July 27, 1889: Harry Raymond’s wild win

In 1889 the Louisville Colonels of the American Association were a woeful baseball team. Over the season, Louisville went 27-111-2, with a record-setting 26-game losing streak. The team churned through four managers – Dude Esterbrook (2-8), Jimmy “Chicken” Wolf (14-51), Dan Shannon (10-46-2), and Jack Chapman (1-6) – with equally dismal results. By July 27, Louisville was firmly ensconced in last (eighth) place with a 17-63 record, 37 games behind the Association-leading St. Louis Browns and 12 games behind the seventh-place Columbus Solons. On that day, responding to an emergency need for a starting pitcher, regular third baseman Harry Raymond took the mound against the Solons in Columbus and threw an improbable complete-game victory. Raymond surrendered just two runs, only one earned, in the Colonels’ 6-2 victory despite giving up eight hits and 11 walks. It was the only game he ever pitched in the major leagues.

The Colonels, in addition to playing terrible baseball, were riven by dissension, much of it caused by the club’s mercurial and penurious owner, Mordecai Davidson. With the club undercapitalized and plagued by low ticket sales, by midseason he was more than a month behind in meeting payrolls despite trimming the team’s roster to 11. Davidson then instituted a system of harsh fines for errors or deficiencies, leading in June to what may have been the first baseball strike, a two-game boycott by Raymond and five other Louisville players.1

By the time of the 27-year-old Raymond’s start, the Colonels’ roster had been further depleted by injuries. Louisville was desperate for pitching. Three members of the starting rotation – John Ewing, Red Ehret, and Guy Hecker – were unavailable. The Louisville Courier-Journal described the situation:

With Ewing and Ehret suffering from sore arms and Hecker still away, the prospects looked blue in the morning. Harry Raymond agreed to go in the box and do his best. He had pitched occasionally in the California League several years ago and was at that time quite effective but had had no practice of the kind since. He is, however, every inch a ball player, and with the club in the crippled condition it was today, he was willing to take any chance to lead the players on to victory.2

In the minors, Raymond did have some experience as a pitcher, but it was quite limited. He threw five innings of relief in two games for the Fort Leavenworth Soldiers and had a complete-game victory in his only start for the Kansas City Cowboys, both in 1887.

Raymond faced off against 24-year-old Al Mays, who was enjoying the best season, and only winning season, of his career. He finished 1889 with 10 wins and 7 losses. Mays started his major-league career with Louisville in 1885, compiling a 6-11 record. He then spent two losing seasons with the New York Metropolitans and a 9-9 season with Brooklyn before joining Columbus for the 1889 season. His success in 1889, however, was abruptly followed by the end of his major-league career; he pitched one final game for the Colonels in 1890, giving up 13 runs (eight earned) in a nine-inning loss. Over his career, Mays averaged fewer than three walks per game, and this was true of his July 27 start against the Colonels, in which he was called by the umpire for only two walks.

Raymond was not the only Colonel playing out of his regular position. Phil Tomney, the shortstop, was the only infielder in his normal position.

In the game, Columbus scored a run in the first inning on an error by Wolf, who was filling in for Raymond at third base. Louisville responded with two runs in the bottom of the first inning.3 With two outs, Farmer Weaver was hit by a pitch. Farmer Vaughn singled, and Pete Browning drove in both with a line drive to deep left field. Browning was thrown out trying for second.

In the top of the second, Columbus scored a run on singles to tie the score. It was the last run the Solons would score. Louisville scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to break the tie. Ehret and Paul Cook singled and Tomney bunted to load the bases. Second baseman Fred Carl’s line drive scored two runs, and Wolf’s single drove in the third. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Vaughn led off with a home run over the left-field fence. Browning followed with a double. Raymond singled, apparently driving in Browning. Umpire Jack Holland, however, ruled that Browning had run outside the basepath and that Browning was out and his run did not count. Holland’s ruling, together with his calling 11 bases on balls on Raymond, prompted the Louisville Courier-Journal to observe that “the visitors were roasted by the umpire at every occasion, but even this could not rob them of today’s game.”4 Over the game, in addition to the walks, Raymond gave up eight hits (all singles) and threw two wild pitches. Thus, out of 19 baserunners, only two scored.

Much of the reason for Columbus’s failure to score was timely pitching and fielding by Louisville. The Courier-Journal noted: “Three times during the game, Columbus had three men on with none out when Raymond settled down and with perfect support retired the side without scoring.”5

The Courier-Journal praised Louisville’s fielding, calling the performance “the most brilliant fielding the club has done this season.”6 The newspaper singled out Carl, a recent acquisition, for special praise for his defense, calling him a “genuine phenom.” The paper added, “[T]o him the honors of the field work … especially belong,” noting that he was part of four inning-ending double plays.7

The calls by Holland led to Raymond’s lofty 11-walk total. The Courier-Journal criticized the umpire: “It is true that he was wild, sending eleven men to bases on balls, but at critical times his judgment was good and his delivery hard to get outside the diamond. Umpire Holland was also very severe in calling balls on him.”8

The St. Louis Post Dispatch’s account of Holland’s work was less charitable. It opined, “The rotten umpiring of Holland which was aimed against Louisville disgusted even a Columbus audience. His decisions on Raymond’s pitching was [sic] simply outrageous, and he must have been trying to kill him. He had Raymond send eleven men to bases on balls, when in reality it should have been half that many.”9

Nonetheless, despite the umpire’s calls, the 19 Solons baserunners and Raymond’s lack of pitching experience, Raymond and the Colonels won the game, providing a brief respite during a bleak season. The Courier-Journal summed up the game as follows: “The game, in short, was first class all around.” Regarding Raymond’s performance, the Courier-Journal added: “Raymond has always said that he could pitch winning ball for Louisville, and he proved that yesterday. Raymond is a good pitcher, but he is a better third baseman.”10

Despite Raymond’s remarkable performance, the Colonels returned to their losing ways for the remainder of their last place 27-111 season (although they staged an amazing turnaround the following year by leading the league). The Solons fared a bit better than the Colonels in 1889, finishing sixth with a 60-78-2 record.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Baseball-Reference.com.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, Newspapers.com, Statscrew.com, and Peter Morris, A Game of Inches (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010).

Notes

1 Later in the season, the American Association Board of Directors nullified most of the fines against Raymond and the others, and Davidson surrendered the team to a syndicate of local businessmen.

2 “Won the Game. At last Louisville Earns a Victory From a Base Ball Club,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 28, 1889: 4.

3 “Won the Game.”

4 “Won the Game.”

5 “Won the Game.”

6 “Won the Game.”

7 “Won the Game.”

8 “Won the Game.”

9 “Louisville, 6; Columbus, 2,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 28, 1889: 6.

10 “Won the Game.”