Hustling Chicago Reporter Gave Birth to the Baseball All Star Game

  

Nosebleed seats at Comiskey Park for the All Star Game went for just a buck plus tax, affordable to many ordinary stiffs even in a Depression year.

The election of Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker to the National League team for the upcoming All Star Game is creating a lot of excitement among Cubs fans.  The duo will patrol 2/3 of the outfield and provide plenty of power at the plate.  The last time the team sent two outfielders to the starting lineup was 1936 when now largely forgotten Augie Galan and Frank Demaree made the squad.  That was just three years after the first game in 1933.  Their selection might well have been influenced by the game’s founder and the Trib’s long and murky shadow over the selection process for the game on June 6, 1933

Give credit where credit was due.  It was all Arch Ward’s original idea.  He was the sports editor and principle baseball writer for the Chicago Tribune, the 800 lb. gorilla of Second City and Mid-Western newspapers.  Why not, he suggested, stage a mid-summer exhibition game featuring the biggest stars of the American and National Leagues to coincide with the Century of Progress—the World’s Fair on the Lake—in 1933.  

 

Chicago Tribune reporter and promoter of the first All Star Game, Arch Ward even eventually got his own baseball card. 

At first the two leagues, which had, at best, an uneasy relationship with each other were reluctant.  But the Depression was cutting into attendance at all but a handful of ballparks and Ward and his supporters soon convinced owners that the national attention could boost ticket sales.  It also helped that Ward was a crony of Tribune owner Col. Robert R. McCormick and a political powerhouse in the Republican Party and hyper-conservative circles on his own—views fervently shared by most owners.

The concept of All-Star teams was not unknown.  Back in the earliest days of the National League Albert Spaulding toured nationally and even internationally with hand selected squads in the off-season.  Various star players were still assembling all-star teams—usually made up more of cronies than a full squad of actual stars—and barnstorming against local teams.  And the chance to see Big Leaguers in tank towns and back waters did bring out fans in droves.  Now a lot of those same small town fans would be flocking to the big city for the fair.

Otherwise there was scant play between the two leagues except in spring training where many teams saw each other in the Florida Grapefruit League.  Except, of course, for the goofy Cubs who trained in far off Catalina Island, California for no good reason except that the Wrigley family owned property there.   Sometimes in cities with teams in both leagues—Boston, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Chicago—inter-city exhibition games were scheduled, usually at the end of spring training or after the regular season was over. 

 

 More than 49,000 fans jammed Comiskey Park for the 1933 All Star Game.

In the days when players tended to spend all or most of their careers with one team, even the players were unfamiliar with each other unless they had played with or against each other in the minor leagues.

Players for the exhibition game, which was expected to be a once-in-a-life-time extravaganza, were selected in a system that somehow combined the choices of each league’s managers with a fan poll conducted not-too-scientifically or reliably by the Tribune and a handful of other newspapers.  The results were predictable.

 

The power house of an American League team was dominated by the heart of the New York Yankee line-up.  

The American League team under Philadelphia manager Connie Mack was a heavy hitting power house long on home run hitters  and dominated by the princes of baseball—New York Yankees sluggers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ben Chapman in addition to hurler Lefty Gomez.  The starting squad also included two members of the White Sox—Jimmy Dykes and Al Simmons, both new to the team that year from a trade with the Philadelphia Athletics.

The National League, by contrast, still relied on small ball—slap hitting, singles, doubles, steals, aggressive base running, bunts and sacrifices, working the count for walks.  Pitching was aggressive, brush backs and intentional bean balls a part of the game.  The whole style of play was aggressive, rhubarbs with umpires and bench clearing brawls were common.  The team, while talented and suited for such play, did not feature the kind of legends-in-the-making on the American roster.  Veteran Giants manager John McGraw fielded a team that included Pepper Martin, Frankie Fritche, and Jimmie Wilson all of the league dominating St. Louis Cardinals along with starting pitcher Bill Hallahan.  The Cubs placed no players among the starters.  Their biggest star, catcher Gabby Harnett and short stop Woody English were reserves along with pitcher Lon Warneke.

 

The scrappy National League featured small ball specialists. 

Since the game was to be played at the White Sox home of Comiskey Park, the umpires were from the American League.  And that made a difference, too, because umpiring styles were very different between the two leagues.  American umpires squatted behind enormous, inflated chest protectors behind the plate.  That caused them to have a high strike zone friendly to sluggers.  Sluggers whaling away also reduced walks.  National League players were used to umpires with padded chest protectors worn discretely under their wool suit coats.  That enabled them to get down low behind the plate and their strike zone was low—from the knees to just above the belt, barely.  They called more balls working the count up and causing hurlers to throw more pitches.

With huge national advance publicity, fans flocked to standing-room-only Comiskey Park and milled around on the streets outside.  In downtown areas of major cities fans gathered to watch play-by-play coverage flashed on electronic scroll signs just as they did for World Series games.  Millions hunkered by their radios as the game was broadcast nationally by both the NBC and CBS radio networks.  Cameras from all of the major Newsreel companies ground away from the grandstand roof.  The press box was jammed to overflowing scores of sportswriters from every major and most minor cities plus national magazines.

As for the game itself, it was not quite the American League blowout almost everyone expected.

 A White Sox bat boy greets Babe Ruth at home after his first ever All Star /Game home run.  The Babe even made a rare stellar defensive play later in the game. 

In the bottom of the second the American League got on the board when pitcher Hallahan issued one-out walks to Jimmy Dykes and Joe Cronin. Two batters later, pitcher Lefty Gomez singled home Dykes for the first run. In the bottom of the third, after a walk to Charlie Gehringer, Babe Ruth famously hit the first home run in All-Star Game history, putting the AL up 3-0. Hallahan was chased from the game after walking Lou Gehrig immediately afterward and was replaced by Cub Lon Warneke.  General Crowder replaced Gomez to start the fourth inning. In the sixth, Warneke hit a one-out triple and scored on a Pepper Martin groundout. Frankie Frisch followed with a home run to bring the NL to within a run, but after a Chuck Klein single, Crowder would escape the inning without giving up any more damage.

Cronin led off the bottom of the sixth with a single. After advancing on a bunt, he scored on an Earl Averill single to extend the lead to 4-2. Crowder was replaced by Lefty Grove in the top of the seventh, while Warneke was replaced by Carl Hubbell in the bottom of the inning. The NL looked like they had a chance in the top of the eighth. With Frisch on first with two outs, Chick Hafey lined a shot to right field that looked like it could be home run, but Ruth, in rare defensive acrobatics, reached over the wall to catch it, denying the NL a chance to tie the game. Grove retired the side in order in the ninth to secure the American League’s victory.

 

Fans could purchase this souvenir program book and score card with a complimentary stub of a pencil at the first contest.  Intended as a one-and-off fan enthusiasm encouraged regular inter-league contests.

All in all an exciting, if kind of old fashion, baseball game that left fans satisfied and wanting more.

And more they got.  The game became an annual event and as predicted raised interest in baseball and ticket sales across the country.

 

Raining Death on Chicago—The Plunge of the Wingfoot Express

Wingfoot Express takes off from Grant Park on July 21, 1919.

There were many horrific Chicago disasters in the early 20th Century like the Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903 and the Eastland capsize in the Chicago River in 1915 which are not only well documented but they have become iconic in the city’s history.  But an air disaster back in the summer of 1919 is far less remembered.

Of course, fewer people died when the flaming Wingfoot Express crashed through the skylight of the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank at in the Loop at LaSalle Street and Jackson Boulevard on July 21.  Seventeen were killed and 27 injured compared to more than 800 drowned on the Eastland.  But you would think for shear drama, nothing could beat an air ship disaster on the cusp of rush hour on a summer afternoon in the downtown of one of the busiest cities in America.

Despite the great advances in airplane technology during The Great War, fixed wing powered aircraft were still too limited in lifting capacity and operational range to be considered viable for commercial use.  As it had done since the days of Jules Verne, the world still looked at lighter-than-air craft as the future of commercial aviation.  The Germans under the skillful hand of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin led the world in the development of dirigibles, which had famously bombed London in the War.  The British, French, and Italians were all scrambling to catch up, mostly using German Zeppelins surrendered as war reparations as models.

The United States was lagging far behind.  The Navy, which had operated blimps for anti-submarine patrol, had the most experience and was preparing to go into the dirigible business using one of those German aircraft.  In 1917 the Navy had contracted with Goodyear Tire and Rubber to design and construct its Blimp fleet mostly because the company had developed a rubberized fabric ideal for the construction of the aircraft’s gas bag.

Now in the post war era, Goodyear was eager to find a commercial use for its technology.  And Chicago business tycoons were just as eager to secure the city’s place as the nation’s transportation hub by making it the center for air ship packet and mail service.  By early 1919 local investors had agreed to bankroll a demonstration aircraft with the hope that it would lead to regular inter-city service.

Goodyear was ambitious.  It recognized the fragility of its blimps, essentially just streamlined balloons with engines and a passenger compartment slung underneath, meaning that any rupture to the skin of the bag would lead to the crash of the aircraft.  It decided to jump to the construction of a small dirigible. 

A dirigible has a rigid frame holding tanks of buoyant gas inside the envelope.  Theoretically this would be safer as a puncture might only affect one tank allowing the aircraft to stay aloft or descend safely, and dirigibles could be built much larger and therefore have greater lift capacity.

But there were some major problems.  First was that Goodyear engineers had no experience with dirigibles.  Second was that the contract called for construction and delivery to Chicago in just a few months.  Finally, despite the availability of non-flammable helium in the U.S. they decided to go with cheaper and more widely available hydrogen as the lift gas.  Unfortunately hydrogen is explosively flammable.

Goodyear also decided to experiment with new, more powerful rotary engines with which it was unfamiliar.  In the rush to complete construction the two engines were slung below the airframe without being tested—or balanced.  As events would show they were slung too close to the envelope.

Still, everyone was excited when the Wingfoot Express, named for Goodyear’s Mercury foot logo, was built in a hanger at the White City Amusement Park on the grounds of the old Columbian Exposition on the city’s South Side. Heavily promoted in the press, especially in the Chicago Tribune, crowds flocked to the park to get a glimpse at the ship.  The plan was to demonstrate its airworthiness by using it on short excursions between White City the downtown Grant Park.

The troublesome twin rotary engines and the open gondola slung beneath the envelope.  Captain Jack Boettner at the controls.

The Wingfoot Express successfully made two test flights on the morning of Monday, July 21 on a route that took the aircraft safely over Lake Michigan.  The lead engineer observed the twin engines throwing off sparks and hot oil that splattered on the envelope.  Moreover the unbalanced engines made the ship hard to control.

Despite these observations, plans went ahead for a third trip later that afternoon. 

The ship was smaller than those Goodyear envisioned for packet service—the envelope 180 feet long and 30 feet in diameter.  On board was a full 200 gallon tank of gasoline, enough fuel for days of excursion flights.

It was a hot but near picture perfect late afternoon on when the Wingfoot Express took off from Grant Park for her third trip.  This time it was a virtual press junket.  On board were pilot Jack Boettner, mechanics Henry Wacker and Carl “Buck” Weaver, White City press agent and well known former sportswriter Earl Davenport, and Tribune photographer William G. Norton.

After they were airborne, Norton asked Captain Boettner to deviate from his flight plan and fly over the Loop so he could take pictures.  Despite the fact that he was operating an experimental aircraft with less than two hours flight time and that he was just as new as the airship having never before that day operated a ship with the rotary engines, Boettner likely at the urging of Davenport, agreed.  It was a fatal mistake.

When the Wingfoot Express appeared over the Loop shortly before 5 pm flying at a relatively low 1300 feet, it naturally attracted a lot of attention.  People had never seen anything like it.  Pedestrians on the ground craned their necks.  Denizens of downtown buildings leaned far out of their open office windows to catch a glimpse.  Others climbed out on fire escapes or made their way to roof tops.  So there were an astonishing number of eye witnesses to all or part of what happened next.

In the most frequently quoted eyewitness account, Irwin A. Phillips later testified that

I saw a little black spot above the equator line on the bag, and then a yellow flame broke out. Then the flame spread up and down and on both sides. I saw the men jump and I saw the bag fall. When it passed from my view the rear end of the bag was (still) inflated.”

This testimony brings up an interesting point.  Various sources writing about the disaster refer to the ship as a blimp—a powered balloon—or as a dirigible.  The non-technical public used the terms interchangeably, although blimp was more familiar to American ears.  Phillips’ testimony which refers to a “gas bag” clearly indicates he thought it was a blimp even as he noted it did not lose its shape as it sank.

The confusion persists.  One writer tries to split the difference and calls the ship a “non-rigid blimp” containing individual gas cells like a dirigible.  But a blimp could not have maintained its shape without the internal pressure of the lifting gas.  The Wingfoot Express had to have had a rigid frame to support the envelope.  Which is why Phillips noted that it had maintained its shape.

When the passengers and crew first noticed the fire, there was obvious panic on board.  There was a scramble for the parachutes, which would not have been worn but stowed for quick retrieval.  One by one the men scrambled to put one on and jump. 

Captain Boettner was the first man out, for which he was heavily criticized by those who held with the romantic notion that the captain should go down with the ship.  Maybe not a hero, but smart.  He cleared the wreckage and landed safely.  The chief mechanic also got out with minor injuries.  The other mechanic’s parachute snagged on the ship and he was dragged down to his death under the wreckage.  Photographer Norton jumped clinging to his heavy camera equipment and exposed glass plates—a bad mistake.  He landed hard breaking both legs and incurring massive internal injuries.  His photographic equipment was destroyed.  He died days later asking if his precious photographs had survived.  Weaver, the press agent, never got out of the gondola.

The ship was fully engulfed in flames in seconds. As the envelope disintegrated, the gondola, engines and gas tank became detached and fell—right into the glass skylight of the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank.  

The Illinois Trust & Savings Bank before the disaster.

It was 4:56 pm.  Banking operations for customers had ended at the then customary 3 pm and employees were finishing up the day’s business were just getting ready to leave.  Caught directly under the skylight were the mostly women clerks on the top floor.  Many died instantly, crushed by the heavy equipment and in the raining fire.  The heavy engines and the gas tank plummeted to the ground floor where the gas tanks burst, spreading the fire.  The heat was so intense that the glass and frame of the skylight melted adding their molten destructive heat to the inferno.

On the first floor many found some protection under the heavy marble teller counters, but others were trapped there.  Those who could scrambled for exits or even jumped out windows.  Survivors recounted scenes of unspeakable horror.

The Fire Department responded quickly but there was little that they could do but let the fuel burn itself out and attempt sometimes heroic rescues.  But the core of the smoking rubble was too intensely hot to enter for hours.  The final toll on the ground either killed immediately or dying of wounds was 10 bank employees, mostly women but including ten year old and 14 year old boy messengers.  27 others were injured badly enough to require hospitalization, scores more burned, bruised, or battered.  The total death toll including one crewman and the two passengers on the ship was 13, an unlucky number.

The charred bank lobby after the crash and fire.

The public was both aghast and fascinated by the accident, snapping up each new updated extra edition of the newspapers as they hit the streets.  It was a newsboy’s once in a lifetime opportunity.  Meanwhile various players swung into action.

With the fire still smoldering bank officials tapped the huge reservoir of “the reserve army of the unemployed” hiring hungry men off the streets to enter the building to salvage anything they could.  They were working side by side Firemen and police digging for the bodies of victims through the night.

By morning the Bank had secured near-by space and using equipment salvaged from their building and borrowed from other banks, opened for business on time on Tuesday morning.  Employees not dead or still hospitalized were required to report for work, despite being traumatized and many were still bandaged.

Missing was flamboyant Republican Mayor William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson and a gaggle of Chicago movers and shakers who were off playing cowboy at a Western dude ranch and declined to break up the fun to come home to deal with the disaster.  The City Council, however, swung into action at a meeting the next day.  It considered an ordinance banning flights over the congested central city, but after the immediate howls of businessmen still hoping to cash in on future air commerce elected instead to study regulating such flights.  Any regulations developed promptly went into a drawer and were forgotten.

The Chicago Daily News, competitor of the Tribune which lost a photographer in the crash, ran a screaming banner head in it's last edition the day after the disaster.  But it seemed to focus on the bank funds endangered rather than lives lost.

The States Attorney launched an immediate investigation which included the arrest of all of the survivors of the crash, including those in their hospital beds and the dying reporter.  After interrogations, Captain Boettner was put in jail and indicted.  Joining him was Goodyear’s project manager for the construction and operation of the Wingfoot Express, W.C. Young. 

To its credit, Goodyear stepped up and accepted responsibility, promising to pay the medical expenses of all of the injured, as well as the funerals of the dead.  The company, in what modern public relations experts would call “getting ahead of the story,” publicly instructed its employees to fully cooperate with authorities and provided without protest all documentation on the design, construction, and brief flight life of the dirigible.  It made no attempt to cover-up the hurried construction, the use of untried and untested engines, lack of engineering standards and adequate testing. 

At the trial Boettner admitted that prior to the day of the crash he had no experience with the aircraft and had trouble controlling the unbalanced engines.  Young testified that he was unfamiliar with the engines he selected, the need to balance their speed and torque, and had not tested operations for a safe distance from the envelope.

The dead from the memorial service program for the victims.  Tribune photographer William G. Norton died of his injuries later.

Other testimony at the trial included hearsay reports from one of the injured crew that one of the passengers may have been at the controls when the ship caught fire.  Boettner leapt to his feet calling that charge a “damnable lie.”  But the injured man was never called to testify if the reports of his hospital bed conversations were accurate.

Several expert witnesses offered contradictory testimony about possible causes for the fire that led to the disaster which made it difficult for the prosecutors to prove criminal negligence.  One of the most absurd speculations came from Army Colonel Joseph C. Morrow, the head of training and operations from the Army’s new lighter-than-air craft program headquartered at Goodyear’s Ohio facility at Wingfoot Lake.  That sounds more credible than it was, because the Army was far behind the Navy and had no operational experience beyond a few Signal Corpsmen who had gone up in observation balloons.  In fact, Morrow was being trained for his job by Goodyear.

He was the sole passenger on the second flight of the day and testified on what he had observed of the ships performance.  He seemed unaware of the problems of sparks and hot oil being thrown off the engines as reported by the chief mechanic from his hospital bed.  Col. Marrow speculated that the fire may have started from sparks generated by the silk gas bladders inside the envelope rubbing against each other, a virtual impossibility which ignored eyewitness testimony that the fire seemed to originate on the envelope, not inside of it.

In the end no firm cause was determined, although modern researchers give heavy credence to theories involving overheated engines.

The prosecution was unable to prove criminal charges against the two defendants, both of whom returned to work for Goodyear.

One of the more tangible long-term results of the crash was the closing of the air terminal in Grant Park and the eventual authorization of the Chicago Air Park on the South Side, a comfortable distance from the center city which opened with a single runway in 1923.  That facility would eventually be named Midway Airport.

But none of this explains why the memory of the crash seemed to fade so quickly.  Perhaps it was because of another event which erupted just five days later—the deadly Chicago Race Riots of 1919 which raged until August 3.  At least 38 died—most of them Blacks—and hundreds were injured in fighting across the South Side that included widespread arson and looting. 

And then there was the fact that the most important newspaper in town, the Chicago Tribune—the one which heavily promoted the project and whose photographer had been held as partially responsible downplayed the investigation as much as possible and let the story disappear at the earliest opportunity.

After all of the excitement and terror, the crash of Wingfoot Express was almost erased from memory.