Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,715

This is the grave of Frank Chance.

Born in 1876 in Sailda, California. Chance grew up in Fresno. He was well-off, the son of a bank president. He didn’t need baseball, but he liked baseball. He didn’t intend on making a life of it though. He went to the University of California to study dentistry. He stayed there a bit, then transferred to Washington College, a school in the town of Irvington, California that no longer exists. He played a little semipro ball in the summer and a Chicago Cubs scout saw him and convinced the team to sign the kid.

Chance immediately was sent to the big leagues as the backup catcher in 1898. For the first five years of his career, he remained in that backup catcher role. Some of it was injuries. But he did not play regularly until 1903. He was a decent bat early in his career, in the context of what that meant in the dead ball era. But in 1903, he was moved to first base and for the next five years, through 1907, he was among the best players in the game. He could flat out rake. He led the league in steals twice in these years, including 67 steals in 1903. He led in runs in 1906 with 103. He led in OBP in 1905, at a nice .450. Of course it was the dead ball era, so his line was .316/450/434 that year. In fact, for his whole career, he hit .296/394/394. According to Baseball Reference’s WAR stat, his best year was 1906, when he had a 7.3 WAR and hitting .319/419/430. Smacked 3 home runs that year too, his second highest total ever. What an era.

But also, Chance had taken over as Chicago’s manager in 1905. He led the team to 100 win seasons in 1906, 1907, 1909, and 1910. Obviously these are the best teams in the franchise’s history. In fact, the only good thing about the Cubs finally winning another World Series in 2016 is that their loser idiot fans had to get over their identity that was around losing and instead just being fans of another team. Now we can just forget the Cubs exist and their play over the last several years has allowed us to do that. But don’t blame Frank Chance, he managed and played like he wanted baseball that mattered. Chance led them to Series titles in 1907 and 1908. His play started slipping a bit by 1908. Unlike that maniac Pete Rose decades later, he would not keep putting himself in the lineup every day for no good reason. He played part time in 1909 and 1910 and rarely after that. He was also a great first baseman defensively and was the final link in the famous Tinker to Evers to Chance double play combo.

Now, we talk a lot about head injuries in sports today, but not so much in baseball. But back then, this was an issue. Players didn’t really wear helmets like they do today. So in 1912, Chance had to undergo brain surgery to relieve blood clots on his brain from being hit in the head so many times by baseballs. Moreover, the Cubs owner decided to become a cheap bastard and sell off the team’s good players. Chance survived the surgery and then argued with the owner, who then let him go to the Yankees after the 12 season. He was a player still, sort of, but he was really just a manager who pinch hit now and again. But the Yankees were terrible in this era, which shows that the past really was a better time. Chance got sick of the lack of investment and agreed to leave the team after 1914 if he was paid his 1915 salary, which ownership agreed to.

Chance then went back to California for a few years, managing the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League, probably the best of the minor leagues. But of course he wanted to be in the majors. On the other hand, he had really bad health, mostly in the lungs. He did return to manage the Red Sox in 1923, but that just lasted a year. The White Sox then hired him in 1924, but his health was too bad to do the job. He had asthma for sure, but there were other respiratory issues too. It’s hard to know now just all that was wrong. The point being is that he never actually managed the White Sox because he was dying, which happened during the 1924 season. He was 47 years old. Probably was some heart disease in there too.

Tinker, Evers, and Chance were all inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1947. Chance probably was deserving if you combine the playing and the managing. Maybe neither would quite get him there, but the Veterans Committee did the right thing probably that year, at least with Chance.

Frank Chance is buried in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles, California.

According to Baseball Reference’s JAWS stat, Chance is the 37th best first baseman of all time. In modern context, that puts him between Fred McGriff and Carlos Delgado. If you want this series to visit other first baseman, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Dolph Camilli, who is 36th and played in the 30s and early 40s with the Phillies and Dodgers, is in Colma, California and Ed Konetchy, who is 42nd and played for a number of teams in the 1910s but most notably with the Cardinals and Braves, is in Fort Worth, Texas. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.

Oh hey, baseball playoffs! Talk about em!