Stacking the Deck
Cleveland acquired its first amateur baseball team in 1865. Within six years, the club had improved enough to join the National Association of Professional Baseball Players. When that outfit folded after just two seasons, a new incarnation owned by J. Ford Evans gained entry into the National League (NL). The franchise fared so poorly that Evans tried his own hand at managing in 1882. He was summarily dismissed by team president C. H. Bulkley.
In 1887, streetcar moguls Frank and M. Stanley Robison founded the Cleveland Blues, an American Association (AA) squad. After two mediocre campaigns, the team migrated to the NL as the Cleveland Babes. At some point during the spring of 1889, a reporter observed that the players were gaunt and “looked like a lot of underfed spiders.” The nickname stuck. Determined to build a reliable following, the Robisons financed the construction of a new stadium (known as League Park) on East 66th and Lexington Avenue. It opened in 1891.
Over the next several years, various rule changes helped refurbish the sport. In 1893, the pitcher’s mound was moved back to a distance of sixty feet, six inches. It had previously been located an unimaginable fifty feet from home plate. Other alterations would follow, including the infield fly rule and the adoption of foul bunts as strikes. As a result, game play was far more orderly despite the rowdiness that permeated the sport.
In an atmosphere of rapid modernization, the Spiders climbed into contention under the management of Patsy Tebeau, a hard-nosed veteran who once told a reporter, “Show me a team of fighters and I’ll show you a team that has a chance.” Taking the reins in 1892, Tebeau’s aggressive philosophy sparked Cleveland to a league championship over Baltimore in 1895. Pitchers Cy Young and Nig Cuppy soaked up more than 700 innings of work that year and jointly posted 61 regular season victories against 24 losses. The postseason triumph would be the high point of the Robison dynasty.
In 1898, the United States became embroiled in a war with Spain in the Philippines. As attention turned overseas, baseball attendance dropped off sharply. Late in the season, all of the Spider’s games were transferred to rival cities. Criticized for the move, Frank Robison remarked tersely that baseball was a “business, not a public service.” In the wake of the Players Revolt of 1890 (covered extensively in the first chapter), the NL had become a cumbersome aggregation of twelve teams. Hampered by ongoing internal strife, the board of directors did little to stop the Robisons from creating a syndicate. After the Spiders slumped to a fifth-place showing in 1898, the sly transportation barons purchased the St. Louis Browns from bankrupt owner Chris Von der Ahe. As renovations began on Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, the new owners announced that the St. Louis and Cleveland clubs would switch cities.
The Browns had been a dominant team in the 1880s but had dropped off the radar in subsequent years, finishing last in 1897 and 1898. Sensing disaster for baseball in the Forest City, the Cleveland Plain Dealer denounced the outrageous plan in a series of scathing articles. Both Robisons weighed in on the topic. M. Stanley assured fans that, “Yes, we will have the best team in the league. We are prepared to spend any amount of money to strengthen the team, but I hardly think it will need much strengthening.” Addressing concerns that the Spiders would become equivalent to a minor league franchise, Frank boldly stated that, “Cleveland will not, contrary to the impression that some persons have been trying to get abroad, be a farm for the St. Louis team. Not a single man who is now with Cleveland will be transferred to St. Louis this season.” This would stand as a blatant exaggeration of the truth when the Spiders lost one of their top players to the newly christened “Perfectos” in June.
The Promise of Spring (Or Lack Thereof)
Attempting to secure a manager for the “new” version of the Spiders, the Robisons entered into negotiations with “Scrappy” Bill Joyce. A veteran of eight major league seasons, Joyce was known for his ability to get on base. He had met with moderate success as a player/manager over portions of three campaigns with the Giants. When his salary demands came in a bit high, the Cleveland owners handed the reins to third baseman Lave Cross.
Cross had reached an offensive pinnacle with the Phillies in 1894, posting an exceptional .387 batting average. In all, he would top the .300 mark five times during his twenty-one years in the majors. The manager’s job in Cleveland proved to be exasperating from the onset. When Cross made an appeal to Frank Robison for two pitchers and a shortstop to help the club, Robison replied in brusque fashion, “I am not interested in winning games here. Play out the schedule. That’s your job.”
The St. Louis Perfectos appeared to be a well-endowed club as they departed for spring training in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Managed by the spirited Tebeau, they carried three eventual Hall of Famers on their roster, the most familiar being all-time wins leader Cy Young. In stark contrast, there was scarcely a star to be found on the fields of Terra Haute, Indiana (training home of the Spiders). Third baseman Suter Sullivan hit .222 in limited action during his 1898 St. Louis debut. Sport McAllister and Dick Harley were as defensively inept as any corner-outfield tandem in history. The pitching staff was a wretched assortment of nontalent led by “Coldwater Jim” Hughey, who would serve up 403 hits in 283 innings.
Areas of strength included first base, which was patrolled by the sure-handed Tommy Tucker. Entering his thirteenth season, Tucker won the AA batting title with a .372 mark in 1889. Second base was manned by veteran Joe Quinn. A reliable glove man and steady RBI producer, the thirty-four-year-old Quinn emerged as Cleveland’s most valuable player. One other position relatively free from concern was that of catcher, which was occupied by Joe Sugden. A competent hitter, Sugden also possessed a strong arm, foiling 40 percent of all stolen base attempts in twelve seasons behind the plate.
Cold weather awaited players in Terra Haute on April 2 as spring training officially got underway. Only eight players showed up for the first practice, among them Lave Cross, Joe Quinn, and Joe Sugden. Outfielder Dick Harley, who had been coaching at Villanova University, was reportedly en route. Pitcher “Still Bill” Hill had wired Frank Robison with regrets that he was too out of shape to pitch. A member of the Cleveland press referred to the intimate gathering as a “handful of frozen has-beens.”
On the second day of practice, those in attendance were distressed to learn that five of their teammates were now holding out for more money—a group that included pitchers Willie Sudhoff, Kid Carsey, and Jim Hughey. A poorly conditioned Bill Hill showed up to pitch the first exhibition game against Indianapolis of the Western League. True to his word, he was not yet ready to toe the rubber, giving up 7 runs, a wild pitch, and 2 hit batsmen in one inning of work. Fortunately, the rest of the pitching holdouts arrived at camp shortly afterward.
By the second week of the spring, there were more than a dozen men in training. The Spiders had accrued a 2–1 exhibition record in grand fashion. Trailing 7–0 in the first inning of an April 10 contest, the Robison rejects rallied to beat Indianapolis, 12–10. Joe Quinn reportedly made an acrobatic grab at second base to save the tying runs late in the game. At this juncture, opinions of the club varied widely. Player/manager Lave Cross commented to the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he wasn’t expecting much from the team in April. “They are playing winning ball and are bound to finish up well in the second division,” he said.
On the eve of the season opener, there were two last minute arrivals—Harry Lochhead, a twenty-three-year-old shortstop freshly plucked from the Pacific Coast League, and Jack Stivetts, a well-traveled right-hander who was later dropped from the roster in June. The Cleveland Plain Dealer skewered the Robisons for failing to promote the team, as an April 14 headline read, “Not One Word of Encouragement Has Yet Been Heard.” Without fanfare, the Spiders traveled to St. Louis to begin the debacle.
A Sad Finale
Rubbing salt on the wounds of Cleveland players, a parade attended by 15,000 was held in St. Louis prior to the start of the season opener between the two syndicated clubs. Many of those fans stuck around to watch the Perfectos definitively prove which team was superior. At some point during the 10–1 loss, the Spiders received a warm ovation, but that was about the only encouraging moment. Asked after the game if he planned on strengthening the Cleveland squad, Frank Robison replied, “We will strengthen the team gradually, but our plans in that regard are definitely not formed yet.”
One plan that materialized was a long shot at best. On the heels of the team’s first win (which did not occur until more than a week into the season), right fielder Louis Sockalexis was seen warming up with the team at League Park. Of Penobscot descent, Sockalexis was the first Native American player to appear in the majors. He had begun his career at the College of the Holy Cross, where he was a standout in three different sports. In two seasons, he hit over .400 for the Crusaders while being clocked at ten seconds in the 100-yard dash. Recruited by Notre Dame in 1896, Cleveland offered him a $1,500 contract (a generous figure back then). Sockalexis opted to stay in school but was arrested days later for drunkenly vandalizing a brothel with a classmate. Notre Dame had a strict alcohol policy, and the immensely talented Sockalexis was expelled.
Making his Cleveland debut in 1897, Sockalexis remained calm and focused in the face of relentless harassment from opposing players. “If the big and small boys of Brooklyn and other cities find it a pleasure to shout at me, I have no objections,” he told Sporting Life in June of that year. Through 66 games, Sockalexis was hitting .338 with 42 RBIs and 16 stolen bases. But his inclination toward drunkenness would get the best of him. On July 4, he jumped out the second story window of a brothel, where he had been celebrating a Spiders’ victory. He hurt his ankle in the fall and played no more that year.
In the off-season, Sockalexis was spotted in a drunk and disorderly state on the streets of Cleveland more than once. His follow-up performance in 1898 was a disappointment, as he managed a miserable .224 showing at the plate. In October, an article appeared in the Pittsburgh Leader with the following racial overtones: “Poor Lou Sockalexis of the tribe of Penobscot and Tebeau will probably be placed under the hammer of the fire, smoke, and water sale of damaged baseball goods, which is one of the features of the annual league meeting. Sock swears by the feathers of his ancestors that he hasn’t removed the scalp from even one glass of the foamy beer since last spring.”
Realizing that they could get him cheap, the Robisons rescued the once-promising prospect from the scrap heap. Approached by reporters during his first workout, Sockalexis boldly proclaimed, “I will be in right field when the bell tinkles Friday, and, if I feel as I do today, I’ll knock the ball over to Lexington Avenue.” Those words appeared grossly overstated on May 10, when he let several catchable flies drop in the outfield and ran the bases poorly. The following day, he rapped out 5 safeties but dropped 2 fly balls. He also flubbed a double-steal and was gunned down at the plate. His comeback attempt ended on May 13, after he showed up at the ballpark drunk and fell down twice in the outfield. Following his May release, Sockalexis became a vagrant for three years (although he eventually cleaned himself up and umpired in the Maine leagues). The dispiriting tale was an appropriate sidelight to Cleveland’s gloomy saga of 1899.
A Moveable Famine
With the Spiders off to an 8–30 start, the Robisons made liars of themselves when they transferred Lave Cross to the Perfectos. Giants’ owner John T. Brush was opposed to the transaction, griping to the press, “It looks bad for a strong club to be made stronger at the expense of a weaker club owned by the same parties. I don’t like the idea at all. . . . Such things hurt the game.” On the heels of a 9–6 loss to New York, Joe Quinn accepted a promotion to skipper.
An undertaker in the off-season, Quinn had gotten his start in the Union Association during the 1884 slate. After four seasons in the NL, he migrated to the short-lived Players’ League. A dependable second baseman, he spent significant time at numerous other positions over the course of his seventeen-year big-league tour. The first Australian to appear in the majors, he led his respective league in fielding percentage three times. Quinn adamantly denounced violence within the sport, especially abuse of umpires. “A little more sportsmanship and less throat-cutting on the part of the magnates would make baseball a real sport again,” he complained to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Surprisingly, it would be more than 100 years before another Australian-born player appeared in the Big Show—third baseman Craig Shipley in 1986.
Beginning in mid-June, the Spiders played their longest stretch of games at League Park, rarely attracting more than a few hundred fans. The largest crowd of the season turned out on July 1 to see a doubleheader against Boston. The Beaneaters were a second-place squad, touting future Hall of Fame pitchers Kid Nichols and Vic Willis. They also had an eventual Cooperstown honoree patrolling their outfield—the speedy Hugh Duffy, who had compiled the highest single-season batting average of all-time, with a .440 mark in 1894. Before an unparalleled gathering of 1,500 patrons, the most inspiring game of the season unfolded.
Vic Willis, a 27-game winner that year, started for Boston. Frank Bates took the hill for Cleveland and, according to newspaper reports, “pitched with about as much heart as that which a rabbit would tackle a ferret.” Boston jumped out to a 7–0 lead as boisterous Cleveland first baseman Tommy “Foghorn” Tucker vainly attempted to rattle opponents with a steady stream of insults. In the bottom of the ninth, the Spiders rallied for 7 runs on timely hits from Tommy Dowd and Joe Quinn. Boston answered with two scores of their own in the eleventh, quieting the sparse crowd. In the bottom of the frame, Willis was chased from the game after yielding consecutive singles to Bates and Dowd. He was replaced by Ted Lewis, who had trouble finding the plate. Following a walk to Dick Harley, Lewis uncorked a wild pitch, scoring Bates. Quinn reached first on a fielder’s choice and then stole second. Making Quinn’s gambit count, Sport Sullivan singled sharply, icing the game for the Spiders. A July 2 article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer describes the scene as follows: “The Cleveland players were like a lot of wild men. When Joe Quinn came in with the winning run, the players gave a pretty good imitation of a school let out for recess, and the audience was as wild as the players.” In a rare show of support, President M. Stanley Robison personally shook the hand of each player. Not even a 14–0 loss in the second game could dampen Cleveland’s spirits.
Robison’s misfits had a long road ahead of them—literally. Beginning on July 3, they completed the longest stretch of “away” games in major league history. During this 50-game tour of the entire circuit, the team went 6–44, falling ten games further out of contention. By the time they rolled back into Cleveland on August 24, the Spiders found themselves 55 games out of first and 20 games behind the eleventh-place Washington Senators.
Highlights from the trip were sparse, but the game at Chicago on August 6 held some points of interest. A total of 14,000 Windy City fans turned out to see a doubleheader, and most were highly surprised by the outcome of the opener. “Crazy” Schmit took the mound for Cleveland, squaring off against Bill Phyle of the Orphans (later to be known as the Cubs). Phyle’s performance had been suspect all season, and he was reportedly “working on probation.” Cleveland hit him hard and often, rolling to an early 8–0 lead. But Schmit couldn’t shut down the Chicago batsmen as they chipped away at his curveball all afternoon. With a barrage of clutch hits, the Spiders ended up stranding just 2 base runners. They would need every run they got as Schmit nearly blew the game. Trailing 10–6 in the ninth, Chicago’s Bill Everett led off with a single. Sam Mertes followed with another hit, and the crowd came to life. George Magoon lined out to Harry Lochhead at short, and Mertes appeared to be doubled up on Lochhead’s quick relay to first. When Umpire Hank O’Day called him safe, first-sacker Tommy Tucker went ballistic and assaulted O’Day. The fiery Tucker was ejected and fined. Several minutes later, O’Day made an unusual call, ruling Jim Connor out for interfering with catcher Joe Sugden. Schmit proceeded to make the game interesting, walking the bases loaded and then yielding a 2-run single to pinch hitter Jack Taylor. Completely unnerved, the eccentric Cleveland southpaw walked in another run. With the score at 10–9, Schmit induced a weak grounder off the bat of third baseman Harry Wolverton to finally end the game.
The rest of August was full of disparaging losses, including a 13–1 thrashing at New York and a 20–2 humiliation in Brooklyn. After dropping their first home game in nearly a month to the Giants on August 24, the Cleveland Plain Dealer commented on the Spiders’ return, saying, “There were at least a hundred at League Park yesterday when the wandering aggregation of barnstormers called the Clevelands reappeared on what used to be their home grounds. Such a welcome was about what the players expected. They have long since become accustomed to walk up and take their daily beating without hope of sympathy, and they looked for no support at home.” The statement was poignantly accurate as the Spiders attracted a measly total of 6,000 patrons in 42 home games.
Don’t Get Too Comfortable
After a brief home stand, the Spiders played all but one of their remaining games on the road. The results were even worse than expected as the team rattled off a record-setting 24-game losing streak. The skein lasted from August 26 through September 16 and landed them 75 games behind the first-place Brooklyn Bridegrooms. In that span, the Cleveland pitching staff surrendered 10 or more runs on 7 occasions. Fifteen different players combined for a league worst 6.37 ERA in 1899. The staff was so riddled with problems that outfielder Sport McAllister and shortstop Harry Lochhead were each called upon to pitch. McAllister actually started a game that year and went the distance. Between 1896 and 1899, he took the hill 17 times, accruing a 4–7 record and 5.32 ERA—competitive numbers compared to many Cleveland hurlers.
Near the end of the 1899 campaign, there was trouble brewing between players and owners. On October 1, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that players had not been paid in six weeks and were growing increasingly disgruntled. Frank Robison, largely aloof to the press, insisted that the delay was due to the extensive journey abroad, as it was not club policy to pay his men on the road. He explained that players strapped for cash were welcome to draw from the club treasury as needed. All would eventually receive their back pay, but not until November.
The season ended on a low note with a doubleheader loss at Cincinnati. The combined score of both matches was a preposterous 35–4. Following the second game, a gaggle of players met in a hotel room to blow off some steam. Team secretary George W. Muir was presented with a diamond locket by those in attendance. “We are doing this for you because you deserve it,” he was told. “You are the only person in the world who had the misfortune to watch us in all our games.” The owners retained 15 players for the 1900 slate, among them Dowd, Quinn, and Sugden, but none would take the field in a Cleveland uniform. By the start of the new campaign, the Spiders were no more.
In the off-season, a series of contractions occurred, and the NL was reduced to a far more manageable eight-team circuit. Baltimore, Louisville, Cleveland, and Washington were dropped, and syndicates were outlawed forevermore. The Spiders reappeared in the American League (AL) as the Naps, Blues, and Indians. The 1899 unit remains, in terms of winning percentage, the worst professional baseball team of all time.
Bright Spots of 1899
Joe Quinn
You can’t blame a guy for trying. In the midst of the most horrendous campaign in baseball history, Joe Quinn still had some positive things to say about his club and the men running it. “We have a good team, and we can make the best of them work for all they get,” he told a reporter in August. He added in good humor, “I don’t have a word to say against the Robisons. They have treated me splendidly.” Playing hard to the end, Quinn led the club in numerous offensive categories, scoring 73 runs on 176 hits while accruing a solid batting average of .286. He also trumped all NL second basemen with a .962 fielding percentage. Following the unfortunate season of 1899, he was transferred to the St. Louis club, which would by then be known as the Cardinals. He played with Washington in the fledgling AL the next year but injured his throwing arm and was released. He continued in the Western League through the 1903 campaign. After leaving baseball behind, he returned to his undertaking business full-time.
Tommy Dowd
The educated Tommy Dowd attended three prestigious colleges: Brown, Georgetown, and Holy Cross. His playing career began uneventfully in the AA, where he fashioned a lukewarm .255 batting average while performing somewhat unreliably at second base. He was eventually moved to the outfield. In 1895, he compiled a career-best average of .323 in 546 plate appearances for the eleventh-place St. Louis Browns. He also spent part of a season with the Phillies before ending up in Cleveland. Nicknamed “Buttermilk Tommy,” Dowd scored 81 runs and hit at a steady .278 clip in 1899. He added 10 outfield assists and fielded his position slightly above the league average. With ample speed on the base paths, Dowd stole 368 bags in 10 big-league seasons. At the start of the 1902 campaign, he attempted to purchase a team in the Connecticut League. He ended up running a dreadful club in the New York State circuit. He later coached at Amherst and Williams College. He is credited with discovering slick-fielding Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville. According to the Baseball-reference website, Dowd’s body was discovered in the Connecticut River in July 1933.
Tommy Tucker
Tommy Tucker was nearing the end of a long and fruitful career when he was uprooted from St. Louis to join the Spiders in 1899. He had enjoyed his best season as a hitter ten years earlier, when he led the AA in several different categories, including hits (196), batting average (.372), and on-base percentage (.450). He exceeded the .300 mark on three other occasions and played a central role in keeping the Boston Beaneaters in contention during the 1890s. A rough and tumble player, Tucker was not afraid to scuffle with the meanest opponents of his time. He once tangled with the vindictive John McGraw as a fire consumed the grandstand behind home plate at the South End Grounds in Boston. Even on a tail-end club, Tucker played with reckless abandon in 1899, diving for balls, arguing with umpires, and doing his best to punish rivals. Although he hit a meager .241, he fielded his position competently and gave the lifeless club a little spark in difficult times. After two years of minor league ball, he was finished as a professional by 1902.
Joe Sugden
As a catcher, Joe Sugden had his work cut out for him in 1899, handling one of the worst pitching staffs ever assembled. In addition to the 1,844 hits and 527 walks issued, Cleveland hurlers unleashed a considerable total of 40 wild pitches during the 1899 slate. It couldn’t have been easy, but Sugden was up to the task, allowing just 9 passed balls while foiling a total of 98 stolen base attempts in 66 games behind the plate. He carried his weight as a hitter as well, fashioning a .276 average. Sugden played portions of 6 more seasons with the White Sox, Browns, and Tigers after his miserable 1899 experience. He coached for the Tigers and scouted for the Cardinals in later years. Although listed at 180 pounds, Sugden looks rather skeletal in some profile photos.
Ossee Schreckengost
Ossee Schreckengost had one of the most cumbersome names of the era. He was also among the last catchers to refuse shin guards. A decent defensive backstop, he helped standardize the practice of handling pitchers with one hand. Over the course of his 11-year career, he led the league in putouts 6 times. He was all over the place in 1899, moving from St. Louis to Cleveland in the Lave Cross deal. After 43 games in the Forest City, he was transferred back when injuries plagued Perfectos’ receivers. He made a good show of it in his 43 games with the Spiders, hitting .313 while occupying four different infield stations. He had the distinction of being the only Cleveland player with more than 100 at bats to exceed the .300 mark. After the 1899 campaign, he was off to bigger things. He joined Connie Mack’s powerful Athletics and made a World Series appearance in 1905. In Philly, he roomed with notoriously flaky Hall of Famer Rube Waddell and became the costar of numerous zany anecdotes. Always a fair hitter, Schreckengost compiled a respectable lifetime batting average of .271. He died from a kidney ailment just four years after his retirement as a player.
Forest City Follies
Harry Lochhead
A California product, Harry Lochhead came up through the Pacific Coast League in 1898. He should have left his game out West, as he committed 81 errors at shortstop in 1899. True, he finished second in assists and third in putouts, but still—81 errors is an ungainly total at any position in any era. His .238 batting average didn’t help build a strong case for his return the following season. He was transferred to St. Louis, nevertheless, and then sold to Detroit, who shipped him off to the minors. He returned to major league action in 1901, splitting time with the Tigers and A’s. Connie Mack wasn’t impressed with his hitting or fielding and subsequently cut him loose.
Jim Hughey
The right-handed Jim Hughey bounced up and down from the majors to the minors before sticking with Pittsburgh for the1896 slate. He would compile a 19–42 record over the 3 three seasons with a suspect 4.50 ERA. Assigned to the Spiders in 1899, he had his worst year ever, leading the league with 30 losses and finishing second in earned runs. He added 10 wild pitches and 22 hit batsmen to his shoddy resume that year. One day, while filling in at catcher on a wet afternoon, Sport McAllister grew so irritated crawling around in the mud after Hughey’s erratic offerings that he actually returned to the bench and refused to play. Hughey closed the season with 16 straight defeats, but it wasn’t entirely his fault, as the team was in a free fall at the time. He played one more season with the Cardinals and then disappeared from the majors for good. His minor league record was equally unremarkable.
“Crazy” Schmit
“Crazy” Schmit has the honor of being listed twice in this book as a liability to his club. He went 2–17 for the 1899 Spiders while allowing an average of nearly 6 earned runs per game. With a 5.45 lifetime ERA, it’s hard to believe Schmit actually lasted portions of five seasons in the majors. At least he was good for a few amusing yarns. In a tight ballgame against Pittsburgh on July 4 of the 1899 slate, Schmit began arguing with the umpire over a close play at the plate. With the score tied at 6 apiece, the offbeat hurler began gesturing dramatically to the crowd for support. He was so engrossed in his theatrics that he made no attempt to catch Ossee Schreckengost’s relay back to the mound. The ball sailed into center field, and Pittsburgh scored the winning run on the play. Schmit pitched for part of the 1901 campaign with Baltimore and then retired as a professional.
Harry Colliflower
What a name! “Collie,” as he was sometimes referred to, swung the bat pretty well in 1899, running up a .303 batting average in 78 plate appearances. If only he had been competent on the mound. The Washington Post once praised Colliflower for his control, speed, and poise, but none of those qualities helped him win ballgames for the Spiders. The thirty-year-old rookie southpaw accrued a 1–11 record with a garish 8.17 ERA during his only season in the majors. Debuting in July, he won his first start against Washington. He then proceeded to argue with manager Joe Quinn over how much money he should be paid. He was off the team for a week but returned to pitch his way out of the majors. He went on to umpire in several minor leagues, as well as the AL, for one season. A resident of Washington, D.C., Colliflower later became a popular public speaker.
Frank Bates
Frank Bates joined the Spiders in September of 1898, helping them down the stretch with a promising 2–1 record and 3.10 ERA. His follow-up was nothing of the sort, as he lost 18 of 19 decisions while accumulating a titanic ERA. According to one source, the right-handed Cleveland native still holds the record for fewest strikeouts per nine innings. Batters were simply too busy walking, hitting safely, or getting plunked to strike out against him in 1899. Bates gave it one more shot at the turn of the century, but his 6–13 record with Wheeling and Youngstown of the Interstate League chased him out of professional baseball. The 1900 Wheeling Stogies’ roster read like a bad joke, with names like Bunk Congalton and Bumpus Jones.