Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The baseball newsletter that misses old school brawls.

Let's dive in.

Today's story is about how the first player strike allowed a bunch of average joes to play against World Champions.

On May 18, 1912 the Detroit Tigers took the field against the Philadelphia Athletics with a lineup that could be best described as “a bunch of scrubs.”

Three days earlier, Detroit was playing a game in New York at Hilltop Park, and Ty Cobb was playing center field.

Cobb was being heckled pretty badly by a guy named Claude Lueker, who only had 2 fingers.

Lueker continued to get more and more aggressive with his taunts; escalating to racial slurs and jokes about his mom.

Cobb went ape shit and leapt into the stands; immediately attacking Lueker.

Eventually, a police officer intervened and Cobb was escorted to the clubhouse.

Ban Johnson, the president of the American League, suspended him indefinitely.

Shortly after, the Tigers traveled down to Philadelphia for a series against the A’s, who were coming off back-to-back World Series titles.

The remaining Detroit players threatened a boycott as they faced the prospect of losing their best player for the rest of the season.

For context: they had only played 28 games of their 154-game schedule at that point.

Johnson caught wind of the boycott and threatened the team with a $5K fine for each game that they refused to play - basically an entire year’s salary.

Cobb himself only made $9,000 per year and future-hall-of-fame teammate, Sam Crawford, made $5,000 exactly.

The Tigers' owner told the manager to get some backup in place, just in case the team decided to actually go through with the boycott.

The main thing was to AVOID paying the fine at all costs.

The manager, Hughie Jennings, asked local sportswriter Joe Nolan where he could round up a few potential players last minute.

On the morning of May 18, Nolan reached out to his friend, a local college coach, and tasked him with recruiting players for the impromptu game scheduled at Shibe Park that day.

Each player was offered $25 by the Tigers, and told that they wouldn't actually have to play; just take the field.

The squad that day included a low-level minor leaguer, two boxers who’d never played baseball, and two of the Tigers' coaches.

When they arrived at Shibe Park, there was 18,000 fans in the bleachers.

Detroit’s regular team walked off the field indicating their unwillingness to play without Cobb, so Jennings called in the cavalry.

They expected the Athletics manager, Connie Mack, who also owned 25% of the team at that time, to suggest calling the game.

If both teams called the game off mutually, the Tigers would avoid the $5K fine.

To Jennings' surprise, Connie Mack did not call off the game, so the alternates took the field and prepared to play the World Champs.

The Athletics proceeded to kick the living shit out of Detroit, scoring 24 runs, the most in any Major League game that year.

Honestly, it could've been worse.

In a complete miracle, the Tigers managed to pick up two runs.

After the incident in Philly, Ban Johnson threatened the Detroit players with lifetime banishments if they refused to play again.

Cobb spoke with his teammates and convinced them to get back on the field.

They returned for their next game, and Johnson set Cobb’s suspension at ten games.

As for the average joes, their one-day Major League careers were over.

FROM THE GALLERY

RIDICULOUS STATS

BASEBALL TRIVIA

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Ralph Ham, aka “The Great Hambino” played one magical season in 1871.

Unfortunately, that whole sentence is a lie.

The only part that’s true is that Ralph had a short career.

His numbers were godawful and his “big claim to fame” is that he committed 13 errors over the course of 19 games.

After that year, Ralph never played in the Big Leagues again.

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THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

• The Brawl at Ebbets: Fan assaults an umpire

• The Cuban Missile: Aroldis Chapman’s defection story

• The Mullet: Don Mattingly gets benched over his haircut

• The House of David: How a religious cult became one of the best baseball teams in the country

• The Close Call: Roberto Clemente gets kidnapped an held at gunpoint in San Diego