The final weeks of the 1877 National League season witnessed a mysterious collapse of the Louisville club, permitting Boston to take the pennant rather handily. The suspicious Louisville directors soon caught on that four of their players had sold out to gamblers. Among these was star pitcher Jim Devlin, who had hurled every one of the club’s 129 games over the previous two years. Distraught over his banishment by the league that winter, impoverished and penitent, the poor soul begged help from league president William Hulbert and Boston manager Harry Wright. His poignant letter to Wright is reproduced below, and the wrenching scene in Hulbert’s office is described by Albert Spalding, whose office adjoined Hulbert’s.
The letter is presented verbatim.
Phila Feb 24th 1878
Mr Harry Wright Dear Sir as I am Deprived from Playing this year I thought I woed [would] write you to see if you Coed [could] do anything for me in the way of looking after your ground or anything in the way of work I Dont Know what I am to do I have tried hard to get work of any Kind But I Canot get it do you Know of anyway that you think I Coed [could] get to Play again I Can asure you Harry that I was not Treated right and if Ever I Can see you to tell you the Case you will say I am not to Blame I am living from hand to mouth all winter I have not got a Stich of Clothing or has my wife and child You Dont Know how I am Situated for I Know if you did you woed [would] do Something for me I am honest Harry you need not Be afraid the Louisville People made me what I am to day a Begger I trust you will not Say anything to anyone about the Contents of this to any one if you Can do me this favor By letting me take Care of the ground or anything of that Kind I Beg of you to do it and god will reward you if I Dont or let me Know if you have any Ide [idea] of how I Coed [could] get Back I am Dumb Harry I dont Know how to go about it So I Trust you will answear this and do all you Can for me So I will Close by Sending you &) Geo and all the Boys my verry Best wishes hoping to hear from you Soon I am yours Trouly
James A Devlin
No 908 Atherton St
Phila Pa
No record of Harry Wright’s response, if any, survives.
Louisville had endured a public betting scandal in 1876 when right fielder George Bechtel’s wire to Devlin was intercepted:
Bingham House, Philadelphia, June 10, 1876. We can make $500 if you lose the game today. Tell John [Chapman, the club’s manager] and let me know at once. BECHTEL.
Devlin replied:
I want you to understand I am not that kind of man. I play ball for the interest of those who hire me. DEVLIN.
Louisville said farewell to Bechtel, but he was re-signed by the Mutuals, his club in 1872, and played two games with them before the National League expelled him.
Philadelphia native Devlin was vulnerable to such opportunities as Bechtel presented. He had not been paid his salary for two months, he told a Chicago Tribune reporter in November 1876. “I wanted to get home to see the show [the Centennial Exhibition], but I can’t walk fast enough to get there now, and see no other way to go.” Though Devlin begged the league office for his release so he could accept an offer from St. Louis, he found himself in Louisville again for a second campaign.
Devlin’s pitching vaulted Louisville to the top of the standings by August 1877, but on the ensuing Eastern trip they lost all eight of their league contests (tying one), and lost several exhibition games too. Left fielder George Hall, who on August 16 was hitting .373 as the Grays held first place, proceeded to bat .149 over the next eighteen games as the club plummeted from the top. Devlin and Hall confessed to throwing games and, with accused infielder Al Nichols and catcher Bill Craver, were banned for life.
In the winter of 1877–78, the distraught Devlin made his way north to Chicago to plead with Hulbert. Albert Spalding, present in the adjoining office of the suite he shared with Hulbert, recalled the meeting many years later, in America’s National Game (1911):
The situation, as he kneeled there in abject humiliation, was beyond the realm of pathos. It was a scene of heartrending tragedy. Devlin was in tears, Hulbert was in tears. . . . I heard Devlin’s plea to have the stigma removed from his name. I heard him entreat, not on his own account, he acknowledged himself unworthy of consideration, but for the sake of his wife and child. I beheld the agony of humiliation depicted on his features as he confessed his guilt and begged for mercy.
I saw the great bulk of Hulbert’s frame tremble with the emotion he vainly sought to stifle. I saw the president’s hand steal into his pocket as if seeking to conceal his intended act from the other hand. I saw him take a $50 bill and press it into the palm of the prostrate player. And then I heard him say, as he fairly writhed with the pain his own words caused him, “That’s what I think of you, personally; but, damn you, Devlin, you are dishonest; you have sold a game, and I can’t trust you. Now go; and let me never see your face again; for your act will not be condoned so long as I live.”
Devlin next wrote to Harry Wright, in the letter above, and cleared his name for play in the National Association of 1879, a minor league. He also played ball in San Francisco in 1880 and with New Orleans in the winter of 1881–1882. He may have played elsewhere, too, under his own name or assumed ones. In the spring of 1882, for example, he was playing for Trenton. When, on June 5, the Burlington Club refused to take the field against the Trentons because they employed a man who had been blacklisted from Organized Baseball, Trenton’s management dropped him.
This iconic figure of the new National League’s barely averted demise died a year later, at age thirty-four.
“I Am Honest, Harry” was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.