The Promising Life and Tragic Death of Austin McHenry

Considered one of the best left fielders in the game after his brilliant1921 season, Cardinals outfielder Austin McHenry saw his career reach apremature end on July 31, 1922 at the age of 26.  Tragically, he wouldlose his life only four months later.

By the time he was 25 years old, St. Louis Cardinals outfielder AustinMcHenry was considered one of baseball's best outfielders and hitters,especially after enjoying a 1921 season that saw him finish with a .350 battingaverage, second only to teammate and future Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby.McHenry also finished second to Hornsby in slugging at .531, placed among thetop five National League hitters in doubles, home runs, RBIs, total bases, andextra-base hits, and was one of only six N.L. hitters with 200 hits thatseason. Combined with a strong arm and an easy gait that was sometimes mistakenfor indifference, McHenry was considered not only one of baseball's bestoutfielders and hitters after his remarkable 1921 campaign, but one of the tenbest left fielders of all time to that point in baseball history. Hisperformance tailed off in 1922 as he battled inconsistency at the plate and inthe field, caused mostly by problems with his vision that had McHenry fearinghe was going blind. Concerned about his health, Cardinals manager Branch Rickeysent McHenry to his home to rest, where it was discovered the star outfielder had a brain tumor.Tragically, he would lose his life only four months later.

Austin Bush McHenry was born on September 22, 1895 in to Oscar and Hannah (Jones) McHenry. He was the oldest of two children,preceding his sister Alice by two years. He grew up in in and played baseball throughhigh school, but it wasn't until 1914 when he came under the tutelage of scoutBilly Doyle, who ran a baseball school for young players in , that he really began to show off hisabilities. McHenry started out as a second baseman but was shifted to theoutfield where he found immediate success. "There he shone with brilliancy,"wrote the Portsmouth Daily Times. "It seemed that no one could hit itover his head and he was a genius on coming in for short line-drives over theinfield. He had the uncanny intuition of playing for this and that batter andit was not long until Manager Gableman made him a regular. From that day onMcHenry by his consistent playing began to make baseball history for himself."

He signed his first professional contract with of the Class D Ohio State Leaguein 1915 at the age of 19 and helped lead the Cobblers to a pennant. McHenry wasgifted but raw, and according to the local newspaper, "...was not on speakingterms with the finer points of the national game." But what he lacked inknowledge he made up for with hustle, eagerness, enthusiasm, and adetermination to succeed. Soon he was drawing comparisons to Ed Delahanty andTy Cobb and was said to have "an arm of steel." And he could flat out hit,prompting the Portsmouth Daily Times to call him a "veritable demon atthe bat" and insist, "...his batting was a feature of almost every game." But hehad plenty of help from a roster that included eight players with previous orsubsequent major league experience, an amazing total for a Class D team in theDeadball Era. One of those men, catcher Pickles Dillhoefer, would eventuallybecome McHenry's teammate on the St. Louis Cardinals, and two of them,Dillhoefer and Ralph Sharman, would also suffer premature and tragic deaths.

McHenry's first season as a pro was a successful one as he batted .297 andslugged .421, and finished second on the team in home runs with four. He beganthe 1916 season with but was sold to the American Association's Milwaukee Brewers in July for $300.McHenry spent the rest of the season with the Brewers but struggled, hittingonly .240 and slugging .326 in 72 games. He was also the victim of a beaningthat seemed fairly innocuous at the time, especially since he was able tocontinue playing after a short rest, but would later be blamed for the tumorthat eventually took his life. McHenry was farmed out to of the Central League in the spring of 1917 and batted .270 with two homers in22 games, before being recalled to ,where he batted .235 with four homers in 102 games.

At first glance it looked like McHenry had another poor season, but only twoof his teammates had as many homers, and they had the benefit of 500-at-batseasons, whereas McHenry recorded only 373 at-bats for the Brewers. In terms ofat-bats per home run only Johnny Beall had a better season than McHenry, whowas becoming one of the better home run hitters in the high minors. TheCincinnati Reds were clearly impressed and purchased his contract after the1917 season for $2,500. But after he suffered a broken nose during a springtraining game in 1918, he was returned to on March 28.

McHenry made the most of his situation and began depositing balls into theseats at a league-leading rate. He belted five homers in 170 at-bats over 44games to lead the American Association in home runs through June, whichprompted the St. Louis Cardinals to acquire his services on June 12 forutilityman Marty Kavanagh, pitcher Tim Murchison, and a player to be namedlater. McHenry reported to the Cards on June 20 and made his major league debuton June 22 in the first game of a doubleheader against the very team thatreleased him earlier in the year. He failed to record a hit in two officialat-bats (although he reached base when he was hit by a pitch from Reds hurlerPete Schneider), but he showed off his powerful arm and recorded two assistsfrom left field. He also played in the second game and went 1-for-5, rappingout his first major league hit, a double, and scoring his first run.

He spent the rest of the 1918 season anchoring left field for the last-placeCardinals and proved to be a promising major leaguer. He batted .261 with ahomer and 29 RBIs in 272 at-bats and finished fourth on the team with sixtriples, and among the regulars only Bob Fisher (136) and Walton Cruise (134)posted a better OPS+ than McHenry's 109. On defense he was a little shaky,posting a fielding percentage and range factor that were below average, but hemade up for it with strong, accurate throws that resulted in 14 assists,placing him among the top 10 outfielders in the National League despite playingin only 80 games. But that year also brought him troubling news when he learnedthat his former outfield mate at ,Ralph Sharman, drowned on May 24 while swimming in the Alabama River at near . Sharman wasonly 23 years old and had temporarily left a promising big league career withthe Philadelphia Athletics to join the Army.

Although McHenry played well in 1918, he entered the 1919 campaign withlittle fanfare. Baseball Magazine called him a "capable performer,"which paled in comparison to the glowing review the magazine gave fellow rookieflycatcher Cliff Heathcote, dubbed a "kid collegian who promises to make a realstar." But Cardinals manager Branch Rickey had high hopes for McHenry andordered his coaches to spend additional time with the youngster hitting him flyballs and throwing him extra batting practice. McHenry began the 1919 season asthe team's fourth outfielder, occasionally spelling starters Heathcote, BurtShotton, and Jack Smith, but mostly serving as a pinch-hitter and runner. Hebegan to find more time in the starting lineup in late May and eventuallyunseated the injured Shotton as the starting left fielder.

The extra preseason work paid off as McHenry vastly improved his glove workand committed only three errors, leading the team with a .985 fieldingpercentage and finishing fourth among National League outfielders, and recorded20 assists, good for fifth in the N.L. He also improved at the plate, batting.286 and slugging .404, second on the Cards to Rogers Hornsby, and led the teamwith 11 triples, which placed him among the top 10 in the league.

Others began to take notice. The Reds, realizing their earlier mistake,offered Rickey $25,000 for McHenry in September, but Rickey rejected the offerand insisted his prized outfielder would play for no one but the Cardinals. Anewspaper report in early September gushed about McHenry's play, calling him "ayouth of exceptional promise...who can hit, field, and run the bases," and whowas "one of the most talented outfielders to break into fast company in someyears." Sportswriter Frank Menke observed that all of the phenoms that joinedthe N.L. around the same time as McHenry were back in the minors while theCardinals outfielder was one of the "reigning sensations of 'Big Time.'"

New York Giants manager John McGraw coveted McHenry as much as the Reds didand speculation was that the young outfielder might eventually land in . But it wasdoubtful would be willing to part with its new young star. The Miami Heraldreported on September 9, "...the fact that such an offer [by ] was unhesitatingly rejected isindicative of the value which Rickey places on the boy's services."

McHenry earned a starting nod in 1920 and split his time between left andcenter field in a makeshift St. Louis outfield that had five players shuttling inand out of the lineup, including Heathcote who had yet to live up to his hype.But his stint in almost became shortlived when he contemplated a jump to the Agathon Steel team, a Massilon, semi-pro industrialleague team led by former Federal League catcher George Textor. At the time,industrial league teams were luring current and former major leaguers and minorleaguers and those with major league aspirations by offering them jobs andmajor league level salaries. Textor and "several Agathon scouts" followed theCardinals to and offered McHenry a contract, but Rickey learned about the negotiations andput a stop to them before he could lose his prized outfielder.

Despite a decrease in his OPS+ and in his fielding percentage in 1920,McHenry enjoyed another productive season, establishing career highs in severalcategories. He batted .282 with a team-leading 10 home runs and 65 RBIs, andslugged a career-best .423. He also improved his range factor, finishing 10thamong N.L. outfielders, and recorded 21 assists, good for sixth in the league.Only Cy Williams, Irish Meusel, and George "Highpockets" Kelly hit more homeruns than McHenry in the National League. After belting only two round-trippersin his first 643 major league at-bats, McHenry was suddenly among the topsluggers in baseball.

It helped that a new era in baseball had just begun. The Deadball Era hadcome to an end in 1920, partly due to the ban on the spitball, and home runswere up 26% across the league and 41% across the majors. The days of "smallball," in which teams manufactured runs with bunts, steals, and the hit-and-runwere giving way to more potent methods of scoring ushered in by Babe Ruth inthe American League and Williams, Kelly, Hornsby and McHenry in the National.

By May 1921, the New York Times railed about a home run "epidemic"sweeping through the majors and warned that records would tumble by season'send, blaming the onslaught on a new "livelier" ball: "It is true that therestrictions which were imposed upon pitchers, starting with the opening of the1920 pennant races and still in force, have made hitting easier, but even thisdoes not explain the great advance in home run hitting. The fact that manyplayers who seldom hit for the circuit have branched out as long distancesluggers is not explained satisfactorily by changes in pitching rules. They areno stronger physically than before, yet their drives are carrying far beyondthe former limits."

Complaints about the new ball were met with denials by the manufacturers whoinsisted they were following the same procedures in manufacturing that they'dalways followed, except that they were using a better grade of Australian wool,which could have explained the increase in home runs. In St. Louis the boost infour-baggers was especially obvious in the batting lines of first baseman JackFournier, who had five as of May 23, after hitting only three the year beforeand posting a career-high six in 1914, and McHenry, who had four circuit cloutsin only 93 at-bats, putting him on pace to hit 25 over a full season.

McHenry didn't hit 25 home runs in 1921, but he finished the season with acareer-high 17 to go along with a .350 batting average and 102 runs batted in.He also recorded his first 200-hit season (201), and set career highs in runs(92), doubles (37), steals (10), walks (38), on-base percentage (.393), andslugging (.531). It proved to be a special year for the 25-year-oldup-and-coming star as he finished second in the batting race to his teammateHornsby, second in slugging, also to Hornsby, third in RBIs, fourth in homeruns, and fifth in doubles. He also fielded at a .965 clip, improving on his1920 mark, and posted a career-best 2.53 range factor, good for seventh in theN.L. And the team was getting better as well, finishing at 87-66 and in thirdplace, after finishing no higher than fifth over the three previous seasons,and averaging only 60 wins during those seasons.

McHenry's 1921 campaign was so impressive that he was named one of the 10best left fielders of all-time by an anonymous source cryptically referred toby The Sporting News as "one of the most highly regarded of Easternbaseball critics."

"This is interesting, as it shows a growing appreciation of the real worthof this sterling player. He has not in the past received all that is his due.Even in the fans, though they would resent any intimation that McHenry is not among thegreat, probably have not rated him as he deserves. His work is not of thespectacular sort, he does not furnish great thrills. If he makes a shoestringcatch that would do credit to a [Tris] Speaker, it's so neatly done thespectators can't realize the difficulty of it. If he goes far afield for a longdrive he ambles over the ground with a stride that makes it appear he is justout for practice. That's the McHenry way and before he showed that he wasgetting results he was even accused by some who did not study him as inclinedto be indifferent. McHenry is without a question one of the game's greatestoutfielders. And he is one of the game's greatest hitters."

McGraw, who still coveted McHenry, was so impressed with his 1921 showingthat he reportedly doubled the previous high offer ('s $25,000) and offered Rickey$50,000 for McHenry over the winter, but the Cards' exec refused to budge.Hornsby and McHenry were two of the league's best hitters, and "Spittin' Bill"Doak anchored an improving pitching staff that also featured future Hall ofFamer Jesse Haines and 25-year-old Bill Sherdel. If the Cardinals were totopple the Giants in the upcoming pennant race, they'd need all of their bestplayers to do it.

But tragedy struck the team in late January 1922 when catcher PicklesDillhoefer contracted typhoid fever and landed in in in seriouscondition. He remained in the hospital for a little more than three weeks butnever recovered, dying on February 23 at the age of 28. Dillhoefer's funeralwas held in , ,where he'd been married only a month before, and was attended by members ofboth teams, including Rickey, Sherdel, Milt Stock, Verne Clemons, and scout CharleyBarrett of the Cardinals, and Browns catchers Hank Severeid and Pat Collins.

Spring training had barely just begun when news of Dillhoefer's deathreached camp. It was the second time in four years that McHenry had lost afriend and former teammate. Once he settled back into playing ball, though, McHenry got off to anice start with a home run on March 7 and was looking to repeat his 1921performance. When the regular season started he picked up right where he leftoff the season before, recording hits in each of his first six games andbatting .348 with three doubles and three runs scored through April 18. He alsorecorded two assists in his first two games. By the end of April he was hitting.310 and slugging .483 and had seven extra-base hits in 15 games. He wasn'tquite as good in May, though, batting .290, but slugging only .409, to drop hisnumbers on the year to .298 and .437, respectively. And after hitting fourhomers in his first 26 games in 1921, McHenry had only two after 43 games in1922.

But as the weather heated up in June, so did McHenry's bat. In the month'sfirst nine games, McHenry batted .485 with 10 runs, six doubles, and twohomers, and he enjoyed a stretch from June 6 to June 12, in which he recordedat least two hits in each game and batted .542. By mid-June, the Cards' buddingsuperstar had his average up to .332 and was slugging at a .511 clip. For allintents and purposes, it looked like McHenry was on his way to duplicating hisbreakout 1921 season. But he couldn't sustain his torrid pace and batted only.191 in his last 11 June contests. At the end of the month, he was batting .306with five homers, slugging .474, and was on pace to post numbers that wouldhave fallen neatly in between his last two seasons, not as good as 1921 butbetter than 1920. Regardless most of the Cards' faithful were unimpressed andbegan to boo McHenry. Only the kids refrained from razzing the outfielder."When he got back near the knothole gang, they cheered him as they always had,"recalled Rickey. "Men abandon their friends in the give and take of ordinaryindustry, but boys are always loyal to their heroes."

Finally something happened with McHenry in late June that concerned Rickeyand proved to be more serious than anyone fathomed. In a game against the Redson June 26, Rickey noticed McHenry was struggling to catch fly balls and askedhis outfielder if he was okay. "Yes, I feel alright," McHenry assured hismanager, "but I can't see. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm going blind."Rickey removed McHenry from the game and replaced him with Les Mann, thenordered McHenry back to his home in to rest.According to McHenry's friend and former mentor, Billy Doyle, the spot aboveMcHenry's left temple where he'd been hit by a pitch in 1916 had become soreagain six years later and had affected McHenry's eyesight. Doyle would laterinsist it was the beaning that caused the tumor that resulted in McHenry'sdeath.

McHenry stayed in Blue Creek until late July when he rejoined the Cardinalsin for a series against the Giants. He made his last start on July 28 in the firstgame of a doubleheader, going 0-for-4 and recording a putout in the field.Three days later, on July 31, he made his last major league appearance, pinchhitting for Jack Smith in the seventh inning of '6-2 victory over . McHenry singled inhis final big league at-bat and drove in Milt Stock then left the game forpinch runner Eddie Dyer. Despite his successful turn at the plate, Rickey couldsee that McHenry was still ill and sent him home again.

On August 10, Hugh Fullerton reported in the Chicago Tribune thatMcHenry wouldn't be back with in 1922: "Austin McHenry is out of it for therest of the season--and losing a .330 hitter is not helpful. McHenry after sixweeks of idleness due to illness joined the team on the eastern trip, but hishealth was so bad that he was sent home from . Both Rickey and the coach, JoeSugden, said today that McHenry would not be of any use to the team during therest of the season."

At the time of the report, the Cardinals stood in first place and sported aslim one and a half game lead over the second-place New York Giants. But ittook only two days for the Giants to claim the lead in the National League, andby the end of August, the Cards found themselves six and a half games off thepace and battling the Chicago Cubs for second place, leaving Rickey lamentingthe loss of McHenry.

"[The Cardinals] are a club that needs a lot of runs to win," Rickey toldreporters. "It didn't get them on the last eastern trip. [] Hornsby fell off a bit in hitting.[Jack] Fournier's fielding became so unsteady that I had to get him out ofthere and McHenry was so ill that I sent him home. Of the three McHenry'sabsence I think was the most disastrous."

McHenry was finally admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in where doctors discovered that thefallen player had a brain tumor and would need a risky operation to remove it.The news was devastating but the God-fearing McHenry seemed resigned to hisfate, telling relatives, "It seems hard that so young a man as I must die, butI am ready when the Master summons me." Prior to surgery, he told Rickey, whohad become a good friend, that he felt like he was up to bat with the basesloaded and a 3-2 count, but promised to "hit at the next one."

McHenry went under the knife on October 19, but the surgeon, Dr. GeorgeHeuer, couldn't remove the whole tumor due to its location. Regardless, thesurgeon hoped McHenry would make a full recovery. Less than a month after theoperation, however, The Sporting News questioned whether McHenry wouldever be well enough to play ball again. The paper soon got its answer whenMcHenry was sent home from the hospital on November 22 with no hope ofrecovery.

Less than a week later, McHenry died at his home in Blue Creek on November 27with his wife Ethel, daughter Leone, and son Bush at his side. Upon hearing thenews of McHenry's death, Rickey issued a statement to the press: "We do notlook upon the death of as that of a ballplayer, but as a dear friend. He was one of our most popularplayers, and was a particular favorite of the younger fans, especially theyoung boys."

The Sporting News was equally eloquent. "No ball club ever had amore loyal player and there are few outfielders in the game today who are asgood as McHenry was at his best. His death is a distinct loss to baseball."

McHenry was laid to rest in 's next to a church that overlooked his home. He was only 27 years old.

Mike Lynch is the author of Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League and It Ain't So: A Might-Have-Been History of the White Sox in 1919 and Beyond, and the founder of Seamheads.com. This article first appeared on Seamheads.com on November 30, 2008.