Monday, July 18, 2011

This woman, ?E.G. Green,? worked as Cubs official scorer in 1880s

When Eliza Daggett ran for mayor of Attleboro, Mass. in 1920, the press made a big deal of her gender. After all, the ink on the 19th Amendment was dry and no woman had ever run for mayor in that state.

And it's true that Eliza ? whose full name after being widowed twice was Eliza G. Green Williams Brown Daggett ? had been a friend to Susan B. Anthony and a student of Mary Stafford Anthony, another famous suffragist. She had met with presidents of the United States. And, even though her mayoral bid probably would fail, she was setting an example simply by competing. Maybe the next woman would win.

But in a feature story about the woman-candidate that ran Dec. 4 of that year, the Attleboro Sun pulled a tighter focus on Eliza, who by then was 69 years old.

When she was in her 30s, Eliza had a much cooler job than mayor.

The headline screamed: ATTLEBORO CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR FIRST WOMAN OFFICIAL BASEBALL SCORER.

Whoa! From 1882-1891, Eliza was the official scorer for the National League baseball club in Chicago ? the White Stockings or Colts. In the 20th century, they would become known as the Chicago Cubs.

So, decades before women in the United States gained the full right to vote ? an era when, if a woman worked at all, she probably did so exclusively as a seamstress, nurse or school teacher ? Chicago's charter Major League Baseball franchise employed Eliza as its official scorer.

What's more amazing? Even today, women aren't official scorers in the majors. Is there even one? Have there been but a few, if any at all, since Eliza's time? Official scorers tend to be (though not necessarily) former sportswriters ?�who are men, mostly. It was the same back then, obviously.

Her gender was one of the reasons Cubs team president Albert Spalding kept Eliza's work a secret.

But how did Eliza get the job? In her own words, from the Sun, she explains:

"I was living opposite the Chicago ball field at the time," said Mrs. Daggett. "I was very much interested in the national sport and always kept a detailed score of the games. The Chicago management was experiencing no end of trouble with the kickers of the club, solely on account of the official score, and was looking for some way of getting rid of the nuisance."

As @OldHossRadbourn or another dapper gent of the period might tell you, "kickers" used to refer to ones who objected, protested, or rebelled on the playing field. Perhaps by kicking dirt, and sometimes probably on, an umpire.

So, anyway: Eliza was a not only baseball fan, but also a dedicated baseball nerd!

"President Spalding knew that I was keeping score, day after day, and made the suggestion that I try my hand at the official score. I sat in a place in the grandstand where I could see everything, and was blessed with keen vision. There was no ball hit that I did not follow in its flight and no detail of a play that I missed."

Official scorers of today, whose job pretty much works like it sounds, take down the results of every game and pass them to Major League Baseball headquarters in New York. It's the official scorer's job to determine, among other things, whether it's a hit or an error.

Spalding must have liked the way Eliza did the job, as she did it for 10 years, but he told no one about her. A woman? Scoring the national pastime for the Chicago ball team? As if!

Spalding also wanted to cut down on players trying to influence the scorer into giving them more hits, or fewer errors, whichever would benefit them. Apparently, this was a problem back in the day.

Eliza's nearly forgotten turn as the Cubs scorer has come to light again thanks in part to a sports memorabilia auction happening in Arizona, where Major League Baseball's All-Star Game is being played Tuesday night.

Phil Rogers in the Chicago Tribune recently reported on Eliza's place in history, along with some of the treasures up for bid ? specifically two pendants from the Cubs' 1908 championship season that had been in Eliza's family for several generations. Here's one with a familiar logo:

Deborah Williams, Eliza's great-great granddaughter, put the items for auction so that a true collector might treasure them. Thankfully, she also has been saving the truly important stuff ? details about Eliza's life (which would be unique even without baseball).

Eliza's son, Charles G. Williams, was the team treasurer in '08, when the Cubs ? as their most of their tortured fans know ? most recently won a World Series. (Which makes me wonder: Considering his mom worked for the Cubs before he did, did that influence Williams getting a job with them? His connection was his mother?)

But not even Williams knew, when he was a little boy, what was up with his mom and the Cubs. From the Tribune:

Charles Williams once told the Tribune his mother usually sat near the wife of Hall of Famer Cap Anson, who managed the team, but she didn't disclose her responsibilities.

"Anson never knew who was official scorer for the club, nor did any of the players, newspapers or the public,'' Charles Williams said. "My mother usually sat (in the players' wives section) at the games, and they did not know she was official scorer. I used to mail the scores to league headquarters for her, and I did not know it.

"In signing the scores she used her maiden name, and even (the league official) who received them did not know who E.G. Green was."

Eliza did become a recognized face at games and, even though players (like Anson, shown above) didn't know about her job, they seemed to trust her judgment:

"The funniest feature of my experience as official scorer was that some of the players, ascertaining that I was an expert, came to me to ask about certain plays over which disputes had arisen. They asked what I thought of the plays; were they correctly umpired, and was this a hit, was this an error? I told them what the plays, hits and errors were, as I judged them to be, and they accepted my decisions without a protest.

"Not one of them suspected what I really was doing for club management."

Not to mention what she was doing for the history of the game. Someday, Eliza's life will be on display in an exhibit at baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, preserved forever for future generations. For now, we have PDF files of old newspaper clippings and a few paragraphs at Find-a-Grave.com.

Eliza said had to quit her baseball post after the 1891 season because of an illness. And she didn't become mayor of Attleboro, by the way. Eliza G. Green Williams Brown Daggett simply came along too soon in history.

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