Cupid Childs

Cupid Childs got on base more often than almost any second baseman who ever played, a round, cherubic infielder who turned patience into one of the great offensive weapons of the 1890s. He reached base at a .416 clip for his career, a figure bettered among second basemen only by Rogers Hornsby and Eddie Collins, and he scored more than 1,200 runs as the engine of the rowdy Cleveland Spiders. He hit .306, drew nearly a thousand walks, and crossed the plate a hundred times a year as if it were a duty. Most fans of his day knew him for his cherub's face and his stocky build, the source of the nickname Cupid, but the men who pitched to him knew him as the hardest out in the order. He was, by the measures that count for most, the best second baseman of his decade.

The Baltimore Boy

Childs was born Clarence Lemuel Childs in Calvert County, Maryland, in 1867, and grew up a Baltimore boy in a city that loved its baseball. He was short and round, with a face that put writers in mind of a cherub, and the nickname Cupid followed him from his first days in the game. He reached the majors briefly with the Philadelphia Quakers in 1888, spent a year in the minors, and came back to stay with the Syracuse Stars when that club spent its single season in the American Association in 1890. By then he had found his position at second base and his method at the plate, a patient eye that would define everything to come. The round little infielder was ready, and the next decade would belong to him.

The Cleveland Spiders

In 1891 Childs joined the Cleveland Spiders, and for eight seasons he was the heartbeat of one of the best teams in the National League. He played second base every day behind the great Cy Young and beside the slugging Jesse Burkett, a rowdy, brawling club that contended year after year. The Spiders won the Temple Cup in 1895, beating the Baltimore Orioles for what passed as the championship of the age, with Childs setting the table at the top of the order. He turned the double play with the shortstop Ed McKean and reached base ahead of the big bats, the quiet motor of a loud team. Those Cleveland years were the best of his career and among the best any second baseman of the century put together.

The On Base Machine

What made Childs special was the thing the box scores of his era barely measured, his genius for reaching base. He drew walks by the fistful, nearly a thousand in his career, and combined them with a .306 average to post a career on base percentage of .416. Among every second baseman in the history of the game, only Rogers Hornsby and Eddie Collins reached base more often, two inner circle Hall of Famers and then Cupid Childs. He understood before the statistic had a name that a walk was as good as a hit, and he took his bases on balls without apology. The modern numbers that prize on base skill have made him a cause, because by them he was an offensive force the old counting stats hid.

The Season of 1892

Childs put together his finest season in 1892, his second year in Cleveland, and it showed everything he was. He batted .317, drew 117 walks, reached base at a .443 clip, and led the National League with 136 runs scored, the prototype of the modern leadoff man decades early. He topped a hundred runs in six of his eight Spiders seasons, a total that flowed straight from the walks and the patience. In 1896 he hit .355, the high mark of his career, and reached base nearly half the times he came to the plate. The runs piled up because he was forever standing on first or second when the sluggers behind him connected.

The Best Second Baseman of the Decade

Add it together and Childs stands as arguably the best second baseman of the 1890s, a verdict the advanced numbers reach almost every time. His career wins above replacement stand near 45, a figure that places him in the company of enshrined middle infielders, built on the patience and a steady glove. He was not fast and not a slugger, but he did the two things that win games better than almost anyone, getting on base and coming around to score. The double play combination he formed with McKean held the middle of the Cleveland infield for most of a decade. For value packed into an unassuming frame, the 1890s offered few better.

Trouble and Decline

Childs played the game as hard as he lived, and the rough edges showed. In May 1900 he tangled with the Pittsburgh manager Fred Clarke in a train station brawl, the kind of dustup that trailed the hard men of the era. A bout of malaria in 1899 had already sapped him, his average fell, and by 1901 he was a part time player in Chicago, released that July at 33. The patient eye remained, but the body that had carried it gave way fast. He left the majors as quietly as a man with a thousand walks could, his best work a few years behind him.

Baltimore Again

Childs went home to Baltimore and into the coal business, hauling and selling fuel in the city that had always claimed him as its own. The business did not last, and neither did he. Bright's disease, a wasting kidney illness, took him on November 8, 1912, at just 45, his coal yard near foreclosure and his playing days a decade gone. The Baltimore Sun remembered him warmly, calling him the idol of the fans and one of the heaviest hitters in the major leagues, a Baltimore boy to the end. By the measures the game has come to prize most, the best second baseman of the 1890s is a player it is still catching up to.