JAKE DAUBERT

The career of Jake Daubert suggests that maybe Dennis Rodman has it right. Self-promotion is the surest path to sports immortality.

Daubert played 15 full seasons in the majors from 1910 through 1924 with Brooklyn and Cincinnati. Sadly, he died at the tail end of the 1924 season from complications following an appendectomy. Jake was a twice N.L. batting champion, was the Ieague's most valuable player in 1913 (Chalmers Award) and retired with a lifetime average of .303.

Daubert was not a home-run hitter. Few in his generation were. But he hit a lot of triples and was usually good for about 50 RBIs, satisfactory in the dead-ball era. And the fact that he still holds the N.L. record for sacrifice hits, 392, shows that he was not batting second on a manager's whim. Moreover, Daubert was regarded by many observers as one of the two best fielding first basemen of his generation---the other the peerless Hal Chase.

Unfortunately, by all contemporary accounts, Daubert totally lacked color. He preferred the company of a Brooklyn undertaker, Harry Blair, to that of his frolicsome Dodger teammates. Jake's little boy, George Daubert, who served as Brooklyn batboy for a time, probably drew more attention on the field. But if Jake's on-field demeanor was zombie-like, he was a piranha in off-field negotiations with the Dodgers' front office and was also something of a clubhouse lawyer. He once sued owner Charlie Ebbets in a salary dispute and was suspected of organizing a playerıs rebellion against amiable manager Wilbert Robinson. Jake's punishment was to be traded in 1919 to the pennant-bound Reds.

Today, if Daubert's name comes up in a baseball trivia contest, the contestants are likely to respond, "Jake who?" Perhaps if Jake had colored his hair orange or behaved more like his madcap teammate Casey Stengel, he would have a plaque at Cooperstown. He certainly seems to have the numbers.

JAKE BY THE NUMBERS

While he may have lacked charisma, Daubert was one of the few in the pre-free agency era who regularly stood up to the owners. After winning the NL batting crown in 1913 & '14, he told Dodger owner Charles Ebbets he'd go to the Federal League if he didn't get a raise. Then in 1918, when the season was shortened because of WWI, Jake read his contract and said prorating players' salaries was illegal. Ebbets called him unpatriotic, Daubert sued him. They settled out of court, but 1919 found Daubert in a Cincinnati Reds uniform. October, 1919 found Ebbets sitting on his hands in the stands patching his former star playing against Chicago in the World Series.

It may partly, be because of the legacy of that Series that stars like Daubert, Heine Groh, Ed Rousch and Dolf Luque are underappreciated. The Sox threw the W.S., ergo the 1919 Reds were no good. A .686 WL %, 9 games ahead of the Giants is no good?

Anyway, Daubert's numbers. .303 lifetime, I 0 seasons over .300, 6 in a row. He had 2,324 hits, 250 doubles and 165 triples (29th alltime). And he adapted to the live ball era, hitting 12 homers, 66 rbi, 114 runs, 205 hits and a .336 BA in 1922, when he was 38 (he died only, two years later). He fielded around .990, with those tiny gloves, averaged 10.5 chances a game and partook in 1199 double plays.