Nap Lajoie

Napoléon Lajoie (; September 5, 1874 – February 7, 1959), also known as Larry Lajoie, was an American professional baseball second baseman who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Nicknamed "the Frenchman", he represented both Philadelphia franchises and the Cleveland Bronchos, which was renamed "the Naps" by fans after him, and which he led as its player-manager from 1905 through 1909.

Lajoie was signed to the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League (NL) in 1896. By the beginning of the 20th century, however, the upstart American League (AL) was looking to rival the supremacy of the NL and in 1901 Lajoie and dozens of former National League players joined the American League. National League clubs contested the legality of contracts signed by players who jumped to the other league, but Lajoie was eventually allowed to play for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics. During the season, Lajoie set the all-time American League single-season mark for the highest batting average (.426). One year later, Lajoie went to the Cleveland Bronchos, where he would play until the 1915 season, when he returned to play for Mack and the Athletics. While with Cleveland, Lajoie's popularity led to locals electing to change the club's team name from Bronchos to Napoleons ("Naps" for short), which remained until after Lajoie departed Cleveland and the name was changed to Indians (the team's name until 2021).

Lajoie led the AL in batting average five times in his career and four times recorded the highest number of hits. During several of those years with the Naps, he and Ty Cobb dominated AL hitting categories and traded batting titles with each other, most notably in 1910, when the league's batting champion was not decided until well after the last game of the season and after an investigation by American League President Ban Johnson. In 1914 Lajoie became the third major league player to accumulate 3,000 career hits, joining Cap Anson and Honus Wagner. He led the NL or AL in putouts five times in his career and in assists three times. He has been called "the best second baseman in the history of baseball" and "the most outstanding player to wear a Cleveland uniform." Cy Young said, "Lajoie was one of the most rugged players I ever faced. He'd take your leg off with a line drive, turn the third baseman around like a swinging door and powder the hand of the left fielder." Throughout his childhood Lajoie received little formal education.

Jean, who worked as a teamster and laborer, died not long into Lajoie's childhood, which forced him and his siblings to work to support the family. Lajoie dropped out of school to work in a textile mill. He also began playing semi-professional baseball for the local Woonsocket team, under the alias "Sandy" because his parents did not approve of their son playing baseball. He earned money as a taxi driver with a horse and buggy and locally was called "Slugging Cabby." He also received the nickname "Larry" from a teammate who had trouble pronouncing Lajoie.

When word of Lajoie's baseball ability spread, he began to play for other semi-professional teams at $2 to $5 per game ($ to $ in current dollar terms). He also worked as a teamster. He recorded 163 hits in 80 games and led the team in batting average, doubles, triples, home runs and hits. Lajoie was "widely regarded as an outstanding prospect," and Indians owner Charlie Marston rejected an offer from the Pittsburgh Pirates to purchase Lajoie's contract for $500 ($ in current dollar terms). He was also scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Beaneaters. others dispute that claim. Author David Jordan wrote:

<blockquote>A legend later grew up that Geier was the main target of Nash's pursuit and that Marston "threw in" Lajoie in order to get the Phillies to pay the $1,500 asking price. This is hardly likely. While Geier was considered a good prospect, Lajoie was banging the ball at a .429 clip in his first professional season, was a fine fielder, and had already been sought by several big league clubs. Nap Lajoie clearly represented a financial asset to Marston, who did not give him away. The price the Phillies paid was a substantial sum for two minor leaguers in 1896. He had a .378 batting average in 1899, though he played only 77 games due to an injury.

In April 1900, Brooklyn manager Ned Hanlon made a public offer of $10,000 to purchase Lajoie from the Phillies, who rebuffed the offer.

John Rogers, described as a "penny-pinching" majority owner of the Phillies, assured Lajoie that he would make the same salary as Delahanty. However, Lajoie discovered that while he was earning $2,600 ($ in current dollar terms), Delahanty earned $3,000 ($ in current dollar terms) (contracts for NL players were not allowed to surpass $2,400). Rogers increased Lajoie's pay by $200 but the damage had already been done. "Because I felt I had been cheated, I was determined to listen to any reasonable American League offer," Lajoie said.

Philadelphia Athletics

In 1901, the newly created American League had attracted several of the National League's top players to join its ranks. Rogers declined Lajoie's request for an increase in salary, and as a result Lajoie jumped to the crosstown Philadelphia Athletics, owned by former Phillies' part-owner Benjamin Shibe and managed by Connie Mack. "The Phillies opened their season and drew 6,000 fans. A week later, when we opened, there were 16,000 in the stands. The American League was here to stay," Lajoie later said.

That same year in a game against the Chicago White Sox's Clark Griffith, Lajoie became the second Major Leaguer after Abner Dalrymple in 1881 to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded in an 11–7 game. Mack said of Lajoie, "He plays so naturally and so easily it looks like lack of effort."</blockquote>

In April 1902, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overruled an earlier decision by the Court of Common Pleas and upheld the reserve clause in contracts between players and NL clubs. President of the Chicago National League Club Jim Hart said the state Supreme Court's decision had dealt "a fatal blow to the rival league" and NL clubs "have won a great victory." The Phillies' Rogers obtained an injunction barring Lajoie from playing baseball for any team other than his team. However, a lawyer discovered that the injunction was enforceable only in the state of Pennsylvania. The courts ruled that the reserve clause was not valid for players who signed with an AL team. Mack responded by trading Lajoie and Bill Bernhard to the then-moribund Cleveland Bronchos, whose owner, Charles Somers, had provided considerable financial assistance to the A's in the early years. Lajoie was also pursued by Charles Comiskey, owner of the Chicago White Sox.

Cleveland Bronchos/Naps

thumb|right|Lajoie c. 1908

Lajoie, nicknamed "The Frenchman" and considered baseball's most famous player at the time, arrived in Cleveland on June 4; his play was immediately met with approval from fans. The team went on to finish 69–67, fifth in the AL, for the franchise's first winning record since the AL began as a league. After his first season with the Bronchos, Lajoie's .378 average led all AL players. New York Giants manager, John McGraw, was rumored to want to sign Lajoie, but Lajoie said "... I intend to stick to Cleveland."

For the remainder of 1902 and most of 1903, Lajoie, Bernhard, and Elmer Flick traveled separately from the rest of the team, needing to avoid entering Pennsylvania so as to avoid a subpoena, as the only team they could legally play with inside state limits was the NL's Phillies. When the team went to play in Philadelphia, Lajoie and Bernhard would go to nearby Atlantic City to help pass the time. In the off-season he contracted pleurisy. (A rule was put into place requiring white socks to be worn underneath a player's colored socks.) The injury worsened and Lajoie eventually came to games in a wheelchair, and doctors considered amputation.</blockquote>

left|thumb|Napoleon Lajoie, second baseman for Cleveland, ca. 1906; from the Michael T. "Nuf Ced" McGreevy Collection of the Boston Public Library

Lajoie led the majors in 1906 in hits (214) and doubles (48) and the Naps finished third in the AL again with a winning record, 89–64. Lajoie finished second in the AL to George Stone in batting average, slugging and on-base percentage. In 1906 he married Myrtle Smith and the couple moved to a small farm outside Cleveland. put him at risk for hitting below .300 for the first time in his career. He also missed 15 games due to a recurrence of sepsis. Baseball historians have suggested the managerial duties Lajoie took on affected his offensive numbers. The Naps finished 1910 71–81 but Lajoie had one of his better seasons statistically as he led the majors with a .384 average and 227 hits, both categories bettered only in Lajoie's 1901 campaign. His 51 doubles, a career-high, and 304 total bases led the majors, the fourth and final time in his career he would lead the majors in the latter category. Stovall, the former Naps first baseman, replaced McGuire as the club's manager and the Naps finished 80–73. He played in 117 games on the season, an increase over the 90 he played in one season before, but Cleveland, who had hired Joe Birmingham as the team's fifth manager since Lajoie gave up the role in 1909, finished 75–78. In 1913, Birmingham and Lajoie had arguments in the open, including one incident in June when Lajoie cursed Birmingham openly to reporters after being benched during a batting slump. His .258 batting average for the season, however, was the lowest since he had joined the majors in 1896. Lajoie requested that Somers trade him and the club obliged, selling Lajoie to the Athletics for the waiver price and in so doing, Lajoie returned to Philadelphia. The 1916 season would be Lajoie's last in the majors. In his final major league game, he hit a triple to help Athletics pitcher Joe Bush win his no-hitter. The Athletics' winning percentage (.235) is the franchise's worst winning percentage (through the 2021 season); moreover, it is the lowest of any major league team in the modern (post-1900) era.

Minor leagues and retirement

In 1917, Lajoie joined the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League as manager. At the age of 42, Lajoie won the league's batting title with batting average of .380. He appeared in 151 of 156 games and, for the first time in his career, played on a team that won a pennant. Later that same year he joined the Indianapolis Indians of the American Association as player-manager. He helped lead the team to a third-place finish but the season was impacted due to the U.S.'s involvement in World War I. Lajoie made his services available to the draft board but they rejected his offer.

Several years after his retirement, a story in The Milwaukee Sentinel talked of Lajoie's ability to "outguess any pitcher." Lajoie faced pitcher Red Donahue, who avoided pitching fastballs to Lajoie after seeing him go 4-for-4 against a fellow pitcher. Donahue instead made pitches on the outside corner, to which Lajoie reached over "and hit them with ease." Donahue then aimed a pitch at Lajoie's head and he proceeded to hit a home run. "That's the kind I eat", he said. ||686|||| || ||

Rivalry with Ty Cobb

right|thumb|Nap Lajoie on a 1911 [[American Tobacco Company baseball card]]

For the first part of the 20th century, Lajoie's and Ty Cobb's statistics rivaled each other like few other players in the American League. The public became fascinated with the daily statistics of Lajoie and Cobb in what became known as the Chalmers Race. Sports bettors, who by this time followed the sport attentively, also followed the daily reports with interest. Cobb took the final two games, a doubleheader, off against the Chicago White Sox, confident that his average was safe and would allow him to win the AL batting title—unless Lajoie had a near-perfect final day. Going into the final game of the season, Cobb's average led Lajoie's, .383 to .376.

Lajoie and the Naps faced a doubleheader against the St. Louis Browns in Sportsman's Park, Cleveland's final two games of the season. After a sun-hindered fly ball went for a stand-up triple and another batted ball landed for a cleanly hit single, Lajoie had five subsequent hits – bunt singles dropped in front of rookie third baseman Red Corriden (whose normal position was shortstop), who was playing closer to shallow left field on orders, it has been suggested, of manager Jack O'Connor. In his final at bat of the second game, Lajoie reached base on another bunt but the throw to first by Corriden was off target and the play was scored an error and thus, Lajoie did not record an official at-bat, nor a hit. He finished the doubleheader 8-for-8 and his batting average increased to .384, .001 greater than Cobb's mark. Although the AL office had not officially announced the results, Lajoie began to receive congratulations from fans and players, including eight of Cobb's Detroit Tigers teammates. Most players in the league preferred Lajoie's personality to that of Cobb's. Author James Vail wrote in 2001:

<blockquote>To date, it seems that no one knows for certain who won that 1910 batting title. Total Baseball, which is now the official major-league record, lists both men at .384 in its seasonal section, but its player register has Lajoie at the same number and Cobb at .383—so even the various editors of that source do not, or cannot, agree.</blockquote>

Jon Wertheim wrote in Sports Illustrated 100 years after the event,

<blockquote>The statistics for the Detroit players had been crossed out and nullified. Every Detroit player, that is, except one: Ty Cobb. It takes something less than a detective to arrive at the conclusion that at some point Johnson (or someone in the league office, anyway) realized the error and decided to conceal it. He was among the second group of players elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937 and was later inducted on June 12, 1939, when the Hall opened that same year. Lajoie obtained the greatest number of votes as he led induction mates Tris Speaker (165 votes) and Cy Young (153) with 168 votes (83.6 percent of ballots) from the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Lajoie led all second basemen in the NL in putouts (1898) and the AL four times in his career (1901, 1903, 1906, and 1908). From 1906–1908 he led the AL in assists (amongst second basemen). Bill James argues, "In the last 20 years several statistical analysts ... have credited Lajoie with immense defensive value ... this analysis is incorrect. He was a competent fielder, even a good fielder. He was not a defensive superstar." He died in Daytona Beach, Florida on February 7, 1959, at the age of 84 from complications associated with pneumonia. He had fallen in the autumn of 1958 and fractured his arm.

Lajoie was included in the checklist for the 1933 baseball card set produced by the Goudey Gum Company. However, the card (#106 in the set) became infamous for being impossible to find copies of. While the company eventually sent copies of the card to those collectors who wrote in to complain, it was revealed years later that the uncut sheets of the set did not include the card, and the alleged 1933 Lajoie card was printed with the 1934 set. Today, the card is among the highest value from the set.

Lajoie is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday" by Ogden Nash:

In Ring Lardner's 1911 baseball song, "Gee, It's a Wonderful Game", a stanza refers to Lajoie:

<blockquote>Who lost out in the battle of old Waterloo?/

I don't know, I don't know/

They say 'twas Na-po-le-on/

Maybe it's true/

Maybe so, I don't know/

The pink sheets don't print Mr. Bonaparte's face/

No stories about him today/

'Cause he never could hold down

that old second base/

Like his name sake/

Big Nap Lay'-ooh-way</blockquote>

Footnotes

Major League Baseball has not revised Cobb's batting average, which would then designate Lajoie as the 1910 batting champion. The Sporting News wrote of statistical evidence showing Cobb's 1910 season statistics had been tampered with and he was given two extra base hits but MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn declined to announce Lajoie the winner. Both the Society for American Baseball Research and Baseball-Reference.com list Lajoie as having the higher batting average and thus, the batting champion.

Philadelphia Athletics

Cleveland Bronchos/Naps

Minor leagues and retirement

Rivalry with Ty Cobb

See also

Footnotes

References

External links