"Although seven out of nine players on the diamond might have felt like calling him a jackass on a good day, Chiles’ lawlessness on the field was considered leadership in those days. Thus, Chiles served a stint as the player-manager of the 1898 Lancaster Maroons in the Atlantic League — a money-losing team, but a winner with a record of 82-50 — before going to New Orleans for the winter. (The year before, he had played for Scranton, and in 1897 back in Texas for the Denison-Sherman Twins/Waco Tigers.) So it was that the Philadelphia Phillies probably thought they had someone who was future coaching material coming when Pearce "What’s the Use" Chiles joined the Phillies’ camp in Charlotte, North Carolina as a 33-year-old rookie during the spring of 1899."
"Although seven out of nine players on the diamond might have felt like calling him a jackass on a good day, Chiles’ lawlessness on the field was considered leadership in those days. Thus, Chiles served a stint as the player-manager of the 1898 Lancaster Maroons in the Atlantic League — a money-losing team, but a winner with a record of 82-50 — before going to New Orleans for the winter. (The year before, he had played for Scranton, and in 1897 back in Texas for the Denison-Sherman Twins/Waco Tigers.)
So it was that the Philadelphia Phillies probably thought they had someone who was future coaching material coming when Pearce "What’s the Use" Chiles joined the Phillies’ camp in Charlotte, North Carolina as a 33-year-old rookie during the spring of 1899."