The best (and most interesting) ballplayer you’ve never heard of
I’ll bet my allowance that even the most ardent baseball enthusiasts among my esteemed readership doesn’t know know who this guy is. And you really should!
The answer? John Montgomery Ward, otherwise known in his day (the late 1800’s and early 1900’s) as “Monte” Ward. He was not only one of the best baseball players of all time; he was also among the most interesting and important historically.
Born and raised in a small town in Pennsylvania the exceedingly bright Monte was sent off to neighboring Penn State University at the age of 13! Perhaps he wasn’t quite ready for the college experience as he was expelled for pushing an upperclassman who was hazing him down a flight of stairs (a young man has to defend himself!) and for stealing chickens (a young man has to eat!). But Monte was a Nittany Lion long enough to jumpstart their baseball program and to be credited, at least by some, with developing the first curve ball.
The following year both of Monte’s parents tragically died, and at age 14, he was on his own. He initially tried to support himself as a traveling salesman. When that didn’t go so well Monte returned to his hometown and tried to earn a living at what he did best: baseball. He joined a semi-pro baseball team until it folded. It wasn’t long, though, before his pitching skills attracted the attention of the Providence Grays of the newly-formed National League, and they signed him to a pro contract.
And man could that boy throw a baseball. Before reaching the age of 21, Monte arguably had the greatest back-to back seasons of any pitcher in baseball history. As a 19-year old in 1879 he won a mind-boggling 47 Games with an Earned Run Average of 2.15! He followed that up the next year by winning another 39 games, while dropping his ERA to a microscopic 1.74 and throwing the second perfect game in baseball history. And in both years he pitched nearly 600 INNINGS! For comparison, the major league leader in innings pitched in 2019 (the last time there was a full season) was Justin Verlander who managed to complete only 223 innings. A couple of years later, Monte arguably threw the greatest game of all-time, shutting out the Detroit Wolverines for 18 innings before finally winning the game 1-0. I’m guessing Monte wasn’t on a pitch count that day!
However within a few years, and to no real surprise, Monte injured his right (pitching) arm. Unfortunately for him this was well before the birth of Tommy John and, more importantly, Dr. Frank Jobe – the surgeon who pioneered the elbow ligament replacement surgery that has saved thousands of young pitchers’ careers and for whom the procedure should have really be named.
Unable to throw a ball without significant pain in that era signaled that it was time to hang up the cleats and get a real job. Not to Monte. He simply taught himself how to throw left-handed instead and quickly became good enough at it to finish the year playing centerfielder. And then, as his right arm began to heal the next year, he moved to third base, then to second base and ultimately to the premier defensive position on the diamond – shortstop.
Having focused on pitching for much of his early life, Monte initially struggled as a hitter, batting only .240 his first two full seasons as a full-time position player. But he persevered and improved greatly, ultimately turning himself into a very reliable if not powerful hitter, eclipsing an impressive .325 batting average three times and collecting 2107 hits over the course of his non-pitching career. Monte became best known for his speed and his ability to score runs. Indeed, over the course of the last eight years of his career he scored more than 100 runs per year on average (at a time where teams played less than 130 games). And he became one of the best base stealers of his day, swiping 540 bases, including a whopping 111 in 1887 and 88 in 1892 (at age 32)!
By the end of his 17-years in professional baseball, Monte had set more major league records than any player in the history of the game (only to be surpassed by baseball’s most famous figure, Babe Ruth). The record that stands out to me, and that still exists over a century later, is that he is the only player in Major League Baseball history to have won more than 150 games as a pitcher and to have registered over 2000 hits. There’s been a ton of buzz surrounding Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani due to his phenomenal dual pitching and hitting talent. And yet, in his fourth year now with the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani still needs over 140 wins and more than 1700 hits to duplicate Monte’s achievement. As for the man generally regarded as the greatest player of all time, who also excelled at both pitching and hitting, the Babe merely collected 94 wins as a pitcher.
But Monte was far more than just a great baseball player. While playing professional ball, he also managed to put himself through law school – at Ivy League, Columbia, no less. He then sought to use his law degree along with his intellect, determination and leadership skills to improve the lot of ballplayers of his day. At that time owners had colluded to fix the maximum salary that any player could make at $2,500 per season and all contracts included the infamous “reserve clause” whereby every player was contractually bound to a specific team in perpetuity (unless the team unilaterally decided to trade him). Before there was Curt Flood, Marvin Miller, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, Monte Ward led the charge to try and change a system that gave owners unfair and excessive control.
Not surprisingly, Monte encountered major resistance; the owners were unwilling to change a system that had worked well for them. But he knew and understood the importance of leverage to negotiations and proceeded to organize the players. Indeed, he formed the very first labor union for athletes in professional sports: the “Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players.” With that power he was able to negotiate some changes on the players’ behalf, but significant improvements like free agency remained illusive and were refused by management.
Exasperated but undeterred, Monte boldly decided to form his own professional baseball league to compete directly with the powerful National League. He named his league appropriately “the Player’s League.” Incredibly, he was able to persuade most of the best players of his day to switch to his new fledgling league, where he established the first concept of profit sharing for the players. Even more surprisingly, he was able to convince several wealthy folks to invest and buy franchises in the new League and even begin construction on new stadiums, including famous ones like the Polo Grounds in New York.
Naturally, the National League did not take kindly to Monte’s actions and this affront to their monopoly and filed several lawsuits against him, other players and the new league. Monte managed to defeat all of them. But he couldn’t defeat the collusion and greed that ensued. Having lost in the courtroom, the National League turned its attention to “persuading” the franchise owners of the Players League to leave. It held secret meetings with many of the owners, threatening to financially destroy their investment if they continued to operate in the Player’s League while simultaneoulsy offering them the carrot of joining their more established and financially lucrative League. One by one the owners of the Player’s League succumbed to this pressure and sold their teams to the National League, forcing the Player’s League out of business.
Even though he was unable to accomplish what he set out to do, Monte Ward was way ahead of his time as a transformative thinker, and his actions planted the seed for the revolution in players’ rights that would have to wait for nearly a century to take hold. He even advocated bringing black players into the league, albeit unsuccessfully. (Mind you this was in 1886 – 60 years before Jackie Robinson!)
Aside from his impressive skills as baseball player and lawyer (and later a manager and baseball executive), Monte was also an author. His 1888 book, Base-Ball: How to Become a Player, with the Origin, History and Explanation of the Game was the first published effort to explore baseball’s development from its early roots. Since then, thousands of books have been written about America’s pastime, by far the most of any sport (unless you consider chess and fishing to be sports).
And when Monte’s baseball days were through, he turned his athletic prowess to the game of golf. In short order, he suddenly became one of the best amateurs in the country, winning several championships throughout New York and Europe and finishing second in the prestigious North and South Amateur Championship at Pinehurst, the equal of any major golf event of that era.
Monte’s celebrity extended beyond the sports venue. Long before the Joe DiMaggio/ Marilyn Monroe romance that captured the nation, Montgomery Ward married Helen Dauvray, one of the most famous stage actresses of the day and a leader in the woman suffragist movement. He and Helen constituted one of the first power couples in the United States (though like “Joltin’ Joe” and the “Blond Bombshell’ they would also get divorced).
Despite Ward’s unparalleled accomplishments on and off the field, Major League Baseball did not rush to recognize and pay homage to him. Indeed, he was repeatedly passed over for induction into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. It wasn’t until 1964 that an Old-Timers committee finally rectified the wrong and secured Monte’s place in baseball immortality – nearly 40 years after his death. In a similar vein, the Hall of Fame waited until after Marvin Miller died to honor his undeniable historic contributions to baseball, and have still yet to elect Curt Flood, another giant pioneer in advancing player’s rights. Hopefully this will finally be the year for Flood’s induction but MLB-affiliated voters tend to have a long memory when it comes to those who have had the audacity to take on the League.
In any case, next time you hear the name of Montgomery Ward, perhaps you will think of more than the big department store retailer (and now online retailer) that shares his name and you will educate others about one of the greatest figures in baseball and sports history. I’m not sure why no one has written a book or movie about him yet, but Mr. Ward would seem like an excellent subject. Anyone know a good author or movie producer?
