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05. 1910s

“If I had my life to live over again, I would do exactly as I have done. I would welcome an opportunity to play big league baseball. The old game has bestowed upon me a far wider reputation than I would ever have gained by holding test tubes over Bunsen burners in a chemical laboratory.”—Eppa Rixey

Eppa Rixey, who earned a U.Va. degree in Chemistry in 1912, was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1963. In his major league career he won 266 games, the most by a National League southpaw before Warren Spahn, despite pitching only for weak teams.

Rixey pitched for U.Va. during a period in which the Washington team regularly held spring training here, and it is clear that Washington hoped to sign Rixey to a major league contract. But Charles Rigler, a National League umpire who coached U.Va. from 1910-1912 (he took a Law School class in Public Speaking on the side), steered Rixey to the NL Phillies. Rigler and Rixey were to split a $2,000 bonus once the contract was signed, but organized baseball officials frowned on umpires acting as scouts, and the deal was off.

The intimate connection between professionals and collegians, nurtured in the 1890s, grew stronger in the 1910s. Jack Ryan of the Senators succeeded Rigler as coach of the U.Va. squad, and students besides Rixey who went on to play professional ball included Doug Neff and Harry “Jack” Spratt.

In the city, new corporations promoted sporting events aimed at paying audiences. The Monticello Baseball Association (whose officers were Joel M. Cochran, J. Anderson Chisholm, T. B. Behrendt, and E. C. McCarty) planned to sponsor events in baseball, football, golf, and polo and to hire players for their teams. Local silent movie theaters like the Jefferson featured baseball films such as “Home Run Baker’s Double.”