The Infamous Hal Chase
First in a Series of Articles on Baseball's Biggest Scandalmakers
This slick-fielding first baseman was also, unfortunately, an inveterate gambler and a well-known cheat.
"They Called Him Prince Hal"
Hal Chase was tall and handsome and by most accounts, quite a charmer. He carried himself in a confident, aloof, and almost regal manner, which led teammates and fans alike to nickname him Prince Hal. But like many royals, this prince had a dark side; one that would sully his reputation, deprive him of his profession and his fortune, and ultimately, destroy what could have been a Hall of Fame legacy.
Chase broke into the majors in 1905 with the New York Highlanders, a team that would change its name to the Yankees within a decade. Although he struggled at the plate in his rookie year, batting .249 with just 49 RBI, Chase quickly demonstrated exceptional defensive skill at first base. He had soft hands, lightning-quick relexes and throwing arm that was second to none. Playing in an era when first basemen used gloves that weren't much bigger than winter mittens, Chase's uncommon skill enabled him to cleanly field hard-hit balls that routinely bounced off the mere mortals who had come before him.
Legendary sportswriter Damon Runyan summed up Chase's defensive prowess as follows: "Prince Hal could do things with his hands that no other first baseman of the past decade has even attempted. He has wonderful natural grace, and amazing speed in covering ground. Without a thought of attempting anything fancy, he makes one-handed grabs that leave spectators speechless. Chase also had a baseball brain that worked with his hands. It is doubtful if a smarter player, using smart strictly in a baseball sense, ever wore cleats. At times he was well nigh uncanny."
Runyon wasn't alone in his estimation of Chase's skills. Both Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson called him the best fielding first baseman either one had ever seen.
Chase also became a very good hitter, batting .291, and collecting 2,158 hits and 124 triples during his 15 year career. He won a batting title and a home run crown, and if there were All-Star games during the Dead Ball Era, he would have made at least half a dozen teams. Maybe more. He was that good.
Chase's Gambling and Game-Fixing
"That he could play well was never in doubt. That he would play well, however, was always in question," remarked a writer for The Sporting News of Prince Hal in 1913. Chase's lapses in effort didn't result happen because he was lazy or prone to injury. No. Hal Chase's problems all stemmed from the the fact that he was a heavy gambler who often bet on his own games and then tanked it at the plate or on the field to ensure a loss for the team but a win with the bookmaker.
Some believe that Chase was crooked during his rookie year in 1905, but the better evidence suggests that it was his great 1906 season that led to his corruption. After a remarkable year in which he hit .323 with 193 hits, 84 runs, 23 doubles, 10 triples and 28 stolen bases, Chase asked for a modest raise from the Highlanders, but the club turned him down. He was furious. He asked to be traded. He threatened to never play for New York again. But with the reserve clause binding him to the team indefinitely, and with arbitration and free agency still three-quarters of a century in the future, Chase had no choice but to return to the Highlanders for the 1907 season.
That Chase was disgruntled was well-known and well-discussed in the papers of the day, and in time, his anger towards the Highlanders appeared to show up in his game. From his high of .323 in '06, Chase's average dropped to .287 in 1907 and to .257 the next year. He also had frequent lapses in the field, often at very crucial moments, which led some writers, teammates and fans to wonder aloud whether their star first baseman might be throwing games on purpose. Perhaps angered by the rumors, or perhaps for fear of getting caught, Chase left the team in the middle of 1908.
But he returned in 1909, and the gambling rumors from the previous years eventually rose to the level of direct accusations. Midway through that season, Highlanders manager George Stallings told reporters that he thought Chase had "lay down" for a couple of games, and suggested that he did so because he'd bet against his team. Chase exploded, telling the Highlanders that it was him or Stallings; one of them had to go.
The Highlanders sided with Chase. Stallings was out, and Chase - quite remarkably in retrospect - became the team's manager for the next two seasons.
Although he played well both years, the Highlanders finished poorly in 1911, dropping to sixth place in the American League. Consequently, the team replaced Hal with Frank Chance in 1912, and sure enough, after watching his first basemen play for only a few months, Chance accused Chase of intentionally tanking games. Chase denied the accusation, and again gave the team an ultimatum: trade me or fire Chance.
This time, the team sided with its manager. After all, this was the third time in five years that Chase had been suspected of gambling and game-fixing. The Highlanders had had enough of the Prince, and finally traded him to the Chicago White Sox on June 1, 1913.
Chase played the remainder of the '13 season with Chicago and then jumped from the White Sox to the Buffalo Blues of the new Federal League. He played very well in the Federal Circuit, batting .347 in 1914, and then leading the league in home runs with 17 in 1915. But the Federal League collapsed before the start of the 1916 season, and Chase soon found himself looking for a job. He found one with the Cincinnati Reds.
A Move to the National League and a Return to His Old Tricks
Midway through the 1918 season, however, Chase was caught betting on one of his team's games. This time, he paid pitcher Jimmy Ring $50 to throw a game against the Giants. When Reds' manager Christy Mathewson got wind of it, he suspended Chase for the rest of the season. Mathewson brought formal charges against Chase for fixing games, but National League President John Heydler acquitted Chase. Heydler told sportswriters in private that he believed Chase had bet on baseball, but felt that he did not have enough hard evidence to convict him. The Reds, however, wanted nothing more to do with their apparently crooked star and traded him to the New York Giants.
In the middle of the 1919 season, however, someone sent Heydler a copy of a $500 check that Chase received from a gambler for throwing a game. Armed with this evidence, Heydler ordered Giants owner Charles Stoneham to release Chase, and because of his well-earned reputation, no other team would sign him. Two years later, baseball's first commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who'd been brought in to clean up the game after the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, formally banned Chase from the game. He never played in the big leagues again.
Why Did He Do It?
Isn't this always the question every fan wants to ask a big league ballplayer who ruins his career or his legacy with some type of stupid behavior?
When asked about his gambling, which he eventually admitted took place, Chase said it was really about money: "I wasn't satisfied with what the club owners paid me. Like others, I had to have a bet on the side and we used to bet with the other team and the gamblers who sat in the boxes. It was easy to get a bet." He went on, saying "sometimes collections were hard to make. Players would pass out IOUs and often be in debt for their entire salaries. That wasn't a healthy condition. Once the evil started there was no stopping it, and club owners were not strong enough to cope with the evil."
In his later years, Chase expressed deep regret about all that his gambling and cheating had cost him in terms of his legacy as a ballplayer and a man.
"You note that I am not in the Hall of Fame. Some of the old-timers said I was one of the greatest fielding first baseman of all time. When I die, movie magnates will make no picture like Pride of the Yankees, which honored that great player, Lou Gehrig. I guess that's the answer, isn't it? Gehrig had a good name; one of the best a man could have.
I am an outcast, and I haven't a good name. I'm the loser, just like all gamblers are. I lived to make great plays. What did I gain? Nothing. Everything was lost because I raised hell after hours. I was a wise guy, a know-it-all, I guess."
The End of the Road
For a time, Chase was player-manager of an outlaw team in Arizona that included Black Sox players Buck Weaver, Chick Gandil and Lefty Williams. It was part of a league run by S.L.A. Marshall, who later said that Chase admitted that he threw games while playing in that minor circuit.
Chase later drifted to Mexico, where in 1925 he began making plans to organize a professional league. However, those plans were scuttled when Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles ordered Chase to leave the country under pressure from American League president Ban Johnson.
Chase spent the rest of his life drifting between Arizona and his native California, working numerous low-paying jobs. He died in a Colusa hospital at the age of 64.
He remains permananently banned from baseball.
