”[43] He had been ”breaking the temperance clause
in his contract.”[44] Schreck’s .222 in
the Series may not seem impressive, but was second only to Topsy Hartsel’s .235 on an Athletics team that hit only .155. The Athletics scored just three runs in the
five games, all in Game Two, and all the runs were unearned (Schreck scored two
of them); they were shut out three times by Christy Mathewson.
Despite not being
present over the final weeks, save for starting in a loss on October 7, Waddell
had nonetheless won 27 games, his fourth year in a row as a 20-game
winner. There was discussion that winter
of Rube and Schreck performing in a vaudeville show called The Battery[45]. It’s not clear if the show was ever staged.
The Athletics
finished fourth in 1906, 12 games out of first place. Schreck had hit for a better average, .284,
and been more productive in the games he played, but he appeared in 98 games,
down 25 from 1905. And there were some
suggestions that he hurt the team significantly. Sportswriter Francis C. Richter, writing from
Philadelphia, told Sporting Life: “Mack sent catcher Schreck home from
St. Louis because he remained out all night on September 21 without the
knowledge or consent of the manager. The
latter made no bones of saying Schreck had misconducted himself frequently
during the second half of the season; that his conduct was one of the chief
causes of the breakdown, and that Schreck stood suspended for balance of
season.”[46] Schreck said he had done no
drinking, but merely stayed overnight with some “old-time German friends.” One suspects the discipline was not the
result of just one infraction. A month
earlier, Richter had written, “Schreck appears to have let down all
around.”[47]
Whatever other
issues may have obtained, perhaps Schreck had simply passed his peak in terms
of play on the field. The stats he put
up in 1907 were comparable to 1906: .272 instead of .284, three fewer RBIs, one
more run scored, and he improved on defense to a .985 fielding percentage,
remarkably high for a catcher[48]. He
did suffer what at first, seemed to be a broken thumb on July 13, but it turned
out to be just one which was “mashed”; he still played in 101 games.
In 71 games in 1908,
Schreck hit .222 for the Athletics, with only 16 RBIs. Near the end of the season, he was ready to
leave Philadelphia “and outlived his welcome with the fans of that city,” so
Mr. Mack placed him on waivers[49]. One
wonders what else was going on with the team; an August 1 story in Sporting
Life said, “[h]alf a dozen of the Athletics have shaved their heads to
stall off baldness. Schreck mowed a
four-inch swathe along the middle of his scalp.” There were indeed recurring notes in his last
few years that made it clear Schreck had a problem with alcohol.
Only one team
claimed his off waivers – the White Sox.
He played in six games for them at the tail of 1908 and had three
singles in 16 at-bats, suffering a true broken finger in the bottom of the
eighth innings on October 2. A spitball
from Big Ed Walsh was the culprit. Walsh was a 40-game winner in 1908, but lost
this one to Addie Joss, who threw a perfect game. Schreck was on the losing end of another
perfecto, and out for the season. It
proved to be his last game in the major league.
On January 25, 1909,
Chicago’s owner Charles Comiskey traded Schreck to the Columbus
Senators. He his a far from impressive
.203 in 60 games. Sold on April 19,
1910. Schreck began the season with
Louisville and hit .207 in 71 games before he was traded for Emmet Reilly –
sent all the way down to Class D ball, reporting on August 29 to play for the
Marion Diggers in the Ohio State League.
There Schreck hit .275 in 29 games, and left Organized Baseball. His arm had “gone back on him completely,”
according to a June 20, 1911, story in the Washington Evening Star that
had him playing with an independent team in Ford City, Pennsylvania. He also did some scouting for Connie Mack –
and, along with scout Al Maul, is credited with signing Shoeless Joe Jackson to the Athletics in 1908[50]. According to the story, Schreck started
traveling north with Jackson to bring him to Philadelphia, but when they got as
far north as Charlotte, Jackson was getting homesick and jumped off the train,
hiding from Schreck.
Schreck did sign to
play for York in February 1913 and may have played for some teams not in
Organized Baseball. It’s not clear if he
ever played for York.
Just as Schreck’s
father and sister had died one not long after the other in 1905, so it was for
Rube Waddell and Osee Schrecongost in 1914.
It appears that both neglected their health. Waddell died of tuberculosis in San Antonio
on April 1, 1914. When he learned of the
pitcher’s death, Schreck is reported to have said, “The Rube is gone and I am
all in. I might as well join him.”[51]
One hundred days
later, on July 9, 1914, Osee Schrecongost died “of a complication of diseases”
at Northwestern General Hospital in Philadelphia – the same hospital where Doc Powers, the other main catcher on the Athletics during Schreck’s years, had
died in 1909, at age 38, Schreck was 39.
He had collapsed
around noon the day before in a local café.
His constitution had been undermined.
The City of Philadelphia death certificate indicates heart disease and
Bright’s disease, a kidney disease.
Uremia was noted in newspaper accounts at the time. The death certificate notes that he was
divorced. He is buried in Kittaning
Cemetery. His mother survived him, and
lived until 1927.
After the loss of
Rube and Schreck within such a short time span, Sporting Life averred:
"Waddell and Schreck, when they were working right were almost
unbeatable. Schreck’s most notable trait
was that he was the only catcher who could make Waddell pitch his best. If their habits had been on par with their
professional skill, Rube and Schreck would probably be alive and playing ball
today.”[52]
For more information click here: Ossee Schreckengost - Wikipedia
This biography can be found in “New Century, New Team: The 1901 Boston Americans” (SABR, 2013), edited by Bill Nowlin. To order the book, click here.
Sources
In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Schrecongost’s player file from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Retrosheet.org, and Baseball-Reference.com.
Notes
1 Dan O’Brien, “F. Osee Schrecongost,” in David Jones, ed., Deadball Stars of the American League (Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2006), 600. Presented in the book is Schrecongost’s signature, and that is the way he signed his name.
2 Sporting Life, December 21, 1895.
3 The Bethlehem Leader-Vindicator reports that he had gone to Augusta later in 1896, though – and more likely – Sporting Life that December had him as up-and-coming still with Williamsport.
4 Sporting Life, May 1 and May 15, 1897.
5 Boston Herald, July 8, 1897.
6 Boston Herald, August 5, 1897.
7 Philadelphia Inquirer, September 8, 1897.
8 See, for instance, the Cleveland Leader of September 9, 1897.
9 Baltimore Sun, September 9, 1897.
10 Washington Evening Star, September 10, 1897.
11 Boston Herald, May 19, 1899.
12 The quotation comes from Sporting Life, September 24, 1898. The date of the release comes from the May 7 Boston Herald.
13 Sporting Life, December 17, 1898.
14 Sporting Life, March 18, 1899.
15 Sporting Life, June 17, 1899.
16 Base Ball, July 8, 1899.
17 Sporting Life, July 15, 1899.
18 Washington Post, August 13, 1899. The “Ghost” nickname seems not to have stuck.
19 Sporting Life, August 5, 1899.
20 Cleveland Leader, August 8, 1899. Over a year later, Donlin offered a whole different take on what happened, saying the row had been in Philadelphia, between Burkett and Schreck, and resulted in those two becoming fast friends, though he did admit to punching Schreck in Pittsburgh. See Sporting Life, November 17, 1900.
21 The May 5, 1900, Boston Herald characterized Schreck’s assignment to Buffalo as having been farmed out by St. Louis, as had other papers such as the Rockford Republic of April 27. He also played eight games in the outfield and one at third base.
22 Boston Herald, March 5, 1901.
23 Boston Herald, September 29, 1902.
24 Washington Post, February 5, 1902.
25 His release was reported in the May 14 Cincinnati Post.
26 There was a moment when it appeared Schreck was going to play for Worcester instead of Philadelphia; the May 20 Cleveland Leader reported that he’d accepted terms with Worcester, but it wasn’t to be.
27 See, for instance, the Pawtucket Times and the Boston Herald of April 26, 1901.
28 Sporting Life, July 26, 1902.
29 Philadelphia Inquirer, August 29, 1904.
30 Springfield Republican, August 2, 1914.
31 Ibid.
32 Sporting Life, April 11, 1914.
33 Denver Post, May 15, 1903.
34 Cincinnati Post, July 10, 1903.
35 Philadelphia Inquirer, July 14, 1903.
36 Washington Post, August 23, 1914.
37 Norman Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (Lincoln:v Uniersity of Nebraska Press, 2007), 337.
38 Bethlehem Leader-Vindicator, September 8, 1999. Walzak likely got the story from the unidentified November 7, 1929, clipping found in Schrecongost’s player file at the Hall of Fame.
39 Washington Evening Star, October 13, 1903.
40 Philadelphia Inquirer, April 19, 1904.
41 Whether true or not, we are unsure, because the source of the story was reportedly Charles Dryden of the Philadelphia North American, a sportswriter frequently given to wild flights of fanciful fiction. See Sporting Life, June 4, 1904.
42 Norman Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball, 339.
43 Denver Post, September 25, 1905.
44 Ibid.
45 Washington Post, November 5, 1905, and Sporting Life, November 11, 1905.
46 Sporting Life, September 29, 1906.
47 Sporting Life, August 25, 1906.
48 Shrecongost had almost 200 more chances than the second-place catcher in this category. This is almost exclusively due to Philadelphia pitchers striking out almost 200 more batters than the next best pitching staff. Since it is very difficult for a catcher to make an error on a strikeout, Schreck’s outstanding fielding percentage is largely the due to his battery mates.
49 Sporting Life, October 31, 1908.
50 Sporting Life, July 25 and August 1, 1908, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 18, 1912.
51 Bethlehem Leader-Vindicator, September 8, 1999.
52 Sporting Life, July 18, 1914.
Full Name
Freeman Osee Schrecongost
Born
April 11, 1875 at New Bethlehem, PA (USA)
Died
July 9, 1914 at Philadelphia, PA (USA)
