KING OF FIDGETS
One of the Greatest- The Story of Eddie Plank
"Connie Mack, the patriarch of baseball, handled many an unusual character in his time. Rube Waddell probably heads the list, but there were others, even down to recent years, who had a tendency to tuck vine leaves in their hair and go frolicking down the primrose path. Mack was able to handle them all and, more important, to understand them despite his own abstemious code of living.
One of Mack's first lessons in dealing with ball players who preferred something stronger than a milk diet came when he was managing Pittsburgh, back in the last century, and had a pitcher on his club named John Davis Foreman, who was called Brownie, probably because of his pixielike habits.
Foreman had been a winner for Mack in 1895, but even then Mack had trouble holding the reins on him. The next year, even as early as the spring training camp in Charleston, South Carolina, Mack realized that all was not going to be roses with Foreman. And there were other Pittsburgh players besides Brownie who thought more of their fun than their baseball, which was understandable enough in those days when salaries were small.
Eventually, Mack was forced to let Foreman go to Cincinnati, but before the 1896 season was up Connie himself realized that it was going to be his last year as Pittsburgh manager.
Being booted out of Pittsburgh proved a step up the ladder for Mack, for he came under the influence of Ban Johnson the next year, and when that rugged individual formed the American League in 1901, Connie was his choice to run the club in Philadelphia for the Shibe brothers. Just by way of proving Ban hadn't guessed wrong, Mack ran the club for half a century.
Mack had reason to remember Brownie Foreman in his first year at Philadelphia, for Brownie's brother Frank, who was baseball coach at Gettysburg College, made Connie a present of a pitcher- Edward Stewart Plank, who was to win more games than any other left-hander in the history of baseball.
Frank Foreman, who lived in Baltimore, was acquainted with Mack though the fact that Connie had his fun-loving brother on the club at Pittsburgh. Frank told Connie that he had two pitchers at Gettysburg that he thought could win in the newly formed American League, Eddie Plank and a boy named George Longfellow Winter. As a prognosticator, Foreman was 100 per cent correct. Connie took Plank and the Red Sox signed Winter and both were immediate winners in the American League, each winning 17 games the year he stepped out of college. Winter, who was to pick up the unusual nickname of Sassafras, lasted eight years while Plank was to stick for 17 seasons.
Plank is one of the few pitchers in baseball- Ted Lyons and Bob Feller are the others who come to mind at the moment- who never pitched an inning of minor league ball. And Eddie's 324 victories are tops for a left-handed pitcher. Mose Grove won 300 even, and the fact that twenty-one of Plank's victories were scored in the Federal League doesn't detract from his record. Whether Plank could have won his games with the lively ball as Grove did is something else again.
Incidentally, it is interesting that of the five left-handers in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, four started under Connie- Plank, Grove, Waddell and Herb Pennock. The only exception was Carl Hubbell, the New York Giants' meal ticket, unless you wish to count Babe Ruth, who was voted into the Hall on his batting prowess rather than for his left-handed pitching.
For all of Plank's indubitably great pitching, he is remembered in baseball history principally for the frustrations visited upon him. There is, for instance, the seventeen-inning tie game between Detroit and the Athletics, the tie which won the 1907 pennant for Hughie Jennings' Tigers. Ty Cobb, then a youngster of twenty-one, frequently has referred to it as the most exciting ball game in which he ever played. And Ty played in 3,033 games before he quit.
The Athletics seemed to have a safe lead over Detroit in mid-September of that season, particularly in view of the fact that the A's were at home and the Tigers had to make an Eastern swing. But Jack Coombs had injured his arm earlier and Chief Bender's arm went dead right when a game or two from the Chippewa would have been of great help. Plank had to carry the load, assisted by Jimmy Dygert, a young spitballer. Waddell could have been of some assistance but Rube was getting to be too much for Connie to handle.
When Detroit moved into Philadelphia on September 27, a Friday, the A's had the most fractional of leads over the Tigers, a percentage of .6058 to .6056. Behind George Mullin, Detroit beat the overworked Plank, 5-4. And four runs were usually enough for Eddie.
Columbia Park, where the A's played their games then, was sold out for the double-header next day, with Detroit now in first place by .608 to .601, but the heavens opened that Saturday and it was impossible to play. That meant a doubleheader on Monday, September 30, as there was no Sunday ball in Pennsylvania at that time. The stands, of course, were packed long before game time. And the fans probably saw more drama than any crowd of baseball fans has seen, before or since.
Mack needed the two games to get back into first place and his plans were for Dygert to pitch the opener, with Plank, his ace, for the clincher in the nightcap. Waddell showed up and Connie figured him as a relief pitcher for Dygert if the spitballer needed any help.
Wild Bill Donovan, who came to an untimely end in a train wreck in 1923, was Jennings' starter and the Athletics tore into him, building up a 7-1 lead by the end of five innings. Cobb maintains to this day that the only reason Hughie allowed Donovan to stay in was that Bill had grown up in Philadelphia and had many friends and relatives among the 30,000 jamming Columbia Park, its seats, it aisles and behind ropes on its playing field. Mack also believes that this was the only excuse Jennings had for allowing Wild Bill to stay in and take it- he didn't wish to humiliate him by taking him out.
Mack lifted Dygert in the second and put in Waddell because Jimmy had almost chased Claude Rossman over the plate in a play which could have been executed with a simple toss to the catcher. And then compounded the felony by walking Donovan, his pitching opponent. Rube came on and fanned Dave Jones and Germany Schaefer to end the inning.
Waddell wasn't himself that game, and when his support faltered in the seventh, Rube faltered right along with it, and the Tigers picked up four runs to whittle the Philadelphia lead to 7-5. The A's scored in their half but Detroit got one against Rube in the eighth and came into the ninth still needing two to tie.
Wahoo Sam Crawford opened fire on Waddell in the ninth with a single and Cobb came up and belted a home run over the right field fence to tie up the game. Mack immediately called on Plank, and Waddell was not only out of the game but virtually through as a member of the Athletics.
Cobb doubled in the overflow crowd to score Rossman in the eleventh inning, but the A's tied it up and their half when Donovan lived up to his nickname with an untimely wild pitch. And then Plank and Wild Bill battled each other until night fell.
In the fourteenth Harry Davis of the A's hit one into the crowd for an apparent ground-rule double. Crawford claimed that a Philadelphia policeman had interfered with him and, after a long wrangle, Umpire Silk O'Loughlin upheld the interference claim and called Davis out, causing Mack to fly into a snit. He was still seething years later whenever he recalled the play. Connie even invaded the umpires' dressing room after the game to tell Silk off, got affidavits from the policeman and spectators and forwarded them to Ban Johnson's office in protest but, of course, to no avail. To make the decision even more galling, Danny Murphy followed with a long single which would have scored Davis and won the game for Plank.
Eventually, the game was called after seventeen innings and almost four hours of play, a 9-9 tie. The Tigers left Philadelphia in first place and stayed there for the rest of the season.
Plank is tied with Rube Marquard, Bullet Joe Bush and Schoolboy Rowe for the distinction of having lost the most World Series decisions, five. Yet Gettysburg Eddie pitched almost uniformly good baseball in the World Series. Of his five defeats, four were by shutouts and the other was a 4-3 defeat in ten innings! The two World Series games Plank won also were low-score affairs, both being decided by 3-1 margins. In one World Series, that of 1910 against the Cubs, Mack didn't start Plank at all, using Bender and Coombs as starters in all five games.
When Plank was a student at Gettysburg, he often hooked up with Christy Mathewson when the latter was pitching at near-by Bucknell. But Eddie never once got the duke over Matty. And in the first World Series game in which either ever pitched, in 1905, 'Gum Boots' beat Plank, 3-0. Eddie was to lose again in the all-shutout World Series with the Giants, by 1-0, to Iron Man Joe McGinnity, the New York tally coming on errors by Monte and Lave Cross. Eddie could have said he was double-crossed but he probably was in no mood for puns.
Plank got no chance in the 1910 Series, nor did his jinx, but Eddie finally came through with a victory in 1911 when the A's got him three runs. He beat Rube Marquard, 3-1, the winning margin being provided by Frank Baker's home run with Eddie Collins on base. Plank had a total of eight strikeouts in the game, getting Josh Devore, the Giant leadoff hitter, four times.
If Eddie thought his World Series jinx had departed, however, he had another think coming. Summoned to the relief of Coombs in the fifth game of the Series, Plank pitched exactly two-thirds of an inning in the tenth and lost the ball game.
The teams were tied, 3-3, when Plank took over at the Polo Grounds. Laughing Larry Doyle, who had made three hits against Coombs, opened fire on Eddie and took third on a bunt by Fred Snodgrass, on which Plank made a late play, so both runners were safe. Red John Murray went out and then Fred Merkle lashed a long fly down the right field line. Danny Murphy took the ball just in fair territory and Doyle came home from third just ahead of his throw. It was claimed by many that Larry missed the plate with his slide, but neither Jack Lapp, the catcher, nor any of the other Athletics made any attempt to tag him. Bill Klem, umpiring behind the plate, declared that night that had any of the A's tagged Doyle he would have called him out.
In effect, this was the same as a shutout for Plank, even though he was pitching in relief, for the score was tied and the first run scored against him was enough to beat him [sic].
Two years later Plank faced the Giants again in a World Series game and once more he drew his old Bucknell opponent, Matty. In this game, played in Philly, Plank must have surely thought he had his jinx whipped, for, with the teams in a scoreless deadlock, the A's got men on second and third with none out in the last of the ninth. Hooks Wiltse, a converted pitcher playing first, made two great plays to throw runners out at the plate and Matty forced the third batter to hit back to the box.
When that golden opportunity floated away, the ball game floated with it, for Plank was tagged for three runs by the Giants in the top of the tenth and was beaten, 3-0.
Plank had now allowed a total of nine runs in five World Series appearances and lost four games! Only once had the A's scored when Eddie was on the mound and he won that one, 3-1. He couldn't be blamed if he felt he just wasn't meant to win a Series game, particularly against the Giants.
In the fifth game of the 1913 Series, Plank again tangled with Matty, this time at the Polo Grounds. For once the White Elephants got Eddie some runs and got them early, giving him a 3-0 lead at the end of three innings. Plank was pitching a perfect game and retired the first thirteen Giants in order. Tilly Shafer drew a pass from Plank with one out in the fifth. On the hit-and-run, Murray popped a dainty fly behind the pitcher's box. Tilly had reached second as Eddie settled under the pop-up and seemed a cinch to be doubled but Baker, also trying for the catch, bumped Plank and the ball fell to the ground, causing Eddie to be charged with an error and leaving Giants on first and second. Larry McLean singled home Shafer with the only run the Giants were to get.
In the sixth, Matty also singled and then was caught in a double play. And Plank retired the Giants in order thereafter. He faced only twenty-nine men all afternoon, walking one and allowing two singles.
Eddie should have felt pretty chesty about that victory, for it was the last time his ancient rival Mathewson was to be in a World Series and, in pitching the game that gave the A's the title, Plank had some measure of revenge for having been beaten four times by the Giants.
Just as a footnote, it must be reported that our hero was by no means through with his World Series vicissitudes. In 1914, against the miracle Boston Braves of George Stallings, Plank tangled with Bill James in the second game and was beaten by a score of 1-0 when Charley Deal and Les Mann hit blooping pop flies which fell safely for base hits in the ninth inning.
Baseball writers of Plank's era used to complain that Eddie 'had no sense of humor.' Considering all that happened to him that was understandable. While he was a big winner in regular-season competition, he had no luck at all in World Series play. Eight different years Eddie won twenty games or better.
Tall and somber-looking, the lean Plank was a serious individual when he pitched. He was one of the great time-consumers of his era. Eddie would hitch at his cap, jerk at his belt, inch his foot forward and then pull it back by degrees. Even when he did go into his rocking motion, the batter never was sure when he was going to get the ball.
Among latter-day pitchers, Tom Zachary, the left-hander, and Ray Benge, who managed to hang around the National League for eleven years, were the only ones on a par with Plank for fidgeting in the pitcher's box before delivering the ball.
There was a method in their fidgets and, if Plank didn't invent this style of delayed pitching, he was one of its early protagonists, along with a pitcher whom the New York Highlanders had in the early years of the century, Slow Joe Doyle.
'Plank would stand out on the mound so long that your eyes would actually water between pitches,' recalled one of his contemporaries. 'He was the first pitcher I ever saw against whom batters would call time and step out of the box, a practice which was not common in his time.'
Plank's fidgets were designed, of course, to get the batter off stride. As Eddie rocked back and forth on the mound, the hitter never knew when the ball was going to be delivered. That it was effective was shown by Plank's great record and by his durability. Eddie pitched seventeen years, all in the major leagues, and was approaching his twenty-sixth birthday when he came out of Gettysburg College to report to Mack.
After Stallings' Braves swept the Series in 1914, Mack was forced to tear up his great Athletic team. At the end of the season, he surprisingly made free agents of Plank, Bender and Coombs, three of his greatest pitchers. Bender signed with Baltimore in the Federal League and Coombs was picked up by the Brooklyn Dodgers. Gettysburg Eddie signed with the St. Louis Feds, managed by Fielder Jones. This club, which had finished last in 1914, was a surprising second in 1915, thanks to the fact that Plank, then forty, won twenty-one games. When peace was declared between the majors and the outlaw Federals, Plank went to the St. Louis Browns where he had a 16-15 season in 1916. The next year he won five and lost six, only the second time in his career that he finished below .500.
For all of Plank's effectiveness in the Federal League, his slow type of pitching was not well received. Fred J. Bendel, veteran baseball writer of the Newark, N.J., News, who covered Eddie's two-hit victory in 1913, declares Plank actually had a bad effect on the gate when he was scheduled to pitch in Newark.
'No commuter would come out to see the St. Louis Feds play if they thought Plank was going to pitch,' says Bendel, 'because they knew they would all miss their regular trains home.' "
-Tom Meaney, from the book "Baseball's Greatest Pitchers" (Baseball Digest, March 1952)
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