Washington DC Baseball

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Player #32: J. William "Wee Willie" Sudhoff. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1906. 102 wins and 3 saves in 10 MLB seasons. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1897-1898. His best season was 1903 with the St. Louis Browns as he posted a 21-15 record with a 2.27 ERA in 293.2 innings pitched.

Sudhoff's SABR biography covers his time in Washington: Blond-headed Wee Willie Sudhoff, although short in stature, was a solid, if mostly unspectacular, pitcher who spent all or parts of 10 seasons in the major leagues. He was the first Missouri-born player to appear for both the National League’s St. Louis Cardinals and the American League’s St. Louis Browns. The bulk of his career was spent on those two teams, but he also played for the woeful 1899 Cleveland Spiders and the 1906 Washington Senators. The diminutive right-hander relied primarily on curves and change of speed as he didn’t have particularly great pace on his fastball.

During the (1905-06) American League winter meetings, he was traded to the Washington Senators for left-handed starter Beany Jacobson. Sudhoff felt he still had something left. In an interview with the Post-Dispatch he confidently stated, “Why should I get out of the game so long as the public and the managers will stand for me? I’m still a young fellow.” The Washington Post was not as optimistic: “The Washington baseball club has traded Pitcher Jacobson for Pitcher Sudhoff, of the St. Louis Browns. Jacobson was a failure last season. Sudhoff was a great pitcher in his day but is believed to be going back.”

The Washington paper proved to be correct. While Jacobson was average in a tail-end role (he pitched 155 innings, fifth of the six pitchers on the team), Sudhoff had nothing left. The sore-armed twirler started five games and relieved in four others but managed a total of just 19⅔ innings with a bloated 9.15 ERA. That was a far cry from the pitcher who completed 199 of his 239 major-league starts.

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The 1907 Washington Senators won 49 games, lost 102, and finished in eighth place in the American League. They were managed by Joe Cantillon and played home games at National Park. The 1907 season was noteworthy for the debut of a future hall-of-famer.

By the time Cantillon finally entered Walter Johnson in a game, on August 2, 1907, the city of Washington was rabid with baseball fever brought on by all the talk in the papers of this young man's fastball. More than 10,000 fans packed American League Park for the first game of a doubleheader against the Tigers, the best-hitting team in the league and the eventual pennant winners. These were the Tigers of Ty Cobb, then just 20 years old, the most ferocious of players who will likely forever remain baseball's all-time batting champion.

By all accounts, many fans were surprised by Johnson's sidearm delivery and sweeping underhand motion. He sure didn't move like a fastballer, and yet there was no doubt in the minds of the witnesses that day that his pitches were really moving. The record shows he gave up just six hits, three of which were bunts; two of these were by Cobb, who felt that bunting was the only counter to the incredible speed of Johnson's hard one. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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The 1908 Washington Senators won 67 games, lost 85, and finished in seventh place in the American League. They were managed by Joe Cantillon and played home games at National Park.

How Walter Johnson became a National Hero Part 1: The Senators were reasonably competitive in 1908; but for Walter Johnson, though, this was the season during which he became a national hero. First, however, he had to contend with an operation in late February for the removal of an abscess located behind his right ear. The operation was a serious one and his family had feared for his life. Johnson survived but was in considerable pain for several weeks afterward. He missed all of spring training as a result, and didn't join the club until June 6, nearly two months into the season. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.) We will return to this account of How Walter Johnson became a national hero in a subsequent episode. In the meantime,

Player #33A: Charles E. "Gabby" Street. "The Old Sarge". Catcher for the Washington Senators in 1908-1911. 312 hits and 2 home runs in 8 MLB seasons. Debuted with the Cincinnati Reds in 1904. Caught ball dropped from top of Washington Monument. Holds MLB record for longest gap between MLB games at 19 years -- 1912-1931. Managed the St. Louis Cardinals in 1929 and 1930-1933, including the 1931 World Series championship. Managed the St. Louis Browns in 1938.

(In 1908) The man who would become known as "Walter Johnson's catcher," Charles "Gabby" Street, also joined the Senators, his contract having been purchased from San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League. Street, who would manage the St. Louis Cardinals to a World Championship in 1931 (the same year he sent himself up to bat as he approached his 49th birthday), was just 25 when he joined Washington after having appeared in only 45 National League games. Nineteen hundred and eight and 1909 would be his two busiest seasons in the majors, but he would bat just .206 and .211, assuring himself of a more regular place "riding the pine" for another two seasons in Washington. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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The 1909 Washington Senators won 42 games, lost 110, and finished in eighth (last) place in the American League. They were managed by Joe Cantillon and played home games at National Park. The 1909 Senators still hold the Major League record for the most games lost in one month of a season, with 29 losses (and only 5 wins) in July.

(Both Germany Schaefer and Nick Altrock joined Washington in 1909. Though their comedic antics would not begin in earnest until 1912,) Comedy was indeed what the Washington ballclub was best at in 1909; it slipped to only 42 wins in 152 games. The highlight of the season was a scoreless, 18-inning tie with the Detroit Tigers on July 16. Ed Summers pitched the whole way for the Tigers, and he permitted just seven hits and one walk until, mercifully, the game was called because of darkness. The 1909 Nationals still hold records for fewest runs scored in a season (380) and the most times shutout in a season (29). They finished an unbelievable 56 games behind the first-place Tigers and 20 games out of seventh place. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

Clown Prince of Baseball: 1912 photograph of ballplayer turned comedy act, Nick Altrock, as he dances on the sidelines of a game in full uniform.

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How Walter Johnson became a National Hero (Part 2): We return to Deveaux's account of Walter Johnson's rise to national recognition: Johnson's record was 1-6 largely because of a lack of offensive support, when, on July 28, he struck out 15 Browns in St. Louis to earn a 2-1 win in 16 innings. With that game, in which Walter recorded his highest strikeout total to date, he undertook a string of 11 wins in 13 decisions. Then, over four glorious days in early September, the 21-year-old accomplished a feat not seen before or since.

The chain of events began innocently enough when on Friday, September 4, 1908, Johnson pitched a six-hit 3-0 shutout against Jack Chesbro and the New York Highlanders. On the following day, the New Yorkers' chagrin, not to mention surprise, can only be imagined when they saw Johnson warming up on the sidelines. It should be pointed out that in 1908, Big Ed Walsh of the White Sox led the league in games started with 49, the rough equivalent of a start every third game. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

We will pick this account up again soon, but in the meantime, the photograph by Thompson shows Walter Johnson swinging the bat c.1912-15. Walter was a good hitter for a pitcher at a time when pitchers were expected to be able to hit well enough to play the field and pinch hit to compensate for small rosters and frequent player injuries.

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Player #34: Clifford D. "Cliff" Blankenship. Catcher/first baseman for the Washington Senators in 1907 and 1909. 49 hits in 231 career plate appearances. He debuted with the Cincinnati Reds in 1905. He played a key role in Washington's signing of Walter Johnson.

Blankenship is remembered as a scout of sorts -- while injured with the Senators, he was sent to check out Walter Johnson in Idaho. Per the legend, he was told to bring his bat and, because he wasn't much of a hitter in the majors, to sign Johnson only if it was not possible to even hit a foul ball off him. Blankenship wired back: "You can't hit what you can't see." The Senators signed Johnson and the rest is history.

Here Deveaux picks up the story of Johnson's discovery: The baseball gods were indeed smiling down upon the Washington Senators on the day in 1907 when catcher Cliff Blankenship broke his finger. Joe Cantillon wanted to get some use out of the disabled Blankenship and decided to dispatch him on a scouting assignment. . . . Initially, Johnson wasn't even the main focus of Blankenship's scouting mission. The Senators already had their eye on Clyde Milan, a 20-year-old outfielder with Wichita, of the Western Association. An esteemed judge of talent, Joe Cantillon had spotted Milan when the Senators had played Wichita during a spring exhibition game on their way home from training camp in Galveston, Texas. There is little doubt that Blankenship's scouting trip was the most successful in all of history. Milan was signed for $1,250 and would become the team's best outfielder for the next 14 years. During all of that time, his roommate would be Walter Johnson. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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Player #35A: William E. "Wid" Conroy. Utility player for the Washington Senators in 1909-1911. 1,257 hits, 22 home runs, and 262 stolen bases in 11 MLB seasons. Debuted with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901. He had at least 384 plate appearances in each of his 11 MLB seasons. He was the first-string SS on the NL champion Pittsburgh Pirates in 1902. He moved to 3B in 1903 with the New York Highlanders, twice leading AL third basemen in total chances per game. He was an opening day starter for the Highlanders for the first five years of the team's existence. In 1907 he swiped 41 bases second only to Ty Cobb. He finished his career with Washington and in one of his last games set an AL record with 13 total chances at 3B.

Conroy's SABR biography covers his heyday in New York and his demise in Washington: Wid spent the next six seasons (1903-8) with New York, never batting higher than .273, but finishing among the league’s top ten in home runs twice, triples four times, slugging percentage once, and stolen bases four times. In 1907, Conroy’s 41 steals tied for second, behind only Ty Cobb‘s league-leading 49. Consistently praised for his deft handling of the bat (like many players of the era, Conroy choked up on the bat several inches and found his base hits by punching the ball to all fields), Conroy was also known as a smart, speedy base runner, routinely taking “the biggest leads off base of any player in the big show.”

Following the 1908 season, in which he batted just .237 with a .296 slugging percentage, Conroy was sold to the Washington Senators for $5,000. Reflecting his solid standing within the game, Conroy’s acquisition was greeted with delight by Washington fans, who took it as a sign that “the local owners are sincere in their efforts to build up a winner.” Now 32 years old, Conroy failed to live up to the high hopes that had been set for him and finished the year with a .244 batting average and career-low .293 slugging percentage. He spent the following offseason “boiling out” in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and his offensive production improved slightly in 1910, but the following year he finished with a .232 batting average, the lowest of his career, while stealing just 12 bases.

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