El Paso Herald · El Paso, Texas · 1913

How Great Men Play the Game: Joe Wood

Cartoonist Scar studies Joe Wood of the World's Champions in 1913: the same pose for every pitch, constant practice, a wonderful slow ball, and did you ever notice how nice and clean he keeps his shoes all through the game?

In the summer of 1913 the El Paso Herald carried How Great Men Play the Game, a syndicated cartoon series signed by an artist named Scar that ran in papers around the country, and this installment takes up Joe Wood, labeled on a banner simply “Pitcher, World’s Champions.” The Red Sox had won it all in 1912 with Wood winning games at a rate nobody could quite believe, so the great man label was fully earned.

Scar’s observations run from the professional to the forensic. “To deceive the batter Wood uses the same pose for every ball he pitches,” hands clasped behind his head. “He attributes his masterly control to constant practice. When on the field he is always throwing the ball.” And “his wonderful slow ball (the talk of all big-league pitchers) is pitched with a straight overhand delivery,” rendered mid-windmill with a dotted arc tracing the arm.

Then comes the detail only a cartoonist would put in a box of its own, a close-up of two shoes radiating light: “And did you ever notice? How nice and clean he keeps his shoes all through the game!” Sixty feet from home plate, dirt everywhere, nine innings, immaculate footwear. Some men are simply built different, and Scar had the good sense to document it.