Sam Griffith

Late-19th century American life could be grisly. Annually, from 1880 to 1900, some 35,000 workers died and another 500,000 were injured.1 Away from the workplace, the deadly and maiming effects of fires, explosions, and railroads took up volumes of newsprint. Medical and public health advances that would add decades to American lifespans lay mostly on the horizon.2

These realities were reflected in the number of amputees playing baseball. “There [have] been one-armed pitchers by the dozen,” noted a New Orleans newspaper in 1901.3 That August a team of one-armed men played a team of one-legged men in Minneapolis.4 Three years later railroad employees in Wilmington, Delaware, formed similar teams and battled, with gate proceeds going towards repairing their artificial limbs.5 Possibly the most famed of amputee players during the Deadball Era was Sam Griffith, a one-armed pitcher who appeared in preseason exhibitions for Connie Mack’s Athletics in 1901 and 1902.

Samuel Stewart Griffith III was born in Philadelphia on February 7, 1878. His mother, Anna, managed a large household. His father, Samuel II, labored as a brickmaker. How Samuel III lost his left arm—“amputated at the shoulder” per his World War I draft card—is unknown. Later newspaper accounts note only that he lost the arm “many years ago,” perhaps reflecting his reluctance to share specific background.6 One possible cause: working alongside his father as a teenager. By the 1890s brickmaking—for decades one of Philadelphia’s leading trades—was mostly mechanized, with pug mills, slicers, augers, and rollers posing risk.7 Also by this time, and fortunately for Sam Griffith, amputation surgeries were routinely accompanied by anesthesia and antiseptics.8

Starting in 1898, Griffith emerged as the “one-armed wonder” of the bustling Philadelphia amateur baseball scene, pitching for Norwood (a borough just west of the city).9 He four-hit two opponents in July to pick up victories.10 Against neighboring Prospect Park on August 13, he yielded 12 hits and eight walks but hung on to win, 8-7.11

Norristown, a capable regional semipro team, stood ready to sign Griffith as the 1899 campaign opened.12 Yet he apparently pitched only for nines from Washington, New Jersey, and West Grove, Pennsylvania, that season. Neither team was strong. Although Griffith earned positive press for his efforts, in the few accounts of his games that are readily available, he was badly beaten.13

Griffith’s breakout season came in 1900, pitching for Manayunk (a northwest Philadelphia neighborhood known for its textile mills). His success was modest: in surviving box scores, he went 6-8 with the team.14 Yet Manayunk competed against the region’s leading semipros and Griffith proved enough of a draw that, by late summer, the team’s management marketed their product around him.15 His season’s highlight and lowlight came against two of Manayunk’s neighboring rivals. In Roxborough on Opening Day, he triumphed, 7-3, in front of 3,000 fans.16 In June, behind their ace, Pete Loos, Wissahickon rocked him for 24 hits and 10 earned runs in an 23-0 shellacking.17

His all-around abilities impressed onlookers. In early July, he picked up an additional payday, with the Florence, New Jersey, team as they hosted Mount Holly. “Griffith fielded his position well [one out, seven assists, no errors] and was better at the bat [2-for-4] than was expected from a man with only one arm, but the visitors found him for 16 hits [and beat him, 8-5].”18

There is no evidence of Griffith ever using a glove. This distinguishes him from, in later years, Pete Gray and Jim Abbott. Yet, in Griffith’s era, several non-disabled pitchers (Bill Kennedy, Harry Howell, and Oscar Streit) also did not use gloves.19

In early 1901, Connie Mack dealt with constant flux as he sought to build Philadelphia’s entry in the ascendant American League.20 In particular, with Christy Mathewson and Vic Willis slipping through his grasp, and legal actions threatening his hold on Bill Bernhard and Chick Fraser, Mack faced challenges building a stable pitching staff.

The team trained in their new Columbia Park, hosting mostly regional semipro and scholastic teams for exhibition games. This allowed Mack to look over local talent and let the city’s fans familiarize themselves with trolley routes to see the new Athletics. On April 10, only a couple hundred fans braved a bitterly cold day to see visiting Manayunk, with Griffith in the box, take on the Athletics. Mack’s squad prevailed, 9-8. Griffith allowed three earned runs in going the distance.

The next day, Philadelphia’s sporting pages issued glowing praise.

• The Press: “Griffith, the one-armed wonder, pitched for Manayunk and with the exception of the third and fifth innings kept the hits widely distributed. The manner in which he fielded his position was remarkable. Seven men were thrown out by him at first base and nearly all his stops were of hard-hit balls.”21
• The North American: “Decidedly the feature of the game was the pitching and fielding of the one-armed Griffith, who is certainly a physical marvel. Griffith pitches a deceptive dewdrop, fields his position finely, and, most marvelous of all, swings his bat freely and hits the ball hard.”22
• The Evening Telegraph: “Based on what he did with one arm yesterday, it made one stop to think what he could do with two.”23

Three other hometown talents pitched for the Athletics in their 10 exhibition games that April.24 “H. Wilson of Frankford” (likely Howard Wilson) started against Griffith on April 10, and appeared in one other game.25 Carson Hodge replaced Wilson that afternoon in the fifth inning, and appeared in six other games.26 On April 17, in his sole appearance in these games, Pete Loos pitched for the Athletics against his Wissahickon mates and won handily, 16-4.

After these exhibition games, Wilson returned to the Norwich, Connecticut, team he had pitched for in 1900. In July 1902, Mack brought him back to shore up Philadelphia’s staff during a pennant run. Mack sent Hodge to the Meriden, Connecticut club.27 Loos earned an in-season trial (albeit a disastrous one) with the Athletics that May. Griffith returned to Manayunk for the 1901 campaign. By June he apparently had fallen off their roster.

In March 1902 Mack sent his primary pitching corps of Bernhard, Bill Duggleby, Eddie Plank, and Snake Wiltse to North Carolina for an early training session. Several days before this foursome came north on April 6, the rest of the team began trickling into Philadelphia. Under captain Nap Lajoie’s direction, Griffith and Al Maul worked out with the position players on April 2.28 Three days later, Frank Leary—a University of Pennsylvania standout—pitched in the A’s first exhibition match, a 7-5 loss to Yale. Philadelphia was set to visit Jersey City on Sunday April 6 for a game versus their Eastern League team, with a rematch between the squads the next day at Columbia Park. Griffith was to pitch in the second game, but it was rained out.29

More rain—and Hobart College’s no-show—pushed the next game out to Friday, April 11, when Bucknell arrived in Philadelphia. Griffith pitched the entire game, yielding six hits and no earned runs, as the Athletics romped, 12-1.30 Then Mack began to place his starters in game action. Plank and Bernhard combined to beat Princeton, 21-4, on Saturday. Duggleby and Wiltse combined to shut out Jersey City on Sunday.

On Monday, against the Eastern League’s Newark Sailors, after Plank and Bernhard each pitched three innings, Griffith came in. After hitting the first batter he faced, and yielding a walk to the second, he threw three hitless frames. Socks Seybold pinch-hit for him in the bottom of the ninth and delivered an RBI single to give Philadelphia a 3-2 victory.31 Two days later, he again followed Plank and Bernhard, allowing four hits but no runs across two innings, as the A’s routed Villanova, 16-2.32

Mack exclusively used his veterans over the remaining three exhibition games. Once the regular season was underway—and court rulings stripped the Athletics of Bernhard and Chick Fraser (and induced Duggleby back to the Phillies)—he sought other in-season solutions besides Griffith.33

Griffith was, to be sure, a gate attraction for a new team anxious to win over fans. Yet Mack had no misgivings towards ballplayers overcoming physical disabilities. Righthander Fred Applegate, who had lost his pitching hand’s little finger, was given a trial with the Athletics in 1904. That same season, lefthanded outfielder Danny Hoffman survived a horrific beaning and, despite losing his right eye’s center of vision, was employed by Mack against righthanded pitching in 1905. A dozen years later, Mack purchased righthander Rollie Naylor, who pitched for the Athletics for seven years despite having lost sight in his right eye as a youth.

The opportunities Mack gave Griffith in 1901 and (especially) 1902, then, could well have carried serious consideration. In 1916, the A’s manager reportedly said that if Griffith “had not lost an arm in an accident, he would have been a great pitcher.”34 One can only imagine what flaws Mack saw in Griffith’s exhibition-game performances that he felt would be exposed in major-league action.

After his second preseason stint with Philadelphia, Griffith joined a Bangor, Pennsylvania, team for the 1902 season. Mack reportedly recommended him to Fred Doe as Doe was building a New England League team in Brockton, Massachusetts for the 1903 season.35 Yet when the season began, Griffith was again with Bangor.

In February 1904, the Eastern League’s Rochester Bronchos signed Griffith to his first professional contract. “He has surprisingly good control,” a local sportswriter observed during a spring practice. “He does not altogether depend on speed, as some naturally asked him, but has a desirable change of pace, with a good slow ball. He has excellent control of a curve ball and gauges distance well.”36 Yet soon afterwards Rochester considered him not up to Eastern League competition and released him. Griffith returned to Philadelphia, briefly pitched for a Coatesville nine, and then his regular baseball career effectively ended.37

Griffith instead focused on his full-time occupation of clerking; away from work, he was involved with Philadelphia’s East End Republican political club. The East Enders coaxed him into twirling for them on the occasions they put together a team. He was “in fine form” when the East Enders claimed the local GOP championship by beating the Young Republicans, 9-8, on August 16, 1907.38

A year later, with Griffith again in the box, the East Enders successfully defended their championship by besting the Twentieth-Century Republican club, 14-9.39

Both games occurred as Columbia Park, as did an August 1908 benefit game for Charlie Mason, former co-owner/manager of the American Association’s Philadelphia Athletics. Mack, with his team finishing a western road-trip, sent his extras east for the occasion. With a scattering of old-timers completing the lineups, Griffith took a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth, before tiring and taking a 6-5 loss.40

In 1909 Griffith married Eva Sherwood. Later that year a son, Samuel IV, arrived. On May 24, 1919, Sam Griffith passed away in Philadelphia, at age 41, from cirrhosis of the liver. Laid to rest at Woodlands Cemetery, he was survived by his wife and son. Samuel IV, for most of his adult life, worked as a workplace safety instructor.41

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article appeared in the May 2022 edition of The Inside Game, the newsletter of SABR’s Deadball Era Committee.

This version was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by John Watkins and Terry Bohn. The author thanks the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Newspapers and Microfilm Center for their assistance in obtaining sources.

Photo Credits

Philadelphia Times, May 2, 1900

Philadelphia Inquirer, August 17, 1907

Notes

1 Robert Samuelson, “Work Ethic vs. Fun Ethic,” Washington Post, September 3, 2001. Online: tinyurl.com/3yh8bsen.

2 A child born in the United States in 2023 has a life expectancy of 78.4 years. A child born in the United States in 1900 had a life expectancy of 47.3 years. For such data, see Elizabeth Arias, Ph.D., Jiaquan Xu, M.D., and Kenneth Kochanek, M.A., “United States Life Tables, 2023,” National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 74, No. 6, July 15, 2025: 50-52. Online: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr74/nvsr74-06.pdf.

3 As quoted in “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, April 13, 1901: 5.

4 “A Freak Game,” Minneapolis Journal, August 26, 1901: 9.

5 “Cripples to Play Ball,” (Wilmington) Morning News, August 9, 1904: 7; “One-Armed Men Won,” (Wilmington) Morning News, August 9, 1904: 7. Note similar Wilmington games were also played in 1902 and 1903, although it is unclear if railroad men comprised the squads. There is also no note of Griffith pitching in any of these Wilmington games.

6 “Maimed Athletes Shine in Difficult Games,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 11, 1907, Section 4: 6.

7 For this background, see I.B. Holley Jr., “The Mechanization of Brickmaking,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 50, No. 1 (January 2009): 82-102. Online: www.jstor.org/stable/40061568.

8 For this background, see “Surgery at Bellevue,” The (New York) Sun, March 30, 1890: 24.

9 “Norwood Defeats Upland,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26, 1898: 12. For Norwood identified as an amateur squad, see “Great Amateur Game To-day,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 13, 1898: 4.

10 “Norwood vs. Fairview,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 17, 1898: 10; “Norwood Ties the Series,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 24, 1898: 14.

11 “Norwood Defeats Prospect,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 14, 1898: 12.

12 “Norristown’s Ball Plans,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2, 1899: 14.

13 “Washington Loses Again,” Washington (New Jersey) Star, June 8, 1899: 1; “Shut Out at Dover,” Washington (New Jersey) Star, June 15, 1899: 1; “Washingtons Weren’t In It,” The (Dover, New Jersey) Iron Era, June 16, 1899: 5; “Bangor Wasn’t in It,” Washington (New Jersey) Star, June 22, 1899: 1; “Oxford 18, West Grove 1,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 13, 1899, Section 1: 14.

14 Wins: April 16 versus Roxborough, May 5 versus Brownson, May 12 versus Pottstown, June 16 versus North Philadelphia, July 28 versus Coatesville, September 8 versus Frankford. Losses: April 28 versus Allentown, May 14 versus Chester, May 30 versus Morrisville, June 9 versus Wissahickon, July 21 versus Trenton Y.M.C.A., August 25 versus North Philadelphia, September 1 versus Wissahickon, September 22 versus Brownson.

15 As an example, see “Sporting Notes,” Philadelphia Times, August 25, 1900: 10.

16 “Manayunk Downs Roxborough,” Philadelphia Press, April 17, 1900: 12.

17 “Loos in Great Form,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 10, 1900: 14.

18 “Base Ball,” Mount Holly (New Jersey) News, July 3, 1900: 3.

19 On Kennedy and Howell, see: “Baseball Notes,” Philadelphia Public Ledger, August 13, 1900: 16; on Streit, see: “Notes of the Game,” Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, May 24, 1902: 8.

20 For a full accounting, see Norman Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2007), 204-235.

21 “Athletics’ Close Call,” Philadelphia Press, April 11, 1901: 7.

22 “Athletics Won Out in the Ninth Inning,” Philadelphia North American, April 11, 1901: 15.

23 “Teams Practice in Cold Storage,” Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, April 11, 1901: 9.

24 The Athletics won all ten games: beating the Moss Professionals, 8-1, on April 8; the Carterets, 23-5, on April 9; Manayunk, 9-8, on April 10; Yale, 4-3, on April 11; Quaker City All-Scholastics, 41-1, on April 12; Banks Business College, 19-2, on April 13; Georgetown, 13-6, on April 16; Wissahickon, 16-4, on April 17; Atlantics, 17-9, on April 18; and Ex-Collegians, 7-3, on April 19.

25 Wilson also pitched four innings of relief against the Quaker City All-Scholastics on April 12. For suggestions that he was Howard Wilson, see “State League and Notes,” The Day(New London, Connecticut), March 9, 1901: 2; “But One Run to the Good,” Philadelphia Record, April 11, 1901: 13; “Nutmeg League Circuit Gossip,” The (New London, Connecticut) Day, July 15, 1902: 2; “Norwich Lost Both,” Norwich Bulletin, August 4, 1902: 7.

26 Hodge, in addition to the April 10 game, also appeared in the April 8, April 9, April 12, April 13, April 18, and April 19 games.

27 Francis C. Richter, “Philadelphia Points,” Sporting Life, May 4, 1901: 3.

28 “Flick Joins the Squad,” Philadelphia Record, April 3, 1902: 11.

29 “Athletic Team Only One Short,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 8, 1902: 6.

30 “Athletics Down Bucknell Team,” Philadelphia Times, April 12, 1902: 10.

31 “Newark Nine Gives Athletics a Scare,” Newark Evening News, April 15, 1902: 15.

32 “An Easy Win for Athletics,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 17, 1902: 6.

33 Norman L. Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 265-269.

34 “Tris Speaker Tries Golf Here, Says it’s Easier than Base Ball,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, July 21, 1916: 10.

35 “Baseball,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Evening News, April 9, 1903: 5.

36 “Eighteen Men Have Reported,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, April 8, 1904: 18.

37 “Coatesville Turned the Trick,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 15, 1904, Section 1: 14. “Coatesville Takes the Count,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 17, 1904: 10.

38 “East Enders Victors in Hotly Contested Ball Game,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 17, 1907: 14.

39 “Politicians Win Honor on Diamond,” Philadelphia Press, August 11, 1908: 2.

40 “Mason’s Benefit Game,” Philadelphia Record, June 23, 1908: 10.

41 Samuel IV’s calling per email communication with Justin Calean, his great-grandson, March 14, 2022.