TWIBH- Joe
Tinker
Dictionary- Baseballâs
Sad Lexicon
Tour-
Gilmore Field Brawl
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Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 27 of the 2008 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 4 week of June.
June 28
1910 Cubs’ shortstop Joe Tinker steals home twice becoming the first major leaguer to accomplish the feat in the same game.
Joseph Bert Tinker was born July 27, 1880 in Muscotah, Kansas.
The standout shortstop with exceptional speed in the Chicago Cubs’ famed double play trio, Joe Tinker was an aggressive and spirited performer who excelled in clutch situations. He became a regular in 1902 as a 21-year-old rookie and five times led National League shortstops in fielding, contributing greatly to four Chicago pennants. He concluded his career as a player-manager for the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Federals and the Cubs.
For most of his career he played for the Chicago Cubs, starting as a 21-year-old rookie in 1902. Tinker was an average hitter but a speedy runner. The shortstop excelled at fielding, often leading the National League in a number of statistical categories. During his decade with the Cubs, they went to the World Series four times.
Tinker was immortalized in Franklin P. Adams’s verse, “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” better-known, although incorrectly so, as “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” An intelligent, smooth-fielding, mediocre-hitting shortstop, Tinker and second baseman Johnny Evers, first baseman Frank Chance, and third baseman Harry Steinfeldt formed one of the better defensive infields of the day.
But the celebrated Chicago trio did not actually turn that many double plays. During that era, none did, compared to today. Yet under Chance’s often brilliant guidance, what the trio did was to bring fielding into focus. They devised new defensive strategies to defeat the bunt, the hit-and-run, and the stolen base, the key run-producing techniques of the dead-ball era, and implemented the first known version of the rotation play. They brought Chicago to four World Series, in 1906-08 and 1910. All three went on to manage the Cubs.
Tinker first came up in 1902, and remained Chicago’s everyday shortstop for 11 years. Always the elegant fielder, he led National League shortstops four times in fielding percentage, three times in total chances, twice each in putouts and assists, and once in double plays.
He had superior speed, and stole an average of 28 bases a season for Chicago. On July 28, 1910, he tied a major league record by stealing home twice in one game. Though he was a respectable hitter, few pitchers feared his bat. Yet Christy Mathewson had trouble with him. Tinker registered a lifetime mark against the Giants great of almost 100 points better than his career batting average.
Tinker had an aggressive, spirited playing attitude, but otherwise was quite a harmless character. Yet on September 14, 1905, he and Evers ended up in a fistfight on the field because Evers took a cab and left his teammates behind in the hotel lobby. The contentious Evers would not speak to Tinker for decades. Unbeknownst to one another, both were invited to help broadcast the 1938 Cubs World Series, 33 years after their falling-out. When they saw each other, after a moment’s strained silence, they hugged and cried for some time.
Tinker concentrated on his salary as few players had before. In 1909, earning a reported $1,500, he demanded a $1,000 raise. He sat out the early part of the season before settling for a $200 increase.
Tinker’s incessant salary demands got him traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 1912 where he became a shortstop-manager. Throughout the year, Tinker argued with owner Gary Hermann over money. Hermann, tired of the talk, sold Tinker to the Dodgers after the season. In the most outrageous player demand to that time, Tinker refused to play for either team unless “commissioned” with $10,000 of his $25,000 sale price.
Federal League agents, always on the lookout for discontented stars, quickly signed Tinker as a player-manager with the Chicago Whales. Tinker brought them in second in 1914, and first in 1915. In 1916, he managed the Cubs, but finished fifth.
Tinker went on to become president and manager of Columbus of the American Association, and bought controlling interest in the Orlando Gulls of the Florida State League in 1921. He briefly managed in the International League, and scouted for the Cubs.
During the 1920s, he made and lost a fortune in Florida real estate; a stadium named after him was built on one property and was used by the Reds in spring training for decades.
Along with Evers and Chance, Tinker was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
He died in Orlando, Florida on July 27, 1948, his 68th birthday, of complications from diabetes.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: B
“Baseball’s Sad Lexicon”
Also known as Tinker to Evers to Chance after its refrain, is a 1910 baseball poem by Franklin Pierce Adams. The poem is presented as a single, rueful stanza from the point of view of a New York Giants fan seeing the talented Chicago Cubs infield of shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank Chance complete a double play.
The trio first appeared in a game together on September 2, 1902. They turned their first double play on the next day, September 3, 1902. Likely, this double play combination would never have existed if not for Frank Selee, the Cubs’ crafty manager from 1902 to 1905. Chance took over the managerial reigns midway through the 1905 season because Selee was forced to step down due to illness.
Selee saw that Chance, who was originally a backup to catchers Tim Donahue and Johnny Kling, would be better suited as a first baseman. Chance at first opposed the move and even threatened to quit, but ultimately obliged. He quickly forgot his ambitions to be a catcher.
Tinker, originally a third baseman, also shifted positions with a move to shortstop. And Evers, who was originally a shortstop, was switched to back up second baseman Bobby Lowe because of Tinker’s move. When Lowe broke his ankle in the September 2 game, Evers came in to replace him. Evers then became the starter, and would long remain in the job he originally won due only to another player’s injury.
Adams wrote the poems for his column “Always in Good Humor” in the Evening Mail; he signed it with his nickname, FPA.
Adams, a native of Chicago and a former newspaper columnist there, penned the poem on his way to the Polo Grounds to see the Cubs-Giants game. The poem was such a hit that other sportswriters submitted additional verses to it. But it was FPA’s that is remembered.
Tinker, Evers, and Chance were all part of the Chicago Cubs’ World Series-winning teams in 1907 and 1908, as well as the pennant-winner in 1910. In 1911, the Giants finally overcame their repeated frustrations at the hands of the Cubs, capturing the first of three consecutive league championships as the Cubs dynasty faded.
The Adams poem has made them perhaps the most famed double-play combination in history.
It has been speculated that the fame they enjoyed through the poem contributed to their selection to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The poem was first published in the New York Evening Mail on July 10, 1910 and is now in the public domain.
Before I read the poem, let me explain a couple of things that you will hear.
First, on Line 5, you will hear the word “gonfalon,” (Pronunciation: gän-fə-län). This is a pennant or flag, referring in this context to the National League title.
“Hitting a double” in baseball means a two-base hit, but In line 6 you will hear the term, “hitting into a double.” This refers to hitting into a double play, or two outs on a single play, most commonly accomplished by a ground ball hit to the shortstop, in this case Tinker, thrown to the second baseman, Evers, to force the runner out who had been on first base and then thrown to the first baseman, Chance, to complete the play.
And now for the text of the poem:
These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double –
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
If you would like to a part of Baseball History Podcast, submit your written contribution for the tour segment. I will only be doing the tour when one is sent in by a listener. You can do the segment on any stadium or team; past or present; Minor League, Major League, Negro League or any league outside of the US. Write about 1 page in a conversational tone, send it to me, I will record it, and you will get the credit.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com. You can leave a voice mail at: 206-888-6506. If you need more baseball, I invite you to check out Just Baseball at justbaseballpodcast.com. Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
