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  • Imagining the Smoke KingReflections on Writing a Baseball Biography
  • Gerald C. Wood (bio)

I was both flattered and embarrassed when I saw the description of the 1912 World Series in Ken Burns’s documentary Baseball. Like a young boy searching for a hero, I was impressed that Joe Wood and I have the same last name. I was also disappointed in myself that I had never heard of Smoky Joe. A few months later, when I read Lawrence Ritter’s classic The Glory of Their Times, I found Wood riveting because of his interesting life, his passion for the game, and, most of all, his engaging voice. So I read a few pieces on Joe and looked at the website managed by cmg Worldwide. By then hooked, I quickly became frustrated that the information there couldn’t be used to contact anyone close to its subject. No fans or groupies of Smoky Joe Wood need click on “Contact Us.”

Undaunted, I wrote the manager of the site, explaining that I might loosely be called a legitimate writer. And we found a way. I wrote the unnamed director of the Wood archives a letter, which was forwarded by the cmg employee in a printed form. Luckily, I was home on a Friday night about a month later when my phone rang, just as I was settling into my second glass of Don David malbec wine. The caller id said it was from Keene, New Hampshire. Not knowing anyone from that town, I started to walk back to my computer, when I heard a strong voice on the answering machine describe himself as the son of Smoky Joe Wood. After knocking over a chair, a box of books, and my shrieking cat on the way to the phone, I picked up the receiver just as the caller was finishing his brief message. Not frightened by the breathless voice squeaking out a weak “Hello” on the other end, he introduced himself as Bob Wood, a son of the famous pitcher.

Of course, I traveled to Keene, New Hampshire, the first time I could. Bob and his wife, Connie, lived in a wonderful old New England home, built, as I remember, in the early nineteenth century, originally as a tavern. They put me up and took me to their country club for dinner. Bob, who loved his Bud Light beer, generously shared from the large stash crowded into his refrigerator. More [End Page 119] to the point, Bob showed me a few large scrapbooks fashioned by Joe’s brother, Pete, and retained by Laura, Smoky Joe’s wife. They included many clippings from Joe’s playing days, family portraits and snapshots, and even an article on Joe’s engagement to another woman, May Parry, probably kept by Joe’s wife as a reminder of how lucky he was to have sidestepped that Red Sox groupie. A few months later I returned to Keene, from where Bob and I traveled to the family homestead in Shohola, Pennsylvania. We had beer at Rohman’s, a local hangout frequented by movie stars, from John Garfield to Paul Newman, and sports figures, from Babe Ruth to Mario Andretti. We also visited the family gravesite and traveled on to Cooperstown, where we had lunch and he chatted up everyone he met while I searched the Joe Wood papers.

Next to material in Bob’s hands, the most essential documents were the local and national newspapers. Just as I was getting into detailed research, the Pro-Quest link to digitized historical papers cut off their access to the sabr website. Fortunately, there is a library out of Dubuque, Iowa, that allowed remote access to sabr members, for a mere $104 per year. Not digitalized, the Cleveland papers were more of a problem. At the Cleveland Public Library, the Eugene Murdock tapes were crucial in establishing Joe’s role in the 1926–1927 scandal. Thanks to Charles Alexander for building the collection and Matt Gladman for the invitation to present to his baseball class (where I joined Charles and Rick Huhn), I found the relevant Cleveland newspapers at Ohio University.

Then came the fun part—standing on the ground once...

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