Don't forget “Smoky” Joe Wood,
You Were Some Kind of Ballplayer

by Jim Swint

Five years after they retire sometime in the next couple of years there will be three Major League players who played for the Hutchinson Broncs in the 1980's who will be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Achieving such immortality will be present day San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds, Houston Astro Roger Clemens, and Baltimore Oriole Rafael Palmeiro.

For the past twenty five years a committee of baseball historians has been trying to secure a Hall of Fame election through the veterans committee for another former Hutchinson player, “Smoky” Joe Wood of Ness City, Kansas and the Hutchinson Salt Packers of 1907. In February of 2005 the veterans committee put Joe Wood on the ballot for consideration for election. Joe Wood's career was cruelly aborted by an injury at the height of his brilliant career as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox. Some baseball writers of later years would come to call it the “Smoky” Joe Wood Syndrome to give historical definition to the careers of players with dazzling natural gifts who were sadly stricken in their prime. It is perhaps ironic that for Roger Clemens to have a chance at the Hall of Fame he will have to surpass many Boston pitching records that to this day are still held by Joe Wood.

Joe Wood was born Howard Ellsworth Wood in Kansas City on October 25, 1889, the second son of John and Rebecca Wood. Howard and his older brother Harley were at a young age given the nicknames of two circus clowns named Joe and Pete. The names stayed with the boys for the rest of their lives. John Wood was originally from Pennsylvania, but a wanderlust to find his El Dorado led him to follow Horace Greeley's advice and go west. John's wandering led him to Ness City, Kansas, in 1880, where he taught the first school, served as an attorney, and owned and edited the Ness City Times . In 1884 he married Rebecca Stephans of Ness City, and soon left for a short stay in Kansas City before moving to Chicago, where Joe first began to play baseball on the streets. In 1897, John took Joe, his mother, and older brother back to the family farm in Pennsylvania while John went to Alaska to dig for gold along the Yukon River, only to return with no gold and frostbite to his feet.

In 1900 the Wood family headed by covered wagon to Ouray, Colorado, after a short stay in Ness City. Young Joe, 10 years old, wore his ball glove on the front seat of the wagon as they trekked across the flats of western Kansas and the mountains of Colorado to, as he said in later years, “Show anybody who was interested where he wanted to go.” Ouray, Colorado, at nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, was in the early 1900's still a wild west mining town, but a town in which people were crazy about baseball. Between setting type for his father's newspaper, selling popcorn, and salvaging whatever he could find for a few pennies, Joe became the mascot, batboy, and sometimes player for the local team that crisscrossed the mountain passes to play in places like Telluride and Silverton.

In 1905 John Wood took his family back to his wife's hometown of Ness City, Kansas, where he practiced law. By the following summer, Joe Wood, 16 years old and the youngest player to suit up, was pitching and playing infield for the Ness City town team against teams from Ellis, Ransom, Wakeeney, and Scott City. These games were big events, often associated with weekend festivals and parades. In Ness City no game was more eagerly anticipated than a game advertised in the Ness County News to be played August 27, 1906, at 3:00 p.m. sharp between the Ness City nine and the barnstorming Kansas City Bloomer Girls. Owned and managed by Logan Galbreath, the Bloomer Girls team would travel from town to town playing men's teams while unbeknownst to most, the Bloomer Girls would have three or four young men dressed in wigs playing on their side. With Joe pitching, the Ness City team won 23-3 before the largest crowd anyone could remember. After the game Galbreath approached Joe and his father and asked if he would like to join the team for the last three weeks of the season for $20.00. So began the professional career of Joe Wood, playing with the likes of Lady Waddell and Dolly Madison, two of the “dressed up” girls and four or five actual girls in places like Ellinwood and Haven. In later years, Joe would somewhat sheepishly admit that he discovered while playing for the Bloomer Girls, but would point out that the great Carl Hubbell was discouraged some years later from playing for a similar type traveling team.

That same year, Hutchinson had built a new ball park and eagerly sought to bring professional baseball to town. A board called the Hutchinson Athletic Association was formed, money was raised, and when the St. Joseph franchise of the Western Association experienced financial difficulties, Hutchinson had a team.

In the early spring of 1907 Joe's brother Pete, who by this time was attending the University of Kansas and playing on a football team, put in a word to a friend which led to Joe's being offered a contract for $90.00 a month with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, of the Three-I-League. When Belden Hill, who ran the club, found out that Joe was a pitcher and not needed, he gave his contract to his friend Doc Andrews, who had recently been hired to manage the Hutchinson Salt Packers. Seventeen years old, a wide-eyed Joe boarded the train for Hutchinson with his father, who wanted to be sure his son was headed for a proper environment. Joe moved in with an uncle, James Stephans, who was a barber and lived behind the old Midland Hotel.

Hutchinson in 1907 was a baseball crazy, and beginning in February a column called “Baseball Gossip” appeared daily in The Hutchinson News . The first mention of Joe occurred on March 15 in a story titled “A Great Ballplayer – Doc Andrews says Joe Wood Can Deliver the Goods.” The story goes on to say that Wood “is also a good infielder and may play shortstop or any other position from time to time.” On April 1, Hutchinson fans got their first look at the team and Joe Wood in an exhibition game. Joe played for the regulars, went one for three, and both pitched and played shortstop. As the season progressed Joe pitched more and more, but from time to time could be found in the right field, left field, second base, shortstop, and third base.

On a cold windy day in Wichita on May 5 Joe Wood officially played his first professional game pitching for the Salt Packers against Wichita. He struck out seven in a 5-0 losing cause. His first victory came on May 13 when he pitched eight innings of a 12-8 extra innings victory over the Topeka Jimsons. The following day the Topeka Journal noted that “Woods is a little boy seventeen years of age who gathered his experience by working on a team of bloomer girls. He is very young looking and has not reached the stage where he has to consult the barber. But in all events, despite his youth, he has the goods with nice curves and smoke to back them up.” Throughout much of the rest of May Joe played second base, amazing fans with his hitting ability. The news stories called him “our youthful star,” and affectionately referred to him as “Little Joe” Wood. After throwing a three hitter the Joplin Globe noted that “Wood, in the box for Hutchinson, was the cream confection. He has the steam and control, and exhibited curves enough to send six Ducklings for a drink.”

On June 25 Joe threw a one hitter at the Leavenworth Convicts and prompted The Hutchinson News sports writer to note that “He had all kinds of steam and more beautiful curves than the fair Venus ever boasted of.” The next time Joe faced Leavenworth at the end of July the news accounts noted that a feature of the game was “the sawing of the ozone by the Leavenworth players.” The “ozone” nickname stuck, and from that date until the 1912 season Joe Wood was often referred to as “Ozone” Wood or the “Kansas Cyclone.” On August 14 Joe's legendary status took another step when he fanned seventeen batters and gave up two hits against Oklahoma City in a 1-0 ten inning pitcher's dual won by the Salt Packers.

Through the rest of the season Joe Wood pitched brilliantly but was also called upon to play second base, shortstop, and left field. On the last day of the season the Salt Packers played a double header against Springfield, and “Little Joe,” not yet eighteen years of age, pitched and played left field and finished his Hutchinson career by hitting two home runs over the fence in the deadball era of baseball.

Joe Wood finished his career in Hutchinson with an 18-11 record, striking out 224 batters in 196 innings. On September 27 The Hutchinson News carried a full page tribute to the team complete with pictures and thumbnail sketches. The story on Joe was titled “Joe the Kid Twirler,” and went on to say he had gained a reputation all over the country as “the Salt Packer Kid Phenom Twirler,” and that he would be missed as he moved up to a higher league.

In the fall of 1907 Joe signed with the Kansas City Blues of the American Association for $250.00 a month. In negotiating, his father represented Joe, believing his son might not be getting all he deserved.

It did not take long for Joe to make his mark in Kansas City. Even before the exhibition season was over the Kansas City papers were raving. The Kansas City Star called him “the pellet manipulating parcel of adolescence from Hutchinson.” The Kansas City Post said “Joe Wood, the phenomenon from Hutchinson, can pitch some, play second some, cover short some, and go some at various other stations. Joe is tauted (sic) as a wonder and it wouldn't be surprising to see him stick. He has an easy delivery, yet can burn them in.” The Kansas City Times called him “That marvelous young man, whom the fans all love.” By April and the official start of the season all the Kansas papers were calling him “Ozone” Wood in looking for a nickname to describe his pitching powers and blazing fastball. Joe made the team, ended up pitching in 24 games for the K.C. Blues and went 7-12 with a 2.36 E.R.A. By August the Boston Red Sox were looking for pitching help. The immortal Cy Young was forty-one years old and fading and in that month Boston Red Sox president John I. Taylor purchased Wood from the Kansas City club.

On August 24, 1908 Joe Wood, one year out of Hutchinson, Kansas, two years from having been a Bloomer Girl, and all of eighteen years of age, started a game in Boston against the Chicago White Sox. Whereas Joe had been the darling of the Hutchinson and Kansas City press, Boston writers were more jaded and skeptical. Paul Shannon, the famous sports writer of the Boston Post , who was later to give Wood the nickname “Smoky” wrote the following day; “If pitcher Wood, late of Kansas City, thinks he is worth a whole bunch of money more than the Boston team is willing to give him, then (sic) some 6,000 fans who watched his work yesterday and pulled right lustily for him to win will go down on record as being from Missouri. Wood has nice curves and a pretty drop ball but has got to learn that a pitcher who uses nothing but curves is not destined for a lengthy stay in the big leagues.” Joe's next four appearances were in relief, but on October 3 he was given the start against Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics. Facing Jack Combs, Joe threw a one-hit 5-0 shut-in and he was in the major leagues to stay.

By the 1909 season even the crusty Paul Shannon was becoming a Joe Wood fan. In July he wrote “Hats off to Wood. This afternoon the youngster gave an exhibition of pitching that has never been seen before in Cleveland…” Four days later he wrote, “tonight Wood is the idol of the Boston camp.” On August 3 the largest crowd ever, 29,781, at the old Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston watched Wood pitch against Detroit, winning 2-1. On August 19 Joe Wood had his picture on the front page of the Boston Post .

In 1910, Joe pitched in 35 games, went 12-13, and had a sparkling 1.68 E.R.A., the standard by which all pitchers are most often measured. In 1911 at twenty-one years of age, Joe pitched in forty-four games, struck out 231 batters, went 23-17, and had a 2.02 E.R.A. For Joe's fans the season was highlighted by an exhibition game in Wichita on the way from spring training in California to Boston in which 5,000 Kansans came to see Joe pitch a no hit, no run game against the St. Louis Browns on July 29. The year 1911 was also marked by the assemblage of baseball's first all star team. That summer popular Cleveland Indian pitcher Addie Joss collapsed and died and to benefit his widow a game was set up between the Indians and the stars of the American League. What a team it was, including legendary players: Tris Speaker, Joe Wood's teammate and roommate for fifteen years; Ty Cobb; Frank “Homerun” Baker; Eddie Collins; Gabby Street; and pitchers Walter Johnson, also of Kansas; and Joe Wood. Some baseball historians consider it the greatest single team ever gathered on one playing field at one time.

If 1910 and 1911 were outstanding years for young Joe Wood, then 1912 was a season beyond belief that is considered by some to be the finest and most storied season any pitcher of any era has ever had. At the Red Sox spring training camp in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Paul Shannon noted that “Wood was shooting the sphere across the rubber like a streak of lightning.” The day before the regular season opened Shannon seemed to have an uncanny premonition of things to come when he wrote in the Boston Post , “The speedy Joe Wood, for whom the greatest year he has ever known seems assured will do the pitching for Stahl's men” on opening day.

Wood started slowly, winning three and losing one in April. He then put together a five game streak in May and ended the month with a 9-3 record. On May 29 he started another streak of eight victories, finishing June with a 16-3 mark. The best was yet to come. On Independence Day Joe lost to Philadelphia 4-3, but on July 8 got back on track defeating St. Louis 5-1. He then started another streak which went through July, through August, and into September. Earlier that year Washington Senator great Walter Johnson, of Humboldt and Coffeyville, Kansas, had set an American League record of sixteen wins in a row. On September 2 Joe Wood pitched and recorded his thirteenth win in a row. With the Senators coming to Boston's Fenway Park for a series, the Washington manager challenged the Boston manager to pitch Wood a day earlier than his regular rotation against “The Big Train” (as Johnson was called) so that his streak could be put to an end by the record holder. In anticipation of the matchup the Boston papers publicized the pitchers like two prizefighters, giving statistics, comparing height, weight, biceps, etc. “The Champion Walter Johnson” versus “The Challenger, Joe Wood.” For the first and only time in the storied eighty year history of Boston's Fenway Park, which had opened at the beginning of the 1912 season, the field was roped off to accommodate the huge crowd. Fans would actually be on the playing field! Standing twenty deep in the outfield they also ringed the baselines, forcing the two teams to set up temporary dugouts on benches by third and first base. The star performers rose to the occasion with “Smoky Joe,” as he was no called, limiting Washington to six hits, striking out nine, and beating Johnson 1-0 on two-out back-to-back doubles hit into the outfield crowd by Tris Speaker and Duffy Lewis. Harry Hooper, Boston left fielder and Hall of Famer, later commented that in 2,308 major league games he played, the Johnson-Wood matchup “was the most exciting game I ever played in.” Asked by reporter, “Can I throw harder than Joe Wood?” Walter Johnson stated, “Listen my friend, there's no one alive can throw harder than Smoky Joe Wood.”

With a knack for flair, dashingly handsome “Smoky” Joe, only hours after the biggest game of his career announced his engagement to Laura O'Shea of Kansas City, a beauty who had first met Joe when she would go to watch him pitch while with the Kansas City Blues. As one Boston paper put it “He also was winning a game far better than the Washington-Boston baseball struggle in which he beat Walter Johnson (sic) and this great game was love!” Miss O'Shea had some opinions of her own. “I don't like to have anybody call him Smoky” she told a reporter. “He's just plain Joe to me, and always will be, although I will admit he has some speed both on and off the diamond!”

Joe's streak continued for two more games before he was beaten at Detroit on September 20, 6-4. To this day the American League record for consecutive victories still stands at sixteen, shared together by “Big Train” Johnson and “Smoky” Joe Wood. To finish the regular season Joe won two more games, led his team to a record 105 victories, was 34-5, threw ten shutouts (still an American League record), completed thirty-five of thirty-eight starts, had an E.R.A. of 1.91, struck out 258 batters, and became the youngest (at twenty-two) thirty game winner in baseball history. (to be continued in the next LEGACY.)

The excitement wasn't over for Wood or his teammates. In what most historians consider the first “greatest World Series of all time” the Boston Red Sox faced John McGraw's New York Giants and their ace pitching staff of Christy Mathewson 23-12, Rube Marquard 26-11, and rookie spitballer Jeff Tesreau 17-7. The series went eight games. One was called due to darkness. Joe won the first game 4-3 at the Polo Grounds, won the third game 3-1, and then lost the sixth game when he gave up six runs in the first inning after a long delay to start the game when a portion of the center field fence in Fenway Park was knocked down by Boston fans trying to get in. In the eighth and deciding game Joe came on in relief in the eighth inning with the score tied 1-1 and the great Christy Mathewson, the opposing pitcher. In the top of the tenth the Giants scored and Mathewson, three outs away from victory, saw it snatched from his grasp when two errors gave Boston a 3-2 victory.

“Smoky” Joe Wood was the toast of the town. He had thirty-four regular season victories, three World Series wins, and a ride in the lead car of a huge parade through the streets of Boston with Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, grandfather of future President John F. Kennedy. With a $4,000 World Series check and a contract for $7,500 for 1913 Joe Wood seemed to have the baseball world in the palm of his gifted right hand.

With all his success and fame, Joe Wood never forgot where he came from and maintained close ties to Hutchinson and Ness City. His fans in Kansas likewise followed their hero. On October 22, 1912 a story in The Hutchinson News accounted with tongue in cheek that “the attending doctor at Joe's birth showed no interest in his lung development but in the abnormal strength and power of his right arm.” It also went on to state that a big celebration was planned to celebrate his birthday and that the mayor was being asked to proclaim Joe's birthday a public holiday. In Ness City a celebration was held with a post card shower to be sent to Joe's home in Pennsylvania. On November 10, Joe came to Hutchinson, met with friends at the Brunswick Smoker pool hall, and then went home to Ness City to visit, shoot pool, and hunt jack rabbits. Joe's prowess as a pool shark was also legendary. He was considered one of the best shooters in the country and hustled the locals in various towns from time to time.

What happened in the spring of 1913 is unclear. Most accounts say that Joe slipped and fell breaking the thumb of his pitching hand in a spring training game against the Detroit Tigers. Paul Shannon, who followed the team to Hot Springs, Arkansas that spring noted that his manager was not happy with Joe for throwing so hard, so early in the spring. On March 6 the Boston Post headline stated “Smoky Joe Wood's Right Hand Injured.” With a sub headline “Fingers of Priceless Throwing Arm Bound in Tape From Cut of Broken Bat.” On March 19 Joe was back pitching in exhibition but fell down fielding a ball. That slip was lost in the press at the time by the fact that Joe hit Bob Byrne of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the side of the head with a sickening fast ball that greatly shook “Smoky” Joe and left Byrne in the hospital and out of baseball for a period of time. On April 21 Joe slid into home against the Philadelphia A's in another exhibition game, hurt his pitching hand, went back to pitch but could not continue. Whether one incident or a combination we may never know. What we do know is that from that spring on the smoke was gone and Joe Wood never ever threw again without pain! Desperate to regain his dominating form, Joe continued throwing. He did manage an 11-5 record in 1913, a 9-3 record in 1914, and a 15-5 record in 1915 with a league leading 1.49 E. R. A. but the zip was gone, the arm was getting worse, and the pain was so unbearable that after pitching Joe would have to lay off a couple of week's before he could even lift his arm.

In the winter of 1915-16, desperate to find a cure after having visited hundreds of doctors, Joe went to an illegal chiropractor in an unmarked office in New York. After each treatment, that in part consisted of hanging by a bar, he was ordered to throw a baseball as hard as he could for one hour until he would have to use his left hand to put his right hand into his coat sleeve to leave.

In 1916, Joe Wood sat out the entire season partly to nurse his ailing arm and partly in a contract dispute with Boston. Staying on the family farm in Pennsylvania with his wife Laura, Joe was restless and irritated. He phoned his best friend Tris Speaker, who had been sold to the Cleveland Indians, and asked if he could arrange a tryout. On February 24, 1917 Joe Wood was sold by the Red Sox to the Indians for $15,000 and went to spring training a washed up relic from a distant past and still only twenty-seven years old. Joe later stated that he would hear fathers tell their kids, “See that guy over there? That's “Smoky” Joe Wood, used to be a great pitcher long ago.”

Wanting any chance he could get, Joe practiced in the infield, shagged flies, offered to pinch hit or pinch run and it paid off. Drawing on his experience with other positions from his playing days in Hutchinson, Joe got his chance and even though the arm never allowed him to pitch effectively again he became, for five years, an above average outfielder compiling a batting average of .298 in the 460 games he played for the Cleveland Indians. In 1920 the Indians won the American League Pennant and the World Series and Joe Wood became only the second player in baseball history to be a starting pitcher in one World Series and a starting position player in another. The other player to do so was Joe's Boston teammate of 1915, Babe Ruth.

At the end of the 1922 season Joe Wood realized that he had accomplished in fourteen years of major league baseball all he could and that his growing family needed him at home more than a major league career would allow, so he left the Indians to take the baseball coaching job at Yale University, holding the job for twenty years until he retired in 1942. During that time his family of Joe Jr., Steve, and twins Robert and Virginia grew up splitting time between New Haven, Connecticut and Parkers Glen, Pennsylvania. Joe Jr. played for his father at Yale while Robert and Steve competed against thief dad and brother while playing for Colgate.

In the summer of 1940 Joe Wood loaded the entire family into two cars and took them to see where he had come from. In Hutchinson, they played golf at Prairie Dunes, stayed at the Carey home in Willowbrook, and were introduced by game announcer Bud Detter before the Hutchinson Pirates and St. Joseph Saints minor league game. From Hutchinson, they went on to Ness City where the boys played in games with locals against Larned, Dodge City, and Hays. It was then on to Ouray, Colorado to renew old acquaintances and see where “Little Joe” had first put on a uniform.

As Wood grew older he continued to follow baseball and with a sharp mind and keen eye he reminisced about days past while studying the exploits of the likes of Jim Palmer and Catfish Hunter. Every few years he would head to Ness City for the Old Settlers Reunion to keep a tie to his Kansas roots. Although he was constantly asked about not being in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Joe Wood never showed a bitterness saying it really didn't matter.

In August 1972 Joe's wife Laura died after sixty-six years of marriage. In 1984 Joe Wood took the mound in historic Fenway Park for the last time on “Old Timers” day when from the seat of a golf cart he threw out the first pitch, left handed, for the great right arm that had brought the nickname “Ozone” and “Smoky” was no longer useful.

In January of 1985, at the age of ninety-five, Joe Wood received his last living honor. Presented by Yale President and later baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti, Joe Wood was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, the only player in the history of major league baseball to be so honored. Six months later, on July 27, Joe Wood died.

“Little Joe” Wood who had ridden with his ball glove in hand on the seat of a wagon to Colorado, who had become “Ozone” and then “Smoky” as a legendary pitcher, who had the third best E.R.A. in history at 2.03, who had made a comeback as an outstanding outfielder, who had become a teacher and inspiration to the boys he coached, and who had without a high school education been confirmed Doctor Joe Wood by Yale University, died accomplishing one more feat. He was the last living major league player to have played in the major league prior to 1910.

Author's note:

I am indebted to Robert Wood, Joe's youngest son, from Keene, New Hampshire for helping keep the memory of his father alive by so graciously sharing his time, his home, and his collection of clippings, photos, and baseball memorabilia tracing the life of “Smoky” Joe Wood.