Washington DC Baseball

[ValKehl]

George, your W514 of Sam Rice is gorgeous - by far the nicest I've ever seen!

Here are 3 off-condition, but scarce, back variations of this card that I'm thrilled to have in the master set of Rice's cards that I'm working on:

[GeoPoto]

Wow, Val. Very impressive. Thanks for sharing your rare examples. Makes you wonder how many different backs there once was. I'm curious whether you have seen other W514 backs with printed messages (as opposed to stamped)?

Player #85: Frank M. "Wildfire" Schulte. Outfielder with the Washington Senators in 1918. 1,766 hits and 92 home runs in 15 MLB seasons. 1907 and 1908 World Series champion. 1911 NL MVP. 1910 and 1911 NL home run leader. 1911 NL RBI leader. He debuted with the Chicago Cubs in 1904-1916. His best season was 1911 with Chicago as he posted a .384 OBP with 107 RBI's and 105 runs scored in 690 plate appearances. He played on four pennant winners in Chicago and hit .321 in the four World Series. His last season was with Washington in 1918.

Schulte's SABR biography hits some of the highlights of his career: Frank M. Schulte was the slugging right fielder for the great Chicago Cubs teams of 1906-10. After his first start on September 21, 1904, “Wildfire” remained with the Windy City club until 1916, and outlasted the likes of Mordecai Brown, Frank Chance, Johnny Evers, and Joe Tinker, who by the end of Schulte’s days in Chicago, was managing the club. . . .

. . . While performing solidly during regular seasons, Wildfire hit full stride during his four World Series appearances. He owns a .309 lifetime average in the Fall Classic, hitting safely in all ten contests in the 1907 and 1908 championships and in all but one game in both the 1906 and 1910 season cappers. Wedged in his four Series appearances is Schulte’s thirteen game hitting streak, a record mark in his day that remains good enough to place him in a tie for fifth (with Harry Hooper) all-time in that category as of 2018.

No look at Schulte’s career is complete without mentioning his blockbuster 1911 campaign. Though the Cubs dropped to second in the final standings that season, Wildfire’s individual exploits earned him a new automobile, the prize for being voted the National League winner of the Chalmer’s Award, a short-lived honor that is roughly equivalent to today’s MVP award. On his way to establishing ownership of the “tin lizzy” (which ironically caught on fire near his plantation sometime later) Schulte mounted one of the era’s great assaults on National League pitching.

He had led the Cubs in homers in 1910 with ten, but, perhaps aided by a somewhat livelier “bulb” in 1911, the Cub right fielder clubbed twenty-one round trippers while driving home 121, both tops in the league. His league bests that year also included 308 total bases and a .534 slugging percentage. He was fourth in hits (173), fifth in runs (105), and became the first player ever to top the twenty mark in the categories of home runs, triples (21), doubles (30), and stolen bases (23). This feat was not duplicated until 1957 when Willie Mays similarly scorched the National League. For good measure, Schulte became the first player ever to clout four grand slams in one season, hit for the cycle on July 20, smashed a homer and a double in the same inning on August 15, and, perhaps surprisingly to modern fans weaned on sluggers who can’t and don’t bunt, was second in the league with thirty-one sacrifices. Finally, despite playing all 154 Cubs games that season, Wildfire even found time to get hitched; he married Mabel Kirby on June 26 in Chicago.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1671271330

[ValKehl]

George, I am aware of there being a couple of known W514 cards with a printed ad on the back for Robinson Caruso Salted Peanuts that were issued by a Lynchburg, VA, company, but I've never seen one of these cards in person. Here's the link to info re these cards: http://boblemke.blogspot.com/2015/11...f-w514-ha.html

[Kawika]

Here are a few Wildfire Schulte cards for the heck of it. Nothing in Senators flannels however.

[GeoPoto]

Thanks again to Val and David for contributing.

The 1920 Washington Senators won 68 games, lost 84, and finished in sixth place in the American League. They were managed by Clark Griffith and played home games at Griffith Stadium.

Deveaux tells us about Washington's struggles in 1920: The Washington Nats, in the middle of the pack offensively, featured the worst pitching staff in the league and finished sixth in 1920, 29 games behind the Indians. Clark Griffith's skills in recognizing talent were beginning to show results all the same. The previous year, Griff had nearly signed Pie Traynor, a future Hall of Famer then at third base for the Pirates. The management of the Portsmouth club of the Virginia League had apparently doubled the price on Traynor despite an earlier agreement.

In the fall of 1919, Griffith was more fortunate. Both he and Joe Engel went to Buffalo to scout an infielder who played for a shipyard team in Baltimore and who had been highly recommended to them by Joe Judge. In the doubleheader they witnessed, this player, Stanley "Bucky" Harris, had an outstanding day at the plate, and did so with two fingers taped together because one was broken -- Harris wasn't going to miss a chance to show what he could do. Needless to say, Bucky Harris was signed, and as a rookie in the big leagues in 1920 he hit an even .300 and fielded reliably.

There is no telling what 32-year-old Walter Johnson might have accomplished in 1920 had he been at the top of his game. The Senators provided plenty of runs, but the Big Train responded with the worst campaign of his career. Afflicted with a sore arm after more than two weeks of rail travel while training in the South, he missed a season-opening assignment for the first time since 1911. He would wind up a disappointing 8-10. On May 14, he did register the 300th win of his career, a 9-8 decision over the Tigers, but kept alternating good performances with bad throughout the season. Not one Washington starter had better than a .500 record -- Tom Zachary logged the most innings and charted the best mark on the staff, 15-16. A Quaker who farmed tobacco in his native North Carolina, Zachary's smooth delivery would bring 15 or more wins to the Nats in three of the next four years. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1671358263

[ValKehl]

Not many cards of WaJo were issued in 1920, but there was this D327 Type 1:

[GeoPoto]

Thanks Val.

Player #86: Elmer W. Bowman. First baseman for the Washington Senators in 1920. He had two MLB pinch-hit plate appearances with one walk and one run scored. He never took the field.

Elmer Bowman is in the finals for who got the smallest drop of coffee. He got two pinch hitting opportunities and though he made an out and walked once for a career OBP of .500, he was replaced at first base following his walk by a pinch runner. He never played the field. And still . . . He faced the 1920 Indians, who would win that year's World Series, two weeks before Ray Chapman was killed by a pitched ball. He stepped in against Cleveland's ace Jim Bagby, on his way to a league-leading 31 wins that season, and flew out to Tris Speaker. He faced Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Chicago White Sox as rumors swirled regarding the previous year's World Series that would ultimately paint the team black. Time would reveal that he stepped in against one of the prominent Black Sox culprits, Lefty Williams and drew a walk.

He is also a member of the University of Vermont Hall of fame.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1671444218