The Sizzler

George Sisler, Baseball’s Forgotten Great

By Rick Huhn

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS

Copyright © 2004 The Curators of the University of Missouri
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8262-2013-4

Contents

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………ixIntroduction………………………………………………………11. George Who?…………………………………………………….42. Blue Sweater……………………………………………………153. Arm Trouble…………………………………………………….274. Reunited and Repositioned………………………………………..455. War Clouds……………………………………………………..636. The Veteran…………………………………………………….757. Major-League Changes…………………………………………….858. Renaissance Man…………………………………………………1149. Guarded Optimism………………………………………………..12510. “The Little World Series”……………………………………….13811. Missing in Action………………………………………………15512. Comeback Kid…………………………………………………..18613. Same Old Same Old………………………………………………20514. Brave New World………………………………………………..22415. Private Enterprise……………………………………………..24616. Full Circle……………………………………………………25317. Family Man…………………………………………………….27318. Historically Speaking…………………………………………..283Appendix………………………………………………………….293Bibliography………………………………………………………301Index…………………………………………………………….311

CHAPTER 1

George Who?

In St. Louis in the summer, baseball’s Cardinals often compete with thehumidity to determine which is hotter. Such was the case in 2001. On June17, Cardinals fans gathered at Busch Stadium for a Sunday afternoon ofinterleague play with the Chicago White Sox. Their club was embroiledin a tight pennant race. Those who arrived early to enjoy the still balmyweather and check out batting practice were probably puzzled by the sightof a small group of men and women standing together outside the stadiumon the walkway at the north end, surrounding a bronze statue of a baseballplayer. For those few taking the time to stop for a closer look, merepuzzlement quickly turned to disbelief. The player whose statue wasabout to take its place alongside Cardinals heroes such as Rogers Hornsby,Stan “The Man” Musial, and Bob Gibson never played a single game forthe Cardinals, and seldom set foot inside Busch Stadium. In fact, heplayed the vast majority of his career for a team extinct since 1953. Suchis the legacy of George Sisler, longtime first baseman for the St. LouisBrowns.

Those in attendance for this strange tribute, appropriately scheduled onFather’s Day, included members of the Sisler family, various executivesfrom Cardinals management such as owner Bill DeWitt, the artist HarryWeber, and a handful of members of the St. Louis Browns Historical Society,at whose urging the Cardinals arranged for the honor. Prior to the unveilingitself, Bob Broeg, former writer and sports editor of the St. LouisPost-Dispatch and a member of the Baseball Writers Hall of Fame, gave ashort speech briefly detailing the honoree’s career. Broeg, in his early eighties,has seen a lot of baseball and baseball players pass through the citywith the famous arch. He told the small gathering he regards the man hecalls “The Sizzler” as “just about the least appreciated player in history andmaybe the best.”

Earlier that day, in its Sunday edition, Broeg’s old newspaper weighedin with a similar opinion, telling readers Sisler “might be the best playermost baseball fans don’t know about” and admitting he is “largely forgotteneven in St. Louis, where he played 12 seasons in his 15-year Hall-of Famecareer.” The article mentioned that Sisler is overshadowed by hisAmerican League contemporaries Ty Cobb, who once called Sisler “thenearest thing to a perfect ballplayer,” Babe Ruth, and even in his own cityby the Cardinals’ Hornsby.

So how does a Hall of Fame baseball player with a .340 lifetime battingaverage who twice hit better than .400, ranks among the best defensivefirst basemen in history, and still holds the major-league record of 257 hitsin a single season land in a heap on baseball’s back porch? That is not aparticularly easy question to answer, but the road to relative obscuritymay have all started in 1922 just as George, or Sis to his admirers, reachedthe pinnacle of his success. However, starting this story in 1922 would notwork well, since it is the middle of the tale. And any story that starts inthe middle ignores the beginning. In George Sisler’s case, the beginning isparticularly instructive.

The Sisler saga unfolds in the tiny Ohio town of Manchester, in northeasternOhio, twelve miles south of Akron and ten miles north of Massillon.In the 1700s this land was Iroquois country. The Indian tribe was firmlyentrenched in the area by 1740. The first permanent white settler did notarrive until 1814. The town itself was founded by residents of Manchester,England.

The land around Manchester was blessed with rich, fertile soil. The TuscarawasRiver runs through the region, and there are numerous swampsand marshes. The discovery of large pockets of bituminous coal broughtmining to the area. Most of the mines were closed by 1940 due to the adventof gas heat.

By 1891 local property owners included several with the last name ofSisler, believed to be of Swiss or German extraction. It is uncertain whetherthe addition of George Harold Sisler on March 24, 1893, raised the populationof Manchester to five hundred or sent it over the top.

Trivia buffs will question why birth records list Nimisila, a mere blip ona railroad map, as George’s birthplace. The explanation rests with the U.S.Postal Service. At the time there was a second, larger Manchester locatedin southwestern Ohio. Thus, the tiny farming community was designatedNimisila (Indian for “beautiful water”) for mailing purposes.

The Manchester where Cassius Clay Sisler and Mary Whipple Sisler,she of the Scottish McFarland clan, lived with their eldest son Efbert J.and younger son Cassius Carl consisted of four streets aptly named North,South, East, and West. North Street was the north line of the road runningbetween Akron and Massillon, with South Street the south line of said road.West and East Streets respectively were the dissecting roads running betweenthe small towns of Clinton, three miles to the west, and Greensburg,several miles to the east. In its way, Manchester was not unlike much ofAmerica in the last years of the nineteenth century. The nation at this timewas essentially provincial, the majority of its seventy-six million citizensresiding in country towns. It was a nation crisscrossed by dirt roads traversedby horse-drawn carriages where one saw women tightly corsetedand men in top hats and bowlers; one in which kerosene lamps lightedhomes and an outhouse was a common sight.

Despite its tiny size, Manchester had four churches, each on a differentstreet; the Reformed on North Street, the Evangelical on East Street, theDisciple on South Street, and the Lutheran on West Street. Lest one assumeits residents did nothing but build churches and pray, Manchester alsosported one saloon, two grocery stores, a barber shop, and a meat market.

George’s parents were both graduates of Hiram College, a small privateschool once led by former president James A. Garfield and located innearby Portage County. His parents had been college sweethearts. At onetime both taught school, and education was a focal point in Sisler familylife. No longer a teacher, George’s father supervised a coal mine a fewmiles from town.

Cassius Sisler came from a large family. His father, John, George’s paternalgrandfather, owned a good deal of land all around the area, but residedin Manchester itself. His brother, Adam, was a practicing physician there.George’s Uncle Mace, the brother of Cassius, was also a practicing physician.One sister, George’s Aunt Mel, was the wife of Isaac Myers, ownerof the I. S. Myers Clothing Store in Akron and former mayor of that city. Inaddition, there was Aunt Lib and her husband, Thomas Prout, George’sfavorite aunt and uncle. Aunt Lib and Uncle Tom were half of a singinggroup that included Frank Rabar and his wife, who was also related to theSislers. This quartet sang at all local funerals, weddings, and birthday parties.George recalled Frank “singing tenor with a high squeaky voice,” butnot much else about the group.

Manchester had a two-floor grade school. At noon and after schoolGeorge and his friends would run home. In later years, George attributedthe foot speed that served him well in many sports to these daily sprints.Except for the occasional game of horseshoes and a rainy-day checkersmatch, Manchester offered little in the way of sports other than baseball.Many would argue fishing and hunting are sport; if so, then Manchesterhad those, too. Certainly there were plenty of venues. George’s favoritewas Dakey Reed Lake, where there was an abundance of “very tasty bluegills.” During the winter, a favorite steep hill just outside of town wasthe perfect place for coasting and sledding. However, in the early 1900s,throughout America baseball was king. According to George, Manchesterwas no different:

[E]very night before dark, most of town, it seemed turned out for the dailygame behind the grade school building on North Street. We all had our positionsassigned to us and these positions varied but little from day to day.My position was always shortstop even though I was left-handed and I gotso I could play pretty well, so I thought. We had no suits for a while butfinally we decided to hold a social one Saturday night in order to raise fundsto buy suits out of some catalogue we found somewhere. So we sold icecream, lemonade, soda pop and other little niceties on the grade school property.Well we made enough to buy nine suits and they were the nicest colorred that we had ever seen. I suppose they would cost in the neighborhoodof four or five dollars a suit and they were certainly worth it. Having suits,we were now ready to schedule games. Our schedule consisted of two homeand home games with Clinton, three miles away to the west and our longtrip which was with Canal Fulton, four miles away to our south. We wouldget a wagon and two horses, make seats in the back, and the whole teamwould get on and we were on our way. We generally won, although I can’tremember the scores. We had town support and thought we were prettygood.

Although it is clear George enjoyed playing ball at an early age, thereis no indication who, if anyone, instilled the notion or taught him the rudimentsof the game. There is some reason to believe his father and one unclehad been fairly decent ballplayers in their day. Having an older brothersuch as Cassius, who played the game well, certainly did not hurt either.Still, the root source of what would soon turn into a fountain of baseballtalent remains a mystery.

Before long, George was growing up, and the idyllic days of youth ranheadlong into reality. Manchester had no high school. In George’s case,his family had alternatives. He would move to the city twelve miles awayand attend Akron High School. Older brother Bert already lived there withhis wife and daughter, working in Uncle Isaac Myers’ clothing store. Highschool bound George moved into Akron to live with Bert. At fourteen,George had left his home, essentially never to return.

When young George arrived in Akron he found himself in an expandingnorthern Ohio city formed in what previously was known as the WesternReserve. At the end of the Revolutionary War the thirteen states not onlysecured their independence but also inherited a vast expanse of westernland. In time the seaboard states surrendered their claims to most of thisterritory. Virginia and Connecticut, however, each set aside an allotmentfor themselves. The Connecticut Reserve, or Western Reserve as it becameknown, embraced land west of Pennsylvania that fell between the forty firstparallel and Lake Erie. Before 1785 and an intervening treaty this wasthe land of the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Delaware. The site of thefuture Akron was immediately north of the forty-first and thus just withinthe Reserve.

Continued Indian activities in the area were a deterrent to quick settlement.It was not until the War of 1812 and the death of the powerful Indianleader Tecumseh that migration to the area began in earnest. Even thensettlers were reluctant to come to the region due to its water-bound nature.Groundbreaking in 1825 for the Erie Canal changed all that. The high pointof the canal was the Portage Summit. A town was planned for the area. Itwas named Akron, a derivation of the Greek word for “high.”

The construction of the canal brought streams of workers to the newtown. They worked on the thirty-eight-mile stretch that would traversethe Reserve from the Portage Summit to Lake Erie. Still, there was little bythe late 1880s to set Akron apart. Its real turning point as a city of influenceoccurred in the “Gay Nineties,” in the midst of an age of invention. It wasin this last decade of the nineteenth century that America became fascinatedwith a new mode of transportation, the bicycle, a contraption thatran on wheels encased in rubber. It just so happened that the material ofchoice was the main product of an Akron manufacturer, B. F. Goodrich.

In a few short years another invention began filling the nation’s streets.By no mean coincidence this new invention, the “horseless carriage,” alsorode on wheels cushioned in rubber. Before long Goodrich was Akron’slargest employer. Others took notice of their success. Soon similar companiessuch as Goodyear and Firestone, often founded by enterprising locals,called Akron home. At the turn of the century, Akron was a city of approximatelyseventy thousand inhabitants. From 1910 to 1920 the city’s populationtripled as one automobile after another rolled off assembly lines andthe world turned to the “rubber capital” for the tires needed to give theirswift-moving wonders a smooth ride.

Despite the population explosion, there was still only one high schoolin the growing city when George arrived there. As a fledgling student atAkron High School, he was proud of his academic accomplishments, especiallyin German class, where he was able to translate an English poem intoGerman without losing its rhyme. This feat clearly pleased his educatedparents much more than did his ability with a baseball bat and glove. Still,academics did not get in the way of organized sports. George tried out forthe interscholastic squads in each of his school’s three sports and madethem all. In football, in spite of a slender frame holding but 140 pounds,he was an end. In basketball, at five feet, ten inches, he was a forward. Andalthough he spent a bushel-load of time on the sandlots as a left-hand hittingand fielding shortstop, in high school he was a left-handed pitcher.

The featherweight receiver recalls that

in football, my crowning achievement was catching a forward pass and scoringthe winning touchdown in an important game. In basketball, I can stillsee our Coach giving signals from the sidelines with various hand in leftvest, hand in right vest, hand in coat pocket, and on and on. I even remembermy teammates, Joe Thomas at Center, Don Parshall at forward, GlenKillinger at guard and Dave Evans at guard. We had a good representativeteam. But it was in baseball that I really enjoyed myself. I could, as a kid,throw hard. I had a real good curve ball and I had good control. I don’tthink we ever lost a game in baseball.

This is not entirely accurate. Akron High School did lose a few gameswhile George Sisler wore its uniform, but not many, and seldom when itsbudding star took the mound to start the game. In his sophomore year in1909, George was used mainly in relief, progressing nicely while showingglimpses of coming attractions. Early in his junior year, the local daily, theAkron Beacon Journal, took notice in a story with the subhead, “Sisler ofAkron, Strikes Out Eleven Men and Gives Only Five Hits—Well Playedand Brilliant Game.” The report noted that in taming Cleveland’s CentralHigh School, the young hurler had “speed to burn and a wonderful curveball which was a puzzler to the boys of Cleveland.” Less than two weekslater, George limited Youngstown Rayen to four hits in a 2–1 victory. Hewas almost as impressive a week later in striking out twelve Canton HighSchool batters, but errors left Akron on the short end of a 4–2 score.

In late May the rains came, forcing an early end to a game with Oberlinin which George fanned ten and helped his team fashion an 8–2 win withtwo hits of his own. An article right next to the Beacon Journal report ofGeorge’s game described the batting heroics of the American League’sleading hitter, Napoleon “Larry” Lajoie of Cleveland’s big-league baseballentry. A decade later George would take that very spot atop the junior circuit’slist of hitters, but for now, Akron’s star southpaw enjoyed a spotlightof his own by twirling a no-hit shutout against Lakewood in late May. Inaddition to whiffing seventeen of twenty-seven opponents he faced, heagain helped his own cause with his four hits.

Still, George was not the only Sisler playing baseball in Akron. His middlebrother, Cassius, was playing the outfield and pitching for BuchtelCollege. Another all-around athlete, Cassius played basketball in college,as well as baseball. In 1911, as a senior, he captained both squads. Later,Cassius went on to a long career in sales with the Firestone Tire and RubberCompany. In 1910, however, the brothers Sisler were garnering theirshare of attention from the local press: “The Sislers have been pitching remarkablegames recently and in each of the contests they make a recordby the number of strikeouts. One pitches for the Akron High School andthe other for Buchtel College. Their work is attracting the attention and ifthey continue to keep up their record, some of the bigger leagues will belooking for their services.”
(Continues…)Excerpted from The Sizzler by Rick Huhn. Copyright © 2004 The Curators of the University of Missouri. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS.
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