General Manager - 2/5

Boss Schmidt

August 22, 2017 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Boss Schmidt

Born: September 12, 1880 in London, Arkansas
Died: January 24, 1958 (aged 80) in Huntington, West Virginia
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 200 lbs.
Position: Catcher

Played For:

Detroit Tigers (1906–1911)

Biography:

Schmidt was born in Coal Hill, Arkansas and began his professional playing career in the Missouri Valley League in 1902. Joining the Tigers in 1906, Schmidt shared playing time with two other catchers on the team’s roster, John Warner and Fred Payne, in baseball’s first season-long platoon arrangement. The following season, he became the team’s starting catcher as the Tigers won three consecutive American League pennants from 1907 to 1909.

Schmidt had 6 hits and 5 RBIs in three World Series from 1907 to 1909. He also holds the dubious distinction of having committed five errors and allowed 16 stolen bases during the 1908 World Series—both records which still stand today. Schmidt also made the last out in consecutive World Series in 1907-08, the only player ever to do so. Both World Series were won by the Chicago Cubs—the last World Series the Cubs won until 2016. Schmidt also let the 3rd strike with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth of Game 1 of the 1907 Series get away, allowing a run to score, which tied the game. After 12 innings the game was called on account of darkness and the game was ruled a tie. Also, in the 1907 World Series, Schmidt gave up a record 7 stolen bases in Game 3, the most against one catcher in one Series game.

As a young man, Schmidt worked in the coal mines and developed a muscular and powerful physique. According to the Detroit Tigers information office, Schmidt beat Ty Cobb in several fights. In the second fight, Schmidt knocked Cobb unconscious but admired Cobb’s resiliency while fighting and stayed to revive Cobb as he lay motionless on the Tiger dressing room floor. Despite their clashes, Schmidt and Cobb (both tough as nails) became close friends until Schmidt’s death in 1932.

Schmidt also played a role in Cobb’s March 1907 fist fight with an African American groundskeeper. When the groundskeeper tried to shake Cobb’s hand, Cobb slapped him and chased him to the clubhouse. The groundskeeper’s wife yelled at Cobb, and Cobb began to choke her. Schmidt intervened and stopped Cobb from hurting her further. Cobb and Schmidt then got into a fight and had to be separated by their teammates.

Schmidt was a skilled brawler who reportedly even fought an exhibition match with the heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson. He felt that he was the best fighting baseball player in the league and challenged all baseball players to a match.

Aside from his prowess as a fighter, Schmidt was also known for other displays of his physical toughness. As a catcher, Schmidt never wore shinguards. He could force nails into the floor with his bare fists. He once visited a local carnival with some of his teammates and wrestled and pinned a live bear. Schmidt’s career was shortened due to numerous fractures sustained over the years of his thumb and fingers.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Schmidt
http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/b252f8b9

Admiral Schlei

August 22, 2017 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Admiral Schlei

Born: January 12, 1878 in Cincinnati
Died: January 24, 1958 (aged 80) in Huntington, West Virginia
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’8″
Weight: 179 lbs.
Position: Catcher and First Baseman

Played For:

Cincinnati Reds (1904–08)
New York Giants (1909–11)

Biography:

The first Red’s catcher to wear shin guards, George Henry “Admiral” Schlei was a Major League Baseball catcher. He played all or part of eight seasons in the majors, between 1904 and 1911, for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants. He was a starting catcher from the 1904 to the 1909 season.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Schlei
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/schlead01.shtml

Bob Rhoads

August 22, 2017 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Bob Rhoads

Born: October 4, 1879 in Wooster, Ohio
Died: February 12, 1967 (aged 87) in San Bernardino, California
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 6’1″
Weight: 215 lbs.
Position: Pitcher

Played For:

Chicago Orphans (1902)
St. Louis Cardinals (1903)
Cleveland Naps (1903–1909)

Biography:

In the midst of the 1908 pennant race, Sporting Life declared that “Robert S. Rhoads of Cleveland is one of the most dependable of modern pitchers. … His habits are good, his conduct exemplary, and in all ways is he a credit to his club and profession.” Embodied in this passage are two hallmarks of our subject’s career: a variant, one of many published, of the Rhoads name, and the almost universally favorable treatment that Rhoads received on the sports page. The good press, however, was not undeserved. For most of his eight-season major-league career, Rhoads was a dependable pitcher and occasionally an outstanding one. In 1906 he joined future Hall of Famer Addie Joss and lefty Otto Hess as the first 20-game winners to pitch for a Cleveland club in the American League. Two years later, he contributed 18 victories to a near-miss pennant run. Rhoads was also lively copy, an amiable, witty man whom sportswriters came to rely upon for an anecdote or amusing yarn on slow news days. At times Rhoads himself joined the Fourth Estate, first serving as World Series correspondent for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and decades later becoming a general columnist for a California weekly. In the end, baseball was the centerpiece – but far from the only aspect of – a long and interesting life.

For the remainder of his long life, Bob Rhoads engaged in a variety of occupations. Among other things, he worked as a herdsman, a gifted (albeit unlicensed) large-animal veterinarian, a mail-truck driver, and a supply clerk at a military depot.35 In his leisure time, he fished and hunted, coached and umpired in local baseball leagues, and greeted old friends like Ty Cobb and Connie Mack when they visited Rhoads’ adopted hometown of Barstow, California. In 1938 Rhoads resumed a prior calling, penning a column called Dustin’ ’Em Off for the weekly Barstow Printer. As blunt and opinionated as decades before, he lambasted the “mechanical smile” flashed by Shirley Temple on a trip through town, and chided a local minister for fire-and-brimstone sermons, observing that “Christianity teaches the joy of living, rather than the fear of death.”

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Rhoads
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rhoadbo01.shtml
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/da33e0cd

Bugs Raymond

August 22, 2017 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Bugs Raymond

Born: February 24, 1882 in Chicago
Died: September 7, 1912 (aged 30) in Chicago
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 180 lbs.
Position: Pitcher

Played For:

Detroit Tigers (1904)
St. Louis Cardinals (1907–08)
New York Giants (1909–11)

Biography:

Raymond was known for his spitball and got his nickname because of his zany antics on the mound. What might have been a promising career was short-circuited by a perpetual addiction to alcohol. The only manager who could keep Raymond in line for any length of time was hard-nosed Giants manager John McGraw. McGraw picked him up in the Roger Bresnahan trade before the 1909 season, and Bugs won 18 games for him that year.

However, Raymond could never stay sober for long. McGraw tried everything – including fining him so there wouldn’t be any money left for drinks and hiring a detective to trail Bugs – but nothing worked. In addition, Raymond had a subpar performance on the mound in 1910, going 4-11. He was released midway through the Giants’ 1911 pennant-winning season.

Discarded by the Giants, separated from his wife, and with his five-year-old daughter recently dead from influenza, Bugs drifted back to Chicago where he played semipro baseball and again worked as a pressman. At midday on Saturday, September 7, 1912, a maid entered Raymond’s shabby room in the Hotel Veley and found him dead in his bed. A coroner’s physician found that he had died from a cerebral hemorrhage due to a fractured scull. The police arrested a man, Fred Cigranz, who admitted to beating up Bugs several days earlier during a game at the sandlot field at Lawrence and Elston avenues, where Bugs had played baseball as a youth. Raymond also had been in a brawl three weeks earlier and had been hit several times in the head with a baseball bat. When he received word of Raymond’s passing, McGraw said “that man took seven years off my life.”

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_Raymond
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/79835564
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=raymon001art

Dode Paskert

August 22, 2017 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Dode Paskert

Born: August 28, 1881 in Cleveland, Ohio
Died: February 12, 1959 (aged 77) in Cleveland, Ohio
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 165 lbs.
Position: Centerfielder

Played For:

As player

St. Louis Browns (1906–1907)
New York Highlanders (1908)
Boston Red Sox (1908–1910)
Cleveland Naps (1910)

Biography:

Fleet-footed Dode Paskert was one of the finest defensive center fielders of the Deadball Era. “It is no exaggeration to say that Paskert is one of the greatest judges of a fly ball in the game today,” wrote Baseball Magazine’s J. C. Kofoed in 1915. “Those who have seem him circle, hawk-like, turn his back and speed outward, and then make a daring leap, with the spoiling of a three-bagger at the end of it, know how true that statement is.” As for his offense, Paskert was an extremely patient hitter who worked pitchers deep into the count, often ranking among the National League leaders in both walks and strikeouts. A pronounced pull hitter, he choked up on the bat and found his hits by punching the ball into left field. Though used most often in the leadoff position, Paskert frequently hit for extra bases; from 1912 to 1918 he ranked among the NL’s top ten in doubles four times and home runs once.

George Henry Paskert was born in Cleveland on August 28, 1881, the oldest of three children of Matilda Radermacher and Bernard Paskert, a railroad flagman. The grandson of Dutch immigrants, George completed two years of high school before finding work as a machinist’s apprentice. He was still working in that profession in 1904 when a traveling salesman saw him pitch for a semipro club in Warren, Ohio, and recommended him and a teammate, future major leaguer Jimmy Austin, to Dayton of the Central League. Quickly converted to the outfield, Paskert spent three seasons with Dayton before moving on to Atlanta, where he batted .290, led the Southern Association in stolen bases, and helped the team to the 1907 championship. Two weeks before the end of the season, the Cincinnati Reds purchased his contract. Paskert was already 26 years old, though few knew it at the time. For several years into his major league career, his birth year was incorrectly reported as 1886, leading contemporaries to believe he was a full five years younger than his true age.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dode_Paskert
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/paskedo01.shtml
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e9bf2868

Harry Niles

August 22, 2017 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Harry Niles

Born: September 10, 1880 in Buchanan, Michigan
Died: April 18, 1953 (aged 72) in Sturgis, Michigan
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’8″
Weight: 175 lbs.
Position: Outfielder, Second Baseman and Third Baseman

Played For:

St. Louis Browns (1906–1907)
New York Highlanders (1908)
Boston Red Sox (1908–1910)
Cleveland Naps (1910)

Biography:

Niles entered the majors in 1906 with the St. Louis Browns, playing for them two years before joining the New York Highlanders (1908), Boston Red Sox (1908–1910) and Cleveland Naps(1910). A valuable utility man and aggressive base runner, he scored 71 runs and stole 30 bases in his rookie season. Then, in 1907 hit career-numbers with a .289 and a .331 on-base percentage while collecting 65 runs and 19 steals, and in 1909 posted career-numbers in games (145), RBI (39) and extrabases (18).

Niles was a Michigander and played in the majors from 1906-1910, for four different American League teams: St. Louis, New York, Boston, and Cleveland. He was born on September 10, 1880 in Buchanan, a small city in southwest Michigan, about 13 miles from South Bend, Indiana. Just six miles due east of Buchanan is the larger city of Niles, Michigan.

On Jun 30, 1908, Niles broke up the perfect game bid of Boston pitcher Cy Young, when batting leadoff for New York walked, then caught stealing. Young retired the next 26 batters and had to settle for a no-hitter. Then, on Aug 30, 1910, New York’s Tom Hughes retired 28 batters before surrendering a 10-inning single to Cleveland’s Niles.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Niles
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/986b8a2f

George McBride

August 22, 2017 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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George McBride

Born: November 20, 1880 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Died: July 2, 1973 (aged 92) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 170 lbs.
Position: Shortstop / Manager / Coach

Played For:

As player

Milwaukee Brewers (1901)
Pittsburgh Pirates (1905)
St. Louis Cardinals (1905–1906)
Washington Senators (1908–1920)

As manager

Washington Senators (1921)

As coach

Detroit Tigers (1925–1926, 1929)

Biography:

After stints in semi-pro ball, George Florian “Pinch” McBride joined the Pirates in 1905 but was traded mid-season to the Cardinals. He did not become a regular starter until the 1908 season, when he joined the Senators and became their everyday shortstop. He never hit for a high average (his best season was in 1911 when he hit .235 with 11 doubles and 4 triples), but was very talented with the glove, leading the American League in fielding for four straight seasons (1912 – 1915). He was given the nickname “Pinch” for his ability to hit in the clutch.

Like his contemporary in the National League, Mickey Doolan, George McBride was the prototypical “good-field, no-hit” shortstop during the Deadball Era. Widely viewed as the best defensive shortstop in his league, McBride struggled mightily at the bat. A relatively large shortstop, standing 5’11’ and weighing 170 pounds, McBride was described in the press as an “aggressive, alert, and quick-witted” fielder. He led the AL in fielding percentage five times, including four times consecutively from 1912 to 1915, and was near the lead in most other years. Meanwhile, he achieved only a .218 lifetime batting average, never exceeding .235 for a single season. He was an iron man during his days as the regular shortstop for the Washington Senators, and was recognized as one of the headiest players of his day.

For more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McBride
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bb22ca0e

Jimmy Dygert

July 15, 2016 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Jimmy Dygert

Born: July 5, 1884 in Utica, New York
Died: February 7, 1936 (aged 51) in New Orleans, Louisiana
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 158 lbs.
Position: Pitcher

Played For:

Philadelphia Athletics (1905–1910)

Biography:

Dygert, a spitball specialist, started his professional baseball career in 1904 in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 1905, he went 18-4 with the pennant-winning New Orleans Pelicans and he was purchased by the Athletics in August. He pitched a few games down the stretch but went just 1-4. The next season, he broke into the A’s starting rotation and improved his record to 11-13. He pitched a combined no-hitter with Rube Waddell on August 29.

Dygert hit his peak in 1907. On a pitching staff with three Hall of Famers – Chief Bender, Eddie Plank, and Waddell – Dygert was the number three starter. He completed the season with a 21-8 record, 151 strikeouts, and a 2.34 earned run average. In the pennant stretch of October, he pitched three shutouts in four days. The A’s finished just 1.5 games out of first place.

In 1908, Dygert again struck out a lot of batters (164), but he also led the league in walks with 97. He pitched less in 1909 and 1910. The A’s won the pennant in 1910, but Dygert did not pitch in the World Series. In 1911, he moved to the Eastern League’s Baltimore Orioles and went 25-15 in a career-high 318.2 innings; he also led the league with 218 strikeouts. However, that was his last season as an effective pitcher. He retired in 1913.

Dygert was very skinny even for his era, weighing about 115 pounds. Bill James listed him as one of the lightest major league players of the 1900–1909 decade. Baseball Digest wrote that he was probably the lightest pitcher of the 20th century. Nonetheless, Dygert was also one of the best spitballers when the pitch was legal and is considered the greatest ever for his weight.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Dygert
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dygerji01.shtml

Tom Downey

July 15, 2016 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Tom Downey

Born: January 1, 1884 in Lewiston, Maine
Died: August 3, 1961 (aged 77) in Passaic, New Jersey
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 178 lbs.
Position: Shortstop, Second Baseman and Third Baseman

Played For:

Cincinnati Reds (1909–1911)
Philadelphia Phillies (1912)
Chicago Cubs (1912)
Buffalo Buffeds/Blues (1914–1915)

Biography:

Downey played on several baseball teams after his first professional appearance at age 25 on May 7, 1909. Downey played for the Cincinnati Reds from 1909 until 1911, both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs in 1912, and from 1914 to 1915, the Buffalo Buffeds/Blues. He both batted and threw the ball right-handed. His last game, ending a six-year Major League career, was on September 30, 1915. Downey, who was 5 feet 10 inches (178 cm) and weighed 178 pounds (81 kg), never had any higher education. He died in Passaic, New Jersey.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Downey
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/downeto01.shtml

Mickey Doolan

July 15, 2016 By General Manager Leave a Comment

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Mickey Doolan

Born: May 7, 1880 in Ashland, Pennsylvania
Died: November 1, 1951 (aged 71) in Orlando, Florida
Bats: Both
Throws: Left
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 170 lbs.
Position: Shortstop and Second Baseman

Played For:

Philadelphia Phillies (1905–1913)
Baltimore Terrapins (1915)
Chicago Whales (1915)
Chicago Cubs (1916)
New York Giants (1916)
Brooklyn Robins (1918)

Biography:

The prototype good-field, no-hit shortstop, Mickey Doolan was blessed with a remarkable ability to snap the ball accurately to first base from the most difficult of positions. Sportswriter Fred Lieb once remarked that Doolan “could throw standing on his head” and favorably compared his defense to that of his elite contemporaries Honus Wagner and Joe Tinker. Lieb’s comparison holds up under scrutiny. Between 1906 and 1913, Doolan led the National League in putouts four times, assists five times, double plays five times, and fielding percentage once. According to Bill James’s Win Shares system, the Philadelphia captain was the National League’s pre-eminent fielding shortstop four times.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Doolan
http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/b2f31749
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/doolami01.shtml

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