Kid Elberfeld

A lump of mud, thrown square into an umpire's open mouth. That's the story that follows Norman "Kid" Elberfeld out of the minor leagues and into New York -- and whether every detail of it is gospel, it captures the man well enough. Sportswriter Sam Crane gave him the nickname that stuck: the "Tabasco Kid," a shortstop so hot-tempered that he made Detroit's front office glad to be rid of him. New York, for its part, was thrilled to get him. Elberfeld arrived in a trade that turned out to be the best deal the New York Highlanders -- the barely two-month-old franchise that would become the New York Yankees -- made in their first decade, and he spent the next seven years as the scrappiest, most combustible player on a scrappy, combustible team.

Path to the Bronx

Elberfeld was born April 13, 1875, in Pomeroy, Ohio, to German immigrant parents -- his father sold shoes -- and the family moved to Cincinnati when he was three. He captained sandlot teams in the Norwood and Bond Hill neighborhoods as a teenager, playing every position on the diamond including catcher. Professional ball found him in Texas, then Virginia, where he hit .306 with 46 stolen bases for the Richmond Bluebirds in 1897.

His major-league debut got delayed by a bathtub fall that banged up his knee in spring training. He finally took the field for the Philadelphia Phillies on May 30, 1898, playing third base, doubling twice, and making two errors -- an appropriately chaotic beginning. Stops with the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers followed. In Detroit's inaugural 1901 American League season, Elberfeld batted .308 with 76 RBI, the Tigers' first .300 hitter.

The Detroit stint ended the way most Elberfeld stints ended -- badly, loudly, and with an umpire involved. Detroit suspended him for abusing an umpire, and Tigers manager Ed Barrow (yes, that Ed Barrow, later the architect of the Yankees dynasty) accused him of deliberately playing poorly to force his way out of town. On June 10, 1903, while hitting .341, Elberfeld got his wish. Detroit sent him to the New York Highlanders for veteran infielders Herman Long and Ernie Courtney -- the first trade in franchise history.

Highlanders Career

Elberfeld took over shortstop for a franchise that had played its first game barely two months earlier, and he'd hold the job through the end of the 1909 season. He wasn't a big hitter -- 5-foot-7, 158 pounds, no power to speak of (a rounding error next to some of the shortstops who'd wear pinstripes later) -- but he got on base, ran, and made life miserable for anyone who tried to take an extra bag against him. From 1904 to 1906 he hit for a higher average than any other shortstop in the American League, though injuries and suspensions cost him close to 90 games across those two peak seasons -- games that might have swung a pennant race or two.

His best year in New York was 1906, the same year Griffith handed him the captaincy -- Elberfeld became just the second man in franchise history to wear the "C," succeeding player-manager Clark Griffith, who'd held it since the team's first game in 1903. It wasn't an honorary title in the dead-ball era. The captain ran the defense, argued with umpires, and set the tone. Nobody set a tone like Elberfeld.

Captain, Manager, Casualty

By 1908, the Highlanders were a mess, and Elberfeld was about to become the answer to a bad trivia question. On May 1, with New York tied for first place, Washington outfielder Bob Ganley spiked him severely at short -- an injury that ended his season right there. He finished the year with 56 at-bats.

Worse was coming. Late that June, Griffith stepped down as manager, and ownership handed the job to Elberfeld -- passing over first baseman Hal Chase, who wanted it badly and didn't take the snub well. Chase split the clubhouse, and more than one account suggests he and his allies weren't exactly trying their hardest under the new skipper. Elberfeld went 27-71 (.276) the rest of the way, still the worst winning percentage of any manager in franchise history. New York finished 51-103, eighth place. Ownership let him go at season's end.

His standing with owner Frank Farrell never recovered. A 1907 suspension for "indifferent work" had already strained things, and by December 1909, New York sold him to the Washington Senators -- the very club he'd reportedly been angling to join. His Highlanders career, first trade to last transaction, had come full circle.

Life After New York

Elberfeld played two seasons in Washington, took 1912 off, then closed out his major-league career with the Brooklyn Robins in 1914 at age 39. He wasn't done with baseball -- not close. In 1915 he joined the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern Association and took over as player-manager late that season, launching a second career that outlasted his playing days by decades. He settled in Tennessee, bought an apple orchard on Signal Mountain (a strange, quiet final chapter for a man once famous for being impossible to deal with), and spent years developing players and scouting for a game that had chewed him up as a player and let him give something back as a teacher.

He died January 13, 1944, in Chattanooga at 68. He never got a Hall of Fame call, and given the era he played in and the era that eventually judged it, he probably never will. That's fine. Cooperstown was never really the point with Elberfeld. He was the guy who made a brand-new, barely-organized franchise a little tougher to play against, one argued call at a time.