Kid Nichols by David L. Fleitz

Author:David L. Fleitz [Fleitz, David L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2012-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Nichols on an 1895 tobacco card from Mayo Cut Plug. (Library of Congress)

For the first time in his career, Nichols held out for more money from the miserly Boston ownership in the spring of 1899. Kid was earning the National League’s maximum salary of $2,400 a year at the time, but Boston was the league’s most profitable team, and Nichols believed he deserved better compensation. In late March 1899 the Boston owners reached a compromise with their star hurler. They kept his salary at $2,400, but added a few incentives and bonuses to be paid at the end of the season. Kid reluctantly agreed to the terms and returned to the fold in early April.

Perhaps Nichols tried to rush himself into condition too quickly, for Kid threw his hardest fastballs in a frigid spring training game in Norfolk, Virginia, and complained afterward of a sharp pain in his shoulder. The arm hurt all season long, and Kid fell to a 21–17 record as Vic Willis supplanted Nichols as Boston’s number one starter, as Kid had surpassed John Clarkson many years before. Kid suffered from pain in his shoulder and dropped to 13–16 the next season, though he won his 300th major league game on July 7, 1900 against Chicago and became the youngest man ever to reach that plateau. A healthier Kid improved in 1901, but his earned run average rose for the fourth season in a row as the Beaneaters fell to sixth place in the eight-team league.

Kid took the loss in the highest-scoring Opening Day game in National League history. On April 17, 1900, manager Selee selected Willis instead of Nichols as Boston’s Opening Day starter, but the Phillies bombed Willis out of the box and took a 17–8 lead into the ninth. The Beaneaters then pulled off one of the most remarkable comebacks in history when they scored nine times in the bottom of the inning to tie the game. Kid came in to pitch the tenth, and the Herald reported, “When Charley Nichols walked to the pitcher’s box, everybody felt secure that the day would go to Boston after all.” The Philles reached Kid for two runs in the tenth and won the game by a 19–17 score. Despite the loss, the Herald called it “one of the most remarkable ball games ever played on the South End or any other ground between teams that were the leading exemplars of the beauties of the national game.”

The 1901 season represented a changing of the guard among star pitchers in the National League. Kid won his first game that season, a 7–0 shutout against the Phillies, but then suffered through a seven game losing streak that lasted until mid–June. At the same time, the 21-year-old Christy Mathewson began his first full season for the New York Giants, and he defeated Kid twice by 2–1 scores in the first half of the campaign. On July 29 the two hurlers matched up again, with Kid winning a 5–4 decision in 10 innings.

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