- Knoxville Hurler Got Start With Club At Wheeling
February 15, 1925 Age 34
By JOHN H. GRUBER Pittsburgh Daily Post
Under the management of Bill Phillips, Wheeling won the central League championship in 1909 with seven games to spare. In 1910, under the same management, it finished in last place. The cause of this sudden and tremendous drop will be understood when it is learned that of the entire team of 1909 only Phillips himself and Milo Stratton, a catcher, remained. All the others were secured by clubs higher up. Of the infielders, Bob Tarleton, Gus Soffel and Bill McKechnie were obtained by Pittsburgh, and Benny Jewell by the St. Louis Cardinals. Of these only McKechnie was found good enough for the big league. Tarleton and Jewell were sent back to Wheeling and Soffel was sent to Louisville. Not an outfielder was left nor a battery except Phillips and Stratton.
Among the raw recruits of the 1910 pitching staff at Wheeling were Bill Doak, Jack Compton, Willis Humphries and later Eugene Moseley. It was Doak’s first peep into the out-and-out professional arena. He had shown more than ordinary promise among the independent teams around Pittsburgh and was highly recommended to Manager Phillips. He was a youngster of 19 years, having been born in Knoxville, Pittsburgh, on January 28, 1891. He pitched his first game for Wheeling on May 6, 1910, against Dayton at Wheeling, and was beaten, 6 to 2. The opposing pitcher was Charles Wacker, who was with the Pirates the year before and pitched exactly two innings for them and was then sent to Milwaukee. Six days later Doak defeated Dayton, 6 to 3, at Dayton, and four days later was beaten at Fort Wayne, 4 to 1.
FIRST SHUTOUT.
In his fourth game, at Grand Rapids on May 24, Doak sustained his first shutout, Grand Rapids beating him, 6 to 0. It was a remarkable game in more than one sense. Cy Bowen, pitcher for Grand Rapids, held the Wheeling Stogies to one hit, and that hit, a single, was made by Doak. It was his third hit of the season. Grand Rapids got only six hits off him but turned each hit into a run. Three times afterward Doak met Bowen, winning two of the three games, so that they broke even for the season, each taking two games from the other. In his second game against Bowen, Doak, who won by a score of 3 to 2, made his first three-bagger. He made two that season, scoring the second off Fred Cook, another Grand Rapids pitcher.
On June 10 Doak scored his first shutout, defeating Evansville by a score of 3 to 0. He was safely hit only five times. Buck Sterzer pitched for the Evas and eight hits were made off him. Doak and Sterzer faced each other again on June 23, this time at Evansville. Willis Humphries began the game on the rubber for Wheeling, but was relieved by Doak early in the game. Doak was not only credited with the victory, 9 to 7, but succeeded in hitting Sterzer for the only home run he made that season.
South Bend won-the championship that year. On its team were Max Carey and Alex McCarthy, later stars with the Pittsburgh Pirates. McCarthy faced Doak in four games and Carey faced him in three. Neither failed to get a hit in each game. Alex in his four games made seven, including two doubles, and Max got one hit in each of his three games, his last hit being a three-bagger. Doak in his first professional year won 11 games and lost 20.
He remained with the Wheeling team in 1911, for which he that season won 15 games and lost 17. Roy Montgomery had succeeded Bill Phillips as manager. The latter went to Youngstown and managed the team of that town in the Ohio State League, landing it in second place. Among the rookies on his team was Everett Scott, whose services he sold to the Boston Americans in 1912. At Boston in 1916 Scott began a string of consecutive games that is still unbroken. He has a record of playing 1290 games in a row.
GOES TO COLUMBUS.
In 1912 Doak began the season with the Columbus team of the American Association, but never won a game for the Buckeyes. He started only once, on April 15, when the Milwaukee Brewers beat him by a score of 3 to 2. In six other games he acted as relief pitcher and every one ended in a defeat. He relieved Gene Packard three times, and Wilbur Cooper, Glen Liebhardt and Ted Bruck each one time. George McQuillan was also on the Columbus pitching staff, but never required Doak’s help.
The Columbus club backed the Akron team in the Central League and used it as a “farm.” Lee Fohl was sent to manage the farm, and it was with satisfaction that he received Doak, his fellow citizen, who had been sent to him for pruning and polishing purposes. There was no better cultivator and instructor than Fohl. Under his direction Doak began to improve. He won 10 out of 15 games. In August the Akron team for financial reasons was transferred to Columbus, but Doak was allowed to join the Cincinnati Reds, who was then under the management of Hank O’Day.
Doak lasted exactly two innings in the National League. On September 1 he made his first and only appearance as a Red in the second game of a double-header at Cincinnati against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He started the game, in the first inning of which Cincinnati scored three runs. The Pirates scored a run in the first inning and also in the second, and threatened to tie the score and eventually win the game. Therefore Johnny Bates was sent to pinch-hit for Doak, who was succeeded on the rubber by Donald, another recruit, obtained from Portsmouth of the Ohio State League. The Pirates made four hits off Doak in the two innings in which he officiated. Donald lasted four innings and then made way for Rube Benton. Cincinnati won the game, 11 to 6, and Donald was credited with the victory. Leonard Cole pitched for the Pirates. This was the only work Doak and Donald ever did for the Reds. They were released within a week.
BACK TO AKRON
Doak, in 1913, went back to Akron, which that year joined the Interstate League. The league was poorly supported and disbanded for good on July 20. On the next day, July 21, Doak appeared for the first time with the St. Louis Cardinals. It was at New York against the Giants, who won the game, 8 to 4. Doak pitched the last two innings. On July 29 at St. Louis, he started for the Cardinals for the first time and was shut out by the Giants, 1 to 0. He pitched the entire game and only five hits were made off him. The opposing pitcher was Al Demaree. Doak won only two games that year and lost eight. His victories were over Brooklyn, 2 to 0 and over Philadelphia, 2 to 1. He made his first appearance in Pittsburgh on September 6, at Forbes Field, and was beaten, 4 to 2, by William Luhrson, who was obtained by the Pirates from the Albany (Ga.) club of the South Atlantic League.
The season of 1914 was a great one for Doak, who won 19 games and lost only 6. He did not lose a game either to Pittsburgh or New York. He won four from the Giants and three from the Pirates. On June 24, he beat Babe Adams, 3 to 0, and on September 2, he and Adams pitched a 11-inning 1-to-1 tie game. On September 7, he won from Al Mamaux, 7 to 4, and on September 30, he defeated Wilbur Cooper, 1 to 0, allowing the Pirates only three hits. The Cardinals wound up in third place.
That was the year in which the big trade between the Pittsburgh and St. Louis clubs were made, in which the Pirates gave Jack (Dots) Miller, Owen (Chief) Wilson, Hank Robinson, Arthur Butler and Albert (Cozy) Dolan to the Cardinals for Bob Harmon, Mike Mowrey and Ed Konetchy. Like the recent trade between the Cubs and the Pirates, the trade of 1914 raised the same question as to which side got the better of the deal.
GIVEN MORE WORK.
Doak was given more work to do in 1915 than in the previous year, and he did not quite come up to the expectations of fans the country over. He scored 16 victories against 18 defeats. But against Pittsburgh he was just as effective. He beat the Pirates five out of six games, and George McQuillan was the only Pirate pitcher to take his measure. He beat him by a score of 6 to 4 at Forbes’ Field, on May 7.
In that year Lee Meadows began to work for the Cardinals, and Hamilton Hyatt went to them from Pittsburgh. Meadows distinguished himself by holding the Cincinnati Reds to one hit, a double by Heine Groh, on July 2, and shutting them out, 2 to 0. Hyatt equally distinguished himself on October 1, when, with the score 3 to 0 in favor of the Pirates, he punched a three-bagger off Carmen Hill and started a battling rally In the eighth inning, which netted the Cardinals six runs and the game. They won by a score of 6 to 3. Hyatt played first base in that game.
Another interesting event of that year was the arrival of Rogers Hornsby from the Denison, Texas, club of the Western Association. He relieved Art Butler at short on September 10, was twice at bat, but got no hit, and had nothing whatever to do in the field. The entire Cardinal crew got only three hits off Charles (King) Lear of the Cincinnati team. One of the hits was a three-bagger by Albert (Bruno) Betzel and he subsequently scored the only run made by his side. The other two hits were singles by Butler and Bob Bescher. The Reds won, 7 to 1.
Though Doak won more games in 1916 than he lost, he was not himself. His record was 12 victories to 8 defeats. He won only one game from Pittsburgh, and that was the opening game at St. Louis on April 12,
when he beat Ervins Kantlehner, 2 to 1. He lost the next three to the Pirates. On August 15, Cooper beat him, 2 to 1. On the eighteenth, be defeated Boston, 4 to 3 in 10 innings, and on the twenty-second he pitched five innings against the New York Giants, who were beaten, 6 to 0. It was the fifth victory in succession for the Cardinals. After this game Doak never pitched another that season, being attacked with sickness. When he was gone, the Cardinals apparently became demoralized. Of their last 87 games they won only eight. They struck a streak of seven defeats in succession and wound up the season in a tie with the Reds for seventh place by losing every one of their last 14 games.
RECOVERED ENERGY.
Doak displayed a great deal of energy in 1917. He seemed to have thoroughly recovered his health. He pitched 36 games, of which he won 16. On September 18, he won both games of a double-header from Brooklyn by scores of 2 to 0, and 12 to 4. On June 11 he won a 15-inning game from Philadelphia by Mike Gonzales stealing home with the winning run. It was an astounding feat because it was accomplished by a heavy-footed Cuban. Joe Oeschger was the opposing pitcher and the Phillies were at that time in first place. They finished in second place, with the Cardinals in third.
In 1918 Jack Hendricks succeeded Miller Huggins as manager of the St. Louis team. Under him Doak won 9 games and lost 15. He was beaten in three out of five games by the Pirates, Cooper being returned winner in all three of them. The Cardinals finished the season in last place.
Came Back After Traded to Robins Last Season.
Under the management of Branch Rickey the Cardinals landed in seventh place in 1919. Doak won 13 and lost 14. In his three games against Pittsburgh he was beaten in two, by Babe Adams and Erskine Mayer. His lone victory was over Earl Hamilton. During the season Meadows was traded to Philadelphia, and he and Doak opposed each other once. It was at St. Louis on July 30, and Doak was beaten, 3 to 1. Two old chums of Doak’s joined the Cardinals in this year. They were Burton Shotton, who was with him in Wheeling in 1910, and Joe Schultz, who played with him in the Hill district. Shotton came to St. Louis from Washington and Schultz from Kansas City.
Doak rose to the top rung of fame in 1920, when he won 20 games, the greatest number of victories he ever collected in any season. His defeats were only 12. He defeated the Pirates three times and each time shut them out, the scores being 6 to 0, 3 to 0 and 1 to 0. Cooper beat him once, 7 to 4. On August 10 Doak held the Phillies to one hit, a single by Cy Williams, and won the game, 5 to 1. He cheated himself out of a no-hit feat by failing to cover first base on a grounder to Hornsby, Jack Fournier at first base also going after the ball, leaving the bag uncovered.
In 1921 Doak won 15 games and lost 6. He was beaten by Philadelphia twice, and by New York, Boston, Brooklyn and Cincinnati each once. He pitched only one full game against the Pirates, beating them, 4 to 3, on June 23.
TWO ONE-HIT GAMES.
In 1922, for the third time in succession, the Cardinals finished in third place. Doak was not very busy in this season, scoring 11 victories against 13 defeats. However, he pitched two, one-hit games, against New York on May 11, and against Philadelphia on July 13.
Waivers were asked on Doak in April and in May of 1923, but he continued with the Cardinals nevertheless. He won eight games and lost 13. On May 20 he lost a game to Cincinnati by a wild pitch in the tenth inning. His best work of the season was done on September 15, when he held the Phillies to three hits and blanked them, 6 to 0. He won two games from Pittsburgh and lost two.
Last year Doak was one of the four spitball pitchers left in the National League, the others being Burleigh Grimes, Brooklyn; Clarence Mitchell, Philadelphia, and Dick Rudolph, Boston. Rudolph, however, never pitched a game, being retained as a coach. After winning three games and losing two, Doak was on July 14 traded to Brooklyn for Leo Dickerman.
He started with Brooklyn by winning only one of his first five games. Then he finished the season by taking his next nine games in succession. On September 8 he held Philadelphia to two hits and beat them, 7 to 0, and on September 6 the Boston Braves could get only two hits off him. He beat them, 1 to 0. He met the Pirates twice, once while with St. Louis and again while with Brooklyn. He won both times by the same score, 3 to 2.
Bill Doak
