An excerpt from the personal diary of Brooklyn Whales’ scout Malcolm Franklin. June 18, 1906 Heading into the draft, Skip [ed note: Whales’ GM/Manager Marques Williams] had made clear his wishes. Top-to-bottom throughout the organization, he wanted to emphasize players with strong fundamentals with the glove and to be opportunistic with any pitchers with projectable…
In the concrete bunker in Brooklyn doubling as GM/Manager Marques Williams’ office beneath the Field of the Whales, two men with an uneasy history sat across from another. Like two boxers, they were sizing up their adversary for any sign of weakness. Williams, the legendary baseball man and profane giant charged with running the Brooklyn baseball operations…
Below is an excerpt from the seminal account of the tenure, trials, and tribulations of the second Commissioner of the Legacy Baseball League, Jacob Parker, from esteemed baseball historian Richard Abbott. This excerpt is published with the permission of the author in connection with the release of a new edition with an all new foreword….
April 7, 1904 Home Locker Room Field of the Whales Young southpaw Ocie Stibbs, who pieced together a reasonably successful 1903 campaign under the tutelage of backup catcher James ‘Doc’ Talmadge, has looked shaky in preseason workouts. Nevertheless, Whales manager Marques Williams has scheduled the youthful pitcher to start the fourth game of the opening…
By Anthony Harrison Baseball has a new richest man. A humble 26 year old leftfielder, Hyman Rickward, has signed with the Brooklyn Whales for a less-than-humble $52,000. Rickward is reported to be a complete player with a strong bat, strong glove, and speed on the bases. The star rookie was much sought after an off-season…
Published in the Summer of 1960, this bestselling recounting of one of the most famous scandals in baseball history is part memoir, part collection of interviews and essays, and part attempt to exorcise the past while rewriting many of its most basic assumptions. FOREWARD It’s a peculiar feeling, although perhaps not an uncommon one, to…
July 4, 1903 Field of the Whales The Whales’ young lefthanded hurler sat despondent in the home locker room alone on a wet morning in Brooklyn. The trip back from Baltimore was long—not so much in terms of the distance, but rather in the Sisyphus-ian mental reliving of his pitching performance that such a journey…
June 30, 1901 Field of the Whales Brooklyn, New York 6:00 PM Blanketed by rage and whiskey on a chilly summer evening, Marques Williams, the manager of the Brooklyn Whales, tolerated his unwanted visitor with all of the practiced grace of a hippopotamus attempting to use cutlery. At 6’4” and 220 pounds, just about the…
Ocie Stibbs had been throwing like this for as long as he could remember; 50 pitches a day to keep his arm strong. Unfortunately, this throwing session was mostly serving as the Whales’ backup catcher Noah Forbes’ calisthenics. Every third pitch seemed to whiz by Forbes to the backstop. For some reason, throwing wasn’t coming…
On a gray and uninspiring afternoon in Brooklyn, something extraordinary was happening. In a showing that was clearly practiced but barely choreographed, the long, lithe southpaw from the Western League fired pitch-after-pitch towards Whales’ backup catcher Noah Forbes. His delivery, all limbs and violence, was equal parts riveting and unrepeatable. The ultimate location of each…