Tom Sullivan

Reaching the major leagues is the pinnacle of a baseball player’s rise through the professional ranks. A player whose uniform says “Philadelphia” rather than “Scranton” knows without being told that he is competing against the greatest players the game has to offer. For some, a long and fruitful career is in the offing. But for others, a major-league career is painfully short. It is in the latter category that one finds Tom Sullivan, left-handed pitcher for the 1922 Philadelphia Phillies. Sullivan’s career in the big leagues encompassed a scant three games, but he had the opportunity to pit his talents against some of the game’s all-time greats. He recorded only one hit for his career, but it was one to remember.

Thomas Augustin Sullivan was born in Boston on October 18, 1895, one of seven children born to James and Mary (Donovan) Sullivan. James was born in Massachusetts and Mary was an immigrant from Ireland. They met, married, and had all seven of their children in Boston. James worked as a house painter and Mary was employed as a seamstress. Tom was a good student, and after high school he attended nearby Boston College, though he did not play on the Eagles’ baseball team.1 He did feature for teams in the Blackstone Valley League during the summer months. This league, a semipro summer industrial league, was recognized as “playing the best brand of ball” of any of the Boston area summer leagues.2 Tom was no doubt trying to get noticed by scouts in order to be signed by a professional baseball team but was instead called up by another organization, the United States Army.

Sullivan enlisted in the Army in May 1917, after the United States declared war on Germany in World War I, and was placed in the 101st Infantry Regiment of the 26th (Yankee) Division. Sullivan’s unit was sent to France to join the Allied forces. The 101st participated in some of the worst fighting in the war, front-line trench warfare. Sullivan fared better than many; his assignment to the Yankee Division’s supply company offered a break from the trenches and the brutal hand-to-hand fighting that was standard fare for a World War I infantryman. However, Sullivan’s position with the supply company was not without its dangers. He was wounded in action and was awarded the Purple Heart.3 Sullivan was honorably discharged in May 1919 after returning to Massachusetts. He married Bostonian Mary Flaherty and together they raised three children, Eleanor, Irene, and Thomas Jr. It was also at this time that Sullivan’s professional baseball career began.

The 1921 season marks Sullivan’s first appearances in a professional box score. He signed to be the third starter in manager Joe Birmingham’s rotation for the Class-A Eastern League’s Albany Senators. Sullivan’s first appearance for Albany marked him as a young prospect to watch. He allowed only two hits to the Hartford Senators in a 2-1 triumph. In the effort, Sullivan fanned nine Hartford batters.4 Sullivan had an up-and-down season for Albany, but occasionally he showed flashes of brilliance. On August 14 he was tabbed to start the second game of a doubleheader against the Worcester Boosters. Sullivan started slowly, allowing three first-inning runs, but recovered to shut down the Boosters the rest of the way. He finished the game with a seven-hit complete-game, 9-3 victory with eight strikeouts.5 For the season, Sullivan finished with a 6-10 record covering 19 mound appearances with a 4.27 ERA and 72 strikeouts in 135 innings of work. As a pitcher, he fared well at the plate, batting .208 with two home runs. For his debut season, the 25-year-old rookie held his own. Bigger things were in store.

Sullivan attracted the notice of the Philadelphia Phillies organization and his contract was purchased from Albany before the 1922 season. He went to spring training in Leesburg, Florida, with an opportunity to win a berth in manager Kaiser Wilhelm’s pitching staff. The opportunity was nearly lost before it got started. In early March, Sullivan reported to camp with what he thought was a bad cold. He was worried that reporting it to the Phillies’ brass would jeopardize his chances to make the team, so he kept it to himself. The cold worsened to the point where doctors were called in and they noted that Sullivan’s illness was a “hop skip and jump” from pneumonia.6 The doctors were able to prevent pneumonia, and he was soon back on the mound.

On March 14 the Phillies played the Leesburg town team. As expected, the major leaguers pounded the amateur side, 17-2. However, this was a noteworthy game for Sullivan in his quest to win a job with Philadelphia. The game was out of hand in the sixth inning when he was sent in to pitch for Leesburg, and he performed admirably against his would-be teammates. His “southpaw shoots” limited the Phillies to four hits over the final three frames.7 Shutting down the Phillies may have been the perfect way to impress the Phillies management. When Philadelphia broke camp, Sullivan had made the Opening Day roster as a member of a team trying to improve on the prior season’s last-place finish.8 After just one season in the minors, Tom Sullivan was going to the bright lights of the National League.

Sullivan began the season on the bench for Philadelphia as the team opened the season with a game at Sportsman’s Park against Branch Rickey’s St. Louis Cardinals. Manager Wilhelm sent out pitcher Bill Hubbell to start the game, and he got shelled early. Hubbell retired only one batter and allowed four runs on five hits before being yanked in favor of Huck Betts. Betts fared only slightly better, lasting one full inning and giving up four more runs. When Wilhelm went to the mound to replace Betts, his signal was for the rookie left-hander. It was time for Sullivan to make his first appearance in the big leagues.

Sullivan entered the game with runners on first and second and one out. Jack Fournier was the first man he faced, and the first baseman fouled out. Sullivan was one out away from stranding the runners he had inherited, but Austin McHenry had other ideas. The left fielder slashed a line drive to right for a two-run double. Pinch-hitter Les Mann lined out to left, and Sullivan had weathered his first storm. The Cardinals struck for four more runs in the third on run-scoring hits by Milt Stock, Rogers Hornsby, and Fournier. The next hitter, McHenry, hit a foul ball near the St. Louis bench. Phillies third baseman Goldie Rapp, oblivious to the 12-0 deficit, made an attempt at a circus catch but injured himself badly as he crash-landed into the Cardinals dugout. Rapp was forced to leave the game and was taken to St. John’s hospital with two fractured ribs and a sprained ankle.9 The injuries were enough to shelve the Phillies third sacker for nearly a month.

On the mound, Sullivan fared little better than Rapp. Wilhelm left the rookie in the game until the end on a day when the Cardinals’ bats were on fire. Over the final 6⅔ innings, St. Louis scored 14 runs off Sullivan on 15 hits and two walks. It was Sullivan’s work with the ash that left the southpaw with his moment in the sun. Sullivan had four at-bats for the game. In his first, in the third inning, he tapped back to the box for an easy groundout. His second appearance came with two out in the fifth. With runners on first and second, Cardinals starter Bill Doak caught Sullivan looking at a called third strike to end the frame. The next at-bat was one to remember.

In the seventh inning, with the score no longer in doubt, Rickey inserted relief pitcher Clyde Barfoot into the game to finish things off. The Phillies’ first batter of the inning, Frank Withrow, greeted Barfoot with a single to center field. As Sullivan stepped to the plate, he was probably more than a little angry. He had waited a month on the bench before being given a chance to pitch, and the day couldn’t have been going worse for him. Whatever the situation, Barfoot delivered a “fast one” that caught too much of the plate and Sullivan slammed it into the right-field bleachers for a two-run home run.10 It was the only hit of Sullivan’s major-league career. He had taken one for the team on the mound, and the home run proved to be his only reward. His final appearance at the plate resulted in a groundout to the first baseman. The remainder of the game was uneventful, ending in a 19-7 triumph for the Cardinals.

After the shelling by St. Louis, it was more than two weeks before Sullivan was again called upon to pitch. On May 30 the first-place New York Giants were the visitors for a doubleheader at Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl. Sullivan appeared briefly in relief in both games. In the opener, Wilhelm inserted Sullivan into another sticky situation, though the score at 3-2 was much closer than it had been in St. Louis. Sullivan was brought into the game in the fourth inning to relieve starter George Smith with the bases loaded and one out with future Hall of Fame second baseman Frankie Frisch at bat. The young left-hander received a huge break when Phillies catcher Butch Henline picked off the runner at first for the inning’s second out. However, Sullivan walked Frisch to load the bases again for Heinie Groh. Groh’s famed bottle bat never left his shoulder as Sullivan walked his second consecutive hitter to force in a run, making the score 4-2. Wilhelm pulled Sullivan in favor of Lerton Pinto who retired the side after allowing another run-scoring walk. Though Sullivan did little to help the cause, the Phillies did rally late and won the game in extra innings. Sullivan also featured in the second game of the twin bill. This time, he replaced Pinto in the ninth inning of a 16-7 rout. Sullivan was far more effective in this outing; he pitched a scoreless inning to close out the Philadelphia loss. Unfortunately for Sullivan, fate stepped in and he never got the chance to build on this success.

On June 5 the Phillies were hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates at Baker Bowl on a rainy Monday afternoon. Before the game, Sullivan was pitching batting practice when a vicious line drive struck him on the leg. He was taken to Stetson Hospital and initial reports suggested that he had suffered a broken leg. More promising later reports said he had “an ugly bruise but will be able to do ‘bull pen’ duty within a few days.”11 Some blamed Sullivan’s “badly injured leg” on “the lively ball” that was resulting in higher-scoring games.12 The injury was the death knell of Sullivan’s major-league career. In July, the Phillies sent him down to the Eastern League to finish out the season with Waterbury.13 Never again did he appear in the major leagues.

Sullivan was back in the Eastern League in 1923, though his stay was a brief one. He signed with the Waterbury Brasscos but in late May was “fined $50 for alleged indifferent work.”14 He returned back home to pitch in the Boston Twilight League until late June when he was “turned over” to Macon in the South Atlantic League by Waterbury.15 He did not appear in box scores for Macon, and likely never reported to Georgia. Sullivan jumped the Eastern League for the next two seasons and remained in the Twilight League as a pitcher for the 1923 and 1924 seasons. After two years on the fringes, Sullivan applied for reinstatement in March of 1925 to the Eastern Leagues and his petition was granted.16 He was back in Organized Baseball.

Sullivan opened the 1925 season with the Hartford Senators of the Eastern League. He was ineffective and in August was dealt to the Pittsfield Hillies. Sullivan had two more big-time performances remaining in his left arm. Now called “Lefty” in the papers, Sullivan was called upon to start both games of an August 23 doubleheader against the club that had let him go, Hartford. The first game did not go well for Sullivan. Hartford scored five times in the first inning and chased Sullivan to the bench. The second game went much better for Sullivan and the Hillies. In the second game he held Hartford to a 4-4 tie for eight innings. He led off the top of the ninth with a single and went to third base when the right fielder let the ball get by him. He scored one out later and held off the Senators in the bottom of the ninth to preserve a 5-4 victory.17 His last hurrah as a player came in September in a game against the Worcester Panthers at Pittsfield’s Wahconah Park. Worcester player-manager Casey Stengel’s team was helpless that day as Sullivan threw a five-hit shutout to send the home fans home happy. It was the last game Sullivan won as a professional pitcher.  Sullivan was back with Pittsfield before the 1926 season, but by the summer he was back in Boston pitching in the industrial leagues as the “mound mainstay” for the Boston Typos.18 It was after this season that Sullivan stopped appearing in box scores and his playing days came to a close.

After his baseball career ended, Sullivan returned to the trade he learned in his Army supply company. He worked as a freight handler and worked his way up to a labor foreman at a Boston-area Army depot. He and his wife remained in Boston their entire lives, raising their three children. The couple’s youngest child, nicknamed Tommy Joe, inherited some of his father’s athletic prowess and put it on display as a freshman halfback on Boston College’s 1951 football team. The season’s final game pitted BC against their arch-rivals, nationally-ranked Holy Cross, in a game at Braves Field before a crowd of 40,000. With seconds remaining in the game and BC losing by two points, Tommy Joe, the “fastest footer on the B.C. squad,” hauled in a 56-yard pass to set up the winning touchdown as the Eagles knocked off the Crusaders 19-14.19

Sullivan died on September 23, 1962, at the age of 66. He was survived by his wife and their children. His career as a major-league pitcher was a brief one, but he had one thing about his stay he could always remember with fondness. He may have only had one hit for the Phillies, but he knocked it out of the park.

Sources

In addition to the works cited in the Notes, the author utilized Baseball-Reference.com for statistical data and game notes and Fold3.com for information relating to the 101st Infantry.

Notes

1 Ernest J. Lanigan, New Major Leaguers, 1922. Document on file with the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

2 Albert J. Woodlock, “Baseball Shifts Soon From Shore and Mountain,” Boston Globe, August 23, 1926: 9.

3 US Headstone Applications For Military Veterans, ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2375/images/40050_649063_0425-00233?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.31075255.904082447.1601661829-890328165.1572627534&pId=420775.

4 Lanigan.

5 “Lawmakers and Boosters Divide Twinbill,” Bridgeport (Connecticut) Telegram, August 15, 1921: 5.

6 “Phillies Southpaw Escapes Pneumonia,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 9, 1922: 16.

7 “Phillies Surprised by Lees,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 15, 1922: 16.

8 “Philadelphia Nationals Roster for 1922,” Brooklyn Standard Union, April 5, 1922: 14.

9 John J. Sheridan, “Game Sidelights,” St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, May 16, 1922.

10 Sheridan.

11 “Phils Ahead When Rain Stops Game,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 6, 1922: 18.

12 “Sport Summary,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) New Era, June 6, 1922: 10.

13 “Eastern League Notes,” Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), July 22, 1922:  8.

14 “Eastern League Notes,” Berkshire County Eagle, May 23, 1923:  10.

15 “Eastern League Notes,” Berkshire County Eagle, June 22, 1923:  19.

16 “Eastern League Notes,” Berkshire County Eagle, March 20, 1925:  26.

17 “Locals Get Gift in First Contest,” Hartford Courant, August 24, 1925: 7.

18 “Boston Typos To Meet Neponset Nine Sunday.” Boston Globe, August 13, 1926: 10.

19 “B.C. upsets Holy Cross, 19-14.” Boston Globe, December 2, 1951: 1.