Bonus Episode 6: The Fatal Pitch That Changed Baseball History

The tragic death of Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in 1920 would help shape the future of baseball.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
M m August nine, one years ago. Major League baseball
is playing under a dark cloud, not from a deadly disease,
but from a growing scandal. Rumors are swirling that members
of the reigning American League champions, the Chicago White Sox,
intentionally lost the World Series the previous season, as the

(00:26):
so called Black Sox scandal threatens to engulf the sport,
two other American League teams, the Cleveland Indians and the
New York Yankees, square off on a rainy afternoon at
the Polo Grounds in New York. The Yankees trail the
Indians by just half a game in the standings, and
on the mound, they have their right handed ace, Karl Mayze.

(00:48):
He's what's known as a submarine pitcher. His contorted underhand
motion is so extreme that his knuckles sometimes scraped the ground.
Do up first for the Indians in the fifth inning,
as they're scrappy. Young twenty nine year old shortstop Ray Chapman,
a fan favorite. Chapman is newly married. He and his
wife have a daughter on the way. Chapman stands in

(01:11):
crowding the plate. Mays's first pitch is a fastball, high
and tight, and it's met with a loud crack that
can be heard throughout the ballpark. The ball dribbles back
towards May's, who throws it over to Yankees first baseman
Wally Pip. Pip catches the ball and then freezes in horror,

(01:32):
looking towards home plate. It was then that the Yankees
players and others in the ballpark realize that the crack
they heard is not the crack of Ray Chapman's bat.
Welcome to another special bonus episode of Flashback. I'm Sean Braswell.

(01:53):
There have been millions of pitches thrown in Major League
Baseball games during the sports history, only one has been lethal.
That was the pitch that ended Ray Chapman's life, ruined
Carl Maze's chances of reaching the Hall of Fame, and
helped change the course of baseball history. As players and men,

(02:19):
Mayze and Chapman could not have been more different. May's
was probably the most unpopular player in the game. Off
the field, he was a moody loner. His teammates likened
Enid to someone with a permanent toothache. On the field,
he was a fierce competitor on the mound, one with
a reputation as a headhunter who was always among the
lead leaders and hitting batters. In one game against the

(02:45):
equally despised Hi Cob maze through at the Detroit Tiger's
legend every time he came to the plate, Cobb reciprocated
by throwing his back at maze May's often yelled at
his own fielders when they made an error. Once he
threw at and hit a heckling fan in the stands.

(03:07):
Ray Chapman, on the other hand, was popular with both
players and fans. Before the season, the infielder had married
the daughter of a wealthy Cleveland businessman. His new father
in law wanted him to retire from the low paid
job of baseball and take up a more stable occupation
in the family business, but Chapman, considered the best shortstop
in the league, continued to play m h When Chapman

(03:38):
was in the batter's box, he stood unusually close to
the plate and hunched over it. It would be more
than fifty years till batting helmets were mandatory muddy rule.
The Yankees catcher on that fateful day later told a
reporter simply his head was in the strike zone. Chapman,
by all accounts barely moved an inch when Mays's first

(03:59):
submarine pitch smashed into the side of his head. Muddy
Rule helped catch Chapman as he collapsed. The home plate
umpire motioned for a doctor, and the fallen batter was
carried from the field. At the hospital, doctors found a
fracture on the left side of Chapman's skull that was
more than three inches long. His brain had lacerations on

(04:21):
both sides. Doctors operated into the night, but shortly before sunrise,
Chapman died. When his young widow was greeted with the
news as she stepped from a train in New York,
she fainted. Some blamed the incident on visibility fog was

(04:45):
hanging over the dreary field that day. Others blamed the ball, which,
like most from that era when throwing spitballs was allowed,
was covered in spit and tobacco juice. And some people
blame Carl Mays, But despite Mays's re mutation as a headhunter,
most observers felt that he was not throwing it Chapman
on purpose because the Yankees were trailing in a game

(05:07):
with pennant implications. The death was ruled accidental. The accident, though,
would haunt May's until his own death. It cast a
dark shadow over a career in which he racked up
two hundred and seven wins in fifteen seasons, among the
best numbers for a picture not in the Hall of Fame.

(05:28):
Chapman's team, the Cleveland Indians, won the first World Series
in franchise history that year in honor of their falling shortstop,
and the following season, Major League Baseball instituted rules requiring
that new, clean baseballs be introduced into games more often.

(05:48):
The scandal of Chapman's death had long term consequences for baseball.
Along with the spit Ball band and the rise of
a certain home run hitting slugger named Babe Ruth, it
helped usher in the so called live ball era of
the modern game, an era in which high scoring contest
with more home runs would electrify a new generation of fans.

(06:13):
Thanks for listening, and please stay tuned to this feed
for more bonus episodes on fateful moments from history and
the weeks ahead. Flashback is written and hosted by me
Sean Braswell senior writer and executive producer at Azzie. It
was edited by Maybe mcgarren and produced by Tracy Moran.
Chris Hoff engineered our show. Make sure to subscribe to
Flashback on the I Heart Radio app or listen wherever

(06:35):
you get your podcasts. Have you want to learn more
about the death of Ray Chapman, check out the book
The Pitch That Killed by Mike Soul