Although gone forever, early twentieth-century baseball fans are with us still, preserved in black and white photos dating back over a hundred years - a cloud of witnesses to the Deadball Era (1901-1919). As captured in these images, they were mostly white, male and neatly dressed – seemingly ready to attend something more formal than a baseball game. The photos, however, regardless of the quality, don’t tell us much about what it was like to attend a game so many years ago. Fortunately, however, the Chicago Daily News reporters who put together the “My Biggest Baseball Day” series, didn’t leave out the fans. Those memories, complemented by some players’ comments, reveal a ballpark experience very different from today, especially the opportunity to be on the field and to take part in the game itself.
First of all, however, fans had to get to a game, something we take for granted, but which wasn’t so easy then. Today only a small percentage of games conflict with the average fan’s work schedule. But during the early twentieth century, most were played during regular working hours. The dilemma was even worse in the sabbath observing East, where major league baseball was illegal on Sunday. Thus, only those with some control of their work schedule could even consider attending, which effectively ruled out most working-class people. Baseball fans, however, have never lacked creativity, witness the many grandmothers who conveniently "died" right before big games. When the 1909 Giants-Dodgers season opener was rained out, the Standard Union of Brooklyn observed that “there must have been a great many grandmothers’ funerals postponed yesterday on account of wet grounds.”
Thomas Courtney, a 14-year-old student at St. Rita’s High School in Chicago, faced just such a challenge before the first game of the 1911 Cub-White Sox postseason city series. Courtney, a future State Attorney for Cook County in Illinois, knew two stockyard workers who got off work in time to attend the game but couldn’t purchase tickets in advance. Pooling forces, the two men offered to pay Courtney’s way in, if he bought the tickets. The offer was too good to refuse, but Courtney was supposed to be in school. Sparing his grandmother, at least metaphorically, the young man opted to tell the truth to Father Egan, the head of the school, encouraged by knowing the priest was also a big baseball fan. Honesty, in this case, was rewarded as Father Eagan “smiled and told me he didn’t see how he could deprive me of that opportunity.”
The fortunate Courtney didn’t mention what he and his friends did before the game, but for some fans, supporting their team began even before they arrived at the ballpark. Charles Dougherty, another future Illinois State Attorney, remembered that it was customary for Cub fans to “escort” the hated Giants to the grounds. Since visiting teams typically dressed at their hotel, they were easily identified in their bus or automobiles. According to Dougherty, the fans hooted “at them [the Giants] from the sidewalks,” while “yelling insults at Muggsy McGraw.” Dougherty was only present because he had the good fortune to be a mail clerk at the American Express Company, one of the few Chicago businesses to give their employees Saturday afternoon off.
As satisfying as it was to harass the opposition, hardened veterans like McGraw’s Giants were immune to verbal abuse so the “hooting” and “insults” had no impact on the game itself. Once inside the grounds, however, Deadball Era fans directly participated in the game in ways unthinkable today. Especially unique, and historic, was the part played by Pittsburgh Pirate rooters, during the second game of the 1909 World Series. Hall of Fame umpire, Billy Evans chose this, his first World Series game as his most memorable day in baseball in the Chicago Daily News series.
In the bottom of the first inning, Pittsburgh’s "Dots" Miller hit a ball down the right field line. The ball was clearly fair, but Evans, umpiring at home plate, didn’t see whether it bounced into the stands in fair or foul territory. At the time, it mattered – a bounce into the stands in foul territory, was a double, but if it landed in the fair stands it was a home run. To make matters worse, only two umpires worked World Series games, and Evans' partner, Bill Klem couldn’t help him. Not sure what to do, the two umpires along with Detroit Manager Hughie Jennings and Pirates skipper, Fred Clarke walked towards the bleachers.
Prompted by a comment from Klem, Evans decided to ask the fans where the ball landed. The Pirate fans, including the man who caught it, said it landed in the foul bleachers and was, therefore, only a double. Faced with eyewitness testimony, from his own fans, Clarke was hard-pressed to argue, and Jennings wasn’t about to complain. Not willing to press their luck with fan integrity, the National Commission immediately decided to use four umpires in future World Series games.
This was admittedly a very unusual situation. Far more common, were incidents of fans literally interfering with play, thanks to the owners’ desire to maximize their profits. Ticket sales were by far the club owners’ most significant source of revenue at a time when seating capacity was limited, especially in the early 1900s. Westside Park in Chicago, for example, the home of the Chicago Cubs, could seat only about 16,000. To sell more tickets, fans were allowed to stand in the outfield behind ropes which theoretically kept them from interfering with the game. The owners believed the benefit of the additional ticket sales for standing room on the field outweighed the risk of fan interference that could be controlled with ground rules and a police presence.
In talking about his “Biggest Baseball Day,” Charles Dougherty gave a detailed description of the ways fans in the roped-off sections interfered with a game. Perhaps not surprisingly, it came in the middle of a Cubs – Giants game, a rivalry where passions always ran high, on August 17, 1912, at Chicago’s Westside Park. New York was in first place, but the Cubs had closed to within six games and the contest was important to both teams. While crowd estimates are notoriously inaccurate, Dougherty quoted reports by some observers that 8,000 fans were on the field behind the ropes.
Unwilling to stand there passively and hope their team would win, Dougherty and the other fans “would press back against the outfield walls” to give the Chicago outfielders more room when the Giants were at bat. However, once the Cubs came to the plate, the crowd edged “halfway to second base” or that’s how Dougherty remembered it many years later. Even if they didn’t get that close, the fans tried to help the Cubs by tripping the Giant outfielders or throwing their caps in the air to confuse them on fly balls.
John McGraw’s Giants weren’t going to tolerate interference from the Cubs fans. Dougherty claimed Giant center fielder, “Beals” Becker spit tobacco juice at them and threatened “The next ball that comes back in there I’m going to cut you to pieces with my spikes.” Not the least intimidated, the fans dared him to try. However, in the seventh, when Becker came in “feet kicking high,” the fans in his path wisely chose discretion, and backed away, enabling the Giant outfielder to make the catch. Two innings later, in the bottom of the ninth, the fans not only got their revenge but helped the Cubs tie the game by preventing Becker from reaching a fly ball. Over 30 years later, Dougherty claimed he could “hear yet the ragging we gave Becker and how he snarled and spit at us.”
As the game headed to the 11th, the Chicago fans decided it was time to end the proceedings. First, they “made a path for [center fielder Tommy] Leach” so he could catch Buck Herzog’s fly and keep the Giants off the scoreboard. With a chance to win in the bottom of the inning, Johnny Evers hit the ball into the crowd standing in right field. “Somehow,” Dougherty noted factiously, “the Red Sea didn’t open up for him [the Giants Red Murray] and he lost the ball.” The next batter drove in the winning run, sending Dougherty and the rest of the crowd into a frenzy. The fans had good reason to celebrate. Not only did their team win a dramatic victory, but they had helped them do it. It’s no wonder Dougherty recalled that “It was pretty late that evening before I remembered that there was such a thing as supper.” Perhaps on this occasion, even the strictest parents understood.
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