Item: Free Newspaper Game Accounts, 1897-1912
The Society for American Baseball Research has announced today that, owing to the diligence of one Mr. Jonathan Frankel, anyone with a cursory knowledge of the internet can access all manner of scanned game accounts from the earliest days of base-and-ball.
Frankel has uploaded to Google Docs scans of newspapers from 1897 to 1912 from the following cities: Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
As you might expect — and decidedly through no fault of Frankel’s own — the quality of the papers is sometimes compromised, nor does every article scale the heights of Prose Mountain (a mountain that doesn’t exist, but which I have just invented for the purposes of a shit metaphor).
As you might also expect, there are some excellent moments, such as this excerpt from what appears to be the August 12th, 1911, edition of the Cleveland Leader — a passage that it is literally impossible to read aloud except in a Mid-Atlantic accent and while drinking scotch in Bert Sugar’s den.
The real test of a pitcher is his work in pinches. Barney Pelty stood the test. Three times Cleveland batters had the chance to put the spectators in a happy frame of mind and three times these batters ignominiously whiffed.
Below is an image of the paper from which that excerpt is taken. (Note: if clicking doesn’t lead to ample embiggening, attempt to right-click for the purposes of opening in a new window.)
Finder’s fee owed to Mr. Larry Granillo.
9
Barney Pelty.
Also: Krapp Carded.
Someone dig that author out of his grave. He should replace MLB Network’s Brian Kenny. A rotten corpse with early 20th century knowledge of the game would be an upgrade over the Toby Flenderson (the worst) of sports. I can’t believe Cameron sullies his already sullied image by appearing on [clubhouse confederacy-o-dunce-show]. All Fangraphs contributors should boycott that moron’s show.
Brian Kenny: I ran a 1000 computer simulations and Barney Kelty could have added 67 points to his OPS if he had batted 4th in the lineup. Forget that the stats I use we’re accumulated by following the manager I’m second guessings judgement, my pompous wind bag blathering is super smart. Fire Brian Kenny!!!!
One of the 1912 new york evening telegram articles reads:
“I haven’t begun to fight”, ejaculated Theodore Roosevelt to-day when he was asked…”
In related news, the Merriam-Webster page for ejaculate contains this example of the word’s lesser-known definition:
“Eureka!” the Greek mathematician Archimedes is said to have ejaculated upon discovering a method for determining the purity of gold”
Falky & Krapp. Heavy Stunt.
I love how this era of writing sounds like a drunkard taking a sh*t with a prostitute on his lap while reading a theasaurus in a three-piece-suit with suspenders smoking a figuarado cigar.
Almanac!
This is so awesome.