Inside Baseball with Barney Dreyfuss: Tom Swope on Owners, Umpires and a Shaky Cardinals Club

A TALK WITH Barney Dreyfuss

Dean of Club Owners Discusses Weather, Rosin, Umpires and Horse Racing With Post Sports Editor

By Tom Swope - Cincinnati Post May 4, 1926

Barney Dreyfuss, owner and president of the world champion Pirates, is the most interesting figure among the game’s club owners so we called on him during the Reds’ visit there.

Barney is the dean of them all. He’s been at the head of a major league team longer than any other owner and his knowledge of baseball probably tops that of any of the others, too.

So when we dropped into his office at Forbes Field we remained over an hour sitting at the feet of knowledge and finding out things known only by those who have been through the mill.

Leading topics among baseball men right now are the terrible weather that has prevented since opening day and the use of rosin by pitchers. So it was natural I brought these things up.

“I have been going it ever since I entered the National League with the Louisville club in 1892,” he said. “Every day I mark down in scorebooks the weather, the score, and the attendance and receipts. This is last year’s book. It tells me that when the Cincinnati club was here just a year ago we couldn’t play the first two days because of rain and lost out the third day Saturday, but on Sunday Ban Johnson started pitching for your town and Pittsburgh won it, 8 to 6. I have been going through all these old books recently and have discovered that there has not been a spring since I got into the game that had as much continued cold and rainy weather as this one.”

Will this be carried to the rosin question?

“Ban Johnson never has been the one of fellows to boost ideas that originate with others,” Barney said. “So I was not surprised at the American attitude toward the National League rule. The National League proposed that the pitchers be permitted to dig their hands into rosin bags and smear them on the ball. We knew they had been doing it secretly and we could not stop them. But since the rule didn’t originate with Johnson he fought its adoption.

“Twenty years ago when the National League adopted the foul strike rule Johnson wouldn’t have it in his league, but he woke up that season after I caught it and told in time.”

Umpires always come up in any baseball conversation, and Barney spoke of the system without hesitation, even while admitting inefficiency at times.

“I have told John Heydler several times he is making a mistake in having his umpires switch from behind the bat to the bases. We don’t expect a ballplayer to work in the outfield one day and catch the next, so why should we ask umpires to change their duties daily? I believe we would have better umpiring if we followed the specialization trend of the times and kept the umpires regular on assignments. Two could be instructed to determine whether a man is more suited to calling balls and strikes or running down decisions. After it has been discovered at which job the men are best suited, I believe they should be assigned regularly to that work.”

And then Barney turned to the racing game which having come into recent popularity in Pittsburgh he was in a position to speak upon.

“I hardly have taken up racing this spring,” he said, “because it is so costly. I know a man who in the winter at Pinehurst would play matches with Barton to his heart’s content and for that pleasure alone he would have to hand over $10,000. A minor league ball club is a big business investment. My time consumes all my time. And I’m not going to do anything to hurt it here in Pittsburgh.”

“I used to have some horses,” he continued. “For three years I have not made a bet and for two years I have not visited a race track.”

“The last time I was on a race track I sat in the grand stand at Latonia the whole afternoon without making a bet.”

“Twenty-six years ago I got into the racing game through what in baseball we call a ‘break.’ I went to Hot Springs. A fellow who was there without making of horses owed me money. He had no cash, and I saw no prospect of getting paid. He proposed that I take a horse in payment, any horse in his stable.”

“I picked out one called Miss Dolly, not thinking much about it. I put her in a race just to see what she could do. She won. That started me off. I got rid of the others for a small sum and devoted my attention to racing for some time.”

Cards Look Better on Paper Than on Field

Hornsby’s Team Appears To Be Composed of a Bunch of Busy Base Hit Hunters

By Tom Swope

ST. LOUIS, May 4.—All winter long the Cardinals were touted stronger than any team in baseball save the world champion Pirates. Many of baseball’s brightest minds picked Rogers Hornsby’s team to be the sensation of the season.

John McGraw, manager of the Giants, was one of these. In previous winters McGraw and most of the other wise men had touted the Reds as the likely pennant candidates, and the Reds usually made good those predictions.

However, the sport of the Cardinals rose after Hornsby suggested Branch Rickey as manager last summer, causing the sharp-shooters to revise their opinions. They forgot about the Reds and went to the Cardinals’ camp, lock, stock and infield. The club is young. Brooklyn is leading, the Cubs are tied with the Reds for second place and the Pirates are tied with the Cardinals for sixth place.

The Dodgers and Cubs seemingly are way above their proper places and the Pirates are far below the notch they should occupy. Much can happen before Sept. 20, and the standings may yet justify all those nice things said about them in the winter.

However, we have seen them play four games against the Reds this spring, and we are here to tell you that the Cardinals looked a whole lot better on paper last winter than they look on the ball field, and that the Reds are looking better in action than was figured to be the case this season.

The Cardinal teams which won pennants three times within ages already appear to be falling into a disorganized gang of individual hitters, with a pitching staff that has only a fair amount of class.

There’s no rotten team play to the downfall of the Cardinals, who lost their fifth straight game yesterday by dropping one to the Reds, 9 to 6, after they had gone into the lead, 5 to 3, in the third inning.

Lots of Dynamite in St. Louis Batting Order

There’s so much dynamite in the Cardinal batting order the team is going to make a lot of runs and will win quite a few games, but we seriously doubt if it will be a real pennant threat this year.

The Reds, on the other hand, appear to be just getting organized into a gang that is hustling for games far more than for other sorts of individual records.

The fighting spirit of Cincy’s team never has been open to question. However, there’s a difference between a team that just fights and one that fights properly. This Red team is beginning to fight as one man for ball games and when you have a club doing that it’s going to go somewhere.

In winning yesterday the Reds made it three out of four on the year from the Cards, and also became the first club to beat Vic Keen, and Vic did not look like a good pitcher when the Reds were getting six runs off him in the sixth.

He figured in Cincy’s fourth run of the day with a timely drive, all issued after two were out. Then he wound up with the bases full and Sam Bohne, who had been sent in to run for Lucas after Red had reached second, dashed for home and beat the throw.

Pinch and Christy, who also were on base, followed Sam’s lead and made it a triple steal, one of baseball’s rarest plays. Hughie Critz, the .300 hitter who gets practically all of his blows in the pinches, then came through with a sock that scored both runners and the game was in the bag.

Emmer Worried and Bohne Returns to Short Field

The other three runs scored off Keen also were made after two were out, Edd Roush belting a double with the bags loaded in the third.

The game was Eppa Rixey’s second start of the season and the big fellow’s control was too poor to enable him to go thru, but except for the third inning he pitched well enough to indicate he soon will be ready to deliver regular “Rixey pitching” for nine rounds almost every time out.

He walked the first batter in the fourth. Then followed a scratch hit and a couple of errors, the latter being a triple by Jim Bottomley. Chick Hafey here got a double that took a bad hop off Emmer’s shoulder and scored Bottomley, but from then on long Eppa pitched faultless ball until he came out for a pinch hitter.

Bohne will be back in the lineup and today will replace Emmer at short. The latter has been off his game for a couple of days and is so worried over it Jack Hendricks thinks it best to let Sam play.

Franky Emmer Note

Frankie Emmer is getting more publicity of a certain sort these days than any other Red, probably any other player in baseball.

Frank is playing such fine ball at short for the Reds that he is getting good notices, as the actors say, from the critics of the game wherever he shows, but the publicity of which we speak is that of the paid advertising class.

But the boys, the manufacturers will at least give him a new glove the first time the Reds visit the town where it is made.