[Big Six]

The Sporting News, May 23, 1934

ARCHIE GRAHAM'S STAR CROSSED OTHERS ON HIS WAY UP
Cubs' Standout Credits O'Farrell, Hitt For Aiding His Early Career

The Chicago Cubs have played terrific baseball this season, and one of the biggest reasons why is the play of Archie Graham. The fleet flychaser has kept his batting average north of .400 all season long, is touching home plate once a game, and has swiped 25 sacks. In each of these categories, “Moonlight” leads all National Leaguers, and were it not for Hank Greenberg’s 49 runs scored, Graham would pace the majors in each as well.

The soft-spoken and personable Graham, age 31, is a veteran of nine full big league seasons, and has played pro ball since 1921. His credentials include three All-Star game appearances; a batting title, which he earned when he swatted .386 in 1931; a World Series ring, won with the Cubs that same year; and a run of three consecutive National League stolen base crowns. Despite his numerous accomplishments on the ball field, Graham humbly credits two of the all-time greats of the game for starting him on the road to a career in the National Pastime.

“It happened in November 1920, right around the time of my eighteenth birthday,” Graham recalls. “I'm from Minnesota, but I had graduated from high school that spring and I was playing ball in California, hoping to catch on with a semipro club somewhere. I was in Sacramento when Roy Hitt’s barnstorming team came through town. I played for a town team against the barnstormers, and then I followed them to San Francisco. l met Pat O’Farrell and Roy Hitt in the hotel, and offered my services as a bat boy, errand runner, whatever it took to get a chance to watch the major leaguers play and maybe pick up a few pointers.

"Next thing I knew I was taking batting practice with the team and boarding a train for their next stop.”

Nothing could have prepared Graham for what happened next. “Ty Cobb suddenly decided to return home,” Archie explained. “It was something to do with his business interests back in Detroit or in Georgia, I believe. Anyway, we were suddenly short an outfielder, and Roy gave me Cobb’s uniform.”

The duds were too big for Graham, as they had been tailored for Cobb who, ironically, just missed being Graham’s teammate on the Cubs when Archie was traded there in 1928. That spring, 41-year-old Tyrus had attempted a come-back but failed to make the squad.

“I was so elated about the chance to play with the big leaguers that I would have played in a burlap sack,” a grinning Graham reminisced. “Imagine that: playing on the same team as Pat O’Farrell, Joe Jackson, Jim Nealon…and me, just a teenaged kid.”

Among his opponents were a squad of Negro League players, including Oscar Charleston who, of course, now plays alongside Graham in the Cubs outer garden. “That meant I was there when the plans to integrate the big leagues were being hatched,” Graham recalls. “If players like O’Farrell, Hitt, Joe Wood, Tris Speaker—the biggest stars in the game—hadn’t backed the idea and vouched for the men we played against on that tour, we wouldn’t have Negroes in the major leagues today. I’m as sure as I can be about that.”

Graham is also sure that Pat O’Farrell had a hand in his first offer of employment with a professional baseball team. “Pat put the word out that I was a promising player. I hadn’t hit much on the tour—maybe .200—but I had played the outfield well, and Pat thought I’d make a major league hitter one day.”

O’Farrell, then, was already displaying the eye for baseball talent that has served him so well as general manager of the Boston Red Sox. Before Graham knew it, the Philadelphia Phillies had signed him to a minor league contract; before Archie had fully accustomed himself to life as a pro player, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. Consequently, his path would cross O’Farrell’s once again.

“In 1922, I was playing with the Pittsfield [Massachusetts] club. Pat grew up in Stockbridge, which was just a few miles away, and his family lived there. He offered me a place to live in his home, and I became a member of the family. I loved spending time with his children,” Graham says.

Within two years, Graham was playing in the American League, just like his landlord and mentor, but he has never completely lost touch with O’Farrell. “We’ve visited each other when our families are in town,” says Graham, who is now married with two children himself. “I’ve watched the Red Sox in the World Series a time or two, and Pat has seen me play in the Series with the Cubs.”

Perhaps Graham, who has a lifetime batting average of .320, will one day join O’Farrell and Hitt as enshrinees in the Baseball Hall of Fame. “I can’t think of anything that would be a higher honor for me as a ballplayer,” Graham said. “If not for Pat and Roy, I wouldn’t be playing big league ball today.”