"The Chief Admirer and Supporter of Baseball": Charlie Murphy, William Howard Taft, and the Influence of Public Relations

Abstract

"The Chief Admirer and Supporter of Baseball"Charlie Murphy, William Howard Taft, and the Influence of Public Relations Jason Cannon (bio) Charlie Murphy covered sports as a young journalist in Cincinnati, Ohio for the better part of twelve years, from 1892 through 1904. By 1900, Murphy, a creative thinker with an astute business mind, concluded that National League owners had two public relations problems. Rowdy behavior by players concerned some of the fans, and the manner in which the owners ran the business side of their franchises raised questions about monopolistic practices and alienated a significant segment of baseball's fan base. Murphy believed that those two issues were causing attendance to fall and teams to lose money. His observations convinced him that the sport needed a public relations campaign to refashion its image, so, after he became the president of the Chicago Cubs in 1905, he created one. Murphy propagated the fandom of President William Howard Taft as evidence that baseball was a clean, democratic game worthy of enthusiastic public support. The genesis of Murphy's public relations campaign initiated in the hallways of New York's Fifth Avenue Hotel, a luxurious palace located on Madison Square, and the site of the 1900 National League winter meeting. Murphy, who, as a scrappy reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, covered baseball's offseason as ardently as he did the games themselves, traveled to New York in December for the gathering. By 1900, he was well connected in the game as a result of having lived and worked in Cincinnati for a decade. In the 1890s, the Queen City called future members of the National Commission Ban Johnson and Garry Herrmann residents, in addition to Charlie Comiskey and Murphy, both of whom went on to own franchises in Chicago. All four met as young men in Cincinnati. Murphy used his connections to learn about what was happening behind the scenes of the industry, and he aimed to do so again. Upon arrival, he scoured the hotel's hallways and bar for the latest baseball news, or "dope," as it was called in those days, for his articles. He was interested in potential player transactions, but he was primarily interested in learning if [End Page 64] the magnates had a plan to address the deteriorating public enthusiasm for attending their baseball games. Murphy had strong opinions on the topic and readily shared them. He believed that the National League owners had to stop undermining their own system for the good of the sport and the survival of their businesses. Murphy wanted the magnates to fully support the disciplinary measures against rowdyism handed down by National League President Nick Young even when he handed down punishments against their own players. The issue was becoming increasingly important in light of the crusade against obnoxious behavior by Ban Johnson, the young president of the nascent American League. "This will be a week of baseball politics," Murphy relayed to his readers. "And there are many important questions confronting the club owners, chief of which is the decline of public interest and a possible means by which the game may be successfully boomed."1 Despite facing a serious threat, Murphy questioned whether the owners could work together harmoniously to successfully combat rowdyism, boorish behavior exhibited by players toward umpires and one another, even though it was in their complete control to do so. Fresh off their financial losses, one by one, the grim owners slumped through the hotel's doors. The inquiring scribe learned from his conversations that most of them held Young responsible for allowing "dirty ball on the field." Their accusation left Murphy incredulous. "Young is merely a scapegoat if he is forced to withdraw," he exclaimed. "The magnates themselves, as THE ENQUIRER has pointed out many times in the past, are the real ones to blame, for they have refrained from disciplining kicking players, and also have abused and protested even the best umpires in the country. When such first-class officials as Tom Lynch and Tim Hurst are made objects of the faultfinding magnates, so much as to be practically banished from the game, what can a more aggressive successor to Nick Young accomplish...