Frank Baker goes home

Future Hall of Fame third baseman Frank “Home Run” Baker is coming off a 1914 season for the Philadelphia Athletics in which he leads the American League in home runs for a fourth straight season.

Understandably, Baker wants a pay raise from the $6,666 he receives in 1914 – earnings that in 2024 dollars equates to $205,600.

Baker presents his argument for a new contract to Connie Mack, the Athletics’ manager, part-owner and ardent protector of the team’s cash box.

While Baker wants more, Mack wants less.

Eddie Plank, left, and Charles Bender with the Athletics

Four months earlier, Mack releases his two best pitchers, Eddie Plank and Charles Bender – a pair of future Hall of Famers that Mack pays $4,000 to each in 1914.

Plank and Bender combine to win 32 of 42 decisions in 1914, leading the A’s to the World Series and, understandably, they also want a pay raise.

After Mack says no to both and releases them in October, he spends the winter of 1915 saying no to Baker.

Baker then announces 109 years ago today that he is retiring, just four weeks shy of his 29th birthday and less than two months before opening day.

Baker goes home to his family farm in Trappe, Md., content to sit out the 1915 season.

He eventually returns in 1916 after Mack sells his contract to the New York Yankees.

Baker plays another six seasons for the Yankees before retiring.

He is elected to the Hall of Fame in 1955, joining Jimmy Collins (1945) and Pie Traynor (1948) as the only third baseman at that time in Cooperstown.

Baker’s election comes eight years before his death in 1963 at the age of 77.

“I heard a fella say once he’d rather have a rose bud when he was alive than to have a whole rose garden thrown his way after he is gone.” Baker says during his induction speech in 1955.

“It looks like they’ve thrown the roses my way while I’m still here.”