He was born Miroslav Drabowski in Ozanna, Poland, on July 21, 1935. His mother, Frances Galus, was an American citizen who met her future husband while visiting relatives in Ozanna. “We lived on a farm,” Moe recalled in a 1966 interview. “I remember a stream I fished in. I remember a barn, and some of the animals.”1

In 1938, when Hitler began to annex and mobilize in Eastern Europe, the Drabowski family left Poland. Moe arrived in the United States with his mother in 1938. She was 8½ months pregnant with his sister, Marian, at the time. Their father, Michael, joined the family later, before Germany invaded Poland, and the family settled in Connecticut.

“Language was a barrier when I started school,” recalled Moe, “because we didn’t speak English at home.”2 Miroslav picked up English from the radio and from school over time, to the point where he all but forgot Polish. With his new home and tongue came a new anglicized name, Myron Walter. From boyhood on, however, nobody ever called him anything but Moe. Eventually, in high school or college, his last name was misspelled “Drabowsky,” and Moe went with that spelling for the rest of his life.

Drabowsky’s pitching career began in earnest at Loomis Prep School in Windsor, Connecticut. There he was 8-0 in his senior year, including a no-hitter. He then attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. “I went on a scholastic scholarship,” he said, “but lost it when I joined a fraternity and started partying.”3 He didn’t lose his fastball, which helped him to a 17-5 record, including another no-hitter, with 111 strikeouts in 70 innings. He also developed his interest in business and finance, and studied economics with, if not academic zeal, at least enough diligence to prepare him for a career as a stockbroker.

During the summer, Moe pitched for the Truro Bearcats in the Nova Scotia Amateur League in Canada. In 1955 he posted a 9-9 record, striking out 135 batters in 120 innings, and in 1956 he went 6-2 with 69 strikeouts in 60 innings. There he caught the eye of scout Lennie Merullo, who signed him for the Chicago Cubs. Sources disagree on the size of the bonus Drabowsky received for signing with the Cubs; it is given as anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000. In any case, under the rules of the day, it was large enough to obligate the Cubs to keep Moe on the major-league roster for two years. As a result, he went right from Nova Scotia to the National League.

He was calm in his first official major-league game, a one-inning scoreless relief appearance in Milwaukee on August 7, 1956. “But the next night in Cincinnati,” Drabowsky told the Chicago American at the time, “I really had the jitters. The first man I faced was Ted Kluszewski. I was so worried I threw him four straight balls.”4 Drabowsky walked two more batters, but struck out three to get through another scoreless inning.

On August 18 pitching coach Dutch Leonard asked, “How would you like to do some throwing tonight?” “I’d like it,” Drabowsky replied. “Then you’re starting against the Cardinals tonight,” Leonard told him.5 Drabowsky won his third appearance, his first start, pitching into the eighth inning in an 8-1 win over St. Louis in Busch Stadium.

“Being a bonus player,” Moe said, “naturally I take a lot of good-natured kidding. In the pepper games during batting practice anyone who makes an error has to buy the other guy a Coke. When Don Kaiser, Jerry Kindall, and I play, the veterans yell, ‘Hey, here come the bonus boys. Forget the Cokes – this one’s for Cadillacs!’”6 No doubt Moe’s infectious good nature eased some of the transition pains he might otherwise have felt. It didn’t hurt that he seemed to take to big-league mounds right away. Through September 8 Moe had posted a 1.56 ERA over 40 innings. “I was a little disappointed with my control,” he said, though he had added a change-up to his fastball and curve by the end of his Chicago stint.7 His contract allowed him to return to Trinity College at that point, though the Cubs did call on Moe for two more appearances, one in Brooklyn on the 14th and one in New York on the 19th after he’d been back in school for five days. The Dodgers touched him for five runs, four earned, in a complete-game loss, and the Giants got five runs off him in three innings in relief. The two appearances raised his ERA to 2.47 for the season, which did nothing to diminish Cubs hopes for their bonus phenom.

Moe was supposed to join the major-league club after the school year ended in May 1957, and return to school in the fall as he had in 1956. However, he spent the entire season with the Cubs, going 13-15 in 239 2/3 innings and striking out 170. He continued to struggle with his control, but his 3.53 ERA was better than the National League average.

After a stint with the Army Reserve and a throat ailment, he reported late and underweight to the Cubs in 1958. He arrived in time to surrender Stan Musial’s 3,000th hit on May 13, 1958. Pinch-hitting for Sam Jones in the sixth inning, with the Cardinals down 3-1 in Chicago, Musial took two balls and fouled off two more before slapping a Drabowsky curve ball into left field for a double. The hit sparked a four-run game-winning rally for the Cards.

On June 27, 1958, Drabowsky married Elizabeth Johns, a former airline stewardess, in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh. They met on a flight when Moe traveled from Chicago to New York to visit his parents. Johns, a Pittsburgh native, was a baseball fan who confessed to a reporter that she had harbored a crush for Gil Hodges since she was 10 years old. (She might have had mixed feelings about Hodges’ .394 batting average against Drabowsky, or his four home runs in 33 at-bats.) The couple had two daughters, Myra and Laura.

On July 11, 1958, however, the newly married Drabowsky’s career changed dramatically. “I had two strikes on Bob Skinner,” he later recalled. “I reached way back for the strikeout pitch, and heard something snap in my elbow.”8 The strikeout ended the fourth inning, but the Pirates tagged Moe for five runs on two singles, three walks, and a homer the next inning. Moe skipped a turn, then tried to pitch on July 19 against Milwaukee and lasted only a third of an inning. “The arm responded to treatment at first,” said Drabowsky, “then I had trouble again. I strained my shoulder favoring the elbow. One thing led to another.”9 Drabowsky made four starts in late August, going 1-2. He was 8-7 with a 3.80 ERA at the time of the injury, but finished 9-11, 4.51.

Drabowsky’s arm never felt quite right during the next four years. By July 1960, with an ERA hovering around 10.00, he went to the minors for the first time in his career. He won all five of his starts for Triple-A Houston, with an ERA of 0.90, and pitched more effectively upon his return to the Cubs in August. But Drabowsky no longer figured in the Cubs’ plans. They traded him to the Milwaukee Braves before the 1961 season. He struggled for the first half of the season before being sent to Triple-A Louisville. The Cincinnati Reds picked up Drabowsky in the 1961 Rule 5 Draft, and used him in the bullpen in 1962 until August, when his contract was sold to the Kansas City Athletics.

There his career was resurrected under the tutelage of the Athletics’ pitching coach, former Yankees great Ed Lopat. During this period Moe also began to study films of his pitching, taken by his wife, Elizabeth, in an attempt to improve his mechanics. His fastball was no longer as overpowering, and he learned to rely on location and placement. “I really learned a lot about pitching from Eddie Lopat at Kansas City,” said Drabowsky years later. As his pitching coach in 1962, Lopat “provided me with a brand-new outlook and rekindled the confidence.” Hired as Kansas City’s manager for 1963, Lopat “gave me a chance to pitch and my arm never felt stronger or better. My confidence was restored and suddenly I realized I was far from washed up.”10

Drabowsky began 1963 in Triple-A Portland of the PCL, starting two games and relieving in 17, and going 5-1 with a 2.13 ERA. Returning to Kansas City, he started in 22 of his 26 appearances. Moe went 7-13 for the Athletics, but posted a 3.05 ERA in the process (in a league where starters averaged 3.65).

Drabowsky began to feel comfortable enough to indulge the sense of humor for which he would become notorious. There are few accounts of his pranks before 1963. The most common observation about him before this time was that he came to the majors with “a copy of The Sporting News in one hand and a copy of the Wall Street Journal in the other.”11 Although Drabowsky continued to ply his trade as a stockbroker during the off-season, that serious, studious portrait gave way to that of the madcap bullpen prankster that eventually crowded out almost every other image of the man. On August 18, 1963, for example, in a game when Lopat was ejected, umpire Ed Hurley had to order Drabowsky to stop throwing in the Kansas City bullpen when two of his pitches just happened to sail into right field. It was a sign of antics to come.

In 1964 Drabowsky got into a salary dispute with Athletics owner Charles O. Finley. Drabowsky, who did a pretty good Finley impersonation, amused himself during this period by calling the other holdouts using his Finley voice. “But Mr. Finley,” his teammates would say, “$16,000 isn’t enough money.” According to Drabowsky, “I found out what all the other holdouts were making.”12 The knowledge apparently didn’t help Moe much, as he reported late and unhappy, and got off to a terrible start. In July 1964, after Mel McGaha replaced Lopat as manager, Drabowsky was moved back to the bullpen, where he was marginally more effective. He spent most of 1965 in Vancouver (Pacific Coast League), mostly starting, and still showing he could be effective (at least at the Triple-A level) as a starter. On August 21, 1965, for Vancouver, Drabowsky faced 21 batters in a seven-inning game. However, he was promoted to the Kansas City bullpen in late August and essentially remained in the bullpen for the rest of his career.

During the off-season, once again in the Rule 5 Draft, Drabowsky waited to see where he would end up. The Cardinals expressed interest in him, but didn’t have the chance to select him. When Cleveland took Baltimore’s first choice, pitcher Bob Heffner, Orioles General Manager Harry Dalton heard from Charlie Lau, a former Drabowsky roommate. “If you can, get Drabowsky from Kansas City,” said Lau, “and we’ll win the pennant.”13 Dalton made the pick, then offered Moe $10,000; Drabowsky held out for $15,000, but signed for $12,500.

Up until 1966, Drabowsky is a footnote in baseball history despite occasional flashes of brilliance. In addition to the Musial milestone, as he put it, “I’m in the records for some real beauties.”14 On June 2, 1957, he hit four batters with pitches in 3 2/3 innings, tying a major-league record. He plunked future teammate Frank Robinson twice in that outing. He was the losing pitcher on July 13, 1963, when Early Wynn finally captured his 300th win. He narrowly missed another chance at trivia-quiz immortality on April 30, 1961, when Willie Mays hit four home runs against the Braves. During the game, Mays also flied out to center against Drabowsky in the fifth inning. Drabowsky recalled years later that Mays hit the ball to the warning track. “Right now I’m sorry that I didn’t give up that home run because it would have been a great feat,” Moe said.15

In 1966 Drabowsky joined a relief corps that included Stu Miller, Dick Hall, and (by June) Eddie Fisher. Not pitching well in the first two months of 1966, he asked pitching coach Harry Brecheen if he could throw every other night in the bullpen. The routine helped Drabowsky, as did the talent around him. “Maybe Moe got back his confidence when he joined us,” said Sherm Lollar, the bullpen coach for the Orioles. “We were a contender and could support his pitching.”16 Drabowsky became part of a lights-out relief corps.

As the weather warmed up, so did Drabowsky’s sense of humor. He wore a four-foot gopher snake around his neck one day as he strolled into work one day in Anaheim, scaring Paul Blair out of the clubhouse. A small garter snake placed in Camilo Carreon’s pocket sent Cam through the roof. Drabowsky liked snakes so much that he cultivated relationships with pet-shop owners, who would let him borrow the snakes. Luis Aparicio was a frequent target, but was forgiving enough to team up with Moe on other pranks. On one occasion Drabowsky and Aparicio swiped a huge papier-mâché Buddha from a Chinese art show in their hotel and placed it outside Charlie Lau’s door.

During this season, Moe pulled off one of his best-known pranks. On May 27, in the second inning of a game against his former teammates in Kansas City, Drabowsky called the Athletics bullpen, imitated KC manager Alvin Dark, and ordered that Lew Krausse begin warming up. A few minutes later, Drabowsky called again and ordered Krausse to sit down again. Finally, on the third call, Drabowsky’s voice was recognized.

The story has grown in the years since, placing the prank at a critical point in an important game. Several versions of the story name the starting pitcher as Jim Nash, insisting that Nash was pitching a shutout in the sixth inning, and that Drabowsky’s prank so unnerved Nash that the Orioles were able to mount a rally and win the game. This version resembles a September 21 game, which Nash left for a pinch hitter after six innings with a 6-1 lead, only to see his bullpen cough up nine runs to lose the game to the Orioles. This is well after the original story was in the paper. The original story needs no such dramatic flourish to entertain fans, now or at the time. As a boy in South Dakota put it in a letter to Drabowsky written sometime after the June reports of the incident, “Baseball needs more nuts like you.”17

The Orioles entered the 1966 World Series as underdogs against the Los Angeles Dodgers. During Game One, Dave McNally had trouble pitching from Dodger Stadium’s high mound: “I couldn’t find my rhythm,” said McNally. “Ordinarily I like steep mounds, but I couldn’t adjust to this.” In the third inning, McNally walked the bases loaded with one out. “They quit swinging on me. They didn’t have to swing,” he said.18 Frank and Brooks Robinson had given Baltimore a 3-0 lead with first-inning back-to-back homers, but with the lead now in jeopardy, manager Hank Bauer summoned Drabowsky. “He had just so-so stuff when he was warming up,” said Charlie Lau, who wasn’t on the World Series roster but worked in the bullpen.19 Moe struck out Wes Parker, walked Jim Gilliam to force in a run, and got Johnny Roseboro on a foul pop to end the inning.

From then on Drabowsky was unhittable. He fanned the next six batters he faced, to tie a World Series record for consecutive strikeouts. In the seventh inning he gave up a walk and a single, but neither runner scored. He closed out the game with perfect eighth and ninth innings as the Orioles won, 5-2. In all, Drabowsky struck out 11 Dodgers in 6 2/3 innings, and gave up two walks and just one hit. He hit the corners unerringly and, as Shirley Povich noted, got all 11 strikeout victims swinging.

“Just what is a guy like me doing in fast company like this?” marveled Drabowsky after the game, his arms around Frank and Brooks Robinson. “I couldn’t wish for a situation to arise that would call for me to be a hero. I did hope, though, that I’d be able to see a little action in the Series.”20 Asked about his six straight strikeouts, he chuckled, “It’s about time I got in the books for something except the wrong end of the record.” Wes Parker’s two-strike lineout to left field had broken the string. “If I had known about the record,” said Drabowsky, “I might have pitched to him differently. I gave him a slow curve because I was ahead of him, but I might have given him my best pitch, a fastball.”21  The Orioles finished the sweep with three straight shutouts of the Dodgers.

The Orioles did not fare as well in 1967. “When we slipped to fifth place, Hank Bauer stopped us from charcoaling sausages in the bullpen,” Drabowsky noted. “That shows what you can get away with when you’re winning.”22 The Orioles rebounded in 1968, and Drabowsky continued to pitch effectively throughout his stay in Baltimore.

Drafted by the expansion Kansas City Royals after the 1968 season, Drabowsky added another trivia question answer to his résumé: He was credited with the win in the first Royals regular-season game, on April 8, 1969. Drabowsky was a bullpen fixture for the Royals the next season and a half. Moe kept his Orioles teammates in his sights, however. During the first game of the 1969 World Series, Moe hired a plane to fly over Memorial Stadium in Baltimore before the game, trailing a banner reading “Beware of Moe.” (One source has it “Good Luck Birds. Beware of Moe.”) The next day, a package delivered to the Baltimore clubhouse contained, according to The Sporting News, “one large and thoroughly irritated blacksnake.”23

By 1970, Drabowsky was enough of a bullpen maestro to offer up his five C’s to relief pitching: comfortable grip, confidence, challenging the hitter, control, and concentration. He shared his insights on his role with a reporter that spring: “If it looks like I might get in, I try to visualize a particular hitter, his strike zone and the areas to avoid. I’ll do this with several key hitters that I don’t want to beat me. But you can’t keep going over this through the entire game or pretty soon you’ll psych yourself and start giving the hitter too much credit. Then it will be even harder to get him out. I just like to try to get it planted in my mind and then forget about it.”24

And: “It is difficult for the hitter to protect both the inside and the outside part of the plate. He has to give somewhere. You try to find out where. If I show him I can nip the outside corner twice, then he has to adjust to protect the outside corner. When he does that, the pitch in on him will be effective. One pitch complements another. If I can’t hit that outside corner, then the pitch inside is not effective.”25

And, on Eddie Lopat: “Until he came along I could never see throwing a ball on purpose. To show you what I mean, let’s say I’m coming in to pitch the ninth and I don’t know what the hitter will be looking for. If I’ve had luck getting him out with a slow curve, he may be looking for it. In that case, the best thing for me to do is bust a fast ball low and away, but not for a strike. Then I’ve got to watch the hitter’s reaction. If the ball is by him before he’s ready then I know he was looking for the curve.”26

Moe was hospitalized early in the season “after developing a reaction to the medication he was taking.”27 He returned to action soon after. “I was watching the scoreboard in Kansas City one night in 1970 [June 15] and noticed that the Orioles were ahead 6-2 in the fifth inning or so. Next time I looked up they were losing 8-6 in the eighth, so I got a premonition that they might be in the market for some relief pitching.”28 (In fact, Baltimore went up 4-2 after the first inning that night, was up 6-3 after the sixth, then gave up six runs to the Brewers in the eighth.) Sure enough, Moe was dealt back to Baltimore.

The Orioles’ 1970 bullpen, already excellent, featured Dick Hall, Pete Richert, and Eddie Watt. Drabowsky contributed a save and four relief wins to the Orioles’ stretch drive. Drabowsky did not pitch in the 1970 League Championship Series against Minnesota. In the World Series he yielded one run in 2 1/3 innings of work in Game Two, the run coming on a Johnny Bench solo home run, and pitched a scoreless inning to finish Baltimore’s only loss of the Series in Game Four.

Asked whether he had cooked up any pranks for his Cincinnati opponents, Moe professed caution, noting that such things could backfire during a World Series. He couldn’t resist taking aim at another target, however: Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who was reportedly the victim of one of Drabowsky’s most elaborate hotfoot attempts. Drabowsky ran a trail of lighter fluid all the way from the trainer’s room to a match slipped into the sole of Kuhn’s shoe as he sat in the clubhouse before one of the games. “You never saw a shoe come off so fast in your life,” Drabowsky said.29

Moe spent 1971 with the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom he finished 6-1 with eight saves in 51 games. Off the mound, his return to the National League gave him a new set of victims. He threw cherry bombs in Chief Noc-A-Homa’s teepee in Atlanta, and twice gave sportswriter Hal Bock a hotfoot on a road trip to New York (the last act drawing a censure from National League President Chub Feeney). After starting the next year with the Cardinals, he ended up back in the American League with the Chicago White Sox. He was pitching to Tommy Harper one day in August. “I threw a fastball,” he told a reporter, “and I watched that ball go to the plate, and I said, ‘When in the world is that ball going to get to the plate?’ I said, ‘Hey, my career is over.’”30

Drabowsky joined Garden City Envelope Company in Chicago, where he worked through 1982. He moved on to a Canadian-owned communications firm, then returned to baseball in 1986 as a coach with the Chicago White Sox. There had been no money in coaching when he left baseball in 1972, but now he found he could afford to return to the game he loved. Attitudes had also changed, though. “Players seem to be more serious now,” he said in a 1987 interview. “I would tend to believe they don’t have as much fun. You don’t find the same kind of characters in the game today. Egos are a big factor. And the guys are making so much money.”31

Drabowsky was no less dedicated where the craft of pitching was concerned, and he coached in the minors with Vancouver, and with the Chicago Cubs in 1994, before settling into a position with the Orioles at their spring training and rehabilitation camp in Sarasota. He continued to make use of film study, as he had with his own pitching motion in the 1960s before it became ubiquitous. His infectious enthusiasm and passion for the craft of pitching rubbed off on the pitchers he worked with. “The kids adored him,” said his wife, Rita, who married Drabowsky in 1990.32

Rita warned him that she was off-limits where snakes and other pranks were concerned, but Moe kept in form against other targets. At Oriole Fantasy Camp, where Moe was a fixture, firecrackers slid under the stall doors in the restroom. After games, players who performed well received the White Rope Award, a white rope draped over the shoulders, or a Brown Rope Award for an error or misplay. Naturally, with Moe around, sometimes the brown ropes would have a wriggle of their own. He could take as well as he gave, though, as he proved when friends on the local police force once arrested him, right off the ballfield, for cruelty to animals. When the police car reached the station and his friends began to process Moe for the “crime,” Moe began to wonder whether he had indeed gone too far! His friends waited for him to crack before admitting to the gag.

Diagnosed in 2000 with multiple myeloma, a type of bone-marrow cancer, Drabowsky was given six months to live. He stretched that into six years through grit, determination, and medical therapies that included stem-cell transplants. Drabowsky also found coaching therapeutic, and continued working with Oriole pitchers up until a few months before his death.

The end came for Moe Drabowsky on June 10, 2006, at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Medical Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Drabowsky could look back on a Hall of Fame career; not the Hall in Cooperstown, but the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 1999. The most fitting tribute to Drabowsky, however, came at a Fantasy Camp banquet after his passing. Seated at the head table, Rita Drabowsky snuck a dollop of shaving cream onto the button of a guest speaker’s Orioles cap. The shaving cream remained on top of the cap all through the dinner, unbeknownst to the speaker, and through the start of his speech, to the delight of the crowd. Moe would have loved it.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Steve Freeman of the Baltimore Orioles and Rita Drabowsky for sharing their memories of Moe Drabowsky. Thanks also to the Hall of Fame Library and Retrosheet.

Notes

Before his meal ticket gave out, the large, well-muscled Katoll was center stage for a handful of singular events, both good and bad. For the minor American League White Sox of 1900, Katoll notched four consecutive shutout victories, each by the identical score of 3-0. The following season, he was a member of the four-man rotation that pitched Chicago to the AL’s inaugural pennant as a major league. But late that season, Katoll set off an in-game near riot that culminated in his arrest by police and indefinite suspension by league president Ban Johnson. On loan by the Sox to a Racine, Wisconsin club in June 1902, Big Jack threw a perfect game against a fast Chicago League semipro nine. Subsequently released to the Baltimore Orioles, he won four straight starts, then lost his next seven decisions—one to each of the seven other American League teams. Thereafter, efforts to continue his career were thwarted by recurring arm miseries, and by 1905 Katoll was out of Organized Baseball. He spent the remainder of his working life in the carting business, hauling paving stone and other construction material. Katoll was about five years into retirement when he succumbed to heart disease in 1955. His life story follows.

While not unique, Katoll’s immigrant background was atypical for a turn-of-the-century major leaguer. He was born Johann Katoll on June 24, 1875 in Finckenstein, a Prussian village now identified as Kamieniec, Poland.2 He was the oldest of eight children born to August Katoll (1854-1915) and his wife Wilhelmine (née Rost, 1850-c.1918), both ethnic German Lutherans. In 1880, the Katoll family, which by then included daughter Gustie (Augusta, born 1878), emigrated to the United States, settling briefly in Etna, Ohio, where son August, Jr. was born in 1881. By 1885, the family had relocated to a heavily Prussian immigrant section of Detroit, where son Charles and the remainder of the Katoll children were born. There, the Katolls became members of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, where meticulously kept and preserved sacramental records ultimately proved the key to resolving the biographical inconsistencies created by Jack Katoll’s propensity to fabricate his personal history.3

While still a boy, Johann’s name was Anglicized to John, while his mother became Minnie. Usually called “Jack,” our subject attended elementary school in Detroit and then entered the local workforce as a laborer. In time, he became a blacksmith. Like countless others, he began playing the game as a youngster on city sandlots.4 The first discovered newsprint mention of Katoll as a baseball player appeared in the June 27, 1896 edition of Sporting Life, which stated that “the Detroit club [of the minor Western League] has … released pitcher Katoll.”5 Days later, the Milwaukee Journal, commenting upon the pitching needs of the National League Chicago Colts, opined that “Katoll might be had for even less money than [Harry] Ely but that’s no reason for getting him.”6 Rebuffed by professional clubs, Jack, who’d turned 21, spent the summer pitching for the Athletics, a crack amateur team fielded by the Detroit Athletic Club. He returned to the DAC nine the following spring.

In May 1897, an excellent Katoll outing against the Page Fence Giants, a prominent black professional club, revived interest in him.7 Soon thereafter, he signed with the Bay City club of the Class D Michigan State League. Jack lost his pro debut to Jackson, 15-10, “but had no part in the defeat” as 12 Bay City errors behind him let in 13 unearned runs.8 From there, Katoll went on to become the leading pitcher in the MSL, posting a sparkling 19-6 record for Bay City.9

Jack moved up several competitive levels the following season, playing for no fewer than five different clubs. He began in the Class B New England League with an unimpressive audition (0-2 in three games) with the Taunton (Massachusetts) Herrings. He improved upon joining the league rival Fall River Indians, going 5-4 in nine appearances. In mid-July, Katoll spent a week with the Newark Colts of the Class B Atlantic League, then finished the league season with the Hartford Cooperatives, appearing in 15 games combined.10 Supposedly, a glowing report about Katoll’s pitching provided to Chicago Orphans manager Tom Burns by a Burns brother led to the big hurler being signed for the remainder of the season by the National League club.11 Meanwhile, Sporting Life’s Hartford correspondent advised readers that “Katoll, the big Dutchman, is pitching as good a ball as any man in the league.”12 Whatever the impetus, Jack Katoll had now reached the major leagues.13

At this point, Katoll was raw goods, having little more than a live fastball and imposing size—listed as 5-foot-11 and 195 pounds by modern reference works but likely every bit of the 6-foot-2, 207 pounds assigned to him by nineteenth-century baseball scholar David Nemec.14 Still, when given the chance, Katoll pitched well for Chicago. He made his major league debut on September 9, 1898, relieving starter Walter Thornton with Chicago trailing the homestanding Cincinnati Reds after five innings, 5-2. A leadoff walk and some shoddy defensive support cost Katoll an unearned run, but otherwise he showed creditably. Over three innings, he otherwise kept the Reds scoreless, allowing only two doubles and striking out one over three innings pitched in the 6-4 final.

A favorably impressed Chicago Record reporter informed fans back home that “Katoll performed excellently … show[ing] unusual speed and good control.”15 The Chicago Daily News concurred, declaring that the newcomer’s “initial appearance pleased the team, to say the least, and there is every promise of a winner in him with a few years’ experience in fast company.”16 The Cincinnati performance earned Katoll a starting assignment three days later, and he pitched even better. Displaying “magnificent form,”17 the big right-hander went the distance against the Pittsburgh Pirates, scattering six hits, fanning two, and walking none. Unhappily for Jack, he was again let down by his defense, two unearned runs spelling the difference in a 3-1 defeat. Strangely, manager Burns did not call upon Katoll again that season. He sat out the final 24 games of the Orphans’ fourth-place (85-65, .567) campaign. Still, he had shown club brass enough to be placed on Chicago’s reserved list for the 1899 season.18

Despite some arm problems,19 Katoll performed well in spring camp and made Chicago’s Opening Day roster. But once the regular season started, he saw no game action, employed solely as the club’s batting practice pitcher. But in late May, the unavailability of staff regulars Jack Taylor and Billy Phyle left manager Burns little recourse. Katoll was dispatched to face the Baltimore Orioles, matched against future Hall of Famer Joe McGinnity. “Tom Burns told Coat-tail to go in and do his best. Tom then sat back and prayed,” wrote Sporting Life correspondent W. A. Phelon, Jr.20 Prayers answered: Katoll pitched “a gilt-edged game,”21 setting down the Orioles on three-hits in a 6-1 complete game victory. Surprised but delighted, Phelon lavished praise on the emergency starter. “At every turn, Coat-tail outpitched McGinnity,” declared Phelon. Katoll “handled himself coolly, threw them in there with beautiful control and fearful speed. … He pitched the best game any Chicago twirler has hurled in weeks, and there wasn’t a point where he wasn’t easily the master of the field.”22

Katoll was roughed up in his next outing, a complete game 14-7 loss to Philadelphia. Ten days later, he was unconditionally released by Chicago. The move seemed inexplicable, and all that club boss Jim Hart would say was that Katoll’s release was “made at the request of manager Burns.”23 Sportswriter Phelon, for one, was at a loss, informing readers that “Katoll was popular with other players and expected by the best judges to be an A1 man. Nobody seems to know the why or wherefore, and the oddest thing is that he should have been let out direct and not sent to any league. … Something must have gone amiss between Katoll and Burns.”24

Katoll registered no immediate complaint. But later, he expressed bitterness toward Tom Burns. “I’ve got one hope in my vest. That is that I get on some team and pitch against Chicago when Burns is managing there. He gave me a throw-down good. I got no chance to see what I could do.”25 For the time being, however, Katoll was without a job. Baltimore player-manager John McGraw expressed interest in acquiring Katoll,26 and other major league clubs were expected to pursue him, but no contract offers were forthcoming. After six weeks on the sidelines, Katoll chose the St. Paul Saints from among Western League suitors. Under the supervision of manager Charles Comiskey, Katoll more than met expectations, posting an excellent 12-6 (.667) mark for a fifth-place (59-67, .452) St. Paul club.27

In late October 1899, the Western League changed its name to the American League, signaling its intent to expand from a regional circuit into a national one. To that end, several former WL franchises, including the St. Paul Saints, were relocated to larger venues. After much off-season maneuvering and taut back stairs negotiation, the club became the Chicago White Stockings. For the 1900 season, however, the American League remained a minor league circuit.

Jack Katoll retained his club affiliation, but altered his domestic situation. That April, he married Gertrude “Maggie” Jordan in their hometown of Detroit. He then joined the Sox, for whom he posted some career-best numbers as a reliable fourth member of the Chicago pitching rotation. Notwithstanding a mid-season recurrence of arm trouble, Jack went 16-14, allowing 247 base hits in 282 innings pitched, striking out 81, walking 60. His numbers were overshadowed by hurling mates Roger Denzer (20-10), Chauncey Fisher (19-9), and Roy Patterson (17-8), but for a stretch from mid-June through mid-July, Katoll was invincible, throwing an AL-leading six shutouts, four of them consecutively by identical 3-0 scores.28

Behind its stalwart hurling quartet, Chicago (82-53, .607) cruised to the American League pennant, leading the circuit in home game attendance (175,000) in the process. Surprisingly, Katoll went undrafted by the National League that fall, but widespread rumor had it that he was ticketed for the Cincinnati Reds, perhaps in exchange for outfielder Algie McBride.29 But for the moment, the extent to which Katoll could concentrate on his baseball future was unclear, as his life was beset with personal tragedy. On September 10, newborn son August died hours after his birth from breathing-related convulsions.30 Four days later, wife Maggie succumbed to childbirth complications.31

For the 1901 season, the American League declared itself a major circuit and then embarked upon recruiting National League players. Katoll retained his place on the Sox roster but got off slowly, dropping a 10-4 decision to Cleveland in his first outing. Anxious to redeem himself the next time out against the Milwaukee Brewers, Jack declared, “If they get more than four runs off me today, I’ll eat the cover off the ball. And if they beat me, I’ll eat the whole ball.”32 Mercifully, Katoll pitched well that afternoon and throttled the Brewers, 11-3. Thereafter, he settled into the familiar role of fourth starter, providing helpful backup to staff mainstays Clark Griffith (24-7), Roy Patterson (20-15), and Jimmy Callahan (15-8). Despite a mid-season throwing hand injury, Jack chipped in an 11-10 record, with a 2.81 ERA in 208 innings pitched. Adjudged “one of the poorest hitters on earth,”33 the lefty-swinging Katoll even contributed his first and only major league home run to the cause.34 The White Sox near duplicated their record from the season before, going 83-53 (.610) and capturing the first pennant contested by the American League as a major league. The late stages of the campaign, however, had their disagreeable moments for the club, one of which was precipitated by Jack Katoll.

For an August 22 road game, Chicago sent Katoll to the hill to face the Washington Senators. Several disputed calls by umpire Jack Haskell went against Chicago but things did not get out of hand until the fourth inning. With the Senators leading 1-0, Haskell missed, in the heated opinion of the Sox battery of Katoll and Joe Sugden, an inning-ending third strike against Washington batsman Bill Coughlin, awarding him a bases-loading walk instead. Next batter Billy Clingman then cleared the sacks with a triple. Katoll’s first delivery to the next man up, Washington pitcher Win Mercer, was a blistering high fastball that Sugden made no effort to catch. The ball struck umpire Haskell on the shoulder and bounded away, bringing in Clingman with the Senators’ fifth run. Katoll retrieved the errant pitch and then fired the ball at Haskell, striking him in the shin. Haskell’s ejection of the angry pitcher served as prelude to another ruckus in the top of the next inning which ended with Sox shortstop Frank Shugart punching the beleaguered umpire in the mouth, splitting his upper lip. Incensed Washington fans then descended upon the field, trying to get at Katoll and Shugart, who were placed under arrest by DC police.35 Some hours after Washington had completed an 8-0 victory, the two were released from custody on bail.

The incident came on the heels of Joe McGinnity’s assault of umpire Tommy Connolly during a Baltimore game, and made a mockery of the clean image that American League President Ban Johnson was trying to project for his new circuit. An example, therefore, needed to be made of these miscreants. All three were suspended indefinitely. Ten days later, a contrite Katoll was reinstated, paying a $10 fine and promising to apologize to umpire Haskell. Explaining the commutation of sentence to the press, Johnson said, “It was Katoll’s first offense. Besides I really do believe that if he had been seriously desirous of hurting Haskell he would have thrown at his head instead of his shins.”36 Big Jack was victorious his first time back out, holding Milwaukee scoreless for seven innings and then holding on for a 9-5 win. But he lost three of his final four starts, and thereafter his status would never be the same with the White Sox.

In 1902, Katoll found his livelihood in jeopardy. Club boss Comiskey had 16 ballplayers under contract, but the American League had imposed a 15-player roster limit for the season.37 Odd man out was Jack Katoll, who spent most of the early going out of uniform, appearing in only one White Sox game.38 Otherwise, he kept in shape by pitching for teams outside Organized Baseball. On loan to a club based in Racine, Wisconsin, Katoll threw a perfect game vs. the Spaldings, a hotshot outfit in the semipro Chicago League.39 Meanwhile, Comiskey tried to find a home somewhere in the AL for the pitcher, a sentimental favorite of the club owner stemming from their days together in St. Paul. But Katoll did not make it easy. Comiskey attempted to arrange for the pitcher’s transfer to Philadelphia A’s,40 but Katoll refused to report to Connie Mack’s club. But curiously, Katoll was receptive to demotion to the unaffiliated minor league American Association, and accepted his option to the Minneapolis Millers.

Katoll quickly became the mainstay of the Millers’ staff and a friend of outfielder-manager Walt Wilmot. In his relatively brief sojourn in Minneapolis—interrupted by the short honeymoon that followed Jack’s marriage to Gertrude Margaret Hoge of Chicago in mid-July—he posted a 9-5 (.643) record for a bad ball club headed for a seventh-place (54-86, .385) finish. Simultaneously, Ban Johnson and the still-fledgling American League had to deal with the coup that had placed the Baltimore Orioles franchise in the hands of a fierce enemy: Andrew Freedman, majority owner of the NL New York Giants.

Orchestrated by Cincinnati Reds club boss and longtime Johnson adversary John T. Brush, the devious conspiracy that spawned the hostile takeover of the Orioles involves a tale lying beyond the scope of this bio.41 Suffice it to say that immediately upon securing control, Freedman and Brush, bent on the destruction of the Baltimore club (if not the American League entirely), engineered the defection of Orioles stars Joe McGinnity, Roger Bresnahan, Joe Kelley, and Cy Seymour, plus two other Baltimore players to the Giants and Reds. Fortunately for the AL, administrative missteps by the club’s new regime soon allowed Johnson to regain control of the franchise and make it a ward of the league.42 But the depleted Orioles playing roster was in desperate need of replenishment.

Jack Katoll and outfielder Herm McFarland were to be Chicago’s contribution to the Baltimore relief project. But Katoll, happy with a congenial situation in Minneapolis, balked at going.43 It finally required the intercession of AL president Johnson with American Association counterpart Thomas J. Hickey to get the reluctant hurler on a train to Baltimore.44

Joining a dismal cellar-dwelling team, Katoll got off to a surprisingly good start with the Orioles. He was beaten in his initial appearance in Baltimore livery by Cleveland, 7-1. Big Jack then reeled off four straight victories for his new club. His next seven outings, however, ended in defeat—each one inflicted by a different American League club, including a 23-7 pasting by Cleveland on September 2 in which Katoll went the distance.45 On September 29, 1902, Jack Katoll made his final appearance in a major league uniform, playing a fill-in left field for Baltimore and going an uncharacteristic two-for-five off Tully Sparks in a 9-5 Boston win.

Including the 5-10 mark that he posted in Baltimore, Katoll’s career numbers were mediocre: In 47 major league games, he went 17-22 (.436), with a 3.32 ERA in 361 innings pitched. He struck out 90, walked 90, and surrendered a .294 batting average to opposition hitters (hefty for the Deadball Era). A pair of two-hit outbursts in his final big-league month raised Katoll’s own career batting average to an anemic .134, and he defended his position poorly, a 20/134/15 fielding line yielding a substandard .911 FA. But then as now, high-echelon pitching was a valuable commodity, and Minneapolis wanted Katoll back if he was available.46

During the offseason, Jack kept busy by joining his father in the carting business, specializing in the hauling of stone and other building material.47 When finally released by Ban Johnson,48 Katoll signed with Minneapolis.49 But he no longer had the fastball that had been his out pitch and tried to get by on guile and good control. Despite treatment, including an early season respite in warm Southern weather, Katoll’s arm did not come around. He eked out a 3-3 record in 17 appearances but sat out long stretches of the season. Before August was over, he shut it down completely, Sporting Life reporting that “Jack Katoll has left Minneapolis for home and will pitch no more ball this season. His throwing arm, which has given him trouble all season, is still in bad shape and Katoll has finally given up hope of getting it right this season.”50

Katoll was back home in time for the October birth of son Walter Wilmot Katoll, named for his friend and onetime Minneapolis manager Walt Wilmot. Second son John Herman Katoll arrived three years later. In the meantime, Minneapolis had not given up on the big pitcher, still only 28 years old, and reserved him for the 1904 season.51 The ensuing spring, the Millers babied Katoll, holding him out of spring training exhibition games entirely.52 The strategy seemed to pay off when Jack set down Indianapolis, 3-2, in his 1904 season debut, spacing nine hits and striking out three. Sadly, it proved Katoll’s last professional hurrah. He was hit hard in two subsequent starts, and with arm aching, packed it in with his Minneapolis record standing at 1-2 in four games-pitched.53 The career of Jack Katoll in Organized Baseball was now over.54

For the next three years, Katoll’s name occasionally appeared in newsprint, mostly in connection with playing weekend first base for a Chicago semipro club called the Marquettes.55 He also tried, without success, to land a job with the Chicago Police Department.56 Thereafter, Katoll drifted into the anonymity of private life. US Census reports and other government records provide the only surviving insight into his activities and whereabouts.

Katoll remained in residence in Chicago into the early 1920s, supporting his family as a self-employed truck driver/hauler of building material. Sometime thereafter, he and wife Gertrude divorced. She remained in the Windy City while Jack moved to McHenry County to the northwest. A 1950 column by Chicago sportswriter John P. Carmichael mentioned that Katoll was retired and living in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park.57 Alone and suffering from chronic arthritis and advanced heart disease, Katoll was admitted to a Woodstock, Illinois nursing home and died there on June 18, 1955. Johann/John “Big Jack” Katoll was 79. Following funeral services, his remains were interred at Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park, Illinois. Survivors included sons Walter and John, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.58 Ex-wife Gertrude Hoge Katoll also outlived him by a year.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Joel Barnhart and checked for accuracy by SABR’s fact-checking team.

Sources

Sources for the biographical detail supplied herein include the Jack Katoll file at the Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York; the Katoll profile in The Rank and File of 19th Century Major League Players, David Nemec, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011); government records, other documents, and Katoll family posts accessed via Ancestry.com; and various of the newspaper articles cited in the endnotes, below. Unless otherwise specified, stats have been taken from Baseball-Reference.

Notes

1 1902 Reach Official Base Ball Guide, 59.

2 The effort to correct the erroneous birth name, date of birth, place of birth, and batting side currently listed for Jack Katoll in Baseball-Reference, Retrosheet, and other authority was ongoing at the time this bio was composed.

3 To census takers, other government record keepers, and baseball officials, Katoll gave birth dates that ranged from 1872 to 1879. He always claimed an American birth place, variously offering Etna, Ohio where his younger brother Charles was born; unspecific in Ohio; Detroit, where he was raised; unspecific in Michigan; and unspecific in Illinois where he lived most of his adult life. Lutheran Church records, however, document that Johann Katoll was born on June 24, 1875 in Finckenstein, Prussia; baptized on July 11, 1875 in Finckenstein; and confirmed on April 14, 1889 in Detroit.

4 Per a profile of Katoll published in the New York Clipper, July 19, 1902.

5 “News and Comment,” Sporting Life, June 27, 1896: 5. Two months earlier, Jack Katoll’s participation in a Detroit vs. Cleveland amateur boxing tourney had received widespread notice. See e.g., “The Ring,” Cleveland Leader, April 18, 1896: 2; and “Intercity Boxing Matches,” Coldwater (Michigan) Reporter, April 20, 1896: 3; Paw Paw (Michigan) Northerner, April 22, 1896: 8; and Owosso (Michigan) Times, April 24, 1896: 9.

6 “Diamond Dust,” Milwaukee Journal, June 30, 1896: 8.

7 The battery work of Katoll and Kossuch “bordered on phenomenal” in a 4-3 loss, according to the Adrian (Michigan) Telegram, May 20, 1897.

8 Per “Encore!” Bay City (Michigan) Tribune, June 27, 1897: 1. The paper sub-headlined its account of the game: “He Was Good, But Support Was Awful.” A rival Bay City newspaper also complemented the pitching of Katoll. See “Sporting News,” Bay City Times, June 26. 1896: 3.

9 Per the Katoll profile in The Rank and File of 19th Century Major League Baseball, David Nemec, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 49.

10 According to Atlantic League stats published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 21, 1898: 4, and the 1899 Spalding Official Base Ball Guide, 114. Regrettably, those stats do not include pitching numbers.

11 Per the Waterbury (Connecticut) Evening Democrat, August 27, 1898: 8.

12 Tim O’Keefe, “Roach’s Rovers,” Sporting Life, August 20, 1898: 17.

13 Chicago’s signing of Jack Katoll was noted in the national press. See e.g., Philadelphia Inquirer, August 28, 1898: 12; Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 30, 1898: 5; Sporting Life, September 3, 1898: 5.

14 Nemec, 49. A 1901 Chicago White Sox club photo shows Katoll two to three inches taller than 6-foot Roy Patterson standing next to him; a posthumous player questionnaire completed by son Walter Katoll listed his father as 6-foot-4/200 pounds; while a hyperbolic contemporary news account described the pitcher as a giant. See “Caught on the Fly,” Boston Herald, May 28, 1899: 28: “Katoll is not only a Titan in size—he stands nearly seven feet, and his lateral dimensions would make the eyes of a dime store museum bulge with hope,” re-printing an unidentified item published in the Chicago Chronicle.

15 “Cincinnati 6, Chicago 4,” Chicago Record, September 10, 1898: 6.

16 “Burns Tries a New Man,” Chicago Daily News, September 10, 1898: 6.

17 In the estimation of the Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1898: 4.

18 Per “The League List,” Sporting Life, October 8, 1898: 1.

19 As noted in “Nine Ready for Real Work,” Chicago Daily News, April 3, 1899: 6. This is the first discovered newsprint mention of the arm problems that would plague Katoll throughout his career.

20 W.A. Phelon, Jr., “Chicago Glum,” Sporting Life, May 27, 1899: 6. Coat-tail, a mangling of the pitcher’s surname, was a nickname hung on Katoll in Bay City.

21 The description supplied in a nationally-circulated wire dispatch account of the game. See e.g., Dallas Morning News, Duluth (Minnesota) News Tribune, and Omaha World-Herald, May 22, 1899.

22 Phelon, “Chicago Glum,” Sporting Life, May 27, 1899: 6.

23 See “Chicago Releases Pitcher Katoll,” Baltimore Sun, June 2, 1899: 6; “Pitcher Katoll Released,” Chicago Tribune, June 2, 1899: 4; “Big Jack Katoll Released,” Rockford (Illinois) Register-Gazette, June 2, 1899: 3.

24 Phelon, “Chicago Cheered,” Sporting Life, June 10, 1899: 4.

25 Chicago Daily News, July 15, 1899: 6. The source of the friction between manager Burns and the generally affable Katoll went undiscovered by the writer.

26 As reported in the Rockford (Illinois) Republic, June 2, 1899: 5, which quoted McGraw as saying that Katoll “had the speed of Rusie and as pretty a break on his curve ball as any man in the business.”

27 Per Western League stats published in Sporting Life, October 21, 1899: 6. Baseball-Reference provides no pitching numbers for Katoll in St. Paul.

28 Katoll’s six shutouts were matched by teammate Chauncey Fisher and Joe Yeager of the Detroit Tigers. Jack’s four consecutive 3-0 whitewashes came at the expense of Cleveland (June 8), Indianapolis (June 14), Indianapolis, again (June 17), and Kansas City (June 23). The following month, he posted 1-0 victories over Indianapolis on July 5 and July 31.

29 See e.g., “Players in Clover,” New York Daily People, November 9, 1900: 3; “New Men for Cincinnati,” Washington Evening Star, November 7, 1900: 10; “Cincinnati Chips,” Sporting Life, November 17, 1900: 7.

30 Per the Michigan death certificate for infant August Katoll accessible on-line via Ancestry.com.

31 Per State of Michigan death records. See also, “Some Foul Tips,” Rockford Republic, September 15, 1900: 5.

32 Chicago Daily News, May 4, 1905.

33 1902 Reach Official Base Ball Guide, 64.

34 Modern baseball reference works list Katoll as a righty batter. But photographic evidence irrefutably establishes that Katoll batted from the left side. See Chicago Daily News, May 24, 1902: 6.

35 As reported in “Two White Sox Arrested,” Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1901: 4: “White Sox Arrested,” Washington Post, August 22, 1901: 8; and elsewhere in newspapers nationwide.

36 Per “May Now Pitch Katoll,” Chicago Daily News, September 3, 1901: 1; “Johnson Relents,” Decatur (Illinois) Review, September 4, 1901: 4; “Shows Clemency,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 4, 1901: 6. McGinnity and Shugart were subsequently reinstated, as well.

37 Per “Comiskey Must Lose a Player,” Washington Evening Star, June 18, 1902: 10.

38 Katoll pitched an inning of scoreless relief in a 2-0 loss to Cleveland on April 28.

39 As reported by the Chicago Daily News, June 2, 1902: 8. See also, W.A. Phelon, Jr., “Chicago Gleanings,” Sporting Life, June 14, 1902: 8.

40 Per “Mack Gets Two Pitchers,” Boston Herald, May 27, 1902: 8; “Nailed at the Plate,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 28, 1902: 8; “American Affairs,” Sporting Life, May 31, 1902: 5.

41 For exposition of the matter, see William F. Lamb, “A Fearsome Collaboration: The Alliance of Andrew Freedman and John T. Brush,” Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall 2009), 14-15.

42 When the Orioles failed to field nine players for a game against the St. Louis Browns, Johnson seized control of the franchise pursuant to provisions of the American League constitution.

43 Per “American Association,” Minneapolis Journal, July 25, 1902: 10.

44 See “Katoll Goes to Baltimore,” St. Paul Globe, August 3, 1902: 11; “Baltimore To Get Katoll,” Boston Herald, August 4, 1902: 6.

45 Cleveland’s 23 runs were an American League high for the 1902 season. Katoll’s other defeats were 1-0 in 10 innings to St. Louis, August 28; 11-2 to Chicago, August 31; 6-2 to Detroit, September 6; 5-4 to Philadelphia, September 10; 15-1 to Washington, September 12; and 7-2 to Boston, September 16.

46 As reported by the Minneapolis Journal, October 25, 1902: 12.

47 Per the Minneapolis Journal, February 23, 1903: 17. See also, Chicago Daily News, April 25, 1903: 4.

48 The Baltimore franchise was essentially defunct, with AL President Johnson then in search of someone with the financial and political clout needed to place a new ball club in New York. Johnson was stockpiling players for this potential New York operation, but Katoll was not one of them and made available for signing by other major and minor league clubs.

49 Per “Oyler Has Signed,” Minneapolis Journal, February 21, 1903: 17. See also, March 1903 correspondence between Minneapolis club president Edward A. Thompson and the pitcher in the Jack Katoll file at the GRC.

50 “American Association,” Sporting Life, September 5, 1903: 16.

51 Per Sporting Life, October 10, 1903: 13.

52 As reported in the Minneapolis Journal, April 26, 1904, 1904: 19.

53 Per the writer’s review of published 1904 Minneapolis box scores. Baseball-Reference provides no statistical data for Katoll in 1904.

54 The Baseball-Reference entry for Jack Katoll lists him as a member of the Simcoe (Ontario) club in the Class D Canadian League in 1905, but no evidence of this affiliation was discovered by the writer. Contemporaneous newsprint indicates that Katoll spent that summer playing for a semipro club in Chicago.

55 See e.g., “Sample Case,” Cincinnati Post/ (Covington) Kentucky Post, April 8, 1905: 6; “American League Notes,” Sporting Life, April 22, 1905: 7; “Play for City Title,” Chicago Daily News, June 25, 1906: 6; “Old Leaguers on Marquettes,” Rockford Register-Gazette, June 5, 1907: 5.

56 “Test To Join Police Force,” Chicago Daily News, April 18, 1906: 4; “American League Notes,” Sporting Life, April 22, 1906: 7. Katoll obviously had the physical size desired of a police recruit. Although literate, Katoll was not particularly bright, making his prospects for passing the written entrance exam another matter. But the actual reason why Katoll was not hired is unknown.

57 John P. Carmichael, “The Barber Shop,” Chicago Daily News, August 9, 1950: 33.

58 Per obituaries published in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Daily News, June 20, 1955.

Lublin, Poland, was where John Anthony Reder was born on September 24, 1909 – a city in Eastern Poland, southeast of Warsaw but much closer to the border with Russia. His parents were John and Nellie Reder, who emigrated to the United States in 1912. At the time of the 1920 census, John was working as a teamster at a mill in Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston and close to Rhode Island. Nellie worked as a weaver in a cotton mill. They housed a boarder named Mike Reder, who’d come to America in 1914 and worked as a carder in the mill.

Johnny went to the parish school, St. Stanislaus School, which had been founded in 1906, attending eight years and then to the public high school for four years, B.M.C. Durfee High. His first year of professional baseball, he told the Hall of Fame, was in 1928 with the Harrisburg Senators, but his name doesn’t turn up in that year’s team records. In 1929, he moved from Fall River amateur soccer to the ranks of the professionals, playing as a goalkeeper in the American Soccer League. The league drew good crowds; the September 15 game in New Bedford (a 2-2 tie) drew 5,000. As they progressed in competition, some 7,000 people turned out at Mark Stadium in Fall River for the Eastern semifinal match to see Fall River beat Pawtucket, 5-2. And that turnout was dwarfed by the 17,000 who poured into the Polo Grounds for the Eastern final of National Challenge Cup play of the United States Football Association on March 16, 1930. Bethlehem and Fall River tied, 1-1. Bethlehem went down, 3-2, in a game on the 23rd. The action was sometimes intense; a hard shot by Cleveland’s Bobby Wilson “brought Reder to his knees, but the Fall River goalie cleared quickly.” [New York Times, March 31, 1930] And Fall River took the first game of the national championship finals, 7-2. Reder’s team became the US champion.

Twelve thousand came out in New Bedford a couple of months later to watch the Rangers of Scotland come to America and take on the US championship team; the Rangers beat Fall River, 3-2. There were holdouts in soccer, too, and in the fall of 1930 John Reder was a holdout. When his signing was reported by the Associated Press on October 12, it was written, “His acquisition places Fall River on a par with any team in the American Soccer League.” In February 1931, US champion Fall River took on the visiting Velez Sarsfield team from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and won, 5-2. It was the first defeat the Argentines had suffered after 15 games on tour in Chile, Peru, Cuba, Mexico, and the United States. [New York Times, February 23, 1932]

Then Reder took a job playing for the New York Yankees. As goalie. This was not the baseball team, but an American Soccer League team of the same name. On March 7, 1931, his Yankees beat his ex-mates from Fall River, 4-1. Again, he tended goal for a championship club. The Yankees won the Eastern title over the Newark Americans at the Polo Grounds, 6-1 on March 22. An April 5 game, also at the Polo Grounds, saw the Chicago Bricklayers fall to the Yankees, 6-2. The Yankees continued with league play and only “a brilliant exhibition of goal tending by Johnny Reder” saved them from their first defeat, as they fought to a 1-1 tie against New Bedford. Reder had 22 saves. [New York Times, April 6, 1931] The Yankees won the national soccer championship on April 19 in Chicago, beating the Bricklayers again, 2-0.

Reder continued playing soccer right into 1932, winning yet another American Soccer League championship on January 3 with another team (the New York Giants) and another shutout, 6-0 over New Bedford on a soggy Polo Grounds field. Was it luck or was it talent? Reder then joined the New Bedford eleven and beat the Giants in the Eastern finals of the National Challenge Cup, yet again in New York. [New York Times, February 22, 1932]

Three weeks later, Reder was in Savannah, Georgia, playing for the Boston Red Sox and trying to win an infield job. He hit a two-run ninth-inning home run off Hod Lisenbee in an intrasquad game, giving the Yannigans a 4-3 win over the regulars. Reder made the Red Sox and debuted on April 16 at Fenway Park, but saw the Sox bow to the Yankees (the noted baseball aggregation), 14-4. He’d pinch-hit for pitcher Wilcy Moore in the third inning.

Reder’s first hit came a week later, in his third appearance, playing first base and batting third in the order, a two-base hit – the only extra-base hit of his career. Washington won the game at Griffith Stadium, 5-0. At Yankee Stadium on the 29th, he drove in his first runs, one in the fifth and one in the top of the ninth. Reder stood 6 feet tall and had a playing weight of 187 pounds, according to his Hall of Fame questionnaire. He batted right and threw right, and played with Boston through the game of June 12, batting .135 in 37 at-bats, with one double and three RBIs. He appeared in 10 games at first base and one at third, making one error in each position.

Reder was asked to spend the rest of the year with the Hazleton Mountaineers, the Red Sox farm club in the Class B New York-Penn League. There he hit .277 in 42 games.  Then he was back in goal playing for Fall River, and administered a 6-0 shutout to the Boston Football Club on Christmas Day.

Each of the following three years, Reder improved his batting average. The New York-Penn League was upgraded to Class A status, the Red Sox switched their farm team to Reading, and Reder played there in 1933 and 1934. Manager Nemo Leibold suggested in ’33 that he try his hand at pitching. Reder did, and performed creditably, if not well. He was 33-31 over the five years he pitched, with an earned-run average of 4.84 in 619 innings of work. He hid nothing but pitch in 1933 and ’35, but in 1934 he also played 37 games at first base. For Reading, his batting average was .281 in 1933 and .308 in 1934.

In 1935, Reder played for the Williamsport Grays, a Philadelphia Athletics farm club, and hit .318. In the league MVP voting, some were uncertain how to vote for him in that he had pitched in 26 games, played the outfield in 26 games, played 15 games at third base, and played 13 games at first. Johnny prevailed in the balloting, receiving 35 of a possible 64 points. He’d been exceptionally popular in Williamsport and fans there even held a night for him when he received $100 in cash and 24 other gifts, one of which was a pair of shoes. On his night, Reder proved his versatility by playing every position on the field, starting on the mound, then catching, and then making the rounds of each position. [The Sporting News, October 31, 1935]

Reder had actually been assigned to Syracuse for spring training in 1935 but declined, feeling he wouldn’t get enough playing time, so Leibold loaned him to Mike McNally’s Williamsport Grays. In 1936 he was firmly back in the Boston system, playing in the Double-A International League for the Syracuse Chiefs, batting .270 (and having his worst year on the mound, 3-6 with a 7.88 ERA). He even showed the Red Sox a little bit of his stuff, pitching against them in an exhibition game on June 16, which Syracuse won, 7-5. The year ended on a better note than his pitching line might indicate when he married Louise Flanagan in the late fall. A note in the October 29 Sporting News said he was still a “soccer star” in the offseason.

Things got a little confusing, then, as Reder started the 1937 season with Syracuse at first base, but had his spot taken by Dan Cosgrove. Then, within a few weeks both Reder and Cosgrove were gone, with Frank McCormick taking the position. Reder was taken off the active list, but he reconnected with the Grays and wound back up in Williamsport. He must have still had some admirers there. Even as a utility player, and despite hitting just .258 (he’d been .184 for the Chiefs), he earned six points in the MVP voting. But his career was at a close.

After baseball, Reder became a stationary engineer (later rising to become chief engineer) at J.J. Corrugated Box Company of Fall River. He served in the United States Navy in 1943-45. He and Louise divorced at some point, after having one son, also named John. He died on April 12, 1990, of a long-standing atherosclerotic cardiovascular condition.

Sources

In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed the online SABR Encyclopedia, Retrosheet.org, and Baseball-Reference.com.