SMOKY JOE'S CAFE

Robert (Bob) Wood, is a sports memorabilia dealer in Keene, New Hampshire, who, like his famous father, loves to talk baseball. He was kind enough to answer the following questions for us.

TDA: Accounts of Joe's injury, the one that ruined his pitching career, are kind of sketchy. Could you explain it the way he told it to you?

Bob Wood: Dad's career seemed always to be hampered by injury. In 1909, roommates Tris Speaker and Joe Wood were fooling around in their hotel room during spring training when Wood's right foot was accidentally caught in a door. He did not start pitching until June 21, thus he missed at least 12 starts, but still finished up his rookie year 11-7.

In 1910, Dad was out with an ankle injury from June 19th through July. While pitching batting practice, he was struck on the right ankle by a Harry Hooper line drive. After returning, he lost 7 out of 12 decisions, another possible 20 win season down the drain.

The 1913 injury incident happened in Detroit in early July. He slipped on the wet grass while fielding a bunt and broke his right thumb. Perhaps he tried to come back too soon because the Red Sox were in a pennant race with Philadelphia, Washington and Cleveland. Manager Jake Stahl checked his condition daily. In any event, he never pitched again without severe pain in his right shoulder, although he was able to win 25 games in the next two years, even though in 1914 he had his appendix taken out in February and didn't start the season until May 27.

I asked him many times why all the misery and bad luck! He would say he didn't know, other than he was just prone to injury. He did say he just loved the game of baseball and wanted to be at the center of all the action. This included retrieving balls in the outfield and throwing hard strikes to the various bases during batting practice. Likewise, playing the infield and pegging the ball from home plate to second base. Anything to have a baseball in his hand and throw it as hard as he could!

Walter Johnson used to say, "Joe Wood has a flick of the wrist motion which might be troublesome over the years. He should protect himself and not wear himself out at a young age." How right he was.

TDA: I can tell from the Ritter book (Glory of Their Times), as well as other interviews I have read with him, that he liked to talk about the old days. Are there any stories from his childhood that particularly stand out in your mind?

Bob Wood: The earliest recollections I have are of Dad and family making the trip by covered wagon (prairie schooner) from Ness City, Kansas to Ouray, Colorado. He always had his baseball glove hitched to his side and always welcomed a game of catch. He was all of ten or eleven years old.

In Ouray, he and his brother Pete were always looking for ways of earning a little extra money: collecting discarded rubber tubing, setting type for his father's newspaper and covering the mortuary to claim discarded boots and clothing. He always enjoyed watching the stage coaches coming down from the gold mines, the guards with drawn rifles. His father was a lawyer and involved in some big cases for The Western Federation of Miners as well as owning and writing the editorials for the local newspaper. Dad was a mascot of the baseball team. I have a photo of the 1902 team and I realize that eight years after that photo he was pitching in the big leagues, and ten years after the photo he was pitching the first game of the 1912 World Series in the Polo Grounds.

A young Smoky Joe Wood, far right, bottom row

The Wood family returned to Ness City, Kansas in 1906 and by that time Dad was playing on the local town team. He talked rather sheepishly of joining the Bloomer Girls team for the last three weeks of the season. He was paid the sum of $35 and train fare home.

He signed (or rather his father signed) his first professional contract in the Winter of 1906 with Cedar Rapids of the Three I League. When it came time to report to Cedar Rapids in 1907, manager Belden Hill decided he didn't have room on the roster for Joe Wood, so he literally gave his contract to Doc Andrews, manager of the Hutchinson7 Kansas team of the Western Association. Every year thereafter, Dad would kid Belden Hill unmercifully about giving his contract away.

In Hutchinson, Dad related how several of the pitchers developed sore arms and he was pressed into service as a pitcher and remained at that position until he became an outfielder for Cleveland in 1918. He always said he just loved to throw the ball as hard as he could.

TDA: I know he did some college coaching after he retired from the majors and that he had some sort of hunting camp where old friends would gather to hunt and chew the fat. Could you tell me a little about that period of his life?

Bob Wood: Dad's last season in the major leagues was 1922, as a member of the Cleveland club. In his last year as a regular outfielder he played in 142 games, had 150 base hits, 92 RBIs and batted .297.

Jack Blossom, Director of Athletics at Yale, brought Dad to New Haven as coach of the 1923 Yale freshman baseball team. The team went 13-1-1 and Dad was named varsity coach for the 1924 season, a position he held through the 1942 season. His teams won a total of 303 games while losing 241, for a winning percentage of .557. This record included eight Big Three championships (Yale, Harvard, Princeton) and two Eastern Intercollegiate League championships, 1932 and 1937. Yale players of his who made it to the big leagues included Bruce Caldwell, Johnny Broaca, Eddie Collins, Jr., and Joe Wood, Jr. Other members of his teams included Ducky Pond, Faye Vincent Sr., Albie Booth and Larry Kelly.

Several Cleveland players established the Indian Hunting Camp in Lord's Valley, PA. about 1919, near where my father spent part of his chilhood. Dad headed the group that included Steve O'Neill, Elmer Smith, Bill Wambsganss, Charlie Jamieson, Stanley Coveleski, George Burns, Doc Johnston, plus Clyde Engle of the Red Sox and about five local guys.

They would begin the hunting season, always the first two weeks of December, with "Crabby," the chef, 12-14 hunters and 6 kegs of beer. Needless to say, good times were had by all.

They owned the camp, which stood on a one acre site and hunted on a rented 1,000 acres. This arrangement continued throughout the Œ20s and early '30s until Dad bought out the original shareholders.

TDA: Would you mind talking about what it was like having Smoky Joe Wood for a father? Was he gone a lot while you were growing up? Were you close to him? Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Bob Wood: Dad retired after the 1922 season, even though he was a regular and had a very good year. When asked why he retired, his only comments were that he had nothing further to prove to himself or the fans, plus he would come home and his four young children (Joe, Jr, age 7; Steve, 5; Virginia, 4; and Bobby, 4) would hardly recognize him. He was quite a family man.

During the early years in New Haven we were a close family. Matter of fact, I was the Yale bat boy in the early '30s and one of my more pleasant memories is having my picture taken with Lou Gehrig during a Yankee-Yale exhibition game in 1933. We three boys went to the local schools and played all sports. Dad saw as many of our games as possible, but usually there were conflicts of interest because of his own Yale team schedule. My twin sister, Virginia, developed into a good golfer and Ben Thompson, pro at the Yale Golf Course, always thought she had the potential to crack the professional ranks. Dad always encouraged our athletic endeavors and offered advice when we asked for it or whenever he saw a glaring area of concern. We played on semi-pro teams that competed in the New Haven City leagues and around the state of Connecticut. One thing was certain: we played on those teams because we were good enough, not because we were Joe Wood's sons! Matter of fact, we never considered Dad a celebrity, he and my mother were both just good, caring parents.

Also, during the early years, we spent part of the summers at our home in Pennsylvania. Our house there was built by my dad after the 1912 World Series and adjoined his dad's farm of 200+ acres. Our daily ritual was that we would arise early and do our assigned chores and then head as a family for Port Jervis, New York and the golf course, some 20 miles distant. We all played, including my mother and we had some great times between the six of us.

Our Pennsylvania home was in a summer resort area, the Pocono Mountains, with two lakes nearby. We knew most of the families who lived around there and never lacked for teenage companionship.

Yes, our parents were always there when we needed them. They were super people.

TDA: Finally, how would you like posterity to best remember the great Smoky Joe Wood?

Bob Wood: Charlie Hall, his former Red Sox teammate, once said "Show me anything athletically that involved working with the hands and body and ask me who I'd single out as the best, and I'd say without hesitation that I'd pit Joe Wood against the world. He was the most natural and talented of them all. "

Players such as Stanley Coveleski, Ty Cobb, Larry Lajoie, Harry Hooper, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson and Clark Griffith, as well as writers like Tim Murane, Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon and Hugh Fullerton all considered him one of the best of the era. Had he not hurt his arm or been injury prone, he may well have been remembered as one of the best baseball players and athletes of all time. In any event, his statistics are outstanding, most worthy of induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hopefully, Joe Wood will be remembered as an honest, sincere, friendly, intelligent, trustworthy man of high integrity, one who was blessed with an uncanny athletic ability and who lived and breathed the game of baseball to the very end.

Aside from all of the above, he was a good, decent man, husband and father.