On December 15, 1912, the Chicago Cubs traded Joe Tinker, as well as Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk, to the Cincinnati Reds for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. Tinker, who had been canonized in Franklin Pierce Adams’ baseball poem “Tinker to Evers to Chance,” went on to serve as the player-manager for Cincinnati.
A few weeks ago, a co-worker came by my office and mentioned that she would be going on a day trip to see the world’s biggest baseball. She knew the information would interest me (it did), and it amazed me to discover that this baseball resides just over an hour’s drive from where we stood, in Muscotah, Kansas. Muscotah also happens to be the birthplace of Joe Tinker, the famous Cubs shortstop of the renowned Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combination of the early 20th century.
I learned in my research that the self-proclaimed World’s Largest Baseball is not really a baseball. Rather, the people of Muscotah took an old water tank to create the twenty-foot diameter ball, using rebar to fashion the stitches. The eventual goal for the project is to create a Joe Tinker museum on the inside of the hollow, steel baseball. As things stand, my co-worker informed me the week after her visit, the World’s Largest Baseball isn’t much to look at. Nevertheless, I knew I wanted to check it out for myself, and I took advantage of the opportunity to do so this weekend.
I left in the morning, shortly after breakfast. The route consisted primarily of small, winding, two-lane highways through rural Kansas. I took a couple wrong turns along the way, thanks to some confusion in the directions, so the trip took slightly longer than anticipated, but fortunately I had no reason to hurry. I passed through a number of small towns on the drive, though I noticed that Muscotah never appeared on any of the highway distance signs. The population of Muscotah, it turns out, was a mere 176 people as of the 2010 census.
When one finally reaches the city limits along highway US-159, one of the first things you notice is the welcome sign:
I continued driving for a couple more blocks, and the giant baseball itself proved hard to miss. I turned off the highway onto Kansas Avenue, where the ball stood, and maneuvered my car into an acceptable parking position in the tall grass along the side of the street.
As for the World’s Largest Baseball, well, it definitely looks like a very large, steel baseball:
I walked around and poked my head into the entrance of the hollow tank, and while it seems it’s still going to be quite some time until any kind of museum takes shape, there was at least the faint promise of it in the form of building materials on the interior floor:
Not too far from the steel baseball stood a trio of baseball player silhouettes, no doubt intended to represent the threesome that was Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance.
As my co-worker forewarned, there really wasn’t much to see beyond the baseball and the silhouettes. It would have been easy (and it was tempting) to just hop back into my vehicle and head home straightaway, but I decided to walk around for a few minutes to stretch my legs. But in truth, there doesn’t seem to be much to Muscotah itself.
Some of the older, run down buildings do seem to carry echoes of a more vibrant time in the town’s past:
And I do have to comment that this is quite possibly the smallest post office I have ever seen:
All in all, Muscotah is just a quiet, rural Kansas town, silent and still with sleepiness on this warm May weekend. I certainly wouldn’t say that the World’s Largest Baseball is a “must-see” attraction worth traveling halfway across the country to catch a glimpse. However, for any hardcore baseball fans who just happen to be in the area, it does make for a different and relaxing daytrip destination.
These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double –
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
~”Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” by Franklin Pierce Adams
Gushing with patriotism, the Second Inning of Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns begins with proclamations of the game of baseball being America’s “safety valve” and a montage of old baseball photos being scrolled to the sound of the national anthem and a spoken list of various American accomplishments during the early twentieth century.
Not all was perfect in the country, however, as Burns also points to an increase in racism across America, the growth of tenements, and a decline in baseball’s popularity. As it always does, however, baseball managed to recover. It was a time when small ball dominated the style of play, and pitchers like Christy Mathewson, “Three Finger” Brown, and Walter Johnson became legends on the mound.
Major league baseball entered the twentieth century in trouble, beset by declining attendance, rowdyism, unhappy players, and feuding, greedy club owners, but then divided itself in two, cleaned itself up, and succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. The World Series began, and season after season more than five million fans filled stadiums to see their heroes play, and countless millions more, who had never been lucky enough to watch them in person, followed their every move in the sports pages.
In part two of this documentary series, we see the rise of players like Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb, two of the most diametrically different players as the game has ever seen. We meet player-manager John McGraw, who approached the game with a furious kind of passion recognized throughout baseball. The “Christian Gentleman,” Christy Mathewson, also appeared on the scene playing for McGraw, and his precise pitching captured the attention of teams and fans across America. Together, Mathewson and McGraw’s Giants dominated the sport.
We also see the rise of Ban Johnson and the American League. The National Agreement brought peace between the new AL and the older National League, though the reserve clause remained intact, leaving ballplayers themselves with no voice in the administrative side of the game. And to no one’s surprise, I’m sure, overpriced concessions have been a staple of ballparks since the game became a business. This time period saw the introduction of hot dogs, served to fans in buns to allow them to hold them while watching baseball.
Once again, we see descriptions of racism in baseball followed closely by an update on the life of Branch Rickey. Burns hints at the impact of seeing discrimination on Rickey’s views. Later in this disc, there is a more in-depth discussion of black baseball, including the creation of the Negro Leagues led by Rube Foster. The documentary also introduces (though it really doesn’t dive much into) the concept of “bloomer girls,” women playing baseball during this time period.
Some of the most recognizable pieces in baseball pop culture also came into existence in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Franklin Pierce Adams’s poem, “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” also known as “Tinker to Evers to Chance,” was written in 1910, Ernest Thayer’s iconic poem “Casey At the Bat” (1888) was recited frequently by performers, and Jack Norworth’s “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” became the game’s anthem.
The Second Inning ends at the conclusion of the 1909 season, following a discussion of Fred Merkle’s 1908 boner and a more direct rivalry between Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner in the 1909 World Series. It’s hard to tell if Burns is particularly fascinated by Cobb, or if there are just too many good stories there to ignore, but Cobb does garner a fair amount of attention in this inning. Not that I’m complaining — I wouldn’t have wanted to play against him (and probably not even with him), but Cobb does add some color to the game’s history.
The legendary double-play combination, Tinker, Evers, and Chance, completed their first-ever twin killing on September 15, 1902. As we know now, it was the start of a relationship that would become immortalized in Franklin Pierce Adams’s “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” as the Cubs defeated Cincinnati, 6-3.
By the way, if you’re interested, the Chicago Tribune published a short article about the story behind the poem here.
Cubs shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank Chance played together in Chicago from 1902 until April of 1912. Together, they formed a double play combination that became immortalized in this poem, published in the New York Evening Mail in July 1910. The piece is written from the perspective of a Giants fan, moaning the luck of his team whenever one of them hits into this double play. This poem is often credited as being the primary reason that Tinker, Evers, and Chance were elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
*
These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double-
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
This poem by Franklin Pierce Adams was first published in 1912 in his book, In Other Words.
*
The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?
Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!”
Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire
Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
Or in or out, or haply up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renoun:
Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can but admire
And offer you the freedom of the town—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds!
The tumult and the shouting from the throats
Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds
Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats.
A mighty cheer that possibly denotes
That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire;
Or, as H. James would say, We’ve got their goats—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of a pennant. O the hope,
The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear,
The lengthy season and the boundless dope,
And the bromidic; “Wait until next year.”
O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher
That next October it shall flutter here:
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
ENVOY
Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race—
THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.
