The forgotten hero of the champion Cubs & Columbia, Pa.

Back when the Continental Congress was figuring out where to locate the permanent capital, a little town in Pennsylvania called Wright’s Ferry decided to lobby for the gig. Figuring its location along the banks of the mighty Susquehanna River that separates York and Lancaster counties was perfectly located and easy for delegates from the other colonies, Wright’s Ferry challenged for the privilege to be capital.

First things first…

Wright’s Ferry had to do something about its name. It needed something catchy or something that befit a burgeoning nation. Therefore, in 1789 Wright’s Ferry changed its name to Columbia. Perfect, huh? With a name like Columbia, how could the little town on the western edge of Lancaster County go wrong?

Location? Check.

Infrastructure? Check.

People of influence on its side like George Washington? Check.

Name? Done, done, done and done.

Nevertheless, southern states Maryland and Virginia carved out a rectangle of unwanted swamp land along the Anacostia and Potomac rivers not too far from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Next thing the folks in Columbia, Pa. knew the District of Columbia had edged it out by one vote and the rest is history.

Some influence that George Washington had, huh?

Anyway, since it had the name and the location, Columbia attempted to become the capital of Pennsylvania. Again, it had the location, the name but maybe not the influential supporters. Instead, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania went with the more centrally located Harrisburg to be the seat of its government.

Since then, Columbia became most well known for burning down the bridge connecting it to Wrightsville in York County (called the Wright's Ferry Bridge) to ward off the approaching Confederate Army in 1863. As a result of this act, the Confederates and Union armies got together in a little town that not many people had heard of called Gettysburg.

Columbians, meanwhile, petitioned the U.S. government to replace the bridge only to be denied for more than 100 years.

The act of burning the bridge kept General Robert E. Lee’s army from attacking Harrisburg, Pa. from the east while it gave the Union army enough time to protect Harrisburg, Lancaster and Philadelphia as well as confront the Confederates in what was to become the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

These days, though, Gettysburg is as synonymous with American liberty as much as any landmark in the nation’s history. Because of that, tourists flock to the little burg in south-central Pennsylvania and spend millions in restaurants, hotels and whatever else travelers like to buy.

Columbia, on the other hand, is a struggling industrial town with no real claim to anything in American history aside from a century’s worth of near-misses of historical fame. 

***

There are no parks named for Jimmy Sheckard in Columbia, Pa. and as far as we could tell, there are no statues or other public memorials for the man, either. In Lancaster city’s Buchanan Park, beneath a copse of trees near a statue of James Buchanan, the 14^th president of the United States, there is a stone plaque with kind words for Sheckard and his career in baseball. But aside from that, there really isn’t anything else in Lancaster or Columbia to remember Samuel James Tilden Sheckard.

That’s certainly a unique way to remember a hometown ballplayer once described by writer Ring Lardner as, “the greatest ballplayer in the world.”

No, Jimmy Sheckard was not the greatest ballplayer in the world in any era. In fact, Sheckard is not even a member of the baseball Hall of Fame or regarded as one of the greatest players for Brooklyn or Chicago, the hometowns of the ballclubs he made his fame. But Sheckard was a terrific ballplayer by any standard. Moreover, he has the rarest of distinctions of any player…

Sheckard was a member of the only two World Series champion teams in Chicago Cubs’ history.

Think about that for a second… the number of people who have World Series rings with the Cubs is probably the most select group in the game. There was Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance, the famous double-play combination that become fodder for poetry as well as pitchers Orvall Overall and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. Matched up against Ty Cobb’s Detroit Tigers in 1907 and 1908, the Cubs won eight out of nine World Series games and were viewed as the greatest teams in the early history of the game.

But how many Cubs’ players have come and gone since that last title? Before the Billy Goat and Bartman and the black cat of 1969; before Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Kerry Wood and Sammy Sosa—hell, before Wrigley Field… there was Jimmy Sheckard in left field for the Chicago Cubs.

“Sheckard was one of the brightest ball players in the business,” Hall-of-Fame teammate Johnny Evers said. “He was a bigger cog in the old invincible Cub machine than he ever received credit for being.”

From 1906 to 1910, Sheckard was the left fielder for the juggernaut Cubs teams that went to the World Series four times and won the title in 1907 and 1908. Here we are in 2011 and the Cubs haven’t come close since Sheckard held down left field. In fact, a good modern-day comparison for Sheckard might be Johnny Damon circa 2004 with the champion Red Sox in 2004. Sheckard was a leadoff man extraordinaire, a Gold Glove-caliber fielder and a power threat in the Dead Ball Era.

Also like Damon, Sheckard was known as a bit of a zany dude on and off the field. A prankster and a singer in a barbershop quartet, Sheckard also carried some of his quirky behavior onto the diamond. For instance, there was a game in Pittsburgh where the Pirates’ hitters had a knack for spraying line drive all over left field far out of the reach of Sheckard. So rather than position himself in the outfield traditionally, Sheckard spun around in circles in the outfield, tossed his glove up in the air and decided he’d position himself where the glove landed.

The game was stopped so Cubs’ pitcher Orval Overall could re-position Sheckard back into the middle of left field instead of on the foul line, but the outfielder wouldn’t budge. When Overall gave up and went back to the mound, his next pitch was hit directly to the unconventional Sheckard playing left field practically in foul territory.

He also boasted that he would bat .400 in the 1906 World Series against the White Sox, but instead went a Burrell-esque 0 for 21 and did not hit the ball out of the infield as the Cubs were upset in six games. Before the 1908 World Series, Sheckard was almost blinded in his left eye from a fight with teammate Heinie Zimmerman. During an argument, Sheckard threw something at Zimmerman, who in turn fired a glass bottle of ammonia at Sheckard prompting a clubhouse melee. In a way, the Cubs’ brawl kind of sounds like the stories about the 1970s Oakland A’s—minus the bottle of ammonia, of course.

Needless to say, Sheckard was very popular with the fans. This was despite the fact that Sheckard was a bit flaky when choosing a team to play for. Early in his career, Sheckard had a penchant for abruptly switching teams in the middle of the season. From 1899 to 1902, Sheckard jumped back and forth from the Brooklyn Superbas to the Baltimore Orioles and back again, four times. Finally, after being traded from Brooklyn to the Cubs before the 1906 season, Sheckard found his home.  

Oh, but Sheckard could field his position without the silly antics, too. In Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract, the author lists Sheckard on the gold Glove team of the 1900s as well as the No. 24-rated left fielder of all time in the 2001 edition of the book.

But Sheckard’s play, as well as his inability to pick a team, was marked by inconsistency. Actually, if Sheckard’s playing career could be defined properly, it was his consistency at being inconsistent. Or, perhaps, Sheckard was focused on one aspect of the game. He led the league in slugging one season and stolen bases in another. Actually, Sheckard’s superlatives are downright wacky:

• NL record for sacrifice hits in a season with 46 (1909)

• NL record for walks in a season in with 147 (1911)

• NL on-base percentage leader (1911)

• NL slugging percentage leader (1901)

• NL runs leader (1911)

• NL triples leader (1901)

• NL home runs leader (1903)

• NL bases on balls leader (1911 & 1912)

• NL stolen bases leader (1899 & 1903)

• 100 RBI seasons (1901)

• 100 Runs scored seasons (1899, 1901 & 1911)

• 50 stolen bases seasons (1899 & 1903)

As James wrote in the Historical Baseball Abstract:

Sheckard drew 147 walks in 1911, which was the National league record until Eddie Stanky, and is still one of the highest figures on record. He also hit as high as .354 (1901), stole as many as 77 bases (1899), and led the National League at various times in triples, home runs, runs scored, walks, sacrifice hits, stolen bases, base runner kills (outfield assists), on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

Sheckard had sort of a Toby Harrah-type career. He did a lot of things well, but not necessarily at the same time. The first half of his career he was a middle-of-the-order hitter, and a good one; the second half of his career he was a leadoff man, and a very good one.

With Sheckard, the only big leaguers to lead the league in home runs and stolen bases in different seasons during the modern era are Ty Cobb, Chuck Klein and Willie Mays. Only Sheckard has led the league in homers in one season and sacrifices in another.

***

It seems as if Columbia’s biggest moment came when it burned down that bridge to thwart Lee’s army from launching an attack on Harrisburg. Meanwhile, as the civil War raged, a Columbia native named Stephen Atkins Swails had left his job as a waiter in Cooperstown, N.Y. and, with 17 other men from Columbia, joined up with the 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Swails started as a private, received a commission and became first sergeant. After the battle at Fort Wagner in 1863, Swails took over as acting sergeant-major when the platoon’s commander was killed. Then in a whirlwind three months, the Columbian was injured in battle at Olustee and received a promotion to Second Lieutenant.

Swails was the first African-American promoted to officer rank during the war.

Parts of his story were copped and told in the movie Glory, the story of the all black 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry that earned Denzel Washington his first Academy Award.

Swails never returned to Columbia, instead taking the rare path of a free black man to settle in the south. After the war he was a lawyer, mayor and state senator from Kingstree, S.C. However, as a black man in the south after the Reconstruction, life wasn’t exactly easy for Swails. When a mob attempted to assassinate him, Swails gave up politics and found a job through the Republican party with the U.S. Postal Service and the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.

Like with Sheckard, there isn’t much left in Columbia to memorialize its hometown hero. However, some members of Swails’ unit are buried in town at a hillside cemetery near the high school.

***

It is in that cemetery where we stumbled upon a simple grave stone marked that read:

HUSBAND

JAMES T. SHECKARD

1878 — 1947

That’s it. Nothing about the Cubs or the World Series or even the major leagues. Nothing else about the fact that at the age of 10, Sheckard’s family moved from just over the river from York County to Columbia where he was discovered as a baseball prodigy.

In fact, Sheckard’s grave was as austere and plain as his legacy in his hometown.

And it was back to Columbia where Sheckard settled after his playing days ended following the 1913 season. By that point, at age 34, Sheckard was a .194 hitter for the Reds and Cardinals though he retained his keen batting eye. One has to figure that there are not too many players in big league history that had a sub-.200 batting average in 99 games, but still were able to have a .368 on-base percentage.

Nevertheless, Sheckard had settled into retirement, spending some time in the Navy in World War I as well as a stint as a coach for the Cubs. Home though was Columbia and it was there in 1929 when he lost everything in the stock market crash. Fortunately, his status as a former big leaguer made the search for work a little easier. So Sheckard spent years hauling giant milk containers for farmers around Lancaster County. He also worked at a gas station in Lancaster, which was conveniently located across the street from Stumpf Field.

Travel to Lancaster today and you will still find Stumpf Field in its original location. It was there where the Lancaster Red Roses of the Interstate, Piedmont and Eastern leagues played as an affiliate for the White Sox, Tigers, Philadelphia Athletics, Cubs, Cardinals and Dodgers. In 1932, Sheckard managed the Lancaster Red Sox for a season at Stumpf Field, as well as the college team nearby at Franklin & Marshall and some semi-pro teams in the area.

As it turned out, Sheckard’s quirky behavior didn’t end when he stopped playing in the big leagues. Les Bell, an infielder from Harrisburg who went on to play for the Cardinals, Braves and Cubs, told a researcher about Sheckard’s fun with tobacco:

“As a manager he wore white socks and a white shirt and was always chewing tobacco,” Bell said. “He'd hitch his pants at the knees, sit himself down and spit away. Funniest damn thing I ever saw. By the end of a game those white socks were always a very distinctly brownish color.”

Shortly after his stint on the bench with the Lancaster Red Sox, Sheckard inexplicably turned down an offer from Connie Mack to manage the A’s farm team in the Eastern Shore League. Who knows… it could have been his path to the big leagues.

Instead, Sheckard kept working and living in Lancaster and Columbia. It was in January of 1947 near that gas station located across the street from Stumpf Field when he was hit from behind by a car. Three days later he died from head injuries at age 68.

And that was pretty much it for Sheckard. His friends held a memorial for him at Stumpf Field and the city of Lancaster placed the stone monument in his honor at Buchanan Park, located three blocks from the former president’s estate. Coincidentally, a future president spoke at a rally just steps from the memorial 61 years after it was placed in the park. Then again, Buchanan Park isn’t exactly the size of Central Park.

Once, he was “the greatest ballplayer in the world.” Today, only a few folks remember the Pennsylvania Dutchman who was an integral member of the only two Cubs teams to win the World Series.

Philadelphia's First Dynasty: 100 Years after the A's ruled

Second story in a series

Before there was Babe Ruth and the Yankees, the 1910 Athletics set the standard for which all Philadelphia baseball teams are based. That was the season Connie Mack guided Philadelphia to four trips to the World Series in five years, capturing three championships. In ’10, the A’s rolled over the Cubs in five games, six games over the Giants in ’11, a five-game victory over the Giants in ’13 before it came to an end in four games to the Braves in 1914.

The first dynasty of baseball history came to a crash landing in 1915 when Mack sold off his great players or they jumped to the upstart Federal League as the A’s spent the next seven seasons in last place.

Could you imagine what we would have written and said about Mack in this day and age if he sold Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins and Chief Bender to make a little cash though it meant a decade in the second division? That would be like David Montgomery being told by the Phillies’ partners to dump Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Roy Halladay in order to line the team’s coffers.

Strangely, Mack chose to sell out when his core group of stars were just coming into their primes and it’s not far-fetched to think that the Philadelphia Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies could have played in the 1915 World Series. The first two games would have been played at the Baker Bowl on Broad and Huntingdon in North Philly, packed up the gear after the games, and walked down Lehigh for five blocks to Shibe Park.

Forget a subway series; Philadelphia could have hosted the Lehigh Avenue series.

Anyway, over the next few months we will write about the 100 years since Philadelphia started baseball’s first dynasty. Look for some stylings about the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics here over the next few months. We’ll revisit the “Deadball Era” where Frank “Home Run” Baker hit just two homers in 1910, but he led the league the next four straight years with totals of 11, 10, 12 and 9.

So here’s a little slice of the Deadball Era for the Digital Age.

Connie Mack

For as synonymous as his name was with baseball during the first half of the last century and for as much as he was as part of Philadelphia like Ben Franklin, W.C. Fields and Grace Kelly, there is a lot we don’t know about Connie Mack. Like Franklin, Mack moved to Philadelphia from Massachusetts and remained for the rest of his life.

But unlike Franklin, it’s difficult to find Mack’s name on much in the city. Sure, there is no way to compare a Founding Father with the most prolific manager in Major League Baseball history, but in a city where sports is treated with so much importance, Philadelphians don’t show much pride that Mack won the World Series five times for his adopted home town.

Truth is, in more than a decade of writing about baseball in Philadelphia, I have heard just one story about Connie Mack and that related to the formation of the Philadelphia Sportswriters Association, which was formed to combat cronyism in the press box.

Of course Mack also lost more games than he won in his 50 years as manager of the Philadelphia A’s, spent the last two decades of his career achieving solid mediocrity in the standings and seemingly popularized the practice of the “fire sale.” Oh yes, even a century ago Mack, also the owner of the A’s, massaged his player payroll the way clubs do now. Ultimately, the Mack family sold the A’s before the 1954 season and just like that, Philadelphia became a one-team town. Two years after the A’s moved to Kansas City, Mack died at age 93 in his home on Anderson Street in Mt. Airy.

So to remember Mack in Philadelphia these days we have a ballpark that was torn down in 1976 and a statue set into its first location in 1957 that now rests in front of its third ballpark. However, a quick bit of research revealed no schools named after Mack, though there is a movement to get him depicted on a stamp.

Perhaps the lack of modern day recognition had something to do with Mack’s reputation as a manager/owner more concerned with the bottom line on the balance sheet instead of the standings. Still, the 1910 team was known for its “$100,000 Infield” with Hall of Famers, Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, and Stuffy McInnis.

Home Run Baker hit two homers in 1910.

However, between 1934 and 1950 Philadelphia had two teams that combined for four winning records. Plus, during his 50 seasons with the Athletics, Mack had twice as many 100-loss seasons (10) than he did 100-win seasons (5). Chances are Mack would have never lasted as long as manager of the A’s if he didn’t also own the team, and as such, he was quoted as defining his ownership philosophy thusly:

“The best thing for a team financially is to be in the running and finish second. If you win, the players all expect raises.”

As a manager, historian Bill James, in his Guide to Managers, wrote that Mack: favored a set lineup; did not generally use a platoon approach; preferred young players to veterans; preferred hitters with power who got on base a lot to high-batting-average players; did not often send in a pinch-hitter; did not often use his bench players; did not often employ the sacrifice bunt; believed in "big-inning" offense rather than small ball; and very rarely issued an intentional base on balls.

In other words, he managed similarly to Earl Weaver though their personalities could not have been more different. Mack was elegant with soft eyes and was said to never curse, smoke or drink. In other words, he did not cut the mold for future Philadelphia favorites like Buddy Ryan or Jim Fregosi. Instead, imagine a better-dressed, fitter Andy Reid—at least in a public setting with the press. As a manager, Mack looked for young players with “baseball smarts” and then just let them play without much input.

Nevertheless, Mack put together two of baseball’s first dynasties in two different eras of the game though he didn’t change his style all that much. During the Deadball Era, Mack’s teams routinely led the American League in slugging, on-base percentage and batting average. The 1910 club was led by college grad, Eddie Collins, who paced the team with four homers and a .324 batting average.

Notably, the 1910 A’s did it with pitching. Amazingly, the team won 102 games though they carried just eight pitchers with four of them amassing at least 250 innings. Jack Coombs was the ace with a 31-9 record, 1.30 ERA in 353 innings and 13 shutouts. Five of Mack’s starters combined for 114 complete games.

Compared to 1929 through 1931 with Jimmie Foxx and Al Simmons who challenged Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the Yankees for the home run crown, the 1910 A’s clubbed just nine homers in 150 games.

But maybe he was called “The Tall Tactician,” because Mack was tall and people like alliteration? Tactically, he set the lineup and let the players go do their thing, though there was one request Mack asked of his players before the 1910 World Series began at Shibe Park on 21^st and Lehigh. That request:

Don’t drink alcohol.

Never one for setting curfews and known for treating his players like adults, Mack asked his players to take a pledge not to drink during the World Series against the Cubs. However, before the clinching game 5, an outfielder named Topsy Hartsel told the manager he needed a drink in order to get through it.

Hartsel got his drink and appeared as the leadoff hitter in Game 5 where he went 1-for-5 with a pair of runs and two stolen bases in his only game of the series. As a result, Connie Mack, born Cornelius McGillicuddy (a name he never legally jettisoned), won his first World Series.

Philadelphia's First Dynasty: 100 Years after the A's ruled

First story in a series

Believe it or not, two of the greatest baseball teams in the history of the game played in Philadelphia. What makes that unbelievable is there has been more lost games from Philadelphia baseball teams than any other. In fact, heading into action on Thursday night, Philadelphia teams in Major League Baseball have lost 14,441 regular-season games and 63 more in the playoffs.

Only a team from Philadelphia could win 99 games and go to the World Series one year and lose 109 games the next season and 117 the year after that. More notably, of the top 10 worst single-season winning percentages in league history, Philadelphia holds 40 percent of the spots. That total increases to 45 percent of the top 20 worst seasons.

Oh, but when things go well in Philly we don’t know what to do with ourselves. Surely the reasons for this are better left for sociologists and trained professionals, so we’ll just leave that type analysis alone. However, when it comes to baseball in Philadelphia there are two eras that are on the top of the list and everything else kind of just filters in behind.

From 1929 to 1931, Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics tore through the American League to win three straight pennants with an average of 104 wins per season back when they only played 154 a year. Baseball historians regard the 1929 A’s club as a bit below the ’27 Yankees when ranking the greatest teams of all-time, though the three-year run by the A’s is amongst the greatest ever and had the distinction of ending the Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig dynasty.

But before Babe Ruth, the Yankees or the A’s that knocked them off in three straight seasons, the 1910 Athletics set the standard for which all Philadelphia baseball teams are based. That was the season Connie Mack guided Philadelphia to four trips to the World Series in five years, capturing three championships. In ’10, the A’s rolled over the Cubs in five games, six games over the Giants in ’11, a five-game victory over the Giants in ’13 before it came to an end in four games to the Braves in 1914.

The first dynasty of baseball history came to a crash landing in 1915 when Mack sold off his great players or the jumped to the upstart Federal League and spent the next seven seasons in last place.

Could you imagine what we would have written and said about Mack in this day and age if he sold Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins and Chief Bender to make a little cash though it meant a decade in the second division? That would be like David Montgomery being told by the Phillies’ partners to dump Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Roy Halladay in order to line the team’s coffers.

Strangely, Mack chose to sell out when his core group of stars were just coming into their primes and it’s not far-fetched to think that the Philadelphia Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies could have played in the 1915 World Series. The first two games would have been played at the Baker Bowl on Broad and Huntingdon in North Philly, packed up the gear after the games, and walked down Lehigh for five blocks to Shibe Park.

Forget a subway series; Philadelphia could have hosted the Lehigh Avenue series.

Anyway, over the next few months we will write about the 100 years since Philadelphia started baseball’s first dynasty. Look for some stylings about the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics here over the next few months. We’ll revisit the “Deadball Era” where Frank “Home Run” Baker hit just two homers in 1910, but he led the league the next four straight years with totals of 11, 10, 12 and 9.

So here’s a little slice of the Deadball Era for the Digital Age. We’ll start with a little story about my favorite player from those teams:

Charles “Chief” Bender

The Chief, part Chippewa, led Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics to five pennants in the early part of the 20th Century and was a predecessor of Jim Thorpe’s at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Bender was easy-going, but he was not one who didn’t like to get in his subtle digs at those who treated him poorly because of the relevant racism. His teammates were always impressed that Bender withstood the racism of the era with aplomb and patience.

That didn’t mean they didn’t tease him. However, when Bender’s teammates made racist cracks to him, the pitcher called referred to them as “foreigners.” When admiring children crowded around him in the street and sought to ingratiate themselves with war whoops and rain dances, he never lost his patience. He was not unaware of the racism around him, but the easygoing Bender weathered the worst while doing his job, kind of like how Jackie Robinson bore the brunt during his first years in the majors nearly four decades later.

“You ignorant ill-bred foreigners,” Bender used to shout at his tormentors. “If you don't like the way I'm doing things out there, why don't you just pack up and go back to your own countries.”

At that time, as it is even now, teammates, fans, and the media called most players of Native American background “Chief.” In 1910, that was an epithet roughly equivalent to calling an African-American male “boy.” Not to mention, it doesn’t take a whole lot of creativity to call an Indian, “Chief.” But known as Chief to nearly everyone in baseball, Bender didn't complain. However, he always signed autographs “Charles Bender.” Notably, Connie Mack always called him by his middle name, Albert. He also said that if he ever needed one pitcher to win him a game, he would call on “Albert Bender.”

“If I had all the men I've ever handled and they were in their prime and there was one game I wanted to win above all others,” Mack was quoted as saying, “Albert would be my man.”

That was for good reason, too. Bender pitched a four-hit shutout in his first World Series game on Oct. 10, 1905 for a win in Game 2 against John McGraw’s Giants, before dropping the clincher with a five-hitter to the great Christy Mathewson in a 2-0 defeat.

In all, Bender started 10 World Series games and completed nine of them. In the 1911 World Series he started three games, completed them all, and allowed just three runs. In his first seven World Series starts covering 61 2/3 innings, Bender posted a 1.31 ERA and 47 strikeouts to 18 walks.

His best pitch was one he was credited with inventing called the “nickel curve,” which today is known as the slider. According to Baseball Reference, Bender compares to modern pitchers like Bert Blyleven and Greg Maddux.

In 1910, Bender put together his best regular season when he went 23-5 with a 1.58 ERA in 30 games. Perhaps best explaining his dominance in 1910, Bender had a 0.916 WHIP, allowing just 182 hits in 250 innings with a no-hitter against Cleveland on May 12.

During the World Series that season, Bender won the opener with a three-hitter over the Cubs at Shibe Park, but lost in a chance to sweep the series in Game 4 when the Cubs scored with two outs in the 10th inning off him.

Bender played with the A’s until 1914 when he jumped to the Federal League after the World Series. Following a season with Baltimore, Bender returned to pitch in Philadelphia with the Phillies for two seasons. After his playing days, he managed, coached and sometimes pitched with a bunch of minor league teams. Ultimately, he settled back in Philadelphia and lived in the Olney section of town on 12th Street behind the current location of the Albert Einstein Medical Center. Back in Philly, Bender operated a couple of businesses, including a jewelry shop in Conshohocken and a sporting goods store on 13th and A rch Streets in Center City. He also worked at Gimbels in Center City and coached with the A’s beginning in 1945until his death in 1954.

In September of 1953, the veterans committee elected Bender to the Hall of Fame, but eight months later — and three months before his induction at Cooperstown — Bender died of cancer at Graduate Hospital. He was buried at the Hillside Cemetary in Roslyn, Pa.

His legacy, aside from being the ace on the staff of the first dynasty in baseball and inventing the slider, Bender was known for his kindness off the mound and his smarts on it. Ty Cobb claimed Bender was the “braniest” pitcher he faced as well as the era’s “money” pitcher.