During the 1912 baseball season, center fielder Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers was suspended for ten days after entering the spectator stands at New York's Hilltop Park during a game and physically assaulting Claude Lucker, a heckler. At the time, Cobb was among the biggest stars in the major leagues. American League president Ban Johnson suspended Cobb and fined him $50 ($ in ).
Cobb had been Lucker's verbal target throughout the four-game series between the Tigers and New York Yankees. Facing a continued stream of insults and questioning about his racial ancestry, Cobb lost his temper in the fourth inning of the fourth game, on May 15, 1912. He raced into the stands, punching and kicking Lucker; Lucker had lost eight fingers in an industrial accident and could not defend himself. Cobb was ejected from the game. Johnson witnessed these events and suspended Cobb indefinitely. Since there were few protections for ballplayers at the time from insults and objects hurled by fans, many took Cobb's side, including his teammates. After defeating the Philadelphia Athletics on May 17, the Detroit players telegraphed Johnson that they would not play again until Cobb was reinstated; Johnson refused to do so.
Seeking to avoid a $5,000 fine ($ in ) if Detroit did not field a team, owner Frank Navin instructed manager Hughie Jennings to recruit a team. Jennings did so with help from Connie Mack, the Philadelphia owner/manager. Facing baseball's defending World Series champions, the replacement team lost 24–2. After the game, Johnson travelled to Philadelphia to negotiate with the players. At Cobb's urging, they returned to work. The striking players were fined, as was Cobb when his suspension was lifted on May 25, but Navin paid all penalties. Baseball's first major league strike, the walkout had little effect, but teams added security to stadium seating areas.
Background By 1912, fan conduct in major league ballparks had become a matter of public discussion. Despite efforts to provide a family-friendly atmosphere, it was common for some of those attending to spend time hurling bottles and epithets at those on the field. Players sometimes responded verbally, or even physically—Cy Young, who had a reputation as mild-mannered, had gone into the stands to confront a heckler. There were no security guards or ushers at the time, and the police could be as partial as the fans.
Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers was one of the dominant players in the major leagues in 1912 and one of baseball's biggest stars. The previous season, he had won the batting title with an average of .420, and led the American League in runs, hits, doubles, triples, run batted in (RBIs), slugging percentage, and stolen bases. He was also controversial, notable for violent actions on and off the field. A native of Georgia, he had the racial attitudes of many whites of his state at the time, although in later life, he expressed support for the integration of baseball.
Claude Lucker (sometimes rendered "Lueker") was a former printing press operator for The New York Times who had lost eight fingers in an industrial accident about 1910, and subsequently did odd jobs for the former sheriff of New York County, Thomas F. Foley. His employment paid enough for him to be well-dressed and to attend all four games of the series between the Tigers and the New York Yankees. There, he sat along the left field foul line in the stands past third base and engaged himself in hurling insults at Cobb in center field. According to Cobb, Lucker had been heckling him for years. The reasons for Lucker's hostility toward Cobb are unknown; the player's biographer, Richard Bak, suggested that it was a case of "one of life's victims venting his bitterness" at "a thin-skinned star whose slow burn made for great sport".
Lucker, like Cobb, had lived in Georgia, and the insults Lucker shouted at Cobb often focused on racial matters. Lucker called Cobb's mother a "nigger lover" and Cobb himself "half black" and a "coon". Cobb shouted for Lucker to go back to his "waiter's job" but Lucker persisted. By May 15, the fourth and final game of the series between the two teams, Cobb's patience was nearly exhausted. According to Bak, "on the afternoon of May 15, 1912, Claude Lucker outdid himself, pushing Cobb over the edge and setting in motion one of the wildest chain of events in sports history".
Game at Hilltop Park
During pregame fielding practice Cobb muffed a fly ball, and someone in the stands yelled, "Hey, are you on dope?" Lucker later denied being the person who yelled this; regardless, the accusation upset Cobb. Between the home halves of the first and second inning, with Detroit batting, Cobb remained behind the outfield rather than return to the dugout and pass Lucker. During the third inning, Cobb visited the Yankee dugout and asked for Frank J. Farrell, co-owner of the team, apparently in an attempt to have Lucker removed from the ballpark, but Farrell could not be located and Cobb made no request of other Yankee officials. Lucker was not the only fan screaming insults at Cobb, and the epithets questioned Cobb's race and morals.
The stream of insults from Lucker continued into the fourth inning. One of Cobb's teammates, perhaps Davy Jones or Sam Crawford, suggested to Cobb that he could not let the insults pass. This was enough to spark Cobb's rage, and he ran over to where Lucker was sitting, leaped into the stands, and began to punch and kick Lucker as other fans tried to get out of his way. Fans shouted at Cobb, "He has no hands!", referring to Lucker's disability, which meant he could not defend himself. Cobb responded, continuing to pummel Lucker, "I don't care if he has no feet."
The Detroit manager, Hughie Jennings, by some accounts stated to the press that he heard Cobb called a "half-nigger" and "no Southerner would stand such an insult". Jennings added that he "knew it would be useless to restrain Ty as he would have got his tormentor sooner or later. When Ty's Southern blood is aroused, he is a bad man to handle." Lucker stated to the press that he had been on good terms with Cobb until the incident, despite the insults, which Lucker termed mere kidding or joshing. He denied being the person who called Cobb a "coon" and contended the ballplayer had, in assaulting him, gotten the wrong person.
Fred Westervelt, one of the umpires, separated the two men with the aid of a Pinkerton guard. Cobb was kicked out of the game but was allowed to remain in the dugout for several innings, and the fans cheered him as he was taken away from Lucker. Detroit beat New York, 8–4.
The American League president, Ban Johnson, was present at Hilltop Park that day and saw the incident. He sent one of his assistants, named O'Neill, over to Lucker to urge him not to have Cobb arrested, and O'Neill got Lucker to leave the ballpark, though what if anything he was promised in exchange for not filing a complaint is unknown. He did feel free to voice his opinion of Cobb, first to anyone who would listen on his way out of Hilltop Park, and then to the baseball press.
Much of the press supported Cobb, stating that he had been a target for fan abuse in every ballpark the Tigers visited. The entire Georgia congressional delegation, including both senators, sent Cobb a telegram applauding his actions. Johnson summoned Cobb to the league president's hotel room on the evening of May 15 and asked the player for his version of events. Cobb recounted the epithet regarding his ancestry and stated that when a spectator called him that, "I think it is about time to fight". Johnson was aghast at Cobb's defense.
Cobb suspended The Tigers traveled to Philadelphia for a series against the Athletics, but the first game, on May 16, was rained out. That evening, Johnson informed Jennings that Cobb was suspended indefinitely for the May 15 incident, to which Cobb objected. "Johnson has always believed himself to be infallible. He suspends a man first and then investigates afterward. It should be the reverse." Johnson responded that Cobb may have had "great provocation", but he should have appealed to the umpire to have Lucker thrown out of the ballpark: "What right did Cobb have to rush into the stand, knock down a man and kick him with his spikes?"
Angered by the indefinite suspension of Cobb, the players for the Tigers sent a telegram to Johnson stating they would not play beyond the game with the Athletics on May 17 if Cobb's suspension was not lifted. Baseball historian Harold Seymour found it significant that all 18 Detroit players joined in, showing the depth of player resentment at spectator abuse, despite the fact that some disliked Cobb. They wrote,
Jennings backed his players, saying, "The suspension was not warranted. I am in the hands of my players, if they refuse to play I will finish way down in the races. I expect Johnson to reconcile the matter, fine Cobb or announce definitely the length of the suspension." Johnson received the telegram on the evening of May 17. He responded that Cobb was not permanently banned, but only until the investigation was complete. He told the owner of the Tigers, Frank Navin, that the franchise would be fined $5,000 ($ in ) if it failed to put a team on the field to face the Athletics on May 18. Navin instructed Jennings to make sure the Tigers had a team there, by whatever means were necessary.
Accordingly, Jennings and his coaches Deacon McGuire and Joe Sugden, with the help of the Athletics owner/manager, Connie Mack, decided to seek replacement players who could take the field for the Tigers on May 18 if Cobb's teammates did not relent. Mack was willing to be helpful because he feared losing a day's gate receipts. There are various accounts of how they went about this. By one version, Aloysius Travers, a student at Saint Joseph's College who was an outfielder on a team called the Park Sparrows, was tipped off by a sports editor named John Nolan to bring as many players as he could recruit to Shibe Park the following day. Nolan told Jennings that the players would be there and waiting. By another account, Jennings and his coaches (who would also play in the game), combed the streets for players and held tryouts at the team hotel. According to Mack biographer Norman Macht, both stories may be true.
Another version of the story has Mack informing Jennings that the Athletics had played (and lost) an exhibition game to Saint Joseph's baseball team, the Philadelphia collegiate city champions, during spring training, and had Jennings get in touch with Nolan, who referred him to Travers. However, the Saint Joseph's team had played a game out of town on Friday and apparently declined the offer, leaving Travers to gather up whatever volunteers he could find. In addition to himself, he secured five sandlot baseball players and two amateur boxers.
Travers and the others were in the grandstand when the Tigers, including Cobb, came on the field on the afternoon of May 18. Cobb was asked to leave the field by umpire Bill Dinneen; he did, and his teammates followed. The replacement players also went into the clubhouse, where the striking Tigers gave them the shirts off their backs and they were signed to one-day contracts by Jennings. Then, they went out on the field to face the two-time defending World Series champion Athletics, featuring the future Hall of Famers Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins and Herb Pennock. Mack had hinted he would play his reserves against the substitute Tigers, but he chose six of his eight starting position players, with veteran pitcher Jack Coombs to start for his team. Travers took the pitching assignment for the Tigers upon learning that the pitcher would be paid more; by other accounts he was the best performer at the pitching tryouts. Many of Cobb's teammates sat in the stands to see what would happen.
Replacement game