May means spring is in the air and baseball season is in full swing. It also means the launch of our new baseball-inspired fragrance. Opening Day for Fielder’s Leather is May 2nd. A sport inspired fragrance by Blocki may surprise some but, like all our fragrances, there is a family story behind it. This one is for Fred Blocki who loved Chicago and baseball so much that he took part in a bid to buy the Cubs so that the team could once again be owned by locals.
Going into this launch my baseball knowledge was as limited as Smalls in The Sandlot when he lost his stepdad’s priceless baseball autographed by: “Some lady named Ruth. Baby Ruth.” As I researched the family story, I gained an appreciation for the way baseball threads its way through American culture. Recently, this was on display in the universal criticism of the US Department of Defense when it temporarily removed a page about the military service and sports career of Jackie Robinson as part of a DEI purge of its website. Robinson made history in 1947 as the first black major league baseball player when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Baseball is so much a part of American culture that countless baseball idioms and phrases have made their way into our everyday speech. You have probably used many of them without ever connecting them to baseball. Each sport has its own linguistic world, but baseball jargon has extended way beyond the game. For a bit of fun, I sprinkled many examples throughout the blog.
Baseball has always been part of the American journey, its successes and struggles. Semi-pro neighborhood teams of the early 1900s brought together diverse immigrant communities and connected generations. Game days meant picnics, kids chasing foul balls, and neighbors cheering for their local heroes. The festive community atmosphere of game day was our olfactive inspiration for Fielder’s Leather – sunshine, baseball glove leather, and bluegrass.
The smallest artifacts can tell the biggest stories. This was the case with a thin leather wallet marked “compliments of the American League.” It contained a 1918 baseball season pass made out to Fred Blocki and signed by Ban Johnson. Fred is the son in John Blocki & Son and was an integral part of the perfumery. I had seen the name Ban Johnson in an article about Fred’s untimely death from the flu in 1919; he gave the eulogy at Fred’s funeral. Seeing his name on the pass made me realize that Fred had friends in the big leagues.
Ban Johnson is credited with growing baseball into a national pastime. Starting out as a sportswriter, Johnson blasted owners only interested in making money at the expense of the game and criticized the National League for letting games get too rowdy and driving away women and families. Johnson was the cleanup hitter of the sport when he started and led a second major league, the American League.
Right off the bat I knew there was more to their friendship. Fred was active in the “sporting life” that was so popular in the early 1900s and was a member of the Chicago Athletic Club. He even launched a Blocki fragrance for the League of American Wheelmen, a group of bicyclists advocating for improved riding conditions. It was his involvement with a semi-pro baseball team, the Rogers Park Ball Club, that interested Johnson. The players were local, and the team was funded by local businessmen who loved baseball and wanted to support their neighborhood team.
Another manager of the Rogers Park team and serious baseball fan was John T. Connery. He got into the game watching the Chicago White Stockings and became good friends with their pitcher and outfielder, John K. Tener, who later became president of the National League. Connery was also a good friend of Charles Comiskey, owner of the Chicago White Sox, and Ban Johnson. When it came to connections in the baseball world, Connery was batting a thousand.
When the controlling owner of the Cubs, Charles Taft of Cincinnati, signaled that the team was for sale, it was no surprise that Connery stepped up to the plate. In 1914, he put together a group of about ten investors, including Fred Blocki, that became known as the Chicago syndicate. Ban Johnson went to bat for the syndicate and most of the owners of the major league teams supported them. However, Taft was playing hardball and turned down their offer.
Frustrated fans did not like that the team was controlled by outside capital, Taft was an Ohio newspaperman. Cubs’ fans civic pride is legendary. Tener agreed that the Cubs should be majority owned by local investors. At Taft’s request, the Chicago syndicate made a second offer, but again they struck out. In a move that came out of left field, Taft announced that he would hold onto the team for another year.
The negotiation may have been influenced by the American and National Leagues trying to cover their bases. They had been meddling with the upstart Federal League that aspired to be a third major league, and in the 1914-1915 off-season Federal League owners sued them. As part of a settlement in 1916, Charles Weeghman, the owner of the Federal team the Chicago Whales, and his group of investors was allowed to buy the Cubs for a discounted price.
Weeghman moved the Cubs from the West Side to a ballpark on the North Side that he built for the Whales and so began a whole new ballgame. The chewing gum magnate, William Wrigley, supplied much of the cash for the purchase of the team. Weeghman was out of his league and as his fortunes declined during the war, he had to sell his interest in the team to William Wrigley Jr. Wrigley put their name on the ballpark in 1927.
John Connery went on to hit a homerun in the hotel business. When the Cubs deal fell through, he purchased a lot on Lake Michigan across from his residence on Sheridan Avenue and built the renowned Edgewater Beach Hotel. The resort hosted famous movie stars, politicians, and sports legends. Connery got to talk ball with the visiting teams that stayed at the hotel. Rumor has it that a rowdy Cubs fan at the hotel spat at Babe Ruth’s wife and that resulted in his famous “called shot” at Wrigley Field during the 1932 World Series.
Fred went back to perfumery and a promising political career. At a gathering of Chicago businessman, it was proposed that he run for mayor. Fred declined the nomination but said that he would have gladly accepted the “mayorality” of the Chicago Cubs had the deal gone through. His daughter Ruth had a romance with a minor league baseball player. Fred lived Babe Ruth’s saying to: “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”
This season our family is cheering on our hometown hero. One of our son’s high school friends got drafted to the Los Angeles Angels. His pitching career is just beginning. As we worked on the launch of Fielder’s Leather, he was living out his dream at his first spring training. We hope the scent of Fielder’s Leather will remind you of the joy of coming together to play a game or cheer on your favorite team. Play ball!
