TWIBH- Dutch
Leonard
Dictionary- Backdoor
Slider
]]>
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 31 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 July.
July 29
1919 At Navin Field, Dutch Leonard decides to pitch around Bob Roth with two outs in the ninth inning to face Babe Ruth. Although the Boston slugger, who has already reached the Detroit southpaw with two doubles, responds by tying an American League record with his ninth homer of the month and sixteenth of the season, the Tigers prevail, 10-8.
Hubert Benjamin “Dutch” Leonard, also known as Hub Walker was born April 16, 1892 in Birmingham, Ohio,
He shouldn’t be confused with right-handed knuckle ball pitcher Emil John “Dutch” Leonard who pitched from 1933 through 1953.
Hubert “Dutch” Leonard was a sterling lefthander in the early days of Red Sox greatness. Although he never achieved a 20-win season, he did throw two no-hitters and holds the major league record for the lowest single-season Earned Run Average of all time.
Hall of Famer Joe Sewell, in Fields of Green by Paul Green was quoted as saying, “Dutch was a left-handed spitball pitcher. The spitball was legal back in those days. I had no problem with the spitball, as a rule, but Dutch Leonard was left-handed, he had a good fastball – not as fast as Walter Johnson, but he had a good fastball – and a good curve. And he was mean with it. He’d knock you down.”
Dutch broke in with the Boston Red Sox in 1913. In his second year in the major leagues, 1914, Leonard led the American League with a remarkable 0.96 Earned Run Average — still the record for single-season Earned Run Average.
Leonard also pitched well in Boston’s 1915 and 1916 World Series victories. He won Game 3 of the 1915 World Series, outduelling the Phillies’ Grover Cleveland Alexander 2-1. He also won Game 4 of the 1916 World Series against the Brooklyn Robins.
Leonard pitched his two no-hitters for the Red Sox, the first in 1916 against the St. Louis Browns and the second in 1918 against the Detroit Tigers.
In January 1919, the Red Sox sold Leonard to the Detroit Tigers, where Leonard played from 1919-1921 and 1924-1925. He became embroiled in a salary dispute with Tigers’ owner Frank Navin in 1922, and Leonard opted to play for Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley League in 1922 and 1923.
Leonard was suspended by the American League for his actions, but he rejoined the Tigers in 1924 where he feuded with Tigers manager Ty Cobb. Leonard pitched his final major league game in July 1925.
Even before their player-manager feud, Leonard and Cobb had a history. In 1914, Leonard hit Cobb in the ribs with a fastball. In the next at bat, Cobb dragged a bunt which the Red Sox first baseman was forced to field.
Cobb was later quoted in Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball, by Al Stump. He described the play as follows: “Leonard ran to first to take the throw. When he saw I was going for him and not the bag, he kept running into the coaching box. Damned coward! I ignored the bag, drove right through after him … he ran toward the dugout and missed cutting him by inches.”
A full feud broke when Cobb took over as the Tigers’ manager in 1921. Cobb took pleasure in fining Leonard, who enjoyed late nights, for violating curfew. At one point in the 1921 season, Leonard was 11-13, despite a respectable Earned Run Average; Cobb left his office door open so that Leonard could hear him on the phone, faking a call: “I’m putting that damned Dutchman on waivers.”
In 1922, Leonard and Cobb fought over how to pitch to George Sisler and Tris Speaker. Leonard cursed Cobb to his face during the dispute, and Leonard ended up quitting the team in 1921.
When Leonard returned to the Tigers in 1924 after two seasons in the San Joaquin Valley League, the feud with Cobb resumed. By the middle of the 1925 season, Leonard was 11-3, but that didn’t stop Cobb from accusing Leonard of being a shirker.
Leonard accused Cobb of over-working him, and Cobb responded in July 1925 by leaving Leonard on the mound for an entire game despite Leonard’s giving up 20 hits and taking a 12-4 beating. After that, Leonard refused to pitch for Cobb. As a result, the Tigers put Leonard on waivers, and when no team picked him up, his baseball career came to an end.
Rumors began to spread that Leonard was claiming he “had something” on Cobb. Leonard was quoted as saying, “I am going to expose that bastard Cobb, I’ll ruin him.” And in 1926 Leonard sought his revenge, contacting Kenesaw Mountain Landis and accusing Cobb of being involved in gambling and/or fixing games with Tris Speaker.
Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb had conspired before a 1919 Tigers-Indians game to allow the Tigers to win, enabling the team to reach 3rd place and qualify for World Series money. To corroborate his story, Leonard produced letters written at the time (one by Cobb and one by Smokey Joe Wood) that obliquely referred to gambling or game-fixing. When Landis made Leonard’s letter public in December 1926, it touched off a scandal.
Cobb was called to testify at a hearing before Commissioner Landis, and denied Leonard’s allegations. Leonard declined to appear and testify at the hearing, saying he feared a physical attack from “that wild man.” In the absence of Leonard’s testimony, Landis found Cobb and Speaker not guilty.
Dutch Leonard had a respectable career won/lost record of 139 wins against 113 losses and an Earned Run Average of 2.76.
Leonard did well for himself after baseball. He became a very successful California fruit farmer and wine maker.
Dutch Leonard died in 1952 at age 60 from complications of a stroke in Fresno, California.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: B
Backdoor slider
A slider that comes in front of the outside of the plate but crosses the plate on the inside, or vice versa; for example, a slider thrown by a right-handed pitcher to a left-handed batter will cross the plate moving away from the hitter.
George F. Will in Men at Work, 1990, used the term for a slider that starts outside but at the last instant slices in over the outside corner of the plate.
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.
