Sports were all the rage by the ‘90s – the 1890s.

Americans were spending some $150 million per year – the players’ salaries for three NHL teams today – on recreation, and by 1909, $1 billion on recreation and travel combined.

People had discovered this new-fangled thing called leisure, as their work weeks were shrinking – from 60 to 44 1/2 hours a week, during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century.

In 1910, Americans were dropping $73 million, just on sports, and businessmen were investing $105 million in sporting enterprises.

“…sports had been enjoyed mainly by the rich,” Walter Lord wrote in The Good Years, “Suddenly [the general public] were becoming part of the American scene … The World Series gate at one game was only six thousand … By 1910 (the next five-game series) attendance was double the 1908 figures, and the pattern of the future was set … the general public was eagerly moving into an area that had previously been monopolized by the rich. Big stadiums began blossoming over the land [Two large steel and concrete baseball stadiums were built in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in 1909, and by 1916 there were seven more.] … poor boys started taking up tennis … the seeds were planted for [The Golden Age of Sports].”

“North Americans were on the move,” Ron Smith added, in The Sporting News: Chronicle of 20th Century Sport, “as the decade opened and the agrarianism of the early 1900s was giving way to a new urban industrial society – wealthier, more mobile and interested in expanding its sports and entertainment horizons.”

It’s estimated that during the late ’20s, Americans spent somewhere between $6 and $21 billion per year on their leisure activities.

The NHL saw a good thing, and expanded into the U.S. during the mid-1920s.

The league first established itself in Boston (Bruins) in 1924 (while creating a second Montreal team, the Maroons), and Pittsburgh (Pirates) and New York (Americans) the following season. The third year of NHL expansion was in 1926, when Detroit (Cougars, later the Falcons, and finally the Red Wings) and Chicago (Blackhawks) started teams, and a second club was permitted in New York (Rangers).

The 1920s were aptly called the “Roaring Twenties,” as society completely opened up, and people were rejecting traditional values. Many defied Prohibition, and indulged in dancing, dressing up and “making whoopee.”

“…the 1920s were a ‘party’ that resulted in a serious hangover,” Frederick J. Hoffman wrote in his book THE 20’S.

So, hockey was perfect for this generation.

Paul Gallico covered hockey’s arrival in the Big Apple for the  Daily News, and wrote in his memoirs, Farewell to Sport:

“…I have always suspected that the real appeal of hockey … [is] that it is a fast, body-contact game played by men with clubs in their hands and knives lashed to their feet, since the skates are razor sharp, and before the evening is over it is almost a certainty that someone will be hurt and will fleck the ice with a generous contribution of gore before he is led away to be hemstitched together again.”

BUILT IN 249 DAYS FOR $4.75 MILLION

The Americans took their first faceoff in 1925, the year before the Western Hockey League closed their arena doors, and many players migrated east to the new American franchises.

The Portland Rosebuds moved to Chicago, the Victoria Cougars to Detroit.

Amerks’ owner, “Big Bill” Dwyer, was initially lucky, as the Hamilton Tigers had been suspended – for going on strike – and he was able to purchase the players for $75,000 – on September 26, 1925. He had previously acquired Joe Simpson, John Morrison and Roy Rickey, from the cash-strapped Edmonton Eskimos, for $10,000 – on September 18th.

Both Detroit and Chicago would pay WHL teams $100,000 for their players.

The core of the Americans, had been the NHL’s regular season champs the 1924-25 season.

They went 12-22-4 the following season, however. And then they improved slightly to 17-25-2, and fell even further to 11-27-6 their third year (The year that the Rangers would win the Stanley Cup).

There were numerous reasons for the Americans’ failures.

Much has been written about the Culture of Winning – the Montreal Canadiens, the Los Angeles Lakers, the New York Yankees, etc.

Well, the Quebec City Bulldogs, who became the Hamilton Tigers, who became the New York Americans typify a Culture of Losing (As today are the Pittsburgh Pirates [baseball], the Arizona Cardinals [football], and the Memphis Grizzlies [basketball].).

The Tigers were terrible in Quebec and Hamilton (see spreadsheets), and only played well during the one 1924-25 season (They had more wins – 9 – by the mid-season mark, than they had ever had in a previous year.). And, they had started to slump during theit  second half in Hamilton, before being suspended from the playoffs.

If this culture of losing wasn’t bad enough, the former Tigers were transplanted into a terrible environment. Dwyer was pure and simply a gangster, and players would go into Dwyer’s office to get paid, and have to pass through a number of gunsels and hit men to get to his desk.

Also, they weren’t treated well in their own rink, Madison Square Gardens, which didn’t help their self esteem. Everything was, “The Rangers this … the Rangers that….”

And then, there were their bad habits.

To begin with, Dwyer spoiled his players by giving them too much money.

Dwyer at least doubled the salaries. At a time when NHLers were making $1,500 to $2,000 per season, he paid Shorty Green $5,000 – up from $3,000 – and Billy Burch $25,000 over three years. And he would continue to pay Lionel Conacher $7,500 per season, as per his Pittsburgh contract.

With the big bucks, the bad hockey environment, plus living in the Big Apple,  his players started gambling.

“…you could get betting actions in that club dressing-room,” Andy Lytle of the Toronto Star wrote, “from one and all on almost any subject under the sun involving debate and hence betting, from what the weather would be, to which way their press agent would be leaning when he stumbled in for a spot of scuttle-butting, and he a most noted lush.”

And if this wasn’t bad enough, some became heavy drinkers. Lionel Conacher’s brother, Charlie, once quipped that Dwyer’s star defenseman, seemed “bent on a literal interpretation of the soft drink slogan, ‘Drink Canada Dry’.“

The drinking was so bad, that Dwyer threw up his hands and dispatched Lionel to the Maroons, who also set him adrift (And yes, there is a certain irony here. Dwyer was – in a way – paying his alcoholic star from money acquired from bootlegging.).

The greatest reason for the Americans’ failure, however, was Dwyer himself. He couldn’t stick with one coach, and the team lacked continuity.

Dwyer went through coaches – one per season – faster than Harold Ballard would five decades later.

Dwyer’s first coach was Tommy Gorman, followed by Edward “Newsy” Lalonde, and then Wilfred “Shorty” Green. The Americans’ fourth season, Dwyer went back to Gorman for the 1928-29 campaign, and Lionel Conacher the next year.

I think that Dwyer’s total confusion may be seen in the fact that he would expand the duties – from player to player/coach – of a faltering alcoholic.

Dwyer’s team might be losers, but his bottom line was great.  On opening night alone, December  24, 1925, 17,422 arrived at the new arena, located on 50th Street at Eight Avenue.

This wasn’t a record for an opening night, however.

At the Indy 500’s inaugural race in 1911, 80,000 spectators had filled the stands. And, an amateur baseball championship in Cleveland, in 1914, had drawn more than 100,000 fans.

Ray Harroun had won the big Indy race, with a time of 74.6 mph. It was a controversial affair, as he had used some newfangled invention called a rearview mirror.

This 1926 pic doesn’t include Amerks’ owner, “Big Bill” Dwyer.

Shown in his place, were: Tom Gorman, Manager (on crutches), Honorary President Tex Rickard (with a cane), President Col. John Hammond, Chairman/Director Tom Duggan (in black suit, bow tie and hat).

THE NEW YORK AMERICANS - THEIR INAUGURAL SEASON - 1925-26 - THEIR RECORD WAS 12-22-4 - YOU CAN SEE IT IN THEIR FACES

Ray Harroun, and his yellow Model 32 Marmon “Wasp” retired from racing, but people were speeding all over the place during the 1920s. Canadians and Americans had become “nations of spectators,” with lots of money and a bad attitude. They wanted to go places and do things.

And they disliked rules, particularly Prohibition.

“It infringed too directly upon the personal liberty,” wrote Foster Rhea Dulles in America Learns to Play: A History of Popular Recreation, “and the right to enjoy oneself, upon which the post-war generation was so stridently insisting.”

Bill Dwyer had never been too concerned about personal liberty, and he believed that people should enjoy themselves.

Time: The Weekly News Magazine described Dwyer’s career in his December 23, 1946 obit:

“William V. (”Big Bill”) Dwyer … onetime ‘king of the bootleggers,’ who in Prohibition days commanded a fleet of 20 rum-runners, controlled the entry of liquor into New York Harbor … After spending “a little vacation” in Atlanta’s Federal Penitentiary (he was convicted of bootlegging in 1926), he tried to rebuild his crumbled fortune through sports promoting, bought the N.Y. Americans hockey team, introduced professional hockey to Manhattan, headed Miami’s famed Gables Racing Association.”

Yes, there’s a further parallel with Harold Ballard here. Both spent time in stir, while owning NHL hockey teams.

“Big Bill” Dwyer wasn’t in his team’s photo because he was in prison. He had been arrested eleven days before the Americans’ inaugural game, and missed more than the photo – his team’s pathetic first season.

The NHL’s Club Directory for 1930-31 listed Dwyer as the Americans’ Treasurer.

The Directory didn’t include Dwyer’s name, however,  with the Philadelphia Quaker Hockey Club.

The franchise had been the Pittsburgh Pirates the year before, and had been owned by Dwyer for nearly three seasons.

__________________________________________________________________

Arthur Reeve, “What America Spends for Sport,” Outing 57, December 1910, p.303.

Walter Hiatt, “Billions Just for Fun,” Collier’s, 74, October 25 1924, p 50.

Jesse Steiner, Americans at Play. NY, McGraw-Hill, 1933, p 183.

Stuart Chase, “Play,” in Charles Beard, ed., Whither Mankind. NY, Longman, Greene & Co., 1928, pp.336-7.

THE OTTAWA SENATORS

As is apparent from earlier posts, I have a real interest in the time around 1910. I did my first blog on Shibe Park and then a second on the inaugural Indy 500.

And, there’s one picture that I could never throw away.

It’s of the young fellow below, who played for the Philadelphia Athletics.

And, I’ve always wondered what he was thinking when this picture was taken. He’s a nineteen year old, who is playing in the big leagues – in 1910 – and he’s just reflecting….

Anyways, I saved the picture and finally found out who this player was.

He was “Stuffy” McInnis who went on to become a baseball icon.

“Stuffy McInnis set still-standing fielding records for first basemen: in 1921, playing for the Red Sox, he made only one error in 152 games for a .9993 fielding average; with the Red Sox and Indians over the course of 163 games in 1921-22, he accepted 1,700 chances without an error; his 1,300 errorless chances in 1921 set the record for a season. His reputation for skillful defensive play developed with the Athletics, with whom he first appeared as a shortstop in 1909. In 1911 he replaced Harry Davis at first base in the “$100,000 Infield,” hooking up with Frank Baker, Eddie Collins, and Jack Barry for three pennant winners (1911, 1913, and 1914). He appeared with six league champions altogether; the Red Sox were AL champs his first year with them in 1918, and, when the Pirates picked him up in 1925 as an extra, they won the championship.

McInnis batted over .300 in 12 of his 19 seasons, and in each year from 1910 to 1915. A righthanded line-drive pull hitter, he could punch the ball to the opposite field as well.

He gained his nickname as a youngster in the Boston suburban leagues, where his spectacular playing brought shouts of “that’s the stuff, kid.” He quit as manager of the Phillies after one last-place season in 1927, and coached at Harvard for five years.” (Biography courtesy of:  baseballlibrary.com)

courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

And because the Philadelphia Phillies are doing so well in the playoffs, I thought I could slip in this little baseball blog.

As noted in the Dwyer article, sports were becoming mainstream by the 1910s, as large stadiums were being built, and working class people had both the time and money to attend games.

As this was happening, newspaper coverage of sporting events was expanding. In 1880, only .04% of a newspaper’s editorial was dedicated sports. This increased tenfold by 1900 to 4%, and by the 1920s had reached 12 to 20% of the publication.

There were sports magazines as well. Francis Richter founded the Sporting Life in 1883, which specialized in baseball, with some shooting and cycling. He hired writers from around the U.S. and the publication gained a strong voice in baseball.

Their circulation grew to 20,000 in one year, and three years later had doubled to 20,000.

This was a specialized publication for dedicated baseball fans, who paid 10 cents for their 16 page paper.

By 1910, the sports market was expanding into the general population, and additional magazines and books were being published.

Below are a few of them.

1908

The Ideal Publication for American Youth shows Dick dressed in a formal suit and tie. He’s obviously an upper class dude.

And the cover features the fans in the stands – dressed up, but still excited, waving scarves, hats, etc.

1910

The Boy’s Best Weekly – featuring Jack Standfast – published two years later, also focuses on the spectators. “The applause of the admiring crowd” is noted on the cover.

By the time that that wildman Jack was catching flies with one hand, there were large, steel-reinforced concrete stadiums in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

1911

The cover of the Sporting Section reflects the attitude towards baseball in particular, and sports in general, then versus now.

There isn’t a player on the cover. At that time, writers didn’t focus on the stars. They were concerned with the scores.

Film historian Richard Schickel notes when things started to change.

“The public ceased to insist that there be an obvious correlation between achievement and fame,” he wrote about the ’20s. “It was no longer absolutely necessary for its favourites to perform a real-life heroic act, to invent a boon for mankind, to create a business enterprise.”

This new attitude had started just after World War 1. It was possible to become a celebrity, just by being well-known. Social historian Daniel Boorstin called this being “known for your Well-knownness.”

Thus, an athlete could become a sports hero, if an editor, or a writer, decided to make him one. And, it was the exploits of the man-made heroes that helped to sell newspapers.

This change of attitude was evident in Sporting Life.

“A vast majority of readers are interested in stories of PEOPLE rather than in stories or events,” their new editor, Jim Nasium, wrote in 1922. ” They would rather hear something about the MAN who wins a race than to read about the RACE itself; the INDIVIDUAL hero of a World Series is discussed long after the final score is forgotten; persons who are NOT interested in baseball ARE interested in discussing Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb … It is the HUMAN INTEREST appeals that gets and holds readers. It is the same thing which creates hero worship, the principle commercializing factor of any game.”

1911

Zane Grey had been a baseball hero, and received a scholarship from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a pitcher and would later play some games in the minors. His brother, Romer Carl “Reddy” Grey, actually played one game for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1903.

The Young Pitcher was published in 1911, a year after Grey’s best-selling western, The Heritage of the Desert was released.

Grey – who would eventually sell 40 million books – couldn’t get his westerns published, and thus wrote about the thing that he knew best, baseball.

1913

Allen Chapman sold a number of Fred Fenton sports books from 1913-15, by which time war adventures were better sellers.

In 1916, there were nine concrete and steel stadiums built throughout the U.S.

One such stadium was Navin Field in Detroit, where the Tigers played their first game on April 20th, 1912. This monolith could seat 23,000 spectators, and featured a covered grandstand down the first and third base lines, with bleachers in right field. The first major addition took place before the 1923 season, when another seven thousand seats were added.

1914

It’s interesting that while people were coping with urbanized society, by going to athletic events, they were also seeking escape through Zane Grey’s novels, which romantized the wild west – the rural life “from whence they came.”

They were featuring players by this time. Next, it would be fancy covers and pictures of the stars.

Name the only goalie, to ever play against Georges Vezina, and later win the Vezina Trophy.

Also – a hint – he is one of the few goalies to play for the Habs and never lose a game.

Roy “Shrimp” Worters

Worters finished the 1930-31 season with a 1.61 goals-against average, and was awarded the Vezina Trophy.

He played on a terrible team – the Americans – who didn’t even make the playoffs (They finished with an 18-16-10 total.) that season.

The Amerks scored only 76 goals in 44 games (The league’s average was 105.), which was tied with the pathetic Philadelphia Quakers, who won only four contests.

Worters held his rivals to only 74 goals, and had the NHL’s most ties – 10.

And, while literally standing on his head, he wasn’t even selected to the first or second All-Star teams.

Worter’s second award that season was an $8,500 per year contract, very high for a goalie at that time.

Worters had played against Georges Vezina on November 28, 1925, his first season in the NHL. He was the Pittsburgh Pirates’ goalie, and the game took place in the old Mt. Royal Arena, in Montreal.

The first period went scoreless, and Vezina left the ice bleeding from the mouth. He collapsed in the dressing room, returned for the second period, but then collapsed again. He left the game, never having missed a contest in his fifteen years in the Big Tent.

Only then did his family and friends find out that he was dying of tuberculosis.

(The Habs’ backup, Frenchy Lacroix, finished the last two periods, and the Pirates won the game 1-0.)

Worters never lost a game when he was between the pipes for the Habs.

He made one appearance, on February 27, 1930 – on loan from the New York Americans, replacing an injured George Hainsworth. The Canadiens defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-2.

But, Worters wasn’t the only goalie to have this distinction. Three other net minders played one game for the Habs, and won. Hal Murphy, Len Broderick, and Andre Binette were in the Montreal nets during the mid-fifties.

Roy Worters still holds – or shares – a number of NHL records.

On December 26, 1926, the Pirates and New York Americans set an NHL record, by combining for 141 shots. The Americans won the game 3-1 with their 73 shots, versus Pittsburgh’s 68. Worters was still with the Penguins at that time, and Jake Forbes was the Americans’ goalie.

Roy Worters was the first goalie to win the Hart Trophy, which he did after the 1928-29 season, when he was with the Americans.

Also, he probably holds another record, which isn’t recognized in this age of political correctness.

At 5’3” he was probably the shortest goalie in NHL history.

But, short or not Worters could look after himself.

He grew up in an area called Cottingham Square, which was described as “one of Toronto’s higher class slums”

A contemporary said: “every kid … played lacrosse, rugby and hockey, and you had to fight or move.”

Worters didn’t move until he traveled to Porcupine to play for the Gold Miners in the rough and tough old Gold Belt Hockey League. He was suspended for the complete 1921-22 season, for high-sticking one, or two, of the Iroquois Falls’ players, during a March 1921 playoff game.

If you ran Roy, no matter how big you were, you got his stick.

And, Roy Worters stayed tough until the very end. During the 1936-37 season – his last – he played much of the year with a painful hernia, but he still wouldn’t quit.

Worters had learned from the best. He wasn’t bleeding from the mouth, so he stayed in the nets.