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| With Stoneham's mumbled words, Chase's career was finished. But, as with many events during Chase's career, one has to decipher the real and imagined versions. One version of Chase's banishment from baseball states that the Giants did not offer Chase a contract at all. Another has the team offering Chase a contract, but one that paid so little it would have been a foregone conclusion that Chase would reject the offer. Chase himself told a different story. " McGraw (offered a contract and) even offered me a raise. But I turned it down. There was nothing wrong with that contract. I was perfectly satisfied with the terms. But I told the New York management that my marital difficulties were growing more and more complicated, that I was sick of the East, that I had good connections in the West, and that I would be doing myself a favor by quiting the major league baseball scene." McGraw may have just been flouting baseball authority by offering Hal a contract. He certainly didn't hold Chase's reputation against him. Whatever the case, Chase had been banished and could not have played again for McGraw or anyone else. On February 29, 1920 the New York Times reported that Chase would not be attending spring training with the Giants. During the same period, all the skeletons in Chase's closet were about to tumble out. On March 23, 1920, Lee Magee, who played with Chase on the Reds, and who was dropped from the Cubs roster before the 1920 season, stated: "On Saturday, I shall make public the charges on which the National League bases its action in barring me from its circuit. I'll show documents both in my favor and against me and let the public judge if I have been fairly treated... I'm going to burn my bridges behind me and then jump off the ruins. If I'm barred I'll take quite a few noted people with me. I'll show up some people for tricks turned ever since 1906. And there will be merry music in the baseball world." On April 14, Magee filed suit against the Cubs for his 1920 salary plus $5,000 extra in lost World Series pay if the Cubs won the 1920 pennant. Chase, meanwhile, had signed to play for San Jose in California's Mission League. Magee's trial began on June 7, 1920. It lasted three days,and during those days,the depths to which Chase might have sunk during his career were revealed. |
