#Shortstops: New glasses

The first instance of sunglasses being used by baseball players was back in the late 1880s. Then, the players experimented with tinted or smoked glasses. One of the first major leaguers to wear sunglasses was Paul Hines in 1888 with the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the National League. During this time, spectators saw the glasses as novelties but grew accustomed to the special eyewear by the end of the 1890s. However, these sunglasses could fall off the wearer’s face and cause other problems like the metal frames creating glare that blinded other ballplayers who did not wear glasses.

In 1912, Fred Clarke, then player-manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates, created a device which could allow the sunglasses to snap up under the brim of the cap, thus preventing them from falling off and causing distractions for the ballplayers. He attached his pair of sunglasses to the visor of his cap via nuts, bolts, springs and hinges. This would allow him to either flip the sunglasses down when it became bright or have them flip up when he did not need them. Clarke patented this invention and it stayed in popular standing with ballplayers all around the American and National Leagues until the 1990s with the advent of wraparound sunglasses. It was this style of flip-down sunglasses that Edd Roush wore during his final year with the Cincinnati Reds.

Roush made his way into the big leagues with the Chicago White Sox in 1912, the same year Clarke invented the flip-sunglasses. The Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Federal League enticed him to violate his reserve clause with the White Sox and jump to the Federal League for the 1914 and 1915 seasons before coming back to the National League in 1916 with the New York Giants.

In 1917, the Giants sent him along with Bill McKechnie and Christy Mathewson to Cincinnati in a trade for Buck Herzog and Red Killefer. While with the Reds, Roush rapidly developed into a star player. He hit over .300 for 11 consecutive seasons, with his .321 average helping the Reds win the World Series in 1919 against the White Sox.

When the news of the gambling scandal broke, Roush vehemently defended the Reds as the better team, saying that after the second game, those who were reportedly involved with the gamblers for the White Sox played as if they were not paid off at all.