In the early summer of 1911, at the age of 74 and with the end of his career in sight, Brooklyn Whales’ manager and GM Marques Williams did something that shook the baseball world. He made a blockbuster of a trade.
In June of that year, Brooklyn (42-25 at the time of the trade) was locked in a fierce battle with Philadelphia (39-25) and Richmond (36-29) for the Eastern League pennant. Finding himself in the tenuous position of being reliant on the aging tandem of Brooklyn legend Chick Benney (38) and Eastern League veteran Sherwood Kettel (37) to fill the third spot in the Whales’ rotation, and having watched his prized pitching pair of Jewell Durtnell and Lefty Fain get swept by the Richmond Rifles in the 1910 Eastern League Cup, the graying baseball man decided that 1911 was the right year for a shake-up.
On the eve of the 1911 amateur draft, Brooklyn held the rights to three first round selections after shipping off several young arms — 22 year old SP Joseph Tibbets (the #13 prospect in baseball) to Cleveland and 26 year old former second runner-up for the Eastern League Greenhorn Cup SP Flea Cooper to the Reds of St. Louis. Williams decided the time was right to ship off one more young arm — 22 year old SP Weldon Vipont (the #12 prospect in baseball) — and promising 20 year old hitter Bad News Badcoe, along with each of those first round selections, to Providence in exchange for the top selection of the 1909 amateur draft, SP Sycamore Lee.
The pitching talent present in Brooklyn’s rotation of Lee, Durtnell and Fain was among the most fearsome in the Legacy Baseball League’s young history. Williams’ gambit was that the abilities of those three men — each under 30 at the time of the trade — would form the bedrock of a new championship era in Brooklyn.
The prize of Brooklyn’s trade was Sycamore Lee. Lee was a long and lanky (6’4″ 166 lbs) 23 year old pitcher who was already one of the most accomplished arms in the nation even prior to his major league debut. He had led Madison College to a national championship in his last year in collegiate baseball, 1909, where he was named the MVP during each round of the collegiate playoffs. He was also named the MVP of the first round of the collegiate playoffs in 1908 en route to Madison College’s second place finish. Further, the Madison ace was one of the most accomplished collegiate performers in each of his three years in school. He was named the collegiate pitcher of the year in 1907 and finished second in the voting for that award in each of 1908 and 1909.
The Providence Angels used the first pick of the 1909 draft to select the dominant amateur and had the sturdy righthander make his immediate debut in Providence (and skip the minor leagues entirely). The youngster quickly proved not only capable of handling the challenges of playing for the paternalistic Providence organization, but found himself thriving. He finished 1910 as one of the best pitchers in the Eastern League. In 1911, he was even better. At the time of the trade, the hardy youngster led the Legacy Baseball League in innings pitched while blowing away opposing hitters at the 7th highest rate in the league. It was a breakout that dazzled baseball fans across the eastern seaboard of the United States and really impressed one baseball fan in particular — the man in-charge in Brooklyn.
In Lee, Williams saw a potential ace for his staff whose natural gifts would help elevate the duo that had hit their ceiling in the Eastern League Cup. Iron sharpening iron.
The man he was replacing at the top of the rotation, Jewell Durtnell, was among the most competitive men in baseball. Brash and outspoken, the Brooklyn righthander was a former top amateur selection (number 3 in the 1904 draft) out of high school. Having broken into the Legacy Baseball League in the Western League with the Pittsburgh Oilers — and proven himself to be among the game’s best relievers — it was not until he was humiliated by a Richmond benchwarmer in the 1909 Eastern League Cup that he began to tap into his full potential as a pitcher. Stewing throughout the entire 1909 off-season over the outcome of that series, Durtnell worked tirelessly on his craft and added a breaking ball to his pitching repertoire — giving him the necessary arsenal to start games for Brooklyn in 1910. Before the 1910 Eastern League Cup, he also experimented with throwing a new kind of fastball. The new pitch mix, while making him one of the most effective pitchers in the Eastern League and leading to a second-place finish in the EL Pitcher of the Year Award voting, did not change the script for the 1910 Eastern League Cup. What followed was another off-season of stewing and then an early campaign of terror through the first half of 1911 — proving himself to be again one of the best pitchers in the Legacy Baseball League. Featuring pinpoint control and pitches that moved and spun in ways that made them difficult to square up for most professional hitters, the 25 year old Durtnell looked set to lead the Brooklyn rotation for years to come. Williams, however, with his 40 years of baseball experience, thought Durtnell needed another push to reach his full potential.
The final piece in the Whales’ triumphant triumvirate was the 29 year old southpaw Lefty Fain. Like Durtnell, Fain had also been the ace of the Whales staff prior to the arrival of a younger, more talented arm. A fearsome, bulldog of a pitcher who sought to intimidate opposing hitters through sheer force-of-will (and, frequently, violence by throwing at opposing hitters if his force-of-will did not get the desired results), the southpaw had been named the EL Pitcher of the Year in 1906 and had finished third in voting in two other years (including 1910, when he finished one place behind his teammate Jewell Durtnell). The elder statesman of the group also was a master of control and deception. Opponents, when they were lucky enough to make contact, frequently slammed his pitches into the dirt.
At 29, Fain was already well on track to be considered one of the best pitchers in the early days of the Legacy Baseball League. Based on his career trajectory, he was widely expected to retire at the top of the leaderboards in most career pitching categories for Brooklyn.
By assembling these three talented arms in one rotation, Williams had ensured opposing teams would receive no quarter during the typical three game series. Instead, opponents’ best hope for surviving the Whales’ pitching onslaught was to hope for bad weather.