Washington DC Baseball

[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.)

[GeoPoto]

Player #168A: 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.

We pick up Gelbert's SABR biography for an account of his time in St. Louis and then Washington: The (St. Louis) Cardinals placed him with Rochester in 1928 and Branch Rickey himself apparently wrote to Warren Giles, the head of the Rochester Red Wings, “I am sending you a shortstop. If he strikes out every time and boots every ball, I want him to play the first 30 games. He will be the Cardinal shortstop next season.” . . .

. . . Rickey was right; Gelbert was the shortstop for the Cardinals in 1929. The team was so sure of Gelbert that they sold the contract of future Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville to the Boston Braves in December 1928.

Gelbert played almost every game of the 1929 season (146 of 154), hit .262, and drove in 65 runs, but he was a little porous at shortstop, leading the league in errors at the position. The team finished fourth.

Under manager Gabby Street, the 1930 Cardinals again won the National League pennant (as they had in 1926 and 1928) with a .314 team batting mark; Gelbert hit .304 and drove in 72 runs in 139 games. He had an excellent World Series; though the Cards lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in six games, Gelbert hit .353, and won praise for some outstanding fielding plays.

During the World Series, Gelbert drove in key insurance runs in Games Three and Four, but he shone in the field as well. Tom Meany’s mid-Series column in the New York Telegram was titled “Gelbert Voted Series Hero by Both Cardinals and A’s.” Grantland Rice wrote, “The star of the Cardinal front line was young Charley Gelbert at short.” He handled 28 chances without an error. . . .

In 1931 Gelbert hit .289 in the regular season, playing in eight fewer games due to an injury that forced him to cut back some on his playing time. The Cardinals won the pennant once more and faced off against the Athletics again, this time winning the World Series in seven games. Gelbert collected six more hits and handled 42 more chances without an error.

. . . During the October 1938 major-league draft meeting, the Washington Senators selected Gelbert. He played in about half the Senators’ games (68) in 1939, and assembled 222 plate appearances, compiling a batting average of .255 (with a .361 on-base percentage).

[GeoPoto]

Player #54U: Walter P. "Barney" Johnson. "The Big Train". Pitcher for the Washington Senators in 1907-1927. 417 wins and 34 saves in 21 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1913 and 1924 AL Most Valuable Player. 3-time triple crown. 6-time AL wins leader. 5-time AL ERA leader. 12-time AL strikeout leader. He had a career ERA of 2.17 in 5,914.1 innings pitched. He pitched a no-hitter in 1920. He holds the MLB record with 110 career shutouts. MLB All-Time Team. Inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame in 1936. One of his best seasons was 1913 as he posted a record of 36-7 with a 1.14 ERA in 346 innings pitched.

The biggest tragedy of Walter’s later years, though, was Hazel’s death at age 36 on August 1, 1930, apparently the result of exhaustion from a cross-country drive during one of the hottest summers on record. After he lost the woman he idolized, a cloud of melancholy descended over the rest of Johnson’s life, darkening what should have been tranquil, happy years of retirement on his Mountain View Farm in the Maryland countryside.

During his later years, Walter kept busy on the farm, served as Montgomery County commissioner, was brought back by the Senators in 1939 as their broadcaster, and made an unsuccessful run as a Republican for a seat in the U.S. Congress. On June 12, 1939, along with such other greats as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner, Johnson was inducted into the newly-created Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. (We will finish "wrapping up" Walter's life in our next, and final, visit with him.)

[imdaman1964]

Pleased to be the new owner of this super rare piece

1924 Washington Senators Wright and Ditson Cabinet Photograph with Charles Conlon Images. Rarely seen, this 7x9.25" cabinet photograph was given away at a banquet at the Bond Hotel in Hartford, Connecticut following the Senators' championship season. Hall of Famer Walter Johnson is front and center while his Cooperstown compatriots Bucky Harris, Goose Goslin, Sam Rice and Clark Griffith are found on the edges. Ossie Bluege, Joe Judge, Muddy Ruel and Roger Peckinpaugh are also in attendance.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by imdaman1964

Pleased to be the new owner of this super rare piece. 1924 Washington Senators Wright and Ditson Cabinet Photograph with Charles Conlon Images. Rarely seen, this 7x9.25" cabinet photograph was given away at a banquet at the Bond Hotel in Hartford, Connecticut following the Senators' championship season. Hall of Famer Walter Johnson is front and center while his Cooperstown compatriots Bucky Harris, Goose Goslin, Sam Rice and Clark Griffith are found on the edges. Ossie Bluege, Joe Judge, Muddy Ruel and Roger Peckinpaugh are also in attendance.

Truly incredible piece, Wayne, especially tough in the original mount.

[GeoPoto]

(Great piece Wayne! Thanks for posting.)

Player #169A: Emil J. "Dutch" Leonard. Knuckle-ball pitcher for the Washington Senators in 1938-1946. 191 wins and 45 saves in 20 MLB seasons. 5-time All Star. Pitched complete game to beat Yankees in 1st game of doubleheader, after which Lou Gehrig gave "luckiest man in the world" speech. In 1945, part of four-man rotation, made up by four knuckle-ball pitchers. Debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1933.

We will follow Leonard's SABR biography for a 3-part overview of his career in Washington -- Part 1: Dutch Leonard rode his knuckleball to a 20-year big league career, baffling batters, catchers, and umpires until he was 44 years old. As Jackie Robinson described Leonard’s knuckler, “It comes up, makes a face at you, then runs away.” . . .

. . . For the next two years (1935 and 1936) Leonard worked primarily in relief. He complained that the Dodgers’ catchers wouldn’t call for his knuckleball, leaving him with an assortment of hittable pitches. He led the NL with eight saves in 1935, but nobody knew that because the statistic did not yet exist. His 2-9 record marked him as a failure. In 1936 he was used mostly as a mop-up man in games that were already lost. The club’s new catcher, Babe Phelps, was more hitter than catcher and wanted nothing to do with the knuckleball. He told manager Casey Stengel it was too hard to handle. Stengel barked, “Don’t you think it might be a little hard to hit, too?” Phelps led the Dodgers that season with a .367 batting average, so Stengel needed him more than he needed a mop-up reliever. Leonard was sent down to Atlanta in the Class A-1 Southern Association.

Joining the Crackers in June 1936, Leonard met his new catcher, Paul Richards, another washout from the majors. After getting a look at the knuckler, Richards told him, “You keep throwing it, and it’s my job to catch it.” Leonard said, “Richards was the first catcher I ever worked with who wasn’t too timid to call for my knuckleball.” Leonard went 13-3 with a 2.29 ERA, best in the league, and helped Atlanta win the pennant. . . .

. . . The Washington Senators drafted Leonard after the 1937 season, paying Atlanta $7,500 for a castoff who was approaching his 29th birthday. Washington owner Clark Griffith said he was confident his catcher, Rick Ferrell, could deal with the knuckleball. The pitch had always been an oddity since it was introduced early in the 20th century. Some pitchers used it occasionally as a change-up or surprise pitch, but few—notably Jesse Haines, Eddie Rommel, Fred Fitzsimmons, and Ted Lyons—had made it their trademark. The knuckler is hard to hit and hard to catch, but also hard to throw, since the pitcher has to deliver it with little or no spin. Even a slight breeze at the pitcher’s back can turn a knuckleball into a nothing ball. As Leonard said, “That knuckler can be either a pitcher’s meat or his poison depending on how it’s working.”

Leonard gripped the ball with the tips of his index and middle fingers. He said, “I just throw it straight forward like you’d flip a cigarette butt.” He threw with different arm angles, so the pitch moved up, down, or sideways. He stuck with the knuckler unless he fell behind in the count, when he had to rely on his sort-of fastball or slow curve. What distinguished Leonard from most of his tribe was his excellent control. Although he said he never knew exactly where the pitch was going, he usually walked no more than two batters per nine innings in his prime. But he realized he was balancing on the edge with every pitch: “The trouble with the knuckle ball is that the .250 hitters are just as apt to hit it safe as the .350 hitters. None of them will hit the knuckler if it’s breaking right and all of them will hit it if it isn’t breaking.”

Shortly after Leonard joined Washington in 1938, sportswriter Robert Ruark described him as “a fat bald man.” He was six feet tall and topped 200 pounds. In his first start he shut out the Athletics. On May 4 he faced Cleveland’s 19-year-old phenom, Bob Feller. The league’s fastest pitcher and its slowest matched zeroes for 10 innings. Feller was relieved, but Leonard kept knuckling until the Senators won in the 13th.

He had secured a regular starting job for the first time in his career. In 1939 he won 20, lost 8, for a sixth-place club that recorded only 65 victories. He was the Senators’ first 20-game winner since their pennant season of 1933. He made the All-Star team in 1940, despite leading the league with 19 losses, then bounced back with 18 wins in ’41, all the while with a losing club.