On August 24, 1919, Ray Caldwell donned a Cleveland uniform for his first time. It's a scorching hot day, but it is clear for now. The 20,000+ League Park fans have no idea they are about to witness something unbelievable. Caldwell will relay the story through Caldwell in two hours.
Caldwell takes the mound to a roaring crowd. The cheers get louder as Caldwell shows that he is at his best. The stakes are high for Caldwell, a right-hander from Cleveland. He was just waived by the Red Sox. His once promising career had almost stopped before that day. This is his last chance.
He was a great pitcher, and was considered a transcendent talent five years prior to his drinking issues that led him to the fringes of baseball. Tris Speaker, a Cleveland player/manager, decided to give Caldwell another chance in an effort for the playoffs. This seems like a brilliant move.
Caldwell is nicknamed "Slim" by his 6-foot-2,190-pound frame. He leverages every inch of it to produce an elite fastball and curve. He mostly relies on his out pitch, one of the best in baseball. Caldwell's pitch is legal. The A's lose for two hours. They manage four hits and one walk through eight innings.
The clouds start to roll in fast off Lake Erie. The players of Cleveland, who are used to experiencing the mood swings caused by the lake-effect weather, assume their positions and try to get three more runs before the sky opens up.
He quickly toes the rubber, as the rain starts to pick up. To open the inning, he gets two quick infield popouts. There's one more. The wind howls and the storm is fully upon the field.
As he is about to set the ball, a flash of lightning strikes the field. Ray Chapman, shortstop, feels an electric surge run down his leg. The lightning strike's violence causes players to jump for their lives. Steve O'Neill, Cleveland catcher, later said that he took off his mask and threw the metal mask as far as he could. "I didn’t want it to attract any bolts towards me."
Everyone looks around five seconds after the bolt touches the ground. All eight Indians position players are fine, but Caldwell, their new teammate, is not. Caldwell lies on his back with arms outstretched, cold on the mound. Caldwell was directly struck by the lightning strike.
Caldwell is rushed by players, but Caldwell's first touch raises him in the air. He claims that Caldwell has zapped him.
Everyone just stares and steps back. Caldwell's chest is still smoldering where the bolt charred it. They are afraid to touch him and they don't.
They all wonder if Ray Caldwell is still alive.
Ray Caldwell, aged 25, finally learned how to harness his immense powers. He captivated national attention with an 18-9 record for New York and a 1.94 ERA. Bain News Service photograph collection/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington
FROM THE FIRST time he picked up a baseball, Caldwell was a breathtaking talent with a knack for landing in no-way-that-really-happened situations. Caldwell was the youngest child of divorced parents. His father was a minister who moved to Europe. Historical records don't know what kind of relationship they had. Caldwell was captivated by his stepfather's career and married again to his mom. Caldwell was a telegraph operator for railroads until he reached the big leagues.
Caldwell was a right-handed pitcher and a left-handed hitter. His stock skyrocketed from the moment he signed as a 20 year-old with a semipro league. He was pitching for New York Highlanders in 1910 two years later. His first four years were spent playing for poor New York teams. He was 32-38. His run support was historically poor even in the dead ball era. Caldwell once threw 52 consecutive scoreless innings... and his teams never scored.
Caldwell was 25 years old when he finally learned how to harness his abilities in 1914. Caldwell went 18-9, with a New York ERA of 1.94. He was regarded as an emerging star over the following years. Grantland Rice once stated that Caldwell could be just as good as Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson. Washington considered trading Johnson for Caldwell in the early days of their careers, but the American League president warned Washington that it was a poor move because Caldwell had too many potential. John McMurray is the chair of the Society for American Baseball Research's dead ball era committee. "Caldwell looked like an all-time great early in his career." He had that level talent."
Caldwell's wheels started to crumble around that time. Caldwell had serious drinking problems, which newspaper columnists at the time called "irregular behaviors" or "outbreaks in misbehavior". Caldwell had been repeatedly suspended, fined and then released for his alcohol abuse. Yankees manager Bill Donovan became so frustrated in 1916 that he suspended Caldwell for two weeks and fined Caldwell. This turned into six months when Caldwell did not return. Caldwell disappeared without any trace, not even his family. Caldwell returned to the surface in March and later it was reported that he had gone to Panama under an assumed name.
Ray Caldwell was a great player. He was returned to the Yankees for the 1917 and 1918 seasons. However, his off-field problems continued to be so severe that the team hired two detectives to follow Caldwell 24 hours per day. The Yankees released Caldwell after he kept slipping his tail.
In 1919, he signed with Boston and was 7-4 with a 3.96 ERA in three seasons. The Red Sox inexplicably kept Caldwell in the same room as a 24-year old superstar on road trips. He would also develop a penchant to "outbreaks" of misbehavior, Babe Ruth. Caldwell was soon cut by the team in August after realizing that it was a disaster.
Caldwell signed any contract that was offered to him when Speaker summoned him just weeks later. It's a good thing that Caldwell was summoned by Speaker to sign a contract that Cleveland offered him, which baseball historians now consider one of the most unusual in history.
Caldwell was required to pitch on game day and then get plastered. Franklin Lewis, a historian who wrote "The Cleveland Indians", says that Caldwell was confused by the contract.
Caldwell looked at the document and said, "You left out one thing, Tris." "Where it states that I have to get drunk after each game, the word not was left out. It should read, "I'm not to get drunk."
The speaker smiled. "No, it means that you are to drink."
The speaker then described a strict regimen Caldwell had to follow every week. He would pitch, then drink his mandatory drinking duties on game days. After he was done, he could skip the next day's game and go to bed to recover from his hangover. Speaker asked him to be at the ballpark as early as possible so he could run as many wind sprints and as many as he felt he needed. Caldwell was asked to throw the first pitch three days later. You can pitch, drink, sleep and run. Rinse and repeat.
Historians believe Speaker was a true innovator as both a player and manager. They gave Caldwell a free day of unrestrained alcohol so that he might be able stay on track for the remaining three days of a pitching cycle. Steve Steinberg, a dead ball era expert, says that he has never heard of anything similar. "And I cannot imagine anyone offering a deal such as that today."
Caldwell shook his head. Caldwell shrugged.
Caldwell returned to the mound five days later in desperate need of making an impression.
Caldwell pitched in the first game at Ebbets field on April 5, 1913. Bain News Service photograph collection/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Right around the time everyone on the field is ready for Caldwell to be declared dead, Caldwell, 31, starts to groan and crawls back up to his knees.
While teammates are happy, everyone keeps their distance from that guy whose chest was on fire. As he walks to the hospital, they offer to take him on a walk. Caldwell, however, is skeptical.
He says, "I have one more to get."
Speaker is so insistent that he eventually walks back to centerfield and allows him to stay on the mound in an effort to complete his entire game. Caldwell turns to Chapman, and says, “Give me that danged ball and I'll turn you toward the plate.”
For a moment, umpires Brick Owens & Billy Evans are positioned around the mound while players return to their positions. Jumping Joe Dugan, A's shortstop, digs in at plate and waits for the umps. Owens and Evans finally look at one another and smile. They say, "Play ball."
The lightning strike had caused a panic among fans, sending them running all around. While many leave the game right away, those who are brave enough to stay put will find their way back to their seats.
Caldwell grooves his pitch, and Dugan takes a huge cut, connecting on a hard grounder for third baseman Willie Gardner who can't manage it well. He catches it, and hurries to throw it to first. Dugan is out and Cleveland fans are still there, as shocked as the players. Ray Caldwell survived lightning strikes and just won a complete-game victory in the most important game in his life.
Evans spoke to the media on that day. He says, "We could all feel the electric shock running through us systems, especially in our legs."
Caldwell was brief and sweet afterward with the media: "Felt as if somebody came up with an iron board and hit my head on the top and knocked it down," Caldwell told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Although it's difficult to determine if Caldwell was trying to hustle to make it to the bar after his pitching performance, the fact is that he fulfilled all of his contractual obligations in 1919.
Caldwell, 1913. Six years later, Caldwell, having been struck by lightning on the mound, would tell the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he felt like someone had come up with a board and hit him on the head. Bain News Service photograph collection/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
This sounds like a tall tale from a century ago. Is it possible for a man to survive a lightning strike and then receive another one?
Yes, it is.
Lightning is one the most bizarre phenomena in nature. Many striking images seem to show lightning shooting upwards from the ground. People frequently ask whether lightning strikes from above or below the earth. Lightning strikes both the ground and the sky, but that is not the truth.
It's like Wi-Fi. Lightning requires a partner from below, just like Wi-Fi does. A thunderstorm's charge blasts down, but it must find an opposing charge from the ground. This is called an "upward lead". Multiple strikes can end up finding partners in the same area, spreading a charge (between 100 million to 1 billion volts) to any upward leaders it can locate -- flagpoles or trees, or people. Many lightning strikes are seen splintering rather than one large bolt. Some look like an arm reaching for the sky and others reaching for the earth.
John Jensenius, lightning expert, assesses the circumstances surrounding Caldwell's death and concludes that it was likely an upward leader strike. Direct strikes are uncommon, especially in dense areas like a stadium. This means that other objects in the vicinity likely absorbed some voltage from Caldwell's bolt. Jensenius, a retired National Weather Service employee who is affectionately called Dr. Jensenius, says that people can survive lightning strikes. Lightning. "But I don’t know if they wake up and take the last out of a game of baseball."
Jensenius claims that most of the lightning-specific details are true, except for those players who claimed they touched Caldwell and felt an electric jolt. Jensenius states that the human body is not a battery. It cannot conduct electricity.
Caldwell also believes that rain and sweat may have helped him become a lightning receiver. What if Caldwell was covered in spit, and other liquids that he used to treat baseballs? Dr. Lightning says.
He takes a moment to pause. He pauses for a second. "Did pitchers really do this back then?"
Again, the answer is yes.
1919 saw baseball get involved in a similar debate to the one we are currently having. Pitchers were too dominant and had the ability to make the ball do strange things that would change the game. There were many advantages to them back then, including large stadiums and managers who enjoyed playing small ball. But perhaps the most significant obstacle to offense was the way that pitchers were allowed in their home to alter baseballs.
You can scuff, cut, spit, repeatedly sand down one side of the ball. It's all legal. Caldwell did not reveal his personal recipe for spitball, but the most popular mix at the time was spit mixed in slippery elm bark. The elm bark would be sucked by pitchers, creating spit with extra goopiness. Petroleum jelly, tobacco juice and licorice were some of the other ingredients.
Caldwell and other spit wizards could work on a baseball for almost an entire game without being penalized. Owners complained so much about the need to purchase extra baseballs that they made it illegal for fans to keep home runs or foul balls. (How many balls are used in a game on average? Two.
Owners tried to ban spitball in 1920, but fan anger grew over the lack of offense. The spitballers worked hard and got owners to agree to a bizarre compromise. In 1921, 17 of the remaining spitballers were grandfathered into the league. They were able to treat baseballs like no one else.
Steinberg says that there are "eerie parallels" to the current conversation. Steinberg has written extensively on the dead baseball era, and Ray Caldwell in particular. Is baseball going to change the rules for some of its current stars or create new rules that will ruin their careers?" The owners had to make a difficult decision back then. Keep it simple or give in to pressure.
The owners managed to manage both back then.
Caldwell began to slide two years after his lightning strike season. Caldwell bounced around from the bullpen to minor leagues before finally retiring in 1933. National Baseball Library
In 1919, the rebirth of Ray Caldwell begins with Cleveland.
Caldwell throws a no-hitter against New York three weeks after being struck by lightning. Caldwell finishes 1919's season 5-1, with a 1.71 ERA. The Indians now have all the pieces to make a run for the 1920 playoffs.
He and Stan Coveleski, a fellow spitballer, give Cleveland a deadly 1-2 punch in 1920. Their combined total of 44-24 and 46 complete games sees Cleveland win their first World Series title.
Caldwell begins to slip the next year. Speaker puts him in the bullpen but Caldwell is eventually suspended by the manager for alcohol issues. Later that year, the team let him go. "Whether it was alcohol or maturity, he couldn’t string it all together," says Jeremy Feador, team historian. He had a great last chance in Cleveland.
Caldwell continues to bounce around the minor leagues 12 years more, winning 140 games and making a good living at the fringes. He's now a 43-year old grandpa in his fourth marriage and is currently at Keokuk, Iowa of the Mississippi Valley League. He will have earned $49,000. From baseball when he retires in 1933. His later years are spent running his farm, as a telegrapher and teaching kids baseball. He also works as a casino greeter.
Caldwell passed away in 1967, but he is still a popular subject for baseball historians. His incredible career included 292 wins over 4,400 innings of minor league and pro baseball, a stint as Babe Ruth’s bunkmate, the oddest contract in MLB history and a disappearance from Central America for half of a year. He also experienced one of the most dramatic lightning strikes. Steinberg states that he is one of the most colorful and complicated characters I have ever written about. "And he was practically unhittable for several years."
Caldwell and Stan Coveleski, a fellow spitballer, were a deadly 1-2 punch for Cleveland on their way to the 1920 World Series. F.A. F.A.
DURING NONPANDEMIC TIMES, Feador's favorite job as Cleveland's team historian involves doing road shows. Feador is often invited to museums, libraries, and historical societies. His presentations last 45 minutes with 15 minutes for questions and answers. Feador is usually a bit older than the crowd, but he is often surprised by the number of 10-year old baseball fans who stare at him.
He recounts the history of Cleveland baseball chronologically, beginning with 1869 and continuing through the sad-sack years of the late 1800s. In 1899, the team was 20-134 after Stanley Robison, brothers, sent all of Cleveland's top players to St. Louis because they wanted to increase attendance.
This gives Speaker a cinematic look back to 1919 and 1920, when Speaker was a legend whose out-of-the-box thinking helped create a unique, great team. He is credited with being the first manager to attempt platooning players. His decision to take Smoky Joe Wood, a broken-down pitcher, and put him in the outfield was unprecedented at the time.
Feador gets to the 1920 World Series title around 10 minutes into his presentation. However, he likes Ray Caldwell to keep in his pocket for the remaining nine minutes, in case anyone's attention starts to wander. He takes 60 seconds to talk about Speaker's gamble at reviving Caldwell’s career, the bizarre contract that he signed, his brilliant talent, and the prevalence at the time of spitball.
He then drops it on them: "Boom! You hit 'em that lightning bolt and that spiced things up. This is the story that inspires kids to learn about history.
Feador rides the wave of the 1920 World Series season, where Jaws always touch the ground and people sit straight. He then proceeds to tell the story of Cleveland baseball. He takes a lot of time to talk about great accomplishments. He is looking forward to discussing the recently announced switch to Guardians.
Everyone usually stands up when Feador is finished and claps. After Feador is done, everyone stands up and claps. Then questions start to appear from the crowd. Fans want to know more about Shoeless Joe Jackson's trade to the White Sox, and to hear any Kenny Lofton or Jim Thome stories.
Then, someone inevitably picks up the microphone and asks, "The lightning strike man... did that really happen?"
Feador laughs every time and insists that it did. He speaks about how many media people wrote about the game right afterward and how Washington and Cleveland players spoke for decades about Slim Caldwell's burning chest.
He often finishes his answers by quoting the plaque he wrote, which hangs at Progressive Field's third-base line. "Caldwell had perhaps one of the most electric debuts in Cleveland Indians history."
