"BASEBALL'S SAD LEXICON"---TINKER TO EVERS TO CHANCE

Have you always wanted to know just what is meant by the famous expression: "Tinker to Evers to Chance?"

Here is the story, in brief: It was a Chicago Cubs double-play team---short-to-second-to-first or second-to-short-to-first, in the year 1902 and after. These three Chicago Cubs players first appeared in a game together on September 2,1902. They turned their first double-play the next day. This famed trio would never have existed if Cubs manager, Frank Selee had not done some serious juggling to his team's roster. He decided that back-up catcher Chance would be better at first base. Chance moved to the new position "kicking and screaming" but soon forgot his objections.

Tinker, originally a third baseman, shifted to shortstop. And Evers, who was originally a shortstop was switched to back-up second base. However, in the September 2, 1902 game the second baseman broke his ankle and Evers replaced him---from then on.

There is some sentiment among baseball experts that, as good as this combo was, they may have gained much of their fame from a most-famous poem by newspaper sports writer Franklin Pierce Adams titled "That Double-Play Again," in the July 12, 1910 New York Evening Mail. Three days later the same paper reprinted the poem under the title we know today: "Baseball's Sad Lexicon." The poem can be sung to the catchy French ditty "Viva La Compagne."  Here is Adam's poem:

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly picking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double---
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance were all a part of the Chicago Cubs World Series-winning teams in 1907 and 1908, as well as the pennant-winner in 1910. All three players were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Some baseball experts have thought their inductions--particularly Tinker and Evans-- were based more on the fame generated by Adam's poem, than by their playing ability.

(Writer's note: a "gonfalon," in line five of the poem meant a pennant or flag--in this case the
League Title.)

Now, after all these years, I know what "Tinker to Evers to Chance" actually means!
By Mil
Sent from my iPad