Caribbean Yankees

By David Marasco

Yankees invade England? Not quite. In 1913 the New York Yankees set sail for the British possession of Bermuda. They were not part of a 100-year late Armada of the War of 1812, they just wanted to get in shape for the coming baseball season. The year before the New Yorkers had gone 50-102 under the leadership of Harry Wolverton. In the offseason the team reached out to the retired Frank Chance. In addition to being part of a poem, the "Peerless Leader" was manager of the formidable Cubs team that battled the Giants and Pirates for National League supremacy in the early days of this century. Hopefully he could turn around the team's troubles.

In mid-February Chance took his wife, the team's chef, the business manager and a groundskeeper to the sunny island of Bermuda. When Chance arrived he arranged for housing and facilities. About a week after his landing the pitcher and catchers arrived. Along with them came Hal Chase.

Today Chase's name is associated with the likes of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. Hal travelled in shady circles and many of his fellow ballplayers went on record accusing him of throwing ballgames. In the days before a strong commissioner he was able to bounce from team to team, each franchise hoping that the rumors were untrue. Frank Chance had special plans for the talented but corrupt Chase. He wanted the firstbaseman to move to second. Seeing a Chase was a lefty (and would have had real problems on the pivot), the conventional wisdom was that Hal would make the conversion "about the same time that Detroit benches Ty Cobb for use as a pinch hitter." Still, Chance thought that the idea had promise. Chase's luck for the Spring was foretold when his suitcase (containing his uniform and glove) was stolen when he was on his way to the ship for Bermuda.

While Chase was having his problems, Chance was temporarily rejuvenated by the tropics. Reports had the manager ripping hits to all fields. One can wink an eye at his wife's comment that "He has no headaches at all now," but one has to remember that Chance had never been afraid to take one for the team, and at the end of his career he was paying the price.

The position players arrived in Bermuda at the beginning of March and for a period of about a week they drilled and practiced under the watchful eye of Chance. He had taken ill, his early enthusiasm had led to exhaustion, and this opened the doors for illness. While Chance couldn't take the field, this didn't keep him from experimenting with Chase at second. Early reports were promising.

The team saw its first organized action in the second week of March when they split into a regulars vs. subs game. The veterans took the six-inning affair 8-1, but the big news was Chase's ankle. A youngster named Harbison had spiked Chase and badly twisted the secondbaseman's ankle in a collision at the bag. This would take Chase out of the action for a while.

The Yankees did not need to destroy themselves, they had perfectly good opposition. The New Yorkers had set up their headquarters at the Brunswick Hotel, a hop and a skip away from the Oleander, homebase of the New Jersey Skeeters of the International League. Both teams shared the Hamilton Cricket Grounds. The facilities were so large that the groundskeeper simply set up a diamond for the Skeeters in deep left field, and the arrangements worked without a hitch.

The two teams faced off for the first time on March 11. As the Skeeters had only recently arrived their pitchers were not in game shape. The Yankees loaned them Schultz and Hoff. The Yankees subs blew out the Skeeters 9-0, although to be fair most of the damage came when New Jersey had Biebahn on the mound. In any case, the pitchers that the Yankees used and loaned looked very sharp.

After a day of rain the Yankees subs and the Skeeters had a return match. This times things didn't work out as well. Partly this is due to the fact that Chance let the youngsters make their mistakes so he could get a good idea of what he had. But a big hand has to be given to School Boy Knight, a former Yankee now playing for the Skeeters. He knocked in a run in the seventh to tie the game up, and then delivered the winning run in the ninth. The Skeeters took the day 4-3.

The Yankees subs had their revenge to next day, 6-1. The game was not as close as the score would indicate. Good New York hitting was combined with poor New Jersey fielding for a slaughter.

The Yankees took the next few days off from playing in order to intensify drills and learn to play Chance's brand of baseball. When they returned they fielded their vets. Sadly, this squad lost to New Jersey. Russell Ford went to the mound for the Yankees and the Skeeters knocked him around for three runs on three hits in the fourth. Warhop finished the game for the Yankees, but they were on the wrong side of a 4-0 score. Mains and Doescher had held the New York bats to but five hits.

The two teams scheduled an off day, but this was cancelled when it was realized that this would place a ballgame on Good Friday. Whatever was ailing the Yankees didn't show up when they next faced New Jersey. They pummelled the Skeeters for 14 runs on 16 hits. Granted, half of these runs were off of Paddy Green whom the Yanks had loaned to New Jersey, but the Yankees would take a 14-1 victory any way they could get it.

They should have put some of those runs in the bank. After a day off the Skeeters came back and shutout the the Yankees 4-0. Again School Boy Knight was the New Jersey hitting hero. Pitcher Jack Doescher served as a thorn in the Yankee's side as he participated in the second shutout of New York in three games.

After an intrasquad game the Yankees were ready for the Skeeters. This time the New Yorkers came to play. They took the day 9-2. The next day they confirmed that their fortunes had turned with a another victory. With underhander Jack Warhop on the mound they beat the Skeeters 4-2.

The final game between New York and New Jersey saw the return of Hal Chase after over two weeks of inactivity. Frank Chance was still recovering from his illness, but he promised to be back in the lineup any day. The Yankees got on the board right away with 4 in the first and pushed across 5 more in the fourth. When the skies opened with rain the game turned into a real laugher. The Skeeters closed out their spring training with a 10-1 loss.

With that the New Jersey squad hopped on a boat and headed back to the mainland. The Yankees had planned on spending a few more days playing intrasquad games, but rain crabbed those plans. The team spent the last few days of camp indoors. Happily, Chance at that point lifted his ban on pies and the squad made their dentists happy.

Frank Chance thought that the pitchers would be able to work out on the trip home, the ship had an area that was large enough for hard-tossing. Rough seas put every member over the siderail with seasickness, so it goes without saying that little practice was fit into the voyage.

The Yankees went out and promptly went 57-94, a slight improvement over the previous year. Hal Chase played very little at second, and was sent packing at the beginning of June, a common occurrence in his career. Frank Chance would be fired at the end of the 1914 season. He would surface again as manager of the Boston Red Sox in the early 1920's. Chance would die at a young age following brain surgery for his beaning-related headaches. School Boy Knight would hook up with the Yankees for 70 games in 1913, and then call it a career.

The New Jersey Skeeters obtained a two-year lease for the Hamilton Cricket Grounds, hoping to share spring training with the Yankees. They were denied when the Yankees went to Houston in 1914 and Savannah in 1915.