Tim Murnane: Heart of the Game
Two images accompanying this article neatly frame Tim Murnane’s story, even though they were photographed only nine years apart in his six-decade life in baseball. In the first photograph — a rollicking “Old Timers’ Day” at Peddock’s Island in Boston Harbor on August 12, 1908 — Murnane was at the pinnacle of his career. Striking a dapper pose in waistcoat, cravat, and boutonniere, the longtime baseball columnist of the Boston Globe reunited with some of the men with whom he had played ball in the 1870s. In the other photograph, taken on September 27, 1917, he is present in name only at the “Murnane Benefit Game,” with the proceeds designated for his widow; the defending champion Boston Red Sox, behind star lefthander Babe Ruth, shut out an all-star team led by Connie Mack.
But chronology is God’s way of telling a story, so why don’t we begin this portrait at the beginning, on June 4, 1851, when Timothy Hayes Murnan was born in Naugatuck, New Haven County, Connecticut. An obituary notice in the Naugatuck Daily News placed his birth in Tipperary County, Ireland, but when Murnan applied for a passport in 1874, he had sworn that he was born in Naugatuck. At some point after that he commenced to spell his name as Murnane, and he will be thus referenced below.
He began his baseball career as catcher for the Osceola of Stratford Club, in 1869, a formidable nine that two years later would feature “Orator” Jim O’Rourke, future Hall of Famer, on its state champion squad. By that time, however, Murnane was off in Georgia, having been recruited by the Savannahs, a barnstorming professional team. When he returned to the state of his birth with his Southern teammates in the summer of 1871, he played so well that he was engaged by the Mansfield Club of Middletown, which would play the following season in what was then the big league, the National Association (NA). The club’s backers also signed Orator Jim, almost a year older than Handsome Tim.
The major-league Mansfields enjoyed only a brief run of 23 games before disbanding, but both Stratford alumni landed on their feet. O’Rourke, who had batted .307, was signed by the Boston Red Stockings, who would top the NA for the three remaining years of its existence. Murnane, who had played first base for Middletown and batted .359, was snapped up by the Athletics. The two Nutmeggers reunited not only when Boston played Philadelphia but also in England, when in 1874 the two clubs conducted baseball’s first overseas tour. A speedy and nimble baserunner, Murnane perpetrated a legendary stunt in a game at Boston on June 14, 1873, when he escaped an otherwise unavoidable out by jumping clean over second baseman Andy Leonard, who was stooping to tag him.
In 1875 Murnane transferred his allegiance to the Philadelphia White Stockings, also known as the Pearls, and when that team vanished along with the entire NA structure, he joined O’Rourke on Harry Wright’s Boston club in the new National League (NL) for the centennial year of 1876. There he remained for two seasons before seeing an opportunity in Providence, where a new NL franchise was launched for the 1878 campaign. But Murnane’s hitting dropped off badly; while O’Rourke was to remain a big-league star for another dozen years, for Murnane the end was suddenly in sight. In 1879 he began the season with the Capital City Club, of Albany, New York, which was thereafter transferred to Rochester, in a crumbling league.
In 1880 Murnane called it quits and went into business, including, over the ensuing years, opening a saloon and billiard hall in Boston and serving a stint as publisher of The Boston Referee, a sporting paper devoted to baseball, polo and other sports. It was short lived, but it testified to the printer’s ink in Murnane’s blood. He contributed baseball items to the New York Clipper and other papers and began to develop a following, for he wrote the way he spoke — like a ballplayer. In an age of Victorian reserve, restraint, and moralizing (exemplified in the writing of Henry Chadwick), this was an innovation. Murnane was the first former ballplayer to become a professional writer.
All the same, stitching together a living with a variety of entrepreneurial ventures held no special charm for a young man with baseball still on his mind. When Henry V. Lucas organized the Union Association (UA) as a major league in 1884 and George Wright capitalized the Boston entry, Murnane took a minority position and agreed not only to be the club’s on-field manager but also to play first base. He performed the former task better than he did the latter, but it didn’t matter, as the UA did not return for a second season. Murnane drifted off to play a few more games for a club in Jersey City, then called it quits again, this time for good.
In 1886 Murnane was engaged, together with John J. Drohan, to do baseball work as a staffer for the Globe. When Drohan soon left, Murnane was given full charge, rising to head the entire sports department for a generation. And he died in harness, filing a story just one hour before suffering a massive heart attack in the lobby of the Shubert Theater on February 7, 1917. When he died at age 65 he was not only the voice of baseball in Boston; his opinionated style had become a national institution. Along the way Murnane had also served as president, secretary, and treasurer of the New England League and Eastern League. He had acted, too, as an “ivory hunter,” directing to the big leagues such talented youngsters as Tommy McCarthy, Hugh Duffy, Cannonball Crane, Mike Slattery, Dupee Shaw, John Irwin, and many others who, as it turned out, would join him for the Peddock’s Island fest.
Back then you could only get to the island by boat; today you can board a water taxi or even land a helicopter, but unlike a hundred years ago, no one goes there to have a good time anymore. The Conservation Department rangers operate a visitors’ center in the summer and lovers of unspoiled beauty put up with the absence of such amenities as power and water to experience wilderness in sight of the metropolis. But this is not fun; it is a trial. Bordering Hingham Bay, the 134 acres of Peddock’s Island encompass four forested hills which include the moldering Fort Andrews Reservation and scores of turn-of-the-century summer cottages in varying states of decay. But read below how glowingly Baseball Magazine described the Old Timers’ Day in this now forlorn spot in its November 1908 issue; Old Tim, by then known as the Silver King for his flowing white hair, must have been in his glory, surrounded by former teammates and adversaries like Tommy Bond, Jack Manning, and Paul Hornung; once-young colts he had brought to the bigs like McCarthy and Shaw; brothers of the inkwell like Jacob C. Morse and Sam Crane, and Royal Rooter fixtures Mike Regan and “Nuf Ced” McGreevey.
They were privileged, indeed, who attended the Old Timers’ Day at Peddock’s Island in Boston Harbor this year. It occurred on Wednesday, August 12, an open day in the local major league schedule. Peddock’s Island was selected because it is the home of “Honest” John Irwin, a former professional ball player, of the famous Irwin family, fathered, as it were, by the veteran Arthur Irwin, who has been in touch with baseball this season as the scout of the New York club of the American League. Mine host Irwin always has on hand that which cheers the inner man, and he was kept busier than ever in his life before.
The photograph that was taken to memorize the occasion shows full well the character of the assemblage. Never before was such an array seen. The veterans of veterans were Arthur Cummings, the first man to develop the curve ball; “Dicky” Pearce, the greatest shortstop of his day, in his seventy-third year, and alas! it proved to be the last Old Timers’ Day that he will attend, for he caught a severe cold as the result of the outing, and soon afterwards passed away. [Chadwick had left this earth the same way earlier that year, catching cold on Opening Day in Brooklyn and dying soon after.]
Sam Crane, a crack second baseman in his day, and now one of the cleverest of writers on the game, came on especially to attend the gathering, and said he had the time of his life.
Some of the greatest lights of baseball were there — Tom Bond, without a superior in the seventies; Tom McCarthy, never beaten in his palmy days as fielder, run getter, base-runner and batsman; John Morrill, one of the cleverest all-round players that ever lived, and a splendid athlete today, although golf is his dearest love; Joe Hornung, a great outfielder with a record of eleven putouts and one assist, while a member of the Boston club; George Wood, long connected with the game as an outfielder, a fine player and hard hitter; Miah Murray, who played with Toronto, Providence and Washington, and for years umpired the games at dear old Harvard; Charley Farrell, one of the cleverest catchers that ever donned a protector or wore a mask; “Dupee” Shaw, a crack lefthander and widely sought years ago; “Connie” Murphy, of the old Brooklyn Players’ League team, and a team in himself; “Jack” Manning, prominent in the earliest days of professional baseball; “Tim” Murnane, brought up with the veteran “Jim” O’Rourke in good old Connecticut, always in and for the game; “Billy” Hawes, one of the most gentlemanly exponents of the good old game; Charley Ganzel, of Detroit, Boston and Philadelphia….
The weather was perfect, the game lasted nine full innings and was heartily enjoyed by all present, Old Boston winning from the opposing team 5 to 3.
That same two-run margin obtained on September 27, 1917, when Nuf Ced’s beloved Boston Americans squared off against a team whose outfield included Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Joe Jackson. Actress Fanny Brice helped sell programs. Former heavyweight champ John L. Sullivan coached third base for the Red Sox. In pregame field events, Ruth won the fungo-hitting contest with a drive of 402 feet‚ while Joe Jackson had the longest throw at an impressive 396’ 8”. Ray Chapman, whose own date with death was not far off, circled the bases in 14 seconds flat to win a loving cup.
The All-Star infield consisted of Stuffy McInnis at first, Ray Chapman at second, Buck Weaver at third, and Rabbit Maranville, borrowed from the Boston Nationals, at shortstop. The All-Star pitchers were Urban Shocker, Howard Ehmke, and Walter Johnson. The thrilling contest was scoreless after seven, but with two out in the top of the eighth, Jack Barry and Dick Hoblitzell singled off Johnson, and then Duffy Lewis drove both men home with a triple to right-center. That proved to be all the scoring, as the Sox held on to win, 2–0. The real winners, however, were the widowed Mrs. Murnane and her four children, as well as two daughters from the writer’s first marriage. They collected $14,000. Boston’s owners donated the use of Fenway Park as well as all the proceeds.
As to Tim Murnane, whose name does not come up often these days, his standing remained high even in death. In the offseason following the 1939 campaign, a rookie named Ted Williams was named the team’s MVP — he received the Tim Murnane Award. In 1946 the Baseball Hall of Fame established a Roll of Honor and named Murnane one of 12 writers to be memorialized. And in 1978 he was selected as recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for excellence in baseball journalism, along with Dick Young … another sportswriter who was said to be the most influential of his time.
