but no other Cub had hit more than four in a season. Left fielder Les Mann hit for power in the minors but not in the big leagues. In right field would be ex–Fed Leaguer Max Flack or youngster Turner Barber, for whom Weeghman had paid $15,000 the previous year. A Tennessee native and a bit of a rube, Barber hurt his toe on his arrival in Chicago before spring training when, confused by the bustle of traffic, he, “forgot himself in crossing a downtown street when he should have been waiting for the cop’s whistle. A taxi whizzed past him and ran over one foot.” 19 Injured, Barber sat for most of spring training and struggled throughout 1918.
(Perhaps the tragedy of the 1918 Cubs was foreshadowed when, just before the season, a player named King Lear vowed to Mitchell that he would win the third-base job. He did not. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless manager!)
The Red Sox were impressive on the mound too. Left-hander Babe Ruth—whose hitting was still a sidelight to his pitching—was just 23and coming off a 24–13 season. Submariner Carl Mays was 22–9 in ’17. Dutch Leonard and ex-A’s righty Joe Bush were inconsistent but had star qualities. Offensively, the Red Sox figured to be strong, with Harry Hooper in right, joined in center by Strunk, one of the league’s fastest players. In left field, Barrow drew on his knowledge of the minors to sign 35-year-old journeyman George Whiteman from the International League for $750. Everett Scott was a mainstay at short, with Schang behind the plate and team captain Dick Hoblitzell at first base—McInnis’s primary position. The Red Sox wanted to try McInnis, a slick fielder, at third base, with new coach and ex-Cubs star Johnny Evers (who was to assist Barrow with strategy as a coach too) taking a crack at second base.
But baseball as a whole had not done a good job preparing for 1918. Captain T. L. Huston, part owner of the Yankees and a member of the army’s engineering corps, wrote a letter from France that was printed all over the country. In it, Huston said: “Baseball must watch closer the signs of the times. The Alexander-Killefer deal, as well as that of Bush, Strunk and Schang, indicated that it is strangely out of step with national events. The loud publicity given the purchase of players for the large sums of $60,000 to $80,000 will be a harsh, discordant note in the existing worldwide atmosphere of economy, retrenchment and sacrifice, and tend to shock the fan public and make it pause and ask, ‘Is baseball still stark crazy?’” 20
Huston ripped the small portion of 1917 World Series money that was given to war charities and criticized the magnates on baseball’s business end—he was the only one who enlisted. “Ye gods, what a mortifying and shameful spectacle,” Huston wrote of his cohorts. He went on: “Men of baseball, reveille sounded for you long ago. If you are deaf to that call, the nation will sound taps for you, and you will hear it.”
The winter slipped by without baseball making significant wartime adjustments. As teams prepared for spring training in 1918, the country was squeezed by food rationing, gas rationing, and limits on rail use. But, despite wise proposals to shorten the schedule, baseball kept the same 154-game marathon. Players, too, seemed clueless. Men were being drafted and paid $30 per month in the army, and yet many players held out for big contracts and bonuses. The government enforced a war tax of 10 percent on tickets, and the magnates responded by bumping up prices more than necessary—grandstandtickets that were 75 cents, for example, technically should have been 83 cents with the tax, but the magnates decided to just make it 85 cents. A proposal that the extra pennies go into a Red Cross fund was made but not mandated.
The game made one change of note, altering the player payout system for the World Series, so that the top four teams in each league, rather than just the top
(Perhaps the tragedy of the 1918 Cubs was foreshadowed when, just before the season, a player named King Lear vowed to Mitchell that he would win the third-base job. He did not. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless manager!)
The Red Sox were impressive on the mound too. Left-hander Babe Ruth—whose hitting was still a sidelight to his pitching—was just 23and coming off a 24–13 season. Submariner Carl Mays was 22–9 in ’17. Dutch Leonard and ex-A’s righty Joe Bush were inconsistent but had star qualities. Offensively, the Red Sox figured to be strong, with Harry Hooper in right, joined in center by Strunk, one of the league’s fastest players. In left field, Barrow drew on his knowledge of the minors to sign 35-year-old journeyman George Whiteman from the International League for $750. Everett Scott was a mainstay at short, with Schang behind the plate and team captain Dick Hoblitzell at first base—McInnis’s primary position. The Red Sox wanted to try McInnis, a slick fielder, at third base, with new coach and ex-Cubs star Johnny Evers (who was to assist Barrow with strategy as a coach too) taking a crack at second base.
But baseball as a whole had not done a good job preparing for 1918. Captain T. L. Huston, part owner of the Yankees and a member of the army’s engineering corps, wrote a letter from France that was printed all over the country. In it, Huston said: “Baseball must watch closer the signs of the times. The Alexander-Killefer deal, as well as that of Bush, Strunk and Schang, indicated that it is strangely out of step with national events. The loud publicity given the purchase of players for the large sums of $60,000 to $80,000 will be a harsh, discordant note in the existing worldwide atmosphere of economy, retrenchment and sacrifice, and tend to shock the fan public and make it pause and ask, ‘Is baseball still stark crazy?’” 20
Huston ripped the small portion of 1917 World Series money that was given to war charities and criticized the magnates on baseball’s business end—he was the only one who enlisted. “Ye gods, what a mortifying and shameful spectacle,” Huston wrote of his cohorts. He went on: “Men of baseball, reveille sounded for you long ago. If you are deaf to that call, the nation will sound taps for you, and you will hear it.”
The winter slipped by without baseball making significant wartime adjustments. As teams prepared for spring training in 1918, the country was squeezed by food rationing, gas rationing, and limits on rail use. But, despite wise proposals to shorten the schedule, baseball kept the same 154-game marathon. Players, too, seemed clueless. Men were being drafted and paid $30 per month in the army, and yet many players held out for big contracts and bonuses. The government enforced a war tax of 10 percent on tickets, and the magnates responded by bumping up prices more than necessary—grandstandtickets that were 75 cents, for example, technically should have been 83 cents with the tax, but the magnates decided to just make it 85 cents. A proposal that the extra pennies go into a Red Cross fund was made but not mandated.
The game made one change of note, altering the player payout system for the World Series, so that the top four teams in each league, rather than just the top
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