Charles Dryden (March 10, 1860 – February 11, 1931) was an American baseball writer and humorist. He was reported to be the most famous and highly paid baseball writer in the United States during the 1900s. Known for injecting humor into his baseball writing, Dryden was credited with elevating baseball writing from the commonplace. In 1928, The Saturday Evening Post wrote: "The greatest of all the reporters, and the man to whom the game owes more, perhaps, than to any other individual, was Charles Dryden, the Mark Twain of baseball."
In 1965, Dryden posthumously received the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest award bestowed by the Baseball Writers' Association of America; he was the fourth writer to receive that honor. His biography at the National Baseball Hall of Fame notes that he was "often regarded as the master baseball writer of his time."
Early years
Dryden was born in March 1860 in Monmouth, Illinois. His father, William A. Dryden, was an Ohio native who worked as a salesman. Dryden did not attend college and worked as a young man as a moulder in an iron foundry. At the time of the 1880 United States Census, Dryden was living with his father in Monmouth, and his occupation was listed as a "moulder." Several accounts indicate that he wrote humorous sketches while working at the foundry and was urged to pursue a writing career by a friend who read his sketches.
Dryden traveled extensively as a young man, taking jobs as a merchant sailor and fisherman. One colleague noted that there was "a queer gleam, as of the old wanderlust, in the man's eyes when he falls to talking of the sea." In the early 1890s, Dryden visited and wrote about Robert Louis Stevenson at Stevenson's home in Vailima, Samoa. His portrayal of Stevenson's life in Samoa was described as "one of the nearest and most clear-cut pictures yet made on the subject."
Dryden later published an autobiographical account of his years on the road. The book, titled "On and Off the Bread Wagon: Being the Hard Luck Tales, Doings and Adventures of an Amateur Hobo" was published in 1905.
Baseball writer
San Francisco and Tacoma
Dryden wrote his first baseball story in 1889. He had reportedly never seen a regular game of baseball before the assignment. His first baseball story was an account of a game in Chicago written "in imitation of the stilted, archaic phrase of Bible language." The story was "an instant hit." From 1889 to 1896, Dryden worked for newspapers in San Francisco and Tacoma.
New York
In 1896, William Randolph Hearst hired Dryden as a writer for the New York Journal. While working in New York, Dryden gained national fame as a result of a lengthy public quarrel with Andrew Freedman, the owner of the New York Giants. The feud began during spring training in 1898. Dryden asked Freedman for a comment on a player with whom Freedman was in a salary dispute. Dryden published a story the next day making fun of both Freedman and the player, referring to Freedman as "the spurned magnate." Freedman was angered by the account and had Dryden banned from the hotel where the Giants were staying. The next day, Dryden ran an article noting that he had been informed of the ban while trying to put a tablespoon of soup in his mouth at the hotel restaurant. Freedman escalated the punishment by banning Dryden from the Polo Grounds. The next day, Dryden watched the game from Coogan's Bluff, overlooking the Polo Grounds, and reported that "the Giants don't look any better from here." When Dryden continued to make Freedman the butt of his jokes, calling him "Andy" in a series of articles, Freedman announced publicly that "this here feller Dryden had better look out because he's standing on the brink of an abscess [sic] and the first thing he knows I'll push him in." The next day, Homer Davenport published a cartoon showing Freedman pushing Dryden, with his pencil and scorecard, into a black abyss.
The Freedman articles were a sensation and reportedly "kept not only New York but the entire country convulsed by [Dryden's] clever quips."
Philadelphia
In 1900, the publisher of The North American (later merged into The Philadelphia Inquirer) hired Dryden away from Hearst. Hearst reportedly made "exceptional offers" to persuade Dryden to stay, but the Philadelphia newspaper was the high bidder. The Philadelphia Athletics of the early 1900s, with colorful players like Rube Waddell, Ossee Schreckengost, Chief Bender and Socks Seybold, were ideally suited to Dryden's colorful writing style. One colleague recalled, "This team gave Charley Dryden a chance to exercise his talents to their utmost. Story after story was a classic."