John Fitzgerald

“Pitchers by the name of Fitzgerald are becoming confusingly numerous,” grumbled Sporting Life in late July 1891.1 Occasioning the baseball weekly’s consternation was likely the recent acquisition of pitcher John Fitzgerald by the Boston Reds of the major league American Association. Simultaneously pitching elsewhere in major or high minor league baseball were Fitzgeralds named Warren (Louisville Colonels/American Association); Dennis (late of the 1890 AA Philadelphia Athletics); Jim (Sioux City Cornhuskers/Western Association); Joe (Lebanon Cedars/Eastern Association), and another John (late of the 1890 AA Rochester Broncos and with whom the Reds new pitcher was occasionally confused).2

Our Fitzgerald’s stay in the big time was brief: six games. Indeed, his entire professional career encompassed only three seasons (1891-1893), plus one-game minor league auditions in 1894 and 1895. Thereafter, Fitzgerald repaired to the workaday world, spending most of his time in the meat packing and processing industry. In March 1921 he succumbed to tuberculosis at age 50. His story follows.

Both the biographical and the baseball record for our subject are sketchy. But the available evidence reveals that John Henry Fitzgerald was born on May 30, 1870, in Natick, Massachusetts, a small town just west of Boston. He was the fifth of at least seven children3 born to shoe factory worker John H. Fitzgerald (born 1838) and his wife Johanna (née Reed, b. 1843), both Irish Catholic immigrants. Little is known of young John’s youth, but he was probably educated in neighborhood public schools through the eighth grade and thereafter joined his father and older brothers working in local shoemaking plants.

As with his boyhood, little was discovered about Fitzgerald’s entry into the game. The presumption, however, is that he got his start on thriving Boston-area sandlots and subsequently graduated to amateur ball, eventually playing for the Woven Hose club of Cambridge.4 Fitz first attracted public notice in 1891, pitching for the Salem (Massachusetts) club in the minor New England League.5 Regrettably, neither during his time with Salem nor thereafter did the press supply posterity with such basic info as Fitzgerald’s height, weight, throwing arm, and batting side. All we know is that he was once described as “long, lean and lanky,”6 and that, in all probability, he was a right-handed thrower.

On May 2, 1891, Fitzgerald made an impressive professional debut with Salem, shutting out NEL rival Lynn (Massachusetts) on five hits while striking out seven in a 4-0 whitewash.7 A newspaper account of a later 9-2 victory over Worcester provided a glimpse of Fitzgerald’s pitching repertoire: “At the first of the game he had loads of steam, and the ball came over the plate on the jump. Before the Worcesters sized up his delivery it changed materially. He began to throw slow outs up to the plate. The slow ball was too much for the Worcesters.”8 Shortly thereafter, he bested Worcester again. “At critical points, Fitzgerald was impregnable, pitching good ball” in a 4-3 win, reported the Worcester Daily Spy, unhappily.9

Pitching for a mediocre and financially troubled club, Fitzgerald posted a 12-10 (.545) record in 23 outings.10 But with Salem out of pennant contention and on the verge of dissolution in mid-July, Fitzgerald’s contract was sold to the league-leading Boston Reds of the American Association.11 The newcomer was joining a team with an embarrassment of hurling riches, having on staff twin aces George Haddock (34-11, .756) and Charlie Buffinton (29-9, .763), plus capable third starter Darby O’Brien (18-13, .581).12 Fitzgerald was assigned the spot starter/reliever role relinquished by just-released left-hander Bill Daley (8-6, .571, in 19 appearances).

John Fitzgerald made his major league debut on July 18, coming on in relief of Buffinton in the top of the seventh inning with the Reds comfortably ahead of the Louisville Colonels, 9-0. The following day, the Boston Globe reported that “in the three innings he pitched but one hit was made off him … Fitz was cheered at the close of every inning, and again when he went in for the next one. The people took to him and he did unmistakably good work. He put the ball over the plate, and the Colonels had to hit it or be called out. He struck out one man and didn’t give a base on balls.”13 Holding the opposition scoreless, Fitzgerald “was as complete an enigma to the Colonels as Buffinton was in the first half of the game,” lamented the Louisville Courier-Journal.14 “He has a good drop and is cool,” added the Boston Journal.15

Fitzgerald’s performance earned him a start against Louisville two days later. But with “many of his friends from Natick, Salem and Cambridge” in attendance,16 Fitz struggled. He surrendered 13 base hits but “though batted pretty hard, pitched a good game” and held on for a 6-5 victory.17 It proved the only win of Fitzgerald’s major league career. He was better the following week. Taking over for Haddock in the fifth inning against the Baltimore Orioles, Fitz promptly struck out the side and threw four innings of one-run relief in a 5-3 Boston setback.18

Having beaten Louisville in his first start, Fitzgerald was matched against the Colonels again on August 7. This time he was not effective, being lifted after four frames with the Reds trailing, 5-0. Late-game runs and excellent relief work by future Hall of Famer Clark Griffith, however, got Fitz off the hook as Boston prevailed in 10 innings, 7-6. After that, Fitzgerald did not see further game action for almost two months. Nevertheless, he was among the eight Reds players re-signed in late August for the 1892 season.19

Fitzgerald finally returned to the box on October 5, starting the first game of a season-ending doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics. Mercilessly left in the entire game by manager Arthur Irwin, he was shellacked, 18-2. Inactivity and cold, windy playing conditions were likely factors, as was inept receiving by rookie backstop Frank Quinlan. But his pitching was lousy: “Fitzgerald was slower than molasses” (allowing 24 base hits). Compounding the misery, “everything seemed [to go] against him,”20 – only six of the Philadelphia runs were earned. The Reds, behind shutout pitching by Haddock, then closed out a pennant-winning (93-42-4, .689) season by taking the nightcap, 6-0.

His numbers inflated by his last-game pasting, Fitzgerald posted a 1-1 (.500) record in six outings, with a 5.63 ERA in 32 innings pitched. Over that span, he allowed 49 base hits and 11 walks while striking out 16 enemy batsmen. A near helpless hitter himself, Fitz went 1-for-14 (.071) at the plate, but fielded his position tolerably, making but one error in nine chances (.889). Unbeknownst at the time to the 21-year-old, the above would constitute the entirety of his major league record. 

A rupture in relations between the National League and the American Association eliminated the annual postseason competition between the two circuit winners that fall. And over the winter, the AA dissolved, with four of its franchises being incorporated into a bloated 12-club National League for the 1892 season. The Boston Reds were not among the NL-chosen clubs, making Fitzgerald and the other Reds signees seemingly free agents. But like many other former AA refugees, he was subsequently deposited into a player pool allotted to the newly formed minor Eastern League.21 At the league’s early April organizational meeting, Fitz was assigned to the Binghamton (New York) Bingos.22

Fitz provided yeoman service for his new club but his performance, often plagued by control problems, was uneven. In 41 appearances for the second-place (60-52, .536) Bingos, his won-lost record was a facially substandard at 14-20 (.412). He posted a very respectable 2.07 ERA in 313 1/3 innings pitched but was regularly undermined by a leaky Binghamton defense – a staggering 66.4% (141 of 213) of the runs scored off him were unearned. However, he also hurt himself with 115 walks and 21 hit batsmen as opposed to 136 strikeouts. Expected to support staff ace Bert Inks (22-9) in the postseason EL playoffs,23 Fitzgerald was sidelined by a serious illness subsequently diagnosed as cholera.24 Fortunately for the Bingos, late-season acquisition Jim Devlin stepped into the breach, and Binghamton prevailed in six games over the Providence Clamdiggers to claim the Eastern League crown.

By the following spring Fitzgerald had regained his health and signed with a new entrant into Eastern League ranks, the Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Coal Barons.25 “Fitzgerald, one of the Wilkes-Barre twirlers, is said to be a good man,” local fans were advised. “He played with the Binghamtons last season and had the hard luck to pitch in a number of close games. But he has never been pounded hard.”26 If that doubtful claim were true, things quickly changed.

During the offseason, professional baseball adopted rule changes that elongated the pitching distance (to the modern 60 feet, six inches) and eliminated the pitcher’s box. From then on, a hurler’s back foot had to remain anchored until the ball was released, and the pitch had to carry an additional five feet or so to reach the batter. The requirements of these new rules proved catastrophic for Fitzgerald. Given three early-season starts by Wilkes-Barre, he lost them all, and badly. In a May 19 outing against the Erie (Pennsylvania) Blackbirds, Fitz gave up 28 base hits. “Fitzgerald was pastry … [Erie] hit anything – everything, out curve, in shoot, slow, swift, high and low. It made no diff. They hit and hit hard,” related the Wilkes-Barre Evening Leader in describing the 27-12 drubbing administered to Fitzgerald.27 It was further observed that the new pitching distance “seems to have spoiled whatever effectiveness Fitzgerald ever had.”28

Ten days later, “Fitzgerald was hit hard and often and gave nine men their base on balls” in a 12-6 beating by Binghamton.29 With Fitzgerald’s record standing at 0-5, Coal Barons management had seen enough and released him.30 In announcing the action, the Evening Leader reiterated the view that “Fitzgerald’s effectiveness has apparently been ruined by the five foot rule,” adding that “he cannot seem to get over his wildness.”31

Almost immediately, Fitzgerald was engaged by a pitching-thin Eastern League rival, the Providence Clamdiggers.32 The change of scenery, alas, effected no cure for Fitz’s pitching woes. He went 0-7 in 12 appearances and allowed more than 200 baserunners in only 95 1/3 innings pitched. He drew his walking papers in mid-July.33 For the season, Fitzgerald posted a combined 0-12 record, placing him at the bottom of circuit pitching stats. A .158 batting average (9-for-53) also made him the EL’s weakest hitter; he also ranked 24th out of 29 league hurlers in fielding (.891 FA).34 Based on those numbers, a credible argument can be made that John Fitzgerald was the Eastern League’s very worst player in 1893.

Following his dismissal by Providence, it was reported that Fitzgerald had been signed by a newly formed Boston Reds club organized to replace Manchester (New Hampshire) in the New England League.35 But no trace of him appearing in a Boston Reds game was located. Nevertheless, Fitz had not given up hope of extending his career in professional baseball. Indeed, in spring 1894, he was signed by the New England League’s Worcester club.36 Fitzgerald’s stay with that team did not survive his debut, a 9-5 loss to Lewiston (Maine) in which he gave up 14 base hits. The outing, however, generated a valuable, if somewhat cryptic, newsprint description of Fitzgerald and his talents as his ballplaying days neared an end: “He is tall and wavy and has a delivery like the eccentric of a flat-bottomed stern-wheeler. He once had great speed. He didn’t have it yesterday but rather just about speed enough and the balls came up size-ably.”37

Still only 25, Fitzgerald gave it a final try in spring 1895, signing with yet another New England League club, the Brockton (Massachusetts) Shoemakers.38 As the season before, he lasted one game, released after being torched for 11 runs in two innings by Lewiston. John Fitzgerald’s professional ballplaying career was thus over. The year, however, was far from a total loss. On June 19, 1895, he and fellow Natick native Esther (Elizabeth) Sweeney were joined in matrimony and began their 26-year union. At the time of the wedding ceremony, the groom gave his occupation as shoemaker.39

Once he left the game, Fitzgerald receded from the public spotlight, living and working quietly in Boston. From at least 1900, if not before, he found employment in various segments of the wholesale meat trade.40 Sometime in 1920, Fitzgerald contracted tuberculosis, then tantamount to living under a death sentence. Early on the morning of March 31, 1921, John Henry Fitzgerald passed away at his home in the Roxbury section of Boston.41 He was 50. Following a Requiem Mass said at St. Patrick’s Church, his remains were interred in New Calvary Cemetery in nearby Mattapan. Childless, he was survived by widow Esther.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Darren Gibson and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Joe Wancho.

Sources

Sources for the biographical info imparted above include the John Fitzgerald file maintained at the Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York; the Fitzgerald thumbnail in David Nemec, The Rank and File of 19th Century Major League Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2012); US Census reports and other government records accessed via Ancestry.com; and certain of the newspaper articles cited in the endnotes. Unless otherwise specified, statistics have been taken from Baseball-Reference.

Notes

1 “Notes, Gossip and Comments,” Sporting Life, July 25, 1891: 2.

2 Right-hander John J. Fitzgerald (1866-1892) had recently been released by the Sioux City (Iowa) club and was then rehabbing his ailing pitching arm in Hot Springs, South Dakota.

3 The other identifiable Fitzgerald children were James (born 1852), Johanna (1853), Garrett (1856), Margaret (1858), Mary (1878), and Francis (1880).

4 Fitzgerald’s association with the Woven Hose club was noted in coverage of his major league debut. See “People Seem to Like It,” Boston Globe, July 19, 1891: 4.

5 Baseball-Reference mistakenly begins our subject’s professional career as a 17-year-old with the New Haven (Connecticut) Blues of the independent minor Eastern League. But the New Haven hurler was actually the other John Fitzgerald, 21-year-old John J.

6 “Used Their Bats,” Buffalo Courier, May 28, 1892: 8.

7 “Shut Out by Salem,” Worcester (Massachusetts) Sunday Telegram, May 3, 1891: 5.

8 “Bewitched the Worcesters,” Worcester Sunday Telegram, May 24, 1891: 5.

9 “Base Ball: Murphy’s Curves Fail to Win,” Worcester (Massachusetts) Daily Spy, June 4, 1891: 1.

10 As calculated by the writer from published Salem box and line scores. Baseball-Reference provides no data for Fitzgerald’s time with Salem.

11 As reported in “Base Ball Notes,” Boston Globe, July 18, 1891: 5; and “Won and Lost,” Worcester Daily Telegram, July 18: 1891: 4. The Salem club disbanded the following day.

12 Since the early 2000s, modern baseball reference works have misidentified right-hander John F. O’Brien as Cinders O’Brien, an altogether different player. Like his more prominent namesake, Brooklyn outfielder Darby (William Darby) O’Brien, the Reds pitcher was known as Darby O’Brien.

13 “People Seem to Like It,” above.

14 “Louisvilles Shut Out,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 19, 1891: 5.

15 “Association: Boston, 9; Louisville, 0,” Boston Journal, July 20, 1891: 3.

16 “Popular Prices Again,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1891: 5.

17 “Both Boston Teams Won,” Boston Evening Transcript, July 21, 1891: 6.

18 See “Boston A.A. Beaten by Baltimore,” Boston Daily Advertiser, July 28, 1891: 8. See also, “One for the Orioles,” Baltimore Sun, July 28, 1891: 3: “Fitzgerald’s start was auspicious and his performance good throughout. … Altogether, he caused five of the Orioles to fan the air.”

19 As reported in “Signed for Next Season,” Omaha World-Herald, August 28, 1891: 5; “To Play with Boston Reds,” Worcester Daily Spy, August 28, 1891: 1; and elsewhere.

20 “Win and Lose a Game,” Boston Globe, October 6, 1891: 3.

21 Per “Hits and Misses,” Boston Herald, March 31, 1892: 10.

22 As reported in “The Players Assigned,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 7, 1892: 3; “Base-Ball Players Assigned,” Watertown (New York) Times, April 7, 1892: 2; and elsewhere.

23 Aside from Inks and Fitzgerald, no other Binghamton pitcher won more than six games.

24 See “The Champions,” Sporting Life, September 8, 1892: 10; “Diamond Gossip,” Providence Sunday Journal, September 18, 1892: 7.

25 As reported in “Base Ball Facts,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Evening Leader, April 14, 1893: 1.

26 “Base Ball Comment,” Wilkes-Barre Evening Leader, April 17, 1893: 6.

27 “We Gave ‘Em Fitz,” Wilkes-Barre Evening Leader, May 20, 1893: 1. A porous Wilkes-Barre defense (10 errors) rendered 19 of the Erie runs unearned.

28 Same as above.

29 “Eastern League,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Republican, May 30, 1893: 2.

30 “Base Ball Notes,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Daily News-Dealer, June 1, 1893: 4; “On the Diamond,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Times, June 1, 1893: 1.

31 “Ball Notes,” Wilkes-Barre Evening Leader, June 1, 1893: 1. The “five foot rule” referred to the additional pitching distance implemented for the 1893 season.

32 See “Notes of the Contest,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Record, June 2, 1893: 8.

33  Fitzgerald’s release by Providence was noted in “Editorial Views, Notes, Comments,” Sporting Life, July 22, 1893: 2.

34 According to Eastern League statistics published in Sporting Life, December 16, 1893: 4.

35 Per “New England League Notes,” Sporting Life, July 29, 1893: 3.

36 As reported in “Diamond Pickups,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Daily Globe, May 23, 1894: 1; “New Pitchers for the Ball Team,” Worcester Daily Spy, May 21, 1894: 8; and elsewhere.

37 “Nearing the Fence,” Lewiston (Maine) Evening News, May 23, 1894: 5.

38 See “Among the Ball Players,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Daily Herald, April 25, 1895: 5; “Brockton Team Complete,” Boston Globe, April 6, 1895: 1.

39 Per State of Massachusetts marriage records accessible online. The couple were wed at Sacred Heart Church in Natick by Father J.A. Donnelly.

40 As reflected in the 1900-1920 US Censuses. Fitzgerald was working as a meat cutter at the time of his death in March 1921.

41 Fitzgerald’s death certificate lists the cause of his demise as tuberculosis of the larynx.