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September 14, 2006

B-Sides: Tome reveals Three Finger Brown’s spunk

By Mark Bennett

TERRE HAUTE — Inside the pages of “Three Finger: The Mordecai Brown Story” are lots of reasons to admire this guy.

He saw his mangled right hand as a gift. He was a physical fitness devotee long before physical fitness was cool. He had endless patience with kids, stuck by his wife, lived clean, played hard and was renowned as a gentleman on and off the baseball diamond. Thank goodness, co-writers Scott Brown and Cindy Thomson assembled the tale of this long-gone Hall of Fame pitcher from Nyesville, Ind., because Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown indeed had fewer digits and a lot more conviction than most people.

But my favorite story from their new 242-page book reveals his spunk.

In 1908, Brown and his Chicago Cubs teammates finished the regular season tied with the New York Giants for the National League pennant. That deadlock led to a one-game playoff at the Giants’ home stadium, the Polo Grounds, to decide which team would face Detroit in the World Series. The New Yorkers — players, coaches and fans — thought the game itself was a sham because a technicality had cost them a victory over the Cubs in a September game, which, thus, led to a tie. And, when they finished the season with identical records, a replay was scheduled.

So 40,000 surly Giants fans filled the Polo Grounds seats on Oct. 8. Another 200,000 surrounded that quirky-shaped ballpark. Brown, the Cubs’ star, and some of his teammates had received written death threats. The source of several were an intimidating Mafia outfit known as the Black Hand Mob, who sent Brown letters — signed with a black handprint — promising to kill him if he pitched and beat the Giants. Gamblers were wagering heavily on this game.

Brown begged Cubs manager Frank Chance to let him pitch.

And as Three Finger waded through the sea of enemy fans to enter the Polo Grounds, his long fuse of patience ran out amid the taunts of the gamblers and mobsters. Brown shouted back, “Get the hell out of my way. … Here’s where you Black Hand guys get your chance. If I’m going to get killed, I sure know that I’ll die before a capacity crowd.”

Brown lived, pitched almost nine innings in relief and won. And then he and the Cubs won the World Series.

The “Three Finger” book is full of such tales that connect a life and personality to a pitcher only known to modern-day baseball followers as a guy who put up amazing statistics without an index finger on his throwing hand.

Scott Brown and Thomson began writing the book three years ago.

Uncovering Mordecai Brown’s life story wasn’t simple, given the passing of time. Three Finger died in 1948. But they found people who knew Three Finger in his later years when he ran a Texaco station in Terre Haute. And Brown’s great-nephew Fred Massey, who now lives in West Terre Haute, has direct recollections of his “Uncle Mort.” And Scott and Cindy found pictures, including the last known photograph of Brown before he lost his right index finger in a corn chopper at age 5 and then further damaged his hand by falling into a water tub while playing with a rabbit.

But the pictures of Brown afterward don’t show a man embittered by his infirmity. He’s either wearing a grin or a look of determination. In one, he’s reaching into the crowd to shake the hand of William Howard Taft, the president.

Not bad for a farm kid from Parke County with a gnarled hand.

And there’s a moral to his story.

“I suppose having something that you have to overcome really does build character and make you work even harder and appreciate what you’ve achieved,” Thomson said.

Aside from giving customers at his Terre Haute gas station souvenir “Three Finger” cards after his retirement from baseball, Brown never capitalized on his exploits. But he could have. He didn’t break into the majors until he was 27 years old. Yet he wound up pitching a whopping 3,172 innings, working both as a starter and a reliever. He won 239 games and lost just 129, and had a string of six consecutive 20-win seasons. And Brown led the Cubs — yes, the Cubs — to four pennants and two World Series titles.

The most amazing stat is his earned-run average — 2.06 for his career, and 1.04 in 1906. For you non-baseball fans, that’s like painting the Mona Lisa with your right hand while playing Mozart on the piano with your left.

Thomson is a freelance writer from Dayton, where she and her husband Tom have three sons. Scott, her cousin, works in the ministry in Pensacola, Fla., where he and his wife Dawn have three kids. Scott began researching their famous relative in 1992, when Mordecai’s great-nephew Fred Massey of West Terre Haute began a successful campaign to erect a monument in Three Finger’s honor at Nyesville. And when he decided to write a book, Thomson was an obvious choice as the co-author.

Through their work, they expected to find some dirt or nastiness, especially from a man who played in an era before baseball’s cleansing Black Sox scandal. And they intended to reveal it, warts and all.

“But we didn’t find anything like that,” Thomson said. “And that was a joy.”

Still, Three Finger savored life and said of himself, “I’m no Sunday school teacher.” Yet his conduct offered lessons worthy of that forum.

The book might make a good movie, though the authors haven’t been approached about it. Thomson has heard that suggestion, though, and could only think of Kevin Costner as a possible choice to play Three Finger. Scott thinks a “Three Finger” film would pack a message.

“If it does happen, my hope is that Mordecai’s story affects a generation,” Scott said. “It’s a story that you can go beyond what life dishes out.”

The 1908 Giants found that out.

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.

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