| 1877: The Spectre of Gambling |
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| From Major Leagues by David Pietrusza: Gambling unfortunately continued, for despite the . new league’s pious hopes, human nature was not to be transformed overnight. At the advent of the National League one Clipper correspondent charged, “Any professional base ball club will ‘throw’ a game if there is money in it. A horse race is a pretty safe thing to speculate on, in comparison with an average ball match.” Public opinion on the issue would not immediately change—and with good reason. “Pool-selling” particularly afflicted the game. “Pools” were not direct bets between two parties; one might welsh on those bets. Instead, “pools” involved a third party who held the cash, and were formed in “pool rooms” usually near the local park. The system was relatively complicated. Prior to a game (actually days in advance), an auction was held, with bidding on the right to bet on favorite clubs. Then bids were made on the opposing nine. If the odds were not favorable, bets could be withdrawn. The pool seller kept records of these transactions, paid the winners, tried to maintain a reputation for honesty and received a percentage of each bet. Although by 1877 “pools” were being challenged by the new English practice of “bookmaking,” they were still exceedingly popular. Straitlaced Boston alone had eight such rooms, and pools on a single game in larger New York establishments could reach as high as $70,000. Rumors particularly swirled around the New York Mutuals in that first N.L. season. The Chicago Tribune reported that a few of the Mutuals had plotted to go into the tank on a given date, but when their manager, William Cammeyer, became aware of the conspiracy, it collapsed and the team won the game in question. The New York Herald published an account of a gamblers’ plot to bribe Mutuals pitcher Bobby Mathews (21-34) to throw a game. Mathews declined, however, and nothing more came of the matter in regard to him. But investigations of several pool-sellers revealed crookedness, and some were put out of business. William D. Perrin of the Providence Journal wrote that when the Grays joined the League in 1879, two “professional men” of the city got together a pool of $2,000 on the team. Five hundred dollars was wagered at even odds that Providence would finish above Cincinnati; the same money at the same odds that they would best Boston; and $1,000 against $4,000 that Providence would win the pennant. How much of this money was ever placed is unknown. But the greatest infamy was that of the 1877 Louisville Grays. On August13 the Grays had a 27-13 record and a large lead in the pennant race. With 15 contests remaining, Louisville needed to win roughly half. Instead, they played wretchedly, at one time dropping eight in a row, and lost to Boston by seven games. Louisville’s troubles began when third baseman Bill Hague was disabled by a boil under his throwing arm. To replace him, Grays outfielder George Hall suggested signing utility infielder Alfred H. Nichols, a former Mutual now with an independent Pittsburgh club. Suspicion centered on four key Grays, who were ostentatiously sporting diamond stickpins and rings: pitcher James Alexander Devlin, who pitched particularly poorly in the stretch (and who like Hague was also afflicted with boils that season); shortstop and catcher William H. Craver, who in 1870 had been expelled from the Chicago White Stockings for insubordination and gambling and in November of that year banned for life by the National Association of Base Ball Players; Hall, around whom rumors of corruption had also circulated back in his days in the National Association; and Nichols, allegedly involved with prominent New York City gamblers. But there were more than rumors. As Louisville headed east to play Hartford in Brooklyn (Hartford played home games there due to lack of support in Connecticut) during the Grays’ final road trip, club president Charles E. Chase received an anonymous telegram charging that gamblers were laying down serious money against the Grays. At first Chase dismissed the cable as a hoax. Nonetheless, Louisville lost 5—1 as Nichols, Hall and Craver committed errors. Chase was surprised to learn Nichols was still in the lineup, since Hague had fully recovered. Manager Jack Chapman responded that he had penciled Nichols in on suggestion from Hall, who argued that the Brooklyn native would bear down harder in front of his hometown crowd. Chase received another mysterious cable prior to the second game in the series, and once again Brooklyn lost (7-0) to the Dark Blues. Devlin, Nichols and Hall made damaging errors. Chase ordered Chapman to bench Nichols. But the nose dive continued. The Louisville Courier-Journal was incredulous, running headlines such as “!!!—???—!!!“ and “What’s the Matter?” The paper even made the rumors public when Devlin mysteriously regained his form in postseason exhibitions (“The Celt has completely given himself away”). Particularly interesting was that the Courier-Journal story was by John Haldeman, son of Louisville owner Walter N. Haldeman. Chase confronted the suspect players, starting with Devlin. The hurler admitted he may have been careless in some exhibitions, but that was all. Chase wasn’t buying it. “I want a full confession,” he barked. “I’ll give you until 8 p.m. to tell me the full story.” Returning to his hotel, Chase found Hall waiting for him. Hall wrongly surmised that Devlin had cracked. Chase did nothing to dissuade him, and soon Hall was spilling his guts, freely admitting throwing games. He also implicated Nichols, claiming Nichols was the contact with the gamblers. Chase returned to Devlin, telling him Hall had confessed. Devlin admitted his guilt. The next evening, Chase called a team meeting. He requested permission to obtain each Western Union telegram sent from or received by each Gray during the season. Only team captain Bill Craver refused, and he was summarily suspended. The contents of these telegrams revealed that Hall, Devlin and Nichols had been in virtually open communication with the gamblers, particularly a New Yorker named McLeod. Fixes occurred in both exhibition and League contests; the code word in the telegrams for a fix was “sash.” No other Grays were proven to be involved. Nobody owned up to instigating the plot, and each man’s degree of guilt is still a matter of confusion. Hall blamed Nichols, but many believed it was Hall himself (whose brother-in-law, Frank Powell, had been after him for a year and a half to throw games), as he had originally recruited Nichols for the team. Some said it was Hall and Nichols who approached Devlin, offering him $100 to throw a meaningless exhibition game at Lowell, Massachusetts. Others said it was Devlin himself who had been the first of the players to contact McLeod. In any case, Devlin saw no harm in going into the tank for a non-championship contest, but once involved he was virtually blackmailed into throwing the pennant race. He claimed he never received another cent from the gamblers, but again that contention is disputed. Some sources indicate he received another $300 for hippodroming three exhibitions at Indianapolis. The League expelled all four in December 1877 “for conduct in contravention of the objects of this League.” Devlin had been an outstanding pitcher, winning 30 games in 1876 and 35 in 1877, leading the league in games and innings pitched both seasons, and being among the best in ERA. In 1877 he hurled every single inning for his team—the only pitcher ever to do so. He begged the authorities repeatedly for mercy, contending his family needed the money, and further pleading that since expulsion his wife and child had been in penury. He implored Harry Wright to grant him a second chance, to give him any sort of position at all, even as Boston’s groundskeeper. “I Can asure [sic] you Harry,” wrote the semiliterate Devlin, “that I was not Treated right and if Ever I Can see you to tell you the Case you will say I am not to Blame I am living from hand to mouth all winter I have not got a Stich of Clothing or has my wife and Child..., the Louisville People have made me what I am today a Begger [sic].” On one occasion Devlin visited League President Hulbert in his Chicago offices, again pleading for reinstatement. The scene was recorded in melodramatic fashion by Albert Spalding, nonetheless portraying a very real human tragedy: Oddly enough, Devlin was able to find work as a Philadelphia policeman (and odder still, Craver became a highly respected policeman in Troy, New York) before dying of consumption on October 10, 1883. Before Devlin died, a benefit game raised over $1,000 for him. Adding to public disgust over baseball’s gambling was an allegation by National League umpire Dan Devinney that St. Louis Brown Stockings manager George McManus had offered him a $250 bribe to throw an August 1, 1877, Louisville game to St. Louis. Louisville won that game 3-1, however, and no further investigation took place. Devinney did not officiate in the League the following season. DeWitt’s Base-Ball Guide was particularly harsh on the subject of gambling. The Guide, pointing out that New York State had legislated against poolselling in 1877, hoped that the evil had peaked; but the publication despaired of the gambling mania in the Western states. In Chicago even the respected Board of Trade had sold pools on the White Stockings. “Why the base-ball press of the West support the pool-selling curse as they do, . . . is a mystery,” the Guide editor wrote. “Of course while reporters and club directors and managers countenance pool-selling, as they did in so many instances in 1877, any hope of reforming players, even by expulsion, is illusory. While the pool-box is countenanced there will be rascality among tempted players, despite the most stringent League laws The St. Louis Globe-Democrat offered a gloomier picture. “The days of professional baseball are numbered,” it opined, “and the hundreds of young men who have depended on the pastime as their means of earning a livelihood will be obliged to change their plans of operation.” |
| I was sitting in the reception room and Mr. Hulbert was ... in the inner apartment, when the outer door opened and a sorry-looking specimen of humanity entered. It was midwinter and very cold, but the poor fellow had no overcoat. His dust-covered garments were threadbare and seedy. His shoes were worn through with much tramping, while the red flesh showing in places indicated that if stockings were present they afforded not much protection to the feet. Everything about the man’s appearance betokened weariness and woe. His face was a picture of abject misery. The visitor passed me without a glance in my direction. His eyes were fixed upon the occupant of the farther room. He walked straight to the chair where Mr. Hulbert sat, and dropping his knees at the big man’s feet, lifted his eyes in prayerful entreaty, while his frame shook with the emotion so long restrained. Then his lips gave utterance to such a plea for mercy as might come from one condemned to the gallows. ... How Devlin reached Chicago I never knew. There was everything in his condition to indicate he might have walked all the way from Louisville. The situation as he kneeled there in abject humiliation, was beyond the realms of pathos. It was a scene of heartrending tragedy. Devlin was in tears, Hulbert was in tears, and if the mists of a tearful sympathy filled my eyes I have no excuse to offer here. I heard Devlin’s plea to have the stigma removed from his name. I heard him entreat, not on his own account—he acknowledged himself unworthy of consideration—but for the sake of his wife and child. I beheld the agony of humiliation depicted on his features as he confessed his guilt and begged for mercy. I saw the great bulk of Hulbert’s frame tremble with the emotion he vainly sought to stifle. I saw the President’s hand steal into his pocket as if to conceal his intended act from the other hand. I saw him take a $50 bill and press it into the palm of the prostrate player. And then I heard him say, as he fairly writhed with the pain his words caused him, “Devlin, that is what I think of you personally; but damn you, you have sold a game, and I can’t trust you. Now go and let me never see your face again; for your act will never be condoned as I live.” |