John Fitzgerald

Like a multitude of others, right-handed pitcher John Fitzgerald owed his ascension to the major leagues to the turmoil of the 1890 season. Among the consequences of the arrival on scene of the upstart Players League was the enlistment of previously minor league clubs into the major league American Association. Among those so elevated was Fitzgerald’s 1889 team, the Rochester Jingoes of the high-minor International Association. Renamed the Broncos, the Rochester club filled American Association ranks depleted by the defection of AA teams to other organizations.

Coming off consecutive seasons with 20+ wins in the minors, Fitzgerald was a genuine prospect. But chronic arm miseries short-circuited his time with Rochester. As the 1890 season cleared its midpoint, the incapacitated Fitzgerald was released by Rochester. A summer later, his professional career came to a close. And the year after that, Fitzgerald was in his grave, having succumbed to consumption (tuberculosis) at age 26. The story of his sadly short life follows.

According to modern baseball authority, John J. Fitzgerald was born on an undetermined 1866 date1 in Waterbury, Connecticut, a manufacturing center located about 30 miles southwest of Hartford, the state capital. He was the third of six children2 born to factory worker Thomas Fitzgerald (born 1838) and his wife Mary (née Galvin, born 1843), both Irish Catholic immigrants. John was raised in the city’s ethnically mixed, working-class Brooklyn neighborhood and educated in public schools through the eighth grade. He then entered the local workforce, likely employed at the same spoon manufacturing plant as his father.3

The precise beginnings of John Fitzgerald’s baseball career are unknown, but he presumably got started on the same Waterbury sandlots that earlier spawned future Hall of Famer Roger Connor.  Although Fitzgerald is a common Irish surname, our subject is likely the pitcher-outfielder named Fitzgerald occasionally mentioned in area newsprint playing for the amateur Waterbury club in 1884.4 And he may well have been the Fitzgerald who pitched for Waterbury’s entry in the short-lived minor Connecticut State League the following season.5

According to an obituary, John J. Fitzgerald “began his career as a professional base ball pitcher in 1886, with the New Havens.”6 But if so, he pitched for a nine unaffiliated with any recognized minor league. Fitz, as he was often called, took a foothold in minor league ball in 1887, signed by the Akron Acorns of the Ohio State League. At 5-feet-8 and 162 pounds, the clean-shaven, baby-faced twirler did not present an intimidating figure in the box. But he made an impressive debut for Akron, nonetheless. Facing the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Kazoos, “Fitzgerald, the new Waterbury, Conn., pitcher … began throwing in his ‘cannon balls’ and the Kalamazoos began fanning the wind in vain endeavor to hit them,” reported the Akron Daily Beacon.7 “Fitzgerald throws a terrific and deceptive curve, especially on the down shoot,” but was “inclined to be wild,” the Daily Beacon added in its account of Akron’s 9-7 triumph.8

The newcomer was promptly dubbed “Akron’s phenomenon”9 but other OSL clubs did not find him particularly hard to hit. In seven outings, Fitzgerald was touched for 105 base hits in only 62 innings pitched, and his record stood at 3-4 (.429) with a high 6.10 ERA when he abruptly left town. “Fitzgerald, Akron’s pitcher, has skipped out for parts unknown” and was blacklisted by Acorns manager Charlie Morton.10 He soon resurfaced close to home, engaged by the New Haven Blues of the independent minor Eastern League.11 “Fitzgerald, the ‘kid’ of Waterbury was given a trial in Hartford … and was a success” despite the game having ended in a draw, reported a New Haven daily.12 “One point so favorable to Fitzgerald was his cool headedness and the utter disregard he took of all the howling and yelling done by the Hartford people and the loud coaching by the players when the score was tied,” the news account added.13

Three weeks after his first appearance for New Haven, it was reported that “Fitzgerald’s arm is very sore,”14 a harbinger of the chronic disability that eventually derailed his career. But he still kept pitching. On July 19, a 9-5 loss to the Danbury (Connecticut) Hatters dropped Fitzgerald’s log to 3-6 (.333) for New Haven.15 Yet the local press remained supportive. “In young Fitzgerald we have as good a pitcher as any in the league bar none, and with the experience which he is getting and the valuable coaching of [veteran catcher Tony] Murphy he is developing improvement all the time,” opined the New Haven Daily Morning Journal & Courier.16

Continued improvement would have to come with another club, as the New Haven Blues (26-30, .464) ceased operations on July 20. A week later and upon the recommendation of receiver Murphy, Fitzgerald had a new engagement, signed by the Lynn (Massachusetts) Lions of the New England League.17 He impressed in his debut, setting down Portland on seven hits, 12-4. “Fitzgerald, a new man, pitched for the [Lynn] nine, and [Portland] were unable to bat his deliveries,” reported a Boston newspaper.18

He then went six weeks without posting another victory, dropping nine consecutive starts, including both ends of a September 8 doubleheader against Portland. At season’s end, Fitzgerald’s log stood at a dismal 2-9 (.182), with a 3.78 ERA in 91 innings pitched for Lynn.19 The numbers, however, did not dissuade Lynn from placing Fitz on the club’s reserved list for the 1888 season.20 But only weeks thereafter, he was released.21

Subsequently signed by the Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Barons of the Central League, Fitzgerald’s fortunes turned around completely in 1888. In his first appearance before the home fans, Fitz threw a three-hit, five-inning shutout at the Allentown (Pennsylvania) Peanuts, winning 16-0. Two weeks later, the Wilkes-Barre Record declared, “Fitzgerald is pitching great ball and is fast becoming a favorite.”22 In early July, however, a recurrence of arm problems sidelined him for three weeks. He returned to the box with a 9-3 victory over the Elmira (New York) club on July 24 and finished strong. In 40 appearances overall, Fitzgerald notched a 24-14 (.632) record for the third-place (59-48, .551) Barons while posting a 1.75 ERA and striking out 173 in 342 2/3 innings pitched.23 He also filled in occasionally in the outfield. Once competition was concluded, Wilkes-Barre reserved Fitzgerald for the 1889 season.24

When the Central League dissolved over the winter, the Wilkes-Barre club a newly formed minor league, the Atlantic Association. Fitzgerald remained with the team, now called the Coal Barons, and began the season with a 12-9 victory over Hartford. A month later, following an 11-3 pasting administered by Worcester, the Wilkes-Barre Record noted a pitching demeanor dramatically at variance with that observed earlier in New Haven. “Fitzgerald is a very swift pitcher with plenty of curves but he gets rattled when men are on base,” the newspaper stated.25 But whether more easily rattled than before or not, he continued to pitch winning ball for Wilkes-Barre. And a month later, Fitz rattled the opposition with offensive displays of his own.

During a 10-run fifth inning rally in a June 27 rout of Lowell, the good-hitting Fitzgerald accomplished a previously undocumented feat; he became the first pitcher in professional baseball known to have hit two home runs in the same inning.26 Nine days later, Fitz hit another homer in a 16-5 win over the Newark Little Giants.27 He followed that up by throwing a two-hitter at the Jersey City Skeeters, cruising to a 19-1 victory. But Fitzgerald was not in position to improve the financial prospects of the fiscally troubled Wilkes-Barre franchise. On August 1, the Coal Barons abandoned play.

In 23 outings for the deceased club, Fitzgerald went 11-6 (.647) with 97 strikeouts and a 3.44 ERA in 157 innings pitched.28 He also contributed a useful.284 batting average (25-for-88) to the cause while fielding his position competently (.942 fielding percentage).29 Prior to going out of business, the Wilkes-Barre franchise stockholders sold the contracts of the club’s leading players to other minor league teams.30 As a result, Fitzgerald became a midseason member of the Rochester Jingoes of the International Association.

Fitz maintained winning form with his new club, going 10-5 (.667) with a 2.59 ERA and 77 strikeouts in 18 appearances for Rochester. His control, however, was shaky: 83 walks, 24 hit batsmen, and 12 wild pitches in 149 2/3 innings thrown. Yet combined with his 11 wins at Wilkes-Barre, the effort gave Fitzgerald his second consecutive season with 20+ victories. And he remained productive with the lumber, batting .289 (13-for-45) for the Jingoes. Perhaps more important than the numbers, Fitzgerald’s transfer to Rochester soon ushered him into the game’s highest echelon.

Analysis and commentary on the rearrangement of the major league baseball scene that attended the arrival of the Players League in 1890 is beyond the scope of this profile. Suffice it to say that one development directly affected Fitzgerald. The defection of four American Association clubs to other circuits left the AA in urgent need of replacement franchises.31 Among the recruits enlisted by Association overlords were the Rochester Jingoes, thereafter renamed the Broncos.32

John Fitzgerald made his major league debut in Philadelphia on April 18, 1890, starting the second game of the new season against the Athletics. The outing was not a happy one. “Fitzgerald pitched rather erratically (seven walks), and the ragged support that he received (10 errors) no doubt tended to rattle him,” reported a Philadelphia newspaper.33 Another observed that “the fielding [nine errors] of the Rochesters was very poor and Fitzgerald became greatly discouraged at the support given him.”34 The end result: a 12-9 setback.

Fitz received much improved backing in his next outing five days later against the Brooklyn Gladiators. Yet Rochester’s lone fielding error cost him the two unearned runs that carried the game into the 10th inning. Then, a five-run Broncos outburst gave Fitzgerald his maiden major league victory, 7-2. The win was deserved: Fitz held Brooklyn to three singles and issued but three walks (as compared to six strikeouts). Two days later, he set down the Gladiators again, 5-1, surrendering only four hits and two walks, while fanning seven. “Brooklyn could do nothing with Fitzgerald’s deliveries and barely escaped a shutout,” lamented the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.35

Fitzgerald dropped his next two decisions – a well-pitched 3-2 loss to the Syracuse Stars, followed by a poorly thrown 11-5 defeat by the Stars, in which he was lifted after three innings. Arm problems then placed Fitzgerald on the sidelines for three weeks. Upon his return, a run in the bottom of the ninth spelled a 4-3 loss to Toledo. More arm problems followed, but after another layoff of two-plus weeks, Fitzgerald returned to action to throw his major league career masterpiece: a five-hit, 3-0 shutout of Syracuse in the nightcap of a June 14 doubleheader. “Fitzgerald pitched magnificently for the home side,” a wire service dispatch summarized.36 Days later, his next start lasted three pitches before a lame arm necessitated his removal.37

Fitzgerald never won another game. After being wild and/or hammered in three ensuing outings, he was “laid off a month to see if he can get into condition.”38 Back in the box on August 17, Fitzgerald staggered through an 8-2 loss to Louisville during which he “seemed to have no control of the ball”39 (as reflected in eight walks and two hit batsmen, plus 15 base hits surrendered). Two weeks thereafter, it was announced that “the Rochester management has released Fitzgerald [as his arm] showed no signs of coming around. When in condition he is as good a pitcher as is in the Association. It is thought that with a winter’s rest he will be all right again.”40

Regrettably, the winter rest did Fitzgerald’s pitching arm little good. His five-month major league career was over. In 11 appearances for the Rochester Broncos (65-63-7, .508), Fitzgerald posted a dreary 3-8 (.273) record. A tolerable ratio of base hits (77) to innings pitched (78) was undermined by poor control: 45 walks and six hit batsmen, and his 4.04 ERA was above the club norm (3.56). Fitzgerald’s.194 batting average (6-for-31) was also a disappointment. But his defense – only one error in 25 fielding chances – was excellent.

Back home in Waterbury, Fitz stayed in shape by playing outfield for various local nines, at times supporting the pitching of younger brother Jim Fitzgerald.41 The following spring, John essayed a comeback, signing with the Sioux City (Iowa) Cornhuskers of the Western Association.42 The endeavor almost cost him his life. Upon arrival in the Midwest, Fitzgerald was beset by illness, variously diagnosed as a severe cold, stomach trouble, or malaria.43 But a report that Fitzgerald was “laid up with consumption” was sharply contradicted by the club’s correspondent from The Sporting News, who labeled it “an injustice to” Fitzgerald. Although Fitz “is not exactly a well man … he is out on the streets every day.”44  Thereafter, in mid-May, Fitzgerald’s road-trip roommate, fellow pitcher Wild Bill Widner, almost killed them both.

With Fitzgerald already in bed for the evening, Widner turned out the gas light in their room. But a faulty shutoff valve remained open, allowing the gas to continue to flow. Early the following morning, the odor of gas emanated from the transom over the room door. Inquiring teammates then discovered Widner and Fitzgerald inert and unresponsive in their beds. Widner recovered rapidly but two hours elapsed before the nearly asphyxiated Fitzgerald regained consciousness. As trenchantly observed by the Sioux City Journal, “but for the fact that the window and the transom of the room had been left open, the twirlers would have been permanently retired from the diamond.”45

Foolishly, Fitzgerald attempted to pitch three days later “but the damp weather was too much for Fitz after the recent experience with Sioux City gas and western malaria.”46 He lasted one inning against the Kansas City Blues, allowing four base hits and three runs. Fitzgerald never appeared in an Organized Baseball contest again. But he was not yet ready to quit the game.

Seeking to recover both his health and his arm strength, Fitz spent the summer in Hot Springs, South Dakota.47 There, he played outfield for the town team while recuperating.48 Thereafter, Fitzgerald returned to Waterbury, where a grim final scene awaited. The Fitzgerald household was enveloped in terminal illness. Early in 1892, now-widowed Mary Fitzgerald’s youngest child, daughter Elizabeth, died.49 Then in mid-July, son James passed away at 23.50 Although no cause of death was announced, it seems probable that both Lizzie and Jim succumbed to tuberculosis, the scourge of 19th-century Irish-Americans.

The dread disease also had our subject in its thrall. He died at the family residence on the morning of December 20, 1892.51 John J. Fitzgerald was 26. Following a High Requiem Mass said at St. Patrick’s Church, his remains were interred at a place now lost to time. Never married and without issue, the deceased was survived by his mother, brothers Tom and Dennis, and sister Mary.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Darren Gibson and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Terry Bohn.

Sources

Sources for the biographical info imparted above include the Fitzgerald profile in David Nemec, The Rank and File of 19th Century Major League Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2012); US Census reports and other government records accessed via Ancestry.com; and certain of the newspaper articles cited in the endnotes. Unless otherwise specified, statistics have been taken from Baseball-Reference.

Notes

1 A contemporary news reports gave Fitzgerald’s birth year as 1867. See “Some of Our Ball Players,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Morning Leader, April 14, 1889: 24.

2 The other Fitzgerald children were Thomas (born 1863), Mary (1865), James (1869), Dennis (1871), and Elizabeth (1873).

3 Per “Some of Our Ball Players,” above. By the time that son John entered the workforce Thomas Fitzgerald was likely deceased – he does not appear on the 1880 US Census and his wife Mary is listed there as a widow.

4 See e.g., “Willimantics vs. Waterburys,” Willimantic (Connecticut) Journal, August 1, 1884: 6: “Fitzgerald pitched a fine game” for Waterbury but dropped a 7-4 verdict to Willimantic.

5 See e.g., “Beaten Again,” New Haven (Connecticut) Register, May 31, 1885: 1

6 “Brooklyn Briefs,” Waterbury (Connecticut) Evening Democrat, December 20, 1892: 1.

7 “Akron’s Big Victory,” Akron (Ohio) Daily Beacon, May 14, 1887: 1.

8 Same as above. Fitzgerald held Kalamazoo to six hits and struck out seven. But he also walked eight, threw three wild pitches, and hit a batter.

9 See e.g., “Base Ball Notes,” Indianapolis Journal, June 17, 1887: 4; “An Akron Pitcher Elopes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 14, 1887: 5.

10 “Slides,” Kalamazoo (Michigan) Gazette, June 15, 1887: 4. Fitzgerald’s sudden departure was also reported in “Base Ball Notes” and “An Akron Pitcher Elopes,” above. Two months later, Akron engaged another pitcher named Fitzgerald from Waterbury, Connecticut. See “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, August 10, 1887: 5. Although named James Fitzgerald, this Fitzgerald was not our subject’s younger brother.

11 Fitzgerald’s engagement with New Haven was reported in “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, June 15, 1887: 4.

12 “New Haven Stock Booming,” New Haven (Connecticut) Daily Morning Journal & Courier, June 13, 1887: 3, which attributed the defeat to the inability of New Haven catchers to “hold his curves at all that day.”

13 Same as above.

14 “Knights of the Ash,” New Haven Daily Morning Journal & Courier, July 4, 1887: 4.

15 As calculated by the writer from box scores published in Sporting Life and the New Haven press. Baseball-Reference provides no data for our subject’s stay in New Haven.

16 “The Ball Field,” New Haven Daily Morning Journal & Courier, July 18, 1887: 3.

17 As reported in “Pitcher Bingham’s Position,” New Haven Daily Morning Journal & Courier, July 28, 1887: 3: “Lynn is to be congratulated, for she has secured a fine pitcher and a gentleman.”

18 See “Lynn, 12; Portland, 4,” Boston Journal, August 4, 1887: 3.

19 Per the writer’s calculations. The 1888 Reach Official American Association Guide does not provide New England League win-loss statistics but posits Fitzgerald’s ERA at 3.36 in 11 games for Lynn during the 1887 season. Meanwhile, Baseball-Reference provides no 1887 Lynn (or New Haven) stats for our John Fitzgerald but attributes numbers fairly close to his to the record of a different John Fitzgerald (John Henry Fitzgerald, born 1870 in Natick, Massachusetts), later a pitcher for the 1891 Boston Reds of the American Association.

20 See “Wanted Next Year: The New England League List of Reserved Players,” Sporting Life, October 12, 1887: 1.

21 Per “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, December 28, 1887: 5.

22 “Notes,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Record, May 29, 1888: 4.

23 As calculated from box scores published in the Wilkes-Barre press. Neither Baseball-Reference nor the Spalding Guide provide any data for Fitzgerald’s 1888 season, while the 1889 Reach Official American Association Guide, 88-90, offers only his batting (.176) and fielding (.931) averages.

24 As reported in “Ball Talk,” Wilkes-Barre Record, October 3, 1888: 1, and “For Next Year,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Evening Leader, October 2, 1888: 1.

25 “Base Ball Mention,” Wilkes-Barre Record, May 21, 1889: 4.

26 Fitzgerald also hit a single in the 21-7 drubbing. See the box score published in the Wilkes-Barre Record, June 28, 1889: 4. Fitzgerald hitting two homers in the same inning was expressly noted elsewhere. See e.g., “Wilkes-Barre, 21, Lowell, 7,” New Haven Register, June 28, 1889: 3; “World of Sports,” Waterbury Evening Democrat, June 28, 1888: 4. Modern reference works list Fitzgerald as bats unknown, but the probabilities suggest that he was a righty batter.

27 Per the box score published in the Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Sunday Morning Leader, July 7, 1889: 8.

28 As calculated by the writer from box scores published in the Wilkes-Barre press. Fitzgerald’s strikeouts total comes from the 1890 Reach Official American Association Guide, 84 (which does not provide any other pitching stats).

29 Per Atlantic Association batting and fielding statistics published in the 1890 Reach Guide, 77, 80.

30 According to “Ball Notes,” Wilkes-Barre Evening Leader, August 1, 1889: 4, the sale of Fitzgerald and several other players “nets the Wilkes-Barre management $1,970.”

31 During the off-season, the American Association champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the Cincinnati Reds jumped to the National League for the 1890 season. Meanwhile, the AA Baltimore Orioles affiliated with the minor league Atlantic Association while the AA Kansas City Cowboys found refuge in another minor circuit, the Western Association.

32 The other AA replacements were the Syracuse Stars and Toledo Black Pirates, also of the International Association, plus the Brooklyn Gladiators, a newly formed club.

33 “Racing and Base Ball,” Philadelphia Times, April 19, 1890: 6.

34 “Two for the Athletics,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 19, 1890: 6.

35 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 29, 1890: 2.

36 See e.g., New York Tribune, June 15, 1890: 14.

37 See “The Stars Beaten Again,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, June 18, 1890: 7. After Fitzgerald was derricked, reliever Will Calihan pitched Rochester to a 3-1 victory over Syracuse.

38 “The Club Is Home Again,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, July 19, 1890: 7. At the time a “condition” problem was often a sportswriting euphemism for excessive drinking. But Fitzgerald was not a heavy imbiber, and, in his case, “condition” referred to his non-responsive pitching arm.

39 Per a wire service game summary. See e.g., “Goodall’s Pitching Was the Feature,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 18, 1890: 3.

40 “Notes,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, August 29, 1890: 6.

41 See e.g., “Sports,” Waterbury Evening Democrat, September 20, 1890: 4: “Jim and John Fitzgerald are playing with the Bristol team.” The Fitzgerald brothers also played together on the Company G club of Waterbury.

42 As reported in “Sioux City’s Strong Team,” Omaha World-Herald, April 7, 1891: 1. See also, “Base Ball This Afternoon!” Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, April 5, 1891: 3.

43 See “Scraps of Sport,” Sioux City Journal, April 18, 1891: 2; “Base Ball Notes,” Sioux City Journal, April 16, 1891: 3.

44 Asher Anspacher, “The Sioux City Team,” The Sporting News, May 9, 1891: 2.

45 “The Pitchers Nearly Suffocated,” Sioux City Journal, May 19, 1891: 8. See also, “World of Sport,” Waterbury Evening Democrat, May 25, 1891: 4.

46 “Sioux City Has Won a Game,” Sioux City Journal, May 20, 1891: 2. The Cornhuskers defeated the Kansas City Blues, 14-11.

47 Located some 480 miles west of Sioux City, the South Dakota resort featured medicinal springs and other health restorative amenities like its far more famous namesake in Arkansas.

48 As reported in “News Briefs,” Sioux City Journal, September 12, 1891: 8; “Notes of the Diamond,” Hot Springs (South Dakota) Weekly Star, September 4, 1891: 2; “Base Ball Notes,” Sioux City Journal, June 29, 1891: 1.

49 Lizzie Fitzgerald’s passing earlier in the year was noted in her brother John’s subsequent obituary. See again, “Brooklyn Briefs,” above.

50 The death of James Fitzgerald was noted in “City News,” Waterbury Evening Democrat, July 12, 1892: 4, and July 13, 1892: 4.

51 The Fitzgerald death certificate lists the primary cause as phthisis pulmonalis, a 19th-century medical term for tuberculosis.