Know Your Pre-Ruthian Sluggers! Pt. II

 

My friends:

I thought we could all use a little cheering up after last night's Royal Pineapple Fest, so I have decided to treat you to another of the Pre-Ruthian Slugger stories that Dick Allen was so good as to bring to our attention.

It concerns one Ralph Orlando "Socks" Seybold, and features perhaps the very strangest, and certainly the most hilarious single baseball story I have ever heard.

Despite his rather unprepossessing demeanor, Socks was a pretty fair country hitter. It took him a long time to get to the majors, despite battering one minor league after another. That's just how it was back in the days of the old, 16-team cartel. Somebody saw you botch a ball in the outfield and decided you couldn't field, or you fell down rounding first and were blackballed for life.

Poor Socks didn't stick in the big until he was 30, but then put in eight, generally outstanding seasons for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics. 

A right fielder and first baseman, he batted .294 lifetime (and as high as .334 in a season), led the AL with 45 doubles in 1903—and hit 16 home runs in 1902.

That was the American League record, and it stayed that way until The Babe broke it in 1919. In July. En route to 29 homers in a war-shortened season.

But I digress.

For the deadball era, Socks Seybold was an outstanding slugger, on some outstanding A's teams.

Other than that, there is almost nothing to distinguish him. He was born and raised in a small Ohio town, and died in a small Pennsylvania town, when his car skidded off a road one night in December. He was married but had no children, retired from baseball after tearing the ligaments in his leg and, despite several comeback attempts, ended up working as a steward at a social club.

Nope, nothing to see here, folks. 

Except...

Sock Seybold will also live in history as...the Man Who Could Not Get Out of the Doghouse.

I don't mean a baseball doghouse, some manager's mental dungeon. (See Martin, Alfred Emanuel, for largest doghouse in major-league history.) I mean a literal doghouse.

According to the Player Info section on baseballreference entry, Socks—and I'm quoting here:

"...is also remembered for an unusual incident, when he became stuck while trying to recover a ball that had rolled into a doghouse, used as a storage shed, that was actually in play at the outfield at Boundary Field, the early home of the Washington Senators. It took some time to pull him out, by which time the batter had had plenty of time to circle the bases with an inside-the-park homer."

Uh, what now?

Talk about underselling a story. "...is also remembered for"? How was he ever remembered for anything else?  

Yes, of course it took some time to pull him out—his teammates no doubt kept falling over themselves laughing. One wonders: did they pull him out by his socks? Hence his nickname?

I was initially suspicious that this was wholly a fable, much as I was when someone wrote on wikipedia that Wally Pipp's immigrant family had changed their name from Pippik. And I'm still suspicious about every word of Socks' misadventure with the doghouse, right down to the name of the field where it happened.

But turns out, a pre-Griffith Stadium, "Boundary Field" really was the home of the Senators for seven seasons. Baseballreference even confirms that:

One of the unusual features of the ballpark was that there was a doghouse in right field that was used as a storage shed where the flag was kept between games. The doghouse was considered to be in play. Famously, outfielder Socks Seybold of the Philadelphia Athletics once got himself stuck in the shed's entrance while trying to recover a baseball that had rolled into it.

Well, you know how it is. You're a lucky dog, a good dog, you got your home with a nice view of the ballpark. But you got your lawn mower, your hedge clippers, your work bench...and your enormous American flag. Pretty soon there's no room left for you...

Here is a picture of Boundary Field (so called because DC's Florida Street used to be called "Boundary Street)—and a desolate piece of real estate in looks like, too, seeming to slant downhill from home plate:

Somehow, though, no evidence of a doghouse/storage shed. How big was this dog, anyhow? How did Socks Seybold ever live it down? 

We may never know. And in the end, I can't help asking...Who let Socks out? Woof, woof-woof...