Sidney Weil’s Pants

Inspired by the 9th inning of yesterday’s Pirates-Orioles game, when the two clubs opted to play the bottom of the frame - without umpires - after it had officially ended in a 7-4 W for the hometown Bucs, I posted a thread on Twitter about a spring training umpire-related incident in 1932. I’ll recreate if for you in more detail now.

Dan Howley was widely regarded as one of the best managers in all of baseball. As a reader of my work, you’re probably aware that I nominated Howley, who managed the Toronto Maple Leafs to two International League pennants and a Junior World Series title over the course of four different stints as the Leafs’ field boss between 1918 and 1940, to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s 2023 class.

Old Howling Dan didn’t get in, but I wasn’t surprised. First time on the ballot and all of that. It may take a couple of years, but I’m optimistic about his chances. There was no bigger figure in Toronto sporting circles during Dan’s time(s) in Hog Town.

Howley was out of work briefly following the 1929 season, his third at the helm of the St Louis Browns. Howley had engineered a remarkable turnaround for the club the previous season, leading the Browns to a 3rd place American League finish. St Louis had finished 7th in 1927, Howley’s first with the club, 50 1/2 games back of the pennant-winning Yankees. Howley reorganized much of the Browns roster for 1928, and the team produced an 82-72 record, a 23 game improvement over the prior campaign. Howley was lauded by the media:

Managers during Howley’s day had far more control over personnel decisions than they do today. The General Manager’s position was still in its infancy; the front office of most teams consisted of a business manager who looked after contracts and other similar administrative tasks. Branch Rickey, who had been the Browns’ manager prior to ice cube magnate Phil Ball’s purchase of the team after the Federal League had folded, was moved to the business manager position after Ball took over. The devout Rickey cared not for the foul-mouthed Ball, and soon left the Browns for the crosstown Cardinals. It was with the Cards that Rickey accumulated power for the bulk of the team’s baseball decisions. Ball helped along the way - he agreed to take on the Cardinals as a tenant at his Sportsman’s Park, and charged no rent. Rickey used the sale of his team’s former ballpark as seed money to start his minor league system, which handsomely paid off with five World Series appearances between 1926 and 1934.

But there was no GM to act as a buffer between Howley and Ball with the Browns. Expectations were low in Howley’s first season with the club. With farm systems still in their infancy in those days, the trade market was the easiest route to rebuild, and Howley was front-and-centre in the 1927-28 offseason, dealing almost half his roster in an effort to re-tool the club. Often the owner helped out in trade discussions, and Ball was no exception. In fact, he all but took over, trading future Hall of Famer George Sisler - a move that upset Howley. Sisler was nearing the end of his career, but was still a productive player, and was an icon in St Louis. He had even served as the Browns player-manager, albeit unsuccessfully, before Howley was hired. Sisler was a veteran bat, and a steadying influence who Howley thought could help anchor his youthful overhaul of the team.

Things came to a boil between Howley and the constantly-meddling Ball over Red Kress, a promising but erratic short stop. Kress made 55 errors - most in the AL - in 1928, but his bat and the Browns’ improvement over the previous season forced Ball to keep his complaints to a minimum. But with expectations for the club sky-high for 1929, it didn’t take long for things to come to a head between Ball and Howley. When Kress made several errors in New York in a key early June series against the league-leading Yanks, Ball blew his top. He demanded Howley move Kress to another position; there’s no record of Howley’s response, but it likely was unprintable. With a few months to go on the three year deal he signed with Browns, Howley knew his time with the club was likely going to come to an end if he didn’t improve upon the team’s 1928 finish, but he also was more than aware that if there was one thing Ball hated more than losing, it was firing a manager (and paying him not to manage) before his contract was up.

Ultimately, the Browns finished 4th with a 79-73 record, and Howley’s contract was not renewed. But the man the press called Dapper Dan, because of his fondness for tailored suits and a remarkable resemblance to a Prohibition-era gangster, was not out of work for long.

The real-life Dapper Dan, by the way, met the kind of end that was an occupational hazard for someone in his line of work:

Sidney Weil grew up a huge Cincinnati Reds fan, revelling in his team’s 1919 World Series win against the soon-to-be Black Sox. The son of a wealthy Cinci industrialist, Weil was gifted with money from his dad to start an auto sales business in the city, which made him a wealthy man at a young age. With the Reds having fallen to the middle of the National League pack by the mid-20s, Weil began quietly buying up shares of the club in the hopes of taking control of the team and restoring it to its former glory. Late in the 1929 season, rumours that Weil was plotting to take over sparked a bidding war for the remaining shares he needed. By the first week of October, Weil had spent a reported $635 000 - much of his personal fortune - in order to become the Reds’ majority shareholder. Flush with this successful takeover, Weil immediately hired Howley a week after he had been let go by the Browns. The two set out to improve the club, which had finished 7th in the National League with a 66-88 record. They had high hopes for another Howley Miracle.

But it was not to be.

Three weeks later, the stock market crash which sparked the Great Depression had eliminated much of Weil’s remaining bank balance. While he still had his car dealership - the biggest one in the city - Weil had little funds to help Howley go out and secure higher-priced talent that would put the team over the top. With a veteran, patched-up lineup that averaged 30 years of age, the Reds finished 7th (next-to-last) in both 1930 and 1931.

Heading into the 1932 season, with Weil’s finances dwindling and Howley entering the final year of his contract, both knew they had to swing for the fences in the off season if they had a hope of contending for the NL pennant. Howley completed several minor deals before Christmas, then landed veteran 2B George Grantham in early February from the Pirates. In mid-March, he pulled off a major deal with Brooklyn, obtaining promising young catcher Ernie Lombardi and slugging OF Babe Herman. Considerable optimism surrounded the Reds at spring training. But the dark cloud which had followed the team since the stock market crash resurfaced one March day when Weil volunteered to umpire the bases in a Reds intersquad game:

The Reds bolstered their lineup with the acquisition of Cardinals’ LF Chick Hafey, the defending NL batting champ and one of the game’s most consistent run producers, just before the season opened. Cincinnati appeared to be finally on their way after sweeping the Pirates in a three-game series at the end of April, leaving the club three games out of 1st:

But the Reds had an up-and-down month of May, finishing at .500 and failing to gain any ground on the front runners. To make matters worse, Hafey, who had played in every game since joining the Reds despite missing spring training due to a contract holdout with the Cardinals, was hit by a nasty bout of influenza, and was out of the lineup for almost a month. Without their star middle-of-the-order slugger, and facing a brutal (only 5 games at home) June road schedule, the Reds stumbled to a 7-21 mark for the month, and quickly fell out of pennant contention. Having lost 20 lbs, Howley dispatched Hafey to the home of his good friend - from his Toronto days - Jim Shaw in Port McNicoll, Ontario (a Great Lakes grain handling and steamship hub) for two weeks in July to escape a brutal Midwest July heatwave.

By the time Hafey returned to the lineup on a regular basis in September, the Reds were dead last, 25 games out of 1st. With a 19-34 record in one-run games, when asked by reporters what happened to the Reds, Howley responded:

The Reds finished the season with 94 losses, last in the league. Once again, Howley’s contract was not renewed. But with Weil’s finances all but gone (he would declare personal bankruptcy, listing liabilities of close to $1 Million, and put the team into receivership the following year), Howley was almost relieved to be finished with Cincinnati:

By Howley’s final season with the Reds, the team was indeed like Sid Weil’s pants - stretched to the point of bursting at the seams. Luckily for Dan, Toronto welcomed him back the following season with open arms - with the team languishing in the standings and at the box office, Dan helped bring the team back to credibility. But it was to be a short stay - Howley had hoped to buy into the Leafs and move upstairs from the dugout, but it was not to be. He did rejoin the organization in 1937, and stayed for four more years. As for Weil, he rebounded quite nicely. Weil got into the insurance business, and proved to be quite the salesman, selling over $1 M of life insurance policies for 23 straight years. The Reds turned themselves around as well. Cincinnati radio magnate Powel Crosley made much-needed improvements into neglected Redland Field, introduced night baseball in 1935, and led the Reds to two NL pennants and a World Series title in 1940.

⚾️⚾️⚾️

Like all Blue Jays fans, I was incredibly impressed with Ricky Tiedemann’s spring training debut yesterday. He was lights out, and the three Tigers hitters he faced were overmatched in their first look at the fireballing southpaw. This was the Tiedemann that I dutifully watched every week last season: in complete command, with gas coming from an easy, consistent delivery.

But let’s remember: there is still development looming for a guy who has thrown all of 78 MiLB innings. Yes, he was understandably amped yesterday, hitting a career-high 99 (he’s topped 100 in Instructs), knowing his outing was going to be just an inning. This is not a guy like Alek Manoah, who had three college seasons under his belt before finding himself at the top of the Blue Jays rotation in his second pro season. There is little doubt that the organization will stick to Tiedemann’s development plan, which will likely see him return to New Hampshire for a few more AA starts before he moves up to Buffalo.

But it certainly was tantalizing to see him, and think of a late September one-inning lights out role for him this season. He still needs to work on the consistency of his slider, pound the strike zone a bit more, and overcome the adversity that may come with working deeper into games against hitters at AAA.

There was a lot to dream on yesterday. But Tiedemann’s time isn’t quite here yet.