Carl Cashion

Carl Cashion’s fastball ranked among the best of his era. He also had a powerful batting swing. However, chronic wildness and arm injuries curtailed his pitching career and subpar fielding abilities hampered his chances as a position player. His major league career consisted of 72 games played for the Washington Senators from 1911 to 1914. Cashion, whose nicknames included Husk, Big Liz, and Con, threw right-handed and batted left-handed. At 6-feet-2 and 207 pounds, he was the majors’ biggest player in 1911.1

Jay Carl Cashion was born on June 4, 1889, in Huntersville, North Carolina. He was the third of seven children born to James Thomas Cashion, a farmer, and Laura Fullwood. His family tree is traceable to Colonial America, ranging from Pennsylvania to South Carolina.

Cashion attended the Cornelius Graded School in Cornelius, North Carolina.2 He and his older brother Mason combined for 27 strikeouts in a semipro game when Cornelius defeated Gilead, 8-7 in 10 innings on May 23, 1908.3 Carl, who homered in that game, hit 22 home runs in 1908.4

Mason pitched for Erskine College in South Carolina and had opportunities with Greenville and Charlotte of the Class D Carolina Association. His son, Mason Jr. (1931-2019), better known as Red Cashion, played baseball for Texas A&M and became famous for his enthusiastic “First down!” calls during his 25-year career as an NFL official.

Carl followed Mason’s footsteps by attending Erskine, where he was vice president of his freshman class and played on the baseball team in 1909 and 1910. In March 1909, Erskine’s coach, Billy Laval, touted him as the next Shoeless Joe Jackson, with whom Laval had played for Greenville in 1908.5 Erskine went 7-1 and won the state championship in 1909. The lone setback came in the season’s opener at Clemson. Cashion batted .393 as an outfielder.

On July 17, 1909, the Charlotte Observer reported that Cashion had signed with Greenville, but that he “skipped out in the night and his whereabouts is sic unknown.”6 He did not report to the club. Nevertheless, Greenville later signed him for the 1910 season.

When Erskine defeated Clemson, 6–5, on April 29, 1910, “Cashion was sent in to do the twirling for Erskine, and ‘Big German,’ while a little wild, held Clemson to five hits,” reported Charlotte’s Evening Chronicle.7 Cashion debuted as an outfielder for Greenville in May 1910. Despite a few early sparks of talent, by month’s end he was batting .205 and Greenville released him. He then joined an independent club in Wadesboro, North Carolina, which had not yet started its Pee Dee Association season.

After playing the outfield for the first five games, he entered as a relief pitcher in the first inning of the sixth game, at Rockingham on June 18. “It was simply delightful to see Big Cashion mow those fellows down. … he fanned 14 and allowed only two hits,” wrote Wadesboro’s Messenger and Intelligencer in reporting the 5–1 win.8 Later, he had the longest home run ever hit at Wadesboro in a win against Laurinburg on July 12. Wadesboro, which also featured Jack Reis, finished the short season with a 22-10 record and won the pennant.

Cashion transferred to Davidson College in North Carolina for the 1910-11 school year. He played right tackle for the football team and right field and pitcher for the baseball team.9 Davidson featured another future major league player, Everett Booe. When Davidson defeated South Carolina, 7‒2, to end the season on April 28, 1911, Cashion pitched a five-hitter with 13 strikeouts. He was back in a Greenville uniform three days later. One of his nicknames, Big Liz, first appeared in print that season. The sobriquet may have been in reference to a famous circus elephant of the era.

Cashion dominated the Carolina Association prior to signing with the American League’s Washington Senators on June 5. Not counting that day’s game, he boasted a 7–2 won-lost record with two shutouts and had allowed 25 runs in 98 innings pitched for Greenville. He was also batting .357 (20-for-56) through 21 games—11 as a pitcher, five as an outfielder, and five as a pinch-hitter.

Washington scout Mike Kahoe signed Cashion after (ironically) the only non-complete game of his eventual 26 starts for Greenville in 1911. The amount, $2,500, was the highest price paid to date for the services of a Carolina Association player, $250 more than what Washington had paid the Spartanburg (South Carolina) Spartans for Tillie Walker’s contract the previous week.10 Washington planned on having Cashion finish the season at Greenville and either get a late-season call-up or report to spring training in 1912.11

By the time Washington beckoned at the end of July, Cashion had an 11–14 pitching record and his batting average had dipped to .303 (50-for-165). Though concerned with the performance slump, Washington counterintuitively called Cashion up under the assumption that Greenville had overworked him with pitching and outfield play.

Two future Hall of Fame pitchers met at a Washington sporting goods store on August 3, 1911. Chicago’s Big Ed Walsh asked Walter Johnson who would be pitching for the home team that afternoon. “‘Cashion, a youngster from the South,’ replied Johnson, ‘and you fellows had better look out, for this kid has more speed than me—he’s the best-looking youngster I’ve seen breaking in since I’ve been playing ball.’”12 But rain forced the postponement of Cashion’s debut by one day. The outing was rescheduled for a doubleheader on August 4 at Washington.

Johnson threw an 11-inning shutout in the first game. Cashion tossed a three-hitter—but allowed six walks—and outdueled Walsh in the nightcap, 3-2. Carl also went 3-for-4 at the plate with an RBI and scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The win was his only victory against five losses in 11 pitching appearances for Washington in 1911. He issued nine walks in his second appearance and went on to average 5.9 walks per nine innings as a Senator that season. Offensively, Cashion batted .324 (12-for-37). Besides his debut heroics, he delivered a pinch-hit game-tying ninth-inning single in a 4-3, 10-inning loss at Cleveland on August 30.

On October 7, 1911, Tris Speaker took a Cashion fastball off his knee in the first inning of the last game ever played at Boston’s Huntington Avenue Grounds. Speaker said that Cashion spoke to him as he was carried off the field, saying, “I’m awful sorry about it, Speaker, but I’m glad I didn’t have all my stuff on that ball, or I might have broken your leg.”13 At season end, Cashion returned to Davidson as an eclectic student, i.e., one who does not plan on receiving a degree through regular attendance.

Syndicated sportswriter Hugh Fullerton wrote of Cashion during Washington’s 1912 spring training in Charlottesville, Virginia: “I pin more faith to big Cashion than upon any of the new men. If this fellow doesn’t develop into a fine pitcher I miss my guess. He is big, willing, a hustler, and I never saw a left-handed batter who hit a ball harder or more naturally than he does. He is a southerner, a university man and smart in spite of it. He has a spit ball, a nice motion, and he loves to play the game.”14

In an exhibition game against the University of Virginia, Cashion hit a ball to the Charlottesville center field wall, estimated at twice the distance compared to Washington’s Griffith Stadium. In another exhibition, the Philadelphia Phillies took advantage of Cashion’s three walks, three hit batsmen, two wild pitches, and two throwing errors to win, 7–6.

Cashion’s only full big-league campaign occurred in 1912. He posted a 10–6 won-lost record and a 3.17 ERA as Washington finished in second place at 91-61, 14 games behind Boston. The season highlight was the no-hitter that Cashion tossed during a home doubleheader against Cleveland on August 20, 1912. He again followed Johnson as the Big Train earned his 15th consecutive win in the first contest. Cashion allowed three base runners—one walk and two reaching on error—in the 2–0 victory. The game was shortened to five and one-half innings because the Naps had to catch their train to Boston. Decades later in 1991, the Committee for Statistical Accuracy excised Cashion’s performance from the official list when it defined a no-hitter as a game of nine innings or more that ends with no hits.

Cashion walked a career-high 10 batters against Boston at home on September 28, 1912. But he allowed just four hits and earned a complete-game win, 3–2. He had a major league high of 5.4 walks allowed per nine innings in 1912. With the bat, he had a three-hit game with two doubles while batting cleanup as Washington’s right fielder on May 13. He tallied another three-hit game as the pitcher on August 5. Yet overall, he batted a meek .214 (22-for-103) in 1912. This included eight games as a starting outfielder.

Having returned to Davidson for the offseason, Cashion pitched for a team of Carolina Association alumni when it played against the Philadelphia Athletics in Greenville on October 30, 1912. The A’s won, 5‒4. Cashion allowed 10 hits and one walk with two strikeouts in nine innings. Shoeless Joe Jackson had a run, a hit, and a stolen base for the alumni squad. The game took one hour and two minutes.

In November 1912, Cashion wrote to the Washington Evening Star‘s sports editor, J. Ed Grillo, stating that he was spending the winter “out on the farm doing a good day’s work every day but not overlooking a chance to improve myself.”15 He joined Everett Booe on Davidson’s basketball team for the early months of 1913. The duo also assisted as Davidson baseball coaches.

Upon the opening of Washington’s 1913 training camp in Charlottesville, “Carl Cashion spent his first day chasing flies in right field, running up and down that red clay bank almost a trillion times. The big fellow looks to be in fine shape for an excellent season,” wrote the Washington Times.16 It was not to be.

“Carl Cashion debuted for 1913 in horrible fashion,” wrote “Senator” for the Washington Times on May 9.17 Pitching the eighth inning of a 10‒5 loss at Chicago on May 8, Cashion allowed three runs on three hits, one walk, and two Washington errors.

He started at St. Louis on May 13. After a scoreless first inning, he surrendered three walks and a bases-clearing triple to Sam Agnew before a reliever took over in the second frame of a 7‒6 loss. In his second start, at Cleveland on May 19, he injured his elbow while throwing a curveball to Shoeless Joe Jackson in the first inning. He took his lone loss of the 1913 campaign, having allowed three runs in one-third of an inning in the 4‒1 defeat.

The injury sidelined him until early August. Upon his return, he played right field for four games and had a hit in each game. A baserunning mistake and a dropped fly ball marred his brief foray as a starting outfielder. Cashion returned to the mound once more, at home on September 6, for a 9‒1 win against New York. He surrendered just one hit while working the first six innings to even his season’s pitching record at 1-1. But he allowed seven walks and three hit batsmen.

The arm injury resurfaced in practice a few days later and Cashion called on therapist Bonesetter Reese in Youngstown, Ohio, on September 19. Though it was reported that it took Reese just one minute to fix the ailment, Cashion did not pitch again in 1913. He played one more game that season. On October 3, in the second game of a doubleheader, he hit a pinch-hit double and scored a run in an 11-3 home win against Boston. The hit, his final in the majors, was off Duffy Lewis amid the lone pitching appearance of the left fielder’s 11-year career.

During 1914 spring training in Charlottesville, Washington manager Clark Griffith instructed Cashion to use caution, out of concern for the previous year’s arm injury. This did not affect his batting, for the Washington Post reported on March 5 that Cashion hit three balls over a fence that stood more than 500 feet away from home plate.

Griffith slated him to pitch the regular season’s fifth game at New York on April 20, but it was rained out. Cashion had to wait until the 14th game, a May 4 home tilt against New York, for his chance to play. His reputation for wildness stirred a hostile welcome from the crowd. “Before Carl Cashion pitched a ball to the plate he was jeered,” wrote the Washington Post’s Stanley T. Milliken. “Such language as was emitted from the mouths of certain spectators … should be stopped. … The writer has heard players and managers roasted on the local field by unfair-minded persons (not fans), but never before in such vitriolic tones as yesterday.”18

Cashion’s performance did nothing to silence the critics. He surrendered two runs in the first inning on a leadoff walk, a single, and a fly ball out. Two more walks in the second inning earned Cashion an early hook. In his short stint, he allowed four runs in the 8‒2 loss.

His reputation for wildness was further solidified during batting practice on May 9. An errant pitch hit and fractured the wrist of teammate Eddie Ainsmith, sidelining the catcher for almost a month. Cashion played in his final major league game on May 30, throwing four innings in relief at Boston in the second game of a doubleheader. “Looking both good and bad in spots,” according to the Washington Herald’s William Peet, Cashion allowed two earned runs on three hits, three walks, and a hit batsman with two strikeouts in the 7‒2 loss.19 He also struck out in his lone plate appearance of 1914.

Washington asked for waivers on Cashion on June 11, and the International League’s Montreal Royals took him on June 24. He won his first game during a July 4 doubleheader, defeating Rochester, 5-2. Wally Pipp’s home run won the first game in the bottom of the 13th inning, but the homestanding Hustlers had no such luck against Cashion despite having six hits and seven walks. Cashion also went 2-for-4 at the plate in support of his own cause.

He hit a home run, his only one for Montreal, off Ellis Johnson at Toronto on July 10. In all, Cashion made nine starts for Montreal, posting a 4-4 record, with five complete games. Over 58 innings, he yielded 56 base hits, 39 walks, and six hit batsmen, while striking out 20.20 With the stick, he the highest unofficial batting average in the International League, .375 (12-for-32). Cashion was back in a Washington uniform at the end of the season but did not see any game action, bringing his major league days to a close.

Over parts of four seasons, Cashion made 43 major league pitching appearances, posting a 12-13 (.480) record, with a 3.70 ERA in 255 2/3 innings pitched. Over that span, he allowed 228 base hits, 170 walks, and 16 hit batsmen, while striking out 114 opposing batters. In 72 games total, he batted 242 (37-for-153) but exhibited little of his vaunted power (only nine extra-base hits). His fielding was decent as a pitcher (.967 fielding percentage) but less so in the outfield (.944 in 13 games).

Following the 1914 season, manager Joe Cantillon of the Class AA American Association Minneapolis Millers selected Washington players as compensation for Henri Rondeau’s signing with the Senators. Cantillon took Cashion, Mutt Williams, Tom Wilson, Morley Jennings (aka Bill Morley), and minor-leaguer Harry Holland. Griffith and Cantillon agreed that Cashion would learn to play first base.

Cashion attended the Millers’ 1915 spring training camp in Hickman, Kentucky. Fred Coburn, writing for the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, compared his powerful hitting to that of Gavy Cravath, who had played for the Millers from 1909-11. ‟‛He’s too good a hitter to be a pitcher and too good a pitcher to be a regular first baseman,’” added Cantillon.21

Arm soreness resurfaced during spring training, ending any chance of pitching and affecting his on-the-job training as a first baseman. Cashion’s batting—.306 with a team-leading 38 hits through May 31—had kept him in the lineup, but Cantillon signed renowned defensive first baseman William “Chick” Autry, late of the St. Paul Saints, on May 31, relegating Cashion to pinch-hitter and substitute outfielder duties.

Cashion had a big day with two swings of the bat at home on June 30. His pinch-hit RBI single in the 11th inning won the first game of a doubleheader vs. Kansas City, 5‒4. In the nightcap, his pinch-hit three-run home run in the fourth inning tied the score, 6‒6; Minneapolis went on to win, 8‒6.

Minneapolis, at 92‒62, won the American Association pennant in 1915. Cashion finished second on the team in batting average (.327) and led the club with 13 triples.

Cantillon speculated on Cashion’s role in February 1916. “They cannot beat big Cashion out of a regular job in the outfield because he hits too hard. He may not be a Tris Speaker in fielding, but his batting last year was so good that it is a certainty he will be stationed in right field,” Cantillon told sportswriter Coburn.22

Cashion spent the late winter of 1916 in Sherman, Texas. His brother, Mason, coached the Austin College baseball team there, and Carl coached and practiced with the collegians past the time he was due to report to Hickman. When he finally arrived, a relieved Cantillon found him to be in excellent shape and with a healthy throwing arm. His power pitching and hitting were the “big sensation” at camp.23

Cashion played right field in the first 13 regular season games but hit just .215 (11-for-51), losing his spot in the lineup on May 5. He made his pitching debut for the Millers at home against Indianapolis on May 9. Entering in relief in the fourth inning—and receiving a “gasp from the fans”—he tossed three hitless, scoreless innings before allowing “two singles, a pair of hikes, and a rib rattler” for four runs in the seventh.24 Overall, he surrendered five earned runs in six innings in the 9–3 loss. He did not pitch again until May 30, when, despite allowing 10 hits and eight walks, he went the distance in an 11-inning, 4-3 loss at St. Paul.

Cashion kept his wildness relatively in check over his next nine appearances, which included five complete games out of six games started. Then, on July 13 at Indianapolis, he allowed 10 earned runs on 11 hits, 10 walks, and three hit batsmen in eight innings in a 14-4 loss. This was his final start as a pro pitcher. He concluded the season as an effective reliever over nine appearances, which included nine scoreless innings in a 5-3 home win versus Kansas City on August 30.

Cantillon also used Cashion as a pinch-hitter and lineup filler in 1916. Cashion had a 14-game midseason stint at first base, and he started the final 15 games, primarily in left field. He batted .282 (70-for-248) after his rough start and .271 overall for the third-place Millers. Thereafter, Cashion married Kathryn Carr (née Kreidler) in Minneapolis on November 25, 1916.25 While they did not have children together, Kathryn had two daughters from a previous marriage.

In 1917, the Millers primarily used Cashion as a pinch-hitter. He batted .239 in 46 at-bats over 30 games. His lone mound appearance for Minneapolis occurred on June 15 in Milwaukee.26 The pitching-depleted Millers used Cashion and outfielder Horace Milan as relievers in the 11-4 loss. Cashion allowed three runs on three hits and four walks in two innings.

On June 22, Minneapolis released Cashion and Harry Holland to the Wichita (Kansas) Witches of the Class A Western League. The two players went north instead, joining an independent team in Virginia, Minnesota. Virginia lost its first game with its new players in the lineup to Hibbing—and pitcher Bill Upham—by a 10-1 score on the Fourth of July.

Cashion remained in Virginia for nearly a year, working for the Oliver Mining Company and coaching the city football team. He began the 1918 season with Virginia but returned to the Millers when Minneapolis beckoned in late May. He batted .346 (73-for-211) with 16 doubles, five triples, and five home runs in his final season in Organized Baseball. The Millers’ season ended on July 21 because of the World War I “Work or Fight” order recently issued by US Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Cashion then reported for duty at the Globe Shipyards in Superior, Wisconsin.

He played for Globe in Superior’s industrial league and for Superior in the four-team Twin Ports-Mesaba League with Hibbing and two teams in Duluth, Minnesota. The league featured major leaguers Bunny Brief, George Cunningham, Tony DeFate, Cy Falkenberg, Rip Hagerman, Claude Hendrix, Frank Jude, Harry Niles, Emilio Palmero, Newt Randall, Joe Riggert, Henri Rondeau, and Rip Wade. Still in Superior, he played for Globe with Russell Ennis and Jude in 1919.

Cashion played for Duluth’s Clyde Ironworks in 1920. His teammates included Harry Wolfe and Harry Grant, Sr., the father of NFL Hall of Fame/Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant. He pitched a 16-inning game for Duluth at Beloit, Wisconsin, on August 14, 1920, which caught the attention of the home team. Beloit recruited Cashion for the 1921 season, and he stayed with the club until it folded after the 1927 season. Cashion worked for the team’s sponsor, Fairbanks-Morse, makers of the then-ubiquitous Eclipse water-pumping windmill. The independent team featured Hippo Vaughn, Patsy Gharrity, John Sullivan, George Zabel, Elmer Miller, Dan Tipple, and Carl East.27

After working in real estate and insurance in Illinois and playing semipro baseball in places such as Milwaukee and Albert Lea, Rochester, and Fairmont, Minnesota, Cashion settled in Superior. There he worked as a laborer for the Coolerator Company, a Duluth refrigerator and freezer manufacturer.

On November 17, 1935, Jay Carl Cashion died at age 46 from a heart attack suffered while visiting acquaintances in Iron River, Wisconsin. His cremated remains were buried in an unmarked grave in his in-laws’ plot at Greenwood Cemetery, Superior.

Widow Kathryn left Superior to pursue hat design and sales, first at Hat Land in Oklahoma City and then in Florida, where she owned a store called Hats by Kathryn in Fort Lauderdale. She died in Florida in 1966.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Mark Sternman.

Photo credit: Carl Cashion, Trading Card Database.

Sources

Duluth (Minnesota) News-Tribune; Superior (Wisconsin) Telegram; Ancestry.com; Baseball-Reference.com; Geneaologybank.com; Newspapers.com; Retrosheet.org; Baseball Hall of Fame Library, player file for Carl Cashion; Davidson College; Duluth Public Library; Erskine College; Greenwood Cemetery, Superior, Wisconsin; Superior (Wisconsin) Public Library; Stewthornley.net/millers.html.

Notes

1 “Washington Twirler Biggest Man in Game,” Pittsburg Press, November 25, 1911: 8.

2 “Cornelius Commencement,” Charlotte Observer, May 2, 1907: 4.

3 “Cornelius Downs Gilead,” Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina), May 24, 1908: 9.

4 “Erskine,” Charlotte Observer, February 8, 1909: 8.

5 “Carolina Buntlets,” Charlotte Observer, March 12, 1909: 3.

6 “Hornets Win Second Game,” Charlotte Evening Chronicle, July 17, 1909: 10.

7 “Erskine Wins Doubleheader,” Charlotte Evening Chronicle, April 30, 1910: 10.

8 “Base Ball News,” Wadesboro (North Carolina) Messenger and Intelligencer, June 20, 1910: 3.

9 While there were rules against professionalism, Cashion’s time with Greenville and Wadesboro had no apparent effect on his eligibility to play collegiately.

10 “Cashion Brings Big Price,” Greensboro (North Carolina) Record, June 6, 1911: 2.

11 “Art Griggs May Join Nationals,” Washington (DC) Herald, June 8, 1911: 9.

12 William Peet, “Cashion Speedier than W. Johnson,” Washington Herald, August 4, 1911: 8.

13 Billy Evans, “Baseball Anecdotes,” Shreveport (Louisiana) Times, December 30, 1911: 9.

14 “Timely Baseballisms Slashed from Stories of Big Leaguers,” Anaconda (Montana) Standard, March 4, 1912: 8.

15 J. Ed Grillo, “Cashion Learning a Motion to First,” Washington (DC) Evening Star, November 21, 1912: 18.

16 “Senator,” “Senatorial Snapshots from the Camp,” Washington (DC) Times, March 6, 1913: 13.

17 “Senator,” “Wild Pitching by Climber Twirlers Defeats Them in Second with Sox,” Washington Times, May 9, 1913: 14.

18 Stanley T. Milliken, “Cashion and Engel Prove Unable to Stop Yankees, They Winning, 8-2,” Washington (DC) Post, May 5, 1914: 8.

19 William Peet, “Griffmen Win and Lose with Red Sox Team,” Washington Herald, May 31, 1914: 39.

20 Based on the writer’s research. In certain categories, Baseball-Reference provides slightly different numbers for Cashion’s stay with Montreal: 4-4 record, 60 innings pitched, 58 base hits and 42 walks surrendered.

21 Fred Coburn, “Holland Joins the Millers in Workouts at Hickman,” Minneapolis Morning Tribune, March 24, 1915: 12.

22 Fred Coburn, “Spring Exhibitions for Millers are Booked,” Minneapolis Tribune, February 13, 1916: 37.

23 “Cashion’s Playing is Now Sensation at Millers’ Camp,” Minneapolis Journal, March 31, 1916: 27.

24 Frank McInerny, “Millers Lack Pep and Lose to Indianapolis,” Minneapolis Journal, May 10, 1916: 21.

25 https://moms.mn.gov/

26 “Economy Plan Costs the Millers Baseball Game,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 16, 1917: 23.

27 Illegible headline, Rockford (Illinois) Register-Republic, April 6, 1946: 15.