Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #165: Joseph C. "Joe" Cambria Part 1. "Papa Joe" (born Carlo Cambria) was an American professional baseball scout and executive who was a pioneer in recruiting Latin American players. From 1929 through 1940, he owned several Minor League Baseball teams, as well as the Negro league Baltimore Black Sox. He is best known, however, for his work as a scout for Major League Baseball, especially for his work in Cuba. From the mid-1930s until his death in 1962, he recruited hundreds of Cuban players for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins. Cambria was described as the first of many scouts who searched Latin America for inexpensive recruits for their respective ball clubs.

George Washington Case's association with the Washington Senators was the product of a business relationship which had existed between Clark Griffith and a Baltimore laundryman named Joe Cambria since 1934. Originally from Messina, Italy, but brought to America around 1890 when he was just three months old, Cambria was to become the Bobo Newsom of baseball club owners. Raised in Boston, his baseball travels began in 1910 as an outfielder with Newport of the Rhode Island State League. He hung on to a career as a minor-leaguer until 1916, when he fractured his leg. Cambra nevertheless did serve in World War I and, after the war, got into the laundry business, once sponsoring a boys team on which Clark Griffith's young nephew, Calvin, played.

For ten years beginning in the late twenties, Joe Cambria furthered his career as a nomadic minor-league operator. He successively bought clubs in various leagues in outposts like Hagerstown (Blue Ridge League); Youngstown (Middle Atlantic League); Albany (International League); Harrisburg (New York-Penn. League); Salisbury, Maryland (Eastern Shore League); St. Augustine (Florida State); and Greenville (Sally League).

In 1934, Cambria ran into some difficulty in meeting his payroll. It was then that he introduced himself to Clark Griffith for the first time. Needing $1,500 to stay afloat, Cambria was able to coax the sum out of the Old Fox, who would over the years reap a return worth many times his initial investment. At first, Cambria began beating the bushes for Griffith as a scout on a part-time basis only. He had no license to spend Griff's money, so as a result, he did his bird-dogging in locales less frequented by other scouts, generally in the lower minor leagues.

[GeoPoto]

Player #165: Joseph C. "Joe" Cambria Part 2. "Papa Joe" (born Carlo Cambria) was an American professional baseball scout and executive who was a pioneer in recruiting Latin American players. From 1929 through 1940, he owned several Minor League Baseball teams, as well as the Negro league Baltimore Black Sox. He is best known, however, for his work as a scout for Major League Baseball, especially for his work in Cuba. From the mid-1930s until his death in 1962, he recruited hundreds of Cuban players for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins. Cambria was described as the first of many scouts who searched Latin America for inexpensive recruits for their respective ball clubs.

This approach led Joe Cambria clear out of the country to explore talent in Puerto Rico, Panama, and Mexico. In 1911, he had played in Cuba and recalled having been impressed with the ability of the players and the overall quality of play. He would eventually sign a great number of Cuban players for the Washington Senators on behalf of Clark Griffith.

The first of those was Bobby Estalella, a powerful hitter who packed 185 pounds on a 5' 6" frame. Discovered by Cambria in the Havana winter league while in his early twenties. Estalella could hit the ball a long way, when he connected. Unfortunately, his fielding average at third base risked dropping to the level of his batting average. In his debut with the Senators, in 1935, he got into 15 games and hit a couple of homers. In the field, he was knocking balls down any way he could, and the Griffith Stadium fans loved him. He faded back to the minors, but nearly four years later, Estalella was brought back to spend the better part of six seasons in the big leagues. In '39, the Nats made use of him in about half their games, but only in the outfield, and he managed to hit a creditable .275 with eight homers. Estalella was not destined to ever become a star, however.

[GeoPoto]

Player #165: Joseph C. "Joe" Cambria Part 3. "Papa Joe" (born Carlo Cambria) was an American professional baseball scout and executive who was a pioneer in recruiting Latin American players. From 1929 through 1940, he owned several Minor League Baseball teams, as well as the Negro league Baltimore Black Sox. He is best known, however, for his work as a scout for Major League Baseball, especially for his work in Cuba. From the mid-1930s until his death in 1962, he recruited hundreds of Cuban players for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins. Cambria was described as the first of many scouts who searched Latin America for inexpensive recruits for their respective ball clubs.

A more pronounced flop was Cuban pitcher Rene Monteagudo, whom Cambria had had on his Greenville, South Carolina, club. Monteagudo beat the Senators in an exhibition game and Griffith took him on, but his career in the big leagues was very brief. In 33 games with the Nats over two years, he was 3-7 with an atrocious earned run average of six runs per game. It had been said that Monteagudo's chief asset in terms of pitching in the big leagues was that he could speak English. This would have made him easier prey for Joe Cambria who, surprisingly, knew very little Spanish. On one occasion, after Clark Griffith had been unsuccessful in attempts to elicit some information from a Latin player, he asked Cambria to speak for him. Cambria went up to the player and asked the same thing Griffith had, in English, but he asked louder.

Next on the Cuban prospect list, and considerably more successful, was Alejando Alexander Aparicio Elroy Carrasquel, a name which might possibly been rendered even mor elegant had his parents left out the "Elroy." Certainly, Alex Carasquel was an elegant pitcher. His age was officially given as 27 when he joined the Nationals for the 1939 season, but some Cubans who had played with him during a tour of Florida insisted that he was more like 35. At his first training camp, all Carrasquel could say in English was, "Me peech good."

What Alex Carrasquel was for sure was a man fond of the rumba and the night life, and the owner of a nice fastball. Following his rookie season in 1939, in which he went 5-9 for another underachieving Washington ballclub, Carrasquel would find his niche with the Senators as a reliever throughout the war years. His fastball became a prized commodity on a staff which would be comprised almost entirely of knuckleballers, and his 50-39 career record, amassed on losing clubs, attests to his competence. Eventually, like Bobby Estalella, Carrasquel would be banned from baseball for jumping to the Mexican League, but would later make a brief return to the majors, with the White Sox, in 1949.

[GeoPoto]

Player #165: Joseph C. "Joe" Cambria Part 4. "Papa Joe" (born Carlo Cambria) was an American professional baseball scout and executive who was a pioneer in recruiting Latin American players. From 1929 through 1940, he owned several Minor League Baseball teams, as well as the Negro league Baltimore Black Sox. He is best known, however, for his work as a scout for Major League Baseball, especially for his work in Cuba. From the mid-1930s until his death in 1962, he recruited hundreds of Cuban players for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins. Cambria was described as the first of many scouts who searched Latin America for inexpensive recruits for their respective ball clubs.

Joe Cambria's most heralded Cuban prospect, brought up for the 1941 season, would be a flop. Roberto Ortiz was a 6' 4", 200-pounder who, according to Cambria, threw harder than Walter Johnson and could hit a ball farther than Jimmie Foxx. None of that was ever placed into evidence, however, and Ortiz hit a grand total of eight homers in a career spanning just 659 at-bats, mostly on weakened wartime teams in the early forties. Later on, Joe Cambria would have better luck with his recruits. Eventually, he would have a hand in bringing to the Senators' organization such Cuban stalwarts as Connie Marrero, Sandy Consuegra, Mike Fornieles, Pedro Ramos, Camilo Pascual, Zoilo Versalles, and, last but not least, Tony Oliva.

While other clubs began scouring the Pearl of the Antilles, Cambria remained the most popular scout with the Cuban people. He headquartered at the American Club in Havana, and in fact became so well known that a cigar was named after him -- it was called the "Papa Joe." Cambria earned a reputation as a man genuinely concerned for the Cuban players he did sign, but in the first few years of his association with Clark Griffith, he had more success recruiting Americans. Among these, George Case was already a star. There would be others, like Eddie Yost and Walter Masterson, but never again would Cambria help promote players of the caliber of a pair of rookies who first appeared in the big leagues with the 1939 edition of the Washington Senators. These two Cambria proteges were Mickey Vernon and Early Wynn.

[GeoPoto]

Player #166A: Kendall F. "Ken" Chase. Pitcher for the Washington Senators in 1936-1941. 53 wins in 8 MLB seasons. His best season was 1940 for Washington as posted a 15-17 record with a 3.23 ERA in 261.2 innings pitched. He gave up Lou Gehrig's 2721st and last hit, as Gehrig removed himself from the line up the next day in 1939. He finished his career with the New York Giants in 1943.

We will use Chase's SABR biography to follow his career in Washington: Ted Williams called him “the toughest southpaw I ever batted against.” But wildness was a problem that persisted throughout Ken Chase’s career. . . .

. . . In 1936, Chase went to spring training with the Nationals and experienced his big-league debut for Washington on April 23 at Yankee Stadium. He threw 2 1/3 innings in relief of Monte Weaver, giving up three runs, walking four and striking out one. When the Southern Association season began, Chase was sent back to Chattanooga. He put up a 3-10 record for the Lookouts, with a 5.13 ERA that more or less matched his earned run average from the year before.

In 1937 he was 5-12 for Chattanooga when the manager gave up on him. But manager Bucky Harris of the Senators had seen something in him and called Chase up to Washington on July 4. There he succeeded where he had not in Class A. Starting on July 10, Chase appeared in 14 games and put up a winning 4-3 record, with a respectable 4.13 ERA (the team average was 4.58). On August 29 he outpitched Bob Feller, 6-2. Two of the wins were against the Yankees, Red Ruffing the loser both times. “I knew he could pitch,” crowed Harris a little later. “You telling me?” asked coach Nick Altrock. “That boy is fast and has a great curve.”

In 1938, he spent the full season with Washington, starting 21 games and appearing in another 11. He was 9-10 with a 5.58 ERA. Team owner Clark Griffith took him aside that fall. “When you go back to Oneonta this fall,” Griffith told him, “I want you to forget all about that milk business of your father’s. Milking 25 cows a day and hoisting 20-gallon cans of milk into a truck is ruining you as a pitcher.”

The advice may have helped. Chase’s earned run average in 1939 was 3.80, though playing for the 65-87 Senators, his won/loss record was a disappointing 10-19. On July 28, he pitched a masterpiece, taking a no-hitter into the ninth against the visiting Cleveland Indians in a Ladies Day game. He gave up a single and then another one, but won the game, 2-0. Another highlight of the season was being at Yankee Stadium for Lou Gehrig‘s farewell speech on July 4. . . . (We will come back to this when we see Chase next.)

[GeoPoto]

Player #167: James B. "Jimmie" DeShong. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1936-1939. 47 wins and 9 saves in 7 MLB seasons. He debuted with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1932. His best season was 1936 with Washington as he posted a record of 18-10 with a 4.63 ERA in 223.3 innings pitched.

DeShong's playing career lasted for 14 seasons (1928–1941). His MLB service saw him miss, by one year, two dynasties: the 1929–1931 Athletics and the 1936–1939 Yankees. However, he enjoyed a stellar campaign as a member of the 1936 Senators, posting an 18–10 won–lost record and finishing eighth in the American League in victories. His high win total in 1936 was accompanied by a mediocre 4.63 earned run average, and he permitted 255 hits (among them, 11 home runs) and 96 bases on balls in 223.2 innings pitched, with only 59 strikeouts.

Overall, in his 175 games, which included an even 100 starts, he compiled a 47–44 record and a 5.08 career ERA, permitting 968 hits and 432 walks, with 273 strikeouts, in 872.2 career innings pitched. He threw two shutouts and 44 complete games, and was credited with nine saves, then an unofficial statistic.

[GeoPoto]

Player #160C: Richard B. "Rick" Ferrell. Catcher for the Washington Senators in 1937-1941, 1944-1945, and 1947. 1,692 hits 28 home runs in 18 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .378. 8-time All-Star. Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. In 1984, was inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1929-1933. His best season may have been 1932 for the Browns as he posted a .406 OBP with 67 runs scored and 65 RBIs in 514 plate appearances. He held the record for most MLB games caught for 40 years until unseated by Carlton Fiske in 1988. First catcher to receive from staff of four K-ball pitchers for the Senators in 1944. He joined the Detroit Tigers as a coach in 1950, became general manager and vice president in 1959, and continued with the Tigers until 1992. During his tenure as a Tigers executive, they won the 1968 and 1984 World Series and AL Eastern Division titles in 1972 and 1987.

Back to Rick's SABR biography: . . . A strong contact hitter, the catcher developed a pattern of hitting in the .300’s during the season until September, when due to exhaustion and the wool uniforms in the summer heat, his batting average would invariably drop. Yet he still hit over .300 five times during his career. . . .

The following June 10, 1937, as Rick was batting a strong .308, he and Wes were unexpectedly traded together with Mel Almada to the Washington Senators for pitcher Bobo Newsom and outfielder Ben Chapman. (Washington’s Cal Griffith would only make the deal if Rick was included.) Totaling a .302 batting average from 1933-37 with Boston, Rick had broken Red Sox catcher’s records in batting, home runs, doubles, and runs-batted-in.

With the Senators, Rick and Wes again formed a battery under manager Bucky Harris and both were selected for the 1937 AL All-Star team. In a season of double-injuries, Rick hit a mere .244 in 104 games, playing the season with a partially broken right hand while gripping the bat with his single, left hand at the plate. Playing through the pain, he never once asked to come out of the lineup. Wes went 14-19 for the season but was released in August 1938 (13-8). As his battery mate for five years, Rick had caught 141 of his starts, including nine shutouts.

In 1938, Rick topped all catchers at starting double plays with 15. Also in 1938, he first began successfully catching the Senators’ big knuckleball pitcher Emil “Dutch” Leonard, giving Leonard a new chance in the major leagues. By 1939, Leonard became a 20-game winner, success he attributed to having a catcher like Ferrell, who could handle the knuckleball pitch.

The Senators played at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, when Lou Gehrig retired from baseball with his “Luckiest Man” speech. Rick was standing three feet from the microphone and always clearly remembered that day. When Ted Williams once asked Ferrell how to pitch to Gehrig, Ferrell replied, “No one way. You’ve got to move the ball around, try to cross him up and outguess him…keep him off-stride.” . . . (We will finish this when Rick surfaces again.)

[kcohen]

Have had these cards lying around for years. Finally put the puzzle together.

[GeoPoto]

(Ken: Great picture! Thanks for posting.)

Player #160D: Richard B. "Rick" Ferrell. Catcher for the Washington Senators in 1937-1941, 1944-1945, and 1947. 1,692 hits 28 home runs in 18 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .378. 8-time All-Star. Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. In 1984, was inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1929-1933. His best season may have been 1932 for the Browns as he posted a .406 OBP with 67 runs scored and 65 RBIs in 514 plate appearances. He held the record for most MLB games caught for 40 years until unseated by Carlton Fiske in 1988. First catcher to receive from staff of four K-ball pitchers for the Senators in 1944. He joined the Detroit Tigers as a coach in 1950, became general manager and vice president in 1959, and continued with the Tigers until 1992. During his tenure as a Tigers executive, they won the 1968 and 1984 World Series and AL Eastern Division titles in 1972 and 1987.

We go back to Rick's SABR biography: . . . In 1940, Ferrell caught 99 games for Washington for a .980 fielding average and a .273 batting average. Yet even with Ferrell, Buddy Lewis, Cecil Travis, Sid Hudson and Mickey Vernon on the team, the Senators finished in the second division during Rick’s tenure.

On May 15, 1941, three months after he married Ruth Virginia Wilson, the catcher, 35, was traded back to the St. Louis Browns for pitcher Vern Kennedy. Rick caught 98 games for pitchers like Denny Galehouse, knuckleballer John Niggeling, and Elden Auker. . . .

. . . On August 12, 1984, the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee inducted Rick, 78, along with shortstop Pee Wee Reese, into the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY, bringing the ultimate recognition to one of baseball’s quiet, devoted heroes. “I know of no one who deserves the Hall of Fame more than Rick Ferrell,” wrote Detroit Free Press sportswriter Mike Downey in August 1984. “I don’t know how they kept him out for so long,” commented Kell to the Free Press then.

In August 1988 after more than forty years, Ferrell’s American League most-games caught record was broken by Hall of Fame White Sox catcher Carlton Fisk at Tiger Stadium, this time with Rick in the stands to congratulate his successor.

[GeoPoto]

Player #168B: Charles M. "Charlie" Gelbert. Shortstop for the Washington Senators in 1939-1940. 766 hits and 17 home runs in 9 MLB seasons. 1931 World Series champion. He debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1929-1932 and 1935-1936. In 1930 with the Cardinals, he posted a .360 OBP with 92 runs scored and 72 RBIs in 574 plate appearances. He finished his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1940. He lost two full seasons recovering from a severe ankle injury suffered while hunting. Though he returned to baseball in 1935 and played six more seasons, he was limited to a utility role for the rest of his career.

“Ripley’s Believe It or Not” featured Charley Gelbert in 1941, noting that he “played 239 major league games with a broken leg.” Shortstop Gelbert put in four full seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals and played in back-to-back World Series, losing one and then winning one. And then an offseason hunting accident nearly ended his career. But he kept on playing, and saw duty in five more big-league seasons.

He had seemed destined for greatness. Hall of Famer and teammate Frankie Frisch said, “If he hadn’t been hurt, he would have been the best.” . . .

. . . That November (1932), Gelbert shot himself with a 12-gauge shotgun. It was an accident. On November 16 he went hunting with four friends and a number of dogs not far from his home in Fayettesville, Pennsylvania . “It could have happened to anyone,” he said afterward. “I was talking along, carrying my gun properly, and my foot slipped. I fell backward, my feet flew up, the gun went off. …” His foot had snagged on a hillside vine and as he tried to right himself, the other foot turned on a piece of rock. “The gun in his right hand crashed against the rocky mountain side. There was an explosion. The jar had discharged Gelbert’s gun.” The shotgun blast hit him in the left leg about four inches above the ankle. “They were afraid to loosen the boot for fear the foot would fall off. That’s how bad it looked.” An Army surgeon who had served in World War I evaluated his foot and worried that it would need to be amputated; there were few tendons left. But treatment at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia saved his foot. Gelbert told his wife, “From now on, I’ll confine myself to golf. … I know now there is nothing safe about a gun.”

Surgeries followed, and Gelbert spent two months in the hospital. He then began a long stretch of rehabilitation. His fibula was entirely disconnected and four inches of his posterior artery and nerve were destroyed. He missed both the 1933 and 1934 seasons, needing even further skin grafts late in calendar 1934. He took a position as football coach at Gettysburg College but had to resign that position in September 1934 because he still was not able to physically do the work of coaching on the field. When the Gas House Gang Cardinals won the World Series in October, they remembered their former shortstop and voted him a $1,000 partial share. . . .

. . . The 1940 season was Gelbert’s last in the major leagues, split between the Senators (for whom he even pitched in two games (four innings in relief), with a 9.00 ERA) and the Boston Red Sox. He was actually batting .370 for Washington (albeit in only 59 plate appearances over 22 games), when the team placed him on waivers to give prospect Jimmy Pofahl more playing time.

[GeoPoto]

Player #83M: Stanley R. "Bucky" Harris. Second baseman for the Washington Senators in 1919-1928. 1,297 hits and 167 stolen bases in 12 MLB seasons. 1924 and 1947 World Series champion. In 1975, inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. Named player-manager of the Washington Senators in 1924 at age 27. "The Boy Wonder" led Washington to World Series victory as "rookie" manger. Managed Washington Senators in 1924-1928, 1935-1942, and 1950-1954. Managed the Detroit Tigers in 1929-1933 and 1955-1956. Managed the Boston Red Sox in 1934. Managed the Philadelphia Phillies in 1943. Managed the New York Yankees in 1947-1948, including winning the 1947 world Series. Served as the General Manager of the Boston Red Sox in 1959-1960.

Bucky's SABR biography gets to the end of his long baseball career: Harris had a career Major League batting average of .274. In 1,253 games at second base, he led the American League in putouts four times and in double plays five straight times (1921 to 1925). In twenty-nine years as a manager, he won 2,158 games and lost 2,219. With two World Series victories and the respect of his peers, he was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1975. Harris will be remembered as a scrappy ballplayer known for his great defense, his hard-nosed play, his base-running skills, getting hit by pitches, and for his clutch hitting in the 1924 World Series. As of 2011 only Connie Mack, Tony LaRussa, John McGraw, and Bobby Cox had managed more games than Harris, and he ranked seventh all-time in managerial victories and third in losses.

From 1956 to 1960 Harris was assistant general manager and then general manager of the Boston Red Sox, and he finished his baseball career as a scout with the Chicago White Sox, then as a special assistant with the expansion Washington Senators of the 1960s.

In 1954, as manager of the Senators, Harris put Carlos Paula, a black Cuban, on the roster as the first black Senator. Harris wasn’t an activist; he appeared to be motivated to field the best team possible, regardless of color. When Pumpsie Green became the first black player for the Red Sox in 1959, Bucky was the general manager.

(Bucky's 1940 Play Ball card includes a tease for a coming new attraction: Millions of young folks asked for SUPERMAN CARD GUM. Now it's on the way here. This new Adventure and Taste Thrill awaits you at your dealers. Ask for it. Watch for it.)