A Black Day For Baseball

I read with sadness of the death of Mike Coolbaugh, first base coach for the Texas League North Little Rock Tulsa Drillers. Last Monday night a line drive foul struck Coolbaugh in the head. He never regained consciousness and died as the ambulance arrived at the hospital. He leaves behind his wife Mandy, who is expecting their third child in October. And it is that not yet born child who reminds me of that other baseball death so long ago, on a humid afternoon on August 16, 1920. The Yankees and Cleveland were the two best teams in the league. The pitcher was the best New York had, the crafty right hander Carl Mays. The batter was the veteran Indian speedster Ray Chapman. And as so often happens in baseball, one pitch changed the whole world.
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Mays once said of another pitcher, “That fellow has no friends and doesn’t want any. That’s why he’s a great pitcher.” Carl Mays was a great pitcher and part of the Boston Red Sox dynasty that dominated the first two decades of the 20th century. But in 1919 he demanded to be traded. The Yankees paid $40,000 and gave up two players to be named later to obtain Mays. They wanted his “submarine” (underhanded) pitch, his blazing sidearm delivery, and his spitball, and his reputation for brushing back hitters who crowded the plate. He was on his way to a 26-11 record with six shutouts in 1920. He was pitching out of rotation this day because the game was so important and he was going for his 100th major league win.
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Ray Chapman was fondly known around the league as “Chappie”. After 9 seasons in the Major Leagues he was at the very top of his game, batting .303, with 93 runs scored and 671 runs batted in. Chappie also had 233 stolen bases and he wielded one of the finest defensive gloves in the league. But he made his money laying down the bunt. He would crouch over, hugging the plate at the edge of the batters box, and thus leaving the pitcher with almost no strike zone. It was that stance and his blazing speed to first (he once rounded the bases in 14 seconds) that had given Chappie an impressive on-base average of .358. He often led the league in sacrifices. But in fact Chappie planned on getting out while he was on top. He had married the year before, and had made plans to go into business with his new father-in-law. And some World Series earnings would certainly smooth his way to retirement.
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It was a different world. The “House that Ruth Built” had yet to be built, and the Yankees were sharing the Polo Grounds with the Giants for the season. It was 82 humid degrees with some 24,000 fans in their seats when, in the first inning, Chapman laid down his 34th bunt of the season. Thanks in part to that Sacrifice, Cleveland was now leading the game, 3 – 0. In the third inning Chapman had popped up. And now, as the fifth inning began, Chapman stepped into the batters’ box and dug in.
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On his first pitch Carl Mays delivered a rising side armed fast ball bullet. There was a loud thud. The ball rolled back toward the mound and thinking Chapman had hit it with the handle of his bat, Mays adroitly retrieved the ball and threw it down the line to first base. Only then did he realize that Chapman was down.
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The umpire, Tommy Connolly, saw blood coming out of Chapman’s right ear and nose. He called into the crowd for a doctor. Chapman opened his eyes and staggered to his feet. A few people in the crowd began to applaud. But after taking only a few steps, Chapman collapsed again. They carried him into the club house where he mumbled a request for his wedding ring, which he’d given to a trainer for safe keeping. The ring returned to his hand seemed to calm him.
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Meanwhile, on the field and with a new ball, the game resumed. Mays retired the next nine batters in a row and the Yankees fought back to tie the game. It was a Yankee relief pitcher who gave up the winning Cleveland run; 4 – 3. Called in Cleveland, Ray’s wife, Katie, immediately boarded a train for New York.
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X-rays showed Chapman had a depressed fracture of his skull, which required surgery to remove a 3 ½” section of bone to lessen the intracranial pressure. The surgeon reported that not only was the right side of the brain lacerated from the impact with the ball, but so was the left side, where the brain had rebounded off the skull. At 4:40 that morning Ray Chapman was declared dead, the only person to ever die while playing a Major League Baseball game. A family friend met Katie’s train at 10 that morning but didn’t tell her of her husband’s death until they got to the hotel. She fainted.
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Wearing black arm bands in Chappies’ honor, Cleveland beat out New York for the pennant that year, and went on to win the World Series. The team voted Katie a full share of the winners’ award, about $4,000 (worth $45,000 today). Six months later she gave birth to Chapman’s daughter and named her Rae. A few years later Katie remarried, to businessman J.F. McMahon and they moved to California. But she still moarned Chappie. In 1926 Katie committed suicide by drinking cleaning fluid. Three years later Rae contracted German measles and died as well. Both were brought back to Cleveland to be buried in Calvary Cemetery under the name “Chapman”. Ray is buried alone about five miles away in Lake View Cemetery, where fans still leave baseballs, bats and memorabilia against his tombstone. If you have a chance, you should do the same.
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Carl Mays played for the Yankees for only one more season. In 1921 he won 27 and lost 9, and batted .343. Despite that achievement, part way through the 1922 season he was traded to the National League Cincinnati Reds, where he went 20 and 9, making him the first pitcher to win 20 games in both leagues. In all Mays spent 15 years in the majors, earning 208 wins and 31 saves against a mere 126 losses, with an amazing 862 strikeouts in 490 games. His lifetime batting average of .268 makes him one of the best hitting pitchers of all time. And yet, despite what are clearly Hall Of Fame statistics he received only 8 votes for the honor. Some may claim it was because of absurd stories that he fixed a World Series game in 1922. But the facts belie that. What haunted Carl Mays until his death in 1971 was one pitch thrown in the August heat of the 1920 pennant race.
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