The Gamblers’ Riot (episode 189)

Transcript

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Jake:
[0:04] Welcome To Hub history, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston. The hub of the universe.
This is Episode 1 89 The Gamblers Riot.
Hi, I’m Jake. This week, I’m going to be talking about the 1917 Red Sox season and in particular, a so called Gamblers riot that took place at Fenway Park 103 years ago this week.
Fans swarmed the field and they tried to prevent the game from coming to an official end. Why?
Well, because of the money, of course.
But before we talk about betting baseball and Babe Ruth, it’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.

[0:49] My pick for the Boston Book Club this week is the Cloud Buster nine.
The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the baseball team that helped win World War Two.
I have to admit that I haven’t read this one, but I was shopping around for something tied to baseball in the Red Sox that went beyond the baseball field on this book looks just fascinating.
Baseball fans remember Ted Williams as the splendid splinter. One of the greatest hitters of all time.
He had a reputation as a surly and standoffish star when dealing with the press and masses of fans while simultaneously working tirelessly behind the scenes to support Children with cancer almost single handedly launching the Jimmy Fund.

[1:33] Like many of his peers in Major league baseball, Ted Williams was drafted into the military.
Unlike most of those piers, he chose not to spend the war years playing exhibition baseball for the Navy service team.
Instead, he went to flight school for the U. S Marine Corps and ended up as a flight instructor in Pensacola, Florida In fact, he was honest way to the Western Pacific.
When the war ended seven years later, he was called up from the Marine reserves to fight in the Korean War, where he flew 39 combat missions and was shot down,
in 1943 while the New York Yankees and ST Louis Cardinals were winning pennants in meeting in that year’s World Series, Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky and Johnny said, practiced on a skinned out college field in the heart of North Carolina,
they and other past and future stars formed one of the greatest baseball teams of all time.
They’re among a contrary of fighter pilot cadets who wore the cloud buster nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

[2:35] As a child author, and Kean’s father, Jim Ross, suited up is the team’s bat boy and mascot.
He got to know his baseball heroes personally, watching players hit the road on cramped tin can buses, dazzling factory workers, kids and service members of dozens of games, including a war bond exhibition with Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium.
Jimmy followed his baseball dreams, is a college All American but was crushed later in life by a failed major league bid with the Detroit Tigers.
He would have carried this story to his grave, had and not discovered a scrapbook from a Navy school that shaped America’s greatest heroes, including George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn and Paul Bear Bryant.

[3:20] With the help of rare images and insights from World War two baseball veterans such as Dr Bobby Brown and Eddie Robinson, the story of this remarkable team has brought to life for the first time in the Cloud Buster nine.
The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the baseball team that helped win World War Two and for upcoming event this weekend, featuring an online author Talk Brought to You by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Cornell professor Mary Beth Norton is a historian of the colonial era and a past president of the American Historical Association.

[3:54] She’s written extensively on the roles women played in Colonial America, and her latest book is 17 74. Year of Revolutions.
She’ll be speaking at 5:30 p.m. On Wednesday, June 24th. Here’s how the MHS Describes her Talk,
Mary Beth Norton will give us a preview of her new book, A Narrative History of the Long Year of 17 74,
where the months from December 17 73 to April 17 75 which have tended to be overlooked by historians who focus instead on the war for independence.
But John Adams, who lived through that era, declared that the true revolution took place in the minds of the people before a shot was fired at Lexington.
The year 17 74 Norton argues, was when that revolution occurs, the online events free, but you’ll have to register in advance to get the zoom connection details.
We’ll have the link you need in this week’s show. Notes at Hub history dot com slash 189.

[4:54] Before I kick things off, I’d like to take a moment and thank Rob G, our latest supporter on Patri on people like Rob Responsive the show for $2.5 dollars or even $10 a month.
Allow us to create hub history, your contributions pay for our Web hosting and security, our podcast media hosting and the processing tools we used to make the show sound better.
Over the past couple of years, you’ve also allowed us to upgrade our microphones and start adding transcripts to the show notes.
If you’d like to join Robin, all our other generous supporters just goto patri on dot com slash hub history or visit home history dot com and click on the support US like and to everyone who already supports the show. Thank you.

[5:39] And now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[5:44] On June 16th 1917 the Red Sox were in the midst of a seven game home stand at Fenway Park and things were not going well.
They started off of the to nothing win against the ST Louis Blues on Wednesday the 13th but the Blues rallied in the second game of the doubleheader, beating the Sox 7 to 2.
The drubbing continued with a three nothing Blues win on Thursday, and then the Chicago White Sox came to town.
The White Sox were leading the American League, but the Red Sox were just three games behind.
On Friday, the 15th White Sox star pitcher Lefty Williams led the team to an eight run shut out over the Red Sox, while at the same time, back in Chicago, the Boston Braves defeated the Cubs 6 to 3.

[6:30] After their star pitcher, Ernie Shore, turned in a mediocre performance.
The day before, Red Sox manager Jack Berry decided to let the new guy take a shot on Saturday the 16th the New Guys contract had been purchased from the Baltimore Orioles back in 1914.
But after performing inconsistently and developing a reputation as a loose cannon, he was sent down to the minors to play for the Providence Graze.
After a year in Providence, new guy Babe Ruth came back to Boston and started to play a bit more during the Red Sox world, Siri’s winning seasons in 1915 and 1916.
By the 1917 season, the Babe was starting to develop a reputation as a pitcher with potential.
Despite dicey weather for baseball, 9405 fans filled the stands at Fenway that Saturday, eager to see if the young up and coming babe could break the Red Sox three game losing streak and get the winning season back on track.
Among those in the crowd were hoping for a Red Sox win were a significant crowd of gamblers.
I know it sounds far fetched today because over a century later there’s just no such thing as sports betting in America except Vegas sports books Fanduel Draftkings, Pete Rose and Your Local bookie.

[7:44] In a 2012 article in Baseball, a journal of the early game Jacob Palm, Lenka says, As long as there’s been baseball, there’s been gambling on baseball.
In the middle of the 19th century. As the game began to spread in popularity among so called gentlemen, members of the upper class playing for leisure wagers were made for a meal or a small sum of money,
because there’s an accepted practice among fans and often players because then and now many people found it enjoyable to be financially invested in the outcome of a game.

[8:18] By 18 77 there was already a scandal involving game fixing.
Now, 40 years later, the White Sox roster that faced the Red Sox at Fenway Park already included. Some of the players would go on to be banned from baseball for life after throwing the 1919 World Series to benefit a group of gamblers and bookmakers.
Most famous of all was Shoeless Joe Jackson, who may not have even been part of the scheme and who would, as a fictionalized character and field of dreams played by Ray Liotta say.

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Jake:
[9:02] And on June 16th 1917 it was Shoeless Joe who first put the White Sox on the board with an R B I double in the top of the first inning, just a za stubborn drizzle started up.

[9:15] The Gamblers who hung out in the right field bleachers hope that the left handed babe would be able to put up a win against the White Sox, who notoriously struggled against lefties.
America claims that among the bookies in the crowd were Joseph Sport Sullivan and Jim Costello, both of whom would be implicated in the Black Sox scandal just two years later.
Palm Wrinkle lays blame for the prevalence of gamblers in Fenway Park. At the feet of the team’s owner by the middle of the decade is theatre mogul Harry Frese took over his owner of the Red Sox. The city was regarded as the biggest center of baseball gambling in the country.
An American League investigator claimed that Frese entertains more gamblers in his right field pavilion every day than the rest of the majors combined.
A 1917 Washington Times article would say Boston is a hotbed for the do’s and dont’s as they call baseball gamblers in New England. The boys have bet on every batsman.
They hang up money on whether or not he reaches first. Once there, they’ll Betty won’t reach second or third or home, as the case may be.
Baseball pools of flourished more around New York and Philadelphia than they have in Boston, but the do’s and don’t have always done a big business in the Hub.
They generally operate back of third base at Fenway Park and behind first base at Braves Field.

[10:36] Frese would claim the employed police details specifically to suppress gambling within the park, but fewer arrests ever ensued.
All bets were placed brazenly enough that the Chicago Tribune would right.
Anyone present could see the transactions and hear them plainly.

[10:53] After Joe Jackson scored the first run on June 16th the Red Sox struggled to answer the White Sox in the first and second innings.
The next day’s Boston Globe sports page would say the champions failed to deliver in the first and second when they had chances to score.
Hooper singled in the first and was left stranded on second. After Berry sacrificed, and in the second, Walker doubled and Thomas beat out an infield hit.
But Ruth wasn’t there in the pinch again. Deal driven the second run for the visitors. In the fourth, Justus, the rain check athletes started to warm up.
Two were out when Ruth past fell. Sh, who romped a second on a passed ball. Kendall second, did the rest.

[11:36] Almost a soon as Gandhi will put up the White Sox a second run, the rain began to fall harder.
A few fans who are stranded in the outfield bleachers decided to make a run for it and spread it straight across the field in the middle of the inning to take shelter in the right field pavilion.
The umpires called time and the game was stopped for several minutes to make sure the interference was over when play continued, Babe Ruth promptly got the third out.
Scattered shouts of Call! The game could be heard in the stands As the White Sox took the field in the bottom of the inning.
Those shots became widespread. Is White Sox pitcher. Any sick coat struck out three Red Sox batters in a row as the game went into the top of the fifth inning. A critical moment arrived for both gamblers and casual fans at Fenway Park.
If a game proceeded past 4.5 innings before being called for rain, the standings of the game became official.
Those official standings would be in that a lot of betters who are counting on Babe Ruths, left handed pitching to lead the Red Sox won.
Easy win would lose a lot of money if it was called before 4.5 innings were completed.
The stats and standings will be wiped out and the game would be played again.
In this case, it probably would have been replayed the next day, eliminating a rest day before the Red Sox White Sox doubleheader on Monday.

[12:54] If it was called before 4.5 innings were completed. Fans in the stands would also be issued rain checks to attend the replayed Gay, The Boston Globe reported. Anyway, it could be seen that there was trouble brewing in the fifth.
The cry of call The game increased when shock. The first man came to bat.
He flied toe walker and a Cicotte grounded the Barry and show no Collins step to the plate. Over the fence, the crowd came.
It was from that part of the first base bleachers were the so called sporting men congregate daily that the first cries of Call the game were heard, and it spread like wildfire.
So after the baby got the 1st 2 batters in the White Sox lineup out, the crowd rushed onto the field.
Some rinky says, as leadoff hitter John Shen O’Collins stepped to the plate for the White Sox, all hell broke loose.
A crowd of about 300 fans on the right field bleachers, led by some tall man in a long raincoat, suddenly began leaping over the fence and marching onto the playing field.
Barry McCormick, a former Chicago Cubs infielder in his first season, is a major league umpire, immediately called time and stood gazing in amazement to see what the crowd would do.
But they didn’t rush it, the players or umpires, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Instead of fighting, the mob simply searched out upon the field, clear up into the diamond and stood around.

[14:18] They were obviously stalling for time. Umpire Tommy Connolly looked around for police officers to help heard the mob off the field. He saw nine.
Five officers were somewhere in the stands, but they couldn’t be found, the Globe reported.
Those who are on duty were not on the playing field is they have been in former years?
And unquestionably, the psychological effect of the presence of the men and blue would have deterred the invaders from scaling the fence.
Connolly and Red Sox manager Jack Berry took charge and approached the leaders of the mob, persuading them to leave the field so the game would not have to be forfeited.
The Chicago The fans did not retreat to their old seats in the bleachers, but climbed into the grandstand boxes instead.

[15:04] Just when play was about to resume, new leaders and recruits came from the gambler stand in. The first crowd piled out of the boxes again.
This time, the mob was riotous.
Connolly looked for a cop again and again. None were in sight.
The Red Sox ran for the dugout and took shelter in the clubhouse. The White Sox attempted to follow, but the crowd on the field didn’t feel obligated to clear any sort of path for them.
Instead, the White Sox would be forced to fight their way off the field.
Mercurial third baseman Buck Weaver grabbed a bat without letting a smile waiver. He started wailing out in every direction.
Chicago backbencher Fred McMullin just put up his Dukes and challenged all comers.
When police Sergeant Lewis Lutz finally materialized out of the crowd, he had to deal with White Sox catcher Ray Shock before he could start dealing with the crowd.

[16:00] The Globe said that Shock questioned the courage of a patrolman from the Boylston Street station in language not of the parlor.
It was rumored that Sergeant Lutz went looking for shock after the game to see if he wanted to step outside and repeat some of what was said before.
Before that, though, both teams had to get undercover in the clubhouse, which they finally did.
They stayed down there until the weather stopped and until a detachment of mounted Boston cops could drive the fans off the field.
Finally, they were successful. Jason Palm, Wrinkle would right.
Umpires. McCormick and Connolly ordered the game to go on, but the encountered resistance from a surprising source.
Harry Frese, the Red Sox owner who stood to make about $7000 in gate receipts of his team, got one more out in the game, became official, inexplicably refused to permit its groundskeepers to remove the canvas tarpaulin that had covered the field.
While rain was falling, McCormick pulled out his watch and gave Frese an ultimatum.
Remove the tarp or forfeit the game.

[17:04] Crazy finally relented. The infield dirt was still somewhat muddy, so sawdust was spread to make the field playable again.

[17:12] The Boston Globe reported there was a delay of 45 minutes before play was resumed.
It never should have been continued as the grounds were in an unfit condition.
So the game went on. For a while, it looked like it might turn into a shutout, and by the end of the sixth inning, the White Sox had a three nothing lead.
Then, in the eighth inning, the Red Sox closed the gap a bit. Here’s how the Globe described it in genuine 1917 sports page gibberish.
The Red Sox rally in the eighth, which was good for two runs, work things up. Ruth singled for a starter and was forced it second by Hooper after Barry skied. Fl sh Hooper counted from first on hobbies double and a single by Gardner Tally the dentist.
Weaver made a fine stop of a rap from Lewis but failed to get Gardner when he made the play at second Walker than hit weekly. This a cot that was good enough to make it a 32 game. But the white Sox walked away with it in the ninth.
Chicago scored four times in the final inning, including a massive home run by Buck Weaver that sailed over the left field wall that would later be painted green and dubbed the monster.
After seeing him swing that bat it Red Sox fans who took the field in the fifth.
The crowd didn’t take too kindly to his homer, and he’d end up dodging bottles on the way out of the stadium later.

[18:33] Prosecutors also didn’t take too kindly to the way swung that bat America, explains.
Weaver, was out of harm’s way physically, but not legally.
When the White Sox returned to Fenway Park on Monday, June 18th for a Bunker Hill Day doubleheader, he and teammate Fred McMullin were served with arrest warrants between games.
A Boston fan, Augustine Joseph McNally, a 37 year old paper mill worker from Norwood, had filed assault charges against the pair stemming from the gamblers riot.
With tongue planted firmly in cheek. The Chicago Tribune reported that during the fussing, McNally is supposed to have bumped McMullen’s fist with his I Also, he’s supposed to have had his fingers on the railing just when we were led his bat fall.

[19:21] Because the White Sox were scheduled to begin their 27 hour train ride home immediately after the second game, the hearing was deferred until Chicago’s next trip East in the summer.
Nathan Tufts, the district attorney of Middlesex County, put up his house is security that the players would appear in court when they returned to Boston.

[19:39] The spectacle of Fenway Park kicked off a crusade against gambling that would culminate in the Black Sox scandal.
It was no longer possible to turn a blind eye to the gamblers who infested Fenway Park, even affecting the integrity of the game, the Sporting News reported.
The result is one of the most disgraceful scenes ever witnessed in a major league ballpark.
A riot of fans and sense that what are believed to be unfair decisions by umpires is one thing.
But when a horde of gamblers permitted to run riot in the major league ballpark seek to stop a ballgame and urged hoodlums to attack visiting players to save their dirty coin, that is still another thing.

[20:19] All the rowdyism that could be crowded into a season cannot do the game half is much damage.
As the one incident that occurred in Boston last Saturday American League president Ban Johnson would be very critical of Red Sox owner Harry Frese saying.
Gambling has never been tolerated by our league.
If the Boston owners cannot handle the situation, the league is Ah, hole will go After the gambling click, Johnson first tried to get Frese to go after the gamblers, then decided to go after them himself when the Sox owner blew him off.
Finally, Johnson attempted to force Harry Frese out of baseball.
White Sox owner Charles Comiskey appears to have thought the whole conflict was laughable and said, I have attended every meeting in which Frese has been present since he came into baseball and have never known him at any time to take any end of an argument except one that would do the game good.
The subterfuge under which Johnson would force Frese out of the American League is that he has gamblers in this park. No greater joke was ever perpetrated.
I personally know that Frese has taken measures, as has every magnet of the circuit to keep the gates of Fenway Park close to the gambling crowd.

[21:29] Was any action taken against the Red Sox on the score of gambling under other ownerships?
Why, then, should Johnson keep harping about gambling at Fenway Park under Frese?
If Johnson has the good of baseball at heart, he will lay off the gambling end of it and not be so interested in buying out owners in the American League.
He has no authority to oust Frese.

[21:51] Eventually, 33 Fenway gamblers will be arrested in December 1918.
But by that time, the Red Sox were suspected of throwing a World Series game.
As we discussed with Skip this Jarden back in September 2018.
In fact, nothing suppressed sports gambling in Boston for long until the Black Sox scandal, which had been largely planned here in Boston after a rest day on Sunday, June 17th the Red Sox and White Sox would face off again that Monday.
This time, the Red Sox won both games of a doubleheader, and the White Sox headed home.
The next time the White Sox came back to town in September, charges against McMullen and Weaver were dropped when their accuser didn’t show up in court.
The Red Sox would finish out the season four games out of first place in the American League, and the White Sox would end up as the World Series champions.

[22:43] To learn more about the Gamblers riot at Fenway Park, check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 189 We’ll have a link to Jacob Palm Branca’s article in baseball, a journal of the American Game,
in case you couldn’t tell from listening.
I relied very heavily on this research and setting up this episode.
We’ll also include a link to coverage of the so called Riot in the Boston Globe and a hand drawn cartoon that appeared in the same paper poking fun at the Gamblers riot.
And of course, we’ll have links to information about our upcoming event and the Cloud Buster nine, this week’s Bustin Book Club pick.

[23:24] Before I wrap up, I’d like to share some exciting news. Hub history has been selected to receive this year’s Preservation Achievement Award by the Boston Preservation Alliance.
In their release, the B p A says Boston has always been a city built on history.
Museums, iconic buildings and monuments are an essential part of the city. Self definition and tourism draw today, more than ever, that history spreads beyond physical places.
The Hub History podcast tell stories of Boston’s history through a medium that has surged in popularity.
Their efforts spring Boston history alive by making the past accessible and relevant to a wide audience far beyond the balance of familiar sights.
Greg Gaylor, the executive director of the Boston Preservation Alliance, says the means to engage people with the history of Boston have grown dramatically, and the Hub history podcast is a wonderful way to expand the connection of the broader public toe our past.
The more people who are informed and enthusiastically connected to the stories of the places and people of Boston, the more engagement we have with the desire to preserve these places for future generations.
Toe understand a historic place, and the events that happened there is to recognize its value and its connections, the lessons valuable to us today.

[24:44] It’s an honor to be recognized. Not only is history nerds, but for spreading an understanding of history that can help Boston preserve its valuable historic buildings, landscapes and communities.

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