May 7, 1901: Boston’s Win Kellum earns the first American League win by a Canadian pitcher

The first pitch ever thrown by the team that since 1908 has been known as the Boston Red Sox was thrown by Winford Ansley Kellum.1

Left-hander Win Kellum of Waterford, Ontario, was the starting pitcher for the Boston Americans on April 26, 1901 – the first day in American League history that games were played.2 Win got a loss that day, beaten by the Baltimore Orioles, 10-6, in Baltimore.

Fellow Canadian Larry McLean pinch-hit for Kellum in the top of the ninth, and doubled down the right-field line, driving in one of the three runs that Boston scored in the top of the ninth. McLean, a native of Fredericton, New Brunswick, scored as well.

McLean thus became the first Canadian to pinch-hit – and the first to drive in a run – in league history. The first Canadian to make a base hit in league history had been Kellum himself, earlier on Opening Day – a scratch single in the eighth inning. He came around to score as well, thus preserving a place in league history as the first Canadian to score a run.

Despite the base hits and run production by Kellum and McLean, Baltimore prevailed.

Kellum lost his second start as well, 14-1 on May 1 in Philadelphia, allowing 11 earned runs and keeping his earned-run average above 11.00.

It was during his third start that Win earned his first win. On Tuesday afternoon, May 7, in Washington, he took the mound again for manager (and third baseman) Jimmy Collins. The team entered the game with a record of 4-5 and had yet to play a home game. This was the final game of the 10-game road trip that started their season before beginning a six-game homestand. They had won the last two from Washington and were going for a sweep. Collins thought about starting Cy Young, the winning pitcher in the series opener on May 4, but the Boston Globe reported that “Kellum showed up in such perfect form that Capt Collins scratched Young and held him in reserve.”3

Opposing Kellum was Washington manager Jim Manning’s choice, right-hander Bill Carrick. He was from Pennsylvania and had already won his first three starts, 5-1, 5-2, and 9-4, with an ERA of 1.33.

Boston got two men on base on the top of the first inning, but a double play saw the batter out at first and a runner out trying to score from third base. Washington got the first run of the game, in the bottom of the first inning. Leading off, center fielder John Farrell tripled to deep left field and came home on first baseman Mike Grady’s fly ball to Charlie Hemphill in right field.

Neither team scored in the second, but in the top of the third, Boston tied the score when left fielder Tommy Dowd tripled and then scored as Hemphill was thrown out in a play at first base. The Americans took the lead by scoring twice in the top of the fourth. First baseman Buck Freeman walked and went to second on a single by shortstop Freddy Parent. Both runners advanced 90 feet when second baseman Hobe Ferris grounded out. Freeman tagged and scored on catcher Lou Criger’s fly ball to center field. Kellum grounded a ball to Bill Coughlin at third base, and a fielding error allowed Parent to score.

Boston added a fourth run in the top of the sixth after Freeman drew another walk. Parent sacrificed him to second, and he scored when left fielder Jack O’Brien fumbled Ferris’s hit to left.4

In the bottom of the sixth, Carrick led off with a triple. After Farrell popped up to Parent at short, Grady hit a fly ball to left field. Dowd hauled it in, but it was deep enough for Carrick to tag and score. That made it Boston 4, Washington 2.

Kellum made the first out in the top of the ninth, grounding out second to first; he was 0-for-4 in the game. Dowd reached base on a bunt in front of home plate, then scored when Hemphill hit a ball to right field that “got past Sam] Dungan and rolled under a wagon” as Hemphill raced around the bases for an inside-the-park home run.5 With two outs, Jimmy Collins took four pitches for a base on balls, followed by Freeman banging a run-scoring double off the right-field fence.

Washington got one back in the bottom of the ninth, when Mike Grady hit one over the left-field fence for a home run. It was the final run of the game.

Boston outhit Washington 11-4 and benefited from five walks. All four Washington hits were for extra bases – Grady’s home run, two triples (one by Carrick and one by Farrell), and a double by Billy Clingman – but Kellum limited the damage by walking no one.

The Washington Times declared that Kellum’s “curves were complete enigmas for the opposing batsmen.”6 The Washington Post writer ascribed Boston’s win to their determination, being “out for blood.” He credited Kellum as “all there when it came to seeing in puzzling twisters,” also noting excellent play by Boston fielders, including two one-handed plays by Hobe Ferris that “turned base hits into outs in the most distressing manner.”7 Boston played errorless ball.

After the game, the team entrained for the trip north to Boston, arriving at 2:00 P.M. the following day, heading straight from the station to the Huntington Avenue Grounds for their home opener against the Philadelphia Athletics. With Cy Young starting, the Americans won that game with ease, 12-4.

Pitching in Boston, Kellum lost a home game on May 13, then won another game, 7-4, on June 10 in Boston against visiting Milwaukee. His sixth and final start was on June 14. Boston won the game, beating Detroit 16-7, but Kellum had departed after five innings with the score tied, 6-6. Cy Young picked up the victory in relief. Shortly afterward, Kellum was released by the team.

He continued to play ball, but his next time in the majors was in the National League in 1904, when he was 15-10 (2.60) in 34 appearances for the Cincinnati Reds. In 1905 he was 3-3 (2.92) for the St. Louis Cardinals, but in mid-June departed for the minor leagues.8

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Win Kellum, Baseball-Reference.com.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS1/WS1190105070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1901/B05070WS11901.htm

Notes

1 Kellum, born in 1876, had played in Organized Baseball since 1895. In 1900 he had pitched for Indianapolis with a record of 20-18.

2 Waterford is a hamlet about 15 miles south of Brantford (or midway between Hamilton and London, Ontario).

3 “Kellum a Mystery,” Boston Globe, May 8, 1901: 4.

4 “Collins’ Club Again Winner,” Boston Herald, May 8, 1901: 8.

5 “In the Baseball World,” Washington Times, May 8, 1901: 3.

6 “In the Baseball World.”

7 “Insisted on winning,” Washington Post, May 8, 1901: 8.

8 After his playing career was done, he did some umpiring in the Southern League, then turned to farming and raising cattle in Michigan and working in a garage servicing automobiles. He was invited to join other members of the 1901 team at a celebration at Fenway Park in May 1951, but had to bow out due to illness. He died that August.