|
Jeter
Isn't Yanks' 11th Captain
June 9, 2003
The "Uncorked
11:" Yankees Bungle their Past; Snub, Among Others,
Hall of Famers Clark Griffith and Frank Chance in Detailing
Just 11 Captains Including Derek Jeter; Lou Gehrig Takes
a Hit Too
Don Mattingly was definitely not the tenth captain of
the New York Yankees, a decade of media reporting on Yankee
baseball notwithstanding, and the newly named Derek Jeter
is therefore not the 11th. The grand total of Yankee captains
to date seems like 15, says Howard W. Rosenberg, biographer
of Cap Anson, the 19th-century Hall of Famer and longtime
captain-manager whose nickname derived from the word "captain."
When Jeter was named captain on June 3, the Yankees issued
a news release that could be read on the Yankees' Web site
on mlb.com (and was still there as of June 9). The precise
ring exuded by the release may help explain why media outlets
did not bother attributing the data to the Yankees. The
Yankees supplied full start and end dates (month, day and
year) for many of the captaincies, starting with Babe Ruth's
in 1922.
Yet the Yankees bungled Lou Gehrig's start date as April
21, 1935, and apparently have been doing so since at least
1991 (when the error appeared that way in the New York Times).
That date should be April 12, 1935, as validated by the
Times of April 13, 1935. Rosenberg surmises that today,
while hardly anyone is sentimental that the Yankees overlooked
perhaps four of their captains (whose names are not of the
likes of DiMaggio or Mantle), an error on Gehrig's milestone
will be deemed a sacrilege.
A back-to-back view of the Yankees' "uncorked 11"
and Rosenberg's "gang of 15" captains chronologies
appears at the bottom of this analysis.
Rosenberg does appreciate that the Yankees addressed an
historical subject that hardly any baseball media (let alone
fans) know anything about. He would welcome the opportunity
to tell Yankee officials and players all about captains,
captain-managers and bench managers in the old days (or
if they want, they can read his July 2003 release: Cap Anson
1: When Captaining a Team Meant Something: Leadership in
Baseball's Early Years). Rosenberg adds, "As penance,
I invite those hoodwinked New York and national media not
overly tied to ratings points or perceived focus-group sensibilities
to serve up a few features that relate the first decades
of U.S. team sport to today. As captain-manager of Chicago
for 19 years, 3,000-hitsman Anson won several pennants,
and his relations with famous Hall of Fame club presidents
William Hulbert and Albert Spalding would make for an insightful
comparison to George Steinbrenner-Joe Torre-Derek Jeter
relations on the Yankees today."
Rosenberg continues: "Anson was great friends with
the Yankees' first captain, Clark Griffith, who had been
his star pitcher in Chicago in the 1890s. Also relevant
to New York, Anson had the stomach to withstand criticism
(especially about his advanced age; he was playing at age
45). He was the first professional ball player to have star
billing in a vaudeville play (playwright Charles Hoyt's
1895 `A Runaway Colt'), and it had a run in New York City.
By the way, it was out of the storied Chicago tradition
of funny coverage (with Anson a major target) that baseball
humorist Ring Lardner blossomed in the early 20th century.
In the mid-1910s, Lardner wrote vaudeville material for
Anson."
Jeter's elevation as captain will appear in the Anson 1
foreword, which is written by Clark C. Griffith, great-nephew
of the Yankees' first captain and Hall of Famer Clark Griffith.
The foreword writer is a former chairman of Major League
Properties, former part-owner of the Minnesota Twins and
current chairman of the sports law forum of the American
Bar Association Section on Entertainment and Sports Law.
With the help of online databases, plus hands-on knowledge
of the captain's historic role in baseball, Rosenberg has
dissected the Yankees' June 3 press release. He estimates
at 14 the number of Yankees captains prior to Jeter who
served at least a month (a captain being a player on the
active roster, and he did not necessarily have to play much).
Rosenberg's "gang of 15" list, which assumes that
Jeter will last at least a month, additionally contains
Hall of Famer Griffith (1903 to 1905), Kid Elberfeld (1906
to 1909), Hall of Famer Frank Chance (1913) and a mystery
sleeper: Roy Hartzell, on the team from 1911 to 1916. On
Dec. 27, 1916, the New York Times stated that the following
person had signed a minor league contract: "Roy Hartzell,
former Captain of the New York Americans." Rosenberg
could not tell, from a basic search, when Hartzell may have
been captain. Perhaps to reward readers who find missing
captains, the New York Daily News, which printed splendid
pictures of the "uncorked 11," can offer a meal
or rap session with noted columnist Mike Lupica.
The Daily News was the only major newspaper printing the
names of the "uncorked 11" that Rosenberg has
seen; the others are Newsday, the New York Post, the Bergen
County [N.J.] Record, the Hartford Courant, the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, and several papers associated with the Scripps
Howard News Service. Not readily apparent is whether any
of the above noted the Yankees as the source of the information;
the Daily News spread (pretty enough to post on a wall)
apparently did not attribute the data.
ESPN, before one of Jeter's three strikeouts during last
night's Yankees-Cubs game, posted the "uncorked 11"
on the screen.
In handling the "uncorked 11," the New York Times,
under fire in recent weeks, deserves just a mild censure:
it was one of the few New York-area papers with big sports
sections not to print it, limiting its error to calling
Jeter the 11th captain.
Rosenberg has seen mentions of Jeter as the 11th captain
in dozens of newspapers online and several major wire services
extending as far as abroad to the Voice of America. In no
case has he seen an attribution to the Yankees as the source
for Jeter as the 11th captain.
Unlike most subjects that gain wide airing in today's sports
media, captains may seem obscure and lend themselves to
large historical blunders. While the Yankees' list seems
to reflect a reasonable mastery of the subject since the
1920s (having a captain evolved into a matter of taste),
it snubs early decades of that century when having a captain
was a necessity (as the rule books singled out a captain
who was an active player, and not the manager, as the one
with the right to argue with the umpire).
That changed around 1930 (when the rules for some time singled
out the captain or the manager as being able to argue).
The decline in the captain's importance can be seen after
1925 in the "uncorked 11" and "gang of 15"
dueling chronologies at the bottom of this note, when there
is a gap between Yankee captains until Lou Gehrig in 1935.
Today, the rules let the manager hand off to a coach or
player the role of top arguer in each game; a hypothetical
question, incidentally, is what would happen if a manager
who was not in uniform tried to come on the field and act
as designated arguer. The rules today state that to be on
the field, coaches must be in uniform. They do not address
whether a bench manager must be as well to come on the field
and argue with the umpire.
In researching Anson 1, Rosenberg posed that question to
Tom Lepperd, director of umpire administration of Major
League Baseball (and the following is taken from Anson 1).
When given the hypothetical of a manager not in uniform
coming out on the field and arguing, Lepperd replied that
such a practice "is archaic in that all modern-day
professional leagues implicitly require the manager to be
in uniform."
Starting with 1903, the first season of the New York AL
club, here is a chronological look at years of Yankee captains
Rosenberg found to expand the "uncorked 11" to
a "gang of 15:"
A. Clark Griffith (1903 to 1905)
According to New York Times contemporaneous reporting (which
the Times in effect has undercut over two decades by accepting
modern-day chronologies presumably always supplied by the
Yankees), Griffith was the first captain (when the club
had prior nicknames, especially the Highlanders):
1. The New York Times of Dec. 10, 1902, states, "Clark
Griffith will be the Manager-Captain of the New York American
League team. . ."
2. On the eve of opening day of the club's first season,
on April 20, 1903, when New York was in Washington, the
Washington Evening Star stated, "The New York aggregation
is made up of several stars, among whom are Keeler, Fultz
and Pitchers Tannehill, Chesbro and Griffith, the latter
acting as captain-manager."
Griffith's reign as captain continued into 1904, and probably
into 1905. The New York Times of Oct. 16, 1904, reviewed
the season of the New York NL and AL clubs and ran individual
pictures of everyone, including larger elegant ones of John
McGraw of the Giants and Griffith of the AL club, with the
caption "Manager and Captain" under each.
B. Kid Elberfeld (1906 to 1909)
Proof that Elberfeld was a Yankees captain can be found
in the Times of May 15, 1906, which called him manager "Griffith's
first assistant in directing the team on the field."
If that sounds like a reference to Elberfeld as captain,
it probably is, as on August 19, 1906, the Times referred
to him as "Elberfeld, Captain of the Greater New Yorks."
On Oct. 10, 1907, the Washington Post said that if Washington
acquired Elberfeld from New York, he would undoubtedly be
named captain. Elberfeld played with the Yankees through
1909, and he likely remained captain throughout.
C. Hal Chase (1910 to 1911, in addition to 1912)
On April 3, 1910, the Times said, "With Hal Chase as
Captain, and with more confidence than has been exhibited
in several seasons, the New York Americans show more promise
than last season." Times coverage in 1911 also points
to Chase as captain (on Feb. 18 and April 29).
D. Frank Chance (1913)
After casting Chase as captain in 1912 only, the "uncorked
11" list jumps to Roger Peckinpaugh, for 1914-21. For
1913, Rosenberg opines that Chance was circumstantially
the Yankee captain (news reports show Chance in uniform
on the coaching lines into late in the season, playing in
a few games. They also show him arguing with the umpire
over captain-like issues including the legality of the pitcher's
motion).
The "uncorked 11" contains a large gap from 1926
to 1935 and in case you are now understandably suspicious,
the Times and the Associated Press, contemporaneously, validated
at least some of the gap. In their 1935 coverage, both news
outlets pointed wrongly to Babe Ruth as the last captain
before 1935 (Ruth was captain briefly in 1922, while Everett
Scott was captain from 1922 to 1925). However, Scott does
appear among the "uncorked 11," so the Yankees
can be praised for helping reporters improve on coverage
from 68 years ago. The Times of April 13, 1935, does allude
to Scott's tenure in stating, "Not for ten years has
the Yankee club had a captain;" however, it then gives
an explanation that makes it sound like Ruth was captain
until 1925. In reality, any suppressing of the title by
the Yankees was done not after Ruth's tenure (which was
in 1922) but after Scott's (which according to the Yankees
ended with 1925).
It is unfair to single out the Times for erroneous claims
because it is one of the few newspapers available for full-text
searching on a computer. With that in mind, the oldest report
Rosenberg found in the Times of a long, bogus chain of Yankee
captains was on Jan. 31, 1982. A Times column stated, "In
their history, the Yankees have had only six captains (dash
symbol appears here) Roger Peckinpaugh, Babe Ruth (for six
days in 1922 before he was defrocked by American League
President Ban Johnson and suspended after a fight with a
fan) [sic, meaning that's what's in the 1982 report], Everett
Scott, Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson and now Graig Nettles."
That 1982 list is interesting (as far as figuring out the
chain of custody of erroneous lineage) because Peckinpaugh
was a captain only in seasons when Yankees was the official
nickname. It became the nickname in 1913, and Peckinpaugh
was captain from 1914 to 1921. Perhaps the original list
was compiled with an eye toward years in which Yankees was
the official nickname; however, even by that score, the
Yankees had to have had a captain in 1913 (even if the title
was not bandied about explicitly), and he is most likely
the strong-willed Frank Chance (of Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance
poetic fame) known in 1913 as "P. L." or the Peerless
Leader; Hal Chase, the 1910-12 captain, was traded in June
1913. In 1986, a Times article noting the then-naming of
co-captains Ron Guidry and Willie Randolph similarly named
Peckinpaugh as the first Yankee captain.
It may seem amazing that for two decades, uncorrected lists
have been published about the names of Yankee captains,
given the club's treasured history (and seemingly plentiful
male fans of an advanced age in the highly intelligent New
York area). Maybe it was earlier manifestations of the Jayson
Blair phenomenon, where members of the public often did
not complain because they had no expectation that corrections
would be made.
For reference, here is the Yankees' "uncorked 11":
Hal Chase 1912
Roger Peckinpaugh 1914-1921
Babe Ruth 5/20/22-5/25/22
Everett Scott 1922-1925
Lou Gehrig 4/21/35-6/2/41
Thurman Munson 4/17/76-8/2/79
Graig Nettles 1/29/82-3/30/84
Ron Guidry 3/4/86-7/12/89
Willie Randolph 3/4/86-7/12/89
Don Mattingly 2/28/91-1995
Derek Jeter 6/3/03-
Here is the "gang of 15" based on additional research
by Cap Anson biographer Howard W. Rosenberg:
Clark Griffith 1903-05 (first addition)
Kid Elberfeld 1906-09 (second addition)
Hal Chase 1910-12 (two years added)
(Roy Hartzell, somewhere within 1911-16) (third addition)
Frank Chance 1913 (fourth addition)
Roger Peckinpaugh 1914-1921
Babe Ruth 5/20/22-5/25/22
Everett Scott 5/30/22 or later-1925 (the 5/30 date being
taken from a Times article that day noting that manager
Miller Huggins was expected to name Scott in the future)
Lou Gehrig 4/12/35-6/2/41 (note the correction to Gehrig's
date of naming)
Thurman Munson 4/17/76-8/2/79
Graig Nettles 1/29/82-3/30/84
Ron Guidry 3/4/86-7/12/89
Willie Randolph 3/4/86-7/12/89
Don Mattingly 2/28/91-1995
Derek Jeter 6/3/03-
|
