Duffy
He played in a million-dollar outfield
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Chatter from the Dugout often receives baseball articles sent by readers around the country, and this column was prompted by a fan from Branson, Missouri. Reader Kenneth sent us a story on Duffy Lewis he noted in his July 6, 2001 issue of the West Plains (MO) Daily Quill, and are pleased to share it with you.
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Although the Boston Red Sox players and their fans have suffered World Series disappointment, disaster, and discouragement for over eighty years, some may find it difficult to believe that their team won the first ever World Series in 1903, and then continued to triumph in four more World Championships during the seven halcyon years between 1912 and 1918. The following two years they dropped to sixth and fifth place, and then came the infamous Babe Ruth trade when Sox owner Harry Frazee sent Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125, 000 and a $300,000 loan. The BoSox have since won several pennants, they never again tasted the thrill of a Series Championship. Some think it was due to the loss of Ruth, or as some call it - the Curse of the Bambino.
Some of the names on those early teams were Babe Ruth, Ernie Shore, Smoky Joe Wood, and a legendary trio called the Million Dollar Outfield – Tris Speaker who covered center, Harry Hooper in right field, and Duffy Lewis in left – that patrolled the outfield grass from 1910 through 1915. Speaker, the Gray Eagle, was a gambler and a Texan, the seventh player elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937, and considered one of the great centerfielders of all time. The devout Hooper was the first player to hit two home runs in one World Series game, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1971. The third man in the Golden Outfield was George Edward Lewis, and all three were spectacular defensive performers.
George, better known as Duffy, who was born in 1888 in San Francisco, California. His Major League debut occurred on April 16, 1910 two days before his 21st birthday. Rookies were often sent back down to the minors for additional seasoning, but the 5’10’, 165 Lewis immediately took over the left field spot where he stayed for the next eight years.
In the spring of 1912 the Sox completed a new ballpark in a quiet neighborhood called Fenway. The ballpark Park opened on April 20th, but the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic clouded the jubilant baseball event of that week. Some even said it was an early omen of a Red Sox curse at work. The new stadium had a 15-foot incline in left field that eventually became called “Duffy’s Cliff”. Lewis mastered the hill after working long and hard on learning the proper angles and slope, and said that it was tougher coming down the hill than going up. Even running down that hill Duffy’s throws went straight to the base where he loved to throw out Detroit’s Ty Cobb who often tried to stretch his hits. In spite of their competitiveness, Duffy was one of the few players who liked Cobb.
Lewis spent the 1918 season in the Navy, and missed the last year Boston won the World Series. He was traded to the Yankees in 1919, and then to Washington where he ended his playing career in 1921. Duffy both played and managed in the minors, and was the traveling secretary for the Boston Braves from 1935 to 1965. Duffy has three historical baseball footnotes: He was the first ML player to pinch hit for Babe Ruth; he saw Ruth’s first ML home run in 1914; and also saw Babe’s 714th and final homer in 1935 when both were with the Boston Braves.
The old ballplayer died on June 7, 1979 in Salem, New Hamphire at the age of age of 91, and at the time of his death the Red Sox hero of so many years ago was a pauper and alone with no known family members. Duffy was buried in an unmarked grave, perhaps lost forever, in Holy Cross Cemetery just north of Salem. But history often makes unusual twists, and Lewis was one of them.
Claire and Jim Manseau were volunteer caretakers at that same graveyard. Claire, an avid Red Sox rooter, was talking to a fellow baseball fan who just happened to mention that Duffy was buried in that very same graveyard, and said that he was there when Lewis was buried. They all began looking for the grave in vain. Claire and Jim knew that no one ever visited Duffy, no flowers ever came. Claire told a friend who passed it on to a newspaper columnist – a man who had played a vital role on the last Sox
World Series team was in a nearby cemetery without a tombstone.
After the columnist wrote about Duffy checks began to come in. One reader pledged enough to pay for the marker if the fund fell short. A lady sent in $25 saying that she might be able to send more on her next payday. One company donated the stone, another installed it at no cost. The Red Sox team heard about the drive, and donated several thousand dollars to have the headstone engraved: “Duffy Lewis 1912-1915-1916 Boston Red Sox World Series Champions.” Duffy was now duly remembered.
Note: Duffy’s Incline disappeared from Fenway Park in 1935 when the famous Green Wall was installed.