Technicality freed Borton, crooked P.C.L. players

(continued from yesterday)

Among the first to come forward were Salt Lake City pitchers Ralph Stroud and Spider Baum. Stroud swore out an affidavit that said Borton and Chase had approached him prior to a game at Vernon on April 28, 1920, and offered him $300 if he would throw that day's game. Stroud said he spurned the offer, but went on to lose 5-1, giving up nine hits and four walks in seven innings. He said that Borton attempted to press the $300 on him after the game, but that he'd refused the money, telling Borton he'd pitched as hard as he could and been fairly beaten. Stroud came back to pitch the final game of that series, winning the second game of the traditional Sunday double-header 5-3 on a four-hitter. Baum, whose brother served as P.C.L. president from 1911-19, made a similar accusation against Borton and Chase.

Ed "Tubby" Spencer, catcher for Salt Lake City in 1919, swore out a statement that he had been offered $1,750 by Borton to cooperate in fixing games that season. Borton later admitted that he had made a bribe offer to Spencer, but not in anywhere near that amount.

Portland's second baseman, Paddy Siglin, made a statement charging that Borton had offered him $100 to stay out of the line-up during a week that Vernon was playing the Beavers in 1919.

The following season, when Vernon was visiting Portland, Borton apparently had his money on the home team to win. Two Beavers reported that Borton offered to tip them off when they were base runners.

Pitcher John Glasier said, "Babe Borton told me while I was a runner on first base to get a good lead off first,as he would tell me when the Vernon pitcher would throw to first, and if I was caught he would not tag me."

Portland right fielder Dick Cox told a similar story. "In one of the games I was on first base and thinking the pitcher had the ball I was just going to get my lead off first and Borton told me (Vernon second baseman Bob) Fisher had the ball so I stayed on the bag and Fisher did have the ball, waiting for me to get off the bag." He recounted a second incident, "In another game of the same series I was on first base and Borton told me, 'Don't get too big a lead, kid, the pitcher is going to throw over here' and sure enough he did throw over to catch me, but I did not have a big lead so he didn't get me as Borton had told me right."

By mid-August McCarthy's investigation had turned up three actual payments of a suspicious nature from Borton to members of the Salt Lake City Bees.

Outfielder Harl Maggert had been observed accepting $300 cash, and bank drafts in the amounts of $200 and $500 were traced to outfielder Bill Rumler and pitcher Gene Dale, respectively. Called on the carpet, Maggert said the 300 iron men he'd been paid were owed from a card game or a dice game (his story varied, according to the local press) from the previous year. Dale said the $500 he'd received was repayment of a loan made to Borton. Rumler's alibi was that the $200 he got from Borton was the proceeds of a "safety bet" made by the pair when each of their respective clubs was near first place in the 1919 pennant race. Safety bets, despite what baseball's hierarchy liked to believe, were a common practice at the time. According to Rumler, his agreement with Borton was an effort to insure that each would get at least some share of the post-season money regardless of which team won. When Vernon won, Borton owed Rumler $200; if Salt Lake City had won the pennant Rumler would have paid Borton $200. Technically, of course, it's betting against your own team, but it was a common practice in that era -- even among World Series opponents, who often paired off and agreed to split the winner's and loser's shares 50-50.

When word of the payoffs to the Salt Lake City players was received, Maggert and Rumler were immediately suspended from the team. Dale had moved on to Dallas for the 1920 season, and finished the Texas League season there before his name was dragged into the scandal.

As might be expected, lawsuits and threats of litigation began to fly. In late August, McCarthy virtually ordered Vernon's management and players to sue Borton for slander in naming them as participants in a bribery cabal. Borton threatened to counter sue. Hal Chase threatened to sue the P.C.L.'s owners for barring him from its parks. Bill Rumler threatened to sue the league for $50,000 for handing him a five-year suspension.

In 1913 the Yankees traded Hal Chase to the White Sox for
both their first basemen, Rollie Zeider and Babe Borton. In
1920, having been run out of Organized Baseball, Chase
joined Borton in fixing Pacific Coast League games. He was
subsequently barred from all P.C.L. parks 

Borton struck first in the courts, slapping Vernon manager (and his former roommate) Bill Essick with a $50,000 criminal libel suit for labeling Borton's contention that other Vernon players were involved in the bribery a "mass of lies." Borton promised that when his suit came to trial he would prove his story true "and that Essick was as deep in the plot as any of them." Borton eventually abandoned his suit against Essick and, for reasons that can only be guessed at, Essick and the Vernon players did not press their suits.

That, however, did not keep the affair out of the courthouse. In October, spurred by constant agitation of the L.A. newspapers, District Attorney Doran convened a grand jury. Under the direction of Deputy D.A. Stafford, the panel seemed unable to get beyond what McCarthy's league investigation had already turned up.

Borton expressed delight at the official probe. Los Angeles baseball best writer Matt Gallagher wrote, "Whatever else is to be said of Borton, he is one of the eager ones in getting the grand jury busy, which makes it appear he thinks the inquiry will do more to clear him than damn him -- or rather damn others with him. Borton has confessed his part and says he is sick and sore at being a goat because others, as he alleges, have not had the nerve to face the music."

After a week of taking testimony, Stafford could say only that there had been "some tall lying done by witnesses examined." Many of the Vernon players from 1919 were called into the hearing, as were various other P.C.L. players whom Borton had named as recipients of bribe money. One by one they denied knowledge of any general conspiracy by the Vernon team and evidence mounted that Borton had been acting as sole agent for the gambling interests.

The grand jury's net even brought in the known gamblers who testified that prior to the crucial Vernon-Salt Lake City series of September, 1919, the odds had swung to 3-1 for Vernon to come out on top. Gamblers who normally bet no more than $100 on a game were said to have wagered up to $1,500 per contest on some of the games in that series, a strong indication that the "sure-thing" bettors knew when the fix was in.

On Dec. 10, after six weeks of "exhaustive inquiry," the grand jury concluded that there was no truth to the allegations that any other Vernon player or official had taken part in any bribery. Indictments were returned against Borton, Rumler, Maggert and gambler Raymond, charging them with criminal conspiracy and "collusion to throw ball games in the Vernon-Salt Lake series in Los Angeles" in September, 1919. The charges carried potential penalties of up to two years in prison and fines of $2,000.

No other players were indicted, according to the grand jury, "so their names are not to be mentioned in the case as far as legal proceedings are concerned, whatever opinions the officials of the league may have, and regardless of any action the league may take later."

It was fully expected that the trials of the indicted fixers would bring out facts implicating other, unindicted, players, so the case, from a baseball standpoint, was not closed by any means.

L.A. County Judge Frank R. Willis ordered the arrest of the indicted men, setting bail at $1,000 each. Borton and Maggert appeared voluntarily a few days later to post bond. Rumler, at home in Nebraska, indicated he would appear for trial. Raymond was laying low in Seattle and was not heard from.

On Dec. 24, the criminal justice system gave the players and the gambler an early Christmas present by dismissing the indictments. Judge Willis held that there was nothing in California law that prohibited a ballplayer from throwing a ballgame. 

According to San Francisco writer "Seal Rock," the judge's decision "was not entirely unexpected. It had been pointed out that there was weakness in the California statutes that raised a great doubt as to the baseball prosecutions holding, and that as a matter of fact the Los Angeles indictments were merely regarded as test cases."

Rock editorialized, "A ball player can be as crooked as his conscience will permit, in California, and the law can't tuch him. He can even admit he is a crook and get away with it, so far as the law in concerned."

In dismissing the indictments, Willis said the players had entered into contracts to play ball to the best of their ability, but their failure to do so amounted only to a breach of civil contract and was in no way actionable as a criminal offense. The judge did excoriate the players with his personal opinion that their actions were reprehensible and he expressed regret that the law could not reach them.

The powers-that-be in the Pacific Coast League could, however, reach the players, and they did so. Borton, Maggert, Rumler and the unindicted Dale were formally expelled from the league. To add insult to injury, the players' 1919 season stats were expunged from the league's official records.

Borton never again played in Organized Baseball. He died in Berkeley, Calif., July 29, 1954, at the age of 65.

Borton's return to P.C.L. ends in infamy

(continued from yesterday)

Despite playing in pro ball throughout the golden
age of tobacco and caramel cards, Babe Borton
is found only in three issues of the Zeenut candy
cards on the West Coast, 1914, 1918 and 1919.

Borton was returned to the Pacific Coast League for 1917, when the Browns sold him to Portland. He would play out his career in the P.C.L. The beginning of the season found Borton embroiled in a domestic dispute. In mid-May his wife received a divorce in St. Joseph on the grounds of infidelity. The court ordered Borton to pay $700 of his annual $2,100 salary to his wife and baby girl as support. A week after the divorce Borton married again.

That soap opera apparently didn't tarnish Borton's image with the Portland fans. The Sporting News described him as "one of the most popular players that ever donned a Beaver uniform." The paper said, "His quiet manner and ability as a player have made him a great favorite, not only with Portland fans, but also with fans in other cities comprising the Coast League." In late July, Borton suffered a severe rupture that had to be surgically repaired. Despite optimism that he might be able to return to the line-up prior to season's end, Borton was unable to recover sufficiently to do so. The Portland ownership continued to carry him on the roster for the remainder of the season and Borton signed a 1918 contract in gratitude. Owner Walter McCredie looked forward to Borton's return in 1918. "He will hit .300 in any league," the magnate said, adding , "If Babe hadn't been hurt we would have been much farther up in the race (Portland finished fourth in a six-team race in 1917). We want him to take a good rest and report in fit shape in the spring."

The war-shortened 1918 season found Borton in Vernon, rather than Portland, however. In fact, Portland had lost its P.C.L. franchise to Sacramento, due to its distance from the California cities that made up most of the rest of the league. When the league shut down on July 14, Vernon was in first place in the standings, two games ahead of Los Angeles. A best-of-nine playoff series was ordered to decide the pennant race, with L.A. coming out on top, five games to two.

For 1919, the league expanded to eight teams with Seattle and Portland back in the fold. Borton raised his batting average back over the .300 mark that season (.303) and tied for third in the league with 14 home runs -- nearly as many as he'd hit in the previous eight years combined. As mentioned, Vernon won the 1919 pennant -- with a little help from players on several other teams.

Testimony would later reveal that at least three players accepted bribes from Borton in amounts of $200-500. Others around the league reported attempts to bribe them in amounts between $100 and $1,750.

When the scandal became public, Borton shocked the baseball world by contending that the entire Vernon team had been in on the bribery, and that the payoff money had come from a pool created when each of the players had kicked in $100. Further, Borton said the Vernon management had been aware of the plan. Borton alleged that he had told the team president's business manager, Lou Anger, about the fixed games at the close of the season, and that Anger had been sore because he'd not been informed earlier so that he could place some bets. 

Despite Borton's assurances that teammates would come forward to verify his statements, and despite a $500 reward offered by the league for information proving conspiracy on the part of the Vernon team as a whole, no real evidence ever linked the other Vernon players to knowledge of the bribery. It was generally believed by the press and league officials that Borton had implicated his teammates and management in the belief that the league would not or could not take punitive action against an entire team.

In an editorial in the Aug. 19, 1920, issue headlined "Can't Drag the Game Down," The Sporting News commented on Borton's allegations. "It is nothing new for a crook when caught to attempt to distract attention from or seemingly lessen his own guilt by a plea that others are just as black as he is. It is the plea of every briber or taker of bribes, of every grafter high or low.

"Bill Borton, driven into a corner by evidence that he betrayed the great national game that gave him some measure of fame and a goodly share of material favors, adopts (such) tactics. He proclaims that whole teams of ball players were crooked and attempts to explode his bomb with a story that Vernon players won their pennant last year by bribing players of other teams to throw games to Vernon."

As it turned out, Seattle gambler Nate Raymond was apparently the money man in the plot. During the following season, hotel registers around the league showed that Raymond was following the Vernon team from city to city, continuing the dirty work begun the previous season. In August of 1920, when Raymond was trying to get Seattle first baseman Rod Murphy to accept a $3,000 payoff, he told the player that he had cleaned up $50,000 during the 1919 season by betting on fixed P.C.L. games.

Also in 1920, Hal Chase, for whom Borton had been traded in 1913, returned to California and immediately set up a partnership with Borton to fix games.

It is remarkable that despite the widespread bribery and attempted bribery, not one opposing player blew the whistle on Borton until well into the 1920 season. Writing in the Los Angeles Evening Express in November, 1920, Harry Grayson editorialized on that phenomenon under the headline, "An Indictment Against the Ball Players as a Whole."

"The real reason for the belated housecleaning to which the national pastime is being subjected at this time is because the players and magnates have been too eager to put the soft pedal on shady stuff. The tendancy has been to hush things up," Grayson wrote.

"The baseball playing fraternity has certainly proved itself a close-mouth one until the jam came. Until a bunch were caught red-handed they were secretive. They told of nothing deep or dangerous until the blow came."

Grayson named a half-dozen of Borton's teammates and others in the league who had told him they knew Borton was "not walking the straight and narrow."

San Francisco baseball writer Seal Rock (pen name) played the same tune in an Aug. 26, 1920, column in The Sporting News. Its headlines read, "Players Tardy in Their Part Toward Keeping Game Clean / Common Club House Gossip Since Last Fall of Something Rotten Yet They Failed to Inform Those Who Could Set Matters to Right."

Rock wrote, "One of the astonishing things about the Coast League bribery scandal is that honest players in baseball, and there are ten honest men to every one crook, do not get together and hound the bad ones out of baseball. That's what they should do. They know they should but no one seems to want to take the lead. The honest players will have to get in and help clean up the game for their own protection and the sooner they start the sooner the atmosphere will be cleared and baseball will get a real chance again."

Later, he repeated that "it was astonishing that so many ball players, innocent themselves of wrong doing, knew that others were guilty, that bribes were being offered, and probably accepted, and yet these players kept the matter from the club magnates and the league head.

"The timid ones shivered when this scandal broke and thought baseball was doomed. They know differently now. Baseball is bigger than the crooks and gamblers and it will survive when some of the misguided players who forgot all sense of decency and honesty are in the ash heap."

Rock continued, "In the past certain players in this league have been entertained by and been friendly with notorious gamblers. In some cases the boys did so innocently. From now on, however, they will have no excuse. If they pal around with crooks after having been warned, something will drop on them like a ton of coal falling down a chute, and they will find themselves out in the cold, cruel world, with hard work staring them in the face."

He concluded, "President McCarthy has shown that a bold stand and a vigorous investigation, publicly conducted, is the wisest policy and the only policy in the long run. McCarthy has had experience as foreman of a grand jury, so he knows something about investigations. He is on record as saying that he will keep up the fight until every crooked ball player is driven out of the game and he will never let up on the gamblers who have corrupted the players."

The Sporting News also expressed confidence in McCarthy's ability to clean up the mess. The paper editorialized, "President McCarthy has shown that he is a man who has the courage to swing his stick on any guilt head; one who will play no favorites, nor will he deviate from the course he has taken to clean up baseball in his league if the whole playing personnel has to be reorganized."

The editorial worked itself to this feverish conclusion, "So again we say, get all the crooks, in any and every league, and let there be no mistaken policy of secrecy in getting them. Make up the dishonor roll and publish it so large and high that all the world shall know who the traitors have been and bend every effort toward seeing that no names are missing from that roll. Let the names that it carries be bywords for all that is mean and contemptible."

McCarthy's investigation was vigorous. He promised the public, "it would have no complaint to make of anything being covered up in the investigation," but asked for patience until the facts could be assembled and sifted through. He traveled the length and breadth of the league and summoned legions of players to his office to give testimony.

(continued tomorrow)

Black Sox had nothing on Babe Borton

(This three-part article, an earlier version of which was published in Sports Collectors Digest on Aug. 27, 1993) concludes a series about the 1919 Pacific Coast League gambling scandal. Earlier presentations detailed the involvement of "Bad News Bees" players Gene Dale [June 14-15], Harl Maggert [July 10-11], and Bill Rumler [Aug. 15-17]).

Over five seasons (1914-20) Babe
Borton was a popular star in the Pacific
Coast League before it was discovered
he was a ringleader in fixing ballgames
and pennant races. (1914 Zeenut
candy card courtesy Mark Macrae.)

            Though it would be almost a year before the press and the general public discovered it, the 1919 baseball season was undoubtedly the dirtiest in the history of the national pastime. The Black Sox scandal of the 1919 World Series was only the culmination of a year’s worth of fixed and throw ballgames at the major league and minor league levels.

            Because it involved the revered Fall Classic and some of the best players in the game, the World Series scandal overshadowed the other chicanery to such an extent that the average fan today has heard little or nothing about baseball’s other dirty doings in 1919.

            Sure, fixing the World Series was a big deal and everybody today – thanks to books and movies – knows the story of the “Eight Men Out” and all the colorful characters on the periphery. But how many know the name of Babe Borton, the man who fixed an entire pennant race?

            At any other time in baseball history, the selling of the Pacific Coast League pennant race of 1919 would have been front page news nationwide. The P.C.L. was a virtual third major league at the time that no team in the American or National Leagues was situated west of St. Louis. But, because the details of the scandal were unfolding at the same time the World Series fix was being revealed, the story of Babe Borton’s tampering with the West Coast pennant race is virtually unknown today. It is a story worth knowing.

            Like the Black Sox scandal, the fixing of the P.C.L. pennant race was a secret kept tightly locked in the confines of the locker room. It may have never seen the light of day except that an innocent ballplayer could no longer take the accusatory jibes flung at him throughout the 1920 season.

            The 1919 Pacific Coast League pennant race had been a three-team thriller right into the final month of the season. By mid-September the Salt Lake City Bees, still in third place, had dropped to 10 games back, leaving the Los Angeles Angels and their cross-town rivals, the Vernon Tigers, in a tie for first place.

            On Sept. 16 the Bees and Tigers began a 13-game home-and-home series while L.A. hosted the fourth-place San Francisco Seals and then traveled north to play tail-end Seattle. When the Sunday double-headers were over on Sept. 28, Los Angeles was ahead of the Tigers by 2-1/2 games. While Vernon had taken nine of the 13 games against Salt Lake City, the Angels had beaten San Francisco five-of-seven and, after arriving in Seattle two days late because of train trouble, swept the Rainiers in six games.

            The 1919 Coast League pennant race came down to what should have been an incredibly dramatic finish – a seven-game series at Vernon between the Tigers and Angels for all the marbles. The teams split a Wednesday double-header on Oct. 1, then Vernon ran away with the gonfalon by sweeping the final five games of the season.

            In winning the pennant, the Vernon players also won a $10,000 purse put up by their fans, plus an $8,000 share of the best-of-nine “Junior World Series” in which they beat St. Paul of the American Association. Each Tiger pocketed the equivalent of several months’ pay at prevailing P.C.L. salary levels. As it turned out, several Salt Lake City player also received a well-earned, but dirty, bonus from the Vernon post-season pot. And many more players around the league were accused of having done the same, which caused the entire plot to unravel.

            In mid-June Los Angeles traveled to Salt Lake City for the first meeting between the teams in the 1920 season. The Seraphs, led by center fielder and manager Wade “Red” Killefer, began immediately to roast Bees pitcher Ralph Stroud. They accused Stroud of accepting $500 from Vernon the previous season to jump the Salt Lake City team during the critical series with Vernon. Indeed, after pitching twice in two days against San Francisco just prior to the critical Vernon series, Stroud left his team, citing irreconcilable differences with manager Eddie Herr. At the time he quit the Bees, Stroud had about the best winning percentage among regulars on the staff, 14-11 with an ERA of 3.84. When Herr was replaced by Ernie Johnson for the 1920 season, Stroud returned to the Bees and ran up a 26-13 record on a 3.20 ERA.

            Killefer would not accept Stroud’s explanation, nor the testimonial of Johnson, to whom Stroud had gone for help in quieting the accusations, that Stroud was on the level. In desperation Stroud appealed to P.C.L. President William McCarthy.

            McCarthy immediately began an investigation which culminated in late July when one of Stroud’s teammates was observed by a detective taking a $300 payoff from Vernon first baseman Babe Borton. Meanwhile, reports of bribes, attempted bribes and other efforts to throw ballgames during the 1919 pennant race piled up in McCarthy’s dossier against Borton. On Aug. 1, Babe Borton played his last game in Organized Baseball. He was suspended by the Vernon management pending the outcome of McCarthy’s investigation.

            Borton’s career had begun more than a decade earlier, when he signed his first professional contract in 1910 at the age of 21. Borton began with Springfield of the Three-I League Indiana, Illinois, Iowa), just down the road from Marion, Ill., where he had been born in 1888. He actually played his first pro ball for Ottumwa, Iowa, in the Central Association (Class D), on option from Springfield.

            He batted .293 at Ottumwa, fourth-best in the league among those who played more than 100 games. Borton’s team finished second in a field of eight that season.

            In 1911 Borton moved up to the Class A Western League, having been drafted by St. Joseph (Missouri). Borton led the league with a .343 batting average, and also paced the circuit’s first sackers in fielding. The Saints finished second.

            Borton was drafted by the Chicago White Sox for 1912, but was beaten out for a back-up first baseman’s job and returned to St. Joe. Borton again led the W.L. in 1912, batting .364. In late August, fearful of losing him to another team in the draft, the White Sox recalled Borton. In his month at Chicago he hit .371 and earned a first base platoon job with Rollie Zeider for the 1913 season.

On June 1, 1913, the Chicago White Sox traded
both their first baseman, Rollie Zeider and Babe
Borton (above), to the Yankees for Hal Chase. 

            On June 1, 1913, the ChiSox traded both of their first basemen, Zeider and Borton, to the New York Yankees for the game’s premier player at that position, Hal Chase.

            The Yankees gave Borton a month to prove himself, but when he was hitting just .130 after 33 games they assigned him to last-place Jersey City in the International League. Borton refused to report to the Skeeters, and went home to St. Joseph, where he went back to his off-season job working as a clerk in a cigar store. He tried to get St. Joe to buy his release, but they chose not to get involved. A deal to send him to Atlanta also fell through.

             After the close of the season, Borton requested a trade and was sold to Toronto, also in the I.L. In the interim he’d gone out to California to play in one of the winter league’s that flourished there at the time. Deciding he liked the climate, he informed Toronto’s management that he would not be reporting in the spring. His contract was returned to Jersey City, who made a deal to allow Borton to remain on the Coast, with Venice.

            The first baseman had a good season with Venice in 1914, hitting .307 (eighth-best in the P.C.L. among those playing 100 games or more) and leading the league’s first basemen with a .992 fielding average.

            Despite the fact that Venice finished fourth in the six-team league, Borton was hailed by Sporting Life as “the best first sacker ever in the Coast League with the exception of the ‘native son’ Hal Chase.” That status did not go unnoticed by the Federal League when it stepped up its raids on Organized Baseball to stock the teams of its “Third Major League.” For 1915 Borton signed a contract with the St. Louis Feds.

             With the Federal League St. Louis Terriers in 1915, Borton again had a strong season, hitting .286 and leading the Federal League in runs scored and bases on balls. His .993 fielding average was tied for third-best among all major league first basemen. Reading the writing of the Federal League imminent demise on the wall, in mid-August Borton tried to buy his release from St. Louis, hoping he could return to one of the "old" major league clubs.

After jumping to the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League in
1915, Borton returned to the American League with the
St. Louis Browns (above) for 1916, his last season in the majors.

              As part of the Federal League's peace agreement with the National and American Leagues, Phil Ball, owner of the St. Louis Fed franchise was allowed to purchase the St. Louis Browns. When the players from the two teams were combined for 1916, Borton made the roster of the Browns.

              Playing behind future Hall of Famer George Sisler at first base, Borton made the majority of his appearances with the Brownies as a left-handed pinch-hitter. He was not very successful in that capacity, hitting just .171 off the bench, and only .224 overall, with little power.

(continued tomorrow)