The Characters in The First Fall Classic
THE PLAYERS: THE GIANTS
John J. McGraw
The most famous manager in baseball history to that point, and also the most controversial, and also the richest … not for baiting umpires, cajoling his players and making his opponents blind with rage, but for nearly a century he held the record for most game ejections. At 39 years old in 1912, he desperately seeks a second World Series title to cement his status as the game's greatest mind, and believes these Giants may be the best team he's ever assembled, better even than his 1905 world champions.
Christy Mathewson
The most well-known and most beloved athlete in the United States in 1912, known by fellow baseballers as "Big Six" and by fans as "The Christian Gentleman" … Mathewson's most dominant days are behind him but he still wins 23 games in the regular season, and in three appearances in the World Series he pitches to a stunning 0.94 ERA. Less volatile than McGraw, he still burns to win another championship just as badly.
Rube Marquard
Purchased by McGraw from the Indianapolis minor-league club for a record sum, Marquard is dubbed the "$11,000 Peach" before stumbling badly as a Giant and becoming the "$11,000 Lemon.” He blossoms in 1912 by winning his first 19 starts of the season, struggles in the season's second half but manages to right himself in time for the World Series.
Fred Snodgrass
One of the proudest "finds" in McGraw's long history of discovering and developing baseball talent … McGraw signs him as a catcher, teaches him to play centerfield and it pays off when he becomes one of the central offensive forces on Giants teams that win three straight NL pennants in 1911-12-13. Another volatile personality who occasionally goes out of his way to antagonize opposing fans; he is destined to become a seminal figure in the outcome of the 1912 World Series.
Jeff Tesreau
Given the honor of starting the opening game of the 1912 World Series for the Giants as a 23-year-old rookie, he bursts onto the scene with 17 wins in 24 decisions that year … pitches well despite the fact that the Sox admit that he was tipping his pitches so they knew whenever he was planning on throwing his fearsome spitter.
THE PLAYERS: THE RED SOX
Tris Speaker
Only 24 years old in 1912, Speaker enjoys his first breakout season, winning most valuable player honors in the American League and fueling the Sox to their finest season ever … a son of Texas, the nephew of two battle-hardened Confederate veterans, Speaker feels like an outsider in heavily Catholic, heavily immigrant Boston and, just as often, on his own team … never afraid to speak his mind, he will rage at McGraw early in the 1912 World Series, then cockily rebuke Christy Mathewson later on.
Harry Hooper
Teamed with Speaker and Duffy Lewis to form the most feared outfield threesome in baseball, he is one of the greatest defensive outfielders of his day and makes one of the most talked-about defensive plays of the 1912 World Series … led the '12 Sox with 12 home runs, an impressive figure in the era of dead baseballs and small-ball strategy.
Smoky Joe Wood
Enjoyed one of the greatest seasons any pitcher ever had in 1912 … finished 34-5 with a 1.91 ERA and 258 strikeouts in 344 innings … won 16 games in a row at one point … No. 15 in that streak was a classic match-up against Walter Johnson on Sept. 6 at a sold-out Fenway Park, Wood outdueling Johnson, 1-0 … afterward, asked if he threw harder than Wood, Johnson laughs and says, "Listen, my friend, there's no man alive can throw harder than Smoky Joe Wood.
Olaf Henriksen
Of the more than 17,000 men who have played professional baseball between 1869 and 2009, he is the only one ever born in Denmark. A professional hitter who hit .321 in 1912, but as the fourth outfielder on a team with Speaker, Hooper and Lewis, he only received 72 plate appearances, yet finds himself at bat in the most crucial spot of the World Series, late in the eighth game.
Hugh Bedient
One of the most unlikely stars on a team filled with them, Bedient had a dream-like rookie season in 1912 at age 22, winning 20 of his 29 decisions and posting a 2.92 ERA … though the award didn't exist at the time, the Society For American Baseball Research would retroactively name him the Rookie of the Year for 1912 nearly a century later.
THE PUGS
James McAleer
When the Red Sox' new owner first took control of the team before the 1912 season he was considered a man of the people, celebrated for spending time in barrooms and bowling alleys mingling with the fans … he was a mediocre player (a .253 average in 13 seasons) and a failed American League manager with Cleveland, St. Louis and Washington, but he meddled with manager Jake Stahl from the start … during the World Series, that meddling reached a new high – or low – and nearly caused what would have been the ugliest revolt in baseball history. Almost.
Arnold Rothstein
He wouldn't have his brightest moment in the sun (or, if you prefer, his darkest moment in the shadows) for another seven years, when he helped mastermind the fix that handed the 1919 World Series to the Reds instead of the White Sox ... but Rothstein was in business in 1912 (he even partnered with John McGraw in the pool-hall business) and he was already one of the most influential bookmakers in the country at a time when bookies were as regular and obvious a presence at ballparks as peanut vendors and scorecard salesmen.
Ban Johnson
He wasn't alone, but he was the most visible and the most famous member of the National Commission, the all-powerful three-man board that ruled over baseball … Johnson had started out as a sportswriter, had invented the renegade American League, and had made bitter enemies of both McGraw and Giants owner John T. Brush … by 1912, however, he was as firmly entrenched an Establishment figure as anyone, and the National Commission had become so tone-deaf to the wishes and wants of ballplayers that it all but asked the players to take solace in nefarious places.
Lt. Charles Becker
In New York City, where 14 daily newspapers waged the first great media war in American history, baseball was as good a bet to separate readers from their two pennies a day as anything … in October 1912, however, there was another story that battled for "The Wood" – the murder trial of Charles Becker, a rising NYPD officer who stood accused of offing gangster Beansie Rosenthal … in a drama that gripped the country, and especially New York, a cast of rogues with nicknames like Whitey, Gyp the Blood, Lefty Louie and Dago Frank all lined up to tell tales on Becker and hypnotize readers.
Beansie Rosenthal
The small-time bookmaker had gone to Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and spilled his guts about his operation after Becker had shut him down, seeking more shake-down money ... two days after the newspaper account, Rosenthal was walking out of the Hotel Metropole just off Times Square when he was set upon by a car loaded with guns … his widow, formerly the best friend of the wife of the accused, provided the dramatic highpoint in the courtroom proceedings.
John Flammang Schrank
A New York City saloonkeeper and a native of Germany, Schrank seethed when Theodore Roosevelt announced he would be seeking a third term for president, and grew more bitter when the Bull Moose party endorsed him after the Republicans failed to ... a street-corner preacher, he was unafraid to espouse his viewpoints, no matter how fringe or extreme … on the evening of Oct. 14, having followed Roosevelt to several cities, their paths finally intersected in front of the Hotel Gilpatrick as Roosevelt was leaving to deliver a speech at a downtown auditorium.
THE POLITICOS
John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald
The son of Irish immigrants, he dreamed of becoming a doctor until he had to leave medical school to support his 11 siblings … took a job as a clerk and quickly turned to, and rose through, the Democratic political machine that dominated the city's North End … elected to a second term as mayor, Fitzgerald had tried to purchase the Red Sox near the turn of the century and settled instead on his role as the most famous of the "Royal Rooters," the Sox' fanatical fan base.
William Howard Taft
The most prominent baseball fan in the land, given his address during the 1912 World Series: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ... as politicians will, he was known to change his baseball affinities, declaring himself an unabashed Reds fan before winning the Presidency, then switching to the Senators and, for the ’12 Series, the Red Sox … wants very badly to attend at least one of the games but Mrs. Taft has already scheduled a vacation for what they both know will be their final few months in the White House … follows Game 7 on the presidential yacht thanks to wireless radio transmission.
Theodore Roosevelt
Though Taft is the sitting president and Woodrow Wilson is the favorite to win the November election, Roosevelt remains the nation’s towering political figure in 1912, and has his sights on regaining the White House … when the Republicans rebuff him, he runs on the Progressive (or “Bull Moose”) ticket, and while many believe all that will do is split the GOP ticket and hand the election to Wilson, Roosevelt spends much of September and October campaigning ferociously, and is looking forward to his speech in Milwaukee to clarify many of his most passionate beliefs.
Woodrow Wilson
Wilson spends the summer and fall of 1912 watching Taft and Roosevelt tear into one another, and as the bookmakers make the Red Sox a prohibitive favorite at the start of the World Series they also install Wilson as a 4-to-1 favorite to win the election in November … though Taft is the president Wilson spends much of his energy attacking Roosevelt … more of a football fan than a baseball fan, he takes a one-day campaign break in the middle of the Series to watch his beloved Princeton Tigers practice football, and hears fateful news from Wisconsin there.
Michael ‘Nuf Ced’ McGreevy
Never elected to a political office in his life, he nevertheless is as influential as any mayor or alderman because he owns the most popular bar in Boston … the “Third Base Saloon” is so-called because it’s “the last stop on the way home,” and it is in many ways America’s first true sports bar … McGreevy is also a loud and vivacious member of the Royal Rooters, and along with Honey Fitz he makes certain that Boston is well-represented in New York for road games, and deals with sinister forces at home as well.