Hal Chase: The Dark Prince in Exile

He was the best first baseman anyone had seen—so good he could alter a game’s outcome without anyone noticing. Though never caught, “Prince Hal” was exiled to the murky world of outsider baseball

The Cave Bar, Nogales, Mexico 1931

A gruff voice sliced through the heavy early afternoon heat, shattering the silence that enveloped the tavern. “Hey, Prince - show us that batting stance that won you all those ball games and I’ll buy you a beer.”

The two dozen beer drinkers holding up the bar turned their heads to the dusty red-headed man hunched over an empty mug. At the invitation, the man who answered to “Prince” slid off his stool and gamely limped over to the rack of pool cues. Gripping the fat end of one of the sticks, he spread his legs and cocked his arms back like a powerful spring.

For a moment, he looked as natural in that batting stance as a man casually leaning against a post. Then the two dozen afternoon barflies commenced pitching balled-up newspaper pages at the redhead, who flailed the makeshift bat at the barrage. Most got past his stick, sailing behind him or grazing his face. Whenever he managed to swat one, it was retrieved and tossed back at him.

Various patrons called out “fastball,” “curve,” and “fadeaway” as they threw the balled up pages at the aging redhead. Then someone yelled “spitball!” and a beer-soaked newspaper ball hit the redhead’s thigh, leaving a wet mark on his dusty khaki pants.

When there was no more newspaper left, the redhead wiped the sweat from his brow and limped back to his stool, where a fresh mug of cool beer was waiting for him. This was what life had become for Hal Chase, the greatest first baseman of all time and biggest cheat baseball had ever seen.

LIFE DIDN’T HAVE TO end up this way for Hal Chase. In the first two decades of the 1900s, he was recognized as the best first baseman in the game and the acknowledged pioneer of how the position was played. Chase came out of Northern California, where he made a name for himself on the sandlots around San Jose, before turning pro with the Los Angeles Angels in 1904. From there, it was a short hop to the New York Highlanders, the club that would later be known as the Yankees.

Even the beginning of Chase’s major league career was engulfed in chaos. The major leagues and the Pacific Coast League had just settled a long-running dispute about the former stealing players from the latter. New York’s signing of Chase threatened to derail the fragile truce, but in what would become a pattern throughout his career, the storm would quickly blow over and be forgotten.

Hal Chase made his big league debut in 1905 and almost immediately became a sensation. One New York sportswriter wrote of his first impressions of the Highlander’s first baseman: “I took a look at Hal Chase the … new first baseman today and was impressed with his style. He is a natural ball player, fast as greased lightning, easy, confident, and brainy.” In 1906, The Sporting Life magazine wrote, “a more brilliant player does not wear a uniform,” and in January 1907 called him, “perhaps the biggest drawing card in baseball.”

He was also as arrogant as he was talented. Chase carried himself as if rules were only meant for others. He went on strike for more money in 1907, then defied league officials by playing winter baseball with an outlaw league in California. He refused to report again in 1910 unless the Yankees replaced manager Clark Griffith. They did, and when Hal Chase returned, management gave him a raise, and his teammates rewarded him with a silver loving cup. (You can see Hal Chase posing with the loving cup on one of his 1910 T-206 tobacco cards.)

He became known far and wide as “Prince Hal.”

What made Hal Chase so great? At the plate, his batting average wasn’t anything remarkable, but he was an artist when it came to that staple of deadball-era baseball: the hit-and-run play. To execute this high-risk, high-reward offensive strategy, the baserunner (or runners) attempt to steal as soon as the pitcher throws to the batter. The batter then must swing at the ball. This will result in either putting the ball in play or missing the pitch, both of which blocks the catcher from throwing out the baserunner. If the batter fails to do his part, the runner is humiliatingly left out to dry and tagged out. When executed correctly, it’s one of baseball’s most exciting plays, and Hal Chase could do it better than anyone in the league.

But it was the way he played first base that made Hal Chase a legend. Up until he broke into the majors, first basemen played close to the bag, but not Chase. He played behind the base, his speed and natural athleticism allowing him to be almost a fourth outfielder. He made flashy one-handed catches and gobbled up grounders that spoiled sacrifice bunt attempts. He flawlessly handled even the most errant throws, and he innately knew which base to throw a ball to. His speed on the bases was augmented by his sharp baseball mind that allowed him to take calculated risks that always seemed to pay off. And then there was that certain something that is even more rare than talent: magnetism.

PRINCE HAL was a good-looking guy. Easy with a smile, a sharp dresser, and the kind of person that, when he spoke to you, made it feel like you were part of an exclusive club. He knew his way around a poker table and was better than most professional billiards players. Sportswriters loved him for the way he confided in them, ladies swooned when he doffed his bowler hat to reveal his bright red hair, and kids playing first base modeled their game after him. I’m sure everyone has come across that type of person at least once in their life — I know I sure have. The thing with Hal Chase, though, was that he made full use of his magnetism for personal gain, and often for nefarious purposes.

As a famous ballplayer, Prince Hal hung out at the same late-night taverns and restaurants frequented by celebrities, a relatively new stratum of American society that included athletes, musicians, Tammany Hall politicians, writers, and Broadway actors. Also circulating in this orbit were professional gamblers, or “sports” as they were called in Hal Chase’s time. Always looking for inside information to use when placing a bet, the sports made a point of cozying up to the ballplayers. Little slips revealing seemingly innocuous tidbits, such as who was pitching the next day or that a star player was nursing a bad cold, were just the thing a gambler needed to gain an edge and make an informed bet. It was inevitable that this environment would turn from innocent slips of the tongue to lucrative full-on schemes to rig the on-field action.

A gregarious fella like Hal Chase felt right at home among the sports. He quickly figured out how they benefited from his colleagues’ loose talk and began to see how he, too, could profit from inside information. But why did he have to wait to stumble on valuable inside info — couldn’t he just make his own?

HAL CHASE’S MIND had now jumped the guardrails between right and wrong. His clever brain worked out all the ways that he alone could affect the outcome of a ballgame. The easiest was to strikeout at the plate — but that was amateur stuff, and something that suspicious eyes could easily clock. No, Prince Hal was better than that.

As the smoothest and surest-fielding first baseman in the game, Chase was able to make a ball getting past him look like the fault of a teammate’s errant throw — after all, if Prince Hal couldn’t get it, it had to be a bad throw, right? Remember how he was regarded as one of the best hit-and-run guys in the league? All he had to do was pretend to miss the sign for the hit and run, not swing at the ball, and leave the baserunner to be easily tagged out. And what if Chase played first base just a little too far back, causing him to arrive at the bag just a fraction too late to tag the runner out? Yes, Hal Chase could and would make his own inside information.

When exactly Hal Chase began fixing plays on the field cannot be said. It took a while for the rumors to gain traction, but by 1912, it had become an open secret. The problem was that no one could prove he was doing it — that’s how damn good he was at it. Besides, Hal Chase was to first base what Honus Wagner was to shortstop or Johnny Bench was to catching — he was the guy who set the standard for everyone who played that position after him. And as one of the biggest stars in the game, officials looked the other way on the occasions when word got around that some of Hal Chase’s misplays weren’t on the level.

When Yankees manager George Stallings voiced his concerns that his first baseman was throwing games, the team got rid of Stallings and replaced him with — you guessed it — Hal Chase! It wasn’t until 1913 that Prince Hal’s shadiness began to wear thin. New Yankees skipper Frank Chance made his accusations public, telling the press after one particularly tough loss, “Did you see what went on there today? Chase let those throws go right through him. He’s been doing that to me every day, throwing down me and the club.” The Yankees’ management finally tired of the bad publicity. In June 1913, Chase was traded to the Chicago White Sox for a .130-hitting first baseman and a utility infielder hobbled by bunions.

PRINCE HAL quietly performed his duties with the White Sox until June of the following year. The upstart Federal League had rocked baseball by luring away National League and American League players with big money contracts. At the time, the one-sided big league player contracts bound a player to his team in perpetuity, until traded or released. On the other hand, management could drop a player after giving a 10-day notice. Rationalizing that the 10-day clause should work both ways, Chase gave the Sox notice and signed with the Federal League Buffalo Blues. The White Sox and league officials went ballistic. They took Chase to court, but a judge ruled in Prince Hal’s favor.

Chase became one of the Federal League’s biggest stars. He batted .347 for 1914 and led the league in homers the following season. But after the 1915 season, the Federal League went bust, and the former big leaguers returned to their old teams. The White Sox had had enough of Chase, as did the rest of the American League, but the Cincinnati Reds of the National League decided to take a chance on Chance.

What happened next was downright impressive: Prince Hal turned in one of his finest seasons of his career, leading the league in both batting and hits and finishing second in RBI and slugging percentage. But major success on the field was not enough for Prince Hal, and that led to his downfall.

HIS UNDOING BEGAN when he involved other players in his schemes. As long as he was the only one taking all the risks on the field, everything was nice and tight. By opening the ring, he now had to put his trust in multiple people — and we all know that rarely works out for the best.

Chase began by offering bribes to his Reds teammates. Pitcher Jimmy Ring signed an affidavit in which he recounted how Hal Chase joined him on the mound as he warmed up for a seventh-inning relief appearance in 1917. “If you lose the game today,” said Prince Hal, “I’ll give you $50, as I have a couple hundred bet on the game for us to lose.” Ring refused, but in the end did lose the game. As Ring was headed to the locker room, Chase sidled up to him and said, “I’m sorry I told you about the money that I offered you, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.” Later that night, Chase dropped $50 in Ring’s lap as he sat in the lobby of the team hotel. The pitcher reported the incident to manager Christy Mathewson, but nothing came of the matter. A year later, outfielder Greasy Neale reported that Chase bragged to him that he won $500 after the Phillies swept the Reds in two doubleheaders. Neale turned double agent and asked Chase to let him in on any future action. A month later, the Reds were playing the Phillies at home. Before one of the games, Prince Hal asked Neale for $200 to put down a bet on a Reds win. Sure enough, Chase went 3 for 3 as the Reds won. Showing real class, Chase never paid Neale the full proceeds from the bet.

With him seemingly immune to any consequences, Prince Hal expanded his operation, with second baseman Lee Magee becoming his main co-conspirator. During a 1918 road trip to Boston, Magee claimed he agreed to join Chase in betting $500 on the Reds to win in the first game of a doubleheader — at least that’s Magee’s story.

Before the game, Reds pitcher Pete Schneider asked manager Christy Mathewson not to start him because he had heard rumors that some of his teammates were planning to throw the game. Mathewson started Hod Eller instead, and what followed was sheer folly. Eller was throwing a beautiful game, leading 2-1 going into the bottom of the ninth. With two outs, Lee Magee muffed an easy forced out, allowing the tying run to score. The game remained scoreless into the top of the 13th when Magee got on base with a 2-out single. Mathewson signaled for Magee to steal, but he comically took off late. The humor compounded when he arrived at second base safe due to the catcher’s wild throw. Edd Roush then hit a long fly ball off the outfield wall. Magee sluggishly took off from second, only Roush’s screams of “run you dirty son of a bitch” pushing him across the plate for what turned out to be an inside-the-park home run. In a turn of irony, it was Magee who scored the run that cost him the $500 bet.

Still, it took Magee’s welching on paying the bookie he placed the bet with for word to really get out. Now, Chase became more reckless and self-destructive by expanding his operations to other teams. On July 7, 1918, New York Giants pitcher Pol Perritt reported that the first baseman offered him $800 to throw a game. Perritt told his manager, John McGraw, who must have notified his old friend and now Reds manager, Christy Mathewson. Still, it would be another month until Mathewson took action.

According to sportswriter Tom Swope, it might not have been the evidence of Chase’s crooked shenanigans on the field that made Mathewson act, but a card tournament. All season, Christy Mathewson and sportswriter Jack Ryder played bridge against Hal Chase and Mike Regan on the long train rides between cities. Just before Regan left for the army, he confessed to Mathewson that he and Chase had been cheating all season by secretly passing signs to each other. Swope claimed it was just after this revelation that Christy Mathewson formally suspended his first baseman.

However, when it looked like Hal Chase would finally face the consequences for a decade of dishonesty, fate intervened. By the time the league held a formal hearing to look into the charges against Chase, Mathewson was serving overseas with the US Army. Also, Giants manager John McGraw now testified that he could not confirm Pol Perritt’s allegation that Chase had offered him a bribe and went so far as to vouch for Prince Hal’s “good character.” Despite testimony from Jimmy Ring, Greasy Neale, and Mike Regan, league officials officially exonerated Hal Chase. The Cincinnati Reds washed their hands of Prince Hal, but the first baseman would be back in the National League for the 1919 season, traded to John McGraw’s New York Giants.

NOW 36, Chase still turned in a good year, hitting .284 for the second-place Giants. However, towards the end of the season, Hal Chase and his game-throwing hustle unraveled.

In what must be the result of either feeling untouchable or the act of a degenerate gambler’s mind, Prince Hal enlisted teammates Jean Dubuc and Heinie Zimmerman to recruit the other Giants to throw games. Outfielder Benny Kauff and pitcher Rube Benton both reported that the dishonest duo offered them cash to throw games. Finally, in early September, both Chase and Zimmerman were out of the lineup. The last straw was when National League president John Heydler received a signed affidavit from a Boston gambler that Chase was connected to, and a $500 check given to the ballplayer for throwing a game. Although nothing formal was ever decreed, Hal Chase was quietly blacklisted from the major leagues.

With his major league career ended, Chase made a buck playing semipro ball around California. Meanwhile, Lee Magee, caught up in a bribery scandal of his own, revealed that he and Chase had teamed up to throw games during the 1918 season. To make matters worse, Chase was accused of trying to bribe Pacific Coast League players to lose games. The PCL and two other minor leagues banned Chase from even entering one of their ballparks.

It came as no surprise that after the Black Sox scandal blew wide open at the end of the 1920 season, Hal Chase’s name came up as having prior knowledge of the fix. But despite Rube Benton testifying that Chase had told him he had won $40,000 on the crooked series, no charges were filed, and he was never formally banned from Major League Baseball.

HAL CHASE was now at a career crossroads: his big league days were over, and he was banned from every minor league in California. With interest from the California fans waning, offers from semipro teams were drying up, too. Prince Hal needed a change of scenery. Fortunately, he crossed paths with a mining engineer who worked in Sonora, Mexico. He told Chase about the sport’s popularity along the border and the semipro teams operating far beyond the reach of organized baseball. Soon, an offer to play and manage for the Nogales Internationals of the Arizona-Sonora Inter-City League arrived.

As with everything in Hal Chase’s career, his arrival in Nogales, Mexico, kicked up controversy. When American League president Ban Johnson got wind of Chase playing for Nogales, he fired off a letter to Manuel C. Téllez, chargé d’affaires of Mexico in Washington. Mexico had just ended a decade-long revolution, and a rogue baseball player plying his trade in Nogales was the least of the country’s worries. According to the Sporting News, “Senor Tellez answered that of course his government had no authority over baseball, but he appreciated Johnson’s feelings in the matter, and also appreciated what it meant to the development of baseball in Mexico to take a stand against discredited players, and would see what representations could be made.”—diplomat-speak for “F-off.”

NOGALES is actually the name of two towns — one in the Mexican state of Sonora and the other in Arizona. Like many border towns, both Nogales’s could be rough at times, even when it came to baseball. According to Arizona baseball historian Lynn Bevill, just two years before Chase arrived, a disputed call in a game on the Mexican side between Nogales and a team from Douglas, Arizona, sparked a riot. Mexican army troops on hand panicked and fired into the crowd. One spectator was killed and a dozen wounded. The field was then cleared and the game resumed, albeit with a blood-stained pitcher’s mound. Douglas won the game, but Nogales fans set up a roadblock preventing the team from leaving town. They were only able to go home after they played and lost a rematch the following afternoon.

Hal Chase arrived in Nogales on June 20, 1923, and was immediately beset by protests from the Phoenix and Tucson clubs in the league. Besides not wanting Nogales to have an ex-big league star on their team, the other clubs did not want to run afoul of organized baseball by playing with a blacklisted player. This was odd because Tucson’s ace pitcher that season was Tom Seaton, a former big leaguer who, like Hal Chase, had been blacklisted for attempting to fix games in the Pacific Coast League.

Nonetheless, Nogales agreed not to play Chase until his status was cleared with organized baseball. That a very talented redhead no one had ever seen before, named “Taylor,” was now playing first for the Internationals was just a coincidence. Eventually, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis decreed that no action would be taken against ballplayers appearing in games with banned players. American League president Ban Johnson continued to rail against Mexico in the press, but eventually “Taylor” transitioned to “Chase” in the box scores.

The Nogales Internationals lineup was exclusively Mexican and Mexican-American players. The team had done very well in 1922 and was expected to dominate with the addition of Prince Hal. The two stars of the team were catcher Pete Azarte, who would play in the minor leagues from 1927-30, and Jose “Cowboy” Ruiz Elias, a righthander from Agua Prieta who would pitch for Chase’s Douglas team in 1925-26. When Nogales failed to pull away from the pack in the standings, Chase made two trips to California to recruit reinforcements. Meanwhile, a Nogales scout found a pitcher going by the mononym “Sigala,” formerly of Ciudad Juárez. This paid off, and the Internationals would post an 18-6 record with Chase at the helm.

Chase was popular in both towns of Nogales. On the Arizona side, Prince Hal was in demand by local businesses to advertise baseball promotions. He played ball with the local children and made headlines when he was awarded a pair of shoes for hitting the Internationals’ first home run. When the Wise Theater built an electric scoreboard to follow the World Series, it was named in Hal Chase’s honor. The Border Vidette wrote that Chase “is the idol of local fans. He is a star ball player and a thorough gentleman. Que mas? No foolin’ Nogales is for Hal, first, last and all the time.”

On the prohibition-free Sonora side, Chase was able to imbibe freely while making connections with local businessmen and politicians. These relationships paid off when Chase took the Internationals to Mexico on a post-season exhibition tour. Though advertised as going through to Mexico City, the tour was abandoned after reaching Juarez.

In December 1923, newspapers reported that Hal Chase was the new athletic director of the Mexican Army — although columnist John J. Peri probably was right when he penned, “Prince Hal always was a star in the bull-throwing contest.” Likewise, Chase reassured the Nogales fans that he would lead the team in 1924, but in reality, he and fellow outcast Tom Seaton had signed to play with a lumber company team in Northern Arizona.

LIKE MANY OTHER remote regions of the country, far away from professional baseball, bitter rivalries among towns were often settled by the success of their baseball team. Williams’ rival was the town of Flagstaff, while Clarkdale and Jerome had their own feud.

Prince Hal started the season as captain of the Williams team, but on June 20, it was announced that Chase resigned and joined the Jerome Miners for a higher salary. The circumstances of his leaving are unknown, but Prince Hal agreed to return to Williams for their annual Fourth of July series against their nemesis, Flagstaff. Chase kept his word and helped Williams split the 2-game series. In the four Williams games with box scores, Chase hit .471 with a double, triple, home run, and stolen base. He also committed four errors — interestingly, three were in the Fourth of July series loss against Flagstaff.

The acquisition of Hal Chase was a big coup for Jerome. The copper mining town was situated on a hill above Clarkdale, where the ore dug out of Jerome’s mine shafts was smelted to extract the copper. Both towns were run by the United Verde Copper Company, which also sponsored their respective baseball teams. Despite earning their paycheck from the same company, the animosity between the two towns often turned violent.

The Jerome Miners had been badly beaten in their first series against the Clarkdale Smelters, and revenge was needed to restore the dignity of the town. The first 2-game series with Chase was a bust. In the fifth inning of the first game, Jerome’s manager called his team together for a pep talk without the ump calling a timeout. The Clarkdale runner on second noticed the mistake and walked to third and then home to score. When the Jerome team’s protestations yielded no joy from the umpire, they forfeited and refused to play the second game.

With Hal Chase in the lineup, the Miners fought their way to the top of the standings. However, for Jerome, the real prize of the 1924 season would be to come out on top of their series with Clarkdale. The copper town augmented its pitching staff by recruiting three former Chicago pitchers, Win Noyes and Red Russell of the White Sox, and George Pierce of the Cubs. None of the three seems to have been tainted by game fixing accusations as Chase, but in the words of Arizona historian Herbert V. Young, “loud were Clarkdale’s accusations that the only way Jerome could win was by employing crooks.” Chase and the revamped Miners won three of their final four games against the Smelters, giving Jerome the edge in the tough inter-city series, five games to four. In the three box scores available, Chase batted .357 with a home run, three runs scored, and three errors.

What Hal Chase got up to after the season is a bit up in the air. Historian Herbert V. Young writes that Chase was let go by the United Verde Company because he did not seem to want to work and that he was caught stealing hospital supplies. None of these accusations is supported by solid evidence. The Jerome newspaper reported that Chase opened a restaurant in town, while other reports have him tending bar in Nogales. In the spring of 1925, reports surfaced that the Mexican government had asked him to organize a national baseball league, in which he would serve as commissioner. What we do know for sure is that in February, Prince Hal had moved on to the town of Douglas.

The final innings of Hal Chase’s career were about to begin.

IN 1925, THERE WERE an inordinately large number of blacklisted ballplayers roaming the country, hiring themselves out as ringers to small towns and company teams. Chase had already played alongside Tom Seaton in Arizona. Lee Magee circulated around the central Ohio semipro scene, and Jean Dubuc could be found on the sandlots of Montreal. Former Giants ace Bugs Raymond roamed the Appalachian region, and White Sox lefty Dickey Kerr covered the Midwest. But by far the most notorious blacklisted mercenaries were the eight players who threw the 1919 World Series: the Black Sox. And it just so happened that a new league was being formed that would welcome them and any other tainted ballplayers with open arms.

The Frontier League was a loose group of semipro teams from rough mining towns in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. Competition was fierce, the crowds rowdy, and the betting action hot. After some dissension from the other teams about hiring blacklisted players was settled, Hal Chase was made player-manager of the Douglas Blues. The season was split into two halves, with the winners of the first and second halves meeting for the championship. After Douglas failed to live up to expectations in the first half, Prince Hal recruited a couple of his former Jerome Miners teammates. When these new bats didn’t tip the scales, Chase went to California and brought back Buck Weaver and Chick Gandil.

The addition of the two Black Sox completely turned the Blues around. Weaver batted an awe-inspiring .469 and Gandil slugged .390 as the Blues tied for the second half pennant. Douglas lost the three-game playoff (some reports say it was a single game) to the Juarez Indians, who went on to beat the Fort Bayard Veterans, winners of the first half. Prince Hal shouldered the blame for the playoff catastrophe and stepped down as manager.

Word of Buck Weaver and Chick Gandil’s success in Arizona spread. For 1926, the re-named Copper League would feature not only Chase, Weaver, and Gandil, but fellow Black Sox Lefty Williams and newly banned Jimmy O’Connell of the New York Giants.
Gandil had jumped to Fort Bayard to join Lefty Williams and O’Connell while Weaver took over as manager of the Blues. Though he was 43, Chase was playing like he was in his prime, batting a sparkling .430 with four home runs and ten stolen bases. That’s when it all came crashing down.

On August 22, the team was driving back from a game in Fort Bayard when the car Chase was riding in slid off the road. Prince Hal’s kneecap shattered on impact, and the Achilles tendon in his other leg was severed when he went through the windshield. His baseball career was effectively finished.

HAL CHASE REMAINED in Arizona, selling Marmon automobiles for a time and making a very brief comeback attempt with El Paso. Business schemes fell through, and soon Chase was destitute, with things so bad that he pawned the silver loving cup his Yankees teammates gave him in 1910. His drinking, which had been increasing year by year, was soon out of control. There are stories of him begging friends for nickels and demonstrating his batting prowess by hitting paper balls with a cue stick in bars in exchange for a drink.

Prince Hal eventually returned to California, where he lived with his sister’s family. The wives from his two brief marriages had moved on long ago, and he was estranged from his only child. The years of alcohol abuse had destroyed his body, and he spent the last decade of his life in and out of hospitals. Before his death in 1947, Prince Hal tried to clear his name in a long feature in the Sporting News. He admitted to knowing about the 1919 World Series fix, but said nothing about fixing his own games. One comment serves to sum up the sad ending of the man whom Babe Ruth picked over Lou Gehrig as the best first baseman he’d ever seen:

“I’d give anything if I could start in all over again…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

To bookend the sad tale we started with, here’s an encounter with Prince Hal that billiards champion Willie Hoppe recalled when he was hustling pool in Douglas, Arizona in 1926:

“One night I’m looking for some action in the Smokehouse. The place is real quiet because of some ball game going on. I’m playing Eight Ball by myself. Around seven o’clock I hear this commotion outside. It gets louder. Walking down that dusty street there must have been a hundred or so fans. In the middle of the crowd are two players still in uniform. I couldn’t believe it. I knew both of them—Buck Weaver and Prince Hal Chase. They’re laughing and carrying on. Boy, that Prince was a pistol! He had maybe the prettiest black-eyed Mexican girl on his arm I’ve ever seen.

I’m trying to be nice. I say, ‘What about a little game of straight pool, Prince, for maybe twenty bucks.’ Prince Hal just grins at me. ‘How about two thousand, Willie?’ He snaps his fingers and this roll of bills comes across the table from the other direction. I don’t believe it. Hal is grinning. He was always grinning. Now I go on to say, ‘I only got a thousand on me, but will the cue cover the difference?’ Hal says, ‘Sure, Willie, we’re both gentlemen.’

He walks over to the rack, takes a cue, breaks, and runs the table twice, actually 35 balls. I get back in the hunt and run 33, I believe, before I scratch.

Hal then goes into real production. His crowd, of course, is behind him. He’s got ’em on a string. He starts prowling the table. He’s still wearing his spikes. I can still hear them clicking. Can you imagine, he’s playing the number one pool player in the world and he never even took off his spikes! He says, ‘Watch this action, Willie. Oh, isn’t that pretty!’ He ran 65 balls and beat me. I made a comeback, but I couldn’t catch him. I’m mad as hell, but a deal is a deal. I flip Hal my cue. He catches it, examines it casually, and flips it back to me. He says, ‘Keep your cue, Willie. You make your living with it. I’ll give you some advice, though. Don’t get attached to people or things.’”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There are two equally fine biographies of Hal Chase I recommend: The Black Prince of Baseball by Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella, and Hal Chase: The Defiant Life and Turbulent Times of Baseball’s Biggest Crook by Martin Donell Kohout.

Historian Lynn Bevill has written several well-researched pieces on Hal Chase’s Arizona sojourn, and John Smirch’s 3-volume Last Stand of Outlaw Baseball is a must-read, comprehensive dive into Hal Chase and the other blacklisted bums playing along the border in the 1920s.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This story is Number 88 in a series of collectible booklets

Each of the hand-numbered and signed 4 ¼” x 5 1/2″ booklets feature an 8 to 24 page story along with a colored art card attached to the inside back cover. These mini-books can be bought individually, thematically or collected as a never-ending set. In addition to the individual booklets, I envision there being themed sets, such as the series I did on Minor League Home Run Champions. You can order a Subscription to Season 7 as well. A year subscription includes a guaranteed regular 12 issues at a discounted price, plus at least one extra Subscriber Special Issue. Each subscription will begin with Booklet Number 078 and will be active through December of 2025. Booklets 1-77 can be purchased as a group, too.