August 22, 1891: Chicago Colts romp past Cleveland as Walter Wilmot sets record by walking six times

The Chicago Colts,1 led by 39-year-old first baseman and manager Adrian “Cap” Anson, were on a roll in August 1891 The National League leaders had won six consecutive games entering their August 22 game against the visiting Cleveland Spiders. To make matters worse for the sixth-place Spiders, who were coming off a brawl-filled series in Cincinnati, Chicago had taken 14 of the 16 games between the two teams so far in the season, including the first two games of the series.

For the Saturday afternoon contest, Anson picked right-hander Addison Gumbert to start for Chicago, while Cleveland player-manager Patsy Tebeau put 25-year-old right-hander Lee Viau on the mound.2

The first inning was scoreless. Each team collected one hit and, notably, Chicago left fielder Walter Wilmot, a 27-year-old Wisconsin native who led the NL in triples in 1889 with 19 and tied for the league lead in home runs in 1890 with 13,3 drew a walk against Viau.

The Colts took the lead in the top of the second. Gumbert walked and catcher Bill Merritt, hitting ninth in the order, singled to center. Center fielder Jimmy Ryan – who had hit for the cycle when the Spiders visited Chicago in July – lined a triple to right to drive in two runs. Then Wilmot walked again; when Viau’s throw to pick him off first went astray, Ryan hustled home from third for Chicago’s third run.

The Spiders struck back in their half of the third. Viau was hit in the ribs by a pitch, causing an injury that eventually forced him from the game. Second baseman Cupid Childs doubled to center to drive in Viau and shortstop Ed McKean followed with another double to score Childs. A passed ball allowed McKean to move to third and a single by Tebeau momentarily tied the game, 3-3.

In the fourth, the Colts went ahead to stay. Ryan hit another triple. Wilmot walked for the third time and then stole second.4  Rookie third baseman Bill Dahlen’s single scored Ryan and Wilmot and gave the Colts a 5-3 lead. They added another run after Dahlen took second on the throw to the plate, went to third on a wild pitch, and scored on Anson’s fly out.

Viau left the game after the fourth inning and was relieved by 24-year-old Cy Young. Though in just his first full season in the majors, Young had earned a reputation in the press for his unorthodox delivery, earning such labels as “the rolling mill man,”5 with “eccentric motions.”6 Still, he had already made 1891 his first of what would be 19 consecutive seasons with double-digit wins.

Chicago picked up a run off Young in the fifth as second baseman Fritz Pfeffer garnered another walk off Cleveland pitching, stole second, and was driven home by Gumbert’s single, making it 7-3.

As the game progressed, Wilmot continued to draw walks, but newspaper accounts are not clear about when they happened. He likely came to the plate in the fifth inning and received his fourth walk. Walk number five came in either the sixth or eighth inning, and the sixth walk came in either the eighth or ninth inning.

In any event, the final three walks came off Young, and one led off the eighth.7

Dahlen followed by reaching first on an error by third baseman Tebeau, and Wilmot’s heads-up running landed him on third.

Wilmot scored and Dahlen went to third on another Spiders error. Anson, as he had in the fourth, brought home Dahlen with a fly ball. Chicago made it a 10-run day when right fielder Cliff Carroll was walked by Young, took off on a steal of second, and continued home when Young threw the ball into center field.

Perhaps fittingly, given the Spiders’ sloppy play, Chicago’s three runs in the eighth came without a hit, as the Colts turned two walks, three Cleveland errors, and a sacrifice into three runs. Of the total 14 runs scored in the game, box scores credited only four as being earned, two by each team. Cleveland’s rough day in the field was shown by the team’s nine errors, including three by second baseman Childs.

But the most noteworthy number of the day was six: the number of walks the Colts’ Wilmot received. Sporting Life reported, “The feature of the game was Ryan’s fielding and batting. … Wilmot went to base on balls six times – a most remarkable occurrence.”8 As of 2025, Wilmot’s six-walk feat has been matched only one once in a nine-inning game, by Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx for the Boston Red Sox in 1938.9

The Chicago Tribune was effusive in its praise of Wilmot, commenting, “Walter Wilmot is the proud possessor of quite a collection of baseball trophies in the shape of long, ugly-looking scars on his figure from not too gentle contact with mother earth, old bats full of memories and base hits, old shoes, old spikes, and a baseball record. … It is not often that one attains distinction by doing nothing … but Walter secured his record by no greater exertion than statuesque posing at the plate.”10

In the prose of the day, the Tribune added, “[T]he familiar old malady bearing the homely name of rheumatism is now in undisturbed possession of Walter’s left shoulder, and there are more pleasant things to contemplate than swinging a forty ounce club at a flying ball with rheumatic pains playing hide and seek in one’s joints.”11

The Chicago Inter Ocean also took note of Wilmot’s accomplishment, in colorful language: “But the feat of all was that of Wilmot, who stood at the plate like a clothing store dummy, and skipped to first on balls no fewer than six times. It is the record of the year.”12 Wilmot added to his laurels with two runs scored in the contest though he had no official at-bats. For the season, Wilmot had 55 bases on balls.

The Chicago press was full of praise for Anson and his young Colts. Anson himself was not reserved about voicing his optimism for the team. Despite having just a three-game lead over the Boston Beaneaters entering the final week of August, Anson proclaimed, “We get that pennant if we have to use an ax … and it won’t be an ax-cident either.”13

Chicago was perhaps too optimistic, and while the Colts did finish strong, going 20-14 the rest of the season, Boston won 30 of its final 41 games to take the pennant by 3½ games. The Beaneaters of 1891 were led by such notables as Harry Stovey, Herman Long, Bobby Lowe, John Clarkson, and Kid Nichols, along with manager Frank Selee.14

Wilmot played in nearly 1,000 games in his 10-season major-league career with the NL’s Colts, Washington Nationals, and New York Giants. He finished with exactly 1,100 hits and 350 walks.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Walt Wilmot, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information.

The author also used John Thorn, Phil Birnbaum, and Bill Deane, eds., Total Baseball, 8th Edition (Toronto: SPORT Media Publishing, 2004).

Notes

1 Chicago’s National League team was known as the Colts for the group of young players signed by Anson in 1891. Colts continued as the accepted nickname throughout Anson’s tenure in Chicago. After the 1897 season, Anson was fired from the team after 19 years at the helm. The team became known as the Orphans in 1898. Orphans continued as the accepted nickname through 1901. Ed Coen, Baseball Research Journal, Vol 48. No. 2 (2019), https://sabr.org/journal/article/setting-the-record-straight-on-major-league-team-nicknames/.

2 Tebeau took over as player-manager of the Spiders in July when previous manager Bob Leadley resigned. Leadley reportedly resigned on July 11 “and left for his home in Detroit on the afternoon train.” “Two of a Kind – Another Great Game Played at League Park by Cleveland and Brooklyn,” Cleveland Leader, July 12, 1891: 6.

3 Mike Tiernan of the New York Giants and Oyster Burns of the Brooklyn Bridegrooms also hit 13 home runs in 1890.

4 “Same Old Story, Clevelands Play Like Wooden Men Against the Team of Adrian C. Anson,” Cleveland Leader, August 23, 1891: 3.

5 “Seven Games in a Row,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, August 23, 1891: 3.

6 Cleveland Leader.

7 Game accounts do not make clear when Wilmot came to the plate. Leading off the eighth could have been the fifth or sixth walk. As Chicago scored three times in the eighth, it’s also possible he could have been due at the plate in the ninth and received his sixth walk then.

8 Sporting Life, August 29, 1891: 3.

9 As of 2025, three players have received six walks in extra-inning games since 1901: Andre Thornton of the Cleveland Indians in a 16-inning game on May 2, 1984; Jeff Bagwell of the Houston Astros in a 16-inning game on August 20, 1999; and Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals in a 13-inning game on May 8, 2016.

10 “Anson Is Still Winning,” Chicago Tribune, August 23, 1891: 5.

11 Chicago Tribune, August 23, 1891: 3.

12 “Seven Games in a Row,” Chicago Inter Ocean.

13 “Seven Games in a Row.”

14 The Spiders finished fifth in the NL, 22½ games behind Boston.