The Chalmers Automobile Company was founded in 1908. By 1911, they were the eighth largest car company in the U.S. That’s not too shabby, considering that in 1915 there were over 250 American companies making those newfangled automobile contraptions. Over the years, sales gradually dwindled to the point where Chalmers eventually merged with Chrysler. I don’t think Chalmers Auto had any connection with Allis-Chalmers, the tractor company.
In 1910, before the beginning of the baseball season, Hugh Chalmers announced that his Chalmers Automobile Company would present a Model 30 Roadster to whichever major league player had the highest batting average at the end of the season. It was an exciting contest followed by sports fans all over the country. Newspapers published daily reports about who would win the Chalmers Award.
As the last day of the season approached, Ty Cobb (known as “The Georgia Peach”) from the Detroit Tigers was ahead by several points with an average of .383 (later to be revised to .385). He sat out the final two games of the season, no doubt to protect his batting average. I would certainly agree that Ty Cobb was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. At the same time I’d also agree that he was a vicious, sometimes violent, often racist, asshole prick. He was not well-liked by his peers.
In 1910, the only player with a chance to best Ty Cobb’s average was Napoleon “Nap” Lajoie (known as “The Frenchman,” despite the fact that he grew up in Canada and Vermont). He played for Cleveland. On the penultimate day of the season, Lajoie’s batting average was .376. Luckily for him, Cleveland was playing a double header against the St. Louis Browns. Nap would get a lot of atbats. Still, Lajoie would need a miracle to catch up to Cobb. Or a maybe little bit of cheating:
1) The St. Louis Browns manager put a rookie (who usually played short stop) at third base, and told him to play back on the outfield grass. Nap Lajoie hit at least five (maybe six) bunt singles down the third base line in the doubleheader. Remember when I said a lot of people didn’t like Ty Cobb? Obviously, the manager of the Browns was trying to help Nap win the batting title. And the car.
2) The same Browns manager was fired from the team and informally banned from baseball because he offered a bribe to the official scorer to be nice to Nap Lajoie. Again, he was trying to help out Nap and harm Ty. Everybody hated Ty.
3) In my google explorations I’ve read two stories about what happened in that game. We know that Nap Lajoie went to the plate nine times and reached first base all nine times in that doubleheader. One story is that he was scored with a sacrifice bunt, which didn’t count as an atbat (so he got 8 hits for 8 atbats instead of 9 for 9). Another story is that one of the bunt singles was scored as an error, which counts as an atbat but not a hit (so he got 8 for 9 instead of 9 for 9). I sometimes wish that writers on Wikipedia were more accurate.
4) In 1981, a reporter from The Sporting News looked back at the 1910 season and discovered that Ty Cobb had been mistakenly been credited twice for a 2 for 3 game. If you subtract the duplicate 2 for 3 and do the math, that means Nap Lajoie should have won the batting title in 1910.
What happened at the end of the 1910 season was this: The baseball commissioner investigated and decided that Ty Cobb won the batting title with a batting average (BA) of .385069. Nap Lajoie’s BA was .384095. Less than one point. And the Browns manager was fired and banned. In 1981, evidence was found that Nap Lajoie should have won the batting title (and the car).
In 1910, The Chalmers Automobile Company decided to give a car to both Nap and Ty. And both players were both very gracious about it, thanking Chalmers and expressing the greatest respect for the other player.
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Why am I posting this? Because sometimes I fall down the rabbit hole of Google. Today I saw a story that the Cleveland Indians are changing their name to the Cleveland Guardians. I think that’s good thing. I don’t think teams should be named after Indians or tribes. My high school team was The Spuds. We were potatoes. Really.
One of the articles said that the Indians used to be called “The Cleveland Naps.” What the hell? Like 40 winks? Like falling asleep on the couch with the TV on? No. Like “Nap Lajoie.” The Cleveland team was named after their best player, Napoleon “Nap” Lajoie, from 1902 to 1914 (and during that time he was a player/manager for five years). Then he got traded to the Philadelphia Athletics and Cleveland changed their name to The Indians. So I clicked on his name and ended up writing this.
So there’s a little bit of baseball history for you. I hope you liked it.
