Washington DC Baseball

[ValKehl]

George, this one would fit in your nice color run. LMK if interested, and we'll work something out.
Best,
Val

[GeoPoto]

Player #95C: Roger T. Peckinpaugh. Shortstop for the Washington Senators in 1922-1926. 1,876 hits and 205 stolen bases in 17 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. His best season at the plate was probably 1921 as he helped the New York Yankees reach the World Series and posted a .380 OBP with 128 runs scored and 72 RBIs in 694 plate appearances. He debuted with the Cleveland Naps in 1910 and finished his playing career with the Chicago White Sox in 1927. He managed the New York Yankees in 1914 and the Cleveland Indians in 1928-1933 and 1941.

Peck's SABR biography lets us reprise the bumpy ending to his 1925 MVP season and the slide to the end of his playing career: Peckinpaugh came back strong in 1925 and had a fine season. He batted .294 (approximately the league average) as the Senators won their second straight pennant. In a testament to his fielding and leadership abilities, the sportswriters voted Peck the American League MVP in a narrow vote over future Hall of Famers Al Simmons, Joe Sewell, Harry Heilmann, and others. Despite his strong performance, Peck’s legs continued to give him trouble, and by the start of the World Series they needed to be heavily bandaged. After carrying the Senators in the 1924 World Series, Peckinpaugh sabotaged them in 1925, turning in one of the worst performances in Series history. He committed eight errors, a Series record that still stands, although Peckinpaugh later groused that “some of them were stinko calls by the scorer.” Three of Peck’s errors led directly to two Senators losses, including an eighth-inning miscue in Game Seven that allowed the Pirates to come from behind to capture the championship. Peckinpaugh’s two errors that day, however, were perhaps understandable, as the playing conditions were so wet that gasoline had to be burned on the infield to dry it off. Still, it was the second time (after 1921) that a World Series had been lost due to a Peckinpaugh error in the deciding game.

Peck’s legs were giving out, and he would only play two more years in the big leagues. After retiring from the game following the 1927 season, Peckinpaugh accepted the managerial post for the Cleveland Indians. In five and a half seasons with Cleveland, Roger guided the club to one seventh place finish, one third place finish and three consecutive fourth place finishes before being fired midway into the 1933 season. After stints managing Kansas City and New Orleans in the minor leagues, Peck returned to skipper the Indians again in 1941, finishing in fifth place before moving into the Cleveland front office, where he remained until he retired from organized baseball after the 1946 season.

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[GeoPoto]

Player #74K: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice Part 1. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1915-1933. 2,987 hits and 34 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1920 AL stolen base leader. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1963. Led the Senators to three AL pennants (1924,1925, and 1933). Best known for controversial "over the fence" catch in the 1925 World Series. He had many excellent seasons, but one of his best was 1930 as he posted a .407 OBP with 121 runs scored in 669 plate appearances. He had 63 stolen bases in 1920. He last played in 1934 with the Cleveland Indians. His early life was marred by tragedy when his wife, two daughters, parents, and two sisters were all killed by a tornado in Indiana.

Carroll points out an odd aspect to Rice's 1925 national fame before summarizing his 1926 season: Soon after Rice's World Series "Catch", the Chicago Tribune cooked up a feature story about the local boy made good. If an author is interested in creating the tale of an American hero, writer Frank Butzow suggests, he need "visit the little city of Waseka, seventy-seven miles south of Chicago, and in the pumping station, courthouse or the back room of Bernie Canavan's tailor shop get the story of Sam Rice."

Butrow goes on to describe Rice as "flashy," a laughable adjective for a workmanlike throwback playing in a period of boisterous superstars. But the article coming so closely on the heels of Rice's spectacular face dive into the bleachers, the writer can be forgiven for being caught up in the moment. This perhaps qualified as the lone period of Rice's career when that label could accurately apply.

Besides supplying some folksy details about Rice's otherwise cloudy upbringing, the story is significant for one very big reason -- the first known public unveiling of Rice's dark public secret. "The great tragedy of his life," as it is called, is curiously buried deep into the text of an otherwise very light, very breezy story. Rice's taste in beer rates a higher mention, as does his affinity for local pool halls. (This account will be continued in our next post.)

And now, once again, we are pleased to provide images provided by the preeminent Washington Senator and, particularly, Sam Rice master-collector, Val Kell:

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1686647835
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1686647838

[GeoPoto]

Player #74K: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice Part 1. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1915-1933. 2,987 hits and 34 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1920 AL stolen base leader. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1963. Led the Senators to three AL pennants (1924,1925, and 1933). Best known for controversial "over the fence" catch in the 1925 World Series. He had many excellent seasons, but one of his best was 1930 as he posted a .407 OBP with 121 runs scored in 669 plate appearances. He had 63 stolen bases in 1920. He last played in 1934 with the Cleveland Indians. His early life was marred by tragedy when his wife, two daughters, parents, and two sisters were all killed by a tornado in Indiana.

Carroll points out an odd aspect to Rice's 1925 national fame before summarizing his 1926 season: Soon after Rice's World Series "Catch", the Chicago Tribune cooked up a feature story about the local boy made good. If an author is interested in creating the tale of an American hero, writer Frank Butzow suggests, he need "visit the little city of Waseka, seventy-seven miles south of Chicago, and in the pumping station, courthouse or the back room of Bernie Canavan's tailor shop get the story of Sam Rice."

Butrow goes on to describe Rice as "flashy," a laughable adjective for a workmanlike throwback playing in a period of boisterous superstars. But the article coming so closely on the heels of Rice's spectacular face dive into the bleachers, the writer can be forgiven for being caught up in the moment. This perhaps qualified as the lone period of Rice's career when that label could accurately apply.

Besides supplying some folksy details about Rice's otherwise cloudy upbringing, the story is significant for one very big reason -- the first known public unveiling of Rice's dark public secret. "The great tragedy of his life," as it is called, is curiously buried deep into the text of an otherwise very light, very breezy story. Rice's taste in beer rates a higher mention, as does his affinity for local pool halls. (This account will be continued in our next post.)

And now, once again, we are pleased to provide images provided by the preeminent Washington Senator and, particularly, Sam Rice master-collector, Val Kell:

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1686647835
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1686647838

[GeoPoto]

Player #74K: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice Part 2. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1915-1933. 2,987 hits and 34 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1920 AL stolen base leader. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1963. Led the Senators to three AL pennants (1924,1925, and 1933). Best known for controversial "over the fence" catch in the 1925 World Series. He had many excellent seasons, but one of his best was 1930 as he posted a .407 OBP with 121 runs scored in 669 plate appearances. He had 63 stolen bases in 1920. He last played in 1934 with the Cleveland Indians. His early life was marred by tragedy when his wife, two daughters, parents, and two sisters were all killed by a tornado in Indiana.

Perhaps the Tribune incorrectly assumed that Rice's background was well known to the Washington press and public. Perhaps he wasn't sure what to do with such unfathomable tragedy, particularly in a story that presumably was conceived as a celebratory feature story about Rice's shining moment, not an expose about his hidden past. For whatever reason, the writer and paper downplayed the biggest revelation it had about baseball's man of the moment. And in those days, it was much easier for news to stay contained within a market than it is today, when the Internet sends stories bouncing around cyberspace like pinballs. Also helping keep the story of Rice's tragic past quiet was the fact the writer of the story, Butzow, wasn't regularly a baseball writer but covered statehouse politics out of Springfield. By the next day, he had returned to his regular duties covering the Illinois state government. In the hands of a member of baseball's tight-knit fraternity of writers, surely Rice's secret would have spread like wildfire. Though it's possible that the more compliant sports writers of the era would have kept the story out of print at Rice's request, the fact that Shirley Povich, the legendary Washington sports writer, didn't even write about the tornado until 1985 would seem to indicate that it wasn't being passed along as oral history.

Rice's catch brought him nationwide attention, and momentarily drew the story of his tragic background to the surface. Apparently it was scarcely noticed, however, and wouldn't come up again until a decade after his death. . . . (This account will be continued in our next post.)

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[GeoPoto]

Player #74K: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice Part 3. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1915-1933. 2,987 hits and 34 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1920 AL stolen base leader. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1963. Led the Senators to three AL pennants (1924,1925, and 1933). Best known for controversial "over the fence" catch in the 1925 World Series. He had many excellent seasons, but one of his best was 1930 as he posted a .407 OBP with 121 runs scored in 669 plate appearances. He had 63 stolen bases in 1920. He last played in 1934 with the Cleveland Indians. His early life was marred by tragedy when his wife, two daughters, parents, and two sisters were all killed by a tornado in Indiana.

. . . Through all the team's difficulties (during the 1926 season), Rice just kept on playing at a high level. While the Senators floundered in June, he put together a fourteen-game hitting streak in which he batted .400 -- in eight straight games during the streak, Rice had at least two hits.

The Senators needed a late-season surge to climb out of the American League's second division, and even then, Joe Judge's late-inning home run on the season's last day was the only thing that vaulted them into fourth place. But Rice was exempt from any blame for the tumble. He hit .337, finishing what would turn out to be the best three-year run of his career. From 1924 through '26, he batted .340. His 216 hits in 1926 gave him three consecutive seasons of at least two hundred. (Sam Rice by Jeff Carroll.)

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[ValKehl]

Further to the info George mentioned in the above post regarding Sam Rice's best 3-year run of his career from 1924 to 1926, Rice accumulated a total of 659 hits in these years, an average of 219.67 hits/year. His 216 hits in 1924 led the AL - his 227 hits in 1925 didn't lead the AL (Al Simmons had 253 hits!) - his 216 hits in 1926 led both the AL & NL. Rice had 200+ hits in 6 of the 13 years in which he was an everyday player (500+ plate appearances). Here are Sam's hit totals for the other 3 years: 1920 - 211 hits, 1928 - 202 hits, and 1930 at age 40 - 207 hits. This photo of Sam was taken in 1925, the year in which he had the most hits of his career and his highest batting average, .350.

[GeoPoto]

Player #87D: Herold D. "Muddy" Ruel. Catcher with the Washington Senators in 1923-1930. 1,242 hits and 61 stolen bases in 19 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1915. He was the Yankees catcher in 1920 when Ray Chapman was hit and killed by a Carl Mays fastball. He scored the tying run in regulation and then the winning run in the 12th inning of game seven in the 1924 WS. His best season was 1923 with Washington as he posted a .394 OBP with 54 RBI's and 63 runs scored in 528 plate appearances. His final season as a player was 1934 with the Chicago White Sox. He was manager of the St. Louis Browns in 1947. He was GM of the Detroit Tigers in 1954-1956.

Ruel's SABR biography recounts Muddy's role in integrating baseball: Part 1 -- By July (1947) the (St. Louis Browns) team (in its first year being managed by Muddy) had fallen into the cellar and attendance was very low. The front office sought a way to breathe life into the team and sell more tickets. The Browns’ vice-president and general manager was William O. DeWitt. He was once a young protégé of Branch Rickey when Rickey was still in St. Louis. Rickey plucked DeWitt from the concessions workforce and made him an office boy and set the young DeWitt on a career path toward the upper echelons of the front office. After watching the large crowds turning out to watch Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers visit Sportsman’s Park to play the tenant Cardinals, the Browns’ front office began to understand the economic benefits of integration. DeWitt sent the Browns’ chief scout, Jack Fournier, to seek talent in the Negro Leagues. After observing the Kansas City Monarchs and Birmingham Black Barons, Fournier made his recommendations to DeWitt. And so, the last-place Browns became the third major league team to integrate. On July 17, the Browns purchased a 30-day option on Lorenzo “Piper” Davis of the Black Barons and Chuck Harmon was signed to a minor-league contract and sent to Gloversville-Johnstown, New York, in the Browns farm system. The Browns also signed Henry Thompson and Willard Brown to contracts and in the process became the first team to have more than one African American on the same roster.

Needless to say, while the Browns were making big news in the world of baseball, the team was quickly unraveling, making Ruel’s job more stressful. Now Ruel found himself not only trying to right a sinking ship, he was now asked to integrate his workforce while some of the crew sought seats in the lifeboats. One player in particular, Paul Lehner, a promising young outfielder from Alabama, went to the front office demanding a pay raise or his release from the team. Ruel coaxed the young Lehner into staying with the team. But three days after the signing of Thompson and Brown, Lehner showed up late to the ballpark for the afternoon game with the Red Sox. The reason given for Lehner’s tardiness was that he had injured his leg in the previous day’s game. Ultimately, Lehner entered the game in the late innings as a pinch hitter. The Browns fined Lehner for his behavior and when Lehner saw his next paycheck he was less than thrilled.

We will return to this account when Muddy next surfaces in our progression.

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