Instead, the end came immediately after the beginning and Adenhart’s young life was cut short just hours after his season debut in a tragic car accident, leaving Angels fans and his followers back home in Washington County, Maryland, wondering, “What if?”

Nicholas James Adenhart was born on August 24, 1986, in Silver Spring, Maryland, a city bordering Washington, D.C. He was the only child of James, a United States Secret Service agent, and Janet Adenhart, who worked in finance. Janet and James divorced when Nick was a child but he was raised by both parents, and Janet remarried Duane Gigeous, with whom she had a son, Henry. 

Adenhart was raised in Williamsport, Maryland, a small town in the outskirts of Hagerstown where visitors can stand upon Doubleday Hill, a Civil War monument that overlooks the Potomac River into West Virginia; a town of about 2,000 people where local baseball is everything.

Like many big-league ballplayers, Adenhart began to make his name in local youth leagues. At the ages of 11 and 12, he pitched his team in the Halfway Little League to consecutive District One championships, going 9-0 on the mound in that two-year run.

When Adenhart was 12, his best friend, David Warrenfeltz, became his catcher and chief competitor. The boys would play backyard Wiffle Ball between games, testing their skills against each other at anything they could think of. “He was the most competitive person times five,” Warrenfeltz remembered. “When he was younger, he was borderline cocky.”1 Warrenfeltz would catch Adenhart through their high-school careers and has been interviewed about Adenhart in subsequent years. 

In 2001, at the age of 15, Adenhart joined an amateur showcase team called the Oriolelanders, a team of top local players sponsored by the Baltimore Orioles. Nick played in the summer and fall after PONY League season against high-school sophomores, juniors, and seniors.  He played with the Oriolelanders for four years and continue to impress locally.

Longtime Hagerstown sportswriter Bob Parasiliti remembered when he first started covering Adenhart: “Even at a young age, he had the focus to compete and he had the very precise mechanics that he carried all the way through his pitching career. Those were the attributes that gave everyone the impression he was going places.”2

Adenhart initially attended high school at St. Maria Goretti in Hagerstown and played baseball and basketball but transferred to hometown Williamsport High School for his junior and senior years; there he focused solely on baseball. Recalling Adenhart’s competitive fire on the court, Warrenfeltz said, “Janet pulled him out because it was too risky. Plus, he talked so much trash.” At Williamsport High Adenhart encountered his first pro scout.

To cap his junior year, Adenhart lost a legendary 1-0 duel with Allegany High School (Cumberland, Maryland) senior Aaron Laffey in the Class-1A West Regional despite pitching a no-hitter. Laffey pitched a two-hitter (one by Adenhart) and struck out 19 while Adenhart fanned 14 and allowed one unearned run, in front of scouts from 11 major-league teams. It was Adenhart’s only loss of the season. “After that game, Nick thought he let the team down because he didn’t win. That haunted yet motivated him,” Parasiliti recalled.3 Adenhart would start his senior season with a perfect game against Allegany, striking out 15 of 21 batters.

Adenhart signed a letter of intent with the University of North Carolina early in his senior year even though he was unlikely to go to college because of his professional draft prospects. Entering his senior year at Williamsport, he was a projected first-round pick in the 2004 amateur draft and Baseball America’s number-one high-school prospect.4 Remembering the flurry of activity, his coach Rod Steiner said, “He put us on the map. When he pitched, we’d have 500, 1,000 people here. You’re lucky to see 20 people at a normal high school game. But he was special.”5

Adenhart had a dominant senior season and entered the final regular-season game of his high-school career with a 5-1 record, a 0.73 ERA, and 2.2 K’s per inning.6 On May 11, 2004, just two weeks before the amateur draft, Adenhart’s season finale was cut short when he felt a pop in his elbow while facing the third batter of the game.

“He threw a curve and waved me out,” remembered Warrenfeltz. “He told me ‘No more curves.’ I felt like I could have thrown up.” It was a partial ligament tear, and Adenhart’s high-school pitching career was over.

Adenhart became the team’s designated hitter in the Maryland 1A playoffs, homering over 360 feet to dead center field in his first at-bat.7 Williamsport lost the state title and Adenhart appeared to have lost his chance at being a first-round draft pick as his arm injury required Tommy John surgery, performed by Dr. James Andrews.8 

In June 2004 the Los Angeles Angels selected Adenhart in the 14th round of the amateur draft, the 413th player selected overall. Rather than let Adenhart slip away to UNC, the Angels gave him first-round money and signed him for $710,000 on July 28. Angels scout Dan Radcliffe was credited with the signing. Adenhart reported to Arizona to rehab with the Anaheim training staff. “Being hurt, rehabilitation is the most important part of coming back strong,” Adenhart said at the time. “Being with the Angels gives me the best shot.”9 The Angels also selected future ace Jered Weaver (12th overall) as well as future big leaguers Mark Trumbo (18th round) and Martín Maldonado (27th round) in the 2004 draft.

In 2005, after rehabbing from his Tommy John surgery, Adenhart pitched in 14 games across two levels, pitching in 13 games in the rookie Arizona League and making one start with the Orem Owls of the rookie Pioneer League. Overall, he was 3-3 with a 3.24 ERA in 50 innings pitched, striking out 59.

Adenhart went to major-league spring training in 2006 as a nonroster invitee. He was assigned to the Class-A Cedar Rapid Kernels, where he went 10-2 with a 1.95 ERA in 16 starts, striking out 99 in 106 innings and earning a roster spot on the 2006 All-Star Futures Game. He was moved up to the Advanced-A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (California League) for nine more starts and finished the 2006 season with 15 wins and a 2.56 ERA in 158⅓ innings.  

Nick’s family recalled later that his time spent in Cedar Rapids was his favorite on his way to the major leagues. “I think it was where the dream kind of started,” his mother, Janet Gigeous, remembered. “I think it was a happy time for him. This place has a lot of really good memories.”10

Adenhart’s repertoire at this time, according to an internet scouting report, consisted of fastballs “in the high-80s-to-low-90s, topping out at 94 on a few occasions. He is an extreme groundball pitcher.”11 He also threw a curveball in the mid-70s and a circle changeup in the 80s. “My changeup tends to be the strikeout pitch,” Adenhart said at the time, while also reporting that his surgically repaired elbow felt no pain two years after his surgery.

Adenhart spent the entire 2007 season in the Double-A Texas League with the Arkansas Travelers, going 10-8 with a 3.65 ERA. He was 20 years old for most of the season and was the Angels’ top pitching prospect.

In 2008, an injury to John Lackey in spring training opened up a rotation spot in Anaheim and Adenhart battled Dustin Moseley for the role. Mosely got the job and Adenhart was assigned to the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees.

At the end of April, Adenhart was 4-0 with a 0.87 ERA for Salt Lake, which was 21-1, the best start in franchise history.12 After Moseley’s April struggles, Adenhart was called up to make his major-league debut on May 1 in Anaheim in a starting assignment against the Oakland Athletics. Pitching on three days’ rest for the first time in his career, he lasted just two innings, giving up five runs on three hits and five walks, getting a no-decision in a 15-8 loss. “There was not much feel out there,” said Adenhart after the game. “I was a little numb.”13

His next start was in Kansas City on May 6; another no-decision in a 5-3 win. Adenhart went 4⅓ innings and allowed three runs on six hits and five walks with three strikeouts.

Adenhart earned his first and only big-league victory on May 12 at home against the Chicago White Sox. He pitched into the sixth inning and allowed four runs on nine hits and three walks with one strikeout. He was then sent down to Triple A, where he regressed to 1-5 with an 8.80 ERA14 and finished the minor-league season at 9-13 with a 5.76 ERA in 145⅓ innings. His major-league totals for 2008 were 1-0 with a 9.00 ERA in 12 innings pitched.

In 2009, spring-training injuries to established veterans Lackey, Ervin Santana, and Kelvim Escobar put all three on the disabled list and opened the door for Adenhart, still the Angels’ top pitching prospect, to open the season as the Angels’ number-three starter. He made his first start on April 8 in the finale of the season-opening three-game set in Anaheim against Oakland.

Summoning his father to Los Angeles, saying “You better come here, because something special is going to happen,”15 Adenhart had his most effective start yet in the major leagues, going six shutout innings while scattering seven hits and three walks and striking out five. He left the game with a 3-0 lead but the Angels’ bullpen allowed six runs in the last two innings in a 6-4 loss, costing Adenhart his second major-league victory.

After his successful season debut, Adenhart went out with friends to celebrate. He was riding in a Mitsubishi Eclipse driven by a friend, Courtney Frances Stewart, along with passengers Henry Pearson and Jon Wilhite when the car was struck at the corner of Lemon and Oglethorpe in Fullerton at 12:20 A.M., less than seven miles from Angels Stadium. A Toyota Sienna minivan, driven under the influence by Andrew Thomas Gallo, went through a red light at 65 mph and broadsided the Eclipse.16 Gallo, who had a suspended license from a previous DUI, fled the scene and was apprehended a mile away. Stewart (20 years old) and Pearson (25) were killed while Wilhite miraculously survived critical injuries. Adenhart was transported to the UC Irvine Medical Center, where he died in the early morning hours of April 9, 2009, at the age of 22 years and 228 days.

The Angels franchise and Adenhart’s family were stunned. The series finale with Oakland was canceled and a makeshift shrine was erected by fans outside Angels Stadium while the Angels hosted a somber news conference. “His life’s goal was to be a major league baseball player, and he certainly achieved that standard,” said his agent, Scott Boras. The quotes from team officials and teammates were unanimous in their grief for the loss of the promising young man. “I’m at a loss,” Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden, who had pitched against Adenhart in the minors, said. “Talk about a guy who was on his way, about to take baseball by storm. He was ready to bring it to the main stage, and it was all cut short for no reason whatsoever.”17

Adenhart’s family, the Angels franchise, and many of his stops along his path to the major leagues have honored his memory throughout the years.

After struggling to a sub-.500 April in the aftermath of Adenhart’s death, the Angels maintained his locker all season and rallied to win the American League West by 10 games in 2009. They eventually lost the American League Championship Series to the New York Yankees but voted to send a full share of playoff money, $138,039, to Adenhart’s estate.

The Angels created the “Nick Adenhart Pitcher of the Year” award in June of 2009, to be awarded each season to the Angels’ most outstanding pitcher. The player receives a bronze statue of Adenhart with a larger one on display in the team’s trophy case. Jered Weaver, who in 2013 named his son Aden in Nick’s honor, won the first Adenhart Award.18

The Adenhart family created the Adenhart Memorial Fund to raise funds to support youth baseball organizations. The Little League field where Adenhart played in Williamsport was renamed the Nicholas James Adenhart Memorial Field.19 The Cedar Rapids Kernels set up an annual $1,000 scholarship in his memory funded by the Adenhart Memorial Fund.

Adenhart is remembered in his hometown in various ways. He was buried a mile from Williamsport High in Greenlawn Memorial Park. The Williamsport High School gym prominently displays Adenhart’s number 34 on the wall; and the grandstand behind home plate on the field where he excelled in high school has his name and number 11.

Nicholas James Adenhart Memorial Field has a picture of Adenhart in mid-delivery in an Angels uniform hung on the wall in right field. Signs on the concession stand at the Halfway fields recognizing past Division I champions include Adenhart’s 1998 and 1999 teams listing full rosters and coaching staff. And every year in late May the Nick Adenhart 5K is run in Williamsport to raise money for local youth programs.

Photo credit

Courtesy of the Los Angeles Angels.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted www.baseball-reference.com, www.ancestry.com, and the Nick Adenhart player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library. The author is particularly grateful for the time granted by David Warrenfeltz and Bob Parasiliti in Williamsport, Maryland.

Halfway Little League (https://www.leaguelineup.com/topnews.asp?url=halfwayll&itemid=369534)

Find a Grave (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/35686684/nick-adenhart)

Mike Matthews, “Laffey vs. Adenhart: A Battle to the Finish, a Game for the Ages,” Cumberland Times-News, May 13, 2003. Accessed online October 6, 2021, at https://www.times-news.com/sports/local_sports/laffey-vs-adenhart-a-battle-to-the-finish-a-game-for-the-ages/article_27d6f20c-769b-52fd-9075-9633205bc3e6.html

Mike Matthews, “Allegany: 1 Run, 0 Hits, 1 Victory,” Cumberland Times-News, May 13, 2003. Accessed online October 6, 2021, at https://www.times-news.com/sports/local_sports/allegany-1-run-0-hits-1-victory/article_f0dbeedf-d1e7-5e84-9244-931047571bbe.html

Cedar Rapids Community Scholarship (https://www.milb.com/cedar-rapids/community/adenhart-scholarship)

Nick Adenhart 5K (https://runsignup.com/Race/MD/Williamsport/NickAdenhart5K)

Notes

1 Author interview with David Warrenfeltz on May 22, 2021. Unless otherwise attributed, all direct quotations come from this interview.

2 Rick Maese, “Remembering Nick Adenhart,” Baltimore Sun, April 16, 2009. Accessed October 6, 2021, at https://www.baltimoresun.com/bs-mtblog-2009-04-remembering_nick_adenhart-story.html.

3 Maese, “Remembering Nick Adenhart.”

4 Dan Steinberg, “When You Get a Good Kid … It’s Sad,” Washington Post, May 29, 2004. Accessed October 6, 2021, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/2004/05/29/when-you-get-a-good-kid-its-sad/843a5519-d63c-4eb2-baf3-77f231f75a85/.

5 Rick Maese, “Back Home, There’s No Letting Go of Adenhart,” Baltimore Sun, April 11, 2009: 17.

6 Steinberg, “When You Get a Good Kid … It’s Sad.”

7 Steinberg, “When You Get a Good Kid … It’s Sad.”

8 Roch Kubatko, “Top Prospect Adenhart to Have Elbow Surgery,” Baltimore Sun, May 22, 2004: 5C.

9 Mike DiGiovanna, “Moreno: Price May Be Too High for Johnson,” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2004: D5.

10 Jim Ecker, “Special Funds Keeps Adenhart’s Memory Alive,” perfectgame.org. Accessed October 6, 2021, at https://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/View.aspx?article=4871&mode=full.

11 Rich Lederer, “Nick Adenhart: A Rising Star (Once Again),” baseballanalysts.com. Accessed October 6, 2021, at http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/07/nick_adenhart.php.

12 Mike DiGiovanna, “Angels Report,” Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2008: D7.

13 Mike DiGiovanna, “Angels’ Rookie Has Wild Debut,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 2008: D1.

14 Bill Shaikin, “Angels FYI,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2008: D12.

15 A quote widely attributed in the following days’ reports with subtle variations.

16 In December 2010 Gallo was sentenced to 51 years to life in prison.

17 Mike DiGiovanna, “Pitcher Had Fought Back After Injuries,” Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2009: A26.

18 As of 2021, the winners of the Adenhart Award have been Weaver (2009-2012), C.J. Wilson (2013), Garrett Richards (2014), Huston Street (2015), Matt Shoemaker (2016), Yusmeiro Petit (2017), Andrew Heaney (2018), Hansel Robles (2019), Dylan Bundy (2020), and Shohei Ohtani (2021, 2022).

19 Kevin Baxter, “Painful Anniversary for Angels,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2010: C6.

Fred Applegate’s baseball career first gained attention in 1894, as he pitched for the Burlingame Juniors.5 Locals nicknamed him Snitz, after the Pennsylvania Dutch treat of dried apples.6 Williamsport possessed a thriving baseball scene and, in the years ahead, Applegate honed his skills alongside Jimmy Sebring, Bucky Veil and Johnny Lush. A genial sort, who eventually gained a reputation as “a real humorist,” Applegate played football alongside these mates during the fall and hunted with them in the winter.7 The right-hander grew into a 6-foot-2, 180-pound frame.

By 1899, Williamsport’s Demorest Manufacturing Company employed Snitz as a machinist. He also starred as their team’s pitcher.8 Prior to the Demorests’ season-opener, at Lewisburg on April 15 vs. Bucknell University, Applegate cut his left hand on the job.9 Bandaged, he played left field and pitched in relief the next day. Bucknell, with Christy Mathewson starting in the box, romped, 12-4.10 Two weeks later in Williamsport, Applegate bested Mathewson, 7-6.11

Blood poisoning sent Applegate to the hospital in June. Whether this was attributable to a re-infection or a new injury is unclear. Applegate returned home by late July, but typhoid fever returned him to the hospital for nearly two months. In November, doctors amputated his right little finger to address its “chronic affliction.”12

For the next two seasons, Applegate played company or semipro ball in Billtown (as Williamsport residents often called their city) or in nearby towns. Then, in April 1902, he signed with the North Carolina League’s New Bern Truckers.13 Applegate was winless in five decisions before New Bern released him in May. The circuit’s Charlotte team promptly signed him.14 With Applegate’s assistance, the Hornets won 25 games in a row before disbanding on July 9.15 Applegate then signed with Newark, the Eastern League’s cellar dwellers, went 1-5, and was released.16

Applegate began the 1903 campaign with the Eastern League’s Worcester Riddlers. In late June, adrift in the standings and seeking to raise capital, Worcester sold Applegate and Charlie Frisbee to the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern League for $1,500.17 On August 17 Applegate told skipper Zeke Wrigley he was too overworked to take the ball that afternoon in Memphis. The last-place Pelicans released the pitcher. Memphis picked him up, and he pitched sporadically for the first-place Egyptians. Applegate’s 1903 ledger: 5-4 with Worcester and a combined 4-12-1 with New Orleans and Memphis.18

Despite the unimpressive beginning to his professional career, Applegate demonstrated potential. Employing a side-arm crossfire delivery, he used “speed across the inside corner mixed with springy shoots that slant across the outer edges of the plate.”19 Observers consistently noted the effectiveness of his drop curve.20 He only lacked control. “Applegate is the great untamed,” a Worcester sportswriter commented. “He is the wildest there is that isn’t behind bars.”21

Applegate returned to the Eastern League in 1904, signing with Toronto in February. His first start, in Newark on May 4, did not bode well: Despite allowing only three singles, he walked four in the fifth inning and suffered a 5-1 defeat. But Applegate pitched better that summer, three-hitting Jersey City en route to a 2-1 win on July 30 and throwing a two-hit shutout against Rochester on August 9.

Meanwhile, Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics were battling for the AL pennant. In mid-August Chief Bender and Eddie Plank missed time to illness, and Rube Waddell and Weldon Henley tired picking up the extra starts. Mack recalled Andy Coakley and Jim Fairbank. For a reported $2,000, he also purchased Applegate from Toronto, with an understanding that the pitcher would report to the Athletics on September 29.22

Applegate went 1-5 with Toronto in September, to finish 1904 with a 12-16 record for the 67-71 Maple Leafs.23 He joined the Mackmen during a lengthy season-concluding road trip. When they ventured into Detroit’s Bennett Park on September 30, the Athletics were out of the race, in fifth place, 9½ games behind the Boston Americans.24 It was the fourth of nine doubleheaders the season’s final two weeks held for them.

In the first game on September 30, Detroit’s defense gave Plank a victory. In the second, Applegate took the mound. His wildness surfaced in the second inning, as a hit batsman, a single, and a walk loaded the bases. Applegate retired his rookie pitching counterpart, Charlie Jaeger, for the third out. In the next inning, he wasn’t so fortunate: His two walks fueled a four-run frame. The Athletics rallied in the seventh to cut the Tigers’ lead to 5-4. Umpire Tommy Connolly then called the game as darkness overtook the field.25

Three days later, at Cleveland’s League Park, Coakley began another doubleheader by shutting down the Naps, 2-0. In the second game, Mack again handed Applegate the ball.  Cleveland pounced upon his crossfire and capitalized on his wildness. After six innings, umpire Silk O’Loughlin sent the chilled crowd home in the dusk. Applegate’s line in the 7-2 loss: 10 hits, a hit batsman, a wild pitch, two walks, all runs earned.26

Applegate’s third start came in Washington on October 10, opening another twin bill. It was the season’s final day. Via the “big blackboard in left field,” fans followed the pennant-deciding doubleheader between Boston and New York as they humored their last-place Senators.27 Applegate pitched scoreless ball for six innings as the Athletics, aided by one of his two hits in the game, put five runs across the plate in the fourth. Washington hit him hard in the final three frames – and Philadelphia’s fielding behind him weakened – but he held on for a 7-6 victory. The Senators beat Waddell in the abbreviated second game, 4-3, concluding a dreadful 38-113 season.

The Athletics finished in fifth place, 12½ games behind Boston. After Applegate’s start in Cleveland, Mack declared that “the loss of Danny] Hoffman and Harry Davis put us out of the championship.”28 Certainly their absences hurt; both the dynamic young outfielder Hoffman (badly beaned on July 1) and the veteran field general Davis (a broken hand sliding into home on September 9) were among the league’s OPS leaders when they were lost.

But a lack of pitching depth also characterized Philadelphia’s 1904 campaign. After Waddell and Plank, who both set career highs in innings pitched, the staff was uncertain. In their sophomore seasons, neither Henley (15-17, with an ERA+ of 107) nor Bender (10-11, an ERA+ of 94) demonstrated great promise. Coakley (4-3, an ERA+ of 144) had not yet experienced a full major-league season’s competition.

Consequently, Mack planned on bringing Applegate to spring training in March 1905.29 Perhaps his delivery could be refined, his composure steadied, his wildness tamed. If not, he could be returned to Toronto.

Yet when Mack’s contract reached him in Williamsport, Applegate balked at the offer, which was reportedly less than what Toronto had paid him in 1904.30 Conveniently for the pitcher, the fledgling Tri-State League was outside the National Commission’s orbit and had a well-backed Williamsport Millionaires franchise. Applegate agreed to terms with the Millionaires; then Toronto manager Dick Hartley visited him in Williamsport in March.31 Several weeks later he signed a six-month Maple Leafs contract at $325 per month.32 Mack, who had signed 20-year-old spitballer Jimmy Dygert in February, released Applegate to Toronto.33

Applegate pitched for Toronto for two months, compiling a 3-4 record. In early June, Williamsport manager Max Lindheimer recruited the pitcher back to the Millionaires fold, reportedly at a monthly salary of at least $350.34 Billtown fans enjoyed a memorable summer. After beginning August in fourth place with a 43-37 record, their team roared to the pennant by winning 35 of its final 42 games.35 Jimmy Sebring’s midseason arrival provided the key spark. Lew Richie paced the staff with a 24-9 record.36 Walter Manning came over from the Tri-State’s Lebanon squad and won 15 straight for Williamsport.37 Applegate, 8-7 with the Millionaires, was a lesser light.

Just before the Millionaires caught fire, Toronto sold Applegate’s rights to the Boston Beaneaters.38 Several months later, the National Commission confirmed Boston’s rights to him, and the team announced plans to bring him to their 1906 spring training.39 Applegate re-signed with Williamsport.40

After battling injuries early in the 1906 season, Applegate asked for and was granted a release from the Millionaires.41 Several weeks later he signed with the Johnstown (Pennsylvania) Johnnies, one of Williamsport’s Tri-State rivals.42 He concluded the campaign with an overall 11-15 record.43

In January 1907, negotiations brought the Tri-State League into Organized Baseball. Applegate was awarded to Toronto. The Leafs won the Eastern League pennant. Applegate, with a 9-9 record, added rotational depth. In a postseason series with the American Association’s Columbus Senators, he won the fifth and deciding game.44 Remaining with Toronto in 1908, Applegate contributed an 8-12 record as the team tumbled into sixth place.

Snitz started the 1909 season back with the Millionaires, but after an 0-2 beginning, he was released.45 The New York State League Wilkes-Barre Barons picked him up. The Barons, like the 1905 Millionaires, caught fire to win the pennant. Languishing in seventh place with a 10-16 record on June 5, Wilkes-Barre went 78-37 the rest of the way. Unlike 1905 in Williamsport, Applegate drove this surge, leading the Barons’ staff with a 22-7 record.46

For the 1910 season, Applegate returned to Wilkes-Barre. Then, in early 1911, he began to plan for a post-baseball career, purchasing 97 acres north of Williamsport to start a fruit orchard business and announcing his candidacy for county auditor.47 He spent the 1911 summer in Nebraska, pitching for the Western League’s Lincoln Railsplitters. He returned home that autumn to win, as a Republican in a mostly Democratic county, one of the three auditor seats.48

Applegate bounced around lesser teams over the next two seasons: Elmira (New York State League), York (Tri-State League), and Guelph (Canadian League) in 1912, Newport News (Virginia League) and Newburgh (New York-New Jersey League) in 1913. In 1914 he umpired in the Tri-State League.

In March 1915, Applegate married Mary Noll, a Williamsport native. The marriage did not produce any children. Applegate settled into a politician’s life. In 1933 a taxpayers’ committee accused several local officials, including Applegate, then a county commissioner, of misusing public funds for private home improvements.49 The allegations cost Applegate re-election two years later.50 He stayed active in his local fire department and Elks lodge. Mary died in 1962. Fred Applegate followed her on April 21, 1968, dying from heart disease in Williamsport. He rests in the city’s Wildwood Cemetery.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Ancestry.com, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, and the following sites:

archive.org/details/orangeandblue_01_reel01

canadiana.ca

jvbrownpublic.advantage-preservation.com 

Photo credit: Fred Applegate, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library

Notes

1 “Married,” Williamsport Sun and Lycoming Democrat, April 17, 1878: 5.

2 “Minor Locals,” Williamsport Sun and Lycoming Democrat, June 12, 1878: 5. See also Luella A. Harris, “A History of Bradford, PA,” Back to Bradford, www.backtobradford.com/HistoryOfBradford.pdf, accessed January 13, 2022.

3 His death certificate lists East Bradford as his birthplace.

4 This is the first post-1878 city directory in which James Applegate is listed.

5 “The Ball Field,” Williamsport Sun and Banner, June 18, 1894: 1; “Demorest’s Big Benefit,” Pennsylvania Grit (Williamsport), July 29, 1894: 8.

6 For the origins of the nickname, see “Harrisburg Was Retarded,” Williamsport Sun, August 9, 1905: 6.

7 “Sporting Review,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Star, October 5, 1911: 9.

8 “Now for Baseball,” Williamsport Sun and Banner, April 18, 1899: 1. For his employment as a machinist, see the 1899 Williamsport city directory.

9 “Has a Badly Cut Hand,” Pennsylvania Grit, April 16, 1899: 1.

10 “Bucknell-Demorest,” Orange and Blue (Bucknell student newspaper), April 18, 1899: 1.

11 “Demorest-Bucknell,” Orange and Blue, May 2, 1899: 1.

12 For these events, see “South Williamsport Events,” Pennsylvania Grit, July 16, 1899: 2; “South Side Notes,” Williamsport Evening News, April 18, 1899: 4; “South Side,” Williamsport Sun and Banner, September 23, 1899: 2; “South Williamsport Affairs,” Pennsylvania Grit, November 5, 1899: 2.

13 “The Newbern Team,” Charlotte Observer, April 13, 1902: 12.

14 “Wilmington Shut Out,” New Bern Observer, July 1, 1902: 4; “Home Runs,” Charlotte News, May 22, 1902: 5.

15 “They All Want Ashenback,” Charlotte Observer, July 25, 1902: 6.

16 “Louis Bruce Is Premier Artist,” Worcester (Massachusetts) Spy, September 22, 1902: 3; “Jersey City Club Defeated Buffalo,” Jersey City Journal, August 2, 1902: 8.

17 “Two Go to New Orleans,” Pittsburgh Press, June 25, 1903: 14.

18 Henry Chadwick, ed., Spalding’s Base Ball Guide 1904 (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1904), 148, 168.

19 “Pelicans Take Second,” New Orleans Times-Democrat, July 30, 1903: 11; “Baseball Chat,” New Orleans Item, July 20, 1903: 8.

20 “Eastern League Season Opens,” Jersey City Journal, April 30, 1903: 9; “Pelicans Playing a Winning Game,” New Orleans Picayune, July 21, 1903: 14.

21 “Sporting Notes,” Worcester Spy, June 18, 1903: 2.

22 “Athletics Suffer a Setback,” Philadelphia North American, August 29, 1904: 13; “Base Ball,” Philadelphia Item, August 31, 1904: 4; “Right Off the Bat,” Buffalo Evening News, September 1, 1904: 24.

23 Applegate’s 1904 season record per Chadwick, Spalding’s Base Ball Guide 1905, 163. Applegate’s September ledger with Toronto: a 3-1 loss at Buffalo on September 2; a 6-4 loss vs. Montreal on September 6; a 6-2 loss vs. Buffalo on September 10; a 5-2 loss in Montreal on September 15; a 4-2 loss vs. Newark on September 22; and a 4-3 victory over Providence on September 26.

24 For more on the A’s 1904 season, see Norman Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 325-332.

25 “Custom Called for Division,” Detroit Free Press, October 1, 1904: 9.

26 “Winning Streak Was Broken,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 4, 1904: 10; “Athletics Stop Winning Streak,” Cleveland Leader, October 4, 1904: 8.

27 “Sports of All Sorts,” Washington Evening Star, October 11, 1904: 9. See also, “Closed with Victory,” Washington Post, October 11, 1904: 8.

28 “Notes of the Game,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 4, 1904: 10.

29 “Mack’s Athletics,” Williamsport Evening News, December 1, 1904: 5; “Mack Will Take 22 Players to Train,” Philadelphia North American, January 30, 1905: 4.

30 “Applegate May Stay,” Williamsport Evening News, January 26, 1905: 5; “The Unjust Draft Rule,” Williamsport Evening News, January 31, 1905: 8.

31 “Are After Our ‘Snitz,’” Williamsport Evening News, March 15, 1905: 1.

32 “Promised Lindheimer,” Williamsport Evening News, April 5, 1905: 1; “Applegate Has a Nice Contract,” Williamsport Sun, April 8, 1905: 6.

33 “Hurrah! They Come to Toronto,” Toronto World, April 13, 1905: 3.

34 “‘Snitz’ Joins Grays,” Williamsport Evening News, June 7, 1905: 1; “Baseball Bunts from Many Sources,” Buffalo Evening News, January 8, 1906: 10.

35 George M. Graham, “Millionaires Captured Thirty-Five Out of Forty-Two Games, Including Strings of Eight and Fourteen Consecutive Victories,” Philadelphia North American, September 17, 1905: 13.

36 “A Few Season’s Records,” Pennsylvania Grit, September 17, 1905: 2.

37 “Manning Is Signed,” Pennsylvania Grit, January 7, 1906: 2.

38 “Baseball Brevities,” Toronto World, August 25, 1905: 3.

39 “Will Try Out Applegate,” Boston Globe, November 18, 1905: 8.

40 “Local Stars Signed,” Pennsylvania Grit, November 26, 1905: 2.

41 “Sporting News,” Williamsport Sun, June 4, 1906: 6; “Tri-State Notes,” Williamsport Evening News, June 5, 1906: 5.

42 “Sporting News,” Williamsport Sun, June 27, 1906: 6.

43 “The Tri-State Averages,” Sporting Life, January 5, 1907: 14.

44 “Class A Battle,” Sporting Life, October 12, 1907: 17.

45 Applegate’s 1909 Williamsport record per Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1910 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co., 1910), 283. For his release, “Evidence Will Show Carpenter Decision Wrong,” Williamsport Evening News, June 16, 1909: 1.

46 “Applegate Leading Pitcher in League,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, September 29, 1909: 16.

47 “Social Realm and Social Mention,” Williamsport Sun, March 22, 1911: 10; “South Side,” Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin, March 7, 1911: 6.

48 “Samuel Stabler Next Mayor of Williamsport,” Williamsport News, November 8, 1911: 1.

49 “Says Officials Used Fund to Improve Homes,” Wilkes-Barre Evening News, February 4, 1933: 3.

50 “Offices Are Divided in Lycoming County,” Scranton Tribune, November 7, 1935: 3.

Aumont was born on January 7, 1989, in Gatineau, a city of more than 275,000 that sits across the Ottawa River from Canada’s capital city. The future major leaguer grew up in a working-class Francophone neighborhood and was raised primarily by his father, Jean-Pierre Aumont, who worked as a laborer for a moving company.1  

“Where I come from, we speak French. English is something you start to learn in school and past that, nobody really uses it,” Aumont said of his upbringing in a 2021 interview.2 He spent most of his time as a young man outside, playing with other children from his neighborhood. At age 11, he started playing baseball competitively and soon joined up with Canada’s national baseball program, playing in junior tournaments across North America. As Aumont grew during his adolescence, the baseball-mad teenager started to draw interest from baseball scouts. 

“My style of pitching was more power pitching than anything else. I never wanted you to touch the ball. All I was shooting for was a strikeout. Period,” Aumont said.3 His size and strength helped make his approach to pitching highly successful.

“My high-school career was great. I won many trophies and many medals,” Aumont recalled.4 As a junior in high school, he first realized that scouts were following his games closely, but this came as a surprise to him despite his success.

“I had no vision on going further and playing pro. The dream wasn’t really something I had coming up. I love to compete and when I do, I always want to win,” Aumont said.5

When the Mariners made Aumont their first-round pick in 2007, selecting him from high school (Ecole du Versant in Gatineau), it was a significant milestone in the baseball history of Quebec. Never before had a native son of La Belle Province been selected so highly in the first round. The most recent Quebecer selected in the first round previous to Aumont was Ntema Ndungidi of Montreal, an outfielder selected 36th overall in the 1997 draft by the Baltimore Orioles. Only two previous Canadians, pitchers Adam Loewen and Jeff Francis (both selected in 2002), had been selected higher than Aumont in baseball’s amateur draft.

“I had great support locally. People were really happy about it and I certainly gained a little bit more fame,” Aumont said of the experience.6

The Mariners, too, were excited to get their hands on the robust young prospect. 

“The first time I saw him last summer, he was throwing 92-93 [MPH] at the time, with the makings of a slider and some sink on his fastball,” Mariners scout Dave May said of Aumont to the Seattle Times. “This spring, he was up to 96 on his fastball with heavy sink and his slider got better. With him getting better and better, I think he has one of the highest ceilings of anyone in this draft.”7

Aumont signed with the Mariners and progressed rapidly in their minor-league organization. At just 20 years of age, he advanced to Double A, spending much of the summer of 2009 with the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx of the Southern League. The trajectory of Aumont’s career changed in December 2009 when he was one of three players (the other two being minor-league outfielder Tyson Gillies and pitcher JC Ramírez) sent to the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for 2008 Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee. The trade didn’t really pan out for either club. Lee spent less than half a season in Seattle while Aumont, Ramírez, and Gillies all failed to turn into long-term big leaguers.

For the next three seasons, Aumont bounced around the Philadelphia organization before debuting for the Phillies on August 23, 2012. In 2010 the Phillies organization tried Aumont out as a starter in Double-A Reading with little success. In 2011 he made a combined 43 relief appearances in Reading and Triple-A Lehigh Valley with much greater success. Before making his big-league debut in August, Aumont was again a stalwart in Lehigh Valley’s bullpen, making 41 appearances with an ERA of 4.26.

Aumont recalled the jitters he felt when he entered his first major-league game at Citizens Bank Park. He came in for the eighth inning against the Cincinnati Reds.

“The gut feeling when you get the phone call in the bullpen to start warming up. The adrenaline kicks in and it just feels surreal,” Aumont recalled.8 The 23-year-old rookie did great in his debut, pitching a scoreless inning while surrendering a walk to Miguel Cairo. The Phillies went on to win 4-3 in 11 innings that evening.9 Aumont’s strong debut presaged a strong rookie campaign. Over the next two months, he made 18 appearances for Philadelphia, earning two saves and garnering a 3.68 ERA as a middle reliever.

The Gatineau native split the 2013 between Triple-A Lehigh Valley (International League) and Philadelphia. He again performed admirably for the Phillies, making a career-high 22 appearances, all in relief. In 2013, Aumont had a 4.19 ERA for the season and a 1-3 overall record.

Aumont gained his first and only career victory on April 12, 2013, against the Miami Marlins. He entered a 1-1 game in the bottom of the ninth inning at Marlins Park and faced three batters. He retired Plácido Polanco on a groundout, walked Justin Ruggiano, and got Greg Dobbs to hit into a double play. Chase Utley and Michael Young drove in runs for the Phils in the top of the 10th and Jonathan Papelbon finished off Miami in the bottom of the inning, earning the save to Aumont’s win.

 “I came out, did my job to put up a zero on the board and we scored the next inning with Papelbon closing it out,” Aumont recalled.10

For whatever reason, Aumont could never break out of his status as a borderline big-league pitcher in the Philadelphia organization. Both at the major- and minor-league levels, he had a tendency to give up walks and home runs – both were certainly a product of his power-pitching approach to the game. The 2014 and 2015 seasons proved to be particularly frustrating ones for Aumont. During both campaigns, he pitched well for Lehigh Valley but struggled in his rare appearances at the major-league level.

In all, Aumont made just five appearances for the Phillies in 2014, posting an ERA of 19.06 for the season. In 2015 he made just one major-league appearance.

On June 19, 2015, Aumont started his first game in the majors. He surrendered six earned runs to the St. Louis Cardinals in four innings, taking the loss in a 12-4 Cards win. The defeat proved to be not only Aumont’s first career start but also his final major-league appearance and his only appearance of the 2015 major-league season. The Phillies released Aumont shortly thereafter, thus beginning a more than half-decade odyssey throughout Organized Baseball.

On June 28, 2015, Aumont signed with the Toronto Blue Jays and made five appearances for the Buffalo Bisons, the club’s Triple-A affiliate. Toronto released him in late August. He joined the Chicago White Sox organization during the offseason and spent the first half of the 2016 campaign with the Triple-A Charlotte Knights before being released. In 2017 Aumont returned to his old stamping grounds, pitching for the Ottawa Champions of the independent Canadian-American Association.

The Detroit Tigers were sufficiently impressed with Aumont’s performance in Ottawa to sign him to a minor-league contract in January 2018. The then 29-year-old pitcher spent the vast majority of the season with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens and was released after the season.

After his release by the Tigers, Aumont re-signed with Ottawa of the Canadian-American Association in 2019 and enjoyed a renaissance season. Working exclusively as a starter, he was named the league’s Pitcher of the Year, going 8-4 with a 2.65 ERA. In one outing, Aumont struck out a league-record 18 batters.11 His production in 2019 earned Aumont another opportunity to make it back to the big leagues.

In December 2019 Aumont signed with the Toronto Blue Jays and gave it another shot in spring training. Before Major League Baseball shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March of 2020, Aumont made two appearances for the Blue Jays in spring training. Amid the shutdown, he decided to retire from baseball and pursue family farming on a farmstead just outside Gatineau. As of the June 2021 interview, he and his wife, Frederique, were still settling into the 12-hour workday on the farm.  

“This is our first year growing crops in greenhouses. We plan to grow fully organic in high tunnels and outside in the fields within the next three to five years,” Aumont said of his life after baseball.  “We want to create a bit of an ecosystem on the farm where we can develop self-sufficiently and also feed our community with organic foods and get away from industrial chemicals foods.”12

Looking back on his big-league career, Aumont said he felt a great sense of pride.

“From where I come from to where I am now, not many people in the world can say they did and experienced what I did. I’m proud to be part of that.”13

Photo credit: Courtesy of Phillippe Aumont.

Notes

1 Phillippe Aumont, interview by the author, June 14, 2021; David Singh, “Why Phillipe Aumont Gave Up Pro Baseball to Become a Pitcher,” Sportsnet, September 13, 2020. Accessed September 14, 2020: https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/longform/phillippe-aumont-gave-pro-baseball-become-farmer/.

2 Aumont interview.

3 Aumont interview.

4 Aumont interview.

5 Aumont interview.

6 Aumont interview.

7 Scott Hanson, “M’s Pick Up Aumont at No. 11,” Seattle Times, June 8, 2007. Accessed on September 14, 2020: https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/ms-pick-up-aumont-at-no-11/.

8 Aumont interview.

9 “Phillies Slip Past Reds in 11th on RBI Single from John Mayberry Jr.,” ESPN.com, August 23, 2012. Accessed September 14, 2020: https://www.espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=320823122.

10 Aumont interview.

11 “Champions Hurler Sets Single-Game Strikeout Record,” CBC.com, July 17, 2019. Accessed September 14, 2021: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phillippe-aumont-gatineau-strikeout-record-champions-1.5214601.

12 Aumont interview.

13 Aumont interview.

John David Baker was born on January 20, 1981, in Alameda, California, to David and Stephanie Baker. Both parents have master’s degrees from Stanford, his mother in philosophy and his father in business. He is the oldest of three children. 

John’s father, David, played baseball growing up and was drafted out of high school in the 36th round of the 1972 free-agent draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Electing to go to Stanford University instead, he was then drafted in the sixth round of the 1975 draft by the Philadelphia Phillies. He was a catcher in their minor-league system for the 1975 and 1976 seasons, playing as high as Double A before settling in to a career as a CPA.

Because of his father’s history with playing baseball, the game played a prominent role in John’s childhood. “It was a sport that I grew up playing as a kid,” he once said. “My dad played baseball and some of my earliest memories are of my dad playing softball as a kid in Walnut Creek, California. It was always a game I enjoyed.”1 His father would hang a Wiffle Ball from a tree in their backyard, and right after John could walk, he was hitting that ball with a Wiffle Ball bat. His father coached his T-ball team when John was 4 years old and continued coaching his teams all the way up to and including his high-school team.2

The Oakland Athletics were John’s favorite team growing up. After his grandfather retired from the Pacific Bell phone company, he worked in concessions at the Oakland Coliseum. His family would go to the ballpark often and he could name every member of the 1980s Athletics teams.3 As a left-handed hitter, John’s favorite player was Will Clark.4 He loved watching Clark swing the bat left-handed. But Clark, a six-time All-Star, played in San Francisco. Though he collected all of Clark’s baseball cards, he was the only San Francisco Giants player that John liked.5

Baker graduated from De La Salle High School in Concord, California, in 1999 as the class salutatorian with a 4.0 grade-point average. On the baseball field, he was a pitcher and played a lot of first base. He had a .433 batting average and earned All-Bay Valley Athletic League honors as a junior and a senior.

After high school, Baker signed up to go to UCLA for political science. He wanted to go to law school. Baseball was “always something I did on the side. I always focused on school,” he said.6 He felt he was never the best player on any of his baseball teams.7 But a phone call from Dave Esquer, the new baseball coach at the University of California, Berkeley, convinced him otherwise. 

“He called me and said I think you have a good enough swing to play college baseball and how would you like to go to Cal and play? That was fantastic, as I lived 20 to 25 minutes away from Berkeley. I walked into his office and he said have you played catcher before? I said not really and he said, well, here’s the gear. We’ll teach you how to play catcher.”8 Baker practiced every chance he had, and once caught both games of a doubleheader.9

Baker majored in American Studies. “I definitely enjoyed my classes,” he said. “I did not feel like baseball got in the way.”10 Based on his statistics, it doesn’t seem that his classes got in the way of baseball either. It also helped that he could now see properly. During his senior year in high school, his baseball coach, thinking Baker had a vision problem, recommended that he go to an ophthalmologist. It turned out that his vision was so bad that he wasn’t legally supposed to be driving. The first at-bat he had with glasses on, he hit a home run over the center-field fence.11

As a junior in 2002, Baker led the Pac-10 with a .383 batting average and was selected to the All-Pac-10 team. He spent his summers playing for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox of the Cape Cod Baseball League.

While playing on Cape Cod, Baker realized he had a chance to play professional baseball. He was surrounded by the best prospects in the country and he was playing great. He wasn’t supposed to catch there, but Yarmouth-Dennis’s top catching prospect broke his ankle and the other catcher on the team had a sore arm, so Baker ended up catching 40 games in a row.12

On June 4, 2002, Baker was drafted by the Oakland A’s in the fourth round of the amateur draft. This draft was immortalized in the book Moneyball.13 Baker is mentioned several times in the book; he was one of the players targeted by the Oakland A’s to draft.

Since he grew up as an A’s fan, being drafted by them was one of the biggest thrills of Baker’s life. He was also really enjoying his time at college, so he wasn’t sure if he should finish his senior year or go play professional baseball. After going through a workout with the A’s, though, he knew he was going to choose baseball over college.14 He officially signed with the team on June 28.

Later that year, Baker made his professional debut at Vancouver in the short-season Class-A Northwest League. He hit .235 with one home run and 13 RBIs while playing in 39 games. The biggest adjustment for him there was that he was now surrounded by international players. Seated near a player from the Dominican Republic, Baker tried his hardest to speak with him, with what little Spanish he knew at the time. For two days he struggled to communicate, but still tried his hardest. On the third day, the other player said, “Hey, I speak English.” He had tested Baker to see what he was really like. That other player was Nelson Cruz, and they became good friends.15

In 2003 Baker split his first full professional season between Class-A Kane County (Midwest League) and Double-A Midland (Texas League). In all, he hit .286 with 7 home runs and 70 RBIs in 125 games. That batting average was good enough to rank 11th among all minor-league catchers.

Baker spent most of 2004 in Double-A Midland, but was promoted to Triple-A Sacramento (Pacific Coast League) on August 13. He combined at both stops to hit .287 with 15 home runs and 88 RBIs in 131 games. That batting average was once again ranked 11th among all minor-league catchers. He appeared in three playoff games for Sacramento. He went hitless in five at-bats, but walked twice and scored three runs.

Baker learned a lot at his time in Sacramento. Webster Garrison and Brian McArn were two coaches who went out of their way to make sure the players felt supported, no matter what happened on the field. They were two of the first people Baker reached out to when he was eventually called up to the major leagues.16

After the 2004 minor-league season, Baker played for the Arizona Fall League champion Phoenix Desert Dogs. He hit .318 in 18 games.

Baker’s entire 2005 season was spent at Triple-A Sacramento. He hit .234 with 5 home runs and 41 RBIs in 103 games. He threw out 28 of 96 attempted basestealers and made only four errors, good for a .995 fielding percentage.

After that 2005 performance, Baker had an eventful offseason. On December 15 he was selected off waivers by the Florida Marlins. Less than a month later, on January 5, 2006, he was back in the Oakland A’s organization, as they selected him off waivers from the Marlins. This experience taught Baker that baseball was a business. He was actually designated the day before his wedding and was claimed by the Marlins while on his honeymoon. He had met his wife, Meghan, while they both attended De La Salle High School.17

In 2006 Baker was invited to the A’s spring training. He wasn’t sent down to the minor leagues until the very end of camp. He spent the entire season at Triple-A Sacramento. He batted .273 with 4 home runs and 38 RBIs in 83 games, and tossed out 25 of 90 attempted basestealers. 

On March 30, 2007, Baker was traded to the Marlins for Jason Stokes. Stokes was a first baseman who battled wrist problems and other injuries throughout his career. This trade ended up helping Baker greatly because he was able to be coached by Tim Cossins. Cossins changed his approach to catching. “Without Tim, I would have never played a day in the major leagues,” Baker said.

Baker played at Triple-A Albuquerque for the 2007 season. He hit .285 with 8 home runs and 41 RBIs in 89 games. After the season, Baker worked at St. Isidore School in Danville and volunteered with youth baseball programs in Lafayette and the Livermore-Castro Valley area.18

Baker began the 2008 campaign with Triple-A Albuquerque. He was named to the PCL all-star team after batting .321 with 6 home runs and 31 RBIs in 59 games. He was called up to the Marlins on July 9, 2008, after Florida catcher Matt Treanor went on the disabled list.

In his second major-league game, on July 10, Baker became the 10th Marlins player to hit a home run for his first major-league hit. He did this in Los Angeles against the Dodgers’ Chan-Ho Park.  He also doubled in the game, finishing with two runs and an RBI.

That day is a day that Baker will never forget. He had to remind himself to move his legs as he rounded the bases on his home run. After he got to the dugout, Luis Gonzalez said to Baker, “Hey, 499 more of those and you’ll have a good career.”19

Baker was kept on the Marlins’ roster for the rest of the 2008 season and ended up hitting .299 with 5 home runs and 32 RBIs in 61 games (54 starts.) He drew 30 walks while striking out 48 times, and finished with a .392 OBP.

Baker platooned with Ronny Paulino for the 2009 season. Baker played against right-handed pitchers while Paulino generally played against left-handed pitchers. Baker started 99 games behind the plate and posted a .271 average with 9 home runs and 50 RBIs. His five home runs in May tied for the most home runs that month by an NL catcher. He batted .319 with runners in scoring position, which ranked second among NL catchers.

On May 3 the Marlins played the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Baker’s grandfather, Arthur, flew out from California to Chicago to see him play. Baker hit a home run off Carlos Mármol. As he rounded second base, he saw the fan who caught the home-run ball throw it back onto the field. This was a highlight for him. After the game, he was able to hug his grandfather, who had seen him play at every level of baseball. To have him see this home run at Wrigley Field was special.20

In January of 2010, Baker went on an eight-day trip to Kuwait and Iraq with other Marlins personnel. The group visited US troops, saw the Iran border, and met Kuwaiti Little Leaguers. He wanted to go see for himself what it was like for these soldiers.21

After returning, Baker wrote in a letter to the Miami Herald, “I made a commitment … to do the best I could to support veterans in our community.”22 During spring training, he spent time with residents of the Stand Down House in Palm Beach County.  He provided tickets for veterans to come out to games and he spent time with them at the ballpark.

Baker saw very limited playing time in the 2010 season. On May 13 he was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained flexor tendon in his right arm. It ended up being a season-ending injury, and Baker had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in September.

While on the disabled list, Baker was part of a Marlins contingent that traveled to Haiti in July to visit families affected by an earthquake that struck earlier in the year. He then served as the spokesman for the Marlins Homes for Haiti campaign, which helped raise funds to build a 25-home village just outside of Port-au-Prince.

In September of 2010, Baker was named the Marlins’ nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award, given annually to the major leaguer who combines a dedication to giving back to the community with outstanding skills on the baseball field. He said, “I am incredibly honored to be mentioned in the same sentence as the great Roberto Clemente. I wear the number 21 proudly in his honor.”23 As of 2021, Baker was on the board of a charity called Lost Boyz, Inc., which seeks “to decrease violence, improve the social and emotional conditions, and provide financial opportunities among the youth in Chicago’s South Shore community.”24

Most of Baker’s 2011 season was spent rehabbing. After the Tommy John surgery, his arm hurt for a few more years and he would never feel the same way when swinging a bat.25 He rejoined the Marlins in September, and made 16 appearances as a pinch-hitter.

On November 22, 2011, Baker was traded to the Padres for Wade LeBlanc. “We believe John fits well into our catching situation,” Padres GM Josh Byrnes said.26 “As a left-handed hitter with a good history of getting on base, he will provide us with depth and will help balance the roster from a left-right perspective.”27 Baker was also happy about the trade. His friends on the Marlins were all the leaving the team, and he felt the organization was in disarray, going through a lot of coaches and managers.28

For the 2012 season, Baker mainly served as a backup to Padres catchers Nick Hundley and Yasmani Grandal. He played in 63 games, hitting .238 with no home runs and 14 RBIs. He enjoyed his time in San Diego. He loved living in the city and playing at Petco Park.29

At San Diego, Baker started to catch with one knee down. He realized that it gave the umpire a tougher look at the bottom of the strike zone, and the pitchers were getting more called strikes. It started when Huston Street told Baker to put his knee on the ground and hold his glove out with two strikes.30 This style of catching is becoming more popular today.

Baker made the Padres team coming out of spring training of 2013 mainly because Grandal was serving a 50-game suspension for testing positive for a high testosterone level. On May 28, the day Grandal returned to the Padres, Baker was optioned to the Triple-A Tucson Padres. After he played just four games there, the Padres designated him for assignment. 

Needing catching depth, the Los Angeles Dodgers claimed Baker off waivers on June 15 and optioned him to Triple A Albuquerque. Baker struggled there, hitting just .203 in 40 games. On August 5, the Dodgers cut Baker from their 40-man roster and he became a free agent on October 1.

On December 18, 2013, Baker signed a minor-league deal with the Chicago Cubs, with an invitation to spring training. At spring training, Baker won a roster spot as a backup catcher to Welington Castillo. He batted only .192 with no home runs and 15 RBIs in 68 games. But one game stood out for him – the game that has become known in Cubs’ history as “The John Baker Game.”

The Cubs played the Colorado Rockies on July 29. The game lasted 16 innings and ended up taking 6 hours and 27 minutes to complete; through the 2021 season it remained the Cubs’ longest game by time. Notably, after the Cubs used all of their available relief pitchers, Baker was called upon in the 16th inning to pitch. According to him, he pitched the world’s worst batting practice.31 But not only did he get out of the top half of the inning allowing no runs (he retired the Rockies on a pop foul, a walk, and a double play), he himself walked to start the bottom of the 16th and came around to score the winning run on a sacrifice fly. 

In his only major-league pitching appearance, John Baker, a backup catcher, was credited with the win and became the first position player to earn a win for the Cubs since Fred Pfeffer in 1885. His career pitching stats are 1-0, 0.00 ERA. 

Every July 29 is now known as John Baker Day to Cubs fans. There is always an organized event he attends which includes raffles and live music. The proceeds go to charity. Past charities have included the Hazleton Integration Project and the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network.

Even with those unblemished pitching stats, the Cubs did not re-sign Baker after the 2014 season. He was released on December 2, 2014. Theo Epstein, then president of baseball operations with the Cubs, told Baker that whenever he was done playing, there would be a home for him with the Cubs.32

Baker then signed a minor-league deal with the Seattle Mariners on January 29, 2015, and started the season playing for the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers. After playing just 17 games and hitting .161 with no home runs and five RBIs, the organization tried to put him on the disabled list even though he was not injured. After explaining to the team that he wanted to play baseball and not just watch, he was released on May 20. After receiving a few minor-league offers that he felt would go nowhere, Baker decided that he was done playing professional baseball.33

Once Baker stopped playing baseball, he needed something to pursue physically. He started competing in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As of 2021, he had achieved a purple belt, with hopes of achieving a black belt.34

At the end of 2015, Baker rejoined the Cubs organization as a baseball operations assistant. True to his word, Theo Epstein hired him once Baker’s playing career ended. He rose through the organization, serving as a mental skills coordinator from 2017 to 2019, and becoming head mental skills coach in 2020. He also went back to school, receiving his bachelor’s degree in liberal science from Arizona State University and his master’s degree in performance psychology from National University.

On November 10, 2020, Baker was hired to be the Pittsburgh Pirates director of coaching and player development. Going from the big-budget Cubs to a smaller-market Pirates team had its challenges. But Baker was up for the task. “I like to chase challenges, and this seemed like the appropriate challenge with the appropriate people,” he said. “I really feel like we can do some cool things.”35 Baker uses his degree in performance psychology to help guide the players in the Pirates organization. He likes to always think what is best for the person. “We don’t like to say these are baseball players, we like to say these are people who play baseball.”36

After the 2021 season, Baker began to prepare for the 2022 season. According to MLB Pipeline, the Pirates’ minor-league system ranked in baseball’s top five.37 The expectations for 2022 were to do better than in 2021. But Baker said he doesn’t want to be trapped into having the same mindset: “We can’t let success get in the way of improvement.”

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 TwistNHook,“CGB Interviews Former Golden Bear and Current Florida Marlin, John Baker,” California Golden Blogs, CGB Interviews Former Golden Bear And Current Florida Marlin, John Baker Part I – California Golden Blogs, June 14, 2010, accessed May 11, 2021.

2 John Baker, Zoom interview with author, October 24, 2021. Unless otherwise attributed, all direct quotations are from this interview.

3 Author interview with John Baker.

4 “CGB Interviews Former Golden Bear and Current Florida Marlin, John Baker.”

5 Author interview with John Baker.

6 “CGB Interviews Former Golden Bear and Current Florida Marlin, John Baker.”

7 Author interview with John Baker.

8 “CGB Interviews Former Golden Bear and Current Florida Marlin, John Baker.”

9 Author interview with John Baker.

10 “CGB Interviews Former Golden Bear and Current Florida Marlin, John Baker.”

11 Author interview with John Baker.

12 Author interview with John Baker.

13 Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003).

14 Author interview with John Baker.

15 Author interview with John Baker.

16 Author interview with John Baker.

17 Author interview with John Baker.

18 Laurence Miedema, “For Cal and De La Salle Star Baker Has Huge Homecoming,” East Bay Times, August 20, 2008. For Cal and De La Salle star Baker has huge homecoming – East Bay Times. Accessed May 11, 2021.

19 Author interview with John Baker.

20 Author interview with John Baker.

21 Author interview with John Baker.

22 “Open Letter from Marlins Catcher John Baker,” Miami Herald, September 23, 2010. Open Letter from Marlins Catcher John Baker | Fish Bytes (typepad.com). Accessed May 11, 2021.

23 “Open Letter from Marlins Catcher John Baker.”

24 Lost Boyz Inc.

25 Author interview with John Baker.

26 “San Diego Padres Acquire Catcher John Baker from Miami,” MLB.com, San Diego Padres acquire catcher John Baker from Miami | MLB.com. Accessed May 11, 2021.

27 “San Diego Padres Acquire Catcher John Baker from Miami.”

28 Author interview with John Baker.

29 Author interview with John Baker.

30 Author interview with John Baker.

31 Author interview with John Baker.

32 Author interview with John Baker.

33 Author interview with John Baker.

34 Author interview with John Baker.

35 Jason Mackey, “Why John Baker Left the Cubs to Help the Pirates,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 12, 2020. Why John Baker left the Cubs to help the Pirates | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Accessed May 11, 2021.

36 Author interview with John Baker.

37 Jim Callis, Sam Dysktra, and Jonathan Mayo, “Here’s Where All 30 Farm Systems Rank,” MLB.com, Pipeline Farm System Rankings (mlb.com). Accessed October 26, 2021.

Frederick Cyril Besana was born on April 5, 1930, in Lincoln, California, about 30 miles north of Sacramento in Placer County. He was the only child of Cyril “Cedo” and Clara (Lappens) Besana. The family had Italian and Dutch ancestry.^[1] Cedo worked for Gladding, McBean and Co., a terra-cotta and clay manufacturing company. Gladding, McBean also sponsored a baseball team in the semipro Placer-Nevada League. In 1926 Cedo’s pitching led the Lincoln Cubs to the PNL championship.^[2] Less than a month after Fred’s ninth birthday, his mother died in her early 30s. After Cedo remarried, Frank’s half-brother Keven was born in 1948. Keven became the Placer County sheriff.

Fred learned to pitch by throwing stones against the family barn. He played baseball and basketball at Lincoln Union High School. In one memorable duel, he beat Richie Myers of rival Elk Grove, 1-0, in a contest in which both pitchers hurled no-hitters. “When we played Elk Grove at home, it was such a big deal that the whole town shut down and all the grammar school kids were let out of class for the day to go to the game,” Besana recalled. As a 1947 senior, Fred notched 107 strikeouts in 65 innings to lead the Zebras to the Sacramento County League Championship.^[3] He was also the president of his graduation class.^[4]

Besana continued his education at Placer Junior College.^[5] In addition to earning his two-year associate of arts degree, he continued to star in two sports. As he matured closer to his full 6-foot-3, 200-pound size, Besana helped the Spartans basketball squad win the state basketball championship. After they won their league baseball title, Besana pitched Placer College to a 1-0 victory in the opener of the best-of-three Northern California playoffs. In the decisive third game, he hurled 13 innings and hit a two-run homer, but the Spartans fell to San Mateo, 3-2, in 16.^[6] On summer Sundays, Besana pitched and played the outfield in the Placer Nevada League, suiting up for Roseville and his hometown Lincoln Potters.^[7]

Before the 1950 season, Oakland Oaks owner Brick Laws signed Besana for his Pacific Coast League club.^[8] The pitcher received $5,000 plus the promise of an additional $5,000 should his contract be purchased by a major-league franchise.^[9] After spring training with the Oaks, Besana was assigned to the Class-D Longhorn League, where he was 3-1 with a 4.64 ERA in five starts for the Sweetwater (Texas) Swatters. On May 19 he advanced to the Class-C West Texas-New Mexico League and went 15-11 in 33 games (25 starts) for the Albuquerque Dukes. Clubs averaged more than seven runs per game in the circuit, and the collective batting average was .306, so Besana’s 9.2 hits allowed per nine innings was second-best in the league. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings, his 5.23 ERA ranked 10th. Overall, Besana worked 205 innings and won 18 games in his first year of professional baseball.

His advance to the majors would have to wait. “I joined the Air Force instead of getting drafted into the Army,” Besana explained. He spent most of 1951 and 1952 at Fort Campbell’s Clarksville Base in Tennessee along the Kentucky border. When the owner of the Hartsville Sun semipro team learned that a professional pitcher was stationed there, he convinced the base commander that granting the lefty weekend passes to pitch would benefit both the base and the town. Besana earned $10 per game, until the Clarksville Moose club found out and offered him $25. He recalled a memorable experience playing in Harlan, Kentucky. “I remember rounding third, heading for home and plowing over the catcher,” Besana recalled. “When I sat down in the dugout, this hillbilly in farmer’s overalls walks up to me and says, ‘That’s my son you knocked down boy, and I don’t want to see that happen again.’ As he walked away, he pulled back his coat to show me he was packing a pistol.”^[10]

In 1953 Besana was transferred to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, about 45 miles southwest of Sacramento. On June 21, 1953, he married Sylvia Rastler, a physical-education instructor at Placer High School. Being near home also allowed Besana to pitch for the independent Marysville Giants, often to former White Sox catcher Vince Castino, with future American League umpire Merle Anthony manning second base. Besana set semipro records for the Yuba-Sutter area that still stood, as of 2021, with his 23-2 regular-season record, .920 winning percentage, six shutouts, and average of 13 strikeouts per game. He no-hit the Sacramento Solons rookies club, tossed three one-hitters, and whiffed 18 batters twice. On May 11, 1953, Besana struck out 17 Hatzell Radio hitters and homered in the bottom of the ninth to win, 1-0. He didn’t taste his first regular-season defeat until a perennially strong House of David club beat him on August 14. In the National Baseball Congress playoffs for the northern part of the state, he struck out 17 Atwater Plumbers to set a tournament record. Overall, Marysville went 33-5 and Besana’s record – including tournament games – was 24-3. Besana was named a Northern Division All-Star, but he had to return to base before the final contest and a Ford Ord Warriors team featuring J.W. Porter and Bobby Winkles prevailed.^[11]

Also in 1953, with first place in the Placer-Nevada League at stake, Besana’s hometown Lincoln club asked him to join them for their game against the Roseville Happy Hour and former minor-league southpaw LeRoy Stevens. “I don’t really want to, but I will,” Besana replied. He saved a Lincoln victory.^[12] While stationed in California, Besana also visited Folsom Prison to play exhibitions with the Sacramento Stars.^[13] Looking back on his four years in the Air Force, Besana said, “All I ever did was play baseball and basketball.”^[14]

Besana’s son Fred Jr. was born on March 9, 1954. Fred Sr. was discharged from the service that summer and joined the Oakland Oaks for the end of their Pacific Coast League season. In his debut on August 18 in Portland, Besana permitted only one unearned run in the first eight innings before surrendering a pair of scores in the ninth. In his home debut, four nights later, the San Francisco Seals clobbered him for six runs in the second inning.^[15] In seven appearances (five starts), Besana was 0-4 with a 6.83 ERA.

When Besana returned to the PCL in 1955, the Oaks’ new manager was former major leaguer Lefty O’Doul. Though 29 of Besana’s 41 games were in relief, he walked 100 batters in 146⅓ innings to rank second in the circuit, and his 11 wild pitches tied for third. He finished 6-10 with a 3.75 ERA. Besana split his last six decisions, beginning with a two-hit shutout of San Diego on August 10 in which he carried a no-hit bid into the seventh inning. Dick Sisler’s one-out single broke it up.^[16] Besana blasted a grand slam against the Seals to aid his own cause in a 10-3 win on August 30.^[17] For pitchers with at least 100 innings, Besana’s rate of 6.3 strikeouts per nine innings was fourth-best in the circuit, and his 0.3 homers allowed ranked third.

At the conclusion of the season, the Oakland Oaks announced that they’d begin a working agreement with the Baltimore Orioles and move to Vancouver in 1956.^[18] In the first transaction with their new affiliate, the Orioles swapped outfielder Carl Powis for Besana. West Coast scouts Mike Catron and Don McShane had recommended the southpaw to Baltimore skipper Paul Richards.^[19]

At Orioles spring training in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1956, Richards noted that Besana “can go in there and get out those lefty batters.”^[20] On March 16 he handled a righty – two-time All-Star Clyde McCullough – for the final out of an exhibition victory over the Cubs.^[21] Besana was named Baltimore’s “Best Young Pitcher” in a poll of The Sporting News’s correspondents.^[22] He and fellow rookie southpaw Don Ferrarese made the team as relievers.

Baltimore’s Opening Day loss in Boston was the first major-league game that Besana witnessed in person. He debuted in the second one, entering to pitch the bottom of the seventh at Fenway Park with the Orioles trailing 8-4. Besana retired Sammy White and Bob Porterfield on fly outs to right. After Billy Goodman reached on an error, Billy Klaus walked to bring up the third spot in the Red Sox’ batting order. Normally, that would’ve meant Ted Williams, but a badly bruised instep had forced Williams to depart for a pinch-runner two innings earlier. Instead, Dick Gernert grounded back to the mound for the third out. “All I ever wanted was to be able to tell my son and grandson Ted Williams hit one off me that’s still going,” Besana lamented more than a half-century later.^[23] In the eighth, Besana walked Jackie Jensen leading off, but he caught Don Buddin looking for his first big-league strikeout to complete two scoreless innings of hitless work.

Baltimore lost four of five to begin the season with Opening Day pitcher Bill Wight failing to survive the first inning in either of his two starts. The 34-year-old southpaw’s struggles were so severe that Richards decided to give Besana an opportunity. On April 22 the rookie pitched the first game of a doubleheader against the visiting Washington Senators. Besana walked three of the first four hitters and surrendered three runs in the top of the first. By the time he departed after his sixth walk put two aboard to start the seventh, however, the Orioles had come back to lead 4-3. Relievers Fritz Dorish and George Zuverink recorded the last nine outs and Baltimore pulled away, 7-3, to hand Besana his first (and only) major-league victory. “I thought Besana looked real good today,” Richards insisted.^[24] The manager said he intended to give more opportunities to Besana and Ferrarese.^[25]

Five nights later at Griffith Stadium, Besana faced the Senators again. Baltimore trailed 5-0 when he departed for a sixth-inning pinch-hitter. Four of the five runners who scored against him had reached via hit batsman or walks. The Orioles rallied to tie, so Besana received a no-decision in a game that his team ultimately lost, 8-5.

In May Wight found his form and Ferrarese’s first two starts were a 13-strikeout complete game and a no-hit bid spoiled in the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium. Besana, on the other hand, relieved four times and was pounded for 11 hits in 4⅔ innings. His fate was sealed when Baltimore purchased veteran lefty reliever Johnny Schmitz from the Red Sox. On May 16 Besana was optioned to Vancouver with a 1-0 record, 5.60 ERA, 14 walks, and 7 strikeouts in 17⅔ innings pitched in seven appearances. The Orioles offered no explanation. “They didn’t have to,” Besana remarked in 2013. “I knew. I was so damn wild I couldn’t get the ball over the plate.”^[26]

Back in the PCL, Besana endured a nightmarish season. After losing his first seven decisions for the Mounties, he won once, then lost six more.^[27] In addition to his unsightly 1-13 record and 6.62 ERA in 25 games (16 starts), Besana’s peripheral statistics were poor: 116 hits and 65 walks allowed in 100⅔ innings with only 43 strikeouts. The Orioles sold his contract to Vancouver that offseason.^[28]

In 1957 Besana made only seven appearances for Vancouver before he was optioned to the Knoxville Smokies in the Class-A South Atlantic League on May 10. He was returned after going 1-4 in five outings. Vancouver then transferred Besana’s option to the Amarillo (Texas) Gold Sox of the Class-A Western League.^[29] In Amarillo on July 24, in front of 2,601 fans, he beat the Sioux City Soos, 7-4, after Sylvia Besana pitched the Silver Anklets – the Gold Sox wives’ team – to victory over their husbands in a pregame exhibition.^[30] In 23 games (14 starts) for Amarillo, Besana was 10-3 with a 4.26 ERA. The Louisville Colonels of the Triple-A American Association purchased his contract after the season.^[31]

Besana appeared in 37 games (28 starts) for Louisville in 1958 and recorded a 3.59 ERA in 203 innings. His 11-12 record included some memorable efforts. In a 3-2 win over Omaha on May 9, he drove in one run and scored the other two to support his own seven-hitter.^[32] On May 29 he hurled one of his two shutouts to best Indianapolis’s Barry Latman.^[33] A June 15 duel against Omaha’s Bob Blaylock went 11 innings before Besana fell, 3-0.^[34] In the final inning of his four-hit victory over Minneapolis on August 20, Besana retired Art Schult at first base after taking a line drive to the belt buckle. “I never even saw it coming,” the pitcher insisted. “If the ball had hit me on the leg or in the ribs, it would have broken something for sure.”^[35]

In 1959 Besana returned to Vancouver and got off to his best start as a pro. When he allowed a home run to Sacramento’s Nippy Jones on May 1, it was the first earned run he’d allowed in 21⅔ innings.^[36] By May 26, his record was 5-1 with a 1.11 ERA.^[37] Four days after Besana improved to 9-5, 2.37 by beating Seattle’s Claude Osteen, 1-0, he started the PCL All-Star Game in San Diego for the North team. Besana was charged with the loss after allowing four runs in three innings.^[38] With the bases loaded, however, he struck out Willie McCovey 10 days before the future Hall of Famer debuted in the majors. Besana finished the season with a 9-8 record and 2.77 ERA in 32 games (24 starts). He decided to retire. “I had had enough,” he explained. “Baseball just wasn’t fun anymore.”^[39]

In 1960 Besana completed the required courses at Sacramento State College to earn his teaching certification.^[40] Not ready to completely change careers, he returned to Vancouver in 1961 and appeared in 13 games for the Mounties, then a Milwaukee Braves affiliate. In June he moved to the Dodgers’ Spokane Indians farm team in the same circuit and pitched in his final 26 games as a professional.

From 1962 to 1964, Besana taught at his wife’s alma mater, Roseville High School. He also coached junior-varsity basketball and baseball. By the time Sylvia returned to become Roseville’s vice principal in 1966, Fred had moved on to start a baseball program at Oakmont High School for one year, followed by a quarter-century at American River College. Besana taught there until his 1990 retirement and coached the baseball team until 1985.^[41] John Vukovich played for Besana at ARC.

According to The Sporting News Player Contract Cards database, Besana spent one year as a Houston Astros scout before joining the Atlanta Braves in the same role from 1968 to 1970. Though his son Fred Besana Jr. never appeared in an NFL game, he was briefly on the rosters of the Buffalo Bills and New York Giants. A quarterback, Fred Jr. spent three years (1983-1985) with the USFL’s Oakland Invaders. In the league’s inaugural season, he was the second-rated passer.

Predeceased by his wife in 2008, Fred Besana Sr. was 85 when he died on November 7, 2015, in Roseville. He is buried in Roseville Cemetery.

Sources

In addition to sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted www.ancestry.com and www.baseball-reference.com.

Notes

^[1] Fred Besana, publicity questionnaire for William J. Weiss, September 4, 1954.

^[2] “History of the Potters,” https://lincolnpotters.com/about/history/, last accessed February 15, 2021.

^[3] Mark McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85,” Sacramento Bee, November 7, 2015, https://www.sacbee.com/sports/mlb/article43656207.html, last accessed February 13, 2021.

^[4] El Eco 1947: 13.

^[5] In 1954 the institution was renamed Sierra College.

^[6] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

^[7] “Placer-Nevada League,” https://www.northerncaliforniabaseball.com/placer-nevada-league.html, last accessed February 15, 2021.

^[8] Fred Besana, publicity questionnaire for William J. Weiss, February 6, 1958.

^[9] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

^[10] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

^[11] “Fantastic Freddie and the 1953 Marysville Giants,” https://www.northerncaliforniabaseball.com/yuba-sutter-baseball.html, last accessed February 15, 2021.

^[12] Mark McDermott, “Fond Memories of the Placer-Nevada League,” Lake Tahoe News, July 6, 2015, https://www.laketahoenews.net/2015/07/fond-memories-of-the-placer-nevada-league/, last accessed March 1, 2021.

^[13] “Folsom Prison,” https://sactownbaseball.org/folsom-prison/, last accessed February 15, 2021.

^[14] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

^[15] “Oakland,” The Sporting News, September 1, 1954: 24.

^[16] “Briggs Gives Major Scouts Eyeful,” The Sporting News, August 24, 1955: 27.

^[17] “Oakland,” The Sporting News, September 14, 1955: 40.

^[18] Jesse A. Linthicum, “Orioles Sign ’56 Working Agreement with Vancouver,” The Sporting News, October 19, 1955: 16.

^[19] Jesse A. Linthicum, “Besana Acquired from Vancouver,” The Sporting News, October 26, 1955: 18.

^[20] Carl Lundquist (United Press), “No One Knows Who’ll Be in Oriole Lineup” Herald Journal (Logan, Utah), April 5, 1956: 4.

^[21] Jim Ellis, “Bird Seed,” The Sporting News, March 28, 1956: 7.

^[22] “Infielders Lead as ‘Hot Prospects,’” The Sporting News, April 18, 1956: 21.

^[23] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

^[24] Bob Maisel, “Bird Hurling List Revised,” Baltimore Sun, April 23, 1956: S15.

^[25] Gordon Beard (Associated Press), “Rookie Fred Besana Shines in Major Loop Mound Debut,” La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, April 23, 1956: 11.

^[26] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

^[27] “Vancouver,” The Sporting News, June 27, 1956: 28.

^[28] “Deals of the Week,” The Sporting News, February 27, 1957: 32.

^[29] “Deals of the Week,” The Sporting News, July 3, 1957: 30.

^[30] “Winning Pitchers: Husband and Wife – in Double-Bill,” The Sporting News, August 7, 1957: 43.

^[31] “Transactions,” The Sporting News, December 25, 1957: 27.

^[32] “Louisville,” The Sporting News, May 21, 1958: 30.

^[33] “Indianapolis,” The Sporting News, June 11, 1958: 54.

^[34] “Omaha,” The Sporting News, June 25, 1958: 36.

^[35] John Carrico, “Belt Buckle Saves Hurler Hit by Liner from Injury,” The Sporting News, September 3, 1958: 34.

^[36] “Vancouver,” The Sporting News, May 13, 1959: 30.

^[37] “Coast Averages,” The Sporting News, June 3, 1959: 28.

^[38] Ben Foote, “Solon Trio Leads South to Triumph,” The Sporting News, July 29, 1959: 29.

^[39] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

^[40] In 1972 the school’s name changed to California State University, Sacramento.

^[41] McDermott, “Fred Besana, Former Major-Leaguer and Area Coach, Dies at 85.”

John Drake Britton was born in Waco, Texas, on May 22, 1989. His parents were Craig and Cathy Britton. Drake had an older sister, Taylor, and a younger brother, Chance. Cathy Britton had been a high-school math teacher who became a stay-at-home mom to look after the children. Craig was an architect who worked in commercial architecture for companies like CDI Engineering and ConocoPhillips. His work frequently took him overseas to such places as Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

Drake grew up with a Magnolia, Texas, address, in a Houston suburb. “We were right on the line between Tomball and Magnolia,” he said in a May 2021 interview, “but I went to Tomball High School.”1

He is no relation to three major-league pitchers Zack Britton, Chris Britton, or Jim Britton, or to 1913 Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Gil Britton.

Other Brittons in baseball were Helene Robison Britton, who owned the St. Louis Cardinals from 1911 to 1916, and John Britton, an infielder who played for the Birmingham Black Barons in Negro League baseball.

Drake went to high school in Tomball. In 2006 he was named to the roster of the 2006 Aflac All-American Classic, played in San Diego.2 That same year, he was selected to participate in the Junior Olympics operated by USA Baseball; though he didn’t make the final team, he went through the workouts and played in some of the scrimmages in Arizona. 

On graduation from Tomball High, Drake was selected by the Red Sox in the 23rd round of the June 2007 major-league draft, the 714th pick overall. He signed on August 15 for a reported $700,000 bonus later that year.3 He had made a commitment to Texas A&M, but did not attend. “I signed with the Red Sox at the deadline, at 11:59.” Red Sox scout Jim Robinson is credited with the signing, under team scouting director Jason McLeod, who said the Red Sox had followed Britton for about a year. He had what McLeod said was “a bad spring, but we saw him throw this summer and he has what we determine to be very good makeup. We’ve had him up to 94 [miles per hour.]”4

Britton said of Robinson, “Jim’s great. He was our area scout.” One of the other players Robinson signed, Britton noted, was Will Middlebrooks, a fifth-round selection in that year’s draft.

Britton’s first year in pro ball was not until the following year, 2008, when he pitched in eight games for the Single-A Lowell Spinners, working 33⅔ innings, striking out 26 but walking 16. His ERA in the short season was 4.28, with a record of 1-2, but late in the season he suffered an injury that required Tommy John surgery in October.

Britton didn’t pitch much in 2009 because of the surgery, but came back relatively quickly, getting in a few innings before the season was over, with both the Spinners and the rookie league Gulf Coast Red Sox. He worked fewer than 12 innings, facing just 51 batters.

The 2010 season was Britton’s first full year. He pitched for the Class-A South Atlantic League’s Greenville Drive, starting 21 games for the Red Sox affiliate. He struck out 78 batters in 75⅔ innings and recorded an ERA of 2.97. He pitched and won the first game of the league playoffs. His fastball had gotten up to 96, post-surgery.5 Baseball America ranked him fifth among Red Sox prospects.6

He had a rough year in 2011, going by statistics. His 2011 season was with the Salem (Virginia) Red Sox, in the Advanced-A Carolina League. Britton started 26 games and won only one of them, losing 13. His 1-13 record reflected to some extent his 6.91 earned-run average, significantly higher than the team’s 4.16 ERA. His WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) was 1.70. The total of 13 losses was more than that of any other pitcher in the league, and the ERA was the worst among league starters.

Britton was, nonetheless, promoted. The Red Sox weren’t ready to give up on either him or fellow prospect Stolmy Pimentel, who had been considered perhaps Boston’s top two pitching prospects. Pimentel had gone 0-9 with a 9.12 ERA for Portland and then 6-4 (4.53) for Salem. Mike Hazen, Red Sox VP of player development, said, “We’ve told these guys that this season has to be the most important one in terms of development. They need to learn from what happened.”7 The following spring both were placed on the Red Sox’ 40-man roster and signed to major-league contracts at the major-league minimum of $480,000, representing a further investment.8 

Why did Britton seem to fare so poorly? Reminded of the statistics, he laughed and said of the ERA, “That was lower than I thought! It was a humbling year.” He had a bad game and then another, and then a third, and found himself wrestling with anxiety about his performance. “It was the first time I’d experienced that. I just kind of let it consume me, snowball on me. Letting it get in my head. Over-thinking.” Being placed on the 40-man roster let him know the Red Sox had confidence in him.

Britton was placed with Salem again in 2012. He was 3-5 in 10 games with an ERA of 5.80 but in early June he was promoted to Double-A Portland. In his June 5 debut he walked six batters in the first three innings, but didn’t allow a hit through five, and earned a 6-1 win over Bowie.

He had the support of his family throughout but three coaches stood out for their support and encouragement during his early years. “Kevin Walker, my pitching coach from Low A to High A, he was always huge. Always positive. Left-handed pitcher. He always had my back. Kevin Boles, who I played for manager-wise, he always had my back. Bob Kipper, Double A. He was incredible. Always tried to keep the glass half-full for me and let me see the positive. To help train my mind to not dwell on the negatives. They’re the three main people who stick out.”

Britton was invited to 2013 spring training with the Red Sox but early in March was optioned to Portland. He was also arrested for driving under the influence. The arrest occurred on March 2 in Estero, Florida, at 4:42 A.M. He was timed driving 111 mph in a 45-mph zone and faced the possibility of up to a year in jail.9 Alex Speier of WEEI radio quoted Britton as saying, “I’m extremely remorseful. … I’m sorry for the negativity that I brought, but that’s about all I can say right now. I’d really rather not say anything else.”10

Britton had several good outings with Portland, including the first complete game of his professional career, a June 11 win over Erie. He was named to the Eastern League All-Star team, along with batterymate Christian Vázquez. In early July, with a 7-6 record and a 3.51 ERA, he was promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket. In his first start for the PawSox, on July 9 against Lehigh Valley, he worked 5⅓ innings and allowed five earned runs.

The Red Sox were coming off a last-place finish in 2012 but were in first place under new manager John Farrell. The pitching staff was in some degree of flux, however, and Farrell – a former pitching coach – allowed that he would like to see Britton given a shot in the big leagues, perhaps in the bullpen. “A lefthander that has power stuff. We would like see Drake Britton here. Even if it’s just initially getting his feet.”11 The Red Sox were looking for someone who could work multiple innings in relief. He was called up on July 14; to make room, outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. was optioned out.

“I didn’t know what to think at first,” a surprised Britton said. “My mind was going a million miles an hour. I was really excited.” He added, “It’s awesome. I had the biggest smile on my face. Nobody could knock it off.”12 

The Boston pitching staff was going through changes. Britton was the sixth Red Sox pitcher to make his major-league debut in 2013.13 His first appearance came on July 20 at Fenway Park against the New York Yankees. With his parents in the stands, he was called into the game in the top of the ninth, New York leading 4-2. There was nobody out and runners were on first and second. The first batter he faced was Ichiro Suzuki. While Britton was pitching, Luis Cruz stole third base. Britton got Suzuki to pop up to shortstop. Robinson Canó lined out to center, Cruz tagging and scoring. Brett Gardner was thrown out trying to steal second.

The Red Sox rookie was back on the mound the next night, throwing a scoreless 10th inning against the Yankees in a game the Red Sox won in the 11th. Reflecting back on his debut several months later, he said, “I had to remember to breathe.”14

Britton threw scoreless innings against Tampa Bay on the 24th and in Baltimore against the Orioles on the 26th. On July 29 he worked two scoreless innings against the Rays. He’d thrown six innings in five appearances without giving up an earned run.

Britton got his first decision on July 31, working the 14th and 15th innings of a game tied 4-4 against the visiting Seattle Mariners. Once more, he held the opposition scoreless. He gave up a single in the 14th and two singles in the 15th, but saw left fielder Jonny Gomes execute a rare unassisted double play to close out the inning, catching a line drive to left and then running to the bag at second base to double up Raúl Ibañez, who had taken off on contact. Stephen Drew singled in the winning run for the Red Sox in the bottom of the 15th.

Britton pitched a scoreless eighth against the Arizona Diamondbacks on August 4 as four Red Sox pitchers combined on a 4-0 shutout.

His scoreless streak came to an end in his eighth appearance, in Houston on August 6. He worked 2⅓ innings in the game and the one run he gave up was only one among the 10 runs the Astros scored off Boston pitching, but it was still disappointing to see the streak snapped.

Three days after that, Britton lost his first game, on the road against the Kansas City Royals, charged with two runs in a 9-6 loss.

At the end of August, after 14 appearances, he was 1-1 with an ERA of 3.12.

He worked in four September games and finished the season 1-1 (3.86). He had worked 21 innings and given up 21 hits, only one of them a home run (by Houston’s Jake Elmore in the August 6 game). He’d struck out 17 and only walked seven. It had been his best stint statistically – and it was achieved in the major leagues.

Britton pitched in seven more big-league games and never gave up another earned run. But that didn’t come until September 2014.

In October 2013 the Red Sox won the World Series, their third championship in 10 years. Britton was not named to the postseason roster. He was sent to Fort Myers, the Red Sox’ spring-training headquarters, to work out, to be ready in case he was needed. He came frustratingly close to joining the team. In fact, he got the call – but then was called off. Franklin Morales had gotten hurt. “I get a call from Juan Nieves [the Red Sox pitching coach]. He says, ‘Hey, tomorrow when you get to the field, have all your stuff packed and dress ready to meet us.’ So I’m all jacked up. I come walking in there. I’ve got my suitcase all packed. I’m dressed in my suit. Brandon Snyder was with me. They call us into the office and sit us down and put us on the speakerphone with [Red Sox GM] Ben Cherington. He basically just said, ‘Thanks for your hard work down there, but we’re going to take it from here and you all have a safe trip back home.’”

He returned home and watched the rest of the playoffs on television with his good friend and apartment mate Ryan Pressly, very happy that the Red Sox won but understandably disappointed at not being invited to Boston for the championship parade. The following spring, he was included in the world-championship ring ceremony at Fenway Park, driven up from Pawtucket with a few others who had been on the 2013 team.

Britton spent pretty much the full 2014 season with Pawtucket. He worked in 45 games, all in relief, closing 22 games. In contrast to 2013, when he had struck out more than double the number of batters he had walked, regardless of the level at which he pitched, in 2014 he walked 38 and struck out 37. His ERA for the season at Triple A was 5.86 (the staff ERA was 3.60). It was not an impressive season, but he still did get called up to Boston in early September. (He’d been called up once before, at the beginning of May, but not used.)

The Red Sox, though reigning world champions, were once again in the cellar, last place in the American League East.

Britton worked in seven games, for a total of 6⅔ innings. He did not give up any runs – earned or unearned. He allowed five scattered hits, walked two, and struck out four. With an ERA of 0.00 in 2014, his career ERA became 2.93.

When the Red Sox signed Alexi Ogando in early 2015, they made room by designating Britton for assignment. He was claimed off waivers by the Chicago Cubs on February 4. Why had the Red Sox seemed to lose interest in Britton? It might have been a simple matter of a personality difference with one or two people in the front office. John Farrell had told him he wanted him on the staff.15

Britton pitched the full season in Triple A, for the Iowa Cubs, and had another so-so year in the minors: he was 7-8 (5.08). The Cubs had him start 11 games and relieve in 17 others. A shoulder injury shelved him for a while at the end of the season. Why he performed so much better in the major leagues than in minor-league ball perhaps remains one of those baseball mysteries. The Cubs allowed him to become a free agent that November.

In December Britton signed with the Detroit Tigers organization for 2016 and worked exclusively in relief; in 37 games, he posted a record of 0-3 (4.57) with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens. In early August, however, he tested positive for amphetamines and was suspended for 50 games, without pay.16 Needless to say, that put an end to his 2016 and with the suspension due to last well into 2017, he was not attractive as a pickup for any team.

Oddly, one could say he was suspended for taking fewer amphetamines than prescribed for him. “I had a TUE, a temporary therapeutic use exemption. I had a TUE granted by Major League Baseball to take amphetamines. I had two different types of amphetamines. You’re supposed to take the medication exactly as prescribed. That’s the rule by Major League Baseball. I was taking them both and then I realized I was having some problems sleeping, and things like that. I found that one of my medications worked better than the other and so – without consulting the doctor for the Tigers at the time – I chose on my own to stop taking one medication and only take the other one.” Testing showed just the one, and not both. That was the violation.

He pitched the next two years in independent baseball, in the Atlantic League. In 2018 he worked for the Bridgeport Bluefish, relieving in 34 games. He recorded a 4-1 mark with a 3.68 ERA. In 2019 he worked for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, for whom he was 4-6 in 27 games, 14 of them starts. His earned-run average was 6.35.

The wear and tear of pitching caught up with Britton. “I had torn my flexor muscle off the bone in my elbow. I had to have surgery for that. While I was doing the MRIs prior to that surgery, they saw that I had torn my labrum and my rotator cuff was 85 percent torn. 

“So six months after having flexor forearm surgery, I turned around and went back in for full labrum and rotator cuff surgery. I was in the elbow brace and the sling, and the shoulder brace, for a good seven months.”

It was time to find some other ways to earn money to finance a growing family. He had met his future wife, Jacqueline, while living in Boston after the 2014 season. She is a registered nurse who was working at Boston Children’s Hospital at the time, working in the ICU with newborns and small babies. They got married and as of the time of the May 2021 interview had two daughters – Belle, age 4½, and Blake, who had just turned 3. Jacqueline Britton took up work at a med spa, working with Botox, lip filler, and lasers – obviously working with an older clientele.

Drake Britton, while rehabbing from the first of the multiple surgeries, started work with the National Scouting Report at the beginning of 2019. 

“They basically scout for every college baseball program in the country. I’ll go out to a game, or someone will fill out an evaluation form to be evaluated by one of our scouts. If they’re in my area in north Texas or anywhere around me, they’ll be forwarded to me. I’ll go out and evaluate that athlete and get them enrolled with NSR. Once they do that, they’re available to be seen by every college in the country, but to be recruited by the schools that they fit into – for coaches who never would have known about that kid had not National Scouting Report connected them.” The goal is to match the player to a program, to get a good fit.

He also got into coaching youth baseball. His friend Blake Beaven – who had been drafted by the Texas Rangers in the same June 2007 draft as Britton – had become the director of the Dallas Tigers West. Britton helped out Beaven at one tournament and really loved it. Britton now has two showcase baseball teams he coaches, one of 12-year-olds and starting in the spring of 2021 a team of 15-year-olds.

There’s a big part of Britton that still wishes for one more shot. “Some guys, they can feel it when they just don’t have the drive or the passion for it. They might have the stuff for it, but that drive and that passion goes away. It hasn’t left me. I would still like to get back to a place to try to play in at least one more game, pain-free.

“I left so many stones unturned throughout my career. I made some mistakes. Maybe I let immaturity and things like that blind my vision of what I could have done in the game. That drive and that passion is still there.

“Deep down and in all honesty, I think that I have more to give. Whether that means physically playing, or mentally – like how I know the game. … I think that’s why I am successful, and like being a coach, like working with younger athletes.”

It’s something he can convey to other players who are just starting out.

“That’s why I feel good and why I like what I’m doing. I have the opportunity to do all those things with the next wave, the next generation of baseball players. I get the opportunity to speak and work with some damn good ballplayers. I get some fulfillment, a sense of still mattering in this game, by doing what I’m doing.”

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. Thanks to Rod Nelson of SABR’s Scouts and Scouting Research Committee.

Notes

1 Author interview with Drake Britton on May 24, 2021. Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotations attributed to Britton come from this interview.

2 Others on the roster included Madison Bumgarner, Freddie Freeman, Yasmani Grandal, Matt Harvey, Jason Heyward, DJ LeMahieu, and Rick Porcello.

3 First-round pick Nick Hagadone got $571,000. Britton got more than sixth-rounder Anthony Rizzo (reported at $325,000). Amalie Benjamin and Gordon Edes, “Disagreement Showed Their Signs of Discontent,” Boston Globe, August 20, 2007: 32.

4 Amalie Benjamin and Gordon Edes, “Disagreement Showed Their Signs of Discontent.”

5 Peter Abraham, “Top 10 Places to Get Better,” Boston Globe, September 10, 2010: C5.

6 Peter Abraham, “Decision Is Due on Ortiz Option,” Boston Globe, November 4, 2010: C7.

7 Peter Abraham, “Mostly, a Year of Seasoning,” Boston Globe, September 9, 2011: C2.

8 Peter Abraham, “A Smart Move by Bailey,” Boston Globe, March 10, 2012: C5. Being placed on the roster protected the Red Sox against having him claimed by another team.

9 Andrew Martin, “Boston Red Sox Prospect Drake Britton Faces Up to One Year in Jail,” USA Today, March 19, 2013. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1574279-boston-red-sox-prospect-drake-britton-faces-up-to-one-year-in-jail. Accessed March 9, 2021.

10 Martin. Because he had refused to take a field sobriety test, he had automatically been arrested. Out on bail, he played through the season, then returned to Florida for a court date and ended up charged with reckless driving. “Just because the charge was reduced to a lesser charge doesn’t mean the judge or anybody took it easy on me. If anything, they made an example out of me.” He was fined and had to do 150 hours of mandatory community service. “They got their point across to me.” Author interview May 24, 2021. It may be of interest to note that Britton forthrightly acknowledged smokeless tobacco use. He wasn’t the only one – David Ortiz, Mike Napoli, and Jonny Gomes were among other users on the team. Britton said, “I know I need to quit. I don’t want to be one of those guys who never quits, dips the rest of my life, and gets cancer.” See Peter Abraham, “Routines Outweighing Disdain, Players Cling to the Tobacco Habit,” Boston Globe, March 7, 2014: A1, 10.

11 Peter Abraham, “Lefthander Thornton Added to Pen,” Boston Globe, July 13, 2013: C5.

12 Peter Abraham, “Lester Is Being Dropped Back,” Boston Globe, July 15, 2013: C3.

13 Alex Wilson, Allen Webster, Steven Wright, Jose de la Torre, and Brandon Workman had been the previous five.

14 Peter Abraham, “Going Up,” Boston Globe, March 30, 2014: F14.

15 Author interview.

16 Chris McCosky, “Tigers Minor Leaguer Britton Suspended 50 Games,” Detroit News, August 2, 2016.

Scott Edward Brown was born on August 30, 1956, the third child of Harvey Edward and Betty Lou (Allen) Brown, both lifelong residents of DeQuincy, Louisiana. They were married 59 years and had five children – four sons and a daughter: Danny, Ricky, Scott, Becky, and Tracey. DeQuincy, population 3,235, is a lumber and railroad town on the western edge of Cajun country, about 230 miles west of New Orleans and 130 miles east of Houston. Harvey was a railroad man who worked 42 years for the Missouri Pacific. Betty Lou taught English and home economics for 40 years at DeQuincy High School, where Scott did not excel in baseball, because the school didn’t have a baseball team.1

Scott grew up playing Little League, Dixie Youth, and Sheriff’s League baseball. He was big (6-feet-2 and 220 pounds) and could throw hard, but professional baseball was not on his mind. “I wanted to try out for LSU (Louisiana State University), but they weren’t interested, because I hadn’t played high school ball,” he said, frustration still evident in his voice. “But after I made it to the big leagues, guess who was the first ones to call. I told ’em how to ‘eat the cabbage.’”2

Brown may not have had his eyes on the pros, but the pros had their eyes on him. He was selected by Cincinnati in the fourth round of the June 1975 amateur draft, the 94th overall pick and the first athlete from DeQuincy ever drafted by any major-league team. He found out from his mother that he’d been drafted. The Reds called the high school and talked to her. Scott was momentarily baffled. “I said, ‘Drafted? What does that mean?’ I’d never heard of that.” A whole new world was about to open up for the strapping 18-year-old from Louisiana’s Gulf Coast lowlands.

Cincinnati sent Brown to its rookie-level Pioneer League affiliate in Billings, Montana. “What a trip that was!” he exclaimed. “I’d never been on an airplane. I’d never left my mom and dad. You know, I’d gone camping or things like that, but … I went over to Lake Charles, and that little airplane come in for me to get on, and I literally had to get on my hands and knees to get in. It held about six people. I was thinking, ‘Oh, what the hell have I gotten into?’ But  it wasn’t too bad. I mean, I made it all the way to Billings before I puked.”

There, he joined future major leaguers Frank Pastore, Paul Moskau, and Larry Rothschild on the Mustangs’ pitching staff. “I didn’t know nothing about baseball, but I had fun,” said Brown. “It was awesome! We were up in the mountains. I’d never seen any mountains. All I knew was Louisiana. Once we all got to know each other, we had a blast.” When not exploring his new world, Brown appeared in 10 games, amassed a 6.50 ERA and walked 21 while striking out 13 in 18 total innings. “When I went to Billings, I didn’t even know what a balk was,” he admitted. “I’d never heard of it. I was in a game and, all of a sudden, the baserunner was going to second. I said, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ [Manager Joe Hoff] said, “You balked.’ I said, ‘What the hell does that mean?’ He told me, and I said, ‘OK.’” Until then he had pitched only in local sandlot leagues in rural Louisiana, where the umpires were generally selected on the basis of “whoever wanted to do it” and they pretty much stuck to balls, strikes, and outs.

In 1976 Brown moved up a notch, to the Eugene (Oregon) Emeralds of the low Class-A Northwest League. He completed seven of 12 starts and had two shutouts. His ERA was an impressive 2.56, his strikeout-to-walks ratio an improved 1.35, and his walks-and-hits-to-innings-pitched ratio (WHIP) 1.363. He was growing more sophisticated as a ballplayer, but the small-town guy was still a bit naïve, and it was in Eugene that the legend of his quest for a curveball was spawned.

The legend was that Brown had never heard of a curveball until he got to the pros, and that his teammates had convinced him he should go to a local sporting-goods store to buy one.3 As with most legends, there was some truth to the story. In DeQuincy, people didn’t call them curveballs. They called them “drop balls” and “round-houses,” which sort of made sense in a railroad town. However, Brown said, he did not go to a store to buy a curveball. “They made that crap up,” he maintained, but also confessed, “They did get me to go into the clubhouse to look for the ‘keys to the batter’s box.’ I went in there, and when I opened my mouth, the trainer looked at me funny, and then I knew what they’d done. When I come back out, I was going to kill every damn one of ’em, but I couldn’t catch ’em.”

Brown’s performance in Eugene earned him a spot with Tampa of the Class-A Florida State League in 1977. With the Tarpons, he began developing a breaking pitch and things began coming together for him. He had five complete games and two shutouts with a 3.82 ERA in 24 starts. But instead of being promoted, Brown was sent back to Tampa to start the 1978 season. He was not a happy camper.

“I almost quit baseball that year,” Brown said. “I outpitched all of them (in ’77). I told [the Reds], ‘If this is the way y’all do it, hell, I don’t need you. I’ll go back and get me a job on the railroad. I don’t need you people.’ I was packing my stuff when Scotty Breeden (Reds roving pitching coach) come to the hotel and stopped me. We had a talk, but I was pissed. I didn’t care. After all that work, there I was, still in A-ball, and I had a family to feed. I figured, ‘The hell with this. I can go home and make more money working for the railroad.’ I had my bags packed, but Scotty talked me out of it.”

Determined to show the Reds they’d made a mistake, Brown started 16 games for the Tarpons, completed six of them, had two shutouts and posted a gaudy 1.31 ERA, with an even gaudier 0.974 WHIP and gaudier-yet 3.32 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The Reds saw the light and, about midseason, promoted Brown to Nashville of the Double-A Southern League. Brown arrived in Music City in time to make 13 starts for the Sounds and post a 4-3 record with a 4.50 ERA, 1.682 WHIP, and 1.62 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

The 1979 season was better. Still with Nashville, Brown had a 9-2 record, but more impressively, he dropped his ERA to 2.40 (best in the league) and his WHIP to 1.115. He upped his strikeout-to-walk ratio to 2.53 with three complete games and a shutout in 19 starts. “It’s where I shoulda been in the first place,” said Brown. “I was kicking ass in Nashville. I’d learned how to pitch, and I’d learned how to finesse hitters. But I wasn’t a finesse pitcher. I was a power pitcher. And so George Scherger (Nashville manager) began putting me in the bullpen, which I … I hated him for that! But that’s what got me to the big leagues. Otherwise, I’d have never made it.”

No starter likes getting sent to the bullpen, but in 1980, that helped get Brown elevated to the Indianapolis Indians of the Triple-A American Association. While transitioning from starting to relieving, he put up decent numbers. He had six wins against seven losses, a 3.44 ERA, 1.325 WHIP and a 1.49 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He also pitched one complete game and had two saves, but wasn’t called up during the annual September roster expansion.

Brown, now 24 years old, would have made the big-league roster coming out of 1981 spring training, but baseball’s labor unrest reared its ugly head. Manager John McNamara went to Brown and offered a difficult choice. “During spring training, he said, ‘It looks like there’s going to be a strike. There’s nothing we can do about that. What would you rather do? Draw a paycheck or go on strike?’” I said, ‘Well, sir, I need to draw a paycheck. …” So it was back to Indianapolis.

It turned out to be a good decision. The strike started on June 12 and big-league play didn’t resume until August 10. But the minors kept on going and Brown kept on drawing paychecks. He appeared in 51 games for Indianapolis, but started only three before being moved to the bullpen permanently. He finished 35 games and had 13 saves to go with a 6-5 record, a 2.28 ERA, 1.161 WHIP, and 2.05 strikeout-to-walk ratio. And when the strike finally ended, Brown was ordered to report to the Reds in Los Angeles, where they were working out in preparation for their season restart against the Dodgers on August 10. He got there in time to pitch in one of the Reds’ practice games against the Angels.

It was the night of August 11 that Brown, three weeks shy of his 25th birthday, finally got his chance to pitch in a big-league game. There were 45,000-plus spectators at Dodger Stadium, 10,000 more than for the previous game, mostly because of Fernandomania. It was just the second game after the strike ended and regular-season play resumed, and attendance in Los Angeles was down significantly – just like everywhere else – because fans were mad at the owners and players over the strike.4 Regardless, the Dodgers’ rookie pitcher, Fernando Valenzuela, had taken baseball by storm before the strike. When play stopped, he had a 9-4 record with a 2.45 ERA and had pitched eight complete games and five shutouts. But he had also lost four of his last six starts. LA fans turned out despite their ire over the work stoppage, hoping Valenzuela would regain his early-season form. But his struggles continued that chilly August evening in Chavez Ravine.5

Cincinnati scored first. A bases-loaded single by Ray Knight in the top of the first drove in Dave Collins and Ken Griffey. Los Angeles tied it in the bottom half of the frame. Ken Landreaux tripled to right field, then Dusty Baker homered to left. Dave Concepción led off the third with a solo home run for a 3-2 Reds lead, but the Dodgers tied it in the bottom of the fourth on doubles by Pedro Guerrero and Bill Russell. Valenzuela exited in the top of the fifth after giving up one-out walks to Concepcion and George Foster. Terry Forster replaced him and got Dan Driessen to ground into an inning-ending double play.

In the bottom of the fifth, Cincinnati starter Mario Soto walked Baker with one out. Steve Garvey singled Baker to third and Ron Cey doubled to left, sending Baker home and Garvey to third. That was it for Soto. Doug Bair came in to face Guerrero. His first pitch went wild, enabling Garvey to score and Cey to take third. Guerrero then teed off on Bair for a double to right-center, and when the dust finally settled, Los Angeles was ahead, 6-3. Bair had given up two runs, but they were charged to Soto.

Bair retired the Dodgers in order in the bottom of the sixth, but he was due to be the leadoff hitter for Cincinnati in the seventh. Instead, McNamara had Rafael Landestoy pinch-hit for him. “I saw that they were going to pinch-hit for Bair, and was thinking, ‘Oh (bleep)!’ And sure as (bleep), McNamara called down there and told them to get me ready. I about to (bleep).”

While Brown was warming up, Landestoy grounded out to second and Collins struck out looking. It appeared Brown needed to warm up faster. But then Griffey singled to right and Concepcion pushed him to second with a single to center. Next up was Foster, and he singled to right-center, scoring Griffey and moving Concepcion to third. That set the stage for a three-run homer just inside the right-field foul pole by Driessen that put the Reds ahead, 7-6.

When Brown took the mound, he found himself in front of a crowd 15 times larger than the population of DeQuincy. “You know what?” said Brown, “Remember when they used to have you come in from the bullpen on that little cart? Well, I ran. And when I got to the mound, my knees were like rubber. I was terrified. All I remember is McNamara saying, ‘Just rear back and chunk it.’ That was it. Once I threw the first pitch, [the fans] wasn’t there no more. Once I started throwin’, they were gone. All I saw was my catcher (Joe Nolan).”

Baker, the first batter Brown faced, grounded out to second. Next up was Garvey, and he grounded out to short. Cey poked a single to left, but was left stranded on first base when Brown got Guerrero on a routine fly to right. Bobby Castillo replaced Forster for the Dodgers in the top of the eighth and got Ron Oester and Nolan out on infield grounders. That made it Brown’s turn to bat. McNamara, happy with his performance so far, elected not to replace Brown with a pinch-hitter. “I was sitting there (in the dugout) and I figured I’m out. McNamara looked over at me and said, ‘You going to get on deck or what? So, I went out there and found a bat. I have no idea whose bat it was.” It was Brown’s first (and only) major-league at-bat and alas, there was no fairytale ending to this part of the story. Castillo struck out Brown, who wasn’t exactly known for his hitting prowess. “I never saw the ball,” Brown admitted.

Asked about it later, McNamara told reporters, “He was outstanding. We only wanted one inning out of him, but he was so sharp, we stayed with him. The Dodgers aren’t the easiest lineup to face in your major-league debut.”6

Brown rewarded McNamara’s gamble by setting down the Dodgers in order in the bottom of the eighth. He got Mike Scioscia to ground out to short. Then Russell grounded back to Brown for out number two and pinch-hitting Rick Monday grounded out to Driessen unassisted to end the inning.

Brown again took the mound in the bottom of the ninth, with the Reds still up by one. He got Davey Lopes to fly out to center, but then Landreaux singled to right. With the hot-hitting Baker due up next, McNamara decided not to give the Dodgers hitters another look at Brown, and brought in Tom Hume, the Reds’ closer. Brown’s night was over. Hume got Baker to fly out to center, then struck out Garvey to record his sixth save of the season.

After the game, Brown learned that the scorekeeper had awarded him the win, even though Bair technically had been the pitcher of record when the Reds tallied the winning run in the seventh. Rule 9.17(c) gives the official scorer discretion to award a win to a subsequent relief pitcher if in the view of the scorer that pitcher was more integral to achieving the win.7 Bair had given up two runs on a wild pitch and a double – both runners inherited from Soto – in his inning and two-thirds. Brown held the Dodgers scoreless on two harmless singles in 2⅓ innings. “I had no idea they were going to give me the win,” said Brown. “I think it was my buddy, Dave Collins, who come to me and told me about it in the locker room after the game. Bair wasn’t real happy about that, but hell, I had no clue that could happen.” And that’s how Brown got what turned out to be his only big-league win.

He made nine more appearances in 1981, three against the Expos, two against the Giants and Padres, and one vs. the Phillies and Braves – but all were no-decision outings for him. Including his debut against Los Angeles, Brown pitched a total of 13 innings and gave up four runs, all of them earned. He struck out seven, walked one, and, of the 16 hits he yielded, only one went for extra bases – a double by Padres catcher Terry Kennedy. He had a 2.77 ERA, 1.308 WHIP and 7.0 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He’d finally made it to “The Show,” and was looking forward to going to spring training with the Reds as a roster player in 1982. And then he was traded.

In December of 1981, the Reds swapped Brown for Kansas City right fielder Clint Hurdle. Brown was surprised, and not particularly happy, but had little control over the situation. Appropriately enough, when he reported to the Royals’ spring-training facility the following February, it was in Surprise, Arizona. “I pitched several innings in spring training with KC, and did all right,” said Brown. “Then … I don’t remember who we was playing, the Texas Rangers maybe, but anyway, I went in for just one inning, and God, I wished I hadn’t. When I went to throw a curveball, [his arm] just went. That’s all I can tell you. They come running out there and I tried to throw the ball and I couldn’t even reach the plate. I knew I was in trouble. The medial collateral ligament tore, come to find out. They sent me all over the place to try to get somebody to rehabilitate it, but they couldn’t do it. They finally sent me to (Dr. Frank) Jobe in Inglewood.” Brown had Tommy John surgery, a procedure pioneered by Jobe, and it worked. “I was back! When I went back, I was throwing just as hard. It took me a while, but I was doing good in spring training (in 1983),” Brown recalled. “Then, all of a sudden, the ulnar nerve snapped, and that was it. My hand went halfway numb. I tried to pitch with it, but had no coordination. I went and got it fixed in Houston. The doctor told me he could get my hand back, but that my career was over. And he was right. I got my hand back, but I couldn’t throw the ball 88 miles an hour. I tried and tried, but just couldn’t get 90 mph, and I’d thrown a hell of a lot harder than that.”

Brown briefly tried for a comeback, visiting several training camps in Arizona, but got no offers and so he went home to DeQuincy and became a railroad man like his dad. “First, I was with the bridge gang for six or seven years. That was terrible!” he said. “I had back problems and it was manual labor. Spiking stuff down. I had to get on my hands and knees. Then, I went into transportation and became an engineer. I did that for the last, oh, I don’t know how many years; 20 or so. I went from Houston to New Orleans to Alexandria. That was my territory.”

As of 2022, Brown was retired from the railroad, too. He and his wife of 44 years, Cheryl, still resided in DeQuincy and were active in church and community. Scott was taking it a little easier, having been hospitalized with pneumonia and COVID-19 during the pandemic. Their son, Matthew, also lives in DeQuincy. Their daughter, Alicia Ortagus, is married and lives in San Antonio. She and her husband bring Lucian Scott Ortagus, their son, to visit his grandparents as often as possible.

One thing Scott no longer did much is sing. And there’s a baseball story behind that as well: “We (the Indianapolis Indians) were in Des Moines, Iowa, and it was like 11 degrees and that’s when I got hit in the throat (by a line drive). It crushed my Adam’s apple. Mine’s flat. Most people’s is round. Mine’s kind of oval. I can’t remember who hit the ball. (It was first baseman Chris Nyman,8 who played for the White Sox in 1982 and ’83.) They told me later the bastard was laughing over at first base. I said, ‘OK, I’ll get him.’ It took me about a month. He knew when he walked up to the plate. I hollered at him, ‘You ain’t gonna laugh no more.’ I hit him in the ribs as hard as I could throw and it sounded like when people thump a watermelon to see if it’s ripe. Of course, the dugouts emptied and all that, but I got that sum*****.” Brown could rear back and chunk a baseball.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed BaseballAlmanac.com, Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and Statscrew.com.

Notes

1 Author interviews with Scott Brown on November 22 and November 29, 2021.

2 Brown interviews. Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotations attributed to Brown come from these interviews.

3 Hal McCoy, “The Real McCoy-Remembering Scott Brown,” blog post, Dayton Daily News, February 23, 2012.

4 https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/1981-misc.shtml

5 “Fernandomania Isn’t Same; Neither Is He as Reds Win,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1981: D1.

6 “Reds Rookie Wins Despite ‘Pure Terror,’” Columbus Dispatch, August 12, 1981: D1.

7 Official Baseball Rules, 9.17(c)

8 “Frazier-Led Oaks Topple Indians, 8-4,” Des Moines Register, April 15, 1980: 1S.

Named after his father’s brother,1 Isaac Burr Butler arrived in Langston, Michigan, on August 22, 1873, to Harrison H. and Mary A. (Kent) Butler just a little over a year after the farmer and his bride married. Harrison Butler served the Union during the Civil War as a private in the 80th Ohio Infantry; he served nearly four full years from late 1861 through the Confederate surrender in 1865. After the war, Harrison toiled at a number of jobs: farmer, day laborer, and timberman. After Isaac’s arrival, Harrison and Mary had two daughters, Ethyl and Elizabeth.

Ike learned the sport playing baseball with his Traverse City, Michigan, friends at the city fairgrounds.2 After spending time pitching for the Traverse City Hustlers and later Owosso in the Michigan Base Ball League,3 Butler first pitched professionally in 1895 with Detroit in the old Western League, where he got a one-game tryout on August 10. The starting pitcher, Alex (or Alec) Whitehill, gave up 10 runs to Indianapolis in the first three innings. Ike Butler entered and gave up 10 more runs over the next six innings.4

Good enough for a look, but not good enough to stay, Butler found work pitching for Seattle in the Pacific Northwest League in 1896. The sturdy right-handed pitcher won nine of 15 decisions despite being swatted around a bit. “It was a pleasure to see Butler pitch the remaining innings,” wrote a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “He was as cool as a cucumber, and every time Catcher (Ralph) Frary said, ‘Put ’em over, Ike,’ over they went. … Every time they thought Butler was in danger of becoming a bit nervous he would be told to split the plate and let the fielders take care of the hits.”5 In that game, Butler gave up five runs in the first three innings, but pitched pretty well the rest of the way for an 11-6 win over Victoria. Butler did the bulk of the pitching for Seattle as the league called for just 32 games played per team.

His winning record earned Butler a tryout with St. Paul in the Western League. Getting a start on June 26, 1896, Butler allowed eight runs in four innings to Milwaukee, but his team rallied for 10 runs in the ninth to win the game.6 In 1897, he pitched for Dubuque in the Western Association, leading the team with 13 wins and 18 losses, before returning home to pitch in Traverse City.7 During the 1890s, Butler frequently pitched semipro games with the Hustlers as seasons elsewhere ended.8

Continuing this nomadic theme, Burlington (Iowa) in the Western Association hired Butler for the 1898 season. Despite not pitching all that well, he somehow earned a tryout with a last-place and desperate Omaha team in the Western League. Butler couldn’t have impressed anyone (one start, three appearances, nearly a run allowed per inning) as he didn’t survive Omaha. On the other hand, Omaha didn’t survive the season; the franchise moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, halfway through 1898. For 1899, Butler signed a contract with Toledo and for the first time in his professional career he played two full seasons with the same club. His 15 wins in 1900 was a new career high.9 Butler also threw his first true gem, a one-hitter to blank Youngstown on May 25, 1900.10

Kansas City of the Western League added Butler to the 1901 roster, but a week into the season he was loaned to Denver, where Butler alternated between good and bad outings.11 Manager George Tebeau turned down cash offers from Colorado Springs and Omaha so he could recall Butler if he needed him later in the season. Indeed, Kansas City needed Butler to make a couple of starts in June. It didn’t work out and he was again tossing for Denver.12 Denver released Butler in July and a month later Butler signed with Shreveport in the Southern Association.13 Making a good impression, Butler agreed to come back to Shreveport for 1902 and quickly became the ace of the Shreveport staff.14

In 1902 the war between the upstart American League and National League reached its zenith, with manager John McGraw and outfielder Joe Kelley jumping the Baltimore Orioles and taking several stars with them to the New York Giants and Cincinnati Reds. In fact, thanks to McGraw, New York Giants owner John T. Brush wrested away a majority ownership in the AL club.  Having a National League owner now an owner of an American League franchise was the biggest threat to what had otherwise been a very successful American League organization. American League President Ban Johnson worked with the other owners to take back control of the Baltimore franchise and stock the team with enough players to finish the season. Some teams loaned a player or two to help with the cause, while other players were gathered from around various leagues to help play games.

Ike Butler was one of these gathered players. Butler had fairly good seasons in low-level minor leagues but little success in his brief stays in the better minor leagues. Still, Butler recognized an opportunity to play on a major-league team at a major-league salary and sent a telegram to Baltimore manager Wilbert Robinson offering his services.15 Robinson, in desperate need of pitching, bought the sales pitch and agreed to purchase his rights from Shreveport. Most importantly, Butler was going to earn a lot more money. Shreveport paid Butler $125 per month for his mound work. Wilbert Robinson offered Butler $400 a month to pitch for Baltimore.

Butler’s time in Shreveport for 1902 was bookended by the headlines “Pitcher Butler Is Here” and “Butler Is Gone” in the Shreveport Times.16 In between, Butler pitched essentially .500 ball for a team that was 28-46 when he left. (He is credited with an 11-12 record on Baseball-Reference.com; the Shreveport Times said he had 12 wins in 24 appearances.) A Times reporter caught Butler after he told the club he was leaving. Butler said, “I dislike very much to part with friends, but baseball is a business to me. The offer made me by Baltimore is too great an opportunity to turn down. … If I should ever play in a minor league again and I can secure a position with Shreveport, I will return.”17 Butler would return to the minors, but he would never pitch for Shreveport again.

In joining Baltimore, Butler took over Harry Howell’s or Joe McGinnity’s spot in the Orioles rotation. McGinnity was no longer with the team; Howell stopped pitching regularly and became a position player – he was a versatile defender and he could genuinely hit. At one point in July, the Orioles were 31-34 and competitive. After the upheaval of the summer, which stripped the team of most of its best players, the rotation included Snake Wiltse, Jack Katoll, and Ike Butler – Baltimore won just 19 games in the last 12 weeks of the season.

A day after signing his Baltimore contract in St. Louis, Butler took to the mound against the Browns, who smacked him around some. Butler smacked back – he singled and scored a run in the fifth. The Browns scored five runs on nine hits and two walks (and two errors) – three runs were earned.18 Butler got no decision, as errors helped St. Louis plate the winning run in the 10th inning. Robinson himself caught Butler in his next outing; Butler lost to Cleveland, 6-3, but he pitched better. In fact, Butler wasn’t awful but he wasn’t always well-supported – in one outing he allowed 11 runs but only three were deemed earned. At the same time, Butler didn’t help himself, especially when men were on base. The Detroit Free Press noted “Ike Butler, an Oriole recruit who has speed when he has time to wind himself up … is positively harmless when there are men on the bags and he is forced to twirl without a preliminary gyration. …”19

As August became September, Butler continued to pitch and lose. He gave up 12 runs to Detroit on September 6, nine more to a Philadelphia squad that was rolling toward the pennant (Rube Waddell won his 20th game in relief that day), and 13 runs on 20 hits to Boston in the first game of a doubleheader. That Baltimore had to play so many doubleheaders in September likely kept Butler on the roster. Ike started one game of a doubleheader in each of his last eight starts – including back-to-back days against the Athletics. The Orioles needed live arms.

Predictably, Baltimore fell from fifth place toward the bottom of the standings. Then they started losing in in ways not seen since the Cleveland Spiders gave up on the 1899 season. From August 26 through Butler’s loss to Boston on September 17, Baltimore went 1-21 with two ties. Robinson needed a new good-luck charm and got it in a gift from O.P. Chase, who hailed from Robinson’s hometown of Hudson, Massachusetts. Chase offered to send Wilbert a beagle hound puppy named May. The puppy arrived in Washington on September 20 before a doubleheader with the Senators.20 With the new mascot (and future hunting companion), Baltimore won the first game, 6-5.

Butler’s record stood at 0-8 when he took the hill against the Senators for game two. Washington drew first blood, but Baltimore put up a pair of runs in both the second and third innings. After scoring a run in the third, Washington bunched luck and hits into a three-run inning and a 5-4 lead in the fourth. Butler walked Lew Drill, who had himself been loaned to Baltimore for a couple of games earlier in the season. Then Bill Carrick reached out with his bat and caught just enough of a pitch to flip the ball into right field for a fluke double. Jack Doyle crushed a double of his own, scoring both runners. He later scored on Bill Keister’s single and Washington now led. After this, Butler braced up and kept Washington scoreless for the next four innings. Meanwhile, Baltimore tallied one in the sixth, two in the eighth – Butler contributed a run-scoring groundout – and two more in the ninth. When Butler got Ed Delahanty to fly out to deep right field, he and Baltimore got the win.21

Butler’s outing was no gem. He allowed 16 hits and walked four batters, and three of his players made errors behind him. Butler won just one decision in his major-league career – this was it. The sweep got Baltimore temporarily out of last place, landing just percentage points ahead of Detroit. The Orioles won the first game of the next doubleheader, making it a three-game winning streak and four out of five. And then they lost the last six games, to Philadelphia and Boston – with Butler losing two of those decisions. In his last start, Butler fanned four Boston batters – his career-best game and nearly a third of his major-league career strikeouts.

Butler’s 1-10 record, with 168 hits allowed in 116⅓ innings and just 13 strikeouts, is part of an inglorious – and yet amazingly courageous, from a league standpoint – conclusion to the Orioles season. Ban Johnson, angered by McGraw and Brush, arranged to put a team in New York, certainly to spite the Giants but also to get in the nation’s largest city. The Orioles were dead; the Highlanders (eventually renamed the Yankees) were the new team in the American League.

Ike Butler wasn’t kept when the franchise moved to New York. Shreveport claimed his rights, a story hit the wires saying that Butler signed with Milwaukee in the American Association,22 and another story said he was ready to return to Shreveport.23 Instead, he headed west to join a Portland team that was added when the California League expanded to become the Pacific Coast League in 1903.24 Butler, now approaching his 30th birthday, was a thick and sturdy pitcher. He is listed as 6-feet and 175 pounds in Baseball-Reference.com, but in Portland, his weight was noted as 190 pounds.25 While he wasn’t the ace of the staff based on his record, he certainly was the “Old Reliable” of the staff based on his usage.26 Butler appeared in 54 games, starting 50 of them. He threw 440⅔ innings and led the team with 22 wins and 27 losses. Butler threw strikes – his 104 walks represented one of the lowest walk rates in the league, though he didn’t strike out that many batters (124).27 And he occasionally took a turn in right field when needed. When the Oregon Daily Journal listed the final Pacific Coast League standings, Portland finished in fifth place at 95-107, but that didn’t include ties. (Butler’s last outing finished tied, 2-2.)28 Two players appeared in more than 200 games, with Deacon Van Buren playing in 205 games and Phil Nadeau appearing in 204.

After wintering in Bakersfield, California, where he could train throughout the winter and join the team in better shape, Butler joined Portland for a second season. He was awarded the Opening Day start.29 Daniel Dugdale took over the reins of the team early in the campaign, but as injuries and illnesses ripped through the roster, Dugdale became less enthusiastic about managing. In October Dugdale left and Butler, who remained healthy and respected throughout the season, took over at the helm.30 Butler was the third manager that season as Portland limped home to an 80-136 record. Three pitchers lost 30 games, with Butler’s 32 losses (against 17 wins) setting a PCL record that will never be challenged.

Not likely to be retained by changing management for the 1905 season, Butler chose not to stay with Portland.31 He considered a two-month stint pitching for Skagway in Alaska,32 but ended up signing with Atlanta (despite his reputation for jumping Shreveport),33 which then moved him to Birmingham.34 After winning two of three decisions there, he was sold to Charleston35 but returned to Birmingham over a case of mistaken identity. Charleston management thought they were buying an outfielder who previously played for Memphis.36 Released, Butler considered other opportunities and wound up returning to Michigan and pitching for Grand Rapids.37

Butler was about to enter the most stable period of his baseball career. Signed to pitch for Tacoma of the Northwestern League, he spent three years as the team’s top pitcher. In 1906 he won 20 of 29 decisions, including one stretch of 12 wins in a row.38 Then, in 1907, he completed the extremely rare 30-30 combination by winning 32 games against 18 losses – making him one of just a handful of pitchers to have a season with 30 wins and a season of 30 losses.39 Two of those wins came in a doubleheader against Vancouver on July 1. In the morning game, he blanked the Canucks 8-0. Then he pitched the afternoon game and threw a second shutout, winning 5-0.40 Not quite three weeks later, he threw a no-hitter to beat Seattle, 5-1.41 His own throwing error on an Ed Bruyette grounder made the lone run possible. Butler agreed to join a winter league in San Diego where he shared pitching duties with Luther Taylor.42 While there, he acted as a scout, signing players for Tacoma.43

So what changed for Butler to make him more successful? A writer for the Butte Miner explained Butler’s success as being tied to his control and subtle movement in the strike zone: “One sitting behind the catcher cannot tell what Ike puts on the ball that keeps the batters from belting it out of the lot, but that he has something is evident from the fact that men who have proved themselves good hitters in swell company cannot meet the ball fairly when Ike is right. He has no wide sweeping curves and no ball he pitches will miss the plate more than six inches, but the ball either curves or jumps enough to keep the batsman from hitting it in the middle and the result is a popup or hitting the ball on top for a high bounder.”44

Butler fell back to 19-14 in 1908, the season after his first wife, Mina, died. He started off pitching really well, but at some point the heavy usage and approaching age 35 caught up with him. He injured a leg, was frequently hit harder than in previous weeks, and he was starting to look for work outside of baseball. At the end of 1908, for example, he got involved in the ownership of a San Diego saloon.45

After managing a really good San Diego winter team, Butler returned to Tacoma a different pitcher. He was a late arrival, had issues getting in shape, and got frustrated with teammates after a couple of lousy outings. So Butler announced he was leaving the team to pitch for the Santa Cruz Sand Crabs of the independent California League.46 Tacoma writers, used to calling Butler “Old Reliable” now called him “Unreliable,” forgetting that jumping contracts was something Butler did from time to time.47 Santa Cruz had financial problems by mid-July, so Butler returned to Tacoma, where his paycheck would be more dependable.48 Happy to see their old pitcher back, Tacoma named Butler the team’s manager a week later.49 Butler frequently pitched in relief rather than starting – and his team never improved. Two months later, he was relieved himself – of the management job.50 Butler fell up, though, asking for his release so he could pitch for Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast League for the remainder of the season.51 Los Angeles kept the veteran around for a month of the 1910 season, but released him in early May.52 Butler signed one more time with Tacoma and trudged his way through the remainder of the season.

In 1911 Butler made one more run back east and agreed to a contract with Grand Rapids. Upon landing in Michigan, he ran into a winter storm and was forced to purchase a winter coat for the first time in several years.53 He pitched once, lost, and was released.54 Back to San Diego, Ike pitched semipro baseball there until he was hired to be a battery coach for Tacoma in 1912.55 Among the things Butler taught his new pitching staff was how to throw both the knuckleball and the spitball.56 While it’s not listed on his Baseball-Reference.com page, he made at least one relief appearance for Tacoma before asking for his release in May.57 He next moved to Oregon, pitching independent ball for Salem and Medford, earning a car for his efforts on Medford’s behalf.58 He finished the 1912 season pitching for a semipro team in Maricopa, California.

After his West Coast career came to an end, Butler moved to Butte, Montana. He operated a saloon in Anaconda and pitched in a few semipro games. His last pitched game appears to be around 1916 when he would have been approaching 43 years old.59 Less than three years after marrying (and quickly divorcing) his third wife, he decided to take a vacation and left Anaconda on a six-week tour of the West Coast.60 Butler liked what he saw in California and decided to stay in Oakland permanently.

Butler first married Mina C. Maes on March 29, 1896. Maes hailed from Traverse City, Michigan, where the two were living when they hitched their lives together at a nearby Congregational church. A year later, on May 7, 1897, their daughter, Caroline Fay, arrived.61 After the Butlers moved west, Mina and Caroline followed Ike to Tacoma’s spring training prior to the 1907 season. She caught a cold in Walla Walla, Washington – whatever she caught turned into tuberculosis. So while Ike was winning a Northwestern League-record 32 games and pitching more than a third of Tacoma’s games in a fight for the pennant, his wife was home fighting for her life. Part of the reason the Butlers moved to San Diego, one figures, is that it might have helped Mina’s chances to survive. Instead, she died on November 4, 1907.62

During his later Tacoma days, Butler married Julia Averill, on July 24, 1909.63 Julia was listed as his wife in the 1910 US Census, but she wouldn’t be around long. (Butler was, if nothing else, a contract jumper.) In 1916, while living in Butte, Montana, Isaac married Hannah Gertrude Shaner. That marriage didn’t last either – Butler and Shaner parted ways and Ike moved to Oakland. In July 1920 he married Grace May (Waters) McDonald, a recent divorcee – both listed that each was on marriage number two, and by the looks of it both were shading their age.64 In the 1930 US census, their record shows they had a five-year-old son (whose name is illegible on the film) – that son is not living with them in the 1940 US census. Grace died in October 1946.

Butler managed saloons and bars after his baseball days. In 1920 he took a job as a sales clerk while advertising in an Oakland newspaper that he was interested in buying his own business. He also worked as a laborer into the 1940s. In addition to a lifelong interest in baseball, Butler loved flowers and was a member of the Elks Club dating back to his days in Traverse City.65

In 1920 Butler avoided death in a car accident in Oceanside, California, when the driver of a car in which he was a passenger swerved to avoid another car and the car rolled over twice. Butler was mildly injured but William Kelly, the driver, was killed.66 The second time death called, Butler answered. He was attending a chrysanthemum auction in Oakland when he suffered a fatal heart attack and died on March 17, 1948.67 His body was taken back to Michigan, where he was buried near his father in Forest Hill Cemetery in Stanton, Michigan.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, FindAGrave.com, and genealogical records.

Photo credit: Ike Butler with 1908 Tacoma, courtesy of David Eskenazi Collection.

Notes

1 Inferred from relationship identified in the 1850 and 1860 US Census (Ohio).

2 “The Observer,“ Traverse City Record-Eagle, March 19, 1948: 4. Ironically (coincidentally?), this memory was published a couple of days after Butler’s death.

3 “Local News,” Owosso Times, April 26, 1895: 5; “They are in Manistee,” Traverse City Morning Record, September 5, 1897: 1.

4 “Dissensions Again,” Detroit Free Press, August 11, 1895: 6.

5 “Campau on the Line,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 14, 1896: 3.

6 “Four Straight Now,” St. Paul Globe, June 27, 1896: 6.

7 “They Are in Manistee,” Traverse City Morning Record, September 5, 1897: 1.

8 “Some More Old Time Pictures,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, May 15, 1946: 8. Includes photo of the 1898 Traverse City Hustlers team, except that Butler is wearing his Burlington uniform from 1898.

9 “Players Released,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 23, 1899: 8; “Base Ball News,” Mansfield (Ohio) News, March 16, 1900: 6.

10 “Notes of the Diamond,” Mansfield News, December 1, 1900: 7; woodcut image in paper.

11 “Pitcher Ike Butler Has Been Loaned to Denver,” Kansas City Times, May 16, 1901: 7. For examples of different games, see “Denver Won by Hitting the Ball,” Denver Post, June 21, 1901: 8, and “Butler Was Dead Easy for Blues,” Denver Post, June 11, 1901: 6.

12 “Bunts and Line Drives,” Kansas City Times, June 28, 1901: 7.

13 “New Men Signed,” Shreveport Times, August 20, 1901: 6.

14 “Butler Gone Home,” Shreveport Times, September 25, 1901: 8.

15 “Orioles Fly Today,” Baltimore Sun, July 30, 1902: 6.

16 “Pitcher Butler Is Here,” Shreveport Times, March 6, 1902: 8; “Butler Is Gone,” Shreveport Times, August 3, 1902: 6.

17 “Butler Is Gone.” The standings appear on page 3.

18 “Orioles’ Game Trial,” Baltimore Sun, August 6, 1902: 6. The Sun said he was pulled after five innings; the St. Louis Globe-Democrat says he pitched the sixth, which is the record kept on Butler’s Retrosheet page.

19 “Took Both of Double Header,” Detroit Free Press, September 7, 1902: 8.

20 “Beagle Pup for ‘Robbie,’” Baltimore Sun, September 21, 1902: 6.

21 The entirety of the game summary comes from the following newspapers: “Senators Drop Two Games to the Weakened Orioles,” Washington Times, September 21, 1902: 10; “Baltimore Took Two Games from the Senators,” Washington Evening Star, September 22, 1902: 9; “Not Tail-Enders Now,” Baltimore Sun, September 21, 1902: 6. Also, “Baltimore Orioles 9, Washington Senators 6 (2),” Retrosheet.org, https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1902/B09202WS11902.htm, accessed March 3, 2021.

22 “Baseball Chat,” Louisville Courier-Journal, January 4, 1903: Section 3, Page 4.

23 “Two Pitchers Added to Team,” Shreveport Journal, February 23, 1903: 5. A story in the Oregon Daily Journal suggested that he actually did sign with Milwaukee, but Shreveport objected based on a rights claim that was upheld by the baseball commission. “I.B. Butler,” Oregon Daily Journal (Portland), October 31, 1903: 8. Ultimately, Butler twice jumped Shreveport for better offers.

24 “Baseball Dustings,” Oregon Daily Journal, February 14, 1903: 7.

25 “Ike Butler,” Oregon Daily Journal, February 28, 1903: 9.

26 “I.B. Butler,” Oregon Daily Journal, October 31, 1903: 8.

27 “Portland Leads in Team Batting,” Oregon Daily Journal, December 29, 1903: 5.

28 Standings, Oregon Daily Journal, November 30, 1903: 5.

29 “Baseball Season Formally Opened,” Oregon Daily Journal, March 24, 1904: 9.

30 Dugdale Becomes Tired of the Portland Team,” Anaconda (Montana) Standard, October 16, 1904: 3; “Dugdale Has Resigned,” Oakland Tribune, October 17, 1904: 7.

31 “Butler and Castro Will Be Traded,” Bakersfield Morning Echo, January 12, 1905: 3.

32 “Butler May Pitch for Skagway,” Bakersfield Morning Echo, February 25, 1905: 2.

33 “In the Realm of Sports,” Birmingham News, February 7, 1905: 9; “Ike Butler Declines to Comes South,” Birmingham News, March 10, 1905: 9.

34 “Butler Made Debut in Little Rock,” Birmingham News, May 17, 1905: 12.

35 “Ike Butler, Pitcher, Has Been Sold,” Birmingham News, June 5, 1905: 9.

36 “Butler Still a Member of Birmingham Team,” Birmingham News, June 9, 1905: 14.

37 “Base Ball Notes,” Fort Wayne Sentinel, June 14, 1905: 6; “Dope Drippings,” Birmingham News, June 10, 1905: 21; “Ike Butler Released,” Chattanooga Daily Times, June 10, 1905: 4.

38 “Butler and Downey Stay with Tacoma,” Spokane Chronicle, March 1, 1907: 13.

39 As best as I can tell, few pitchers did this after 1892 when Bill Hutchinson went 36-36 and Amos Rusie went 32-31. A few other pitchers are members of this exclusive club (including George Bradley and Jim McCormick, who have seasons with 40 wins and 40 losses), but most of them pitched well before the mound was moved back to 60 feet 6 inches. In saying that, the early PCL was among the only leagues where this would have been possible based on the length of its seasons. For example, Roy Hitt is one of them – winning 31 games with San Francisco in 1906 and losing 30 with Vernon in 1909.

40 “Butler Blanks Canucks Twice,” Spokane Chronicle, July 2, 1907: 5.

41 “Ike Butler Gets Away Without a Single Hit,” Butte (Montana) Miner, July 21, 1907: 8.

42 “Will Play Winter Ball,” Spokane Chronicle, September 20, 2007: 5.

43 “Albert Carson Signed,” San Francisco Call, December 2, 1907: 3.

44 “Isaac’s Dope,” Butte Miner, May 9, 1908: 2.

45 “Tacoma Will Lose Pitcher Ike Butler,” Vancouver (British Columbia) Daily Province, October 3, 1908: 19.

46 Stockton (California) Evening Mail, May 13, 1909: 4; “Ike Butler, Leading Tacoma Pitcher in the Northwest League, Joins Santa Cruz Outlaws,” Oakland Tribune, May 21, 1909: 17.

47 “Old Reliable Ike Butler Joins Outlaws,” Tacoma Times, May 19, 1909: 2.

48 “Swanton Settles with the Players,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 15, 1909: 5.

49 “Ike Butler Made New Tiger Boss,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, July 21, 1909: 13.

50 “Blankenship in Charge,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, September 19, 1909: 16.

51 “Ike Butler to Los Angeles Club,” Tacoma Times, September 21, 1909: 2; “Butler Leaves for Angel City,” Los Angeles Record, September 21, 1909: 7. Also, “Two New Players of Vernon and Los Angeles Leagures [sic],” Los Angeles Herald, October 3, 1909: Part III, 1.

52 “Butler Released,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1910: 6.

53 “First Overcoat in Six Winters,” Fort Wayne Sentinel, April 1, 1911: 8.

54 “Dolly Gray to Grand Rapids, Release Two,” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, May 17, 1911: 6.

55 “Ike Butler to Assist Mike,” Tacoma Times, November 1, 1911: 2.

56 “Fodder for Hungry Fans,” Tacoma Times, April 5, 1912: 2.

57 “Tigers Release Pitcher Butler,” Spokane Chronicle, May 7, 1912: 3.

58 “Base Ball Briefs,” Washington Evening Star, August 29, 1912: 15.

59 “Walkerville to Have Strong Team,” Butte Miner, May 23, 1916: 10.

60 “Anaconda News,” Anaconda Standard, January 2, 1919: 9.

61 “Brevities,” Traverse City Morning Record, May 8, 1897: 2.

62 “Sports,” Butte Daily Post, November 12, 1907: 7.

63 “Ike Butler Takes a Bride,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, July 25, 1909: 14.

64 The California marriage certificate lists Isaac as being 39 (instead of 42) and Grace as 30 (instead of 31).

65 “Locals,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, March 22, 1948: 3.

66 “Oakland Man Killed in Automobile Crash,” San Francisco Examiner, February 22, 1920: 7; “1 Dead, 3 Injured When Auto Runs Off Road,” Pasadena Post, February 21, 1920: 1.

67 Old Ball-Player Dies,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, March 18, 1948: 2; “Locals,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, March 22, 1948: 3.

Although there are many hard-luck cases in the annals of baseball history, Fred Cambria’s story is one of the most memorable. A highly touted college and minor-league pitcher, Cambria made his major-league debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates late in the 1970 season. Only 22 years old, he pitched effectively, going 1-2 with a 3.51 ERA. However, arm injuries prevented him from ever winning another game in the big leagues. Despite this setback, Cambria maintained a long association with baseball and looks back fondly on his time in the game.

Frederick Dennis Cambria was born on January 22, 1948, in Cambria Heights, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. (There is no connection between his last name and the name of the neighborhood.) He was the first of three children born to George Cambria, a lithographer, and Rita (Thomas) Cambria, a homemaker.1 Growing up, he attended Brooklyn Dodgers games with his father and uncle, an experience that nourished his interest in sports.2 When the Dodgers left for Los Angeles before the 1958 season, Cambria refused to switch his allegiance to the New York Yankees, leaving him temporarily without a team. He said, “I didn’t like [the Yankees] because they were always winning and I liked the underdog.” After the Mets arrived in 1962, he quickly fell in love with the expansion team.3

As a youth, Cambria played baseball in the Sacred Heart Parish, Cambria Heights, Catholic Youth Organization league. Starting out as a catcher, he pitched for the first time when he was 12 years old. He played both baseball and basketball at St. Pascal Baylon High School in Queens.4 Cambria did not take his studies seriously enough; as a result, his chances of going to college seemed remote. However, St. Leo College (now St. Leo University), a small Catholic institution near Tampa, Florida, admitted him in the fall of 1966 on the condition that he maintain at least a 2.5 grade point average.5 Intending to play basketball, he switched to baseball after making the team following an open tryout. Cambria fondly recalled the move: “I don’t think I had a career in basketball, so I went with baseball, and it’s the best decision I ever made.”6 

The 6-foot-2, 195-pound right-hander enjoyed an impressive freshman season for the Monarchs in 1967. He pitched back-to-back shutouts to begin his collegiate career – the second was a one-hitter against the University of Tampa.7 His talents central to the team’s success, Cambria was the winning pitcher in five of the Monarchs’ first seven victories.8 Although his pitching stood out, Cambria also enjoyed some noteworthy performances at the plate. On March 15, for instance, he had a single, triple, and four RBIs while pitching St. Leo to an 8-1 victory over Stetson University; one month later, he slammed two home runs while playing the field in the nightcap of a doubleheader sweep of Florida Presbyterian College (now Eckerd College).9

Cambria continued to hone his skills during his sophomore and junior years. In particular, he improved his slider and learned to change speeds and pitch inside effectively.10 He also gained a reputation as a giant killer and began to attract attention from big-league teams. On March 27, 1968, in arguably the most impressive outing of his sophomore year, Cambria scattered three hits while striking out 13 and walking only two in an 8-0 shutout at home against Duke University.11  After the game, Duke coach Tom Butters commented, “I’m not happy. But I’m not upset. We ran into a mighty good pitcher Wednesday.”12 Indeed, Butters, who pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1962 to 1965, was so impressed by Cambria that he recommended him to Pirates general manager Joe L. Brown.13 On March 9, 1969, 37 pro scouts saw Cambria, then a junior, strike out 14 on his way to a 3-2 complete-game upset victory over Florida State University.14 After the game, an unnamed San Francisco Giants scout asserted, “It looks like the kid has all of the potential to be a major league star.”15 

After his junior year, Cambria attended a tryout at Shea Stadium, hoping to be picked by his boyhood favorite team in the June 1969 draft.16 He was instead chosen by the Pirates in the third round (the 58th pick overall).17 Signed by scout Mark “Dutch” Deutsch, he was assigned to the York (Pennsylvania) Pirates of the Double-A Eastern League, Cambria made his professional debut against the Waterbury Indians at home on June 14, 1969. He pitched well, giving up only two hits and two unearned runs but came away with a no-decision in the Pirates’ 14-inning, 4-3 victory.18 His first win came against the Reading Phillies on June 25.19 Thereafter, Cambria established himself as one of York’s premier pitchers. He finished the season with a 9-2 record and a 2.16 ERA. His wins included a seven-inning perfect game against Waterbury in the first half of a twin bill on July 15.20 In the stands that day was former Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh, who had come to watch his son, Tim, catch for York. Cambria believed that pitching the gem in front of Murtaugh quickened his path to the majors: “That’s what gave me some … leverage in the organization. My name was used and [the Pirates] said, ‘Maybe he can do something.’”21

In the fall of 1969, like other elite prospects, Cambria pitched for the Florida Instructional League Pirates, compiling a 2-1 record with a 3.82 ERA. In 1970 he attended spring training with the Pirates as a nonroster invitee. Murtaugh, who was back managing the Pirates after a stint in the front office, was impressed by Cambria’s talents – he said the 22-year-old was “really going to be some pitcher” – but cautioned that Cambria might be sent to the minors for further seasoning.22 Cambria received notice on March 30 that he was being farmed to the Columbus Jets of the Triple-A International League.23 

The proximity of the Florida Instructional League and spring training to St. Leo College allowed Cambria to finish his degree. Upon signing with the Pirates, he had promised his parents that he would graduate.24 He was also determined to prove that his subpar high-school grades had been an aberration. He graduated from St. Leo in the spring of 1970 with a degree in political science, earning dean’s list honors in four of his eight semesters.25

Cambria took the mound for Columbus on April 17 as the Opening Day starter against the Rochester Red Wings but gave up six unearned runs in six innings in a losing effort.26 He dropped two more decisions before he beat the Buffalo Bisons on May 3 for his first win.27  Hitting his stride, Cambria won nine of his next 13 decisions to take his record to 12-7.

While Cambria was enjoying success with the Jets, the Pirates were locked in a tight race in the National League East Division. They moved into first place by one game over the Mets on August 2, but reaching that point had not been easy. Several Pirates had missed playing time because of injury, with the pitching staff suffering the most setbacks. Lamenting the Pirates’ predicament, Joe L. Brown commented, “We’ve had more pitching injuries than any club I have ever been connected with, and a lot of our regulars have been hurt, too.”28 The Pirates’ pitching woes worsened in mid-August when the club pulled Dock Ellis from the rotation for two starts to rest his ailing elbow.29 Moreover, reliever Orlando Peña had been hit hard in several consecutive outings. Against this backdrop, the Pirates put Peña or waivers and purchased Cambria’s contract from Columbus on August 19.30

Cambria made his big-league debut on August 26, 1970, in a start against the Padres in San Diego. He learned he was starting only an hour and a half before game time after scheduled starter Bob Veale complained of shoulder pain. Despite the late notice, the young rookie pitched well, holding the Padres scoreless for six innings. San Diego took a 2-1 lead in the seventh, however, when third baseman Ed Spiezio homered with no outs to drive in center fielder Ivan Murrell, who had reached on an error. Cambria got the next batter to fly out to center, but Danny Murtaugh removed him after he walked pitcher Pat Dobson. Neither team scored the rest of the way, giving the Padres the win. Although he was the losing pitcher, Cambria’s solid performance earned him the starting nod against the Giants in San Francisco on August 30.31 

Cambria pitched well against the Giants but came away with a no-decision in the Pirates’ 2-1 loss. His third appearance came on September 5. Starting against the Philadelphia Phillies at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Cambria and the Pirates trailed 1-0 entering the third. The Pirates put two runs on the board in the bottom of the inning to take the lead. The Phillies knotted the score in the top of fourth, only to see the Pirates come back and score another run in their half of the inning. In the next frame, the Pirates seemingly broke the game open when they scored three times on four hits to take a 6-2 lead. However, Cambria and the Pirates struggled to put the game away. After surrendering a run in the sixth, Cambria pitched a scoreless seventh. He then ran into trouble in the eighth, jeopardizing what could become his first career win. He allowed a single to start the inning. He got the next batter out, but second baseman Denny Doyle followed with a single to center to drive in a run. With the score now 6-4, Murtaugh took Cambria out of the game. Reliever George Brunet promptly gave up a double, forcing Murtaugh to go back to the bullpen. Dave Giusti held the Phillies scoreless the rest of the way to preserve the Pirates’ 6-4 win and, with it, Cambria’s first major-league victory.

Cambria struggled in his next start. Lasting only 5⅓ innings, he gave up five earned runs on six walks and eight hits in the Pirates’ 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at home on September 9. His last start of the year came against the New York Mets, his old favorite team, at Shea Stadium on September 20. With his family looking on, he outpitched future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver.32 The Pirates scored five runs off Seaver in 5⅓ innings, while Cambria held the Mets to three runs, two of them earned, in the same number of innings. However, the Mets tied the game in the seventh, denying Cambria his second win. The Pirates went on to prevail 9-5 in 10 innings. 

Cambria pitched one final time that season, recording two scoreless innings in relief against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on October 1. The Pirates won the game, the last of the regular season, good for an 89-73 record and first place in the National League East Division, five games ahead of the second-place Chicago Cubs. Cambria did not appear for the Pirates in the National League Championship Series, which the Cincinnati Reds swept in three games. Cambria finished the season with a 1-2 record and a 3.51 ERA in 33⅓ innings pitched.

Cambria seemed to have a promising future. After the 1970 season, he pitched for the San Juan Senators, a team managed by Pirates great Roberto Clemente in the Puerto Rican Winter League. He then joined the Pirates for spring training in 1971. He pitched effectively but was optioned to the Charleston (West Virginia) Charlies, the Pirates’ new Triple-A affiliate, at the end of spri ng training.33 Cambria struggled to find his stride with his new team, and he began experiencing pain in his pitching shoulder. He went 0-3 in seven starts before he was shut down for the season to rest his arm.34 The time off did little to improve his shoulder, however. He experimented with different deliveries to ease the pain, but he pitched only marginally better the following season with the Charlies, going 2-0 with a 5.54 ERA in 17 relief appearances.35

Cambria’s arm troubles were most likely due to an accumulation of factors. He recalled straining his arm during his standout win in college against Florida State University. Determined to defeat a team that expected “to beat up on us,” Cambria had relied excessively on his slider in that start.36 His time in winter ball was also probably a culprit. Looking back on his time there, he observed, “I hate to say it, but all that extra pitching [in Puerto Rico] might have had a bearing on my arm trouble.”37 Finally, his arm was never the same after he pitched in cold weather in his first start with the Charleston Charlies in 1971.38

In 1973, Cambria joined the Pirates again for spring training. His arm still ailing him, he failed to make the club once more. He began the year in Charleston but did not make an appearance and was released in June. Trying to prolong his career, Cambria called the Mets and Yankees, hoping they might be interested in him. The Yankees took a chance, signing him to a minor-league contract with West Haven of the Double-A Eastern League.39 Cambria pitched only seven games for West Haven, all in relief, going 0-0 with a 4.24 ERA in 17 innings. He never pitched another game.

Following his pitching days, Cambria worked in sales for Izod for over a dozen years, but he never ventured far from baseball.40 In the late 1980s, he worked as a marketing specialist for the Class-A Columbia (South Carolina) Mets, and in 1990, he returned to his alma mater, St. Leo College, as head baseball coach.41 (The college renamed itself St. Leo University in 1999.42) In his two years at the helm, Cambria took the Knights (now known as the Lions) to a 55-46 record.43 He later served as pitching coach for the Spokane Indians of the Northwest League for two years. He also coached for the Brisbane Bandits of the Australian Baseball League and was commissioner of both the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League and the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League.44 His number, 22, was retired by St. Leo University in 2018, and he is a member of both the St. Leo University Athletics Hall of Fame and the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame.45

Although his arm injury limited him to one win in the majors, Cambria considers himself fortunate. “I have no regrets. Baseball was great to me,” he commented in a 2011 interview, “and I still love it today.”46  He is also fiercely loyal to St. Leo University and takes pride that he not only developed his baseball skills at the college but also applied himself and earned a degree after having struggled academically in high school.47 

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Fred Cambria for speaking to him about his life and career as well as Bill Nowlin of SABR and Joe Billetdeaux of the Pittsburgh Pirates for helping arrange the interview with Cambria.

Photo credit: Fred Cambria, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Sources

In addition to the sources found in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Fred Cambria, telephone interview, April 6, 2023. In addition, Fred Cambria’s father and his two younger siblings are mentioned in Murray Chass, “A Former Mets Fans Returns as a Foe,” New York Times, September 20, 1970: 200. His mother’s obituary can be found at https://nolanfh.com/tribute/details/1075/Rita-Cambria/obituary.html (accessed February 2023).

2  “Baseball Still the Life for Former MLB Pitcher,” Brooklyn Tablet, August 11, 2011, https://thetablet.org/baseball-still-the-life-for-former-mlb-pitcher/.

3 Chass, “A Former Mets Fan Returns as a Foe.”

4 “Baseball Still the Life for Former MLB Pitcher.”

5 Cambria, telephone interview.

6 Kevin Weiss, “Saint Leo Baseball to Retire Jersey of Its First MLB Draftee,” Laker/Lutz News (Land o’ Lakes, Florida), April 11, 2018, https://lakerlutznews.com/lln/2018/04/56028/.

7 “Cambria Pitches Second Shutout for St. Leo,” Tampa Bay Times, March 5, 1967: 17.

8 “Cambria Leads St. Leo 2-0,” Tampa Bay Times, April 8, 1967: 31.

9 “Cambria, St. Leo Whip Stetson 8-1,” Tampa Bay Times, March 16, 1967: 25; “Pitchers Hit, Monarchs Rout Tritons Twice,” Tampa Bay Times, April 16, 1967: 22. Newspaper accounts of St. Leo College’s doubleheader sweep of Florida Presbyterian College on April 15, 1967, do not specify what position Cambria played in the night cap. He pitched in the first game.

10 Weiss, “St. Leo Baseball to Retire Jersey of Its First MLB Draftee.”

11 “Monarchs Halt Blue Devils,” Tampa Bay Times, March 28, 1968: 29.

12 Dick Brusie, “Blue Devils Lose; Tim Teer Stars,” Durham (North Carolina) Sun, March 28, 1968: 26.

13 “Baseball Still the Life for Former MLB Pitcher.”

14 “St. Leo Stuns FSU 3-2,” Tallahassee Democrat, March 10, 1969: 10.

15 “A King-Size Step for Monarchs,” Tampa Bay Times, April 18, 1969: 36.

16 “Baseball Still the Life for Former MLB Pitcher.”

17 U.S., Baseball Questionnaire, 1945-2005 for Frederick Dennis Cambria, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/74189:61599 (accessed April 2023).

18 “York Pirates Open 8-Game Road Trip at Elmira Tonight,” York (Pennsylvania) Dispatch, June 16, 1969: 21.

19 “York Pirates Top Phils, Hike EL Lead,” York Dispatch, June 26, 1969: 25.

20 “Pirates’ Rookie Hurls Perfect Game in Double Win,” York Dispatch, July 16, 1969: 36.

21 Fred Cambria, interview with Danny Torres, Talking 21, podcast audio, https://talkin-21-podcast.castos.com/episodes/s2-ep-11-fred-cambria.

22 “Major League Prospects for 1970,” York Dispatch, March 16, 1970: 28.

23 “Chris-Crossing,” Pittsburgh Press, March 31, 1970: 35.

24 Cambria, interview with Danny Torres.

25 John Agnello, “Major League Lesson,” Spirit Magazine, https://spirit.saintleo.edu/tag/fred-cambria/ (accessed February 2023); “St. Leo Jersey of Former Pittsburgh Pirate Fred Cambria ’70 Retired,” Community: News for the St. Leo University Community, https://community.saintleo.edu/2018/04/saint-leo-jersey-of-former-pittsburgh-pirate-fred-cambria-70-retired/ (accessed April 2023).

26 Craig Stolze, “Wings Whip Jets in Opener,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, April 18, 1970: 33.

27 “1st Complete Game for Jets,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, May 4, 1970: 39.

28 Bill Christine, “GM Brown Goes to Bat for Danny as Top Pilot,” Pittsburgh Press, August 28, 1970: 29.

29 “Pirates Welcome Blass Back, Lose Dock Ellis,” Tyrone (Pennsylvania) Daily Herald, August 15, 1970: 8.

30 “Pirates Buy Fred Cambria, Release Pena,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 20, 1970: 30; Cambria, telephone interview.

31 “Cambria Sparkles in 2-1 Loss: San Diego Stalls Pirates Again,” Pittsburgh Press, August 27, 1970: 45.

32 Chass, “A Former Mets Fan Returns as a Foe.”

33 “Banks to Miss Cubs’ Opener, Expos Give Up on Phillies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2, 1971: 25.

34 “Deleted, Tired Caps,” Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail, July 7, 1971: 19.

35 “Underhanded Experiment,” Charleston Daily Mail, May 17, 1972: 18.

36 Cambria, telephone interview.

37 Bill Christine, “Playing Games – Back to the Bushes,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, August 15, 1973: 27.

38 Cambria, telephone interview

39 Christine, “Playing Games.”

40 Eric Pate, “Seeking Stability, Monarchs Open ’90, Tampa Bay Times, February 3, 1990: 80.

41 Steve Persall, “St. Leo Hires Coach, Third in Three Years,” Tampa Bay Times, July 12, 1989: 67.

42 “Highlights in History: The Many Names of St. Leo,” https://www.saintleo.edu/about/stories/blog/highlights-in-history-the-many-names-of-saint-leo (accessed April 2023).

43 “Baseball Records,” https://saintleolions.com/sports/2017/8/1/baseball-records.aspx (accessed February 2023).

44 “Cambria Named HCBL Commissioner,” https://pointstreak.com/news_story.html?id=72187 (accessed February 2023).

45 Weiss, “Saint Leo Baseball to Retire Jersey of Its First MLB Draftee”; Cambria, Fred,” https://www.suffolksportshof.com/fred-cambria/ (accessed April 2023).

46 “Baseball Still the Life for Former MLB Pitcher.”

47 Cambria, telephone interview; Agnello, “Major League Lessons.”

James Lawrence Clinton was born on August 10, 1850, in New York City, the second child of 31-year-old Lawrence Joseph Clinton and 20-year-old Mary (McLaughlin) Clinton. Both parents emigrated to the United States from Ireland, and at the time of James’s birth, Mary’s 60-year-old mother, Ann McLaughlin, also lived with the family at their home in New York’s 17th Ward. The elder Clinton was a butcher, and census reports for at least the next 20 years listed his occupation as such. When he was born, James had a 1-year-old sister, Margaret, and Lawrence and Mary would eventually give him an additional seven siblings, the last being born in 1872.  

Jim Clinton’s earliest forays into the New York baseball scene came in the summer and fall of 1869, his first known appearance being on August 19, when he subbed for the Mutuals’ regular right fielder in a game against Ross, a Harlem-based club, and made four safe hits and scored six runs in a lopsided 49-5 Mutuals victory.1 

When the Mutuals opened their 1870 season on April 19, Clinton was at third base for an opposing picked nine.2 He showed up with the Oriental Club on April 27, when, it was reported, he “handsomely whitewashed the Eckfords by the good stops he made at short field, and his accurate throwing.”3 His first known pitching effort came on May 3, in the Orientals’ 29-5 loss to the Mutuals. Despite the overwhelming deficit, he was singled out as a “young player pitching with considerable judgement.”4 By September, he had upgraded to Brooklyn’s Eckfords, taking turns in both infield and outfield.

Clinton was with the Eckfords again at the beginning of the 1871 season, but by June 7 had taken up with another venerable Brooklyn club, the Atlantics, playing second, third, and the outfield in a dozen or so games through late September.

Clinton’s “big league” debut came in 1872. He was back with the Eckfords, who, along with the Atlantics, had paid the nominal $10 entry fee and officially joined the National Association. Clinton quickly became an Eckford regular, hitting safely in his first five games and demonstrating his versatility, appearing at second base, shortstop, third, catcher, and outfield.

His best offensive day came on June 21, versus the Mansfields of Middletown, Connecticut, when he stroked three hits in five trips to the plate, scored three runs, and knocked in one run. The next day, against these same Mansfields, Clinton made his first pitching start, going the full nine innings and suffering a 36-6 loss in which only seven of the Mansfield runs were earned. He spent most of the season at third base, playing in 25 games overall, the most on the club. The Eckfords had a miserable year, finishing 3-26, but, unlike five other weak NA franchises, they at least completed their schedule. 

In 1873 Clinton departed Brooklyn and joined the Resolutes of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a new co-op club in the National Association, making his first appearance on May 6. Referring to him as “Clinton of the old Eckfords,” the New York Clipper noted the improvement he provided at third base, praising his “sharp fielding.”5 The Resolutes never made it to the 1873 finish line, folding in early August with a 2-21 record. Clinton played in nine games, all at third base, including the August 7 finale in Brooklyn against the Mutuals. In its review of National Association third basemen, the Clipper stated, “Clinton did some good third-base play for the Resolute Club, but he was not kept in the position long enough. He is a very good and quite reliable player.”6 

With the Resolutes out of the NA, Clinton returned to the Atlantics for 1874. In their first official contest of the season, on May 5, Clinton played second base and notched two hits, two RBIs, and three runs as the Brooklynites crushed Baltimore, 24-3. Despite the impressive start, Clinton played only one more game with the Atlantics, on June 1, and then spent the remainder of 1874 with Reliance, a strong Brooklyn amateur club, playing mostly at shortstop but also appearing behind the plate and in the outfield. 

The Atlantics brought Clinton back into the fold at the start of the 1875 season, and on May 11 he made his first pitching appearance in nearly three years, facing the Athletics of Philadelphia on Brooklyn’s Union Grounds, the result being a 5-0 Atlantics loss, though only one of the five Athletic runs was earned. “Clinton threw the ball in by a plain underhand throw,” said the New York Clipper, and “he had speed and tolerable command of the ball; but he should avoid all the preliminary motions in delivery that he can; for the moment he makes one of these movements, and fails to follow it up by delivering the ball, he commits a balk.”7 The New York World noted that he pitched “very swiftly” and that his “pace bothered the Athletics so much that they appealed as to its legality and it was tested, and the delivery being found to be below the hip the umpire very properly ruled it as legal.”8 

The next to last in a string of nine consecutive pitching starts by Clinton resulted in the single win of his big-league career. On May 26, before a crowd of only about 100 at the Union Grounds, he faced off against Harry Luff of the New Haven club and, in what turned out to be the longest Atlantics game of the season (3 hours and 10 minutes), came out on the winning end of a 14-4 score. The two teams combined for 30 errors, and the Brooklyn Times Union drily summarized: “[T]he game was not over brilliantly played,” but also said that Clinton “pitched well.”9

On August 6, Clinton made his final start for the Atlantics, losing 13-0 to Hartford’s Tommy Bond. It was his worst defeat of the season, though only three of his opponents’ runs were earned. At this point, the Atlantics were 2-30, and would eventually finish 2-42. In light of the team’s performance, Clinton’s 1-13 record seems not so much an embarrassment as an inevitability. His 104 runs allowed in 123 innings look incongruous alongside his 2.41 ERA, but this was an era when gloveless fielders were still the norm and earned runs were typically outnumbered by unearned ones. He did complete nine of his 14 starts, and allowed no home runs.

Shortly after his final start, Clinton was released by the Atlantics,10 but was quickly picked up by the semipro Eagle Club of Louisville, Kentucky, debuting at third base in the club’s game of August 16. Two days later, the Eagles tested his pitching skills, sending him in to hurl the final three innings against the NA champion Boston Reds. “The Eagles would improve their nine by putting Clinton as regular pitcher,” opined the Clipper,11 and the team did just that. Clinton pitched consistently for the Eagles into early October, notching several wins.

On the day after Christmas, 1875, 25-year-old James Clinton married Lillian A. McKay, age 19. Lillie was born in New Jersey, to Richard and Frances McKay, the third youngest of their 10 children. Jim and Lillie eventually had three sons and one daughter of their own: James, Francis, Joseph, and Mary, born between 1877 and 1889. 

In March 1876 Clinton returned south, signing with a Memphis semipro team. He was named captain of the club. “In Jimmy Clinton the Olympic Club has secured the services of an excellent pitcher and as nice a gentleman, quiet and unobtrusive in his manners, as ever stepped on the ball field,” a newspaper observed.12 

The National League opened play in April 1876, and one of its eight entries was a club in Louisville, known as the Grays. The Grays visited Memphis the first week of April for a series of practice games with the Memphis club and must have been impressed by what they saw in Clinton, for they signed him to a contract later in the season.13 Although Clinton was tapped for pitching duty in a few exhibition games against amateurs and semipros, he quickly became the Grays’ regular right fielder. He made his only pitching start on the last day of Louisville’s season, October 5, an 11-2 complete-game loss to Candy Cummings and the Hartfords.   

His 16 games with Louisville would prove to be Clinton’s last major-league work for five years. In 1877 he landed with the Syracuse Stars, a club in the League Alliance.14 The Stars featured once and future major-league notables such as Pete Hotaling, Hick Carpenter, and Dick Higham. Frequently playing NL teams, they proved they could hold their own against the big leaguers. On May 4 they lost a 1-0 contest to the Anson- and Spalding-led Chicago White Stockings. Only three days earlier, they had participated in one of the most astonishing matches of the era: a 15-inning scoreless tie with the St. Louis Brown Stockings.15 On July 2 they shut out the Bostons 2-0, and they took revenge on Chicago with a 5-2 victory on August 31. Clinton played mostly outfield with the Stars but was occasionally used as the change pitcher, including on August 28, when he notched a 4-1 win against fellow Alliance club Indianapolis.

The 1878 season was a busy one for Clinton. His first engagement was with the New Haven club, a member of the International Association. The IA at the time was a sprawling organization that welcomed any and all professional teams, covering a wide swath of geography from Pennsylvania and upstate New York to New England and even into Canada. With the NL fielding a mere half-dozen teams in 1878, the IA was a force to be reckoned with, both in drawing power and on-field talent.  

Clinton played a handful of games with New Haven but was released in early May, then quickly hooked up with another IA club, the Alleghenys of Pittsburgh. Playing mostly outfield, but with a couple of relief pitching appearances, he was a regular with Allegheny until the team disbanded on June 8. He latched on with the Erie IA club shortly thereafter but it disbanded as well, in early July.

After umpiring a game between IA Hartford and the Brooklyn Witokas on July 9, Clinton was engaged as first baseman by Hartford, but made only three games with them before the club was expelled from the Association for failing to pay guaranteed gate receipts to a visiting team. He continued to umpire Brooklyn area games through mid-September, and then joined the co-op New York Club of the seven-team Metropolitan organization. His first game with the New Yorks was September 28. In his next outing, September 30, he racked up 10 putouts in left field. The Clipper said, “Clinton’s play in left field was the chief charm of the contest.”16 In all, he was with the New Yorks for probably fewer than 10 games, with a couple of pitching turns, before landing in late October on another local co-op, the Flyaways, with whom he finished the season.

In the early weeks of play in 1879, Clinton showed up in various picked nines and as a substitute for missing or injured players. He played one game for the reorganized Atlantics (still professional but no longer “major league”) in May, and then signed on as left fielder for the Jersey City Browns of the National Association (as the IA was now known after the disbandment of the Tecumsehs of Ontario). The Browns fielded a strong team that featured future big leaguers Dude Esterbrook, Dasher Troy, and Tom Poorman. One of Clinton’s best games came on August 19, when he connected for two triples in a 6-0 win over Springfield. In mid-October the Browns split a pair of games with the NL champion Providence Grays.

The Clipper lauded Clinton’s outfield work: “Clinton, who … played left field last season for the Jersey City Browns, had about the best fielding record in that position of all the professional players in the country, having missed but three catches, and those difficult ones, in seventy games; while he assisted the unusually large number of twenty-five times in retiring players on good throws from the outfield.”17 

Clinton’s first action in 1880 was in early May with the Albany NA club, which also included Lip Pike and Tim Keefe. After being released by the Albanys, he moved on to a new Brooklyn professional nine but he, along with the team, seemed to disappear from the arena after a May 31 game against Clinton’s ex-mates, the Jersey Citys. In August he played outfield on an ad hoc nine of local pros organized to participate in a three-team tourney with two top NA clubs, Washington and Rochester. Clinton made five hits in the series and drew praise for his fielding. 

The Clipper honored Clinton with a short bio and woodcut portrait in the edition of September 11, 1880, saying he was “at one time well known as a pitcher” and calling him “a faithful and earnest worker … quiet and gentlemanly.”18 

September and October proved to be the busiest months of the baseball season for Clinton, as he rejoined the Jersey City Browns for a half-dozen games and then moved on to the newly formed Metropolitan club of New York. On September 29 the Mets opened up New York’s first professional ball field, the Polo Grounds. Two days later, Clinton powered the Mets to a 7-3 victory over the Washington Nationals, blasting a two-run triple in the Mets’ four-run ninth inning. 

In October the Mets played several exhibition games against NL teams. In a series with the Worcesters, Clinton hit a home run off one of the League’s top pitchers, Lee Richmond. The Mets dropped the first three of a series with Troy, but won the final three, with Clinton tagging future Hall of Famer Mickey Welch for two hits, including a triple in the closer. 

Clinton was back with the Metropolitans as regular center fielder in 1881. Among his teammates were Dude Esterbrook, Mike Dorgan, and the “one-armed” pitcher, Hugh Daily. Over the course of their April-to-October schedule, the Mets surpassed all previous marks by playing 151 games. Clinton participated in nearly 100 games, the most by far for him in any season. After a loss to the Atlantic club on September 5, however, Clinton disappeared from the Mets lineup, Tom Mansell replacing him in center field for the remainder of the month. Clinton briefly renewed his membership with the Atlantics, joining the club on a Western tour to St. Louis and Louisville.

In early October, the Mets called him back to sub at first base for Esterbrook for four games, all against League clubs, but by the 11th, Esterbrook had returned and Clinton was relegated to umpiring duties for a Mets match with Troy. He bounced back to the Atlantics in mid-October, just in time for a series of games against the Mets, ostensibly for the “local championship.”19 His final appearances of the season came in the last week of October, playing center field for the Olympic Club of Paterson, New Jersey, in a couple of matches with – once again – the Metropolitans. The Clipper’s year-end review of the outfielding of 1881 hailed Clinton, Kennedy, and Roseman (all of the Mets), saying they had “borne off the palm by the splendid running catches each of them made.”20 

Clinton began the 1882 season at first base for the Atlantics, but when NL Worcester lost its first baseman to injury21 and moved left fielder Harry Stovey in to fill that position, Clinton was signed to fill the outfield vacancy. He joined the Central Massachusetts club in time for a series with the Chicago White Stockings, making three hits and scoring three runs to help the Worcesters take the first two games of the series. From there, however, the team nosedived, winning only one of their next 20 games. After a long rough patch – only 10 hits in 17 games through July 4 – Clinton went missing from the Worcester lineup for most of July. He finally returned in games versus Providence and Boston in the final week of the month, his season highlight coming July 28 with two hits and two runs in a wild 12-11 win over Boston. After playing left field in a loss to the Detroit Wolverines on August 7, Clinton was released by Worcester. Within a week, he was back with the Metropolitans as they began a series of exhibition games with visiting NL teams that included wins over Detroit, Buffalo, Troy, and Providence. 

In 1883 the sophomore campaign of the American Association, Clinton signed with the Baltimore Orioles, and it turned out to be his career year – the best he ever enjoyed at the plate. He led the Orioles in nearly every offensive category, and finished in the AA’s top 10 in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging average, hits, singles, and walks. He played in 94 of the Orioles’ 96 games, almost all in left field. 

The month of July was especially hot for Clinton, including a 4-for-4 day against Columbus and 4-for-6 with three runs against Pittsburgh. In a July 19 tilt with the Athletics, he went 4-for-5 with five runs, including a single to start a three-run ninth-inning rally that gave the Baltimores a 10-9 victory. The highlight of the Orioles’ season was a four-game sweep of Louisville in late August. After drawing a blank in the first match, Clinton went 8-for-15 the rest of the way, with three doubles, a triple, and seven runs scored. 

Clinton’s numbers fell off in 1884, but he remained one of the Orioles’ best hitters, leading the regulars with a .270 batting average and a .334 on-base percentage, and hitting the only four home runs of his career. Alternating between left field and center field, he appeared in 104 of 108 games. His five double plays ranked second among AA outfielders.

By early November 1884, word was out that Clinton’s days in Baltimore were numbered. In a letter dated November 3 and printed in the Clipper, he set the record straight about his move:

“Dear Sir: Please allow me to contradict through your paper a statement regarding

myself, made by the Baltimore correspondent of a Philadelphia paper, in which he

assigns my main object in choosing Cincinnati in preference to Baltimore as a city to play

in to be the size of the salary. It has never been a question of money between Manager

Barnie and myself. I asked for my release simply on account of the continued ill-health of

my wife, for whom a change of air was recommended as being highly beneficial. But

some people seem to know more about my business than I do myself.”22  

The pundits in Porkopolis approved, writing, “In Clinton the home nine have secured a daisy”23 and “In Clinton and Baldwin the club have two good batters, the former being the equal of such men as Carpenter, McPhee and Corkhill.”24  

While Clinton struggled at the plate for the first month of 1885, his fielding prowess left an immediate mark, as in the Reds’ 2-1 win over St. Louis on April 21: 

“The king of the occasion, however, was Clinton. His center field work today has never

been excelled even by Corkhill. Such fly catches as he made off three balls are seldom

seen in a season. … In the ninth inning their first two batters hit safe; the next flied out 

to Jones. Then Clinton made the greatest fly catch of the day, two inches from the 

ground on the dead run. A double play was easy, as both base runners were almost 

home.”25  

Sadly, 1885 was to bring personal tragedy to Jim Clinton, and the first hint of something amiss came in early July when he missed four consecutive games. The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette explained: “Clinton’s wife and children are sick at their home in Baltimore. He left last night for that place on a leave of absence.”26 Within a month, he fell ill himself, but continued playing, the Gazette noting: “Clinton and McPhee have been suffering from malaria for three weeks past, yet both manage to play excellent ball.”27 

Two weeks later, the Reds hosted league-leading St. Louis for a three-game series. Clinton played the opener on August 22, but the next day “was at home anxiously watching by the bedside of a very sick child.”28 Four-year-old Frankie Clinton died on the evening of August 25. In the series finale, “in token of their sorrow for their comrade’s loss the Cincinnati players wore crape on their left arms.”29 Clinton returned to the diamond on August 28. The Gazette said: “Jimmy showed that he was not feeling well, but he did the best he could. The warm sympathy of the crowd was expressed for him by a general yet quiet applause, which arose when he went to bat for the first time.”30 

Released at his own request31 at the end of October, Clinton was a 35-year-old free agent as the 1886 season opened. He was appointed in early May to replace a resigning Association umpire, and through the third week of the month worked almost daily. But a match at Washington Park, Brooklyn, between visiting St. Louis and the Dodgers may well have been the low point of Clinton’s career on the diamond. Making a bad call or two early in the game, he became so rattled by the crowd’s backlash that he allowed his judgment to be clouded, leading to further mistakes.32 The local gamblers, seeing their team jump to an early lead, had “invested at odds on the success of the Brooklyns” but then grew ever more agitated as the bad play of the Dodgers and Clinton’s shaky work doomed their chances.33 As the last out of the 7-4 St. Louis victory was tallied, the mob was ready to pounce. The Brooklyn players, along with club President Byrne and a contingent of police, shielded Clinton and escorted him to safety.34 After umpiring games in Philadelphia and New York the next two days, Clinton tendered his resignation and returned home to Baltimore.35 

Two weeks after doffing his arbiter’s attire, Clinton was patrolling center field again in an Orioles uniform. He made a good start, with a couple of multihit games in his first few outings, but a return to 1883 batting form was not in the offing. In mid-July, after a disastrous 3-13 Western road trip, manager Billy Barnie released three players, including Clinton. He had fielded reputably, as always, but batted a mere .181. Even on a team with a collective .204 batting average, it had been a disappointing 23-game stint. He finished the season with another of his former teams, the Jersey Citys of the Eastern League.36  

Though he had taken his final bow as a major leaguer, Clinton was not yet finished in professional ball. He was engaged by Nashville of the Southern League in early 1887 as its left fielder37 and, beginning in May, added managerial duties.38 Before financial instability forced the club to disband on August 2, Clinton played 49 games with Nashville, topping all regulars with a .389 batting average and stealing 25 bases. He went home to Brooklyn at this point,39 but before month’s end was headed back to the Southern League, engaged this time by the Birmingham Club.40 Once again he was called upon to carry out dual duties as manager and outfielder. Still performing at a high level with the bat, he completed the season with Birmingham batting .336.

Signing on as player-manager of the Manchester (New Hampshire) Club of the New England League, Clinton had high hopes for 1888. At a benefit for the club in March, he proclaimed: “We don’t want the earth; only a small portion of it; we want the championship of the New England League.”41 Calling Clinton “one of the very old-timers,” the Boston Globe noted that he “can still hit the ball and field with the best of them.”42 

The good feelings were not to last, however, and Clinton batting .315 was not enough to lift his team out of its doldrums. By late June, the Manchesters’ record was 18-21 and the club was at the bottom of the NEL standings. An uncharacteristically angry Clinton even drew a $10 fine for using bad language to an umpire.43 He was released by the Manchesters in early July. The Boston Globe opined that he had “made a bad mistake” going to the team in the first place.44   

Although rumors of offers from Charleston and Atlanta of the Southern League floated about in early 1889,45 there would be no return trip south. Instead, on March 19, Clinton was appointed an umpire in the Atlantic Association, one of the minor leagues governed by the National Agreement.46 This stint lasted only about two months and ended with Clinton being “removed” from the Atlantic Association’s umpiring crew in mid-June. The exact cause of removal is not known, but the report of an early season Boston-Jersey City match hints at problems: “Jim Clinton, formerly of the Manchesters, umpired, and his work, in the main, was pretty bad. He made some very telling decisions and the clubs suffered about alike. … Kelly was hit by a pitched ball, but the umpire did not see it. … Clinton made an outrageous decision in calling Kelly out at second. …”47 

The Clipper reported in July, “The veteran James L. Clinton says that he has given up umpiring, and wants to get an engagement again as a player with one of the minor league teams.”48 There is no evidence he ever made any inroads on this wish, though speculation persisted as late as 1896 that he could return to the umpiring ranks.49 

Though no longer directly involved in organized ball, Clinton kept up with current happenings. He was among the “prominent persons” at the February 1894 NL-AA meeting,50 one of the “interested persons” at the Eastern League meeting in December 1895,51 and among “the baseball men seen around the corridors” at the annual NL spring meeting in February 1896.52 

Clinton’s eldest son, James Jr., for a time sought to follow in his father’s footsteps. He had a tryout with New Haven of the Connecticut State League in 1899, then moved on to Norwich, also of the Connecticut league, and Newark of the Atlantic League, playing a total of about 30 games for the season.53 The next year he joined Petersburg of the Virginia League, batting .259 in 36 games, until the team disbanded in June. His baseball career was brief and, more sadly, so was his life. James Jr. became the second of Jim and Lillie’s children to predecease his parents, dying on May 6, 1901, of scarlet fever, at the age of 23. His obituary referred to his father as “one of the best known old-time ball players in this section of the country.”54 

A December 1896 notice in the Brooklyn Times Union proclaimed: “Good News For Mr. Clinton,” explaining that Clinton, “who is identified with the management of a Thirteenth ward hotel,” had just received word from a law firm in Oakland that land he and a fellow Atlantics player bought on a Western tour in 1874 had increased in value to $20,000. The surprised Clinton asserted that either he or his friend would “go on to Oakland to investigate,” hoping that an even “better price might be secured.”55 It is not known what came of this venture.

Clinton was a bartender in multiple New York establishments from at least 1900 onward. A brief note in the Daily Eagle said he was “in business in the Eastern District” in 1897.56 A 1907 newspaper blurb about a friend of Clinton’s, a welterweight boxer named Kid Williams, discloses that Clinton was then bartending at J.P. Stanton’s Cafe at the Lincoln Hotel in Queens.57 

At the time of the 1905 New York State Census, the two youngest Clinton children, Joseph and Mary, were still living with their parents in Brooklyn. By 1910, Mary was the last child still at home, age 20, employed as a stenographer. Wife Lillian died on January 16, 1914, at the age of 57. 

Finally, the Brooklyn Standard Union of Tuesday, September 6, 1921, carried the following obituary notice for the old-time ballplayer who had died the preceding Saturday, September 3, at the age of 71: 

“Funeral services are being held today for James L. Clinton, former member of the

Baltimore Orioles, who died Saturday at his home, 768 Grand street. Interment will be 

made this afternoon at Calvary Cemetery.”58 

Jim Clinton’s obituary oddly singled out his time with the Baltimore club, to the exclusion even of the many Brooklyn teams for whom he toiled. His connection to the City of Monuments was also evident in the wistful poetic exercise of a Baltimore Sun reader who, in 1912, versified a vision of his youth in Baltimore, surveying a myriad of people and places he remembered there from the “eighties”:

I tell you, folks, this dream took me to every part of town.

I even saw a baseball game out on the York road lot –

Bob Emslie in the pitcher’s box, with Henderson and Trott.

I saw old Traffley, Fulmer, York and Jimmy Clinton, too;

This bunch looked good to all the fans ’round eighteen eighty-two.59

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted 

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

Familysearch.org

StatsCrew.com/minorbaseball

Nemec, David. Major League Baseball Profiles: 1871-1900, Volume 1 (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, 2011).

Notes 

1 He is also very likely the third baseman identified as “Clayton” and “Cloton” “playing for the amateur Orientals of New York on September 30 and October 16.

2 New York Clipper, April 30, 1870: 29.

3 New York Clipper, May 7, 1870: 36.

4 New York Clipper, May 14, 1870: 45.

5 New York Clipper, May 17, 1873: 53. 

6 New York Clipper, March 14, 1874: 397.

7 New York Clipper, May 22, 1875: 61.

8 New York World, May 12, 1875: 8.

9 Brooklyn Times Union, May 27, 1875: 3.

10 New York Clipper, August 28, 1875: 170.

11 New York Clipper, August 28, 1875: 173.

12 Louisville Courier-Journal, March 17, 1876: 4.

13 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 26, 1876: 8.

14 New York Clipper, November 10, 1883: 559, and Chicago Daily Tribune, March 4, 1877: 8. The League Alliance consisted of about a dozen “minor” professional and semipro clubs in different sections of the country, affiliated through an agreement with the NL meant to protect players (and teams) from contract raiding.

15 New York Clipper, May 12, 1877: 50. “For the first time in the history of the national game fifteen innings had been played without a run being credited to either side.” 

16 New York Clipper, October 12, 1878: 229.

17 New York Clipper, November 29, 1879: 282.

18 New York Clipper, September 11, 1880: 197. 

19 New York Herald, October 17, 1881: 11.

20 New York Clipper, December 31, 1881: 676.

21 New York Clipper, June 10, 1882: 191.

22 New York Clipper, November 8, 1884: 540.

23 Cincinnati Post, November13, 1884: 3.

24 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 13, 1885: 8.

25 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 22, 1885: 6.

26 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, July 8, 1885: 3.

27 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 11, 1885: 3.

28 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 24, 1885: 2.

29 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 27, 1885: 3.

30 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 29, 1885: 6.

31 New York Clipper, October 31, 1885: 522.

32 Sporting Life, May 26, 1886: 5; New York Clipper, May 29, 1886: 164.

33 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 20, 1886: 2.

34 New York Tribune, May 20, 1886: 2.

35 Baltimore Sun, May 28, 1886: 2, Supplement.

36 Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 14, 1886: 5.

37 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 20, 1887: 7.

38 The Sporting News, May 21, 1887: 4.

39 The Sporting News, August13, 1887: 1.

40 The Sporting News, August 27, 1887: 4.

41 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 18, 1888: 6.

42 Boston Globe, May 11, 1888: 11.

43 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 27, 1888: 6.

44 Boston Globe, July 10, 1888: 5.

45 Philadelphia Times, March 17, 1889: 16; The Sporting News, March 30, 1889: 5.

46 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 20, 1889: 4, and April 19, 1889: 1.

47 Boston Herald, April 19, 1889: 4.

48 New York Clipper, July 6, 1889: 277.

49 St. Louis Republic, December 18, 1889: 6; Kentucky Post, December 20, 1895: 7; New York Clipper, January 4, 1896: 699.

50 New York Clipper, March 10, 1894: 9.

51 New York Clipper, December 21, 1895: 668.

52 Boston Globe, February 25, 1896: 2.

53 His obituary in the Brooklyn Times Union says he played in the Virginia League in 1900 and with Newark the year before (1899). StatsCrew.com lists “James Clinton” with New Haven in 1899 and with Petersburg, Virginia, in 1900. But it also lists a “Henry Clinton” with Norwich and Newark in 1899. It would appear that he played under the second name for parts of 1899, and that James and Henry must be the same person.

54 Brooklyn Times Union, May 7, 1901: 8.

55 Brooklyn Times Union, December 11, 1896: 1.

56 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 12, 1897: 9.

57 Middletown Orange County Times Press, July 19, 1907: 2.

58 Brooklyn Standard Union, September 6, 1921: 4.

59 Baltimore Sun, February 25, 1912: 26. The poem, “A Child Just for a Night,” was signed “Peter A. Fahey, Cleveland, Ohio, 1912.” The author was slightly off in assigning the date of 1882 to the players named in the poem. Clinton, Henderson, and Emslie didn’t join the Orioles until 1883; Trott, York, and Traffley, not until 1884; Fulmer, not until 1886. All but Fulmer did play together in Baltimore in 1884.