116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: ‘The Whizard’
Billy Hoffer of Cedar Rapids was star pitcher for Baltimore in late 1800s
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William Leopold “Billy” Hoffer, a star pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles in the late 1800s, observed several times that he’d been born in the wrong century. His salary at the time he was setting major league records, he said, was so small that it amounted to “cigarette money” to players in the 1940s.
Hoffer was born Nov. 8, 1870, in Cedar Rapids to parents who emigrated from Germany. He quit school after the eighth grade to work on the railroad and help support his family.
Hoffer — pronounced “hoe-fer” — started his pro baseball career as an outfielder with the Cedar Rapids’ Canaries in its first season in February 1890, earning $40 a month.
In 1891, Hoffer was on the pitcher’s mound at Athletic Park at Third Avenue and 14th Street SE, collecting 16 victories and an ERA of 0.91. He moved on to the Iowa and Illinois Interstate league in the summer of 1892.
By 1895, he was in the big leagues, pitching for the Orioles in Baltimore where he’d earned the nickname “The Whizard.” The team has a rough reputation as the “baseball hoodlums” of the late 19th century.
Hoffer won 79 games and lost 24 for the Orioles in the three seasons between 1895 and 1897, when he twice led the National League in winning percentage.
At 5-foot, 9-inches and 155 pounds, he played in the majors for eight years, coming home to Cedar Rapids during the winters. He spent much of his time off at the YMCA gym.
In 1895, he was financially secure enough to marry Emma Vanous, another first-generation American whose parents had emigrated from what is now the Czech Republic, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. They would have two daughters.
In 1897, when Hoffer was 26, the Baltimore Orioles came to Cedar Rapids to play an exhibition game against the all-star All-Americans. Baltimore won, 7-2. Athletic Park Manager Belden Hill served as umpire.
Hoffer pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates for a couple of seasons, but was sidelined with injuries and typhoid fever.
In 1900, Hoffer moved to the new American League’s Cleveland Bluebirds. He pitched the first American League game April 24, 1901, against the Chicago White Sox, which Cleveland lost, 8-2. All the other American League games that day had been rained out.
Hoffer’s final game as a major leaguer was July 4, 1901.
Moving on
Between 1902 and 1904, Hoffer was captain and pitcher for the Des Moines Politicians, a Class A minor league team. In 1906, he was managing and pitching for the team.
In 1909, he retired from baseball and took a job with the Cedar Rapids post office.
The Cedar Rapids Republican and Times reported in1922 that Hoffer’s ball playing days “were ended when he was struck in the head a number of years ago by a pitched ball, the blow affecting the eye nerves and causing him to momentarily lose his vision at times.”
Hoffer recovered and returned to the mound sporadically. In 1914, he pitched a Knights of Pythias game between Cedar Rapids and Oskaloosa.
He became a motorman in 1922 for the Ridgewood streetcar line of the Iowa Railway & Light Co. While on his route in January, he picked up a copy of the Chicago Herald & Examiner and was surprised to see a photo of the 1895 championship Baltimore team that included him.
Hoffer was one of the sports luminaries asked to speak at a 1937 sports night at the Hanford Post of the American Legion. “Citing the salaries in the thousands paid players and the ‘cigarette money’ he drew, Hoffer exclaimed that he had been born ‘thirty years too soon,’ ” The Gazette reported.
Hoffer expanded his thoughts in a June 1937 interview with Gazette reporter Leo Lucas, who reported Hoffer had reached the major league salary limit of $2,400 in his last season with Baltimore.
“Even the limit at that time would just be cigarette money for some of the players now,” Hoffer said. “There was the Temple Cup series at the close of the season played between the first- and second-place teams. Crowds of 20,000 people turned out, yet the largest cut I ever got was $312. I often wondered where the money went. It showed what little consideration was given to the players at that time. Now a World Series player gets over $6,000.”
Hoffer’s art
Few knew that Hoffer had another interest — “just a hobby,” he said — creating pen and ink drawings.
“In pen and ink drawing,” he said, “one misplaced line can change the entire appearance of a picture. I remember that this was particularly so in the case of the Charles Dana Gibson drawings. I studied them a lot just to see what made them popular.”
Occasionally, Hoffer ventured into other mediums. He used charcoal to create a self-portrait in his Baltimore Orioles uniform. He used oils to create a painting of his Baltimore locker.
When the Orioles returned to the major leagues in 1954, they beat the White Sox, 3 -1. But in all the hoopla surrounding the game, something was missing. Three of the Baltimore old-timers — Hoffer, Billy Clarke and Jimmy Doyle, who had played on the pennant-winning 1895-96 Orioles — were not there.
Hoffer, who was 84 at the time, said, “Seems funny that they are going to throw 5,000 orchids at the players during the parade, and they can’t spend a hundred dollars to bring one of us old fellows back.”
Iowa Hall of Fame
Hoffer was inducted into the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in 1958.
Cedar Rapids Mayor Jim Meaghan, general manager of the Cedar Rapids professional baseball club before serving as mayor from 1956 through 1961, and Gazette sports writer Gus Schrader visited the 88-year-old Hoffer in January 1959, a few months before Hoffer died,
He was “spry as ever but admitting to some discomfort from a tumor,” Schrader reported. “Billy is spending the winter, as he always does, making beautiful and intricate pen drawings, talking baseball with friends and watching television.”
Hoffer attended the baseball opener at Memorial Stadium with Meaghan in May 1959. He died of cancer at Mercy Hospital on July 21.
The first line in The Gazette story about his death said, “The greatest professional baseball player Cedar Rapids ever produced is dead.”
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