The League of Outsider Baseball by Gary Cieradkowski

Author:Gary Cieradkowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

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JAKE POWELL Unscripted and Unforgiven

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When the Yankees sent Ben Chapman to the Senators they got Jake Powell in return. A fiery competitor, Powell aimed to win at all costs.

In April of 1936 Powell beat out a single by deliberately crashing into first baseman Hank Greenberg, breaking Greenberg’s wrist so severely he missed the entire season. Powell refused to apologize, innocently stating he had simply beat out a base hit.

Powell will forever be remembered for a 1938 pregame interview he gave on WGN radio. When asked what he did to keep in shape during the winter, Powell responded with, “Oh, that’s easy. I’m a policeman in Dayton, Ohio. I spend the off-season clubbing niggers over the head.” WGN immediately cut off the transmission but the damage was done. The Yankees made Powell tour bars and taverns in Harlem buying drinks and apologizing, but no amount of free beer could make up for his comments. The odd thing was, Powell wasn’t a cop. He’d made the whole thing up.

The black press demanded he be banned for life, but Commissioner Landis only suspended him for 10 games, while Yankee manager Joe McCarthy issued a moratorium on his players’ giving unscripted interviews.

As hostile fans heckled and threw bottles at Powell, his effectiveness quickly waned, and he was out of the majors by 1940. After drifting around the low minors he turned up in Washington, D.C., where he and a girlfriend got pinched passing bad checks. When police brought the pair in for questioning the outfielder somehow got hold of a pistol and shot himself in the chest and temple. He died before an ambulance arrived.

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