New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-08-18
Chapman Dies;
Mays Absolved
OF All Blame
Blow From Pitched Ball in
Mondays Game Fractured
Cleveland Players Skull;
Operation Unsuccessful
Wife Takes Body Home
Yankee Pitcher Calls on
District Attorney and
Explains the Accident
By w. O. Mcclellan


Ray Chapman, shortstop of the
Cleveland baseball team, died yester-
day morning as the result of a frac-
tured skull received when he was
struck by a pitched ball thrown by
Carl Mays, the Yankee pitcher in
Mondays game at the Polo Grounds.
Mays visited the District Attorneys
office Immediately after hearing Of
Chapman's death and was exoncrated
OF all blame. The death of Chapman,
one of the best-likcd players in pro-
fessional baseball, is the first fatality
TO occur in the big league.
The dead players wife arrived yes
terday morning, accompanied by her
father and her brother. She was met at
the train and taken to the Hotel An
sonia, where the Cleveland team has its
headquarters. There the news of her
husbands death was broken to her as
gently as possible. They departed last
night with the body for Cleveland
In Boston members of the Boston
and Detroit American League teams
B. B. Johnson, president Of the Amer
lean League, to have Carl Mays barred
from further play. This movement
was started on the spur Of the moment
when these players were ignorant of
the facts concerning the case.
Speaker Frees Mays of Blame
iris Speaker, manager of the team of
which Chapman was one of the oldest
dor
that it was an accident and was quick
and frank to say so. Speaker has been
deeply affected by the death of his
friend and teammate and had but little
to say.
II consider it an accident, pure and
simple" declared Speaker. amy at
tempt to create animosties or bitterness
out of this would be unfair to the
game of baseball; also it would be UNI
1alr to the memory of the dead boy,
my friend, who was a square player,
square man and true sportsman"
The big grayhaired manager of the
Cleveland team made no effort to re-
strain his grief when speaking of the
dead player.
Mays, who threw the ball, showed
that nc was shocked by the accident.
He talked freely of it, 4.
If | were not absolutely sure in my
own heart that it was an accident pure
and simple do not think that could
stand it," he said. Il always have had
horror of hitting player ever since
the accident to Chick Fewster.
chummed with him in the spring and
! liked him very much. When he was
hurt by pitched ball it affected me SO
that | was afraid to pitch close to
a batter.
Mays Feared Hitting Batters
This fear affected my work In the
early part of the season | could not do
my best. | kept them on the outside
because whenever l felt that the ball
was going close to a batters head
saw picture of poor Fewster lying
beside the plate. | had to fight that
down. l had to play the game.
poor Chapman was one of the hard
est batters l know of to pitch to-. He
had a peculiar crouch. He bent low
and his head was close to where
curve might break. Babe Ruth's bat
ting position is a little like this.
81 have often dreaded pitching to Ray
Chapman for that reason. AS l remcm-
Der it. the ball that pitched was q
straight one on the inside. While l
was holding the ball felt roughened
place on it. This may have turned it
into 'sailer,' though it was not my in
tention to pitch it. A sailer is ball
that takes a rise as it nears the plate.
~ confidently expected that Chapman
would be able to gauge the ball. Even
when he dropped thought that he had
ducked as Babe Ruth often ducks from
a ball that takes this kind of a twist.
| had my mind on the game, and when
the ball rolled out to me | automatically
felded it, thinking that it had struck
his bat But when | turned to throw
to first base / had a horrible sensation
that something was wrong.
after Chapman was taken off the