A year without Joy: part two

  I wrote a crazy long post about the 1907 Honolulu League season which I feel compelled to break up;  this is the second part of three. 

Part one 

Part two
Part three

On June 1, after four unsuccessful attempts, Diamond Head finally won its first game. Eddie Fernandez, manager and shortstop of the Jewels, stole four bases, made three hits, and scored three runs, while left fielder Darcy stole four, hit two, and scored two as the Jewels beat Kamehameha 9-3. 

Eddie Fernandez. Advertiser, 1907-6-09, p.13

After just one home run had been hit the first four doubleheaders of the season, three were made in the Diamond Head-Kamehameha game alone. Bill Vannatta hit one; R. Leslie, Diamond Head first baseman, hit one; and Jones, Kamehameha catcher, hit one. 

Of the four homers that had been hit all year, qualifying their creators for free $5 suits from E.O. Hall & Son, Bill Chillingworth had allowed three of them. He was really doing his part to bolster his opponents' wardrobes. 

In the second game of the doubleheader, Andy Bushnell started his first game for St. Louis, and shutout the Punahou Colts on four hits. It was the first shutout of the season. 

On June 8, Kamehameha beat Punahou 4-0. Reuter scattered seven hits and struck out 10, while Bill Hampton gave up ten hits.

I'm not sure what Bill Hampton is trying to do here, but it doesn't look like he's succeeding at it. Advertiser, 1907-6-09, p.13 

In the second game, St. Louis beat the Diamond Heads in a tight game. The Saints were down 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth when, with Bill Chillingworth on the mound for Diamond Head, shortstop Evers led off with a single, and then Williams hit a grounder to first baseman Leslie, who fumbled it, making it first and third. Williams stole second and then "Akoni" Louis drove them both in with a single to put the Saints ahead 5-4, the final score. The game left St. Louis 5-1, and Diamond Head 1-5. 

Diamond Head would not lose again until July 6. 

On June 11, in a Tuesday doubleheader, St. Louis beat Kamehameha in a loose 11-7 game as the Kams made nine errors, and the Diamond Heads beat Johnnie Williams and Punahoe 7-3, collecting 14 hits. 

Hannah and Ringland, Punahou's right fielder and catcher, respectively, played their last game with Punahou on June 11. They were both members of the Tenth Infantry, which was being transferred to Alaska. 

Ringland had put up the second highest batting average in the league in 1906, with a mark of .380 for Oahu. He had fallen off in hitting in 1907, with a .250 average in seven games, but was still good. Hannah had been three-for-sixteen, but had played errorless ball in right. 

Ringland was replaced as Punahou catcher on June 15 by Charlie B. Lyman, of Oahu College. [Note: The Wikipedia page for Punahou School says that it was known as Oahu College until 1934. If that is true, then the Punahou of 1907 might have been a different school from the current Punahou, because it seems to me looking at newspapers of the time that Punahou School and Oahu College were different institutions. This is all rather confusing...]

Lyman had been playing in Hilo earlier in the year. In May there was voting for the most popular player in Hilo, and as of May 16, Lyman was 1st with 32 votes - 14 more than any one else. 

Lyman was well-regarded as a catcher in his time with Punahou. The Evening Bulletin declared on June 24 that: "Lyman's throwing in the first game was the best that has been seen all season... he [is] a tower of strength to the team." He had thrown out three runners in that first game. Lyman could also contribute offensively, hitting an excellent .261 with six stolen bases in five games, but after June 29 he returned to Hilo and was gone for the rest of the season. 

Major Van Vliet, also of the Tenth Infantry, played his last game at second base for the Diamond Heads on June 15. "A good many of the army people, beside scores of his friends and well wishers, were there to see him play." Van Vliet was rather ancient for a ball player, and hit just .118 in nine games, but he could still "cover ground... like a youngster." 

What cares an army man for father time? Advertiser, 1907-6-16, p.13

The Diamond Heads won Major Van Vliet's last game 7-1 against Reuter and the Kams, pounding out nine hits and stealing seven bases.

The Advertiser wrote on June 22: 

    "The departure of Major Van Vliet and Lieut. Hannah is much regretted; these men have aided materially in giving us good clean sportsmanlike ball. They have accepted defeat or victory with the same grace and the moral effect of their gentlemanly demeanor will not be lost."

In the second game of June 15, Punahous vs. St. Louis, there were three Deshas and four Williamses on the field. "When Williams as pitcher... threw the ball to Williams' first-base, to put out Williams' base-runner, it was a little confusing to the stranger."

But the Desha is mightier than the Williams. The three Deshas on the Punahous combined to score six runs as the Punahous smacked Evers, St. Louis shortstop pressed into mound duty, for twelve runs. 

Jack Desha. Advertiser, 1907-7-13, p.5

Before the game of June 22, a certain Mr. Whitney filled the baseball field's holes and rolled it flat, hopefully making it a pristine altar conducive to pristine fielding.

It worked. The smallest crowd of the season was in attendance, according to the Evening Bulletin, but they saw two great games.

If only more people had heard the call. Evening Bulletin, 1907-6-20, p.7

In the St. Louis-Diamond Head game, not a single error was made by either team. Just as remarkable as the fielding was the score: Diamond Head 3, St. Louis 1. Earlier in the year, St. Louis had been 5-1 and Diamond Head 1-5, but now the Saints had lost two straight games and the Jewels had won three straight. 

It had been feared for a time that the Diamond Heads would be just as bad in 1907 as the Maile Ilimas had been in 1906. It took a while, but the Diamond Heads didn't give up, and made themselves into a decent team. As the Advertiser wrote on June 15, when the Diamond Heads were still just 2-5: "The Diamond Heads are playing all the time and though they have not a star team, by keeping everlastingly at it, they have developed into a factor in the game. What an improvement over the old Mailes."

Bill Hampton of the Punahous beat Lota of the Kamehamehas 5-2, in another well-played game with just six total errors, and with that, the first series was finished. 

Lota. Advertiser, 1907-7-06, p.6

The final standings of the first series:

St. Louis, 6-3
Punahou, 5-4
Diamond Head, 4-5
Kamehameha, 3-6

St. Louis, Punahou, and Diamond Head all seemed well-positioned for the second half. The Saints, though shaky near the end, were the winners of the first series. Punahou was solid throughout the first half, and the Diamond Heads had finished very strong. Only Kamehameha seemed as if they might be hopeless.

When their ace, Dick Reuter, was pitching well, the Kams could win, and Reuter did have some moments of glory in the first half: On May 18 he struck out 14 Diamond Head batters, and he shutout Punahou with 10 strikeouts and just one walk on June 8. But he'd had even more bad games, giving up 7 runs on opening day to St. Louis, 9 to Punahou on May 25, 9 to Diamond Head on June 1, and 11 to St. Louis on June 11. He just didn't seem consistent enough to base a team's hope on, and the Kams had no good replacement for him. 

Advertiser, 1907-7-29, p.6

Saturday, June 29, opened the second series, and each game was a shocker.

In the first game, Kamehameha absolutely demolished St. Louis 9-0. Reuter struck out nine, walked one, and gave up just four hits to a silent Saint lineup. With regular St. Louis pitcher Paul Burns at third base the whole game, the Kams pounded Andy Bushnell, St. Louis pitcher, for fourteen hits. 

Not what you would have expected from looking at the first half standings.

Kuhina, Kamehameha first baseman, hit the fifth home run of the season off Andy Bushnell. "He drove a liner within about thirty feet of the left-field fence, and on the first bounce the ball was out of the grounds." I guess the Honolulu League didn't have ground-rule doubles. 

Three regulars were missing from the St. Louis lineup. Lo On and En Sue had gone to Hilo. Lo On would be back by the July 6 game and En Sue would be back by July 20. Lo On was mediocre, but En Sue was one of the top power hitters and base runners of the league, and they would dearly miss him. 

The third missing was Evers, their star shortstop. 

Evers was known for his fielding. The Advertiser wrote on 6-08 that: "Evers is the star at short; he has the pick-up and throw of a professional." And he was a solid hitter. He had hit .255 in 1906. But on June 30 the Advertiser reported he would never appear in a St. Louis uniform again. "He demanded a certain sum of money before being willing to go into the game and was asked to turn in his suit. Capt. Gleason and Manager Charlie Falk are to be congratulated on the stand they took. If Evers thinks that he can hold up any of the teams he should be taught differently." 

But the desire to win turned out to be greater than the desire for amateurism. Evers was back at short the next game.

In the second game of June 29, Robert "Clown" Leslie of Diamond Head no-hit Punahou. 

Leslie had been dominant in his prior two outings - he gave up just one hit in six scoreless innings of relief on June 15, and gave up three hits and one run against St. Louis the previous week. His control was a little iffy - he walked five in both of those prior outings, and he walked four and hit a batter in his no-hitter - but that didn't matter too much if nobody could hit him. 

In the three games from June 15 to June 29, Leslie had allowed four hits and one run in 24 innings. He also walked fourteen, but a good fastball covereth up a multitude of sins. 

Hampton also pitched a great game in his defeat at the hands of Leslie- the score of the game was 2-0. Hampton struck out eleven and didn't walk a single batter - in contrast to Leslie, who "only" struck out seven, and had walked four batters. Tough luck for Hampton.

Diamond Head catcher Sam Davis scored the only two runs of the game with a triple off Hampton in the first inning. After the game, "a certain Senator, who belongs to the Diamond Heads," gave Davis $10 for his hit. He had wanted to give Davis $20, but Davis refused.

Random note: The Honolulu Rapid Transit Co. giveth and the Honolulu Rapid Transit Co. taketh away. The Advertiser noted on June 29 that the Rapid Transit Co. was now providing free rides to Honolulu League players to and from their games. But I'm not sure that was enough to make things right for Kamehameha. They had lost their third baseman, Fern, because "he is employed on the day shift for the Rapid Transit Co. and cannot get off." Fern was just 3-for-25 in his six games with the Kams in 1907, but two of his three hits went for extra bases, and he was a solid fielder. 

Before the Fourth of July doubleheader, it was announced that Paul Burns, St. Louis' star pitcher, had quit. No explanation was given.

Now St. Louis had but one pitcher to place their trust in: Andy Bushnell, who the Kams had trounced for nine runs and fourteen hits the previous Saturday, and who had given up six runs in his start before that. Bushnell had had some good moments too - he shutout Punahou on four hits, June 1 - but having him as your only pitcher, with no fallbacks, was not ideal. 

The Diamond Heads won the first game of July Fourth, beating the Kams 6-5. Robert Leslie allowed twelve hits to the Kams, as opposed to no hits in his previous start, but still managed to win. The Advertiser noted that "Leslie fields his position better than any pitcher in the league. He is certainly making good."

The Diamond Heads had now won five straight games, and six of their last seven. Their only loss in that stretch had been by one run, a 5-4 defeat at the hands of St. Louis. Their 2-0 record was first in the second series, one game ahead of St. Louis. The Advertiser opined that "it is dollars to doughnuts [the Diamond Heads] win the second series." 

St. Louis won their game 3-2 against the Puns in a rather silly fashion. All three runs they scored came in the third inning due to two "inexcusable" errors made by Lowrey, the Puns' second baseman. Those were the only two errors made by Punahou all game.

Bushnell pitched well. He struck out eight, walked two, and gave up seven hits, while his defense played well behind him, making but a single error. 

Evers was back in the lineup like nothing had happened. He went 0-for-3 and made an error, but scored a run.

Evers. Advertiser, 1907-7-06, p.6

Free-booters. Advertiser, 1907-7-06, p.6

Bateman, who caught a great game by Bill Hampton for Punahou, was the catcher and captain of the Twentieth Infantry team, as such being a kind of successor to the soldier-catcher Ringland. He was a good fielder but no batter; he led off but went 0-for-4, and did not appear in another game. 

In the seventh inning, Punahou left fielder Dave Desha hit a foul ball into the grandstand which broke the nose of a Chinese fan.