The 1912 Suspension

In this episode of the Sports Jersey Dispatch Podcast, we take a look at the big story in the early 1912 MLB season, the suspension of Tigers star player Ty Cobb and its aftermath.

It was a fresh spring day at Hill Top Park. The fans were enjoying the warmer weather that the change of season was bringing and many took in an American League baseball game that afternoon in New York. One of the people that they came to see was the Detroit Tigers player Ty Cobb. Cobb was a phenom at baseball, a must see player of the era and a real pain in the butt for the hometown New York Highlanders. The Highlanders a year later would change their name to the Yankees.

Ty Cobb was born in the deep south in Georgia. He grew up with high racial tensions, white supremacy, and witnessed folks of color being demeaned and considered of a lower class than caucasians like himself. In that region about the worst insult that could be said to a Southerner in those days would be to insinuate that they were of some portion of African-American descent. Allegedly, by some reports that was what happened to Cobb at the ball park that spring day in 1912 on the 15th of May.

According to the Fansided story on CalltothePen.com:

"During a game against the New York Yankees, a fan by name of Claude Lueker started taunting Cobb from the moment the game began. Finally, he called Cobb half-Black, a comment that even fellow outfielder Sam Crawford asked if Cobb would let pass. In response, Cobb charged into the stands and began to attack Lueker, who was missing one hand and most of his fingers on the other. When the crowd yelled at Cobb for hitting a handicapped specatator, he responded by saying that he didn’t care of Lueker didn’t have feet either."

It is assumed by many that Cobb had no knowledge of the man's physical handicap. Lueker suffered the loss of his appendages while working for the New York Times as a printing press operator. Definitely Lueker was no saint for his heckling verbal barrage towards Cobb, but no one deserves to be physically assaulted. The incident reportedly was an escalation of an exchange of insults between fan and player for most of the game. Cobb even had tried to get the police to remove the abusive spectator but to no avail.

American League President at the time Ban Johnson agreed and soon after suspended Ty Cobb for ten games and fined him the sum of $50 for the incident. By today's standards the punishment seems like a mere slap on the wrist. Cobb was not a popular man in the Tiger's clubhouse, in fact many teammates detested the abrasive personality of Cobb. However they witnessed the incident, and supported their teammate feeling that he was unfairly punished. Right or wrong in this opinion the Tigers almost to a man, imposed baseball's first players strike. They declared at first that they would not take the field while Cobb was suspended in protest. They even sent a telegram to Johnson stating their declaration of solidarity.

Three days after the incident in New York, on May 18, Cobb decided he was goig to take the field in a game at the Philadelphia Athletics. The umpires as instructed by their boss, removed him and would not allow him to play due to the suspension. Tiger owner Frank Navin had anticipated the protest and had a squad of replacement players take the diamond. The Tigers, probably so they wouldn't incurr fines for not showing up to a scheduled game, fielded a team of local sandlot and college amateurs while the regulars sat out. The team was made up of semi-pro and college players from the Philadelphia area along with two Tiger scouts who recruited the team. The A's of course destroyed the makeshift squad 24-2. Many of the 20,000 in attendance wanted their money back for watching such an inferior product from Detroit on the field, but Philadelphia never issued any refunds.

 Ban Johnson fined each striking player the hefty sum of $100 and threatened to banish them from baseball if they continued to strike. Cobb pleaded with and eventually convinced his teammates to return to playing. He was grateful for their support but did not want to further the fines against them, the negative publicity, nor the losses the team would be racking up with the rag tag replacements playing. The team returned to the field inthe next game scheduled.

Cobb, completed a ten game suspension and then launched an assault of a different kind on the American League. For the season the Georgia Peach batted .409 and 226 hits. In that 1912 season, the Cobb captured his seventh of nine consecutive batting titles before eventually winning twelve in total. The Tigers though still only managed to eek out a 6th place finish in the AL.

Its kind of interesting and somewhat ironoc that over a decade and a half later in 1927 and 1928, after 22 seasons in the Detroit that Ty Cobb would play the last two seasons of his illustrious career for the Philadelphia Athletics.

The picture in the banner above is from the Wikipedia Commons photo collection of the Public Domain of a cropped installment of Baseball player Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers, portrait for a baseball card. American Tobacco Company (sponsor), circa 1912.

Special thanks to Baseball-Reference.com, the article noted above, Stathead.com and the most wonderful book by Larry Lester and Wayne Stivers, The Negro Leagues Book, Volume 2.