The Philadelphia Athletics and the Bullfroggers

Athletics manager and owner Connie Mack

Connie Mack’s newborn Philadelphia Athletics won six of the first 14 American League pennants. They might have won all 14 of them except for a couple of bullfrogs.

When the American League, then a minor league, took on the entrenched National as a competitive major league in 1901, they raided NL rosters by offering higher salaries to entice players to jump their contracts. When some NL teams then offered their jumping stars more money, those who jumped back were called bullfroggers.

This is the story of two of them. - By Norman L. Macht

Christy Mathewson

A student at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Christy Mathewson was renowned as a football and baseball star. In those days it was common for college ballplayers to sign with semi-pro or minor league teams in the summer to earn some money and gain experience.

Often they used fake names to avoid losing their college eligibility, though some schools, including Bucknell, had no restrictions. Mathewson pitched for the Taunton Herrings of the New England League in the summer of 1899 and Norfolk in the Virginia League, where he was 20-2 in 1900.

In July of 1900 Andrew Freedman, owner of the New York Giants, bought him from Norfolk for a price variously reported as between $1,000 and $2,000, payable if the Giants kept him after December.

Mathewson started and lost three games for the Giants, who returned him to Norfolk in early December instead of paying for him. Having signed with Norfolk just for that summer, Matty returned to Bucknell for his junior year believing that he was a free agent. 

Unknown to him, Freedman had made a deal with John T. Brush, owner of the Cincinnati Reds, for the Reds to draft Mathewson from Norfolk for the $100 fee, then trade him to the Giants for a useless sore-armed pitcher, Amos Rusie, who hadn’t pitched in two years.

It was all a sham to enable Freedman to cheat the Norfolk club out of the agreed-on purchase price. Mathewson later insisted that he was never notified of these transactions and believed that, since the Giants had returned him to Norfolk, he was a free agent.

To the American League, any player who had not signed a 1901 National League contract was fair game. In January Connie Mack offered Mathewson a contract for $1,200.

Matty replied that that he would not report until the school term was over in June, and would play for the balance of the season for $700. Mack agreed, and on January 19 Mathewson signed a contract, witnessed by two Lewisburg residents. In mid-March, Mathewson asked Mack for a $50 advance to buy books. Mack sent it.

Renowned bullfrogger Christy Mathewson. Image credits: Etsy

Fourteen years later Mathewson wrote an account of what happened when Freedman heard about his signing with the Athletics, an account that did not entirely square with what was reported at the time. Mathewson wrote:

I received a red-hot communication from Andrew Freedman. It appeared that I had committed some crime and must see him at once. . .

As soon as he saw me, he shut the office door, pulled up his chair, shook his finger at me and said, “See here young man, what’s this I hear about you and the American League? Don’t you know that you belong to my club, and that you will either play in New York or you will not play at all?”

I was completely taken aback and said, “Why, Mr. Freedman, I am already signed up with Connie Mack.”

“That don’t make any difference,” said Freedman. “The American League won’t last three months, and then where will you be? Every player who goes with that league will be blacklisted. He won’t be able to play anywhere else as long as he lives, and furthermore you are the property of this club, and if you refuse to live up to your agreement, I will bring suit against you myself.”

This was a remarkable revelation to me, and taking full advantage of my childish ignorance, he so wrought on my imagination that I didn’t know where I was at. I naturally didn’t want to forego my career as a ball player, if such a career was a prospect, and I didn’t want to go with a league that wouldn’t last three months.

But at the same time I didn’t want to go back on my word to Connie Mack, so I explained to Mr. Freedman that I had already received $50 in advance money and asked him if he would return this money to Mack. He said he would and we left the matter in that way.

I immediately wrote to Connie Mack, explained the situation, told him I was threatened with a suit by Mr. Freedman, and asked him if he would stand behind me in this suit. To this communication I received no reply.

Contemporary accounts tell a different story. A week before spring training was scheduled to begin on April 1, Mathewson was in Philadelphia and was quoted, “I have not yet signed with any club, and at present am undecided what to do. I have offers from the Philadelphia American League and New York National League clubs and will accept one or the other.”

It’s unclear if Mathewson and Mack met at that time or what might have been said if they did. But Connie Mack had Matty’s signed contract in his safe and expected him to show up on April 1 at the Philadelphia ballpark for the start of spring training. Mathewson showed up at the Giants’ park instead.

(A few days later, when Mathewson learned that Freedman had never reimbursed Mack for the $50 advance, and Matty tried to repay it himself, Mack returned the check to him uncashed and ordered him to report to the Athletics. He took no legal action.)

Mathewson was lustily booed whenever he appeared against the Phillies in their home park that year.

Almost fifty years later Mack told columnist Red Smith, “I made no move because I just couldn’t believe that a college man would violate his word.”

Vic Willis

One of the things going for the American League was that the National had a salary cap of $2,400. While winning 62 games in his first three years with the Boston Beaneaters, right-hander Vic Willis had reached that limit.

In January 1901 Connie Mack traveled 40 miles south to Newark, Delaware, to Willis’s home, where he offered him $3,500 for 1901. That sounded good to Willis. To bind the deal, Mack gave him a $450 advance. Willis signed a receipt saying, “Paid on account of my salary for 1901.”

Vic Willis agreed to a contract with Connie Mack, before jumping to the Beaneaters. Image credits: Find a Grave

A week before spring training was to begin on April 1, Willis notified Mack that he wouldn’t show up until April 6. On April 2, the treasurer of the Boston club, J. B. Billings, arrived at Willis’s home and promised to match Mack’s offer. The next thing Connie Mack knew, Vic Willis was at the Beaneaters’ spring training camp.

Willis would go on to win 249 games and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1995.

What Might Have Been

Imagine a pitching staff of four future Hall of Famers: Mathewson, Willis, Chief Bender and Eddie Plank. Add Rube Waddell’s 131 wins over six years, then Jack Coombs’s 80 wins 1910-1912, and you’d have had a dynasty unmatched as long as baseball is played.