AN OHIO COUNTY BOY
IS A STAR
Now in the Great Baseball Firmament
RAY CHAPMAN FAST COMING
To the front on the Diamond – Has Surprised Lovers of Sport
THE SENSATION OF THE YEAR
It is not perhaps generally known
that Mr. Ray Chapman, who is at present the sensation in baseball circles, is a
native Ohio County boy. He is the son of Mr. and
Mrs. Everett Chapman and was born at McHenry, a mining town of this county, about
22 years ago. When he was about 16 years old he moved with his parents to Herrin, Ill.,
where his family have since resided. When a boy he was a pupil of Attorney E.
M. Woodward, of Hartford,
who taught school at McHenry. Since moving to Herrin he has graduated from the
high school there. He was always a bright student and during playtime at school
his chief recreation was ball-playing. He was a great devotee of the game and
early manifested fine talents. He is a modest young man of lovable personality,
strictly moral habits, and bears his honors easily and good naturedly. He is
not boastful of his prowess, but just “plays ball” and lets the lovers of the
game see what he can do. His home folks here are proud of his distinction. He
is a first cousin of Mr. and Mrs. Ike Sanderfur and a second cousin of Masters Park
and Gail Taylor, of Hartford.
Concerning his career in the
baseball field, the following is what the sporting editor of the Louisville
Herald has to say of Mr. Chapman:
From the infield of a country town
high school nine to the American League in three years – such has been the
flash across the baseball firmament of Ray Chapman, the chain-lightning short
stop of the Cleveland
club and the latest sensation in baseball.
Like Ralph Capron, that other
sensation of the association, Chapman is a speed marvel. He used to do a
hundred yards 10 2/5 seconds, and the 220 yards in 23 flat, when a student in
the Herrin, Ill., high school, and was quite some football player.
Chapman has been burning up the
American Association this season, and it was only a question of time when he
would be sold, traded or drafted into one of the major leagues.
If there was any likelihood of a
fair chance at Chapman, the record of $22,500 set by Barney Dreyfuss when he
bought Marty O’Toole would be broken.
In fact, Frank Farrell, owner of the
New York American League club, has said he would make this price look cheap if
Somers would put his star on the block.
But Somers isn’t selling Chapman –
not while the Naps need men like him – and they do right now. At the beginning
of the season Olson was the Nap captain, but a little matter of boxing skill
between him and Pitcher Mitchell resulted in his reduction to the ranks and the
appointment of the brains of the Cleveland
team – Joe Birmingham.
Chapman is a short stop, and a
whirlwind short stop, too. He has a powerful throwing arm and the ability to
throw from almost any position. He is so fast that he gets in front of the ball
when another would be trying for it with his finger tips.
Every big league scout has looked at
Chapman this summer, although each knew the time was wasted.
In forty-eight games Chapman stole
twenty bases, and from his position as clean-up batter, fourth, scored
thirty-seven runs. He made sixty-one hits, his average being .351. And best of
all, he hits in the pinches. His fielding has been sensational and his base
running one of the marvels of the game.
Chapman hesitated, when he left high
school, between a scholastic inducement and a contract from the Springfield
Three I League club, finally accepting the latter.
Lack of experience held him back,
and Springfield was about to release him when Davenport, of the same
league, bought him for $250. This was a league joke, but in a short time
Chapman had them all watching him.
Bill Armour, then president of the Toledo club, bought
Chapman for $1,000 last summer. Chapman played for Toledo one month last fall, but it was late
and his skill was overlooked. On his first trip this spring he started like an
explosion of gun cotton and has continued at the same pace since.
Chapman is the real thing sure
enough, and if he plays the same game on the big ring that he has everywhere
else, his name will become a household necessity before the peach crop is
picked.
Hartford Herald, September 18, 1912
------<>-------
RAY
CHAPMAN KILLED IN BASEBALL GAME
Was One of Fastest
Players In American League – Reared in Ohio County
________________________________
New York. August 23, 1920. Ray Chapman of the Cleveland
Indians, one of the really great shortstops of big league baseball, died at St.
Lawrence Hospital shortly before 5 o’clock Aug. 17. He never recovered from an
operation performed three hours before to remove a fragment of bone pressing
into his brain following the blow on the head he received when Carl Mays, the
Yankee pitcher, hit him in Monday’s ball game.
Mays went to the District Attorney’s
office the morning after Chapman’s death had been announced. He showed much depression, but told a
straightforward story to Assistant District Attorney Joyce, in charge of the
Homicide Bureau, asserting that he pitched a fast straight ball, aimed for the
inside of the plate, to Chapman and with no intention of hurting him. Mr. Joyce
heard his story & declared the occurrence an accident and formally released
the pitcher from custody.
Mays says that he thought the ball
hit Chapman’s bat and fielded it to first base with that idea and did not know
that the shortstop had been hurt until he saw him sink to the ground. He says
he looked at the ball after the accident and found that it was slightly
roughened on one side. He showed it to the umpire and called his attention to
the spot. The roughening probably caused Chapman’s death, for it made the ball
“sail” – that is, take a freakish jump which the man throwing or the batter
watching would not expect.
Mays tales great comfort from the
fact that when Chapman regained consciousness in the club house before being
removed to the hospital he said to John Henry, the former Washington catcher, who was one of his
closest friends, “I’m all right. Tell Mays not to worry.”
Well Known Here
Raymond Johnson Chapman was born
near Render, Ohio County, Ky., January 15, 1891, and was a son of
Everett Chapman and a grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Chapman, of Beaver Dam. He
has many relatives and friends in Ohio
County. While Mays was
yet a youngster, his father removed with his family to Herrin, Ill., where
young Chapman and Bob Veach, the famous Detroit outfielder, began their
baseball careers both becoming professionals in 1910, Chapman going to
Springfield, Ill., and thence to Davenport, Iowa. A Cleveland
scout, Babe Myers, looked him over in 1911 and bought him for the Naps but
turned him over to Toledo
for further development. He was called to the Naps in August 1912, reporting
the day Harry Davis resigned as manager.
He batted .312 that last month of
the 1912 campaign. His sensational work at short in 1913 was a big factor in
making Cleveland
the runner-up to the Athletics most of the year. In sliding to third base on
the training trip of 1914 he broke his leg and was out nearly half of the
season. The Indians finished way down in the race as a result. He played a
phenomenal game in 1915 but dislocated one of his knees and was out for 50
games. Since then he has played wonderful ball and has been one of the greatest
stars of the league. He has played well over 1,400 games in a Cleveland uniform.
Beautiful Tribute
Copies of Cleveland papers printed on the day of ray
Chapman’s funeral devote many columns to the ceremonies that attended it. They
contain among other tributes to the former Ohio County
boy a copy in full of the sermon preached over his remains.
In opening his sermon Dr. Scullen
dwelt on the mysteries of life and death, and took for his text the words of the Bible, “I am the resurrection and the
life; he that believeth in Me shall not taste death forever.”
“In paying this, one last tribute to
one whom we loved and admired as much for his sterling manhood as his ability
as a ballplayer,” Dr. Scullen said, “we are reminded of the mysteries of life
and death, and wonder how he who had played his part so honorably in our
country’s great war and in his chosen field could be so suddenly taken from
among us. The answer is in my text – that he that believeth in Me though dead
shall live.”
Chapman played the game of life and
he played the game of his profession cleanly and honestly. He was our friend as
a ball player and as a man. Sterling
athlete that he was, he never knew defeat. Courageous, he played his part in
life honorably and was a shining type of typical American youth and a great
example for others.
“Clean, wholesome, gentle and true,
he was the idol of Cleveland
as a ball player – but above all, was his gentleness and kindness as a man.”
Referring to the incident that
caused Chapman’s death, Dr. Scullen pleaded that “no hostile word should be
uttered against the man who was the cause of the unfortunate accident.”
“He feels the outcome of it more
deeply than most of us do,” he said. “The great American game of baseball does
not develop men who would willingly try to injure another participant in the
game, and the game could not produce a man capable of killing another man.
Chapman, we know, would be the first to decry any thought of revenge if he could
but speak.”
Dr. Scullen’s final words were, “May
the soul of this gentle, kindly youth, whom all Cleveland loved, rest in peace.”
Hartford
Herald, September 1, 1920
From Wikipedia
Chapman led the American League in runs scored and walks
in 1918. A top-notch bunter, Chapman is sixth on the all-time list
for sacrifice hits and holds the single season
record with 67 in 1917. Only Stuffy
McInnis has more career sacrifices
as a right-handed batter. Chapman was also an excellent shortstop who led the
league in putouts
three times and assists once. He batted
.300 three times, and led the Indians in stolen bases
four times. In 1917, he set a team record of 52 stolen bases, which stood until
1980. He was hitting .303 with 97 runs scored when he died. He was one of the
few players whom Ty Cobb
considered a friend.
There was conjecture that 1920 was going
to be Chapman's last year as a pro baseball player. Shortly before the season
began, Chapman married Kathleen Daly, who was the daughter of a prominent Cleveland businessman.
Chapman had indicated he was going to retire to devote himself to the family
business he was marrying into, as well as to begin a family.
At the time of Chapman's death, "part
of every pitcher's job was to dirty up a new ball the moment it was thrown onto
the field. By turns, they smeared it with dirt, licorice, and tobacco juice; it
was deliberately scuffed, sandpapered, scarred, cut, even spiked. The result
was a misshapen, earth-colored ball that traveled through the air erratically,
tended to soften in the later innings, and as it came over the plate, was very
hard to see."
This practice is believed to have
contributed to Chapman's death. He was struck with a pitch by Carl Mays
on August 16, 1920, in a game against the New York
Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Mays threw with a submarine delivery, and it was the top of
the fifth inning, in the late afternoon. Eyewitnesses recounted that Chapman
never moved out of the way of the pitch, presumably unable to see the ball.
"Chapman didn't react at all," said Rod Nelson of the Society of
American Baseball Research. "It was at twilight and it froze him."
The sound of the ball smashing into Chapman's skull was so loud that Mays
thought it had hit the end of Chapman's bat, so he fielded the ball and threw
to first base.
The book Ray and Me, by Dan Gutman,
says that after Mays threw the ball to first, the fielders threw it around the
diamond. Chapman then took three or four steps before he collapsed. Mike
Sowell's book, The Pitch That Killed, however, states that first baseman
Wally Pipp
caught Mays' throw to first and then realized something was very wrong. Chapman
never took any steps, but rather slowly collapsed to his knees and then the
ground with blood pouring out of his left ear. The umpire quickly called for
doctors in the stands to come to Chapman's aid. Eventually Chapman was able to
stand and try to walk off the field, but he could not speak when he tried to do
so, but only mumbled. As he was walking off the field his knees buckled and he
had to be assisted the rest of the way. He was replaced by Harry Lunte
for the rest of the game, which the Indians won 4-3. Chapman died 12 hours
later in a New York City hospital, at about 4:30 A.M.
Ray Chapman is buried in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland,
Ohio, not far
from where his new home was being built on Alvason Road in East Cleveland. He and his wife visited
the home as it was being built several hours before he departed for New York City on his
final road trip.
Plaque
Not long after Chapman died, a bronze
plaque was designed in his honor. The plaque features Chapman's bust framed by
a baseball diamond and flanked by two bats, one of them draped with a fielder's
mitt. At the bottom of the tablet is the inscription, "He Lives In The
Hearts Of All Who Knew Him." The plaque was dedicated and hung at League Park
and later at Cleveland Stadium before being taken down for
unspecified reasons.
In February 2007, workers discovered the
plaque while cleaning out a storage room at Jacobs Field.
Covered by years of dust and dirt, the bronze surface had oxidized a dark
brown; the text was illegible. The plaque was refurbished and hung in Heritage Park, an exhibit of Indians history at
Jacobs, which has since been renamed to "Progressive Field". Jim
Folk, Indians' Vice President of Ball Park Operations, said, "It was in a
store room under an escalator in a little nook and cranny. We didn't know what
we were going to do with it, but there was no way it was just going to stay
there when we moved to Jacobs Field. We had it crated up and put on a moving truck
and it came over along with our file cabinets and all the other stuff that came
out of the stadium."
Chapman was inducted into the Cleveland
Indians Hall of Fame in 2006.
Further reading
- The book The Pitch That Killed, by Mike
Sowell, is a history of the Chapman-Mays tragedy.
- The historical novel, The Curse of Carl
Mays, by Howard Camerik, also recounts the Chapman-Mays incident.
- The
Death of Ray Chapman - NY Times, 18 August 1920
