WEBVTT - Bonus Episode 6: The Fatal Pitch That Changed Baseball History

0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:10.680
<v Speaker 1>M m August nine, one years ago. Major League baseball

0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.240
<v Speaker 1>is playing under a dark cloud, not from a deadly disease,

0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.480
<v Speaker 1>but from a growing scandal. Rumors are swirling that members

0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.800
<v Speaker 1>of the reigning American League champions, the Chicago White Sox,

0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.439
<v Speaker 1>intentionally lost the World Series the previous season, as the

0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.840
<v Speaker 1>so called Black Sox scandal threatens to engulf the sport,

0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.120
<v Speaker 1>two other American League teams, the Cleveland Indians and the

0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.479
<v Speaker 1>New York Yankees, square off on a rainy afternoon at

0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:42.440
<v Speaker 1>the Polo Grounds in New York. The Yankees trail the

0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.080
<v Speaker 1>Indians by just half a game in the standings, and

0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.080
<v Speaker 1>on the mound, they have their right handed ace, Karl Mayze.

0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.680
<v Speaker 1>He's what's known as a submarine pitcher. His contorted underhand

0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.280
<v Speaker 1>motion is so extreme that his knuckles sometimes scraped the ground.

0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.640
<v Speaker 1>Do up first for the Indians in the fifth inning,

0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.280
<v Speaker 1>as they're scrappy. Young twenty nine year old shortstop Ray Chapman,

0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:07.039
<v Speaker 1>a fan favorite. Chapman is newly married. He and his

0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:11.080
<v Speaker 1>wife have a daughter on the way. Chapman stands in

0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.560
<v Speaker 1>crowding the plate. Mays's first pitch is a fastball, high

0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.240
<v Speaker 1>and tight, and it's met with a loud crack that

0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:25.360
<v Speaker 1>can be heard throughout the ballpark. The ball dribbles back

0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.360
<v Speaker 1>towards May's, who throws it over to Yankees first baseman

0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.200
<v Speaker 1>Wally Pip. Pip catches the ball and then freezes in horror,

0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.200
<v Speaker 1>looking towards home plate. It was then that the Yankees

0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.680
<v Speaker 1>players and others in the ballpark realize that the crack

0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.800
<v Speaker 1>they heard is not the crack of Ray Chapman's bat.

0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.680
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to another special bonus episode of Flashback. I'm Sean Braswell.

0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:55.600
<v Speaker 1>There have been millions of pitches thrown in Major League

0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.440
<v Speaker 1>Baseball games during the sports history, only one has been lethal.

0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.760
<v Speaker 1>That was the pitch that ended Ray Chapman's life, ruined

0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.560
<v Speaker 1>Carl Maze's chances of reaching the Hall of Fame, and

0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:19.200
<v Speaker 1>helped change the course of baseball history. As players and men,

0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.640
<v Speaker 1>Mayze and Chapman could not have been more different. May's

0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.000
<v Speaker 1>was probably the most unpopular player in the game. Off

0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.160
<v Speaker 1>the field, he was a moody loner. His teammates likened

0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.440
<v Speaker 1>Enid to someone with a permanent toothache. On the field,

0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.240
<v Speaker 1>he was a fierce competitor on the mound, one with

0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.360
<v Speaker 1>a reputation as a headhunter who was always among the

0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:44.960
<v Speaker 1>lead leaders and hitting batters. In one game against the

0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.680
<v Speaker 1>equally despised Hi Cob maze through at the Detroit Tiger's

0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.200
<v Speaker 1>legend every time he came to the plate, Cobb reciprocated

0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:57.840
<v Speaker 1>by throwing his back at maze May's often yelled at

0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.320
<v Speaker 1>his own fielders when they made an error. Once he

0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.000
<v Speaker 1>threw at and hit a heckling fan in the stands.

0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.360
<v Speaker 1>Ray Chapman, on the other hand, was popular with both

0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.919
<v Speaker 1>players and fans. Before the season, the infielder had married

0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.280
<v Speaker 1>the daughter of a wealthy Cleveland businessman. His new father

0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.919
<v Speaker 1>in law wanted him to retire from the low paid

0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.000
<v Speaker 1>job of baseball and take up a more stable occupation

0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.800
<v Speaker 1>in the family business, but Chapman, considered the best shortstop

0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:38.440
<v Speaker 1>in the league, continued to play m h When Chapman

0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.120
<v Speaker 1>was in the batter's box, he stood unusually close to

0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.640
<v Speaker 1>the plate and hunched over it. It would be more

0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.520
<v Speaker 1>than fifty years till batting helmets were mandatory muddy rule.

0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.400
<v Speaker 1>The Yankees catcher on that fateful day later told a

0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:56.400
<v Speaker 1>reporter simply his head was in the strike zone. Chapman,

0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.520
<v Speaker 1>by all accounts barely moved an inch when Mays's first

0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.680
<v Speaker 1>submarine pitch smashed into the side of his head. Muddy

0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.680
<v Speaker 1>Rule helped catch Chapman as he collapsed. The home plate

0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.840
<v Speaker 1>umpire motioned for a doctor, and the fallen batter was

0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:15.160
<v Speaker 1>carried from the field. At the hospital, doctors found a

0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.920
<v Speaker 1>fracture on the left side of Chapman's skull that was

0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.600
<v Speaker 1>more than three inches long. His brain had lacerations on

0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.520
<v Speaker 1>both sides. Doctors operated into the night, but shortly before sunrise,

0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.159
<v Speaker 1>Chapman died. When his young widow was greeted with the

0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.480
<v Speaker 1>news as she stepped from a train in New York,

0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:45.599
<v Speaker 1>she fainted. Some blamed the incident on visibility fog was

0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.919
<v Speaker 1>hanging over the dreary field that day. Others blamed the ball, which,

0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.000
<v Speaker 1>like most from that era when throwing spitballs was allowed,

0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.640
<v Speaker 1>was covered in spit and tobacco juice. And some people

0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:01.320
<v Speaker 1>blame Carl Mays, But despite Mays's re mutation as a headhunter,

0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.160
<v Speaker 1>most observers felt that he was not throwing it Chapman

0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.080
<v Speaker 1>on purpose because the Yankees were trailing in a game

0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:16.880
<v Speaker 1>with pennant implications. The death was ruled accidental. The accident, though,

0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.599
<v Speaker 1>would haunt May's until his own death. It cast a

0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.880
<v Speaker 1>dark shadow over a career in which he racked up

0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.120
<v Speaker 1>two hundred and seven wins in fifteen seasons, among the

0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:27.520
<v Speaker 1>best numbers for a picture not in the Hall of Fame.

0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.360
<v Speaker 1>Chapman's team, the Cleveland Indians, won the first World Series

0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.800
<v Speaker 1>in franchise history that year in honor of their falling shortstop,

0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:39.799
<v Speaker 1>and the following season, Major League Baseball instituted rules requiring

0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.400
<v Speaker 1>that new, clean baseballs be introduced into games more often.

0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:52.039
<v Speaker 1>The scandal of Chapman's death had long term consequences for baseball.

0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.640
<v Speaker 1>Along with the spit Ball band and the rise of

0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.320
<v Speaker 1>a certain home run hitting slugger named Babe Ruth, it

0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.040
<v Speaker 1>helped usher in the so called live ball era of

0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.400
<v Speaker 1>the modern game, an era in which high scoring contest

0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.159
<v Speaker 1>with more home runs would electrify a new generation of fans.

0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.599
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for listening, and please stay tuned to this feed

0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.560
<v Speaker 1>for more bonus episodes on fateful moments from history and

0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.960
<v Speaker 1>the weeks ahead. Flashback is written and hosted by me

0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.839
<v Speaker 1>Sean Braswell senior writer and executive producer at Azzie. It

0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.800
<v Speaker 1>was edited by Maybe mcgarren and produced by Tracy Moran.

0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.640
<v Speaker 1>Chris Hoff engineered our show. Make sure to subscribe to

0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.400
<v Speaker 1>Flashback on the I Heart Radio app or listen wherever

0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.760
<v Speaker 1>you get your podcasts. Have you want to learn more

0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.239
<v Speaker 1>about the death of Ray Chapman, check out the book

0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.520
<v Speaker 1>The Pitch That Killed by Mike Soul