Wagner, Twain, and Lincoln

By Jan Finkel

Writing in My Mark Twain, William Dean Howells eulogized his friend as "the Lincoln of our literature." Howells saw Lincoln and Twain as purely American, having risen from the expanding frontier to become the greatest we had produced in their respective fields. Like them, Honus Wagner was a pure product of the America of his time. Born February 24, 1874, in Mansfield (now Carnegie), Pennsylvania, to German immigrants and entering the coalmines at age twelve, he rose up to the be the greatest at what he did--to be the Lincoln and Twain of the diamond.

Not surprisingly, the three were much alike. They came from working class backgrounds that they never left emotionally or psychologically. As businessmen, they knew the sting of failure. Striking in appearance, each possessed an ungainly grace, punctuated by extraordinarily revealing, penetrating eyes that missed nothing. Lastly, all were first-rate storytellers or leg-pullers, depending upon your point of view.

Yet Lincoln and Twain are widely researched and frequently discussed whereas we don't seem to hear much about Wagner anymore. Who was he?

Well, he didn't leap into the stands to maul a heckler who had no hands, carry securities in a paper bag, or sleep with a Luger under his pillow. He didn't womanize himself into disease or gluttonize himself into the bellyache heard 'round the world. He didn't marry a love goddess or hustle Mr. Coffee. He didn't serve in two wars, spit at the press box, or catch two thousand Atlantic salmon and bonefish. But Wagner, who didn't attract notoriety, dominates all of his counterparts.

He was a ballplayer. As Honus said with a curious irony and ambiguity that could have come straight from Huck Finn, "There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer." Primarily a shortstop, he would have starred anywhere on the field. His play at shortstop becomes astounding when we realize that he played other positions for several years, not taking over his "real" position until he was twenty-nine. Nevertheless, he so completely overwhelms his fellow shortstops on all-time all star teams that only he and Babe Ruth are near-unanimous picks. Ozzie Smith, Luis Aparicio, Cal Ripken, and Robin Yount have received some support recently. They are all good men, but only by combining them would one get a Wagner. That's how a complete ballplayer he was.

Although a handful of hitters were dangerous, being a shortstop, the job requiring the purest raw physical skill on the diamond, is more vital to being considered the greatest all-around player than being a superb outfielder.

What made Wagner so great? Let's start an obvious point, the numbers. In almost every meaningful offensive or defensive statistical situation, Wagner comes out at or near the top in comparison with other shortstops. Wagner's overall offensive number put him so far ahead of his fellow shortstops as to make comparisons almost ludicrous. He led the league in every category except home runs at least once. And not only are Wagner's offensive numbers far beyond his fellow shortstops; most of them are in the top twenty-five of all players. Wagner collected hits by the bushel, got on base often, took an extra base whenever he had the chance and sometimes when he didn't, scored runs, and drove in runs. Honus wasn't subtle; he just won games.

Defensively, if he wasn't the greatest ever in the field (an honor that usually goes to Smith, deservedly so), he did very well.

Let's look further, at largely intangible things that don't show up in the box scores or record books but help to show a player's or human being's value.

Wagner's versatility is impressive. Only two players come close to matching him: Ruth, whose Cooperstown-quality pitching is overshadowed by his titanic hitting; and Martin Dihigo, who achieved enough in the Negro Leagues and elsewhere, starring at every position except catcher while swinging a lethal bat, to be elected to the American, Cuban and Mexican Halls of Fame. Honus was, first of all, a shortstop, playing 1888 games at the position though not settling there until 1903. Wagner was largely an outfielder (372 games) before the move, he played all over the field--248 games at first, 209 at third, and 57 at second. Everybody cheered lustily when Pete Rose played at least six hundred games at first, second, third and outfield, but only Honus has played fifty games at every position except pitcher and catcher.

He didn't just fill in at other positions, but was the best in the league wherever he played. Ask Ed Barrow, who discovered Ruth along with Wagner (there's an eye for talent!), and said Wagner was the greatest player he ever saw. John McGraw, who played and managed against Wagner, agreed. Tommy Leach, who played alongside Wagner for many years, told Lawrence Ritter that Wagner was "the greatest anything." And get this. Who has the lowest ERA in the Hall of Fame? Wagner--he took the mound twice, for 8.1 innings, and didn't give up an earned run. In addition, he struck out six. The seven hits and six walks look bad, but he was tough with men on base.

Here's another thing about Wagner: His teams won, and he was the major contributor. For the first ten years of the 20th century, when Wagner was at the peak of his game, the Pirates led the N.L. four times: 1901, '02, '03 and '09. And they only finished one game out of first in 1908. Not only did the Pirates win, they often won big. They were the best team from 1900 to 1909, with a 938-538 won-lost mark. They won the 1902 pennant by a never approached 27 1/2 games. In 1909--with Wagner their only .300 hitter--they took the pennant (and the World Series, from Ty Cobb and the Tigers) with a record of 110-42, second best in NL history. They had to be good in 1909, for the Cubs, who took second with 104 wins, were in the midst of the greatest five-year period any team has ever enjoyed, averaging 106 wins per season. The Pirates were the only team to derail the Cub machine between 1906 and 1910.

The Pirates had the best record in baseball between 1900 and 1909 not because they had the best players, but because they had the best player--Wagner. Yet Ginger Beaumont, Fred Clark, and Tommy Leach were outstanding players. As a group they were not better than Tinker, Evers, Chance, Harry Steinfeldt, Wildfire Schulte and Johnny Kling. The Giants' Roger Bresnahan, Bill Dahlen, Art Devlin, and Dan McGann weren't bad. The Pirates had fine pitchers--Sam Leever, Deacon Phillipe, and Vic Willis; they weren't a match in the long run for Christy Mathewson and Joe McGinnity of the Giants or Mordecai Brown and Ed Reulbach of the Cubs. In short, the Pirates were about even with the Cubs and Giants on the field though probably not on the mound--but they had Wagner. Remember, too, that Wagner produced runs in an era when a team scoring four runs a game was a juggernaut, when eighty or so RBIs could lead the league, when a pitcher who up three earned runs a game could be unemployed.

Let's view the situation another way. When Barry Bonds won his third MVP award in four seasons, a feat never before accomplished, everyone sang his praises. If there had been an MVP award between 1900 and 1909, Wagner would have won at least five and maybe even six!

Accordingly, Wagner left his top contemporaries, Crawford, Lajoie and Cobb (in their only face-to-face meeting) in the dust. He outshone Cobb so thoroughly that Crawford, who played in the same outfield with Cobb for 12 years, called Wagner the greatest player he ever saw. No even Babe Ruth stood so far above contemporaries like Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons and Hornsby. Wagner was beyond great.

Character tells us even more about Wagner.

As Lincoln and Twain never forgot Springfield and Hannibal, Honus was loyal to his team and his city. Born just outside of Pittsburgh, he happily returned there with the Louisville players who came along when Barney Dreyfuss bought into the team. Honus had a major opportunity to leave when the American League started in 1901, and was stocking its teams by raiding NL players on the reasonable assumption that they might be unhappy under a salary cap imposed by the owners. Clark Griffith supposedly offered Wagner $20,000 in cash, about eight times what he was making with the Pirates. Wagner told Griffith he was happy in Pittsburgh and possibly kept a number of players from jumping to the new league.

Wagner wasn't money hungry. He played for $10,000 a season the last decade of his career, always telling Dreyfuss, "Sames as last year." Lincoln would have done the same thing; Twain would have tried to negotiate.

The famous cigarette card incident his particularly reminiscent of Lincoln and Twain, although in different ways. Wagner smoked and chewed, as did just about with every male over the age of ten back then, but he didn't want kids to have to buy cigarettes or anything else just to get his picture. He asked the Piedmont Tobacco Co. to withdraw the card, which they did, but only after some got out. Afraid the man who had arranged the deal would lose money, Honus sent him a check for ten dollars. The few cards that got out were quickly hoarded up and became every collector's dream, going for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction. Lincoln and Honus would have shrugged and chuckled and gone about their business; Twain, who would have loved the irony of the thing almost as much as the money, is still crying.

He signed autographs tirelessly--and for free! --anticipating Hornsby's observation that any player who wouldn't sign autographs for kids must be a communist. After a game he would often sign enough times to dry out four fountain pens. He played catch with the kids in his neighborhood until dark. Does anybody wonder why a generation became fans?

Atypically kind to rookies, Wagner spotted a bewildered John Lobert, shared his locker with the rookie, saw that they both had doorknocker noses, and christened him "Little Hans." Possessing the self-assurance of the truly great, he was honored to hear that John Henry Lloyd was called "the black Wagner;" a lesser man might have felt threatened, even insulted.

Moreover, Wagner, Re Lincoln and Twain, contributed mightily to baseball and folklore (and fakelore; Lincoln wanted his time at bat, Hank Morgan set up a game in King Arthur's court.) His tales, which he often told in return for a beer or two, are gems. He cadged buckets of beers that way, announcing his presence by slapping a silver dollar or a ball on the counter, gathering a crowd, spinning a yarn or two, quietly picking up the dollar or the ball and heading off to the next watering hole. As expert as Lincoln and Twain at leg-pulling, he claimed he'd won a game during a driving rainstorm by chopping the ball down into the muck and circling the bases for a home run. Once he went after a ground ball with his steam-shovel hands, grabbed a rabbit along with the ball, and threw the whole mess to first base to nail a fast runner--by a hare. And we must not forget the 1909 World Series, when Cobb got on first and presumably told "Krauthead" he was coming down on the next pitch. Wagner, they said, told "Rebel" he'd be there, and according to which legend you prefer, applied a tag that either knocked Cobb out cold, loosened several of Cobb's teeth, or put three stitches in Cobb's lip. Cobb said it never happened because he wasn't crazy enough to get Wagner angry. Cobb may have been right (except for the part about being crazy), since play-by-play accounts of that Series don't show Wagner tagging Cobb out.

Honus Wagner was an incredibly gifted player who outshone his contemporaries and later players - as a hitter, as a baserunner as a fielder, as an all-around player, as a man. He was neither a saint nor the only fine man the game ever had. Mathewson, Johnson, Musial, Banks, Clemente, Stargell, and Mike Schmidt come to mind. Somehow, though he rises above even them. Joe DiMaggio couldn't believe anyone like Ty Cobb ever lived. For different reasons one could say the same thing about Wagner. Craig Wright and Tom House do just that in The Diamond Appraised, titling their chapter "Once There Was a Player" and insisting that they're not making anything up. Neither am I. There have been scores of great players, but Wagner, years after just about anyone who ever saw him play has died, still stands still. A shy man who went about his business quietly, he can fade into the distant past. This must not be. He was, like Stan Musial (a quiet pro and a fellow Western Pennsylvanian), "the perfect warrior, the perfect knight." Maybe Bill James puts it best in the Historical Abstract: "There may have been one or two whose talents were greater, (but) there is no one who has ever played this game that I would be more anxious to have on a baseball team." Honus Wagner is Lincoln and Twain brought to the diamond.