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No Bells Ring in the Empty Chapel: The Dead Ball Era Concluded (Right Field Edition, Part 3)

Baseball, traditionalists have long argued, offers a great benefit to societies, most recently adumbrated in the literature by this trio of palliatives: as a vision of a more perfect world, as a process of social change, and as a delivery system for such change (Girginov 2008). Perhaps the bonds of fictive kinship it offers are predicates to its social feasance (Spracklen 2001), or perhaps the system itself serves as the petri dish in which identities are fabricated (Sarup 1996). My own readings lead me to grant pride of place to the first of Girginov's definitive troika: Baseball is a vision. Further, I believe baseball can be best understood through and within Mojave ethnopsychiatric practice, which understands Mojave culture as a dream culture (Devereux 1961). Baseball, it is no accident to say, is played within and on a field of dreams.

A dream world is not immune to psychic disturbances, however, and a powerful nightmare shook baseball awake, sweating and shrieking, in September of 1920, a date which marks the very end of the Dead Ball Era and of baseball's naive infancy. The agent of these night-sweats was a man who came out of the west, rough and wild, and brought with him, my research indicates, a thorough knowledge of Mojave history, culture and, most importantly, of the practice of matadha:uk. Or, to the layman: witchcraft. Chick Gandil was, or considered himself to be, I contend, a kwathidhe, or shaman. But he was a shaman gone bad, and he brought with him eastward an epidemic of ahwe nyevedhi: alien ghost illness.

The Mojave were settled, at the time of first contact, along the Colorado River, the arid border, now, of California and Arizona. They were created by, and learned everything about surviving in this harsh landscape from, Mastamho, but Mastamho's legacy is not just life, but madness: Once he had transmitted all his knowledge to the people, he transformed himself into a sea eagle and travelled westward. He stopped several times but was never satisfied until he came to the sea. There, perched on the rocks, he lived with his cronies and dined on fish. Gradually, he lost his memory, his feathers became dung-encrusted and lice-ridden, he could no longer communicate, and he forgot how to fish, spending his last days living off scraps his pals left for him. Mastamho's intentional death was meant to serve as a template for all Mohave deaths, and it is especially the witches who seek out this annihilation.

Witches are identified by several characteristics: childhood misbehavior and later dreams of power (Stewart 1947), a desire for a short life (Kroeber 1925a), and a desire to induce someone to kill them (Devereux 1937). The tolerance of Mojave parents toward their offspring can be seen as conducive to the fostering of these ego-dystopic urges. It should also be noted that shamanic activities, in the Mojave cosmology, create powers that can frequently deteriorate and turn against their owners. The Mojave afterlife, which is reached on completing a four-day journey, is called Calya:yt; there you will be reunited with your loved ones, whose names you are forbidden to speak after their deaths.

It is alleged that the most sinister practices of the witch, which entail enslaving or killing his victims, are motivated by a great love for those very victims, and a desire to be transported to Calya:yt in their company. The witch, whose "self-destruction is notorious" (Devereux 1961), can, if he is found out and stoned or caned to death, by that death retain his hold on his bewitched coterie forever.

Chick Gandil came to Arizona in 1907, a very young man, working in the copper mills and playing baseball with semipro clubs. "I was a wild, rough kid," he admitted. I believe that at some point, being not far from the ancient Mohave lands, he encountered someone who, like Mastamho, schooled him in the Mojave way, and in shamanic practices. I think Gandil's predisposition to wild and power-mongering ways led to an inevitable drift from healing into witchery. His baseball acumen drove him eastward, to places like Washington, Cleveland, and finally Chicago. It was there where his self-destructive plot to travel to Calya:yt, retinue in tow, was hatched, and it required the symbolic suicide of his team--throwing the World Series--to do it. He achieved his goal. And I think that Shoeless Joe Jackson is merely the most famous of his victims.

I want here to emphasize that, despite much research and effort, I have found no 'smoking gun' for this conceit of mine. Nor should Mojave culture and practice be thought of as an inspiration to malfeasance in any way. Rather, the twisted ideas of Chick Gandil are solely at the root. As Jackson said in his Grand Jury testimony, "Chick was the whole works of it, the instigator." Gandil gave his own testimony many years later to Mel Durslag of Sports Illustrated, and his dissembling is apparent even at this long remove. Describing how he picked his fellow conspirators, chosen in the company of his doubtlessly enchanted teammate, Eddie Cicotte, he said they were selected not "because we loved them, because there was never much love among the White Sox. Let's just say that we disliked them the least." That is a clear attempt to throw us off the trail. Devereux (1961) and others remind us that the witch can choose to seal the lips of his victims. Or, if his death-wish is strong, he can choose to keep them unsealed. No lips were sealed by Gandil, and Cicotte's admissions led to the symbolic demise of the eight tarnished White Sox. I can only hope, in the remote likelihood they were granted access, they are all enjoying their time in Calya:yt.

Here are those Dead Ball Era right fielders not in the Hall of Fame who accumulated at least 500 Two O' Cat points. Besides Jackson, whose on-field merits are undeniable, the only contenders are Mike Tiernan, who did make Francis Richter's 1914 list of All-Timers (four of his six selections for the period after 1880 were inducted into the HOF, Tiernan and Joe Kelley being left out), and Gavy Cravath, whose post-age 30 career was one of the best. Had he not spent his youth knocking the ball around in AAA parks in Los Angeles (five seasons) and Minneapolis (three more), he'd have been a shoo-in. But Gavy, latterly known as the Hon. Clifford C. Cravath, spent the last 36 years of his life presiding over a courtroom in Laguna Beach, California, and he surely must have known that Justice wears a blindfold.

Player Career Span 2 O'C Points Starred Years Total Stars 5 Star 4 Star 3 Star 2 Star 1 Star Gold Silver Bronze Total Career Times on HOF Ballot Peak Vote Last Year on Ballot
Joe Jackson 1908-1920 2434 9 38 5 1 3 0 0 15 25 35 75 554 2 1.0% 1946
Mike Tiernan 1887-1899 1575 7 23 1 3 1 1 1 16 4 7 27 124
Gavy Cravath 1908-1920 1499 5 20 1 3 1 0 0 35 13 9 57 149 5 1.2% 1947
Buck Freeman 1891-1907 1119 5 18 0 3 2 0 0 10 18 5 23 23
Socks Seybold 1899-1908 1029 7 17 0 1 2 3 1 2 2 7 11 0
Oyster Burns 1884-1895 988 5 13 1 0 2 0 2 4 1 6 11 19
John Titus 1903-1913 971 5 12 0 1 1 2 1 0 1 2 3 0
Wildfire Schulte 1904-1918 917 2 8 1 0 1 0 0 10 3 5 18 11 1 0.5% 1937
Chicken Wolf 1882-1892 794 4 12 1 0 1 2 0 5 6 5 16 0
Chief Wilson 1908-1916 699 5 9 0 0 1 1 2 4 5 3 12 0
Harry Lumley 1904-1910 688 3 10 0 2 0 1 0 4 8 8 20 0
Mike Mitchell 1907-1914 660 3 9 0 1 1 1 0 3 8 1 12 0
Steve Evans 1908-1915 645 2 9 1 1 0 0 0 4 7 7 18 0
Red Murray 1906-1917 546 2 6 0 1 0 1 0 1 5 5 11 0 2 0.5% 1937

Next, we move on to a world of spats, flappers, dust bowls and A-bombs. It will be a doozy. (Part One of the series here; Part Two, here.)

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