Baseball Writers: Hugh Fullerton

By Patrick Mondout

Hugh Fullerton III was one of the most well known sportswriters during the first half of the 20 Century. He helped found the Baseball Writers Association of American (BWAA) and they later rewarded him with the Spink Award.

At a glance... HUGH S. FULLERTON FULLLERTON Facts Born 1873 Died December 27, 1945 Dunedin, Florida Hall of Fame 1964 Spink Award QUOTE "To have the correct answer one must know Fullerton."        --Grantland Rice

Well known is his time, he is perhaps best known by modern readers for his role in forcing Organized Baseball to investigate the Black Sox scandal. Fellow Chicagoan and broadcaster Studs Terkel played him in the film Eight Men Out.

BaseballChronology has a number of baseball articles written by Hugh S. Fullerton:

1909: On the Bench
1909: Deciding Moments of Great Games
1910: Seeking the .300 Hitter
1912: How to Win Games
1912: Baseball Fans
1912: Freak Plays
1912: Physics of Baseball
1912: The Baseball Primer
1921: Why Babe Ruth is Greatest Home Run Hitter

His protégés included fellow Spink winners Ring Lardner and Grantland Rice. The latter wrote a biographical puff piece on Fullerton, which we are including below:

INTERESTING PEOPLE
The greatest baseball reporter in the world, described by Grantland Rice.

ANY man who has seen 3561 games of baseball, who has scored 178,569 put outs, 98,562 assists, 14,442 stolen bases and 3987 double plays, must be fairly well posted upon the lore and workings of America's national game. 

Hugh S. Fullerton—Chicago "Chooey"— has not only seen 3561 games while scoring 178,569 put outs, 98,562 assists and the rest of it, but in each play of each game he has taken the time to figure out the whys and the wherefores—the causes and effects—as he went along, with time enough and energy enough and enthusiasm enough left to look about him and reflect upon whatever else life had to show along the trail that was interesting or complex or both.

Fullerton is a vital part of baseball. The game has produced but one Wagner, one Anson, one Mathewson, one Lajoie, one Cobb—and one Hugh S. Fullerton.

There are others who have seen as many games—who have watched these games as closely. But there have been few others with all of this who have had as keen an insight into the spirit of both play and player and who have achieved deductions with so much skill and keenness—who have excavated as deeply beneath the surface for all of importance that might lie below the obvious and who have applied the result of these excavations to the general trend of the contest.

To have the correct answer one must know Fullerton. If Hughey were breaking in as a young pitcher he would be listed by the war scribes as a " tall and rangy guy." He is well over six feet and his frame is as lank as his eyes are keen and as his drawl is magnetic, and there isn't much around him that his eyes miss seeing or that his ears miss hearing. On a training trip with some ball club, no one will watch the work of the players with any more intentness. But in addition Hughey is reflecting upon the different shades of climate encountered, the varieties of food and cooking along the way, the character and actions of the natives met with in each hamlet and the modes and customs of the trail he is taking in general detail. It may be the manner in which french fried potatoes are handled one day and the condition of the putting greens upon some local course the next, but in either instance it is a certainty that Hughey has studied both carefully and overlooked no point of interest in his summing up.

The only wonder is that he can go to all of it with so much enthusiasm. His specialty is whatever happens to be at hand—whether it be baseball, cooking, golf, climate, people or local industries. For Fullerton is almost as much of an expert at cookery and climate as he is an expert upon diamond affairs. Whether it be at broiling a steak, boiling an egg, compiling meringue, frying a sausage or baking a pie—or the general average of cross currents in South Carolina or dry days in Oregon, the author of "Touching Second," "The Inside Game" etc., is primed and poised for the test.

After graduating from Ohio State University and working through a spring training on a country weekly, Fullerton broke into baseball as a scribe under Comiskey's regime in Chicago. And like the Old Roman, one of the chief causes of his success has been the faculty of making friends and interesting them with a magnetism that isn't to be denied.

This faculty has kept him in close touch with the players and he is one of the few baseball writers who can "pan" a ball player in picturesque detail and still hold his friendship; for the player knows that Fullerton is fair and will be quick enough to change when there is cause for praise.

One would think that after scoring 178,569 put outs, the average scorer would be about ready to close his book and turn to something else. But the most rabid fanatic in the land is not more interested in the present pennant campaigns than the man who has in detail 18 flag races in the past.

One of the chief causes of Fullerton's success as a baseball historian, beyond his own insight and powers of deduction, is the great esteem in which he is held by most players and the faith they have in his judgment. Here's an example. One morning he was out completing some base running tests with Tyrus Cobb, the Detroit star. Cobb faced a hard contest that afternoon and yet continued to make play after play from home plate to the different bases while Hughey held the stop watch. Finally Fullerton noticed that Cobb's time was lagging considerably. He looked at his watch and saw that the speed tests had extended beyond two hours and yet the fleet outfielder had made no complaint of overwork. The answer was Fullerton—a mixture of likeable drawl, friendly manner, keen pleasant eyes and attractive personality that made even the Georgia Ghost forget that his $10,000 underpinnings were getting to be a bit fagged and weary.

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NOTES: The biographical sketch of Fullerton by Grantland Rice appeared in the August, 1912 edition of The American Magazine.