Tales from the Deadball Era by Mark S. Halfon depicts Major League Baseball in the early twentieth century, before fancy stadiums, intense security, and ballooning salaries, an era when chaos reigned supreme both on and off the field.  Between 1901 and 1920, baseball was in its naked adolescence, revealing all its warts to a nation itself beginning its transition to the world stage.   It was a time before the New York Yankees took center stage.  In fact, they weren’t even called the Yankees; they were called the New York Highlanders.  And the Brooklyn Dodgers were called the Brooklyn Superbas. 

In the deadball era, the baseball was manufactured differently compared with the modern ball.  The ball was hand-made and used a rubber core, as opposed to the livelier cork center in modern ball.  In addition, baseballs were loosely wound with string or yarn, and one ball would commonly be used for the duration of the game, as balls out of play were often retrieved and recirculated.  As a result, the balls were scuffed by collisions with the grandstand and splattered with the darkened stains of tobacco juice, an almost universal habit of ballplayers.  Through the course of the game, the balls would wear out, becoming soft, soggy, and misshapen, frustrating hitters.  In the deadball era, the pitcher ruled.

The epoch was defined by the principle of “small ball” or “inside baseball,” with low scoring games and pitchers’ duels.  The goal was to advance as many runners as possible by whatever method could be conjured, in order to score runs and win the game.  According to Halfon, ballparks were often 450 feet to the fences, sometimes over 500 feet.  There were mud pits in the outfield after a rain, hills, depressions, and sometimes sheds.  Fielding conditions were atrocious.  This was before modern stadiums with full-time grounds crews, proper drainage and tarpaulins to protect the field from rain.  As a result, hitters tried to get on base, any way they could.  They choked up, used heavier bats with thicker barrels, bunted, hit “Baltimore Chops,” and ran hard to beat the throw.  “Good stick work” was praised, not belittled.  There were very few home runs.  In 1908, the entire Chicago White Sox team hit only 3 home runs.  Ty Cobb led the league in homers in 1909 with 9, all inside-the-parkers.  Players also played gritty ball, coming into the bag with sharpened spikes high.  Beanballs served as retaliation, one of which killed Cleveland Indians hitter Ray Chapman, as there were no helmets until decades later.

In the early twentieth century, rather than turning potential ticket-buying fans away when the grandstands were full, over-flow often lined the fields and openly interacted with players in both positive, and negative, ways.  It was not uncommon for admirers to stop play and bring gifts to their favorite players or for hooligans to incite violence with the players they abhorred.  Players had their emotional limits, also.  “Dirty Jack” Doyle, playing first base for the New York Giants, once climbed into the stands and pummeled a spectator who had been mercilessly heckling him.  Umpires were hated and considered sub-human by the vast majority.  Police escorts were utilized to help umps safely exit the field, but sometimes they accompanied them as far as the train station, guns drawn, if necessary.  One umpire was bludgeoned by a batter after a disputed call and died of a skull fracture later that day.  According to Halfon, “umps had as much protection during games as a cloudburst over the bleachers.”  On occasion, after a disputed call, a catcher might deliberately move away from an incoming pitch and allow it to strike the unsuspecting umpire.  One disorderly catcher, after an altercation with an umpire, was arrested and thrown into the paddy wagon in full catcher’s gear. 

Animus was common, even among the players.  Catholics openly disliked protestant teammates and vice versa.  Southerners hated northerners.  The Irish hated the Germans who hated the Italians, and everyone hated the Poles.  Anyone of Indian blood was called “Chief.”  Fights among teammates on the field or in the dugout were commonplace.  Fistfights between managers and players were not unheard of.  When fights occurred, a handshake immediately afterwards often righted the wrongs and allowed the parties to move on. 

There were hundreds of rule changes during this era and foul balls were not considered strikes.  When too many players intentionally moved into pitches and were awarded first base on a hit-by-pitch, the league changed the rule so that players had to be hit multiple times before advancing to first base.  Due to pitcher retribution, this rule was quickly reverted back to its original form. 

Starting pitchers in the modern game barely go 5 or 6 innings, juxtapose this with the accomplishments of pitchers in the deadball era like Walter “Big Train” Johnson, who had 187 complete game shutouts in his career.  Pitchers considered it their duty to pitch the entire game.  Not only that, but they might also pitch both games of a double header.  Some starting pitchers were known to pitch into the 19th inning of an extra inning game. 

Cheating was rampant in early baseball.  There were only two umpires on the field and players took full advantage of this.  Fielders would routinely interfere with the running paths of baserunners, pulling them by the jersey, or bumping and pushing them off balance if they noticed the umpire’s attention was diverted elsewhere.  Runners, on the other hand, would routinely cut corners and fail to touch bags as they rounded bases.  Pitchers were among the most accomplished cheaters.  Their masterpiece was the spit ball.  They used hair gel, saliva, tobacco juice, anything that would weigh down the ball on one side, which caused the ball to dip and duck in unnatural ways.  Hitters were routinely flustered at the plate.  When umpires and opposing batters became wise to the spitter, pitchers hid sandpaper or emery boards in their gloves to scuff the ball, which also created strange aerial dynamics.  They also learned the art of the Shine ball, where they would use their strong hands to rub the ball and smooth the leather surface, which also created puzzling movement.  In 1918, spitballs became less common due to fears of transmissibility of the Spanish Flu and  Tuberculosis, both scourges at the time.

By order of the War Department, horse racing tracks were closed during the later years of the World War One.  Thousands of gamblers flooded ballpark grandstands concocting schemes to influence games by conspiring with underpaid managers, umps, and ballplayers.  Certain players, including Frank Chance, of Tinkers to Evers to Chance fame, a sure-handed glove, intentionally mishandled balls during a dispute with Cubs management.  Hal Chase, another first baseman, also in cahoots with gamblers, notoriously booted balls. At the end of the day, the income added a little extra to the pot.  This activity culminated in the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, which led to vast changes in the game, including life-long bans.

In a more benign fashion, players of the deadball era would sometimes help each other pad statistics at the end of a season, when contracts were up for renewal.  Babe Ruth, who was a prolific pitcher in his own right before turning into the games ultimate power hitter, would sometimes throw lollipops to opposing hitters if the game was meaningless and he knew the hitter’s contract was up for review or if the hitter was struggling.  At other times, batters would help the pitchers by deliberately making an out in similar circumstances.

Besides the hard drinking, hot-dog chowing Babe Ruth, there were plenty of colorful and flamboyant players in the early game.  John McGraw, the legendary player and volcanic manager, who managed stars like Christy Mathewson and Rube Marquard, was booted from the game a record 132 times.  In fact, he sometimes received warnings from the umps before a game even started.  McGraw also had a pension for the ponies and sometimes got himself ejected in order to get to the track early.  According to Halfon, McGraw was credited with being the first to use signals as a way of clandestinely communicating with his players on the field.  This came about when he noticed his pitcher, William Taylor, who was deaf, becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the team resulting in depression and poor pitching performances.  McGraw and Taylor drew up signals as a way of communicating between pitcher’s mound and dugout, and Taylor blossomed afterwards.  Soon McGraw tailored these signals to hitters, also. 

Rube Waddell was a stellar pitcher and one of the games first celebrities.  Waddell would sometimes come late to games, even games in which he was the starting pitcher, not infrequently getting distracted by playing marbles outside the ballpark with kids or starting up impromptu baseball games with fans on his walk to the stadium.  In 1905, Waddell fanned an amazing 349 hitters.  Waddell died at 37 from Tuberculosis, which he may have contracted while helping flood victims in Kentucky. 

Kid Elberfeld was called The Tabasco Kid due to his fiery temper and willingness to fight anyone, including teammates, opposing players, and umpires alike.  According to Halfon, he once grabbed umpire Tom McCarthy by the throat after a disputed call and attempted to strangle him.  He was fined and suspended but this only added to his legend.  Mordecai three-fingers Brown was a standout pitcher who lost parts of two fingers on his pitching hand in a corn chopper accident.  This allowed Brown to grip the ball in an unconventional way resulting in a dazzling sinker and a supernatural curveball which perplexed hitters.  And then there was Fred Merkle, a 19-year-old rookie playing for the New York Giants, who forgot to touch second base on teammates walk off game winning hit.

After Ray Chapman died from the infamous beanball that struck his left temple, and the public relations nightmare of the Black Sox Scandal, the culmination of decades of escalating gambling in the sport, the deadball era phased out.  Baseball had its first commissioner, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who restored order and served as a stabilizing influence, ushering in a new era of discipline and accountability in the young game of baseball, which was on the fast-track to becoming America’s national pastime.  The author does an exceptional job at re-creating the deadball era.  This is a good read for fans of the history of baseball.