Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #73F: Joseph I. "Joe" Judge. First baseman with the Washington Senators in 1915-1932. 2,352 hits and 71 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. In 1924, as Washington won the AL pennant and the World Series, he had one of his better years as he posted a .393 OBP with 71 runs scored and 79 RBIs in 593 plate appearances. He finished his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1933-1934. He may have been the basis for the character of Joe Hardy in Damn Yankees, whose author dated Judge's daughter in the 1940's.

Judge's SABR biography tracks his path to the major leagues: . . . Joe played semi-pro ball as a teenager, attracting the attention of New York Giants Manager, John McGraw. But McGraw advised the youngster that he would be better off as a pitcher, as he was too short to make it as a first baseman.

The Judge family relocated to Yorkville, a neighborhood in Manhattan, and Joe joined the Yorkville Orients semipro team. The move to Yorkville was a fortuitous one for Judge. One day, as the team practiced, a mail carrier was watching the scene, taking note of the young, left-handed man playing shortstop. The postman, Bud Hannah, told Judge he would never make it to the majors playing an infield position left-handed. Hannah further told Joe to get himself a first baseman’s glove, and to start practicing to become a first sacker. Judge told Hannah that he was poor and could not afford a new glove. The next day Hannah showed up at the practice field and gave Joe a box. “Inside was the most beautiful first baseman’s mitt I’ve ever seen, before or since. I don’t know how he could afford it. Mailmen didn’t get much in those days. It must have set him back a week’s pay,” recalled Judge. When Joe became a big leaguer, he always left a pair of tickets for Hannah when the team played in New York. “It was little enough for me to do for him after all he had done for me,” said Judge.

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[GeoPoto]

Player #74M: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice. 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 talks to Rice's 1928 season: Speaker and McNeely were both now gone, opening at least one Washington outfield spot for one of the team's farm league up-and-comers. Regardless, Rice's starting position still wasn't guaranteed.

Reported the Washington Post: "It is no secret that the veteran, Sam Rice, will report at next spring's Tampa training camp with the knowledge that he is merely a candidate for the right-field job and hasn't a stranglehold on it, as has been the case in many previous seasons."

But Rice did win his spot in the lineup, and soon showed why he deserved to still be out there.

By July, the Senators had long been an afterthought in the American League pennant race, and faced the prospect of nine games in five days. Somehow, Washington managed to string together five straight victories during that time. Rice was the hottest Senator of all. The stretch included four double headers, both pairs coming on consecutive days, yet Rice didn't miss an inning. Not only that, but he was flat-out torrid at the plate, collecting sixteen base hits over the five days.

Although his team struggled for the entire season, prompting ever louder calls for Bucky Harris' firing or resignation, the once-again healthy Rice was enjoying a sort of renaissance season a year after his worst overall season since he became a full-timer in the big leagues. On September 5, he was batting .340. . . .

. . . There was a late April scare that Rice's sinus problems, or whatever they were, from the season before were creeping back up, but that turned out to be nothing more than a common cold. Otherwise, while the team mostly struggled, Rice had a terrific season, batting .328 with 202 hits. He had fifteen triples, the second-highest total of his career, and his thirty-two doubles gave him more than thirty doubles and ten triples for the eighth consecutive season. Perhaps one of the few signs of aging was Rice's sixteen stolen bases, his lowest total in a full season since he had been in the big leagues. But Rice was stealing smarter these days, only getting thrown out three times two seasons after he was nailed twenty-three times. (Sam Rice by Jeff Carroll.)

This thread will now enjoy an extended pause -- planned restart date: 2 August.

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[ValKehl]

The F50 Yuengling's Ice Cream cards are found with two different backs. This one below doesn't have the sentence at the bottom about saving the Babe Ruth card for ice cream or a $5.00 skooter, like the example George posted above has.

[ValKehl]

Here's a 1928 F50 Harrington's Ice Cream card of Sam Rice to keep this most interesting thread near the top until George returns:

[ValKehl]

Here's a 1928 F50 Sweetman card of Sam Rice to help keep this most interesting thread near the top until George returns:

[GeoPoto]

Val: Thank you for keeping the pilot light on in my absence.

Player #87E: 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.

We return to Ruel's SABR biography as it recounts Muddy's role in integrating baseball: Part 2 -- Meanwhile (in 1947 as newly hired Muddy Ruel began managing the St. Louis Browns), (Hank) Thompson and (Willard) Brown were attempting to earn a spot on the team and make good in their opportunity in the American League. Thompson played second base regularly during the absence of Johnny Berardino who was out with a broken hand. Brown, however, did not see much playing time and was used mostly as a pinch hitter. Unfortunately for Brown, his batting average likely suffered from not seeing American League pitching on a daily basis.

Sam Lacy, a prominent sportswriter in the African-American press and future inductee of the baseball Hall of Fame, interviewed Muddy Ruel a couple of weeks into the Browns’ experiment with integration. Lacy wrote that it was “refreshing” to see firsthand that Ruel was giving Brown and Thompson every opportunity to prove themselves as ballplayers, not as black ballplayers. Ruel told Lacy that he was watching Brown and Thompson “just as I watch every man on the team.” Ruel further stated that Brown and Thompson were “no different than Vern Stephens with me,” referring to one of the Browns’ best players. Lacy walked away from this interview feeling Ruel never hinted at the fact that Lacy was interested in Brown and Thompson because of their race. Lacy added, “. . . each time he spoke of Brown or Thompson, it was as though either or both were just two new men—not two COLORED men.”

After approximately six weeks of integration, the Browns released Thompson and Brown. The two players passed through on waivers with no other takers in either league. They returned to the Kansas City Monarchs and the Browns were once again an all-white ballclub. Though the Browns road attendance was up, the attendance at home in St. Louis remained low during the period that Thompson and Brown were with the team and the team remained in last place in the standings and that is where the Browns finished the season.

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[GeoPoto]

The 1929 Washington Senators won 71 games, lost 81, and finished in fifth place in the American League. They were managed by Walter Johnson and played home games at Griffith Stadium.

Deveaux kicks off 1929: All good wishes aside (regarding Walter Johnson's appointment as Washington manager), things would not go well, as Johnson himself was not pleased with the team he had inherited for 1929. This displeasure proved well founded when the Nats became firmly ensconced in the second division. The youngsters touted as replacements for Harris at second, Jackie Hayes and Stuffy Stewart, were unimpressive to Johnson, and the Big Train did not think Bobby Reeves was the long-term answer at short. The new manager proposed moving Ossie Bluege to short and benching young Cronin, a future star. He wanted the ballclub to reacquire Buddy Myer, who'd been transformed into a top-notch third baseman with the Red Sox, to patrol the hot corner. Barny figured second base could be handled by committee for the time being, but the sooner Myer was brought back, the better. . . .

. . . Walter Johnson's charges dropped three games lower in the standings (in 1929 compared to 1928) and their fate was once again sealed early, when they lost an appalling 13 of 14 games with the Philadelphia A's in the opening six weeks. One of those was the season opener, attended by President Herbert Hoover, a 13-4 debacle. Following a tongue-lashing by the normally placid manager, who made the players attend morning drills to sharpen their minds and make them think about the dumb plays some of them were making, the ballclub won 14 of 20 on the road, and 35 of their last 58 to edge Bucky Harris's Tigers by two games in the quest for fifth place in 1929. Nevertheless, this marked the first time in seven years that the Nats found themselves out of the first division. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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