Smoky Joe Wood My grandfather, Smoky Joe Wood, was a baseball player. You can see an excellent book about him by clicking on this link to Amazon: Smoky Joe Wood: The Biography of a Baseball Legend

HOLY SMOKY: WOOD HAD SEASON FOR AGES

Author:  Bob Ryan, Globe Staff

Date: December 21, 1999

Page: E1 Section: Sports

PREMISE:
If you could be one Boston athlete for one year of this century, who would it be? Bobby Orr in 1970? Larry Bird in 1986? Ted Williams in 1941? Doug Flutie in 1984? These are all worthy choices. But my choice is a 22-year-old young man having the ultimate career year playing baseball in a baseball-mad town. The sport was old enough to have great tradition, but there was an aura of freshness and spontaneity because the team had opened a new ballpark, and everyone wanted to get in. Imagine being 34-5 and dominant enough to have two official nicknames. Imagine being able to help yourself continually with both the bat and the glove. Imagine staring down the immortal Walter Johnson in the most ballyhooed regular-season game ever played in the 87-year history of Fenway Park. Imagine winning three games in the World Series. Imagine being that young, that intelligent, that handsome, that gracious, that talented, and that idolized. Imagine being Smoky Joe Wood in 1912. I can't think of anything better.

There were signs something special might take place as early as spring training. Joe Wood had gone 23-11 for the 1911 Sox, and now he was really firing the ball down there in Hot Springs, Ark.

"Wood has never started a season in as good shape as he is this spring," opined the Globe's Tim Murnane.

People felt good about the team. There was a new owner, James R. McAleer; a new (player)-manager, first baseman Jake Stahl; and a new place to play, Fenway Park. With the great Duffy Lewis-Tris Speaker-Harry Hooper outfield, and with stalwart Larry Gardner at third and Heinie Wagner at short, the Sox had the makings of a good everyday lineup. But they would go as far as the pitching could take them. (Where have we heard that before?)

Joe Wood had been with the team since the late stages of 1908. He had come out of the West, the true "Wild West," in his own words. Born in the southwestern Colorado town [incorrect] of Ouray on Oct. 25, 1889, and raised in Ness City, Kan., he was the son of a somewhat eccentric lawyer who would die at age 89 in 1944 having refused all his life to allow electricity in his house.

He grew up seeing real live six-horse stagecoaches rumble through his town. "I see these Western pictures on television and movies," he told Lawrence Ritter in the classic The Glory of Their Times, "and sometimes it just hits me; I actually lived through all that in real life."

He was a sturdy 5 feet 11 inches and 180 pounds, and he had been given The Gift bestowed on the chosen few. Fastballs aren't taught; they are implanted, and Joe Wood had such a fastball that sometimes batters only saw the vapors; hence the nickname "Smoky Joe."

"Can I throw harder than Joe Wood? Listen, my friend, there's no man alive who can throw harder than Smoky Joe Wood."

- Walter Johnson, who had a pretty good heater himself.

Smoky Joe, who was also known as the "Kansas Cyclone," got his first start of the season April 11 in New York. It was the first of 35 complete games in 38 starts, and in this game he displayed the full range of his extraordinary talent, beating the Highlanders with a seven-hitter while driving in two runs in the ninth and fielding his position like a circus acrobat.

In fact, it was his fielding that most impressed the envoy from the New York Tribune, which alluded to "the pitcher four times covering first to register a put-out on difficult chances."

His first loss came in his first Fenway start, April 23, when he dropped a 2-1 game to Washington on his own strikeout/wild pitch in the ninth. That blip aside, he settled into an acceptable groove, winning 16 of his next 18 decisions, many times doing so thanks to his all-around athletic ability.

Take the 2-1 victory over St. Louis May 15, for example. He had a base hit, and, once again, his fielding drew raves from Murnane. "Joe Wood pitched a masterly game, and also turned in a great showing in the field, making five put-outs and five assists."

By the end of May, the word was out that the great Walter Johnson had a major pitching rival in this young Mr. Wood. A tremendous crowd of 34,713 turned out at Griffith Stadium to see the two compete June 26, and Smoky Joe sent them home with newfound respect after dispatching the Senators with a three-hit shutout in the second game of a doubleheader. That made him 15-3 and gave him two victories over every club in the league.

Baseball's brightest star

In an eight-team league, people got to see the stars often, sometimes, in their eyes, too often. Said author James T. Farrell in "My Baseball Diary", "In memory, it seems as though he hurled all those games against Chicago . . . Why did the Boston manager, Jake Stahl, always have to pitch him against my White Sox?"

On July 4, Philadelphia's great Eddie Plank beat him, 4-3, before another big crowd, prompting the Globe's anonymous notebook writer "Sportsman" to pose the following inquiry: "Was Joe Wood the chief magnet in drawing 25,000 people to a morning game in Philadelphia on the Fourth?"

Though renowned for his fastball, Smoky Joe was now expanding his repertoire. A six-hit, 5-1 triumph over the Browns July 8 really intrigued both Murnane and the headline writer (WOOD GAME GREAT SHOW OF SPEEDLESS STRENGTH). "Joe Wood gave a great exhibition of speedless pitching that was entertaining to watch," Murnane wrote. "It was too hot to turn loose with speed [Boston was then in a major 90-plus heat wave], so Joe amused himself by sending all sorts of curves and spinners which had the Browns dancing and catcher Hick Cady almost standing on his ear."

By mid-July Smoky Joe Wood was baseball's brightest new star. Said W.B. Hanna in the New York Post, "There is a growing desire among opposing American League batters that Joe Wood-n't."

Victory piled upon victory, and now his only apparent competition was himself. GENERAL JOE WOOD IN COMMAND AGAIN trumpeted the Globe after yet another shutout of the Browns Aug. 6, a day in which he also had one of his 13 two-base hits (to go with a triple and a homer). There was a brief scare in this game, however. Joe was hit by a liner off the bat of Del Pratt in the fourth. "It was thought that Wood was badly injured, and the players gathered around the pitcher with anxious faces," Murnane reported.

He was OK; the city could breathe again. "Now that Joe Wood is back in shape," Murnane wrote a day later, "every one of the Speed Boys [yes, that was what they were being called] is right for the battle for the next two months."

The Red Sox led the Senators by five games. They would eventually win by 14.

Who's true king of hill?

Joe entered August 21-4. He came out 28-4, and now people's thoughts were turning to an upcoming visit by the Senators. For Walter Johnson was not relinquishing his title as Mound King easily. He was en route to a record-tying 16-game winning streak. It was becoming clear to all the proper parties that a showdown was definitely in order.

By the end of August, no one in Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or New England was bigger than this modest fellow from the Great American West. Wrote "A. Crack," another of the Globe's anonymous note columnists, "On the heart of fans the name Wood is written in blazing patterns. Small boys carry his picture around with them."

Come September and the following assessment of the situation for Smoky Joe: BIG LEAGUE PITCHING RECORDS DIRECTLY IN THE PATH OF KANSAS CYCLONE.

With talk of both the impending Johnson showdown and a World Series meeting with the imperious John McGraw and his New York Giants filling the air, Smoky Joe took the mound against New York in the second game of a doubleheader Sept. 2. He beat them, 1-0, but it wasn't easy. In the first, there was a man on second with none out. In the fifth, there was a man on third and two outs. In the sixth, a man on third and one out. In the eighth, there was a man on third and one out. In the ninth, the bases were loaded with two outs when he fanned George McConnell to end the game.

"Never was a pitcher put to a greater strain than was Joe Wood in the second game," Murnane decided.

Clark Griffith was no fool. He was both the manager and the owner of the Senators, and he knew a good business proposition when he saw one. Johnson vs. Wood was a natural. "I want to give the fans a chance to see those pitchers hitched up," he said. "I feel sure my man can win the honors. Johnson's record this season was against all comers, and I want to see Joe Wood matched up with our man."

But would it take place? Wood's next scheduled start was the 7th, not the 6th, and manager Stahl wouldn't commit himself. But when the population awoke on the morning of the 6th, the Globe had the big news on Page 1: ONE OF THE GREATEST BATTLES OF BOXMEN IN YEARS TO BE FOUGHT AT FENWAY PARK.

It was the custom in those days to allow overflow fans to spill onto the outfield. Ropes would be put up, and balls bounding into the crowd would be ground-rule doubles. But such was the interest in this game that, in addition to fans allowed onto the outfield, spectators were also permitted to line the foul lines, which no one had ever seen and would never see again. For the era, it was a massive crowd, estimated at 29,000.

Johnson was 28-10 and had just had a 16-game winning streak snapped. Wood was 29-4, with a 13-game winning streak. "One of the greatest pitching duels that has been fought should result," said the Globe.

A duel for the ages

With such hype, there was scant chance of the game living up to its billing, except that it did. On a glorious, sunny late summer afternoon, the Red Sox scored the game's only run in the sixth with two outs and none on when Speaker doubled into the masses in left and Lewis delivered him with a fly ball to right that ticked off Danny Moeller's glove for another double.

Wood gave up six hits and walked three, but he was his usual miserly self with men in scoring position, never more so than in the ninth when, with Frank LaPorte on second base with one away, he fanned Moeller and Eddie Ainsmith to end the game and give himself victory No. 30.

Said the Globe's venerable Mel Webb (the Peter Gammons of his day), "Their meeting proved the classic of all baseball here, and behind the two great pitchers the other 16 players contributed as sterling a game as could be played."

Echoed the Globe's "Sportsman," "Joe Wood and Walter Johnson did have one of the greatest pitching duels the game has ever known, and if any one of the 29,000 who saw this great feat of skill felt the show did not come up to expectations, he is one of the kind that is bound to find fault, anyway."

Soon there was speculation that Joe Wood had paid a price for his participation in the great duel. He was knocked around by St. Louis in his next start, and although he got the win, James C. O'Leary, yet another Globe writing legend, was concerned. "These games, to which special attention is called by unusual publicity, a lot of talk and challenges and all that sort of thing, are just as nerve-wracking as a World's Championship game," he declared.

But Joe straightened himself out, running his streak to 16 before losing to Detroit Sept. 19, a setback regarded by Stahl as a heavenly blessing. "It is exactly what he needed," said Stahl, "and will not improbably prove his salvation to the coming supreme test of the World Series."

The Red Sox clinched with two weeks to spare and were honored with a great parade from South Station to the Common. And guess who rode in the most honored spot?

The Red Sox expected to win the Series for one very simple reason. Sure, the Giants had the great Christy Mathewson, but in 1912, the premier pitcher in the land was Smoky Joe Wood. "Joe Wood is the man on whom New England is banking to scatter thorns in the Giants' path," observed the Globe.

When the big show came, he was indeed Smoky Joe once again, and not Cutesy Joe. He beat the Giants, 4-3, finishing the game by striking out Otis Crandall with a major heater to leave the tying run on second. Said Murnane, "So Joe cut out the dew drops and smoked nine-tenths of the balls close to the plate."

Wood pitched again in Game 4, with the Series tied at 1-1-1, Game 2 having ended at 6-6 when darkness prevailed. He beat the Giants, 3-1, prompting Mathewson, in his ghosted column, to say, "His was the work of an artist." He also drove in the third run in the ninth inning. This time Joe mixed the "dew-drops" with the vaporizer. Said losing pitcher Jeff Tesreau, "He out-guessed us. We set up for speed, and we could not hit the curve."

But given a chance to conclude the series with Boston ahead, 3-2-1, in Game 7, Joe Wood could not tie the ribbon on the package. He was removed after one horrible inning in which he gave up six hits and was reached for a double steal. "Wood could not have gotten by in a bush league on a dark day with what he had yesterday," sneered New York's Laughing Larry Doyle.

The Series is won

It looked as if Joe Wood's storybook season would have a very inappropriate ending, but the following day Stahl brought him out of the bullpen in the eighth inning of a 1-1 game. Wood threw two shutout innings before New York pushed across a run in the top of the 10th, and would have scored another one if Joe hadn't made a tremendous barehanded stop of a Chief Meyers line drive to the box. At any rate, he was the losing pitcher of record until his team came to bat. But the Red Sox, aided by some storied Giants misplays (the Fred Snodgrass "$10,000 Muff" and a Speaker pop foul that fell among three Giants), scored twice in the bottom of the inning. Joe Wood had his third win, the Red Sox had the 1912 world championship, and Tris Speaker had the inside story.

What Joe accomplished, Speaker explained, was done on "nerve alone" because he had a "lame arm," making his work "agonizing." Indeed, there was a strong suspicion he had injured himself back in Game 4.

But it is all in the books. In 1912, he had a league-leading 10 shutouts. He won 16 straight games. He threw 344 innings. He hit .290 and slugged .435. He won games with his glove. He won three games in the World Series.

He had the run of the town, not that he was ever a night life guy. But he was young, gifted, and totally grateful for all that was happening to him. If ever anyone owned the town, Smoky Joe Wood owned Boston in 1912.

Mayor John Fitzgerald (the celebrated "Honey Fitz") orchestrated a massive civic celebration for the Red Sox. No Keyshawn Johnson type, Joe Wood simply got up and said, "I did all I could, and I just want to thank you."

As the century draws to a close, be it known that Boston has never had a finer hero than Smoky Joe Wood in 1912.

EPILOGUE

Joe Wood slipped fielding a bunt during the 1913 spring training and fractured a bone near the thumb of his throwing hand. He may have come back too soon. The great fastball never returned, and he never again pitched without pain. He was limited to 48 starts over the next three years, usually working no more often than once a week. He continued to win, going 11-5, 9-3, and 15-5 (with a league-leading 1.49 ERA) before quitting the game entirely in 1916, partly because of a contract squabble and partly because of his mounting frustration over his impaired state.

He started all over again in 1917 as an outfielder with Cleveland. He spent six seasons with the Indians, batting as high as .366 (194 at-bats) for a championship team in 1920. He told Lawrence Ritter of a day in 1918 when he hit a homer in the seventh inning, saved the game in the ninth with a great catch, threw a man out at the plate in the 12th, and decided the game with a home run in the 19th. "That," he said, "was one of the biggest days of my life."

He retired at age 32 in 1922 and a year later took the coaching job at Yale, which he held for 20 years. He became the kind of respected and lovable old man everyone aspires to be, passing away at age 95 in 1985. His second son, Bob, has made 27 separate presentations to the Hall of Fame Old-Timer's Committee on behalf of his father.

Smoky Joe Wood. Just saying the name makes those little hairs at the back of your neck spring to attention.

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