Lave Cross

Original article by Phil Williams
Lave Cross – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org)
researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

 He was a nimble catcher before becoming one of his era's finest defensive third basemen.  Lave Cross spent most of his long career with four Philadelphia franchises[1].  First came stints with the American Association’s Athletics and Players League Quakers, before a half-dozen seasons with the talented but underachieving mid-1890s National League Phillies.  His fortunes then hit a nadir with the infamous 1899 Cleveland Spiders.  A renaissance, notably as captain of Connie Mack’s first two pennant-winning Athletic clubs in 1902 and 1905, came late in his career.

He was born as Vratislav Kriz on May 12, 1866.  His parents, Joseph and Mary, emigrated from Bohemia and settled in Milwaukee[2].  Joseph worked as a peddler and a laborer, while Mary managed a teeming household.  Three other boys, Joseph (born 1858), Amos (born Emil in 1860), and Frank (born in 1873),  had brief major-league careers of their own.  (Not related: future Athletics teammate Monte Cross.)  The family moved to Cleveland during Lave’s childhood.  By the time his baseball career launched in the mid-1800s, he had taken the name of Lafayette Napoleon Cross[3].

His semipro career began in Sandusky, Ohio, in 1885[4].  The next year he made his professional debut with Altoona, where his catching attracted major-league attention.  To be close to his ailing brother, Amos, then with Louisville, Lave signed with the American Association team in October 1886[5].  (Amos died of consumption in July 1888.)

With the Colonels in 1887, Cross hit .266 (with an OPS+ of 80), yet his fielding percentage and ranger per nine innings were considerably higher than league averages for catchers.  Moreover, in an era when set pitcher/catcher batteries were the norm, his handling of Louisville’s ace Toad Ramsey drew positive reviews.  Possessing one of the most “deceptive drop balls” of the day, the hard-drinking pitcher was also notoriously “cranky of disposition.”  Yet a Cleveland scribe noted in June that Cross “handled Ramsey’s erratic delivery like a veteran.”[6]

His fine work with Louisville continued into 1888, but catching in this era was a perilous business.  The often-injured Cross only appeared in 100 games (81 as a backstop) over both seasons.  Louisville’s AA rivals, the Philadelphia Athletics, purchased Cross for $2,500 that October[7].  Immediately after the deal, the 22-year-old Cross eloped with the teenage Emma Hyberger of Louisville[8].  Despite her parents’ objections, the young couple stayed together.

In 1889 Cross again earned praise for his handling of an ace, Philadelphia’s hard-throwing and wild Gus Weyhing.  That May, a local sportswriter opined, “The splendid catching of Lave Cross alone made it possible for [Weyhing] to pitch with so much effectiveness.”[9]  That November, Cross signed a brotherhood contract and spent the 1890 season with the Player’s League’s Philadelphia Quakers.

Between injuries and positional competition, Cross’s playing time was limited in 1889 and 1890.  He remained a limited offensive threat, although his defense continued to impress.  "The way little Lave Cross recovers himself after snatching a wild pitch beats all the cat-like agility ever seen in these parts,” a Philadelphia Press correspondent gushed, “He is the lightest man on feet that has ever stood behind the plate.  He backs up first base, and nearly climbs up on the grandstand after foul flies.”[10]  Years later another sportswriter recalled how Cross maintained that “the base runner watches the direction in which the catcher points his left foot on the throw and that throw almost invariable goes where that foot points.”  Thus, in double steal attempts with runners on first and third, Cross would step “with his left foot toward third base to drive the runner back to that bag while actually throwing to second to catch the runner going down.”[11]

With the demise of the Players’ League, Cross returned to the AA’s Athletics.  He started the season splitting catching duties with Jocko Milligan, with both players among the team’s top offensive weapons.  As the 1891 campaign progressed, he increasingly played the outfield and, for the first time in his major league career, third base.  Appearing in 43 games as a catcher, 43 as an outfielder, plus 24 games at third, he hit .301 (with an OPS+ of 133).

The American Association went of business following the 1891 season.  Cross landed with the National League’s Phillies.  None of his previous teams had possessed the firepower to seriously compete.  But the Phillies featured an outfield of Ed Delahanty, Sam Thompson, and Billy Hamilton.  In the catching ranks, Cross again found himself behind a strong hitter: Jack Clements.

Determined to keep Cross in the lineup, manager Harry Wright made him into Philadelphia’s chief utility man.  In 1892 Cross appeared in 140 games (65 at third base, 39 catching, 25 in the outfield, 14 at second, and five at outfield and at short, and six at first).  His offensive production returned to league averages, but his defensive work was stellar.  In 1892 his fielding percentages of .969 (catching) and .92 (third base) were higher than the eligible league hitters.  In 1893 his .974 (catching) and .922 (third base) percentages almost repeated this feat, but Boston’s Billy Nash achieved a .923 mark playing third.

Despite their firepower, the Phillies finished in fourth place in both 1892 and 1893.  Before the 1894 campaign, ownership replaced manager Wright with Arthur Irwin.  With the pitching distance moved back to 60’6”, and the pitcher’s box eliminated in favor of a rubber slab, the Phillies’ already-potent offensive attack reached new levels, scoring almost nine runs per game.  Irwin made Cross Philadelphia’s everyday third baseman and usually placed him fifth in the batting order, behind Delahanty and Thompson.  He responded with a career-high in hits (210), runs (18), RBIs (132), and BA/OBP/SLG (387/.424/.526).  His OPS+ of 132 ranked sixth on the team, behind the three Hall-of-Fame outfielders, reserve outfielder Tuck Turner, and catcher Clements.  Yet Philadelphia again landed in a distant fourth place.

Listed at 5-foot-8 and 155 pounds, the right-handed Cross was typically labeled as “short and stoutly built,” suggesting this height may have been slightly overstated[12].  His most noted physical characteristic was his bow-leggedness; sportswriter Charles Dryden referred to him as the “human parenthesis.”[13]  An avid racer of homing pigeons, he also maintained a menagerie of dogs, chickens, and other pets at Philadelphia’s vacated Forepaugh Park[14].  “One of the best-behaved players in the league,” Cross was a non-drinker and exhibited little of the rowdiness that exemplified baseball in 1890[15].  “A player whose style is infectious, who likes to play,” adore Cross, and he is as popular today as was the lamented [Charlie] Ferguson.”[17]

Yet nothing distinguished Cross, as he transitioned to third base, more than the catcher’s mitt he brought with him.  A moment from a July 7 match at Pittsburgh is illustrative: “Cross saw [a liner off the bat of Jake Stenzel] coming and threw up his hand, which was protected by a catcher’s glove.  The ball struck the pillow with so much force that Cross was knocked down, but he recovered himself in time to throw [Jake] Bentley out at second.”[18]  Cross was not the only repositioned catcher using a mitt in the infield – Boston’s Frank Connaughton and Pittsburgh’s Joe Sugden did as well – but he was easily the most prominent.[19]

Critics called this usage “unscientific and unsightly.”[20]  NL magnates met in February 1895 and modified existing rules to permit catchers and first basemen to “wear a glove or mitt of any size, shape or weight” yet other players were “restricted to the use of a glove or mitt weighing not over ten ounces, and measuring in circumstance around the palm of the hand not over fourteen inches.”[21]  Cross found a mitt within these specifications and continued to comfortably snag flies and knock down liners[22].

“Lave Cross is not in the least inconvenienced by the abolishment of the big glove for infielders,” a Pittsburgh reporter observed early in the 1895 season[23].  Indeed, although his offensive output tumbled (an OPS+ of 76) his work at third remained top-notch.  After again trailing only Billy Nash in third base fielding percentage (with a .916 mark) and leading the circuit in range per nine innings (4.41) in 1894, his .940 fielding percentage easily led all third basemans in 1895, while his 4.25 range per nine innings trailed only rookie Jimmy Collins.  The Phillies, meanwhile, modestly improved, finishing in third place.  Nonetheless that November, owner John Rogers acquired third baseman Nash, in an ill-advised trade for Billy Hamilton, to manage the team.

Often displaced by Nash, Cross returned to a utility role in 1896, playing 37 games at short, six at second, two in the outfield, and one at catcher in addition to 61 games at the hot corner.  While his glove work remained first-rate, his hitting slump continued (an OPS+ of 74).  Elements of the local press turned on him, with the Philadelphia Times declaring, “We think Cross a good man, but not for Philadelphia” and Ernest Lanigan opining “Cross hasn’t been using any science in batting.”[24]  Yet other Philadelphia sportswriters pleaded for Nash to limit himself to managing from the bench, and re-establish Cross as the permanent third baseman[25].  Lanigan questioned Nash’s usage of Cross while commenting upon the team’s general slide into a dissipating, dysfunctional mess[26].  After Philadelphia’s 62-68 campaign sputtered to its conclusion, Rogers recruited the relatively unproven George Stallings to skipper the team in 1897.  “How will Clements, Lave Cross, and the other ancients and honorable in the Quakerburg ranks relish a minor leaguer as a captain?” wondered an onlooker[27].

The answer, Phillie's team secretary Bill Shettsline suggested years later, came when “one day Lave Cross chased [Stallings] down Lehigh Avenue with a brick."[28]  The timing of this alleged incident is unclear, and the possible causes are many.  That spring, Stallings tried to deal with Cross to Louisville[29].  In July, as the club departed for a lengthy road trip, Stalling left for Philadelphia.  “Lave Cross was dead sore over being left at home, and asked for his release,” Francis Richter reported, “Of course, he didn’t get it.”[30]  Finally, coaching third during an August 10 game in Washington, Stallings pushed Senator third baseman Zeke Wrigley with such force that he violently collided with baserunner Cross, knocking both players out[31].

That November, the Phillies traded him to the St. Louis Browns, along with Clements, Tommy Dowd, and Jack Taylor, for Monte Cross, Red Donahue, and Klondike Douglass.  Lanigan thought Philadelphia was the winner of the deal, content to see the “hard-working, but utterly useless Lave Cross” depart[32].  More charitably, an anonymous Phillies magnate suggested Cross was “about played out in Philadelphia.”[33]

Chris Von Der Ahe’s Browns were cellar-dwellers and, at various junctures in the 1898 season, the team fell into “a state of effervescent mutiny” when payday arrived late[34].  Yet a rejuvenated Cross was again a full-time third baseman.  On May 8 in Chicago, he “set the great crowd afire by a wonderful catch in the seventh” that sealed a rare Browns win.  “[Tim] Donahue was on first when [Danny] Friend squeezed up a foul near the stands.  Cross, by a desperate run, hauled in the fly while falling, and, recovering, threw out Donahue, who was stealing on the catch.”[35]  Cross finished the season as the Browns’ most valuable player, contributing a plus offensive season (an OPS+ of 114) for the first time since 1894 and again leading third basemen in fielding percentage (.945) while only slightly off the range per nine innings lead.

Once the 39-111 campaign concluded, trade rumors swirled, but Cross remained in limbo.  But late March 1899 it was apparent that Cleveland owners Frank and Stanley Robison, who had just purchased the Browns (then rebranded them the Perfectos) and were primarily interested in its fortunes, would assign Cross to Cleveland as its player-manager.  (Reportedly, Cross sank his chances for earning a spot with the Perfectos by angering its newly-appointed manager, Patsy Tebeau with his salary demands.)[36]  The haphazard Cleveland squad finally launched with an abbreviated spring training, then began to lose regular-season games.

Meanwhile, in St. Louis, the aging Ed McKean struggled at shortstop.  Thus, on June 5, the Perfectos ‘traded’ pitcher Creed Bates and catcher Ossee Schrecongost for Cross, installed him at the hot corner, and shifted their young third baseman Bobby Wallace to short, Cleveland, 8-30 under Cross, went 12-104 the rest of the way.  St. Louis, 26-17 before Cross joined its lineup on June 7, went 58-50 down the stretch.  Cross produced an average offensive season (an OPS+ of 95) and continued his noteworthy glove work.  His .959 fielding percentage at third set a major league record, which stood until Harry Steinfeldt achieved a .967 mark in 1907 with the Cubs.

After the 1899 season was marred by syndicate baseball, the NL contracted to eight teams, and, in March 1900, third baseman John McGraw was one of several players from the abandoned Baltimore team sold to the Perfectos.  Cross had become “the idol of the St. Louis fans,” and as McGraw hesitated to join the team that spring, they voiced their opinion on who should play third by chanting “We don’t want Muggsy” when Cross came to bat in an exhibition game[37].  Yet when McGraw arrived in early May, and Brooklyn manager Ned Hanlon made an offer for Cross, St. Louis sold him.  Cross signed a two-year contract with the Superbas[38],

Weeks later a St. Louis sportswriter savaged the departed Cross for making sweeping tags of base runners instead of fearlessly blocking the bag as McGraw did.  He also blasted Cross for “the habit of picking up a bunt and tossing it in the air to fully inform the stands that it was a base it, with no chance on earth to get the runner.”  Finally, he suggested Cross too often relied upon shortstop Wallace to chase after “nasty” flies behind the left side of the infield[39].  More charitably, in 1899, another St. Louis observer thought that “Lave is a wonder at fielding hard hits, but he is rather slow when he is called upon to take care of the bunts and the slow bouncing grounders.”[40]

Such criticisms were the exception to the rule.  In 1905, a correspondent reporting  from New York found Cross “at fast as lightning on those slow, tantalizing hits which the locals generally beat out.”[41]  Others praised Cross for his “remarkable quickness” in recovering from, and throwing to bases, liners he knocked down with his mitt[42].  His arm allowed him “to throw the ball to first while resting on one knee.”[43]

The one-third baseman in this era consistently considered Cross’s superior was Jimmy Collins[44].  In particular, Collins was praised for aggressively going “after everything that comes within hailing distance of the third bag.”[45]  Collins and Cross both became full-time third basemen in their mid-20s in the mid-1890s, and each played approximately 1,700 games at the position for another dozen-plus season, Collins’s lifetime average range per nine innings at the position (3.7) barely edges Cross’s (3.64).  At bat, Collins was Cross’s superior, amassing a lifetime OPS+ of 113, versus Cross’s 100.

Although neither player’s equal defensively, McGraw was the best leadoff hitter of his era.  Yet soon after Cross’s St. Louis critic praised McGraw for blocking the bag, Jack Doyle’s spikes put him out of the lineup for a critical stretch of games[46].  “Now, would it not be as well to have a man shirk the runner a bit and stay in the game than get at him and stay out half his time?” a St Louisan asked[47].  The Cardinals (as the Perfectos were now known) eventually finished in fifth place.  Brooklyn captured the pennant.  “While there are some third baseman who are showier players than he,”  a grateful Brooklynite stated of Cross, “it is doubtful if any of them contributed as much in winning games.”[48]

Connie Mack, and a $3,000 salary, included Cross to jump to the upstart American League’s Philadelphia Athletics in March 1901[49].  Another popular former Phillie, Nap Lajoie, captained the squad.  The new franchise stumbled badly out of the gate, sinking well below .500.

“I said to Larry [Lajoie] one day, ‘Larry, when are we going to win a game?’” Cross recalled, “’ Never with this bunch,’ the big fellow replied and then he and I and [Bill] Bernhard decided unless Connie Mack did something to strengthen the team, we would quit.  Connie got the players, however, and then everything was lovely.”[50]  Among Mack’s in-season recruits: are Harry Davis and Eddie Plank.  The Athletics bounced back to finish 74-62 in their inaugural campaign.  Cross, although banged up with injuries, turned in strong offensive (an OPS+ of 122) and defensive efforts in the 100 games he played.

Court injunctions in April 1902 prevented Lajoie from playing in-state with the Athletics, and he eventually signed with Cleveland.  Mack appointed Cross as the team's new captain.  In this role, among other responsibilities, he inspected grounds before games, warmed up pitchers, and helped direct defensive strategies[51].  When Mack traveled to recruit players, as he did to land Rube Waddell (in June) and Danny Murphy (in July), Cross ran the team.  The Athletics captured their first pennant that September.  Lanigan stated that Cross “has proved a magnetic leader and his new honors have not interfered with his play.”[52]

Topsy Hartsel and Dave Fultz led off for Philadelphia in 1902, with Davis batting third, Cross cleanup, and Socks Seybold batting fifth.  Cross his .342 (with an OPS+ of 122).  He became the only post-1900 major league to amass over 100 RBIs (108) in a season without any home runs[53].  If he didn’t drive in runs, he propelled the offensive attack forward.  "He had the rare knack of hitting the ball in the back of the baserunner,” Mack recalled in 1935, as he labeled Cross the best hit-and-run artist to wear an Athletics uniform to that point[54].  If an open base presented itself, he remained an able base stealer, taking a career-high 25 with his distinctive headfirst slide[55].

Philadelphia stayed in the 1903 and 1904 pennant races before fading in the final stretches.  Cross didn’t miss a game either season and turned in a .292 average (an OPS+ of 94) in 1903 and a .290 average (and OPS+ of 113) in 1904.  Age was finally limiting him defensively.  His fielding percentage at third remained above league norms, but his range metrics fell below average for the first time in his career.

Fighting off injuries, Cross began the 1905 season hitting only .229 through 40 games, while the Athletics started 23-17[56].  Yet beginning on July 31, Philadelphia won 12 of 15 games – with Cross hitting .345 (19 for 55) – to move into first place.  The Mackmen held off the White Sox the remainder of the way to capture their second pennant.  Cross finished the season batting .266 (an OPS+ of 98) and posting average defensive metrics.

In the resulting World Series matchup against the Giants, Christy Mathewson shut out Philadelphia three times as New York triumphed in five games.  Cross’s performance was, sportswriter William Koelsch opined, “decidedly poor.”[57]  At the plate, he produced only two inconsequential singles in the series.  In the field, his greatest test came in the critical Game Four.  In the bottom of the fourth inning, with Same Mertes on second, Billy Gilbert grounded to third.  Some accounts suggest the ball took a “wicked jump” past Cros[58].  But Francis Richter wrote that he “let the ball go clean through him” for an “inexcusable error."[59]  (It was scored as a hit.)  Mertes scored the game’s solo run, and New York took a commanding three games to one lead.

Cross was 39 years old.  The strains of captainship, upon his own game and in relations with teammates and ownership, wore upon him[60].  Yet, even as Set sought a younger third baseman, Mack was grateful for Cross’s contributions[61.  Consequently, he allowed Cross to come to an agreement with Washington, then released him to the Senators with no compensation in return that December.

Although Washington had finished in seventh place in 1905, and their promising young shortstop Joe Cassidy died before the 1906 campaign launched, the Senators played .500 ball through the first month.  Cross started well, hitting .333 and scoring 16 runs through Washington’s first 21 games[62].  But the team soon sank out of contention and finished seventh again.  Cross contributed a .263 average (an OPS+ of 100) and led AL third basemen in fielding percentage, although his range metrics were below average.

Two months into the 1907 season, Cross was hitting only .199 (an OPS+ of 63) and was “not thoroughly in accord with the policies” of new manager Joe Cantillion[63].  His two-year contract prevented Washington from selling him, requiring them to grant him an unconditional release[64].  Consequently, once the Senators let him go, he struck a two-year deal with the Southern Association’s New Orleans Pelicans.  Cross lasted in New Orleans until they released him in early 1908.

Cross then returned to Pennsylvania to become Shamokin’s player-manager.  Next, he served in Charlotte in the same capacity.  In 1912. In his 27^th professional season, at age 46, he managed the New England League’s Haverhill Hustlers while playing 126 games at third.  After a couple years, he coached Ohio Wesleyan’s baseball team, before finally retiring from the game.

In 1910, Cross divorced Emma.  It was reported the couple had no children; there was a passing mention of a baby seven years earlier[65].  In 1911 he married Monna Long; the couple had one daughter Laura.  The family settled in Toledo after Cross’s baseball career, where he was employed at the Willy-Overland automobile factory.  Walking to work, on September 6, 1927, he suffered a fatal heart attack[66].  Lave Cross was buried in Toledo’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Norman Macht and fact-checked by Mark Sternman.Sources

In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Cross’s file from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, and the following
sites.
1. ancestry.com
2. chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/
3. genealogybank.com
4. newspapers.com

Notes:
1.     Per Baseball-Reference’s ‘multiple franchises
        teams’ page, it appears the only other layer in
        MLB history to play with four different
        franchises from the same city was Lou Say,
        played for four Baltimore outfits from 1873
        through 1884. Also: through 2019, only seven
        players have exceeded Lave Cross’s 1,581
        major-league games in a Philadelphia uniform:
        Mike Schmidt (2,404), Jimmy Rollins (2,090),
        Richie Ashburn (1,794), Larry Bowa (1,739)
        Jimmy Dykes (1,702) Tony Taylor (1,669)
        and Del Ennis (1,630).
2.     The 1859 New York Passenger and Crew Lists
        show the family’s arrival. 1860 and 1870 US
        Census Records show the family in Milwaukee.
3.     For additional background on his name, see
        David Nemac and Dick Thompson’s entry in
        Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900,
        Volume 2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
        Press, 2011), 338-9. Also see Bill Carle, SABR
        Biographical Research Committee’s July
        August 2010 newsletter, for recognition of
        Cross as Kriz.
4.     “Louisville’s Players,” Louisville Courier
        -Journal, April 1, 1888: 10. Some sources also
        mention him playing with a Findlay, Ohio,
        team in 1885. For this see his profile in The
        Sporting News, November 20, 1897: 5.
5.     “Lave Cross Caught in the Louisville Nine,”
        Boston Journal, November 9, 1905: 9.
6.     “Cleveland 4—Louisville 3,” Cleveland
        Plain Dealer, June 19, 1887: 6.
7.     “Base Ball Notes,” Philadelphia Times,
        October 14, 1888: 15.
8.     “Catcher Cross’ Escapade,” Chicago Tribune,
        October 27, 1888: 3; “Gossip of the Ball
         Field,” New York Sun, December 23,
         1888: 8; “Where is Emma?” Louisville Journal-
         Courier, September 14, 1887: 6.
9.     “They Can Win at Home,” Philadelphia Inquirer,
         May 27, 1889: 6.
10.    Quoted in “Notes,” Cleveland Leader and
         Herald, April 21, 1889: 3.
11.   “Uncle Ezra’s Sport Corner,” Zanesville
        (Ohio) Times-Signal, June 23, 1940: 4.
12.   “Ball Players Arrive,” Louisville Journal-Courier,
         March 23, 1887: 3. See also the photo
         of the Athletics infield (Monte Cross, Lave Cross,
         Harry Davis, Danny Murphy,
         and Lou Castro) standing in Philadelphia Inquirer,
         September 26, 1902: 11. Lave Cross
         appears about an inch shorter than his
         colleagues.
13.    Mount Carmel (Pennsylvania) Item, June 18,
         1908: 4.
14.    “A Ball Player Who Flies Homing Pigeons,”
         Philadelphia Inquirer, April 25, 1897: 22;
        “Philadelphia Pointers,” Sporting Life,
        September 24, 1892: 4.
15.   “Baseball Brevities,” Pittsburgh Press, June 29,
        1896: 5.
16.   “The Man Behind the Plate,” Philadelphia
         Inquirer, April 5, 1896: 8.
17.   “Comment on Sports,” Philadelphia Inquirer,
        May 29, 1892: 3.
18.   “Few Hits and No Runs,” Pittsburgh Press,
         July 8, 1894: 8.
19.   “Baseball Notes,” Boston Globe, August 25,
        1894: 2; “Rules in Baseball,” Chicago
         Tribune, January 14, 1895: 11.
20.   “Gossip of the Game,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
         August 18, 1894: 2.
21.   “Base Ball Now the Fashion,” Philadelphia Times,
         February 28, 1895: 2. For an advertisement of a
         glove used by him, see Reach’s Official 1900
         Base Ball Guide (Philadelphia: A. J. Reach,
         1900), 153. For his thoughts, expressed later in
         his career, see “Lave Cross Prefers a Mitt to a
         Glove,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 30,
         1902: 39.
23.   “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburgh Post, May 14,
        1895: 6.
24.   “Between the Innings,” Philadelphia Times,
         July 17, 1896: 8; E.J. Lanigan, “Leaders
         Now,” The Sporting News, May 9, 1896: 1.
25.   “Notes of the Diamond,” Harrisburg Star-
        Independent, July 17, 1896: 5.
26.   Ernest J. Lanigan, “Getting New Men,” The
        Sporting News, July 4, 1896: 1; Ernest J.
        Lanigan, “Phillies Poor Work,” The Sporting
        News, July 25, 1896: 1.
27.   “General Sporting Notes,” Louisville
        Journal-Courier, December 11, 1896: 6.
28.   Robert W. Maxwell, “Jack Coombs Hopes to
        Have Eppa Rixey on Mound This Year,”
        Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger,
        March 19, 1919: 14.
29.   John J. Saunders, “Louisville Lines,”
        Sporting Life, March 20, 1897: 5.
30.   Francis C. Richter, “Philadelphia Points,”
        Sporting Life, July 10, 1897: 6.
31.   Ernest J. Lanigan, “Been Boozing,”
        The Sporting News, August 21, 1897: 5.
32.   Ernest J. Lanigan, “The Phillies,” The
        Sporting News, February 19, 1898: 2.
33.   “Deals Are Only Talk Yet,” Louisville
        Journal-Courier, November 10, 1897: 6.
34.   “Notes of the Game,” Chicago Tribune,
        May 19, 1898: 4.
35.   “St. Louis a Winner,” Chicago Tribune,
        May 9, 1898: 9.
36.   “St. Louis’ Switch,” Sporting Life,
        June 17, 1899: 4.
37.   “Pennant Race On,” The Sporting News,
        April 21, 1900: 5; “Baseball Notes,
        ” New York Sun, April 2, 1900: 5.
38.   On the contract, see “Tannehill Sees the
        Flag Flying,” Pittsburgh Post, March 26,
        1901: 6.
39.   “Only Two Regulars Hitting to Form,”
        St. Louis Republic, May 28, 1900: 4.
40.   A St. Louis Republic writer quoted in
        “Jimmy Collins and Wallace of
        Cleveland Compared,” Buffalo
        Enquirer, February 14. 1899: 4.
41.   “Athletics Land Two Red Hot Games
        from the Highlanders,” Philadelphia
        Inquirer, July 2, 1905: 14.
42.   W.S. Barnes Jr., “Waddell Trounced,”
        Boston Journal, September 13, 1902: 8.
43.   “Gossip of the Game,” Louisville
        Journal-Courier, June 16, 1899: 6.
44.   See, for example: Francis C. Richter,
        “Philadelphia News,” Sporting Life,
        June 25, 1898: 4; Tim Murnane,
        “Murnane’s Baseball,” Boston Globe,
        June 28, 1903: 35.
45.   “Jimmy Collins and Wallace of Cleveland
        Compared,” Buffalo Enquirer,
        February 14. 1899: 4.
46.   “McGraw Badly Hurt by Doyle’s Spikes,”
        St. Louis Republic, June 11, 1900: 4.
47.   “Baseball Gossip,” St. Louis Republic,
        June 20, 1900: 6.
48.   “Brooklyn Ball Tossers Compared
        Individually,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
        October 15, 1900: 16.
49.   “American League Salaries,”
        Baltimore Sun, March 8, 1901: 6.
50.   “Many Questions to be Settled,” Cleveland
        Plain Dealer, February 12, 1905: 12.
51.   For such examples, see “Sports of All Sorts,”
        Washington Evening Star, June 3, 1905: 8;
        “Athletics Lose to New Yorkers,”
        Philadelphia Inquirer,
        October 14, 1905: 10; “Mitchell Has a Sad
        Finish,” St. Louis Republic, September
        2, 1902: 7.
52.   Ernest J. Lanigan, “Pack of Discards,”
        The Sporting News, September 27, 1902: 5.
53.   Before 1900, only Hughie Jennings with
        Baltimore in 1896 accomplished this feat.
54.   James C. Isaminger, “Tips from the Sports
        Ticker,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 7,
        1935: 52.
55.   On his slide through the years, see “From
        Louisville,” Sporting Life, May 4,
        1887: 9; “Notes of the Notables,”
        Washington Times, April 29, 1906: 14.
56.   For a contemporary source for this average,
        see “Sports of all Sorts,” Washington
        Evening Star, June 12, 1905: 9.
57.   Wm. F.H. Koelsch, “Metropolis’s Men,”
        Sporting Life, October 21, 1905: 3.
58.   “Again A Whitewash Victory,” New York
        Sun, October 14, 1905: 9. For a similar
        account, see “New York Now Lead by
        Three Games to One,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
        October 14, 1905: 9.
59.   Francis C. Richter, “The Fourth Game,”
        Sporting Life, October 21, 1905: 5.
60.   On these strains, see “Baseball Briefs,”
        Pittsburgh Press, February 5, 1906: 12;
        Norman Macht, Connie Mack, and the Early
        Years of Baseball (Lincoln: University of
        Nebraska, 2007): 358.
61.   “Lave Cross Wanted to Change Clubs,”
        Washington Evening Star, January
         6, 1906: 9.
62.   Contemporary source: “Sudhoff Now
        Leads,” Washington Evening Star, May
        13, 1906: 60.
63.   J.B. Abrams, “Cross Released,” The
        Sporting News, June 22, 1907: 4.
64.   J. Ed Grillo, “Lave and Larry to Go,”
        Washington Post, June 12, 1907: 8.
65.   “Lave Cross Sues for Divorce, Alleging
        Extreme Cruelty,” Charlotte News, May
        14, 1910: 7; “Local News,” Bucks County
        (Pennsylvania) Gazette, November
        12, 1903: 2.
66.   “Death Comes to Lave Cross of Big
        League Fame,” Toledo News-Bee,
        September 6, 1927: 1.

Full Name: Lafayette Napoleon Cross
Born: May 12, 1866 at Milwaukee, WI (USA)
Died: September 6, 1927 at Toledo, OH (USA)

The Hocking River

       Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hocking_River
       Research and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

State: Ohio
Counties: Fairfield, Hocking, Athens.
Source:
     1,     Location: Fairfield County.
     2.     Elevation: 1,050 ft. (320 m).
Mouth: Ohio River.
     1.     Location: Hockingport.
     2.     Elevation: 582 ft. (177 m).
Basin Size: 1,197 sq mi. (3,100).
Discharge:
     1.     Location: Mouth.
     2.     Average: 1,341.47 cu ft/s (37.994 m3/s)
             (estimate).

The Hocking River (formerly the Hockhocking River) is a 102-mile-long (164 km) right tributary of the Ohio River in southeastern Ohio. The Hocking flows mostly flows on the mostly unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, but its headwaters are in a glaciated region. Rising in Bloom Township in Fairfield County and flows generally southeastwardly through Fairfield, Hocking, and Athens counties, through the Hocking Hills region, and past the cities of Lancaster, Logan, Nelsonville, Athens, and Coolville. It joins the Ohio River at Hockingport. The Hocking’s tributaries also drain parts of Perry, Morgan, and Washington Counties.

The Hocking River’s name originally derives from a Native American name, roughly “Hokhokken” or “Hokhochen”, which meant “bottle-shaped” or “gourd-shaped” and referred to the river’s headwaters 7 miles northwest of present-day Lancaster, Ohio. Beginning as a small stream, then immediately goes over a waterfall into a wide gorge. If you were to view this from above, the feature would look like a bottle, which led to its name. The river was known as the Hockhocking River until the late 19th century.

The Hocking Canal once linked Athens to Lancaster and the Ohio and Erie Canal, but was destroyed by flooding and never rebuilt. Due to frequent flooding of Ohio University’s campus, the Army Corps of Engineers re-channelized a section of the Hocking River in Athens during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Between Nelsonville and Athens, the Hocking today is roughly paralleled by a rail trail (a shared-use path that is constructed after a railway is abandoned and the track has been removed and is used by hikers, bicycles, horseback riders, etc.), the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway. The path serves as a major source of recreation for the area's residents, especially students who attend Ohio University and Hocking College.

Major tributaries to the Hocking include (downriver to upriver): Federal Creek, Magaret Creek, Sunday Creek, Monday Creek, Scott Creek, Oldtown Creek, Clear Creek, Rush Creek, Pleasant Run, Baldwin Run, and Hunter’s Run. Many of these tributaries are affected by acid mine drainage.

Some of the activities you can do on the Hocking River include Canoeing, kayaking, rafting, and tubing, which are popular. Hocking Hills Adventures and Hocking Hills Canoe Livery each operate trips suitable for all skill levels on the mid and upper sections of the river. The mid and upper sections of the river also serve as an above-average smallmouth bass fishery. Typical species of warm-water streams are generally found throughout the river.

Mahoning Creek: A Few Statistics

Photo Credit: https://meadhunt.com/project/mahoning/
researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

Source:
     1.     Location: valley in Madison Township,
             Columbia County, PA.
     2.     Elevation: between 1,080 and 1,100
             feet (330 and 340 m).
Mouth:
     1.     Location: Susquehanna River in
             Danville, Montour County, PA.
     2.     Elevation: 463 feet (141 m).
Length: 10.6 mi (17.1 km).
Basin Size: 39.6 sq mi (103 km2)
Progression: Susquehanna River à Chesapeake Bay.
Tributaries:
     Left: Sechler Run, Kase Run.
     Right: Mauses Creek.

The Mahoning Creek is a tributary of the Susquehanna River in Columbia and Montour Counties in Pennsylvania. Approximately around 10.6 long and it flows through Madison Township in Columbia County, and West Hemlock Township, Derry Township, Valley Township, Mahoning Township, and Danville in Montour County. Its tributaries include Kase Run, Mauses Creek, and Sechler Run. Mahoning Creek is designated as a Trout-Stocking Fishery and a Migratory Fishery for part of its length and as a Warmwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery for the remainder.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection considers Mahoning Creek impaired by siltation. The main rock formations in the watershed include the Trimmers Rock Formation, the Clinton Group, the Catskill Formation, the Hamilton Group, the Bloomsburg and Mifflintown Formation, the Onondaga and Old Port Formation, and the Wills Creek Formation. Most of the watershed is forested or agricultural land, but there is some developed land.

Mahoning Creek begins in a valley in Madison Township, and flows south for a short distance before turning west-southwest for almost a mile, and exits Columbia County. Once the creek leaves Columbia County, it enters West Hemlock Township, Montour County, then flowing south-southwest alongside Pennsylvania Route 642 for a few miles before crossing Pennsylvania Route 642 and entering Derry Township. The creek then turns south for a few miles and enters Valley Township. Once in Valley Township, it continues its southerly route in its valley and crosses Pennsylvania Route 642 once again. Almost a mile further downstream, it crosses Interstate 80 and receives Kase Run, its first named tributary from the left. The creek meanders west for almost a mile, and then turns southwest, flowing alongside Pennsylvania Route 642 once again. Not far from Mausdale, Mahoning Creek crosses Pennsylvania Route 642 and Pennsylvania Route 54 and receives the tributary Mauses Creek from the right. The creek then turns southeast and begins flowing alongside Pennsylvania Route 54 into Mahoning Township and through a water gap in Montour Ridge. It enters Danville and leaves the water gap behind, turning south-southwest and crossing U.S. Route 11. After almost a mile, the creek receives Sechler Run, its last-named tributary, from the left, and turns west-northwest. After several tenth of a mile, it exits Danville and enters Mahoning Township briefly before turning sharply southeast and reentering Danville. A short distance from Danville, the creek reaches its confluence with the Susquehanna River, which is 136.26 miles (219.29 km) upstream of its mouth.

Clarion River Information

* Elevation: 850 feet (260 m)

* River System: Allegheny River

* Type: Scenic, Recreational

* Designated: October 19, 1996

* Discharges:
     1.     East Branch Clarion River Dam, West
             Branch Clarion River, Clarion River


Photo Credit: https://visitpago.com/listings/clarion-river-2-4/
Researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

Before 1817, the Clarion River was more commonly called “Tobeco,” likely a corruption of Tuppeek-Hanne, meaning the stream that flows from a large spring. The French explorers named the river Rivière au Fiel. Settlers called it the Toby or Stump Creek as early as 1809. The name Clarion was given by surveyor Daniel Stanard in 1817, who said the water sounded like a distant clarion (a high-pitched trumpet).

At the end of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century, much of what is now the Allegheny National Forest and surrounding areas we deforested, in part to make way for the oil boom that followed Edwin Drake’s discovery of oil near Titusville on August 17, 1859, but also for wood chemicals. Bark was especially in high demand for local tanneries that produced prodigious amounts of leather. This deforestation significantly degraded the watershed of the upper Allegheny in general, leading to floods downstream (particularly in Pittsburgh), and eventually to the declaration of the national forest in 1923, but the case of the Clarion River, run-off from tanneries compounded the problem, as did acid mine drainage. The Clarion was an important part of the timber industry, allowing timber to be transported downstream the Allegheny, then the Ohio, and ultimately the Mississippi. The Clarion River came to be Pennsylvania’s most polluted waterway.

The regrowth of the forest did much to help restore the Clarion River, as well as a major cleaning effort in the 1980s. Today, the river is used for fishing, canoeing, and other recreational activities, and runs through extensive wildlife and forest areas, including a 4,241-acre (17.16 km2) inventoried roadless area that has been proposed as a national wilderness area. In 1996, a 51.7-mile (83.2 km) stretch of the Clarion River was designated a National Wild & Scenic River. The bridge at Cooksburg is in Clarion County in its western portion, passes through a narrow spike of Forest County in its middle, and is in Jefferson County at its east end.

Kanawha River

       
Photo Credit:  https://wvtourism.com/company/kanawha-falls/
Researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

State: West Virginia
Counties: Fayette, Kanawha, Putnam, Mason
Source: New River
     1.     Location: Ashe, County, NC.
     2.     Elevation: 2,546 ft. (776 m).
2nd Source: Gauley River.
     1.     Location: Three Forks of Gauley,
             Pocahontas County, WV.
     2.     Elevation: 2,917 ft. (889 m).
Source Confluence:
     1,     Location: Gauley Bridge, WV.
     2.     Elevation: 653 ft. (199 m).
Mouth: Ohio River
     1.     Location: Point Pleasant, WV.
     2.     Elevation: 538 ft. (164 m).
     3.     Length: 97 miles (156 m).
     4.     Basin Size: 12,236 sq mi (31,690 km2).
Discharge:
     1.     Location: Charleston, 56.8 mi (91.4 km)
                              from the mouth.
     2.     Average: 15,240 cu ft/s (432 m3/s)
     3.     Minimum: 1,100 cu ft/s (31 m3/s)
     4.     Maximum: 216,000 cu ft/s (6,100 m3/s)
Progression: Kanawha River à Ohio River à
                     Mississippi River à Gulf of Mexico.
Tributaries:
     1.     Left: Ferry Branch, Coal River
     2.     Right: Elk River, Pocatalico River

The Kanawha River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 miles long, in West Virginia, and is the largest inland waterway in West Virginia. Its watershed has been a significant industrial region of the state since the 19th century.

The name derives from the region's Iroquoian dialects meaning “water way” or “canoe way” implying the metaphor “transport way”, in the local language.

Archaeological artifacts, such as Clovis points and later projectiles, indicate prehistoric indigenous peoples living in the area from the 12,500 BC era. People of later cultures continued to live along the valley and heights. Those of the Adena culture built at least 50 earthwork mounds and 10 enclosures in the area between Charleston and Dunbar, as identified by an 1882 to 1884 survey by the Bureau of Ethnology (later part of the Smithsonian Institution). Three of their mounds survive in the valley, including Criel Mound at present-day South Charleston, West Virginia. Evidence has been found of the Fort Ancient culture peoples, who had villages that survived to the time of European contact, such as Buffalo and Marmet. They were driven out by the Iroquois from present-day New York.

According to French missionary reports, by the late 16th century, several thousand Huron, originally of the Great Lakes region, lived in central West Virginia. They were partially exterminated and their remnant was driven out in the 17th century by the Iroquois’ invading from western present-day New York. Other accounts note that the tribe known as Conois, Conoy, Canawesee, or Kanawha were conquered or driven out by the large Seneca tribe, one of the Iroquois Confederacy, as the Seneca boasted to Virginia officials in 1744. The Iroquois and other tribes, such as the Shawnee and Delaware, maintained central West Virginia as a hunting ground. It was essentially unpopulated when the English and Europeans began to move into the area. This area is the lower area of today’s St. Albans, West Virginia. After the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, “The Kanawha’s had gone from upper tributaries of the river which bears their name, to join their kinsmen, the Iroquois in New York; the Shawnee had abandoned the Indian Oil Fields of the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac; Delaware was gone from the Monongahela; the Cherokee who claimed all the region between the Great Kanawha and Big Sandy had never occupied it.”, quoting Virgil A. Lewis (1887), corresponding member of the Virginia Historical Society. The river’s name changes to the Kanawha River at the Kanawha Falls. The Treaty of Big Tree between the Seneca Nation and the United States established ten reservations. This formal treaty was signed on September 15, 1797. Lewis was granted a large tract of land near the mouth of the Great Kanawha River in the late 18th century.

The Little Kanawha and the Great Kanawha rivers, the two largest in the state, were named for the American Indian tribe that lived in the area before European settlement in the 18th century. Under pressure from the Iroquois, most of the Conoy/Kanawha had migrated to present-day Virginia by 1634, where they had settled on the west side of Chesapeake Bay below the Potomac River. They were also known as colonists there as the Piscataway. They later migrated north to Pennsylvania, to submit and seek protection with the Susquehannock and Iroquois. The spelling of the Indian tribe varied at the time, from Conoys to Conois to Kanawha. The latter spelling was used and has gained acceptance over time.

Cranberry Creek Information

Source
     1.     Location: pond in Hazle Township, Columbia
             County, Pennsylvania.
     2      Elevation: between 1,740 and 1,760 feet
             (530 and 540 m).

Mouth
     1.     Location: Stony Creek in Hazle Township,
             Columbia County, Pennsylvania.
     2.     Elevation: 1,460 ft (450 m).
     3.     Length: 4.4 mi (7.1 km).

Discharge
     1.     Average: 1,502.67 US gallons per minute
             (0.094804 m3/s) near its mouth.
     2.     Progression: Stony Creek à Black Creek
             à Nescopeck Creek à Susquehanna River
             à Chesapeake Bay.

Tributaries
     1.     Left: Long Run.



Photo Credit: https://www.brodheadwatershed.org/oldsite/ParadiseCreek/page0009.htm
Researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

Cranberry Creek (also known as Grape Run­) is a tributary of Stony Creek in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. It is approximately 4.4 miles (7.1 km) long and flows through Hazle Township. The creek is affected by acid mine drainage. Thus, it also contains metals such as iron, manganese, and aluminum. It is in the drainage basin of the Jeddo Tunnel. Major roads in the creek’s watershed include Pennsylvania Route 924, Pennsylvania Route 309, and Interstate 81. At least one bridge has been built over it, and the creek has undergone restoration and there are plans to build an area known as the Cranberry Creek Gateway Park in its vicinity.

Cranberry Creek begins in a pond in Hazle Township. It flows north for a short stretch, passing through the Grape Run Reservoir, and exits the reservoir on the eastern side, and continues flowing to the north. For about a mile, it turns east-northeast for a longer stretch turning north and then northwest, passing between the communities of Cranberry and Hollars Hill. Then the creek turns west and crosses Pennsylvania Route 924, continuing north for a while before turning north and passing between two mountains, flowing parallel to Interstate 81. Further on its journey, it receives an unnamed tributary and reaches its confluence with Stony Creek.

The elevation near the mouth of Cranberry Creek is 1,460 feet (450 m) above sea level, and the elevation of the creek’s source is between 1,740 feet (530 m) and 1,760 feet (540 m) above sea level.

The Grape Run Reservoir is located on the upper reaches of Cranberry Creek, which also flows through the Hazelton Basin. This is where it loses its flow due to strip mining, despite remaining intact until then. The creek’s channel is intact throughout most of its length, but nearly any of its water leaves the Hazelton Basin.

Cranberry Creek was added to the Geographic Names Information System on August 2, 1979. The creek was rendered acidic by sulfur-containing mine drainage as early as the early 1900s. The pollution was coming from the Cranberry Mines and was also polluted by “strippings” from Hazelton. Thus, the creek was unsuitable as a water supply, and a sewer system also historically discharged into the creek.

Historically, coal mining, including strip mining, was done in the watershed of Cranberry Creek. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation has plans to restore the creek’s flow along its entire length. The Jeddo Highland Coal Company has an operation known as the Cranberry Colliery Bank in the vicinity of the creek. This operation has the purpose of reprocessing refuse. There is a 366-acre tract of land near the creek that was used for coal mining by the Hazelton Coal Company and the Lehigh Valley Coal Company until 1947. Pennsylvania Route 924 was constructed through this tract of land in 1965. The Community Area New Development Organization purchased the area in 2006 and plans to construct a recreational area called the Cranberry Creek Gateway Park.

During the restoration of Cranberry Creek, nearly 7,000 feet (2,100 m) of the creek was relocated and also reclaimed 135 acres of strip-mining land. In 1967, a concrete culvert bridge was constructed over Cranberry Creek, and is 37.1 feet (11.3 m) long and carries Pennsylvania Route 924.

John McGraw

 

The original article was originally written by Don Jensen
John McGraw – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org)

researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

John McGraw was perhaps the National League’s most influential figure in the Deadball Era.  From 1902 to 1932 he led the New York Giants to 10 National League pennants, three World Series championships, and 21 first- or second-place finishes in 29 full seasons at their helm.  His 2.763 managerial victories were second only to Connie Mack’s 3,731 for the rest of the
20th century, but in 1927 Mack himself proclaimed, “There has been only one manager, and
his name is McGraw.”[1]

The pugnacious McGraw’s impact on the game, moreover, was even greater than his record suggests.  As a player he helped develop “inside baseball,” which put a premium on strategy and guile, and later managed the way he’d played, seeking out every advantage for his Giants.  Known as Mugsy (a nickname he detested) and Little Napoleon (for his dictatorial methods), McGraw administered harsh tongue lashings to his players and often fought with umpires; he was ejected from 118 contests during his career, far more than any other manager until Bobby Cox surpassed him in 2007.  “McGraw eats gunpowder every morning for breakfast and washes it down with warm blood,” said Giants coach Arlie Latham.[2]

The oldest of eight children of Ellen (Comerfert) and John McGraw, an Irish Immigrant who fought in the Civil War and later worked in railroad maintenance, John Joseph McGraw was born in working-class poverty on April 7, 1873, in the village of Truxton, New York, about 25 miles south of Syracuse.  During the winter of 1884-85 a diphtheria epidemic claimed Ellen and three of her children, leaving John Sr., a heavy drinker, alone to raise Johnny and the other four survivors.  One night in the fall of 1885, 12-year-old Johnny received such a severe beating from his father that he moved across the street to the Truxton House Inn, where a kindly widow named Mary Goddard took him in and raised him along with her own two sons.  Besides attending school, Johnny performed chores around the hotel, delivered newspapers, and peddled candy, fruit, and magazines out of a basket on the train from Cortland to Elmira.  He used the money to buy new baseballs and the Spalding guide, parts of which he memorized[3].

At 16 years old, Johnny McGraw stood barely 5 feet 7 and weighed little more than 100 pounds, but that didn’t stop him from becoming the star pitcher for the local Truxton Greys.   When Truxton’s manager, Bert Kenney, became part owner and player-manager of the Olean franchise in the New York Penn League in 1890, Johnny begged for and received a place on the team.  In his first game on May 18, McGraw played third base and made eight errors in 10 chances.  He was released after six games but caught on with Wellsville of the Western New York League, batting .364 in 24 games[4].

One of his teammates was a former National Leaguer named Al Lawson, who was organizing a winter tour of Cuba.  McGraw went along and played shortstop for the “American All-Stars.”  On the way home, Lawson’s team stopped in Gainesville, Florida, to play a spring training exhibition against the NL’s Cleveland Spiders.  McGraw collected three doubles in five at-bats, receiving national publicity when the game story appeared in The Sporting News.  From among the resulting offers he received for the coming season, he chose Cedar Rapids of the Illinois-Iowa League and batted .276 in 85 games as the club’s regular shortstop[5].

That August McGraw made his major-league debut with the Baltimore Orioles of the American Association, filling in at various positions and hitting .270 in 33 games.  In 1892 the AA disbanded, and Baltimore was absorbed into the 12-team National League.  McGraw started the season as a utilityman but took over as the regular third baseman after Ned Hanlon was appointed manager in midseason.  Under Hanlon’s tutelage, McGraw became the NL’s best leadoff hitter, batting over .320 for nine straight years, twice leading the league in runs and walks, and stealing 436 bases; his career on-base percentage of .466 ranks behind only those of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth.  McGraw choked up on the bat and swung with a short, chopping motion that diminished his power, but he could place the ball virtually anywhere he wanted.  He also wasn’t above cheating.  “McGraw uses every low and contemptible method that his erratic brain can conceive to win a play by a dirty trick,” wrote one reporter[6].

With players like Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley, Hughie Jennings, Wilbert Robinson, Steve Brodie, Sadie McMahon, and Dan Brouthers, most of whom remained associated with and often employed by McGraw in later years, Hanlon’s Orioles won three consecutive pennants in 1894-96 and finished second in 1897-98.  Concerned about slumping attendance in Baltimore, Orioles owner Henry Von der Horst tried to transfer most of his key personnel to Brooklyn in 1899, but McGraw and his friend Robinson refused to report, claiming business interests that demanded their attention in Baltimore.  Von der Horst reluctantly let them stay, and the 26-year-old McGraw managed the Orioles to an 86-82 record and a surprising fourth-place finish, 15 games behind Hanlon’s first-place Brooklyn Superbas[7].

Baltimore might have done even better had another tragedy not befallen its manager.  In late August McGraw’s wife, Mary (Minnie), died from a ruptured appendix; a grieving John missed much of September.  The Orioles disbanded when the NL contracted to eight teams in 1900 and, after again refusing to report to Brooklyn, McGraw was sold to the St. Louis Cardinals along with Robinson.  Agreeing to go only when the reverse clause was removed from his contract, he signed for a salary of $10,000 – the highest in baseball history – and hit .344 in 99 games[8].

In 1901 McGraw returned to Baltimore as manager and part owner of that city’s franchise in Ban Johnson’s new American League.  Throughout that season and the next, he and Johnson quarreled constantly – the latter habitually supported his umpires in their frequent disputes with McGraw, and tension also existed over McGraw’s interest in the team’s ownership.  Johnson finally suspended McGraw indefinitely in July 1902, and at that point, the temperamental manager jumped back to the NL as player-manager of the New York Giants, even though he’d recently married a Baltimore woman, Blanche Sindall.  One of his first acts in New York was to release nine players, despite the protests of Giants owner Andrew Freedman.  McGraw also brought six key players with him, including pitcher Joe McGinnity, catcher Roger Bresnahan, and first baseman Dan McGann.  The Giants finished last that season but rose to second in 1903, even though MrGraw’s much-injured knee finally gave out for good during spring training that year, effectively ending his career as a player[9].

In 1904 the Giants became NL champions, finishing with a won-lost record of 106-47, 13 games ahead of the Chicago Cubs.  McGraw and new Giants owner John T. Brush so detested Ban Johnson and his league that they refused to play the Boston Americans in what would’ve been the second World Series.  After winning again in  1905, however, they agreed to play the AL-champion Philadelphia Athletics.  New York triumphed in four out of the five games, three of them shutouts by Christy Mathewson.  McGraw led the Giants to pennants again in 1911, 1912, 1913, and 1917, but lost the World Series each year.  His regular-season success was due to his knack for evaluating and acquiring players who fit into his system, which stressed good pitching, sound defense, and aggressive baserunning.  McGraw bought, sold, and traded players more than his counterparts, grooming prospects for years before letting them play regularly.  He also was an innovator, using pinch-runners, pinch-hitters, and relief pitchers more than other managers[10].

Many commentators believed that McGraw’s lack of World Series success was due to his strong performance for players who fit his system.  The Giants were generally considered less talented than other top teams – they were a second-class team with a first-class manager, claimed the Cubs’ Johnny Evers.  Until left fielder Ross Youngs entered the league in 1917, catcher Roger Bresnahan was McGraw’s only Deadball Era position player who eventually made the Hall of Fame.  McGraw’s teams also had trouble reacting to events on the field.  They sometimes made mental errors in big games, as though they didn’t know what to do or were paralyzed at the thought of how the Old Man might react if they lost. After New York’s 1913 World Series defeat by the Athletics, even the usually loyal Mathewson blamed McGraw for the team’s setbacks in an article ghostwritten under his name in Everybody’s Magazine.  The Giants said the article, was a “team of puppets being manipulated from the bench on a string.”[11]

McGraw’s fiery personality made him fascinating to contemporaries outside sports.  Gamblers show business people, and politicians were drawn to him.  As his celebrity grew, McGraw became increasingly involved in various, sometimes questionable off-field activities.  He ventured into vaudeville for 15 weeks in 1912, appearing in such acts as “Odiva the Goldfish Lady.”  For a while, McGraw owned a poolroom in Manhattan with a gambler Arnold Rothstein, who later became the principal financial backer of the 1919 World Series fix, and he sometimes spent winters in Cuba, where he and Giants owner Charles Stoneham owned a share of a racetrack and casino.  When Stoneham bought the Giants in 1919, McGraw became vice president of the club and minority owner.  Between 1912 and 1923 he helped resolve various ownership crises of the Boston Braves – which usually paid off in trades that helped New York more than Boston.  Fatefully, McGraw also was instrumental in Col. Jacob Ruppert’s purchase of the Yankees and the decision to allow that team to share the Polo Grounds when the Giants were on the road[12].

In 1920 Babe Ruth arrived to play for the lowly Yankees.  The team’s attendance soared as Ruth began hitting home runs out of the Polo Grounds, prompting an enraged McGraw to instruct Stoneham to evict their upstart tenants.  In what was widely viewed as a battle between Inside Baseball and the new Power Game, McGraw had the consolation of beating the Yankees in the World Series of 1921-22 (“I signaled for every ball that was pitched to Ruth during the last World Series,” he gloated).  The tide turned for good in 1923, however, when the Yankees crushed the Giants, four games to two, for their first world championship, with Ruth clouting three home runs.  In 1924 the Giants won a record fourth consecutive NL pennant but lost another World Series, this time to the Washington Nationals.  As the years passed, McGraw evolved with the game.  Early in his career, his teams emphasized the stolen base, but as the long ball began to dominate baseball, McGraw – despite his personal dislike of the home run – adapted to the change.  For the rest of the decade and the early 1930s, the Giants fielded some fine teams but were never good enough to win.  Plagued by health problems, McGraw resigned on June 3, 1932[13].

McGraw made his last major public appearance at Comiskey Park in July 1933, managing the National League against Connie Mack’s American Leaguers in baseball’s first All-Star Game.  He was 60 years old when he died at his home in New Rochelle, New York. On February 25, 1934, of prostate cancer and uremia – but mostly, according to one reporter, because he was no longer top dog.  He was buried in New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore, near several of his old Orioles teammates, as well as his first wife, Mary.  McGraw was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.  Blanche McGraw inherited her husband’s stock in the Giants and carried on his memory, often attending games with Mathewson’s widow, her most tragic time, at least to the New York newspapers, was on that September day in 1957 when the Giants played their final game at the Polo Grounds before leaving for San Francisco.  She said the move would have broken John’s heart.  Nonetheless, she was present at Seals Stadium in April 1958 at the team’s first game on the West Coast, and again when Candlestick Park opened two years later.  Blanche McGraw died on November 5, 1962, only a few weeks after attending the New York games of the Giants-Yankees World Series[14].

An earlier version of this biography was published in “Deadball Stars of the National League” (Potomac Books, 2004), edited by Tom Simon. It also appeared in “From Spring Training to Screen Test: Baseball Players Turned Actors“ (SABR, 2018), edited by Rob Edelman and Bill Nowlin.

Sources:

Articles:
1.     Lamb, Bill. “A History of the New York Giants
        Franchise,” Outside the Lines, SABR
        Business of Baseball Committee, Vol. 22, No. 2,
        Fall 2016.
2.     Lamb, Bill. “Manhattan Field,” SABR BioProject.
3.     Mathewson, Christy. “Why We Lost Three Worlds
        Championships,” Everybody’s Magazine,
        vol. XXXI, July-December 1914: 537-547.

Books:
1.     Graham, Frank. The New York Giants: An
        Informal History of a Great Baseball Club
        (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 2002).
2.     Glueckstein, Fred. The ’27 Yankees (Xlibris
        Corporation, July 26, 2005).
3.     Greenberg, Eric Rolfe. The Celebrant
        (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska
        Press, 1983).
4.     Hynd, Noel. The Giants of the Polo Grounds:
        The Glorious Times of Baseball’s New
        York Giants (Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 1995).
5.     Klein, Maury. Stealing Games: How John
        McGraw Transformed Baseball With the
        1911 New York Giants (New York: Bloomsbury
        Press, 2016).
6.     Mansch, Larry D. Rube Marquard: The Life
        and Times of a Baseball Hall of Famer
        (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland &
        Co., 1998).
7.     Mathewson, Christy. (Introduction by Eric
        Rolfe Greenberg). Pitching in a Pinch
        or Baseball From the Inside (Lincoln:
        University of Nebraska Press 1994).
8.     McGraw, John J. My Thirty Years in Baseball
        (Lincoln and London: University of
        Nebraska Press (reprint of a book published
        in 1923).
9.     Robinson, Ray. Matty: An American Hero
        (New York: Oxford University
        Press, 1993).
10.   Seymour, Harold. Baseball: The Golden Age
        (New York: Oxford University
        Press, 1971).
11.   Smith, Robert. Baseball: The Game, the Men
        Who Have Played It, and its Place in
        American Life (New York: Simon and
        Schuster, 1947).
12.   Stark, Benton. The Year They Called Off the
        World Series: A True Story (Garden City,
        New York: Avery Publishing Group, 1991).

Newspapers and Magazines:

Baseball Magazine, New York Herald, New York Times, Sporting Life, The Sporting News.

Notes::

1.     https://baseballhall.org/hof/mcgraw-john. In
        2021, Tony La Russa surpassed McGraw
        with his 2,764th victory.
2.     thejeopardyfan.com/2016/06/june-1-1932-john-
        mcgraws-final-mlb-game-as-new-york
        -giants-manager.html.
3.     John McGraw file, Giamatti Research Library,
        National Baseball Hall of Fame.accessed
        September 3, 2017.
4.     Ibid.
5.     Ibid.
6.     espn.go.com/page2/s/list/cheaters/ballplayers.
        html.
7.     John McGraw file.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Ibid.
10.   Ibid.
11.   leaptoad.com/rain delay/matty/whywelost.shtml.
        Christy Mathewson, “Why We Lost Three World’s
        Championships,” Everybody’s Magazine,
        vol XXXI, July-December 1914: 537-547.
12.   John McGraw file.
13.   Ibid.
14.   Ibid.

Full Name: John Joseph McGraw.
Born: April 7, 1873, at Truxton, NY (USA).
Died: February 25, 1934, at New Rochelle, NY (USA).

(Photo credit: https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2021/03/02/pittsburgh-cultural-trust-2021-arts-festival-plans.html
Researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

Some facts about the Ohio River:
States:
     1.     Location:  Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia,
                              Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, 
                              Missouri (through the Mississippi
                              River).
     2.     Source:  Allegheny River.
     3.     Location: Allegany Township, Potter County,
                             PA.
     4.     Elevation: 2,240 ft. (680 m)
     5.     Second Source: Monongahela River
             A.     Location: Fairmont, West Virginia
             B.     Elevation: 880 ft. (270 m)
             C.     Source Confluence:
                      1.  Location: Pittsburgh, PA.
                      2.  Elevation: 730 ft. (220 m).
     Mouth: Mississippi River
     Location: Cairo, Illinois/Ballard County, KY
     Elevation: 290 ft. (88 m).
     Length: 981 mi. (1,579 km).
     Basin Size: 189,422 sq mi. (490,600 km2).
     
Discharge:

     Location: Cairo, IL (1951-1980)
     Average: 281,000 cu ft/s (8,000 m3/s)(1951-1980)
     Maximum: 1,850,000 cu ft/s (52,000 m3/s)
     Progression: Mississippi River à Gulf of Mexico

Tributaries:

      Left: Little Kanawha River, Kanawha River,
               Guyandotte River, Big Sandy River,
               Little Sandy River, Licking River,
               Kentucky River, Salt River, Green
               River, Cumberland River, Tennessee

               River.

     Right:  Beaver River, Little Muskingum
                River, Muskingum River, Hocking
                River, Shade River, Scioto River,
                Little Miami River, Great Miami
                River, Wabash River.

http://www.water.ohiorivertrail.org/index.php/en/history-of-the-ohio-river

The Ohio River is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, PA. It ends 981 miles downstream in Cairo, IL, and flows into the Mississippi River. With the convergence of these three rivers, the Ohio is actually larger than the Mississippi. The Ohio River supplies drinking water and recreational uses for over five million people.

The Ohio River had a great significance in American history. It received its English name from the Iroquois word, Oyo, meaning The Great River. For centuries, Native Americans, like the European explorers who followed them, formed numerous civilizations along its valley and used the river as a major transportation and trading route. Many settlements were connected by its waters. In 1669, Robert de La Salle led an expedition to the Ohio River and his French party was among the first Europeans to see the river. La Salle named the river La Belle Riviere or The Beautiful River.

In 1753, a 21-year-old George Washington visited the Native American riverside village named Logstown along the Ohio River to warn the French away from the Ohio Valley and assert the claim of the British. The French and British couldn’t agree, and the dispute ended in violence, which led to the French & Indian War.

In 1801 when Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States, most of the country’s population lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. In February of 1803, Congress appropriated funds for the U.S. Army expedition requested by President Jefferson, commonly known as the “Corps of Discovery.” Following the United States' purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, Captain Merryweather Lewis traveled to Pittsburgh and began his journey west along the Ohio River. After the European-American settlement, the river again served as a primary transportation route for pioneers during the westward expansion of the early U.S.

Pittsburgh is renowned for its Three Rivers, and the Port of Pittsburgh moves more than 44 million tons of cargo annually along its three major waterways – the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers – making it the second largest inland port in the U.S. With more than 200 river terminals, the Port of Pittsburgh is the origin of destination for more tons of raw materials than any other port in the world. The Three Rivers were and still are the lifeblood of southwestern Pennsylvania, having played a major part in the development of our region and country as a whole.