Essick persuaded the Yankees to sign DiMaggio

Knox alum helped find team's top talent

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

By Jesse Temple

The Knox Student

GALESBURG - The walkway between the New York Yankees' clubhouse and the home dugout in Yankee Stadium features a blue sign that hangs from the ceiling.

Inscribed in white lettering is a quote from Yankee Hall of Fame legend Joe DiMaggio. The quote is placed in full view to serve as inspiration for every ballplayer who wears Yankee pinstripes, laces up his cleats and steps on the baseball diamond.

DiMaggio was honored with a "Joe DiMaggio Day" before the Yankees took on the Boston Red Sox at the ballpark in the Bronx in 1949. The famous words were uttered before that October game when, at the tail end of his 13-year career, DiMaggio told the 69,551 in attendance, "I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee."

But actually, DiMaggio had Knox graduate Bill Essick to thank.

"Vinegar" Bill Essick graduated from Knox College with a degree in music in 1903. A stalwart on the pitching staff of the baseball team during his time at Knox, he was described as a right-hander "with great speed and fine control" who could "serve up delectable and bewildering twisters." A 1938 Collier's Weekly article stated that Essick "was studying to be a pianist and the records show that he played at commencement (meaning he was good)." But the 23-year-old abandoned a promising career as a concert pianist to sign as a pitcher with Salt Lake City.

For the first two seasons of his professional baseball career, Essick's future as a pianist looked much brighter than his future as a baseball player. According to baseball historian Ray Nemec, one of the founders of the Society for American Baseball Research, Essick led the league in losses in each of his first two seasons. He lost 23 games with Salt Lake City in 1904 before losing 30 games with Portland of the Pacific Coast League in 1905. The 1906 season was a different story, and Essick managed to turn his baseball career around. He had a record of 19-6 in Portland with a league-leading .760 winning percentage, when the Cincinnati Reds of the major leagues came calling in September.

It was when he reported to Cincinnati that the 5-foot-10, 175-pound Essick got his nickname.

Baseball historians Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright wrote that, "Reds fans, mostly of German ancestry, noted the similarity of his last name to the German word for vinegar, essig, and for the rest of his life he was 'Vinegar Bill.' "

But it was the Cincinnati Reds who left "Vinegar Bill" with a sour disposition. Essick's career in a Reds uniform lasted less than a full season. He finished the 1906 season 2-2 with a 2.97 ERA. By June of 1907, Essick was 0-2 with a 2.91 ERA, and Cincinnati sold him to St. Paul of the American Association. It was the last time Essick ever played in a major league uniform.

Essick spent the next five seasons bouncing around the minor leagues in St. Paul, Kansas City, Toledo, and South Bend before finding a home with Grand Rapids and quickly becoming the team's star pitcher. He tossed a no-hitter against Canton on Aug. 15, 1912. In 1913, he became part owner and president of the team as well as pitcher. Just two seasons later, Essick traded in his glove for a lineup card, taking over as the Grand Rapids manager and giving up pitching for good.

Essick led Grand Rapids to a second place finish in 1915. In 1916, just his second year as manager, Essick won the Central League pennant and repeated the feat in 1917. The Vernon Tigers of the Pacific Coast League hired him to manager their ball club to start the 1918 season. Proving his time in Grand Rapids was no fluke, Essick became the first Coast League manager to win three consecutive championships from 1918 to 1920, giving him five straight pennants with Grand Rapids and Vernon. He remained skipper of Vernon for five more seasons, but the Tigers spent most of their time at the bottom of the standings and Essick was replaced in the fall of 1925.

Career change

A door was opened for a new phase of Essick's baseball career. New York Yankees general manager Ed Barrow hired Essick to be a scout in the Yankees organization. Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright wrote that in 1920, "Essick had recommended Vernon outfielder Bob Meusel to the Yankees. New York purchased Meusel, who became one of their best players for many years." Barrow had not forgotten that recommendation and as a result, one of his first moves in rebuilding a Yankees team that finished seventh the previous year was to hire Essick. "Vinegar Bill" spent the next 25 years as the West Coast baseball scout for the New York Yankees.

As a scout, Essick looked for a good throwing arm, baseball savvy, and most importantly, speed.

"A kid who isn't fast is a dead loss because you can't teach speed to a guy," Essick told Collier's Weekly.

Essick found all those elements and more when he saw an 18-year-old center fielder named Joe DiMaggio play his rookie season with the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League in 1933. He knew the moment he saw DiMaggio that the Yankees had to have him. DiMaggio batted .340 with 28 home runs, led the league with 169 runs batted in and hit safely in 61 consecutive games, a Coast League record. Needless to say, the major league scouts were drooling over DiMaggio's potential. A bidding war began for DiMaggio's services, and Seals owner Charley Graham was asking nearly $100,000, a massive sum during the Great Depression. But one spring evening in May 1934, a freak accident brought the screams from bidders down to less than a dull roar.

Sportswriter Red Smith recounted the event in his Nov. 9, 1981 article in the New York Times.

"Joe had a dinner date at his sister's house and he was late. When his taxi pulled up he started to jump out, and his left knee popped like a pistol. He had to be helped into the house and on to a hospital, where he stayed for several weeks."

DiMaggio had suffered torn cartilage in his knee. New York Times writer Dave Anderson wrote that "the original diagnosis was strained tendons," so DiMaggio continued to play for the next two days, making the injury worse. DiMaggio was then fitted for an aluminum splint, which he was forced to wear for three weeks. When he got out of the hospital, only one scout was waiting for him - Bill Essick of the New York Yankees.

DiMaggio had fallen so far out of good standing with major league scouts that his minor league team couldn't even give him away. The Chicago Cubs turned down a no-risk tryout. Essick kept track of DiMaggio during the 1934 season and was convinced that he had returned to his 1933 form. DiMaggio hit .341 in 1934 but missed several games after he slipped in the dugout and his leg collapsed again.

Essick's efforts were tireless.

Red Smith wrote that Essick placed a call to George Weiss, director of the Yankees' new farm system.

"Don't give up on DiMaggio," Essick said. "Everybody out here thinks I'm crazy but I think he's all right. Let me watch him a couple of weeks more." Weiss responded by saying, "If it had been anybody else but Essick, I would have called him off but I had complete faith in Bill."

A few weeks later, Essick and Weiss traveled to West Baden, Ind., where Yankees owner Colonel Jacob Ruppert was on vacation. The two men showed Ruppert the report of an orthopedist who confirmed DiMaggio's leg was okay. They also presented Ruppert with Essick's hand-written report of DiMaggio, which stated DiMaggio "has all qualifications to develop into an outstanding major leaguer."

Convinced, Ruppert authorized payment, and in November 1934, the Yankees obtained DiMaggio for $25,000 and five minor league players. As a provision, DiMaggio had to remain with San Francisco for the 1935 season, where he batted .398 with 34 home runs and 154 RBI in leading the Seals to the PCL championship and being named the league's most valuable player.

Essick's work in nabbing DiMaggio prompted Arch Ward of the Chicago Tribune to remark in 1935 that, "Knox College has not lost all of its athletic prestige [because] Bill Essick, chief scout for the Yankees, is a graduate of the Galesburg school."

As a Yankee, DiMaggio played in 13 All-Star games, 10 World Series Championships and was named American League MVP three times. His 56-game hitting streak in 1941 remains a major league record. DiMaggio's graceful play on the field earned him the nickname "The Yankee Clipper," and he is considered by many experts to be the greatest all-around player in baseball history.

Tough to replace

In December 1950, Essick resigned as scout for the New York Yankees at age 69. The New York Times called him, "one of the Yankees most successful talent seekers." Al Wolf of the Los Angeles Times wrote that, "while Babe Ruth had 'built' Yankee Stadium, it was Bill Essick who had stocked the place with many of its greatest stars," including Hall of Famers DiMaggio, Lefty Gomez, and Tony Lazzeri.

DiMaggio played his final game on Oct. 10, 1951, doubling and scoring a run in a 4-3 victory over the New York Giants to help clinch the World Series in six games for the Yankees.

As his greatest prospect said goodbye to baseball, Essick said goodbye to the world. Two days after the Yankees recorded their 13th world championship in the 25 years since Essick began with New York, the ex-Yankee scout died in his sleep, passing away at age 70.

Just months before his death of a heart ailment in October 1951, Essick told the Los Angeles Times, "The purchase of DiMaggio for $25,000 is my fondest recollection. It's an old story now, but the moral is still good - to stick with something when you believe you're right. Everybody was after Joe and it appeared that the [San Francisco] Seals would get at least $100,000 for him. Then he hurt his knee and the others lost interest. But I felt it was not serious and that he had a great future. So we bought him and had the knee fixed. I think the [doctor's] bill was $25."

Essick's death reverberated in the Yankees organization for years to come. In 1960, the Chicago Tribune reported the Yankees were calling on new scouts on the west coast to restore "New York's fallen baseball team to its accustomed position of power." The Tribune stated, "Until the early 1950s, the Yanks dominated the coast free agent field - mainly because of two top scouts - Bill Essick and Joe Devine." Both passed away in 1951.

In February 1979, DiMaggio was honored by the New York Board of Trade with a luncheon. When DiMaggio got up to speak, he had not forgotten his old friend.

"Bill Essick was the scout who insisted on the Yankees buying me," DiMaggio told those in attendance. "A wonderful man. He lived across the street from us for years."

Essick's legacy lies in more than his signing of Joe DiMaggio. Yankees Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel gave both Essick and Devine credit for the Yankees world championships under his management.

"They rounded up the players," Stengel said. "I just shooed 'em out on the field."

Hall of Fame manager John McGraw once remarked, "A manager is worth $5,000 and a good scout $50,000 a year to any ball club." But Essick's influence on the New York Yankees and the game of baseball proved invaluable.

From the time he broke in with the Yankees, DiMaggio was an American icon and fans adored him everywhere. He had songs written about him. "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio" was recorded during his 56-game hitting streak in 1941. A poll conducted in 1969 to coincide with the centennial of professional baseball voted him as the sport's greatest living player. A monument of the "Yankee Clipper" was erected in Yankee Stadium, and a highway was officially renamed in his honor.

Joe DiMaggio passed away in March 1999 after a long battle with lung cancer. With his health deteriorating, a second "Joe DiMaggio Day" was held at Yankee Stadium in September 1998, nearly 49 years after the first. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner declared, "Joe DiMaggio is a national institution, and he is a living symbol of the pride, class and dignity which are synonymous with the Yankee pinstripes." Maybe in the end, the Good Lord should thank Bill Essick for making Joe DiMaggio a Yankee, too.