Dutch Leonard died a wealthy man -- updated



1917 Boston Store.

 Uncommon commons. Contemporary accounts of tidbits that as a collector of baseball and football cards I found interesting because they helped bring to life the faces on the cards I collected. I figure that if I found these items of interest, so would other vintage card collectors.


 "Many fans and others in baseball, who noted the extent of the estate of the late H.B. (Dutch) Leonard, wondered how a former ball player could accumulate so much money."

So began an article in a 1953 edition of The Sporting News detailing the estate left by Hubert Benjamin Leonard when he died in 1952 (on my first birthday, July 1). The newspaper account concerned Dutch the Elder, who pitched in the majors from 1913-1925. Dutch the Younger (Emil John) was active from 1933-53.

H.B. Leonard had been born in Ohio in 1892, but made his way to California where he pitched for two seasons (1910-11) for St. Mary's College,  near Oakland. (Among the two dozen or so major leaguers who played for St. Mary's since the 19th Century were Harry Hooper, Duffy Lewis, Frank Kelleher, Andy Carey, Tom Candiotti and, in this century, Mark Teahen. Hal Chase coached the team circa 1907.)

Connie Mack gave Leonard a look-see in 1911, but he never actually played for the Athletics. He entered Organized Baseball at the age of 20 in 1912, pitching for Denver in the Western League (Class A). It was his only year in the minor leagues. He won 22 games, lost nine and had a 2.50 ERA.



1922 E220 National Caramel.

 The Boston Red Sox signed Leonard for 1913, and he spent six seasons there. With the young Babe Ruth, Leonard formed the left-handed heart of the Red Sox staff. Dutch won 90 games, losing 64 for Boston. In 1914 he led the major leagues with an ERA of 0.96, a modern-era record that still stands.

When World War I curtailed the 1918 season, Leonard went to work in the shipyards. In December, 1918, he was traded to the Yankees in a multi-player deal, but never pitched for New York.

Embroiled in salary negotiations, Leonard went back to California to pitch for Fresno in the outlaw San Joaquin League. The Tigers purchased his contract in mid-May, 1919. 

Leonard pitched only moderately well for Detroit from 1919-21, winning 35 and losing 43. During that period he wrangled frequently and bitterly with Tigers' manager Ty Cobb. When Tigers' owner Frank Navin tried to make Leonard swallow a salary cut from the $9,000 he made in 1921, Leonard again bolted for the Coast, pitching the next two seasons for Fresno.

Returning to OB and the Tigers in mid-August, 1924, Leonard picked up his feud with Cobb while working to a 3-2 record. The feud reached a peak in 1925, when Cobb hung Leonard out to dry in a July 14 game against the A's. Cobb left Leonard on the mound for the entire game while the A's racked up a dozen runs.

Five days later, against the Yankees, Leonard was ahead 12-4 in the fifth inning when Cobb yanked him off the mound. Leonard got the win, 18-12, bringing his record for the year to 11-4, but was released, ending his pro career . . . but not his hatred of Ty Cobb.

A year later, Leonard approached American League president Ban Johnson about what he claimed was a conspiracy by Cobb and Cleveland Indians manager Tris Speaker to throw a game on Sept. 24, 1919, so that Cobb's Tigers could win third-place money. Leonard presented letters from some of the parties containing references to bets having been placed on the game. 

Johnson took the allegations seriously, and his investigation forced Cobb and Speaker to resign their managers' positions, though they remained in the league as players for the 1927 season, Cobb with the A's and Speaker with the Senators. When baseball ccommissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis began his own investigation, but when Leonard refused to leave his California home to travel to Landis' office in Chicago to back up his allegations, the commissioner's inquiry died.

1916 M101-5 blank back.

All of this has been reported in baseball journals and books, but I found, in the 1953 Sporting News account, a tidbit I had not seen before.

In the article headlined "Dutch Leonard Good Businessman Back in 1910," the sporting weekly said, "It was not generally known, but Ban Johnson, when president of the American League, paid Leonard $25,000 for a special service, presumably in assisting him in checking on reported gambling."

The article continued to detail how prosperous the pitcher had become in his post-baseball days around Fresno. "It may be that Dutch parlayed that 25 grand with other money he had accumulated as a star pitcher, to develop his fortune, appraised by the executors of his estate at $2,169,143.33.He operated a large ranch under the name of Leonard Bros., and owned one of the largest grape-growing, packing, shipping and storage businesses in San Joaquin Valley. His property holdings totaled 2,500 acres.

Leonard died at the age of 60, of complications from a stroke suffered in 1944.

The Sporting News continued its report, "The appraisal showed the estate included $133,385 worth of packing house materials, $96,329 in revolving funds of wineries, about $65,000 in savings accounts, $55,000 in life insurance, $40,000 in accounts receivable and other farm equipment."



1979 Topps



When not accumulating his fortune, Leonard was, according to TSN, "a collector of musical records . . . the estate also including more than $5,000 in records (reportedly as many as 15,000 discs), recorders, phonographs and other electronic equipment. There also was included 100 reels of educational film, three projection screens, and a 16 mm projector."



In his leisure time, when not listening to his records or watching his (ahem) educational films, Leonard was an avid golfer. Before a heart attack in 1942, he was rated as among the best left-handed golfers in California.

According to an inflation calculator, the $2.17 million estate Leonard left in 1952 had a value equivalent to $18.3 million in today's dollars.


At the time of his death, Leonard was single. In 1917 he had married vaudeville performer Muriel Worth, who divorced him five years later. The couple apparently had no children. 


The terms of Leonard's will left his estate to his housekeeper, a sister-in-law and three nephews. It appears that a sister, another nephew and a niece were not among his heirs.



His cards are generally priced among the "commons," but for the length of his major league service, he appears on surprisingly few contemporary cards. He is shown on a 1979 Topps Record Holder card and has a similar card in one of the 1985 Topps "boxed" retail sets.  He appears on several cards in the 1990s Conlon Collection series and a few other collectors' issues.

1966 Pro's Pizza Cubs checklist expanded

Even though I am officially retired from cataloging vintage baseball cards, I still have the desire to help promulgate, for the benefit of current and future collectors, the type of information that was the staple of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards for 30 years.


This is especially true when I can use this forum as a vehicle for other hobbyists who unselfishly want to expand the knowledge base.


Thus I'm promulgating the report by veteran Florida collector Larry Serota of four additions to the checklist of the 1966 Pro's Pizza Chicago Cubs boxtop cards.


In the mid-1960s, Pro's Pizza was a concessionaire  at Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park and Soldier's Field, selling individual serving pizzas to those in attendance at Cubs, White Sox and Bears games.  


In that era, the pizzas were sold in single-serving boxes that featured on their lids player pictures. 


The earliest of the issues was a set of 1966 Chicago Cubs. The "card" portion of the box was about 6" x 6" and featured a large black-and-white player photo at left with white-and-red stripes and sports action drawings at right.


The checklist for this set has been developing for more than 15 years. The most recent edition (2012) of the Standard Catalog showed 16 Cubs.  They were . . . 
Ted Abernathy
Joe Amalfitano
George Altman
Ernie Banks
Ernie Broglio
Billy Connors
Dick Ellsworth
Bill Faul
Bill Hoeft
Ken Holtzman
Randy Hundley
Ferguson Jenkins
Chris Krug
Ron Santo
Carl Warwick 
Billy Williams


Now, as a result of Serota's relentless scouring of obscure issues being offered on eBay, four more players can be added to the checklist . . . 
Byron Browne
John Herrnstein
Adolfo Phillips
Jim Stewart


Serota points out that Herrnstein had a very short tenure with the Cubs. He came to Chicago from the Phillies with Jenkins and Phillips on April 21, and was traded to the Atlanta Braves on May 29. He appeared in only nine games for Chicago, most as a pinch-hitter.


The four newly reported Pro's Pizza Cubs from 1966 were sold on eBay on Jan. 28, 2012. In typical "ballpark-used" condition, i.e., with creases, stains, poorly cut, etc., the prices realized were $135 for Browne, $171 for Phillips, $267 for Stewart, and a whopping $663 for Herrnstein. 


Together with the sale of three other 1966 Pro's Pizza Cubs a week earlier -- Jenkins and Hundley at $165 and Ellsworth at $345 -- indications are that "book" values for the set are too low. The Standard Catalog lists typical players at $160 in NM, $80 in EX and $50 in VG, with Hall of Famers at 2-3X those figures and Banks about 4X.


Now at 20 players, it is certainly possible the '66 checklist will continue to expand in the future. Among the regular position players not yet confirmed are Don Kessinger and Glenn Beckert.
   

Mudcat rebelled against baseball bigotry

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

 In my last posting, I promised to relate an account of Mudcat Grant's refusal to abide racial intolerance.

As I said then, Grant was generally considered an affable person, but as the 1960 season drew to a close, his refusal to tolerate bigotry, in baseball as well as in the wider world, more than a decade after Jackie Robinson had reintegrated the major leagues, had costly consequences. 


Rather than attempt to recap the incident, I'll rerun the article from the Sept. 28, 1960, issue of The Sporting News by Hal Lebovitz, who regularly covered the Cleveland Indians for the sports weekly.

           The season ended abruptly for Indians’ Pitcher Jim Grant. He is spending the final two weeks—without pay—at his home in Lacoochee, Fla. He was suspended by Manager Jimmie Dykes for leaving the ballpark without permission during the Indians-Athletics game, September 16.

            It all started out as a joke, but ended up on a deadly serious note.

            It was always Grant’s custom to sing “The Star Spangled Banner" when the band played it prior to each game. He was out in the bull pen this time and he sang loud and melodiously as the National Anthem was being played.

            At the line, “the land of the free,” the Negro righthander improvised with, “It’s not the land of the free for me in Mississippi.”

            A bull pen mate made some comment on Jim’s lyrics. It was nothing unpleasant, just conversation. Grant defended his line, adding that even in Cuba there was less discrimination.

            This caused Ted Wilks, a pitching coach, to speak up, and Grant, knowing that Wilks lives in Texas, came back with, “Russia is better than Texas.”

            At this, Wilks bristled, made a remark concerning Grant’s color.

            “I got so mad,” said Grant later, that I figured that if I stayed around I might not be able to control myself.”

            He went to the clubhouse, got dressed and left the park.

            Shortly after the game began, Dykes called the bull pen and asked to have Grant warm up. It was then Wilks told him what had happened.

            “I had no alternative but to suspend the boy,” Dykes said later. “There’s absolutely no excuse for walking out on the team.”

            Grant, after he cooled of somewhat realized this. Contritely, he phoned both Dykes and General Manager Frank Lanethat night to apologize to them for his actions.

            “I realized what I did wasn’t fair to them and I wanted them to know I was sorry,” he said. “I don’t blame Jimmie for suspending me. He had to. He’s been good to me and I’m sorry I put him on the spot by walking off. I was so upset that I knew I wouldn’t be able to do the job if he called on me to pitch.”

            Others in the bull pen say that as soon as Wilks made the remark that inflamed Grant, the coach tried to apologize. He apologized to Don Newcombe, who accepted it, but Grant said later he wouldn’t accept any apology from Wilks.

            He admitted he never had any difficulty previously with Wilks. “We never did say much to each other,” he added. “But I’m sick of hearing remarks about colored people. I don’t have to stand there and take it.”

            He mentioned an earlier instance when a fellow bull pen inhabitant made a derogatory remark about a Negro spectator.

            “And Paul Richards has been calling me names lately,” Grant said. “A person can only take so much.”

            Richards, in New York, admitted he had called Grant “a name,” but insisted the Indians’ pitcher had asked for it.

            “I held off on Grant for a long time,” said the Baltimoremanager, “but after he persisted in throwing at some of my hitters, I got on him just I would a white man.”

            “Anyone with any intelligence realizes the colored people carry a burden. But Grant is the kind of fellow who wants special privileges simply because he is a Negro.”

Grant pitched for the Indians into the1964 season, then spent 3-1/2 years with the Twins including posting two of Minnesota's three wins over the Dodgers in losing the 1965 World Series. In the last four years of his major league career he pitched for the Dodgers, Expos, Cardinals, Pirates and A's, leaving the big leagues after the 1971 season.

After his playing days, Mudcat was a television broadcaster for the Indians, Dodgers and A's. He has given back to baseball by serving on the board of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, on the Baseball Assistance Team and on the Major League Baseball Alumni Association. 

"Beat Mudcat" pin's origins found

An enigmatic celluloid button that has been known baseball memorabilia collectors for more than 50 years reads simply BEAT / MUDCAT.  


While the hobby has long known that it referred to long-time major league pitcher Jim "Mudcat" Grant, the pin's origins had become lost to hobby history.


Some had speculated that the pin may have had its origins in the 1965 World Series, when Grant was the starting (and losing) pitcher for the Minnesota Twins  on Oct. 10, in Game 4 at the Los Angeles Dodgers.


Recently, I stumbled across the story of that pin while reading microfilms of back issues of The Sporting News for 1960.


Ever since his major league debut with the Cleveland Indians in 1958, Grant had had what used to be called (probably politically incorrectly) the "Indian sign" on the Washington Senators. Between May 22, 1958, and June 21, 1960, Grant had run up 13 straight wins over the Senators, without a losing decision. Inexplicably, he was 12-20 against the rest of the American League in that period.


Thus, when the Indians visited Griffith Stadium on July 2, 1960, the Senators handed out 2,000 "BEAT MUDCAT" pins and 2,000 rabbit's feet. Also designed to rev up the crowd of 11,331 and break the jinx, a local Boy Scout troop did a live pre-game snake dance on the pitcher's mound


It didn't work.


When Grant walked onto the field he was wearing one of the pins on each shoulder. He had put a piece of tape over the "BEAT" and written "WIN".


And win he did. Though the umpires made him remove the pins before the game began, Grant threw a four-hitter to beat the Senators 12-2 for his 14th straight win.


The streak was snapped in Grant's very next start against Washington. On July 17 he lost 3-2.


Grant pitched for seven big league teams between 1958-1971, with a career record of 145-119 on a 3.63 ERA.


While Mudcat was all smiles on his 1960 Topps card, and indeed on most of his baseball cards, and was by most accounts an affable soul, he could display an intolerance for racial intolerance. His willingness to stand up to baseball bigotry had serious consequences for Grant at the end of the 1960 season.


I'll give you the details in my next blog posting.

Newest custom: 1956 Tom Lasorda, K.C. A's

Among my favorite baseball card sets from childhood was the 1956 Topps issue. No longer forced to compete with Bowman for player contracts, the '56T set jumped to 310 cards from the previous year's lineup of 206, meaning that virtually of the day's stars were included (with the notable exception of Stan Musial).


While the '56s featured the same combinations of portraits and action photos that had been used in 1954-1955, the addition of real stadium backgrounds was an appealing innovation.


Today the 1956 format is one of favorite to use in creating custom cards. Because of the combination of elements needed to replicate that style, however,. it is one of the most challenging. I've recently completed my sixth custom in the '56T style and share it with you herewith.


The Kansas City Athletics were Lasorda's last stop as a major league player. He had been purchased from the Brooklyn Dodgers on March 2. After going 0-4 with the A's, he was sold to the New York Yankees on my fifth birthday, July 11, 1956. The Yankees immediately sent him to their AAA farm club in Denver.


Surprisingly, at least two photos of Lasorda in the uniform of the Kansas City Athletics have crossed my path in the past couple of years. As detailed in my posting of June 8, 2011, he appears on a team-issued postcard. More recently, I found a black-and-white publicity type photo of Lasorda with fellow A's pitching prospect Troy Harridge. That image was strong enough that I realized it would be possible to create a "card that never was," a 1956-style Lasorda-as-Athletic.


For the background of my custom card, I picked the 1956 Topps card of Bobby Shantz. You'll recognize that I reversed the background to allow me to orient the portrait of Lasorda facing his left so that he appears looking into the body of the card, rather than out the border. 

Cartoons from the back of three original 1956
Topps cards were re-purposed for my custom.

For the action picture, I found on a Lasorda website a much higher-resolution version of the picture that appears on the team-issued postcard. Like the portrait photo, it had to be colorized. As a bonus, that A's team-issue card had a facsimile signature of Lasorda's mid-1950s autograph.


If you're a real fan of Fifty-six Topps, you'll recognize that my attempts to convert photographs to artwork still leave something to be desired, but by the time the cards are printed, the look is not all that far off.


Creating the backs of '56-style custom cards can be the biggest challenge. I have to find cartoon on original cards that can be re-purposed to fit the baseball biography of the new player.


I caught a real break on the back of Ron Negray's card. The center panel of the cartoon there was perfect for Lasorda; I only had to change the number of years that Lasorda had toiled in the Brooklyn farm system. The right-hand cartoon on my Lasorda back was modified from Billy Pierce's 1956 Topps, and the left-end cartoon was taken from Karl Spooner's card.

The end product is a custom card of Tommy Lasorda in an "alien" uniform that I'm happy to include in my opus of custom card work. 

How Smith became "Phenomenal"

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

One of the great nicknames from the Old Judge era of baseball card issue was that of John F. “Phenomenal” Smith. (Today's baseball players are too cool or too professional to have nicknames.)

Smith earned the sobriquet in 1885 when he pitched a no-hit game for Newark (American Association) in which not a single Baltimoreplayer got the ball out of the infield. In that Oct. 3 game he not only held the Orioles hitless, but struck out 16. Only two runners reached base, one on a walk and one on a dropped third strike – and Smith picked both of them off first base.

A few months later, pitching winter ball in California in the days before there was official league ball on the Coast, Smith hurled another no-hitter, winning a 5-0 game for the San Francisco Chronicles against the S.F. Knickerbokers.

Smith had been born, with the name John Francis Gammon, in Manayunk, Pa. (now a part of Philadelphia) on Dec. 12, 1864. At the age of 19 he joined Baltimore, then a National Association team, in 1883. He was a little lefthander, only 5'6" tall and 161 lbs. The following year, in the American Association, he pitched for the Philadelphia Athletics and Pittsburgh Alleghenies.

In 1885, besides pitching for Newark, he had been with an independent team at Allentown, Pa., and the American Association’s Brooklyn club. It has been reported that the not-yet-20 Smith's brash demeanor and braggadocio -- despite having to that point a 0-2 major league record -- so irritated his Brooklyn Grays teammates that on June 17, 1885, they intentionally misplayed behind him, committing 14 errors, allowing the visiting St. Louis Browns to win 18-5. Despite the fact that Brooklyn was already in 7th place in the league, 15 games behind, management slapped several of the offending players with large fines. For the sake of team unity, Smith was released.

He spent the 1886 season with Detroit in the National League, for whom he notched his first major league victory, matching it with a loss.

In 1887, Smith pitched in 58 games for the Orioles. He won 25 -- but lost 30. The following season he worked for the Athletics and the Orioles. He remained with the Athletics for most of 1889, also playing briefly with Hartford of the Atlantic Association. He stayed in Philadelphia with the National League Phillies, for most of 1890-91, pitching three games for Pittsburgh in 1890. 

He left the majors for good when he joined Milwaukeein the Western Association in 1891. He played in Green Bay (Wisconsin-Michigan League in 1892) and Reading (Pennsylvania State League) in 1893.

He moved to the outfield (except for an occasional ceremonial start in later years) and began managing in the minors in 1894. He won the Pennsylvania State League second half pennant with Pottsville in 1894. He spent 1895 with Pottsville and, briefly, Millville (South New Jersey League). He managed in the New England League with Pawtucket (the team was nicknamed the Phenoms in his honor) in 1896-97 (he hit .405 in 89 games in 1896), Fall River, Newark and Hartford in 1898 and Portland in 1899, where he won the NEL pennant.

In 1900 he captured the Virginia League flag with Norfolk, also called the Phenoms. He was back in the NEL from 1901-04, piloting Manchesterto the pennant in 1902, the same year he led the league in batting with a .369 average at the age of 37.

While with Portland in 1899, Smith faced a young Tauntonpitcher named Christy Mathewson. Though Mathewson's record was 2-13 for Taunton, Smith recognized the 18-year-old's potential. That fall, when Matty traveled with his Bucknell football team to play a game at Penn, Smith lured him away from Taunton with a $10 per month raise (to $90) to join his team at Norfolk.

With Norfolk, Mathewson won 18 games while losing only two, and in July that season, began his major league career with the New York Giants. 

Smith ended his professional baseball career after the 1904 season, and joined the Manchester, N.H., police department, from which he retired in 1932. In that period he coached the St. Anselm’s basketball team off and on.

Smith died in Manchesteron April 3, 1952 at the age of 87. He was survived by five sons and seven daughters.

Phenomenal, indeed.

Smith appeared on a number of cards in the Old Judge series between 1887-1890.

Don Maynard gets a Giants custom card

One of my favorite players on the World's Champion 1968 New York Jets was Joe Namath's favorite receiving target, Don Maynard.


In those pre-internet days, I didn't know too much about Maynard and it was only many years later that I became aware that he had begun his pro football career with the New York Giants of the NFL. They had made him a 5th round "future" pick in the 1957 draft.


The Giants used Maynard primarily as a kick returner. When the team's coaching staff moved on the following year, Maynard was cut in training camp by the new regime, who didn't think his West Texas look and personality fit the big city New York image. Maynard later said he could never understand why he had been let go, since he could run faster backward than most of the Giants' receivers could run forward.

I learned something else new about Maynard recentyly. He played the 1959 season for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League. That season Hamilton lost the Grey Cup to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. There may be another Maynard custom card in the offing.


Maynard joined his third professional league in three years when he became the first player signed by the New York Titans of the American Football League.


With the Titans/Jets, Maynard blossomed into a Hall of Fame (1987) receiver, leading the AFL with 14 touchdown catches in 1965 and 1,434 yards in 1966. In the 1968 AFL Championship game he teamed with Broadway Joe on six receptions for 118 yards and two touchdowns to beat the Oakland Raiders 27-23 and advance to the historic Super Bowl III against the Colts.

Rather than attempt an extensive review of Maynard's life and career, I'll refer you to a 2005 posting by Jim Sargent on The Coffin Corner web site: http://www.profootballresearchers.org/Coffin_Corner/27-01-1052.pdf