Reflecting (Virtually) from Gettysburg

If this were any normal year (a now all too common opening qualification), this post would summarize the Flemington Neshanock's annual visit to Gettysburg for the Nineteenth Century Baseball Festival hosted by the Elkton Eclipse Base Ball Club.  The post would have begun by praising the Elkton Club for running such a fine event, described Flemington's four matches and reflected on our annual visit to what Carol Zinn always refers to as sacred ground.   Even though this year's event was cancelled, it is still important to thank the Elkton Club, first for doing everything possible to play the event and then making the painful, difficult, but correct decision to cancel.  Like all the other participants, the Neshanock are hoping that by next year we'll be able to get back on the field at Gettyburg and everywhere else we were scheduled to play this year.  Even without physically being in Gettysburg, however, it is still appropriate to offer an annual reflection on the historic events that took place in that small Pennsylvania village over 150 years ago.

Photo by Mark Granieri

What happened at Gettysburg, of course, was not just the crucial Union victory, purchased at such great human cost, but also Abraham Lincoln's deathless words, spoken there a few months later.  For all its importance as a battle, Gettysburg did not mark the final turning point of the war.  More Union soldiers died after the battle than before and some historians (including this one) argue that it was not until Sherman's army took Atlanta on September 2, 1864, insuring Lincoln's reelection, that the Union victory became inevitable.  Lincoln's speech, however, brought a new dimension not just to the battle, but to the entire Civil War and our annual visit there often informs my view of contemporary experiences.  Take two years ago, for example. Just a week before the festival, a very unlikely set of circumstances led me to accompany a friend to the funeral of a gay white man at historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.  The deceased, who I had never met, was involved in a Black Church in New York City and that congregation, his gay friends and people like my friend and me were there together as one community.  Having that experience in a place where over 3,000 Union veterans are buried suggested that this was an example of what Lincoln meant by "a new birth of freedom." It left me with a very positive feeling.

Clark's Battery, First New Jersey Artillery monument at Gettysburg

Sadly, reflecting on Gettysburg in 2020, it is very difficult to have similar feelings.  Diversity may be even more in the news today, but it certainly does not seem to be valued and any sense of community seems to have gone equally by the wayside.  It is almost axiomatic to hear that we are divided as never before.  That's not accurate, of course, since during the Civil War there was an armed insurrection going on and that is as divided as it gets.  However, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the conflict was not just between north and south.  There were plenty of divisions within the north itself and two groups in particular stand out.  First were those who supported the war, but wanted the result to be "the constitution as it is, the nation as it was."  That may sound innocent, but it was not because at the heart of "the constitution as it is," was the document's tacit acceptance of slavery.  On the other extreme were the abolitionists, who, we tend to forget, considered the constitution a pact with the devil and wanted to burn it for that same acceptance of slavery.

5th New Jersey monument at Gettysburg

In his 272 words at Gettysburg, Lincoln offered a different approach, one that to me has been best described by Gary Wills in Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America, a book I wholeheartedly recommend regardless of one's interest in the Civil War.  Lincoln neither wanted to burn the constitution or preserve it as it was.  Rather Wills argues, Lincoln's goal was to purify the constitution by going back to the original core values of equality and equal rights embodied in the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence.  Preserving the constitution as it was, was not acceptable, because the acceptance of slavery was not consistent with those core values.  But at the same time, destroying the constitution was not necessary, the far better approach was changing it to bring it more in keeping with those values.   John Burt in his book, Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism suggests that one reason people sometimes have difficulty categorizing Lincoln is that he pursued a radical goal, ending slavery, (very radical for the time) but used conservative means to achieve that goal, amending the constitution to end slavery once for and forever.

Photo by Mark Granieri

What I participated in two years ago in Brooklyn was for me, just one example of what the "new birth of freedom" might look like, very much in line with the core values of the Declaration.  Perhaps it would be worthwhile today to measure our opinions about today's contentious issues against those values and, if appropriate, think about how we might need to change.  Real change is never easy, but it is certainly not impossible.  In her book - What This Cruel War is Over: Soldiers, Slavery and the Civil War, Chandra Manning makes a compelling argument that the Civil War at all levels was always about slavery.  In her conclusion she notes the "astonishing changes"  that "took place in many white Union men's ideas about slavery." Their example, she argues, can and should "alert all of us to the dramatic changes in attitude and achievement that can take place when people who think they have nothing in common find themselves thrust into interaction and interdependence."  If it could happen then, the good news is it can happen today as part of another "new birth of freedom."   May it always be so!

A Little Touch of Damon Runyon

While researching Don Newcombe's 1950 attempt to pitch two games in one night, I was struck by the brevity of the newspaper accounts for such an unusual occurrence especially in the heat of a pennant race.  There are a number of explanations for this, but the most important one is that Dodger fans were not dependent upon the Eagle, Daily News, or any other New York area newspaper for the details of the doubleheader in Philadelphia.  While it doesn't appear the games were televised back to Brooklyn, Dodger loyalists could, and probably did, listen to Red Barber, Connie Desmond and a young Vin Scully describe all the action on WMGM radio.  It was a far cry from the Deadball Era where unless a fan was fortunate enough to see the game in person, he or she had to rely on newspapers for all the details.  Fortunately, there was no shortages of papers, willing for a few cents, to do just that.  While most people are familiar with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, it was only one of four daily Brooklyn papers following the Dodgers in the 1916 pennant race.  Nor was that all, across the East River in Manhattan, there were almost 20 daily newspapers covering the fortunes of the three New York teams.

Damon Runyon at work 

Considering baseball fans had so many different choices, newspapers of the time had to find a way to make their paper the one fans relied on to keep track of their favorite team.  There was no shortage of different approaches, but out of all the possibilities one stands out - the style of the legendary Damon Runyon writing for William Randolph Hearst's New York American.  Better known for his stories, newspaper and otherwise, about Broadway that became the basis for the hit musical Guys and Dolls, Runyon first broke into the New York newspaper business in 1911.  Just one example of Runyon's unique style is his coverage of a September 7, 1916 match up between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds.  At this point in the pennant race, Brooklyn was just percentage points beyond first place Philadelphia.  New York, although in the first division, was three games below .500 in what thus far had been a very disappointing season.   The pitching match up was between two left handers, Napoleon Rucker for Brooklyn and Ferdinand Schupp for the Giants, both of whom had pitched sparingly all season.

Napoleon Rucker

Rucker was a hard luck veteran at the end of a 10 year career with subpar Brooklyn teams.   Although his overall record was barely over .500, Brooklyn was clearly a better team when Rucker pitched since the team's record in games he didn't pitch was 175 games under .500, a .430 winning percentage.  Although Schupp had been with the Giants since 1913, he had not yet broken into the regular rotation.  Even though it was September, neither pitcher could claim to be tired, since they both were making only their fourth start of the season.   The story line of the game was fairly straightforward.  Brooklyn took a 1-0 lead in the second on Zach Wheat's home run which Rucker held until the sixth when the Giants scored four times and held on for a 4-1 win.   Once again Rucker was the victim of hard luck as all the Giant runs were unearned due to an error by Brooklyn shortstop Ivy Olson on a routine ground ball that would have ended the inning without a run scoring.

Ferdinand Schupp

Most of the sportswriters focused on the pitching match up between a relative youngster and a grizzled veteran, giving both high marks for their pitching.  William Hanna of the New York Herald also expressed concern about what he felt was a sense of "hopelessness" exhibited by the Brooklyn players which he said needed to end soon or their quest for the pennant would fall short.  Writing in the New York Tribune, Frank O'Neil praised the play of new Giant first baseman Walter Holke who O'Neil thought would make Giant fans forget Fred Merkle (now in a Brooklyn uniform).  While O'Neil's point is understandable, it's hard to believe Giant fans of that generation could ever forget Merkle even if they wanted to.  Other writers like Fred Lieb in The Sun focused on Olson's untimely error which the scribe said brought tears to Charles Ebbets not because such blunders were unique, but because this one came while Ebbets was planning/hoping for the financial rewards of the World Series.  While Runyon gave his readers the basic details, he took an entirely different point of view as seen in the following excerpts:

          Brooklyn's most historic ruin, old Napoleon Rucker was taken from the archives of

          the borough yesterday afternoon, unwrapped, dusted off and brought with tender

          care to the Polo Grounds, where he was set to pitch his biennial game of baseball.

          The removal of Napoleon from Brooklyn was attended by all the usual ceremony.

          The Flatbush Society for the Preservation of the N. Rucker Soupbone, and all the

          borough officials were present. Charles H. Ebbets, the Squeer of Crow Hill made

          a short address.

  

          There was the customary reading of the affidavit by George Washington, Aaron 

          Burr, Pop Anson and John Hummel which are on file with Nap, authenticating the

          claim that Rucker had a fastball early in the seventeenth century, and then the old

          boy was carried across the Brooklyn Bridge in a rubber-tired hack to avoid jolting.

           In the sixth inning, with two out, the score tied and the satchels packed, Nap 

           threw his next to slowest ball at Walter [Holke], who waited patiently for several

           minutes until it got to a station outside the place and stopped there for 

           passengers.  Then Holke reached out and tapped the ball with his bat to make it

           move on,or do something, and lo and behold, he hit it into left field scoring two

           runners.

           A movement was launched in Brooklyn last night, after Napoleon had been taken 

           back to his sarcophagus and the key returned to the official antiquarian of the

           borough, to prevent any future junketing of the great relic.  I am in favor of legislation
           that will prohibit Napoleon Rucker from pitching anywhere except in Brooklyn
           hereafter, and then only on state occasions, such as say "Pancake Tuesday," declared
           Charles H. Ebbets.

Any such concerns on Ebbets part were unnecessary.  A few weeks later, anticipating Rucker 's retirement, the Dodgers held a day to honor their veteran pitcher.  When the Dodgers did prevail in the National League race, manager Wilbert Robinson made sure Rucker got a chance to pitch in the the World Series against Boston.  Even though his appearance in game 4 was effectively mop up duty, Rucker made the most of the opportunity striking out three without allowing a base runner.  The September loss to the Giants was the 134th of his long career against an equal number of wins, but Rucker's 2.42 career ERA gives a better sense of his pitching ability.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle - September 8, 1916

No one could have known it at the time, but the game also marked a turning point for the Giants and Ferdinand Schupp.  Still two games under .500 after their win over the Dodgers, the Giants won their next 25 games (with one tie) setting a record that still stands today.  While it was too late for the Giants to win the pennant, they closed to within 5 games.  Reflecting on the Giants streak, Fred Lieb  commented that while he didn't know who would come out on top in 1916, he had a pretty good idea about 1917 which proved prophetic when the rebuilt Giants took the flag.  The Giants success in late 1916 and in 1917 was in no short measure due to young Mr. Schupp who won six games in the 1916 streak while allowing just two unearned runs, a feat that has been managed only three other times in baseball history.  In his 140 innings of work in 1916, Schupp compiled an ERA of .90.  A year later, the young pitcher went 21-7 with a 1.95 ERA and also won a game in the World Series.  One can only imagine what Runyon might have written on that September day had his view of the future been as clear as his friend and colleague, Mr. Lieb.