On May 15, 1912, Detroit star Ty Cobb was taunted in New York by a fan named Claude Lueker. Lueker repeatedly called Cobb "a half nigger". Cobb, who was a notorious racist, was enraged by Lueker's taunts and went into the stands where he assaulted the Lueker. Lueker was unable to defend himself, having lost one complete hand and three fingers from the other hand in an industrial accident. When fans yelled at Cobb that the man had no hands, Cobb shouted back, "I don't care if he has no feet!" American League president Ban Johnson responded by suspending Cobb indefinitely.
Cobb's teammates voted to strike, declaring that they would not take the field again until Cobb was reinstated. It was the first strike in baseball history. Johnson refused to back down and told Detroit owner Frank Navin that the team would be fined $5,000 for every game in which they failed to field a team.
Navin ordered manager Hughie Jennings to find players willing to take the field. The Tigers were on the road in Philadelphia, and so Jennings recruited eight replacement players from a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. Each man was paid $25 or $50. The replacement players represented the Tigers on May 18, 1912, against the Philadelphia Athletics. The Athletics set a club scoring record in defeating the replacement Tigers by a score of 24 to 2, tallying 26 hits, 42 total bases, and ten stolen bases (five by Eddie Collins). The Tigers' starting pitcher, Allan Travers, was a college student who became a Catholic priest and later confessed he had never pitched a game in his life.

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