frank "home run" baker
Reviewed by Keith Cannon, Dept. of Communication Studies, Wingate University
DECEMBER 11, 2006 archive
The only Baseball Hall of Famer to carry the nickname "Home Run" never hit more than 12 in a season and didn't even clout 100 in his 13-season major league career.
But John Franklin "Home Run" Baker earned his way into baseball lore by hitting a couple of the most important home runs in the first half of the 20th century. Baker was an important transitional figure from baseball's "dead ball" era to the heyday of the first classic sluggers like Babe Ruth, with whom Baker played on the New York Yankees near the end of his career, and Jimmie Foxx, whom he managed in the minor leagues.
Barry Sparks' book chronicles Baker's rise from obscurity on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to fame with the Philadelphia Athletics and the Yankees. (Sparks includes an interesting capsule history of the Eastern Shore, rich in natural resources and in an economic boom at the time of Baker's birth in 1886.)
Baker attracted the attention of baseball people while playing amateur baseball in his hometown of Trappe, Md., and after a couple of seasons in the minor leagues, signed with manager Connie Mack and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1908. The Athletics had already established themselves as one of the top teams in the young American League by that time, but needed an infusion of youth.
And their new third baseman quickly made an impression with his power hitting, rare for the early part of the last century. Sparks effectively describes the style of play of the era, dictated literally by a "dead ball" and cavernous ballparks. For example, Shibe Park, Baker's home field, measured 378 feet down the left field line and 515 to dead center field. Major leaguers hit a home run in every 311 at-bats in 1909, compared to one every 30 at-bats in 1999.
Baker was a physically strong man who swung a 52-ounce bat (about 20 ounces heavier than the average modern bat) with ease. He was one of the few players who swung from his heels rather than choking up on the bat just to make contact.
He led the major leagues in home runs from 1911 to 1914 (11, 10, 12 and 9 homers respectively), and earned his nickname with a pair of game-winning home runs in the 1911 World Series. With Baker at third base, the Athletics won World Series titles in 1910, 1911 and 1913 -- the last two against John McGraw's New York Giants, and the AL pennant in 1914.
Baker played his final five big-league seasons with the Yankees, who were still on the cusp of becoming the dynasty we know today. He had his best season in New York (10 HR, 83 RBI and a .293 batting average) in 1919, the year the Yankees obtained pitcher/outfielder Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. Baker finished his career in a part-time supporting role as Ruth took center stage.
The strength of this book is Sparks' extensive research and use of primary source material from more than 25 newspapers of the time and magazines ranging from the Sporting News to Literary Digest and Farm and Fireside.
Especially in the description of Baker's biggest World Series games, that research translates into some extensive passages of play-by-play which the more casual reader may not find interesting.
But that same research also results in some nuggets like the fact that many newspapers of the time commissioned the athletes themselves to "write" columns giving their personal perspectives on the games they were playing.
(Can you imagine the result today if, say, The Dallas Morning News entered into a similar arrangement with Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens?)
The book also includes an informative history of the Federal League (1914-1915), a third major league which was a product of baseball's labor unrest of the time. The league unsuccessfully courted Baker, who sat out the 1915 major league season in a contract dispute with Mack. (Compared to modern times, the business of baseball was just as contentious as it is today, if not more so.)
Baker also missed the 1920 season following the death of his wife that February, because he couldn't find anyone to take care of his two young daughters. Those two missed seasons give some hints to the personality of Baker, who Sparks does an admirable job of bringing to life. That's a challenge, because the slugger was certainly no T.O.
Baker was a shy man who wasn't prone to self-promotion and only reluctantly gave interviews for most of his life. He was an astute businessman who probably earned more from extensive land holdings and farming than he did from baseball, and was a devoted family man.
Baker retired from baseball just before spring training in 1923, returning to Trappe to oversee his farms and begin life with a new wife. After a couple of seasons as a minor league manager for an Eastern Shore-area team, he quit baseball for good.
Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955, he died on June 28, 1963 at the age of 77.
Barry Sparks. Frank "Home Run" Baker: Hall of Famer and World Series Hero.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland &Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006. 280 pp. (paper)
$29.95 ISBN 0-7864-2381-1.
Copyright © 2006 by Keith Cannon.