Rube Vickers

In the minors from 1902 to 1914, pitcher Rube Vickers achieved an impressive 217-134 record.1 His numbers were extraordinary in 1906: 517 innings pitched, 409 strikeouts, and 39 wins for Seattle in the Pacific Coast League.2 In 1908, his only full season in the majors, he posted an 18-19 record for the Philadelphia Athletics. Vickers was quite a talker, boastful and long-winded. It was said that he had “more gab” than “two teams put together.”3

Harry Porter Vickers was born on May 17, 1879, in Michigan, near Pittsford in Hillsdale County, about 12 miles north of the Ohio border. He was the elder child of D’Arcy Vickers, a farmer and mason, and Ella E. (Whitbeck) Vickers, and he had a sister Edna. It is known that he grew up near Pittsford, but little else has been discovered about his early years.

From 1899 to 1901, Vickers pitched for semipro teams in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. In 1900 he pitched also for Hillsdale College4 and had a one-game trial with Toledo in the Class B Interstate League.5 His minor-league career began in earnest in 1902 when he compiled a 19-17 record in 321 innings for Rock Island and Terre Haute in the Class B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League.

Vickers was a big man, about 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds.6 He was a right-handed pitcher with a “smooth, easy motion,”7 and he delivered his fastball and curves with the same graceful motion. Drafted by the Cincinnati Reds,8 he made his major-league debut in the second game of a doubleheader at St. Louis on September 21, 1902. The game was called after five innings due to darkness. He allowed one earned run and three hits in the five innings, but the Reds were defeated by the Cardinals, 2-1. The next day he hurled a nine-inning, four-hit shutout in an exhibition game against Muncie, Indiana, and the Reds prevailed, 14-0.9

In the eyes of his Cincinnati teammates, the rookie Vickers from rural Michigan was a hayseed, and they gave him a nickname that stuck, “Rube.”10 He appeared in three more games with the Reds at the tail end of the 1902 season, and each was in Pittsburgh against the Pirates, the strongest team in the majors. In the first, on September 27, he surrendered nine earned runs and 19 hits in eight innings, and the Reds were beaten, 13-6. At the plate that day, he hit a single and double off Pirates ace Jack Chesbro. The double sailed over the head of center fielder Ginger Beaumont; Vickers fell rounding first base or he might have had a triple.11 Sources disagree on whether he was a right- or left-handed batter.

On October 3, Vickers pitched again opposite Chesbro and lost, 5-1. The Pirates, with this victory, tied the major-league record for wins in a season with 102. With one game remaining in the season on October 4, they were eager to play the game and break the record. The Reds, however, did not want to play that day, because the Pittsburgh ball field had become a swampy mess after an all-night rain. When forced to play, they made a mockery of the contest.12

The Reds fielded a nonsensical lineup with several players out of position. Jake Beckley was the starting pitcher. A veteran first baseman, Beckley had not pitched in any of his previous 1,876 major-league games. The strangest assignment, though, was Vickers as the starting catcher. In the four innings he worked behind the plate, he was charged with six passed balls,13 reputedly setting a major-league record for most passed balls in one game. His teammates howled with delight when, after a passed ball, he nonchalantly pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose before he retrieved the ball.14 The final score was Pittsburgh 11, Cincinnati 2.

Prior to the 1903 season, Vickers was transferred to the Brooklyn Superbas of the National League, and after two relief appearances for Brooklyn in the spring, he was sent to Holyoke, Massachusetts, in the Class D Connecticut League. Except for a brief return to Brooklyn in July, he pitched for Holyoke that year, and his 22-10 record helped the team win the pennant. In a postseason playoff series, Holyoke defeated Lowell, Massachusetts, champions of the Class B New England League, four games to two. Vickers won all three games he pitched in the series and struck out 14 in the deciding sixth game.15

In 1904 Vickers pitched for Holyoke until he was declared ineligible in July because of an unexplained debt to Brooklyn of $295 (about $10,000 in 2025 dollars).16 Unable to pay the debt, he spent the remainder of the season in the independent Northern League. His cumulative season record was 27-15: 17-10 for Holyoke and 10-5 in the Northern League for Burlington and Montpelier-Barre, Vermont.17 On October 11, 1904, the 25-year-old Vickers married 21-year-old Jessie Ann Sargent of Holyoke.18

Vickers pitched for three teams in 1905. His debt to Brooklyn was settled, and he began the season with Holyoke, but in June he jumped to Burlington in the Northern League.19 In September he joined Seattle in the Class A Pacific Coast League (PCL). He pitched more than 500 innings in total with a combined 35-22 record.20

As a workhorse, Vickers was unrivaled. In 1906 he was 39-20 pitching solely for Seattle and led PCL pitchers in games (64), innings (517), wins (39), and strikeouts (409). In the second game of a doubleheader on April 15, 1906, he pitched a six-hit shutout at San Francisco.21 He and his teammates went to Los Angeles afterwards, before the devastating San Francisco earthquake of April 18.

On May 30, in the first game of a doubleheader at Seattle, Vickers struck out 14 Los Angeles batters but lost 3-1.22 Two weeks later in Seattle, he fanned 16 in a 6-2 victory over Los Angeles. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer gleefully reported “the mighty doings of the spectacular Rube.”23 Among his nine shutouts in 1906 were a pair of two-hitters against Fresno on June 21 and September 26.24 Drafted by the Philadelphia Athletics,25 he was headed back to the majors.

The Chicago White Sox won the 1906 World Series, and they soundly beat the Athletics, 6-0, on May 9, 1907. Vickers watched that game intently from the bench and declared that he was unimpressed with the White Sox. “I don’t see where they come in to be the world’s champions,” he said. Athletics manager Connie Mack replied, “Well, if you feel that way about them, I’ll start you” against them on May 11. The first six White Sox batters to face Vickers that day hit line drives, and five runs were scored. “That’s how the Sox came to be champions,” said Mack to the humbled Vickers.26

“Before a game Vickers will spend hours telling how easily he will win his game,” said Mack, and “five minutes after the game starts, he will begin explaining why he can’t win it.”27 After Vickers had appeared in eight contests for the Athletics, Mack sent him to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in the Class B Tri-State League.

In 301 innings pitched for Williamsport in 1907,28 Vickers achieved a 25-9 record. On the Fourth of July, he showed “iron man” endurance by completing and winning both games of a doubleheader, a total of 20 innings pitched in one day as the second game went 11 innings.29 The Tri-State season ended on September 14, and Williamsport won the championship.

Vickers’ fine work earned him a late-season call-up to the Athletics. On October 5, the last day of the Athletics’ season, he won both games of a doubleheader at Washington. In the first game he allowed one run in 12 innings of relief. He started the second contest, which was ended by darkness after five innings, and threw a perfect game. These were his first two major-league wins.

The Athletics finished second in 1907 but dropped to sixth the following year. The team batting average fell from .255 in 1907 to .223 in 1908. Four pitchers won 16 or more games in 1907, but only Vickers, with an 18-19 record, accomplished that for the 1908 team.

Mack used Vickers as a starter and reliever. In 1908 he started 34 games and led the majors with 19 relief appearances. As a starter, his record was 12-17 with six shutouts, and opponents batted .243 against him. As a reliever, he was 6-2, and opponents hit only .188. His value to the team is reflected in his Wins Above Replacement (WAR) score of 6.2, which ranks fifth among American League pitchers that year, behind Hall of Famers Ed Walsh, Cy Young, Addie Joss, and Eddie Plank, and ahead of Walter Johnson.

Among the highlights of Vickers’ 1908 season were: beating Cy Young and the Boston Red Sox on May 4; pitching consecutive shutouts against the Washington Senators on June 29 and Boston Red Sox on July 4; and throwing a 10-inning shutout against the Cleveland Naps on July 23. He lost to Cleveland, 3-2, on August 25; the Athletics’ center fielder that day was Shoeless Joe Jackson in his major-league debut.

Mack surely appreciated Vickers’ contribution, but managing Vickers was a challenge. Years later, Mack recalled: “That Vickers was a great one. A great fibber. He got so bad that I had to tell him to stop. ‘No more lying, Rube, or you’re done here,’ I said. He promised solemnly. And what do you think? Before I left him, he had told me the biggest fib of all!”30

Mack added: “Vickers always claimed to be the best of anything a person might mention. He once boasted he was a great sailor and asked if I’d let him take some of the boys out on the Delaware. ‘Yes, you can take them out,’ I said, ‘and I’ll pick the players to go.’ We had a pretty bad club that year.”31

The Athletics rebounded strongly in 1909 and finished second, but Vickers’ role was greatly diminished. Mack kept him in reserve. He pitched infrequently, almost entirely in relief, and was mostly ineffective. Opponents batted .304 against him. On October 2, 1909, in the second half of a doubleheader, Vickers pitched his final major-league game, a 7-2 complete-game victory over the Senators. In his major-league career, he compiled a 22-27 record and 2.93 ERA in 458 innings. That winter he was sold for $2,50032 (about $85,000 in 2025 dollars) to the Baltimore Orioles of the Class A Eastern League. Vickers needed regular work to be successful, and he would get it on the Orioles.

Vickers appeared in 55 games for the 1910 Orioles and compiled a 25-24 record. The 31-year-old hurler pitched 364 innings, second most in the league behind the 408 worked by a legend, Newark’s 39-year-old pitcher-manager, “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity. Vickers led the league in losses, but only McGinnity had more wins (30). And Vickers’ 214 strikeouts were exceeded only by the 219 tallied by his teammate, Lefty Russell.33

With a shutout of Newark on July 9, 1910, Vickers defeated McGinnity, 5-0.34 Eight days later, with Connie Mack looking on, Vickers shut out Jersey City, and the Baltimore Sun said, “Rube’s curves broke like a square and his straight ball fairly jumped as it passed the batter.”35 In August, the Sun announced that Vickers was working on a new pitch which he called a “thumb ball.” It was released with the fingers underneath and the thumb on top, and it dropped like a spitter and acted as a change of pace.36 He reportedly used his new pitch in delivering a three-hit shutout of Newark on September 12.37

For the 1911 Orioles, Vickers achieved a sterling 32-14 record and led Eastern League pitchers in games (57), innings (369), and wins (32). Opponents batted .225 against him.38 He was now the league’s leading “iron man.” On June 8, he beat Newark, 2-1, in a 12-inning duel with McGinnity.39 And he won four games in a span of six days, September 7 to 12, including two shutouts of Jersey City40 and victories in both games of a doubleheader against Providence.41

In 1911 Vickers was on top of his game. But he experienced arm trouble beginning in the spring of 1912,42 and that season opponents hit .293 against him43 as he labored to a 13-14 record. He feuded with Orioles manager Jack Dunn and was fined repeatedly.44 Dunn grew disgusted with him, and Sporting Life called him a “fast-fading hurler.”45

Vickers was outraged by the contract he was offered by Dunn for the 1913 season, which reduced his pay by half if he failed to keep in condition and win a certain percentage of his games. “The greatest pitcher in minor league baseball should be more appreciated,” he said indignantly.46

The self-proclaimed “greatest pitcher in minor league baseball” had more arm trouble in the spring of 1913.47 He appeared in only one game with the Orioles, a disastrous start against Rochester on April 19 in which he didn’t make it through the first inning.48 Soon after, Dunn sold him to Syracuse, a demotion to the Class B New York State League, but he refused to report, claiming “a lame arm.”49 He emerged later that year in industrial league ball, winning five of the six games he pitched for a team representing the Carnegie Steel Company of Baltimore.50

In the spring of 1914, Vickers went to Augusta, Georgia, where he worked out with, but was not a member of, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he declared that he could win 20 games for any club in any league. Regarding this claim, the Brooklyn Times declared that he was “nuts.”51 That year he pitched a meager 23 innings for the Jersey City Skeeters of the Class AA International League and opponents batted .426 against him.52 On September 21, 1914, he pitched a complete game against Providence and was defeated 8-3. Nineteen-year-old Babe Ruth pitched for Providence that day and struck out 11 Jersey City batters.53

Vickers pitched for semipro teams off-and-on from 1915 to 1922, and he had a brief and unsuccessful stint as manager of a Kalamazoo, Michigan, team in the Class B Central League in 1920.54 He was a salesman for many years, and he and his wife raised two sons: Ellsworth, born in 1908, and Robert, born in 1915. The family resided in Hillsdale County, Michigan.

On December 9, 1958, Vickers died at a convalescent home in Belleville, Michigan. He was 79. He was interred at the Leonardson Memorial Cemetery in Pittsford.55

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Tony Oliver.

Sources

Ancestry.com, Baseball-Reference.com, and Retrosheet.org, accessed in September 2025.

Photo Credit

Photo of Rube Vickers on the 1907 Philadelphia Athletics from page 6 of the May 25, 1907, issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Notes

1 SABR, Minor League Baseball Stars, Volume II (Manhattan, Kansas: Ag Press, 1985), 155.

2 SABR, Minor League Baseball Stars, Volume II, 155.

3 “Glorious Victory Won,” Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript, May 26, 1903: 6.

4 “Albion, 4; Hillsdale, 2,” Chicago Tribune, May 1, 1900: 7.

5 “Double-header,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 10, 1900: 10.

6 Vickers’ World War II draft registration gives his height as 6 feet, 3½ inches. In 1903 he weighed 197 pounds according to “Nutmeg League Tips,” New London (Connecticut) Day, August 3, 1903: 2.

7 “Champions Hit the Ball.”

8 “New Superbas Need Introduction to Fans,” Brooklyn Eagle, April 12, 1903: 7.

9 “All That’s Doing in the World of Sports,” Muncie (Indiana) Times, September 23, 1902: 6.

10 “Reds Twirler Given an Awful Hard Bumping,” Pittsburgh Gazette, September 28, 1902: Sports, 1.

11 “Champions Hit the Ball,” Pittsburgh Post, September 28, 1902: 2-2.

12 “Farcical Was Season’s Close,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 5, 1902: 10.

13 “Reds Made Farce Out of Finish,” Pittsburg Press, October 5, 1902: 18.

14 “Last Game of the Season,” Pittsburgh Post, October 5, 1902: 2-2.

15 “Holyoke Won 1st Game,” Holyoke Transcript, September 15, 1903: 3; “New England Champion,” New Haven (Connecticut) Journal Courier, September 19, 1903: 1; “Two Championships Attained by Holyoke,” New London Day, September 21, 1903: 2.

16 “Player Vickers Must Also Pay,” Sporting Life, July 30, 1904: 1.

17 “Northern League Pitchers,” Rutland (Vermont) Herald, September 19, 1904: 3.

18 “Neath Autumn Leaves,” Holyoke Transcript, October 12, 1904: 6.

19 “Rube Vickers Signs with Holyoke Team,” New London (Connecticut) Day, April 10, 1905: 2; “Rube Fined $300 and Suspended,” Holyoke Transcript, June 26, 1905: 3.

20 Estimated by the author. Vickers’ record for Burlington was reported to be 12-9 in: “The Pitching Records,” Burlington (Vermont) Free Press and Times, August 29, 1905: 3.

21 “Wildness of Nick Williams Brings Defeat to the Seals,” San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1906: 9.

22 “Vickers Strikes Out Fourteen,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 31, 1906: 3.

23 “Vickers Pitches Magnificent Game,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 14, 1906: 3.

24 “Rube Vickers in Limelight Alone,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 22, 1906: 3; “Siwashes Win in Fast Game,” Fresno Republican, September 27, 1906: 12.

25 “Local Jottings,” Sporting Life, December 1, 1906: 2.

26 “What Connie Mack Recalls about Old ‘Rube Vickers,’” Holyoke Transcript and Telegram, June 2, 1933: 9.

27 Francis C. Richter, “The Crucial Week,” Sporting Life, September 28, 1907: 4.

28 SABR, Minor League Baseball Stars, Volume II, 155.

29 Sporting Life, July 20, 1907: 14.

30 Ivan H. Peterman, “Connie Mack Retains Youthful Enthusiasm,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Times, September 4, 1933: 13.

31 “What Connie Mack Recalls about Old ‘Rube Vickers.’”

32 “Dunn Buys Vickers,” Baltimore Sun, January 14, 1910: 10.

33 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1911 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co., 1911), 299, 300.

34 “Orioles Win and Lose,” Baltimore Sun, July 10, 1910: 10.

35 “Orioles Win and Lose,” Baltimore Sun, July 18, 1910: 9.

36 “Rube Vickers’ New Ball,” Baltimore Sun, August 30, 1910: 10.

37 “Orioles Get Revenge,” Baltimore Sun, September 13, 1910: 10.

38 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1912 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co., 1912), 259.

39 “Long Game to Birds,” Baltimore Sun, June 9, 1911: 12.

40 “Vickers in Real Form,” Baltimore Sun, September 8, 1911: 10; “Birds Blank ’Em Twice,” Baltimore Sun, September 11, 1911: 10.

41 “Vickers an Iron Man,” Baltimore Sun, September 13, 1911: 10.

42 “Rube Vickers Home,” Baltimore Sun, May 14, 1912: 6; Cabell F. Fitzgerald, “Matter of Waivers Would Have Been Secret with Dunn,” Baltimore Sun, June 3, 1912: 8.

43 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1913 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co., 1913), 241.

44 “Sporting Notes,” Ottawa (Ontario) Citizen, August 23, 1912: 9; “Rube Vickers Is Sore,” Buffalo Enquirer, January 3, 1913: 8.

45 Sporting Life, September 14, 1912: 15.

46 “Rube Vickers Is Sore.”

47 “News Notes,” Sporting Life, March 29, 1913: 15.

48 Sporting Life, April 26, 1913: 14.

49 “Rube Vickers Suspended,” Buffalo Enquirer, May 14, 1913: 8.

50 “Vickers and Schauefele Are the Leading Pitchers,” Baltimore Sun, October 8, 1913: 12.

51 “Breezy Briefs from Augusta,” Brooklyn Times, March 12, 1914: 4.

52 Sporting Life, January 2, 1915: 21.

53 “Babe Ruth Beats Rube Vickers in Final Half,” Buffalo Courier, September 22, 1914: 10.

54 “Vickers Released by Kazoo Club,” Grand Rapids (Michigan) Press, June 25, 1920: 24.

55 “Necrology,” The Sporting News, December 24, 1958: 22; “Harry (Rube) Vickers,” Toledo Blade, December 10, 1958: 51.