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THE HECKLER
Matthew Garringer
December 06, 2023
Good evening. This Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Rickey Henderson loved swiping bags.
A player could steal 70 bases a year for 20 seasons straight and still not have as many steals as Rickey Henderson
— The Ghost of Old Hoss Radbourn (@Oldhossradbourn)
11:09 PM • Oct 26, 2023
Let’s dive in.
Today’s story is about the time Connie Mack had a heckler arrested.
One of the best things about going to an MLB game is that fans can sit closer to the players than any other sport.
Matter of fact, players and fans come into physical contact all the time.
It’s also one of the few professional sports where players can actually hear the hecklers.
Some fans are even loud enough to be heard through the TV broadcast.
Heckling has always been part of the game, and it’s usually in good fun, but you don’t typically hear about fans chirping their own team.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Connie Mack and the Philadelphia A’s were dealing with back in the 1920’s.
At the time, they had an outfielder named Good Time Bill aka Billy Lamar.
Initially, Lamar was ballin’ like Jim Jones in 2006.
In 1924 and 1925, he had stellar seasons - hitting well over .300 both years.
A fan named Harry Donnelly and several others were constantly talking trash to Lamar, and it really started to affect his performance.
By 1927, the hometown hecklers were living in his head rent free.
Bill batted .272 at home with a .369 slugging %, while he batted .312 on the road with a .452% slugging percentage.
When the fans saw he was rattled, they went even harder.
It got so bad that Mack decided to sit him for home games.
Eventually, Lamar told Mack that he couldn’t play for Philly anymore and asked for his release.
The sad thing is, Good Time Bill never played another Major League Game again.
As for Harry Donnelly, he kept heckling.
About a month after Lamar’s release, Donnelly was at a game riding the A’s players once again - Mack was over that shit.
He had Donnelly arrested and then walked down the street to the police station and swore out a warrant against him for disturbing the peace.
“This man’s rooting has damaged the morale of my team,” Mack told the magistrate. “He has been razzing us all year with a voice that carries like a three-mile loudspeaker. Because of him I have had to dispose of Bill Lamar, a competent outfielder. He has assailed other players until they are of little use to the club at home…He has done more to ruin the morale of the Athletics than any other factor, including the bats of Ruth and Gehrig.”
Donnelly was held on $500 bail, and after his release, no one heard from him again.
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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:
Goldie played three years in the big leagues, mostly for the Phillies.
There’s not much about him online, but we do know that the Phils manager, Arthur Fletch, made Rapp team captain at some point.
It obviously didn’t last long, probably because he didn’t hit very well.
By 1923, he was out of the league and never came back.
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