Johnny Evers

Baseball Player

• Born: July 21, 1881
• Birthplace: Troy, New York
• Died: March 28, 1947
• Place of death: Albany, New York

Sport: Baseball

Early Life

John Joseph Evers was born July 21, 1881, in Troy, not far from New York’s state capital at Albany on the Hudson River. A feisty Irish chatterbox, he had an unremarkable childhood notable mainly for his tendency to get into fistfights with stronger and older boys in his working-class neighborhood. He soon found that baseball was one pastime in which his small size did not work against him. Dropping out of high school, he became a professional ballplayer and worked his way through the minor leagues. A shortstop, he was an agile fielder and a left-handed slap hitter whose tight-lipped intensity and perpetual scowl influenced his teammates to dub him the “Crab.”

The Road to Excellence

At the age of twenty-one, Johnny received a summons to the big leagues. The Chicago Cubs, a team with a remarkable past, but one that was completing its fourth consecutive losing season, needed an infielder. The scrawny Evers, who weighed scarcely 105 pounds when he reported to the Chicago West Side Park in September, 1902, did not impress the hefty regulars. Johnny did not get a chance to become an everyday player in the Cubs lineup until the veteran second baseman Bobby Lowe broke his knee early in the 1903 season. In his rookie year, he hit .293, a high batting average for that era, and soon proved to be the best fielding second baseman in the National League (NL), teaming with shortstop Joe Tinker and first baseman Frank Chance to form the legendary double-play combination, “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

The Emerging Champion

Finishing thirteen games behind John McGraw’s New York Giants in both 1904 and 1905, the Cubs gradually built a championship team around sterling infielders, an all-star catcher, and a growing group of hard-throwing young pitchers. In 1906, the team set an all-time record for single-season victories, followed in 1907 and 1908 by World Series Championships, and, after a second-place finish in 1909, another pennant in 1910. Hitting second in the lineup and snapping up almost everything hit to the right side of the infield, Johnny was one of the brightest stars in the Chicago galaxy. Furthermore, over the five-year period from 1906 to 1910, he stole a total of 187 bases.

On September 23, 1908, the Giants and Cubs were deadlocked at 1-1 in the bottom half of the ninth inning when two New York singles put Giants on first and third with two outs. Shortstop Al Bridwell then lined a clean hit to center field, and the game appeared to be over. An alert Evers noticed that the runner on first base, Fred Merkle, had run for the clubhouse without ever touching second base. Johnny called for the ball and tagged the bag for the third out of the inning, thus canceling the winning run. The umpires declared a tie game, which the league president ordered to be replayed at the end of the season. With the Cubs and Giants having identical records at that point, the October 8 playoff game, which the Cubs won, decided the pennant.

A “clutch” player, Johnny hit .350 in both the 1907 and 1908 World Series victories over the Detroit Tigers. When he was forced by a broken leg to watch the 1910 World Series from the grandstand, the Cubs lost to Philadelphia.

Continuing the Story

In 1911, as the Cubs dynasty began to crumble, Johnny, as eager and high-strung as ever, pushed himself beyond his emotional limit. After forty-six games, he suffered a nervous breakdown and spent the rest of the season keeping an eye on his two men’s shoe stores, which sold “Everswear,” in Chicago and in his hometown of Troy.

In 1912, Johnny made a resounding comeback, hitting .341, fourth in the National League. That winter, the Chicago owners broke up the Cubs, trading away several of the stars of the previous decade, including manager Chance, and made Johnny the team’s new manager. Although he hit .284 and scored 81 runs while leading the decimated club to a third-place finish, Johnny was traded to the Boston Braves at the end of the season.

After residing in last place as late as July 4, the “miracle Braves” of 1914 won the NL pennant by 10 1/2 games over John McGraw’s Giants. The Braves then accomplished a shocking four-game sweep of the formidable Philadelphia Athletics, winners of the fall classic three times during the previous four years. Johnny, the team captain, scored 81 runs and led all second basemen in fielding percentage. He received a Chalmers automobile as the league’s most valuable player. In the series, he hit a resounding .438.

A part-time player for the Braves for three more years, Johnny suffered an arm injury in 1917 that ended his playing career. In 1921, he managed the Cubs again but was dismissed in August with the team in seventh place. He returned to the retail shoe business, except for one season, 1924, in which he managed the hapless Chicago White Sox to a last-place finish in the American League. In 1942, Johnny suffered a stroke and lived thereafter as a lonely invalid until he died five years later in Albany, New York, on March 28, 1947.

Summary

Johnny Evers hit only 12 home runs during his entire major-league career. His lifetime batting average was only .270. Statistically, he never led in any offensive category, and, although he once led in fielding percentage, he twice had more errors than any other second baseman. However, he was almost universally recognized as one of the leading players of his day. His spirit, his quick intelligence, and his ability to deliver when the game was on the line made him a respected leader on the field and a natural choice to coauthor, with sportswriter Hugh Fullerton, a best-selling volume on “inside baseball” entitled Touching Second (1910).

Bibliography

Ahrens, Art. Chicago Cubs: Tinker to Evers to Chance. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2007.

Bogen, Gil. Tinker, Evers, and Chance: A Triple Biography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003.

Evers, Johnny, and Hugh S. Fullerton. Touching Second. Reprint. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005.

Porter, David L., ed. Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Shatzkin, Mike, Stephen Holtje, and Jane Charlton, eds. The Ballplayers: Baseball’s Ultimate Biographical Reference. New York: Ideal Logic Press, 1999.