Lew Moren

Lew Moren played in six major-league seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1903-04) and the Philadelphia Phillies (1907-10). A right-handed pitcher – and one of the first knuckleballers – he stood 5-feet-11 and weighed 150 pounds. Occasionally referred to as “Hicks,” the nickname for which he may best be remembered is the “Million Dollar Kid,” in reference to his father, a riverboat tycoon who made his fortune on the banks of the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh.

Lewis Howard Moren was born on August 4, 1883. He was raised in his family’s stately home on Meridan Street in Duquesne Heights, overlooking the City of Pittsburgh. His father, Captain John L. Moren, married Maria Antoinette Josenhans in 1879. The Morens had four children: Estella, Paul, Lewis, and Arthur.1 Captain Moren owned the Advance Coal Company. The success of this business made him a very wealthy man.

As a youth, Lew Moren was known to walk to the end of his street that overlooked old Exposition Park, where he watched baseball games using his father’s binoculars.

On July 4, 1903, Lew was first reported pitching for his local team, the Duquesne Amateurs, winning by a score of 15-1.2 Ten days later, he beat the Pittsburg Dry Good Company, 11-6.3

On July 21, 1903, Moren was pitching for the Pittsburg Athletic Club.4 Shortly thereafter, he was recruited by the powerful Millvale team from suburban Pittsburgh, which a few years earlier was the starting point for Hall of Famer Bobby Wallace. Moren made his first start for Millvale on July 25, and “displayed great work on the rubber” with a 13-1 victory.5

John “Red” Calhoun from the Haverhill (Massachusetts) Hustlers of the Class B New England League was in town looking for local talent. Calhoun was from Pittsburgh and had played 20 games in the majors with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1902.6 Moren turned down Calhoun’s offer and opted to stay in Pittsburgh for the remainder of the season pitching for Millvale. He then proceeded to win the championship game for Millvale against Homestead Library & Athletic Club by a score of 4-0. Batting third for Millvale that day was Whitey Alpermann, back home after spending this season with the Davenport River Rats of the Three–I League.7 Alpermann would later go on to spend four years with the Brooklyn Superbas.

Pirates manager Fred Clarke was looking for promising young players for the big club, and he considered giving Moren a look when the club returned to Pittsburgh from a road trip.8 The Pittsburg Post reported that Clarke was going to have Moren pitch the second game of the doubleheader on September 21, as the Pirates were getting ready to take on the Boston Americans in the first modern World Series. Despite suffering a 7-3 loss to Brooklyn in his major-league debut, Moren made a decent impression and was “cheered repeatedly” by his hometown fans.9

On October 16, 1903, Moren and his father met with Clarke and team president Barney Dreyfuss to sign a contract for the 1904 season. It was reported that “the young man with the consent of his father, affixed his signature to the contract, and he is now a full fledge Pirate.”10 Moren’s father would come to spend considerable time with Lew advising him on his baseball career. Captain Moren and Dreyfuss were friends, but it is unknown if this personal friendship had any bearing on jumpstarting young Lew’s baseball career.

On March 19, 1904, Moren reported to spring training. He was 18 pounds heavier than the previous season, which delighted manager Clarke, who believed that Moren was a bit underweight for the demands of major league pitching.11

Moren’s only major-league appearance of the 1904 season came in relief of Deacon Phillippe on April 19, versus Cincinnati. On May 2, Moren was released by the Pirates,12 but his unemployment did not last long. On May 15, he was signed by the Baltimore Orioles of the Class A Eastern League and their owner, Ned Hanlon. The Pirates were planning on hiding Moren with the Eastern League’s Providence Grays, but that was quickly thwarted by Hanlon’s quick maneuver.13 Surprisingly, the next day Moren was on his way back home as Baltimore manager Hughie Jennings was more interested in another righty pitcher, Elmer Bliss. Moren expressed his dissatisfaction with the situation by stating, “I think I deserved a little more consideration than was given me. I was signed and reported here at once. I was given no attention and was treated very coldly.”14

After returning home, Moren immediately signed with Howard Risher’s Homestead Library & Athletic Club, a local semipro nine that Moren had defeated in the previous year’s local championship. Risher knew talent when he saw it – at one point he was said to have discovered the great Rube Waddell15 – and quickly sought out Moren. The new recruit made Risher look good, tossing a no-hitter his first time out with the new team.16 Later that year, Ned Hanlon – who was also the Brooklyn Superbas’ manager – was short of arms and approached Moren about pitching during a series against the Pirates.17 Nothing came of it, though. In September there was a report in the Pittsburg Press that Moren was the subject of some type of agreement between Pirates manager Clarke and the Homestead team. Reportedly, Clarke was “not in need of Moren’s services at present, but signed him so that no other team could get him for next year.”18

In January 1905, Moren declined a contract offer extended by manager Billy Murray of the Eastern League’s Jersey City Skeeters.19 Rather, in March, Moren became property of the Atlanta Crackers, a Class A Southern League club managed by Pittsburgh native Adolf Otto “Dutch” Jordan. And it was in Atlanta where mention of Moren tossing a knuckleball first appeared in newsprint.20

In 33 outings, Moren compiled a 17-14 record for Atlanta. That September, he was selected by the NL Philadelphia Phillies in the minor league player draft.

During the offseason, Moren and the Phillies were unable to reach agreement on contract terms. Despite the standoff, he reported to the club’s spring camp in Savannah. The contract impasse, however, was not resolved. Meanwhile, the Phillies concluded that Moren was too small in stature to compete in the major leagues. As a result, Moren spent the 1906 season pitching for Jersey City, where he went 16-13, with 123 strikeouts in 251 innings pitched.

In 1907, Moren was back in the big leagues with the Phillies. His knuckleball was starting to gain him a large amount of press. Moren said he started out practicing the knuckler in his younger days but to no avail. As he progressed through the professional ranks, he was finally able to control it to the point that it was his hardest pitch to hit. On June 17, 1907, at Pittsburgh, Moren used the pitch to beat the Pirates, 7-3. It was a day of continuous celebrations for Moren. The entire grandstand behind the visitors’ bench consisted of supporters from his Pittsburgh neighborhood. He was given a diamond ring of significant value. Afterwards his father held a victory dinner at the Moren home, and all the Philly players were invited guests. During the dinner, Captain Moren presented his son Lew with $5,000 worth of stock in the Boston National League Baseball Club.21 Boston owner George Dovey and John Moren were acquaintances. In 37 games, Moren went 11-18 (.379), striking out 98 batters while walking 101, and posting a 2.54 ERA in 255 innings.

Moren returned to the Phillies in 1908 but was given less work. He wound up going 8-9 (.471) with a 2.92 ERA in just 154 innings, a drop of over 100 innings from the previous season.

The 1909 season provided the first hints of how Moren got his nickname “The Million Dollar Kid.” After Moren suffered a defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Pirates in June, the Pittsburg Press stated, “after they solved his delivery, they hammered the ‘millionaire kid’ off the firing line.”22 On April 21, 1910, after Moren two-hit the Dodgers, the Philadelphia Inquirer stated that the renowned “million-dollar kid” pitched one of the finest games of his career.23

When Lew bested the renowned Christy Mathewson on May 4, 1909, “Captain Moren mailed a substantial check to his son as a reward for his victory over Mathewson and the Giants.”24 It was later reported that, “Lew gets a check for $100 from his father in Pittsburg every time he pitches a winning game.”25 On May 26, Captain Moren publicly stated that in the future, if his son beat the Pirates, he would make it a $250 bonus.26 Adding fuel to the fire, it was rumored that both Lew and his father were planning on taking over the Boston Doves after the recent death of owner George Dovey. These rumors were eventually tamped down by both Captain Moren and his son. who indicated he “emphatically and indignantly denied it” despite owning stock in the team.27

To put these rumors to rest, Captain Moren backtracked on reports that he rewarded his son for each win. This stemmed from speculation that Lew was going to receive $500 for every win over the Cubs, entrenched in a pennant race with his hometown Pirates. In an extensive quote, Captain Moren indicated there was not a word of truth to any of it. Only once did he send his son $100 and a letter of congratulations. The stories had made Lew “a victim of much un-called for roasting at the hands of fans. The yarn that I have offered him $500 for every game he may be able to win from Chicago is too ridiculous to call for reply,” the senior Moren complained. He finished by saying that whoever started those reports “should have his head examined.”28

By June 27, 1909, Moren was 9-5 with 54 strikeouts and 43 walks. A month later, the Pittsburg Press reported that Phils manager Billy Murray was being let go, to be replaced by Giants outfielder and playboy/actor Mike Donlin in a player/manager role. Sherwood “Sherry” Magee and possibly Moren or Bill Foxen were supposed to go to New York. Giants manager John McGraw wanted Moren but the trade never materialized.29

Moren finished the 1909 season with a 16-15 record and a career-high 110 strikeouts in 257 2/3 innings pitched. At season’s end, Moren worked for his father, captaining a boat from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.30 Possibly he was looking at a new life beyond his baseball career for the first time during the 1,700-mile journey.

In early January 1910, new Phillies manager Charles “Red” Dooin came to Pittsburgh to sign both Moren and Otto Knabe.31As the season progressed, Moren suffered some ailments. He sustained an undisclosed injury to his back during a game against the Cardinals. Then in a freak accident, he burned the middle finger of his pitching hand while striking a match, thus rendering him unable to toss his knuckleball.32 On September 23, 1910, Moren came up lame during a game against the Pirates. He insisted that he did not warm up properly, and complained of a stiff arm, but a report out of the Philadelphia Inquirer indicated an injury to his ulnar bone in his right forearm.33

Moren’s 1910 numbers did not match his previous year’s output. He registered 13 wins with 14 losses, struck out only 74 batters while giving out 82 free passes in 205 1/3 innings, and his ERA soared to a career-high 3.55. Moren did not know it yet, but his major-league career was about to end.

In a deal that was originally blocked by Philadelphia team president Horace Fogel, manager Dooin sent Moren, George McQuillan, Eddie Grant, and Johnny Bates to the Cincinnati Reds for Hans Lobert, Dode Paskert, Fred Beebe, and Jack Rowan. Fogel told Dooin that he felt it was not a good deal, and he would not agree to it. But Dooin felt there was disharmony in the clubhouse and that a change of personnel would be best for the team. Fogel eventually acquiesced, and the deal went off as planned.34

Moren started the 1911 season with arm pain. The press described it as a “kink in his cash distributer.”35 Moren reported to spring training in Hot Springs, but unable to pitch, he headed back to Cincinnati to meet with an osteopath.36 The problem was determined to be a strained tendon, and Moren was expected to be back on the hill in two weeks.37 As the season started, Moren was still unavailable, but reports from the team in mid-April indicated that he was starting to throw in practice, and expected to get back into form “once the hot weather sets in.”38 By mid-May, Moren’s arm was still lame, yet the team hoped he could be ready for an upcoming Cardinals series.39 In early June, Moren headed to Youngstown to see famed specialist John “Bonesetter” Reese, hoping that treatment could get him back in action in the next few weeks.40

On August 18, 1911, the Reds suspended Moren for being unable to pitch and because he had sustained an arm injury the prior year with the Phillies. According to Reds management, this injury was known by the Philadelphia organization but undisclosed when Moren was traded. Moren advised the Reds brass that he fully anticipated returning to the club for the 1912 season, and that he had been rehabilitating his ailing wing in Hot Springs.

Moren was eventually given his unconditional release from the Reds in 1912, thus ending his major-league career. In 141 games spread over six seasons, he posted a 48-57 (.457) record with a 2.95 ERA in 882 innings pitched. Over that span, he allowed 797 base hits and 331 walks, while striking out 356 enemy batters. The righty-swinging Moren did himself little good with the stick, batting a meek 134 (39-for-291), but was adequate defensively (.947 fielding percentage in 264 chances).

Captain John Moren passed away at age 64 on May 8, 1912. That July, his son started an independent team called the Lew Moren All-Stars. On July 12, the All-Stars played the Pittsburgh Collegians at Exposition Park but lost their debut by a score of 5-2 in front of what was described as a large crowd. In the lineup that day for Moren was local Pittsburgh teenager Joe Schultz, a cousin of the same Hans Lobert for whom Lew had been traded.41 The Moren team did not stay in existence very long, as the last known game was played on August 10, 1912 and no further scores that season were reported.

Moren stayed around his Duquesne Heights home living with his mother Maria, who passed away in 1924, and his sister Estella, who died in 1953. He spent his time working with young pitchers at Olympia Park, a local ballfield by his home. Moren was a veteran of World War I, although he never saw combat. He enlisted in the tank corps on October 26, 1918, and was stationed in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but two weeks after reporting, the war ended. He was honorably discharged on December 1, 1918.42

After his retirement from baseball, other than attending the occasional old-timers’ game, Moren faded into anonymity. He never married or had children. His World War I draft registration card listed Moren’s occupation as a manager.43 On the 1930 US Census, Moren indicated that he was a mechanic in an automobile shop. Later census records showed him as being unemployed, as did his 1942 World War II draft registration card.44

On November 2, 1966, at his home on Meridan Street, Lewis Howard Moren took his own life. The death certificate listed the cause as “lacerations of neck by razor blade.”45 He was 83 years old. Moren was buried in Pittsburgh’s historic Homewood Cemetery.

After all the news generated about the young Moren, including the money from his father and his being one of the game’s first knuckleballers, a 1912 Pittsburgh Post article discussing the fate of all the Phillies twirlers over the past few years stated, “Moren was equally one of the Phillies’ transient phenoms.”46

Acknowledgments

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

Photo credit: Lew Moren, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author used the following:

Find A Grave; https://www.findagrave.com/

Baseball Reference; https://www.baseball-reference.com/

Ancestry: https://www.ancestry.com/

Newspapers: http://www.newspapers.com

Email correspondence from Miranda Steele, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Damer, Edward. (2022). Thirty-Three In Twenty-Three; The World of Rube Parnham and Other Baseball Stories (3rd ed.). Kindle Direct Publishing.

Sources maintain that Lew Moren attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh are mistaken. The university has no record of him as a student there, as confirmed to the writer by Patty Swisher, Assistant Vice-President, Marketing and Communications, July 3, 2024.

Notes

1 1900 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.

2 “Duquesne Rivals Break Even,” Pittsburg Post, July 5, 1903: 15.

3 “Dry Good Team Is Defeated,” Pittsburg Post, July 15, 1903: 10

4 “Wentz in the Field Again,” Pittsburg Post, July 21, 1903: 12.

5 “Ed Hickey Gets Good Start With Millvale” Pittsburgh Gazette, July 26, 1903: 19.

6 “Lew Moren Is Wanted by Calhoun at Haverhill,” Pittsburgh Gazette, August 4, 1903: 9.

7 “Lew Moren’s Great Work Too Much for Homestead,” Pittsburgh Gazette, October 1, 1903: 9.

8 “Fred Clarke Likes Pitcher Lew Moren,” Pittsburgh Gazette, August 15, 1903: 7.

9 “Experiments Were Costly,” Pittsburg Press, September 22, 1903: 14.

10 “Lew Moren Was Signed by Pirates For 1904,” Pittsburg Press, October 17, 1903: 15.

11 “Bransfield Comes to Town,” Pittsburg Post, March 19, 1904: 8.

12 “Baseball Notes,” Pittsburg Press, May 3, 1904: 14.

13 “Hanlon Outwits Dreyfus” Miranda Steele, Baseball Hall of Fame; news report digital image, June 20, 2024.

14 “Lew Moren Victim of a Raw Deal in Baltimore,” Pittsburg Press, May 21, 1904: 8.

15 “Discovered Waddell,” Des Moines Tribune, January 23, 1933: 8.

16 “Homestead Beat Giants,” Pittsburg Press, May 29, 1904: 22.

17 “Baseball Chatter,” Pittsburg Post, August 28, 1904: 12.

18 “Moren Stays with Risher,” Pittsburg Press, September 1, 1904: 11.

19 “Baseball Notes, Pittsburg Press, January 18, 1905: 12.

20 “Moren Has Spitball” Atlanta Journal, March 13, 1905: 12.

21 “Honors For Lew Moren,” Pittsburgh Post, June 18, 1907: 8.

22 “Lew Moren Is Hammered Off Firing Line,” Pittsburg Press, June 8, 1909: 14.

23 “Lew Moren Is Whole Show at Brooklyn,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 22, 1910.

24 “Victorius Pirates Are Homeward Bound,” Pittsburgh Post, May 5, 1909: 10.

25 “Baseball Notes,” Pittsburg Press, May 26, 1909: 15.

26 “Moren Lost Game and Check in Eighth,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 8, 1909: 6.

27 “Dreyfus and Locke Will Attend President Dovey’s Funeral,” Pittsburgh Post, June 21, 1909: 10.

28 “Capt. Moren Indignant,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, August 11, 1909: 11.

29 D. L. Reeves, “Mike Donlin Will Succeed Billy Murray,” Pittsburg Press, July 25, 1909: 20.

30 “Trip Of Motorboat,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, October 28, 1909: 10.

31 “More Contracts for Connie Mack,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 30, 1910: 29.

32 “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburgh Post, July 13, 1910: 9.

33 Jim Nasium, “Phillies Top Pirates in Real Pitchers Duel,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 24, 1910: 13.

34 “Fogel Blocks Deal with Cincinnati,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 26, 1910: 10.

35 Ros, “Red Colt Infield Works in Perfect Harmony,” Cincinnati Post, March 6, 1911:  6.

36 “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 21, 1911: 8.

37 Ros, “Moren Will Be Able to Pitch in Two Weeks,” Cincinnati Post, March 28, 1911: 6.

38 Ros, “Suggs’ Nerve and Clean Fielding Cause Cardinals to Drop Notch, Cincinnati Post, April 18, 1911: 6.

39 “Moren Will Pitch Soon,” Cincinnati Post, May 20, 1911: 6.

40 “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburgh Post, June 9, 1911: 11.

41 “On The Independent Circuit,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, July 28, 1912:.21:

42 Pennsylvania, U.S., World War I Veterans Service and Compensation Files, Ancestry.com.

43 U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 for Lewis Howard Moren, Ancestry.com.

44 U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 for Lewis Howard Moren, Ancestry.com.

45 Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1970 for Lewis H Moren, Ancestry.

46 “Will Rixey Share the Fate of Other Young Phillies’ Twirlers,” Pittsburgh Post, August 18, 1912: 40.