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Directions to the A. Belle Plaque, &c., Part 2: Continue Until You Hit Rabbit Ball Hollow.

Having digested our first batch of obscure ghosts, which can be found here, we shall proceed apace to the frontline of dead ball left fielders, wherein we will find the aforementioned Cooperstown Five—plus one shocking oversight! We'll begin with a man who was once Base Ball's Home Run King, but whose existence, after his baseball career ended, rested on such gossamer foundations that it was not known until 101 years after his death that he had acceded to life's mortality, and was not actually still ambulatory at age 160.

8. Charley Jones, 1875-1880, 1883-1888. Career WAR: 26.4
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1876, Cincinnati Reds 24 102 1 0 1 0 1
1877, Cincinnati-Chicago 25 208 3 0 5 3 8
1878, Cincinnati Reds 26 163 3 0 2 2 4
1879, Boston Red Stockings 27 345 5 8 6 2 16
1880, Boston Red Stockings 28 101 1 0 0 1 1
1883, Cincinnati Red Stockings 31 175 3 1 2 1 4
1884, Cincinnati Red Stockings 32 321 5 4 1 1 6
1885, Cincinnati Red Stockings 33 225 4 1 2 3 6
1886, Cincinnati Red Stockings 34 80 0 0 0 0 0
1887, Cin-New York-Kansas City 35 7 0 0 0 0 0
Total (8 Starred Seasons) 1727 25 14 19 13 46

Charley Jones, AKA Baby, AKA Baby Boy, AKA The Big Un, AKA The Knight of the Limitless Linen (because various Cincinnati clothiers would provide his garb for free, in exchange for being a walking celebrity advertisement), was apparently born one Benjamin Wesley Rippey in North Carolina in 1852. In the 1860s, for obscure reasons, he was placed in the care of an Indiana relative, one Reuben Jones, whose surname he took. How 'Benjamin' became 'Charley' is only one of the many mysteries of his life. What we know is that Charley was a heavy hitter, and the career home run leader from 1880-81 and 1883-84—no matter that he was blacklisted by the National League for two seasons after a bitter salary dispute with his Boston employers. In the fluid days before the reserve clause, Charley bopped around, but Cincinnati, in both its National League and American Association incarnations, was his primary baseball home (and where his common-law "Mrs. Jones" sent him hospital-bound with his eyes full of cayenne pepper after she discovered him "making himself agreeable to another woman." For those fans of true romance out there, be advised that Charley bailed her out of jail that very night). Charley kept up the hitting into his dotage, and when Cincinnati let it be known in 1887 that they would entertain offers for him, "the Louisvilles, Clevelands, Brooklyns and Athletics all wanted him." Charley, however, was set on New York, and the Metropolitans ponied up somewhere between $1,000 and $1,200 for the aging slugger. Though he got glowing reviews early, in a fashion a modern-day Mets fan would find very familiar, his performance lagged, and by the end of the year he was playing in Kansas City, and from thence, obscurity. While it took more than a century to unearth the time and place of his demise, I can report that the year after he played his last MLB game, his brother Ab, back home in Albemarle County, NC, came home drunk and turned loose his horse in the corn fields. This caused Papa Abel Rippey to berate his son, who fetched a shotgun and dispatched the patriarch to the great beyond, leaving Abel's heirs 112 acres of Faucette's Township farmland, which our urban carouser Charley apparently neither wanted nor missed. JAWS rates Charley at 80th among LFers, which seems too pessimistic to me.

7. George Burns, 1911-1925. Career WAR: 39.3
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1913, New York Giants 23 102 1 0 3 1 4
1914, New York Giants 24 309 4 4 4 5 13
1915, New York Giants 25 120 2 1 0 0 1
1916, New York Giants 26 143 2 3 0 1 4
1917, New York Giants 27 292 4 2 6 3 11
1918, New York Giants 28 152 2 0 2 0 2
1919, New York Giants 29 295 4 8 1 4 13
1920, New York Giants 30 165 3 3 0 1 4
1921, New York Giants 31 93 0 2 1 0 3
1922, Cincinnati Reds 32 67 0 1 0 1 2
1923, Cincinnati Reds 33 89 0 3 0 1 4
1925, Philadelphia Phillies 35 2 0 0 0 0 0
Total (8 Starred Seasons) 1829 22 27 17 17 61

Not to be confused with the Indians' First Baseman Tioga George Burns—all right, you're going to confuse them, I'm going to confuse them, there's just nothing anyone can do about it—the National League version was a steady presence at the top of the Manhattan lineup, who had even by 1914 "proved himself the shining light in the National outer garden." Outdistancing the average HOFer in the Black and Gray Ink tests, he set the table for a team that won three pennants, the 1921 World's Championship, and finished second four times. Strong, swift and intelligent, he had the temerity to engage in friendly wrasslin' with teammate (and Olympics legend) Jim Thorpe, conquered the notorious Polo Grounds sun field with a long-billed cap and sunglasses attached at the end, and was the favorite of a doting audience in the bleachers of "Burnsville." He never hit higher than .303 or lower than .272, and maybe the lack of a hugely dominant season or two is why his HOF candidacy never got much traction. He grew up in his dad's Utica pool hall—his teammates wouldn't engage him in the sport unless wielded the cue left-handed—and wound up his days running another Utica pool hall, and was unconcerned about his absence from that other upstate village, Cooperstown. JAWS puts him at 41 in the LF ratings.

6. Fred Clarke, 1894-1911, 1913-1915. Career WAR: 67.8. HOF: Old Timers Committee, 1945
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1895, Louisville Colonels 22 35 0 0 0 0 0
1896, Louisville Colonels 23 98 1 0 0 0 0
1897, Louisville Colonels 24 294 4 3 4 1 8
1898, Louisville Colonels 25 86 0 0 0 0 0
1899, Louisville Colonels 26 147 2 0 0 0 0
1900, Pittsburgh Pirates 27 24 0 0 0 0 0
1901, Pittsburgh Pirates 28 121 2 0 0 0 0
1902, Pittsburgh Pirates 29 245 4 0 8 1 9
1903, Pittsburgh Pirates 30 226 3 5 2 1 8
1904, Pittsburgh Pirates 31 7 0 0 0 0 0
1905, Pittsburgh Pirates 32 84 0 0 0 0 0
1906, Pittsburgh Pirates 33 95 0 1 0 0 1
1907, Pittsburgh Pirates 34 176 3 0 0 2 2
1908, Pittsburgh Pirates 35 126 2 0 0 0 0
1909, Pittsburgh Pirates 36 207 3 2 1 2 5
1910, Pittsburgh Pirates 37 9 0 0 0 0 0
1911, Pittsburgh Pirates 38 28 0 0 0 0 0
Total (9 Starred Seasons) 2008 24 11 15 7 33

Fred Clarke was not only at the top of many a crank's list of left fielders, but was probably even more famous in his day as a manager. First assuming those duties as a 24-year-old in Louisville, he piloted the Buccos for sixteen years, and still holds the Pittsburgh franchise records for winning percentage (.595), wins (1422), and most consecutive winning seasons (14), bringing home four pennants and the 1909 World's Championship. "In the baseball dictionaries of the future," predicted one contemporary wordsmith, "you will find opposite the word fredclarke the following synonyms: old reliable, all-round Gibraltar, 6 per cent bonds, and other words and phrases denoting steadfastness of purpose and achievement." He was a millionaire by 1917, farming 1320 acres of Kansas prairie on which was discovered oil, and survived such off-season excitements as boat capsizings—three hours of dog paddling required here—hunting accidents—the bill of his cap saved him from the full brunt of being mistaken for a duck by a gun-toting companion—and furnace explosions. He held several baseball-related patents, including one for those flip-down sunglasses our previous entrant, George Burns, found so useful. He played well enough and long enough to just top the 2,000 point mark, and is ranked 12th by JAWS. He was tapped for the HOF in 1945 by the Old Timers Committee. For my taste, the number one qualification for HOF immortality he possesses, among many: In 1911, owner Barney Dreyfuss, who signed twenty years worth of Clarke paychecks, decreed that the Bucs would go the whole year without benefit of spirits. "Now Fred Clarke had from time immemorial been accustomed to wash down his evening meal and anchor it in a cooling bath of beer," a scribe wrote at the time. " 'It is up to me,' quoth manager Clarke, 'to furnish an example in obediance. Henceforth no more beer.' " There can be no greater sacrifice for the game. That the Pirates came in third that year, instead of dead last, is an unmatched achievement in managing prowess.

5. Joe Kelley, 1891-1906, 1908. Career WAR: 50.6. HOF: Veteran's Committee, 1971
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1893, Baltimore Orioles 21 145 2 0 0 0 0
1894, Baltimore Orioles 22 327 5 0 7 2 9
1895, Baltimore Orioles 23 305 4 0 1 0 1
1896, Baltimore Orioles 24 355 5 2 4 6 12
1897, Baltimore Orioles 25 232 3 0 0 0 0
1898, Baltimore Orioles 26 123 2 0 0 1 1
1899, Brooklyn Superbas 27 162 3 0 0 0 0
1900, Brooklyn Superbas 28 131 2 0 1 0 1
1901, Brooklyn Superbas 29 35 0 0 0 0 0
1902, Baltimore-Cincinnati 30 82 0 0 0 0 0
1903, Cincinnati Reds 31 49 0 0 0 0 0
1904,Cincinnati Reds 32 85 0 0 0 1 1
1906, Cincinnati Reds 34 10 0 0 0 0 0
Total (8 Starred Seasons) 2041 26 2 13 10 25

Handsome Joe—he was said to keep a comb and mirror in his back pocket, while toiling the Balmer hinterlands, so as not to appear disheveled to the lasses who came to ooh, ah and ogle him—was known as "The Kingpin of the Orioles," the powerhouse of the National League in the '90s; that the scribblers placed Joe in the premier spot on a team laden with future HOF residents Dan Brouthers, Willie Keeler, and Hughie Jennings (as well as HOF managers John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson) is one good reason for his own inclusion in C'town. After putting together a half dozen stellar seasons in Baltimore, during which time the quarrelsome Birds amassed three pennants and two runners-up finishes, Kelley followed manager Ned Hanlon to Brooklyn and produced two more starred years, before winding up as player-manager of the Reds. Early baseball was full of disputation, turmoil and shenanigans, and Kelley—who was always "sore as a boil ready for lancing," so sayeth the press—makes frequent appearances in the chronicles as the subject of such descriptions as "blamed for bleacher yelling," "behaved like a rowdy all season," "absolutely wedded to the doctrine of kicking at umpires." Even as late as 1911, while skipper of Toronto in the Eastern League, he managed to get suspended for the intemperate contents of a wire he sent to the league president. Still, he was "a prince among good fellows off the field," and when the quiet life finally beckoned, married the beautiful daughter of the political boss of Baltimore, Sonny Mahon (a prototype of the Irish tough who, wrote H.L. Mencken, "knows what he wants—and, wanting it, takes it."). Joe was accused of hiding extra baseballs in the outfield grass, should he ever find need of a substitute pellet when the original had been laced beyond his reach, and perhaps labor-saving epiphanies like this were fruit of Sonny Mahon's wise counsel. JAWS put him in at number 23, and his 1971 selection by the Veterans Committee was not one of the embarrassments of that committee's tenure.

4. Sherry Magee, 1904-1919. Career WAR: 59.0
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1904, Philadelphia Phillies 19 12 0 0 0 0 0
1905, Philadelphia Phillies 20 180 3 1 1 0 2
1906, Philadelphia Phillies 21 203 3 1 3 1 5
1907, Philadelphia Phillies 22 323 5 1 13 1 15
1908, Philadelphia Phillies 23 212 3 0 3 4 7
1909, Philadelphia Phillies 24 149 2 0 4 0 4
1910, Philadelphia Phillies 25 406 5 16 2 2 20
1911, Philadelphia Phillies 26 113 1 0 0 2 2
1912, Philadelphia Phillies 27 59 0 0 0 0 0
1913, Philadelphia Phillies 28 157 2 0 2 1 3
1914, Philadelphia Phillies 29 334 5 0 0 0 0
1915, Boston Braves 30 138 2 0 0 0 0
1916, Boston Braves 31 4 0 0 0 0 0
1917, Boston-Cincinnati 32 3 0 0 0 0 0
1918, Cincinnati Reds 33 128 2 0 0 0 0
Total (11 Starred Seasons) 2421 33 28 35 13 76

And here we come upon the curious case of Sherry Magee. There was, in his Naughts & Teens subset of the Great Dead Ball Era, no more dominant left fielder; after a four-game set under Brooklyn skies, the New York Sun was moved to say, "Sherwood Nottingham Magee was a hard hitter last year, but compared to his titanic licks of this season his 1907 wallops were mere love taps." And this before he absolutely demolished bathrooms across the league in 1910. He was not, despite his obvious talents, a fan favorite in Philadelphia, where Magee was not seen as a team player; he was a noted crab, and, when he wasn't sulking—and feeling the lash, literally, from team captain Kid Gleason—he was sowing dissent and berating his teammates for boneheaded plays. Though "a fence-buster extraordinary," he was blamed for everything that went wrong in the Land of Brotherly Love: "it is a cinch that no ballplayer ever played as brilliantly on the home field under such adverse circumstances." That brilliance clouds his HOF candidacy today, because that home field was the Baker Bowl, second to none among major league bandboxes. BRef begins their batting splits with the 1913 season, at the moment, but from that year through the end of his career, Magee's Baker Bowl OPS was 200 points higher than his overall figure. Still, the Bowl was not a panacea for all, as HOFer Zach Wheat saw only a two-point OPS increase in those dead ball days while plying the lumber in Philly; fellow HOF alum Edd Roush only managed a .600 OPS there, and Mr. George Burns, from this very list, experienced a 48-point decline in OPS when stick-wielding at Baker. Another cloud on his Cooperstown horizon, perhaps, occured in a game in 1911, when umpire Bill Finneran called Magee out on a high pitch, and then, when Sherry threw his bat high in the air in disgust, tossed Magee from the game. Before Finneran had time to react, Magee had raced up to the ump and knocked him cold with a punch—"quite the most brutal and disgraceful happening of record upon a ball field in this city," Francis Richter opined. Magee was suspended more more than a month, and the Phillies chances at a pennant were as cold as Finneran. Magee made his amends, and was even named captain of the Phillies in 1914, from which position his crabbing could be extolled as a beneficense. "The Philly fans last season awoke to the fact that Magee was a wonder," came the journalistic review the following spring. No HOF committee has yet reached the same conclusion. JAWS accounts him the 14th best LFer.

3. Jesse The Crab Burkett, 1890-1905. Career WAR: 62.9. HOF: Old Timers Committee, 1946
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1890, New York Giants 21 76 0 0 0 0 0
1892, Cleveland Spiders 23 52 0 0 0 0 0
1893, Cleveland Spiders 24 243 4 1 1 2 4
1894, Cleveland Spiders 25 107 1 0 0 0 0
1895, Cleveland Spiders 26 272 4 4 1 2 7
1896, Cleveland Spiders 27 301 4 6 3 1 10
1897, Cleveland Spiders 28 208 3 0 2 1 3
1898, Cleveland Spiders 29 180 3 0 2 1 3
1899, St. Louis Perfectos 30 254 4 0 2 7 9
1900, St. Louis Cardinals 31 247 4 0 2 7 9
1901, St. Louis Cardinals 32 348 5 12 3 1 16
1902, St. Louis Browns 33 150 2 1 2 0 3
1903, St. Louis Browns 34 46 0 0 0 0 0
1904, St. Louis Browns 35 89 0 0 1 0 1
1905, Boston Americans 36 89 0 0 0 1 1
Total (10 Starred Seasons) 2662 34 24 19 23 66.

It is a disputed question whether the Baltimore Orioles or Cleveland Spiders were the most foul-tempered National League franchise of the 1890s, but I will cast my vote for the Lake Erieans, since they were the ones who employed Mr. Burkett. Most of his on-field comments seem to be covered by the term "blankety blank." He traded punches with players, managers, and sportswriters, and once hurled a baseball into a throng of heckling fans. It took six coppers to haul him off the field in Louisville after he refused to acknowledge an ejection. Mike Donlin, a rookie teammate on the 1899 Perfectos, said Burkett "sized me up as a fresh busher and made life miserable for me." Advised by elder counsel to resist such abuse, Donlin jumped in a carraige in which sat The Crab "and jostled him as hard as I know how." Asking for trouble? inquired Burkett. "That's exactly what I'm asking for, you big, sour stiff." "Well, of all the sassy simps I've ever met you are the limit," said Jesse, but a truce of sorts was reached. In April, 1903, the correspondent of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, "Anyone who calls Jesse Burkett the 'crab' now is libeling the famous outfielder, for to tell the truth, Jesse has completely divorced himself from the disposition which caused him to acquire that appellation." Two months later, Washington manager Tom Loftus yelled, when Burkett advanced to the dish, "Fan the blankety blank out. He can't hit." When Loftus offered this opinion a second time, Burkett charged into the opposing dugout, first bloodying Loftus' nose and then, in the clinch, getting in some vicious body blows. It cost him $50 to the league for extracting such satisfaction. On the field, Burkett took full advantage of the rule in effect that did not count a foul as a strike, and would spoil many an offering until he got the pitch he liked. He was a masterful bunter, maybe the best ever, and claimed he would hit .300 if all he ever did was lay them down. He topped the .400 mark in back to back seasons, and was always among the leaders in walks and on-base percentage. JAWS places him in 13th position among LFers. When he joined the ranks of the HOF in 1946, he said, in the enduring manner of a big, sour stiff, "I thought they had forgotten about me."

2. Orator Jim O'Rourke, 1872-1893, 1904. Career WAR: 51.3. HOF: Old Timers Committee, 1945
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1872, Middletown Mansfields 21 5 0 0 0 0 0
1873, Boston Red Stockings 22 167 3 0 2 0 2
1874, Boston Red Stockings 23 241 4 1 4 1 6
1875, Boston Red Stockings 24 187 3 1 1 2 4
1876, Boston Red Stockings 25 206 3 1 1 3 5
1877, Boston Red Stockings 26 273 4 5 6 2 13
1878, Boston Red Stockings 27 99 1 0 1 2 3
1879, Providence Grays 28 217 3 1 2 2 5
1880, Boston Red Stockings 29 251 4 1 3 4 8
1881, Buffalo Bisons 30 137 2 0 1 0 1
1882, Buffalo Bisons 31 28 0 0 0 0 0
1883, Buffalo Bisons 32 125 2 0 0 3 3
1884, Buffalo Bisons 33 219 3 1 4 2 7
1885, New York Giants 34 207 3 1 2 2 5
1886, New York Giants 35 76 0 0 0 0 0
1887, New York Giants 36 17 0 0 0 0 0
1888, New York Giants 37 29 0 0 0 0 0
1889, New York Giants 38 64 0 0 1 0 1
1890, New York Giants 39 145 2 0 0 2 2
1891, New York Giants 40 65 0 0 0 0 0
1892, New York Giants 41 40 0 0 0 0 0
1893, Washington Senators 42 9 0 0 0 0 0
Total (13 Starred Seasons) 2804 37 12 28 25 65

Orator Jim O'Rourke stands in sharp contrast to most of the 19th Base Ball practitioners of the "brawling, hard-drinking King Kelly stripe." While he had plenty of baseball disputes, they were in the service of the knights of labor, forever engaged in combat with the plutocracy; sometimes the disputes were traditional ones, over salary, but they could also spill over into wrangles over a $20 laundry fee while on road trips. Jim usually won these entanglements, and that was even before earning his law degree in 1887—the cost of his off-season schooling footed by the team, of course. When he retired after a long, long career—he was a regular on minor league teams well into his 50s—he was second only to Cap Anson in career hits. Unlike Mr. Anson, however, O'Rourke did not carry hatred within his bosom, and, after forming the Bridgeport Victors independent club, employed an African American outfielder, Harry Herbert, for four seasons. His public spiritedness was evident in this, as well as in a roster of his extra-curricular activities, which included heading the Bridgeport Fire Commission and the Bridgeport Paving Commission, and membership in the Connecticut Bar Association, the Bridgeport Elks, the Knights of Columbus and the Royal Arcanum. It is hard to believe he survived the conviviality necessary to all these associations while neither smoking nor drinking, but Hall of Famers are made of sterner stuff than me. JAWS rates him number 39 among the LF crowd.

1. Big Ed Delahanty, 1888-1903. Career WAR: 69.5. HOF: Old Timers Committee, 1945
Year and Team Age Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
1888, Philadelphia Quakers 20 3 0 0 0 0 0
1890, Cleveland Infants 22 13 0 0 0 0 0
1891, Philadelphia Phillies 23 9 0 0 0 0 0
1892, Philadelphia Phillies 24 217 3 3 1 2 6
1893, Philadelphia Phillies 25 392 5 9 6 3 18
1894, Philadelphia Phillies 26 237 3 0 0 2 2
1895, Philadelphia Phillies 27 349 5 7 6 2 15
1896, Philadelphia Phillies 28 356 5 11 4 1 16
1897, Philadelphia Phillies 29 291 4 0 4 6 10
1898, Philadelphia Phillies 30 297 4 2 5 1 8
1899, Philadelphia Phillies 31 359 5 13 3 2 18
1900, Philadelphia Phillies 32 105 1 0 1 1 2
1901, Philadelphia Phillies 33 347 5 4 7 5 16
1902, Washington Senators 34 328 5 12 2 1 15
1903, Washington Senators 35 1 0 0 0 0 0
Total (11 Starred Seasons) 3304 45 61 39 26 126

Big Ed Delahanty was the oldest and best of a sextet of Cleveland-born and bred baseballers—Clark Griffith said that "on the gate in Cleveland, when the Philadelphians would come to town, you'd see a long line of young fellows, all with the same statement: 'Let me in. I'm Ed Delahanty's brother.' And they were, too. All looked just alike. I think there were 73 of them." Ed, best of the lot by far, is the lone 19th century LFer to gain access to the fabled Two O'Cat Inner Circle of the HOF. Hughie Jennings said of Ed, "As a hitter he never had a superior, but he was a great player in every way." "The only Del," as his loving fans called him, hit four home runs in a game in 1896; "His heavy batting made him famous wherever he played, and all over the circuit terrific drives were termed 'Delahanty bunts.' " He jumped to the American League in 1902, though he had already signed with the New York Giants and had received a $2500 advance from them—"I don't intend to return a cent of that $2500, either," he declared after peace between the leagues was declared a year later, possibly because he had just been reported as having lost $4000 betting on the ponies in New Orleans. Though fatter and slower, he was still raking the baseballs at a Delahantian pace in 1903, but the stresses of the money wrangles with the Giants, to say nothing of those with the ponies, apparently began to wear on him, and he began what seems to have been a week-long bender while in Cleveland in late June, which carried on when the team continued to Detroit. On July 2nd, while the rest of the Senators were playing the Tigers, he packed up his things and bought a train ticket to New York. Five whiskies into the trip, he began to accost his fellow passengers, pulling two from their berths, and waved a razor in the vicinity of the conductor. He was ejected from the train on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, and then started across the International Bridge, shoving aside the guard who attempted to block his path. He almost immediate fell from the bridge into the water 30 feet below, and was swept away by the current. His body was found below the falls a week later. Such was the sad end of "probably the finest natural batsman in the game," whom JAWS puts down as the 6th best LFer ever.

The next entry, which will extend from the lively ball '20s into the integration era of the '50s, will be linked here.

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