Urban Shocker, The Ottawa-Trained Spitballer Who Bested Babe Ruth
This article was written by Sharon Hamilton
This article was published in From Bytown to the Big Leagues: Ottawa Baseball From 1865 to 2025
Urban Shocker, the legendary pitcher who perfected his signature spitball while playing for the Ottawa Senators. (Ottawa Journal, September 10, 1914: 4.)
In evident disbelief, they followed their pitcher’s directions and moved forward. This astounding move rattled the great batter. He swung at one of Shocker’s slow balls and missed. Shocker turned around again, motioning the outfielders in a bit closer. For a second time, a swing and a miss. A last time, Shocker turned around and motioned the outfielders to move in closer yet, guiding them almost into the infield. Once again, the terror of opposing pitchers took a swing, and missed. Ruth was out. Commentators who observed this stunt suggested perhaps Shocker had risked this delightful piece of baseball theatre—which had precisely its desired psychological effect on the batter—because he knew if Ruth hit the ball, none of the outfielders would have been able to catch it anyway.1 Like everyone else in the park, they would have watched it sail over their heads and past the stadium’s back wall.
After the game, reporters praised Shocker for his virtuoso “spitball, curve, and change of pace” with which he had tormented the Yankees, including Ruth. The media noted in particular the success of the “headwork” Shocker had used to outwit opposing batters.2 During the game Shocker struck out 14 New York batters, including Ruth (three times), in the 6 to 4 victory.3 As the New York Herald declared in its headline the next day: “38,823 Paid Fans See Shocker Tame the Babe.”4 As a spitball pitcher in the major leagues, Shocker won 187 games and lost only 117, with a 3.17 ERA and 983 strikeouts to 657 walks. This remarkable baseball player—who was once one of Babe Ruth’s most successful antagonists, before later becoming his teammate, learned how to throw his spitball in Ottawa.
THE ROAD TO OTTAWA
Urban Shocker was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 22, 1890; his siblings retained the family name of “Shockcor.” In his biography on Urban Shocker, baseball historian Steve Steinberg speculates Urban may have adopted the simplified spelling of “Shocker” because newspaper reporters were not able to get the more complicated spelling of his name right.5 He also speculates journalists may have heard him being called “Urb” and thought it was “Herb,” a name often used for him during his minor-league career, including by journalists based in Ottawa.6
Growing up in the baseball-loving city of Cleveland appears to have infected Shocker, who enjoyed playing sandlot games. Sometime around 1909 he moved to Detroit to live with his older sister, and in 1911, he joined the nearby Windsor Canucks, primarily as a catcher.7 At this time the Windsor Canucks were not yet a professional team, as they would become in 1912 with the formation of the Border League;8 however, the local papers were already taking note of Shocker’s play. On May 1 an article in the Windsor Evening Record noted that “Shocker performed in a very satisfactory manner behind the bat.”9 By June 14 a large headline in the Windsor Evening Record proclaimed, “CATCHER SHOCKER LEADS LIST OF WINDSOR’S HEAVY SLUGGERS.”10 The article noted that “the blond fellow” had been “hitting at a terrific clip all season,” achieving a .400 batting average. They opined that Shocker had shown his value in other ways as well, especially in his “coaching of the pitchers” and in his general “pepper” and “enthusiasm.”11
One day while playing with the Windsor team, Shocker broke the tip of the third finger on his right hand. In the Windsor Evening Record for June 9, 1913, reporters noted that Shocker had started to make a catch but “received a bump on the finger in the fourth inning.”12 When his finger healed, it had a hook at the last joint. In important ways, this accident would change the trajectory of Shocker’s baseball career. As Shocker would explain later, “That broken finger may not be pretty to look at but it has been very useful to me. It hooks over a baseball just right so that I can get a break on my slow ball and that’s one of the best balls I throw.”13
On an early outing as a pitcher (Shocker volunteered for the position when the team was short of pitching staff) he deeply impressed the game’s onlookers. The Windsor Evening Record reported in May 1913 that “with the form that Shocker displayed in the box on Sunday afternoon, the stock of the Windsor Border league team was given a big boost.”14 In that game, Shocker struck out 13 of the opposing batters.15 Canadian reporters watched him continue to serve as a pitcher throughout the season and were impressed by how the whole team appeared to rally naturally behind him in this role. An article appearing in the Windsor Evening Record on August 12, 1913, remarked that “If the players have confidence in a pitcher they will give him better support every time.”16 With respect to Shocker they noted: “The boys know Shocker’s capable of pitching a good game and they play behind him different than to other heavers.”17
Shocker had a 4.54 ERA with Windsor that year. The hook in the third finger of his pitching hand made a difference, giving him remarkable control. He began to develop his slow ball and worked on his curve balls. Already, at this early stage, his strikeouts to walks ratio was an impressive nearly 3 to 1. By the fall, Windsor media were making unabashed pronouncements about his promise as a pitcher. In an article published on September 19, 1913, they wrote: “‘Shock’ has a better assortment of curves, more experience, and many other little points that go to make a successful pitcher.”18
In 1914 Shocker joined the Class-B Ottawa Senators of the Canadian League, where he had the good fortune of playing under the management of Frank “Shag” Shaughnessy, who would teach him “the spitter.” Shaughnessy was a player-manager for the Senators, himself an outfielder of considerable talent. Like Shocker, he was an American; it was falling in love with a woman — Katherine Quinn from Ottawa — that brought him to the city, first to court her and then, later, when they moved there as a young family, with the first of their children, owing to her love for the place.19 Shaughnessy built baseball up into a popular sport in Ottawa observing, “All the visiting clubs were happy to come to Ottawa,” noting that they received 20 cents on admission from huge crowds and that he had solved the problem of baseball games being banned on Sundays in Ontario by booking a field across the river in Quebec.20
Observers were immediately impressed with Shocker as he began to come into his own as a pitcher under Shaughnessy’s expert mentorship. In April, a story in the Ottawa Citizen observed that “Pitcher Shocker, of the Ottawas, has a lot of electricity up his sleeve.”21 By June the Ottawa Citizen was expressing raptures about Shocker’s pitching, noting that he had been “invincible” in a game’s tightest moments.22 Shocker still lacked some basic pitching skills, however. In an interview for The Sporting News, Shaughnessy later recalled that when he first started to work with Shocker, the pitcher’s curve ball still needed work. But he also saw promise; Shag’s impression of Shocker was that he was “‘as smart as they come.’”23
One day while Shocker was sitting on the bench waiting to warm up, Shaughnessy came up to him.
“Ever tried the spitter?” Shaughnessy asked.
“No,” Shocker replied. “But I’m sure I could throw anything.”24
Shaughnessy encouraged him to try. Shocker got up and asked a teammate if he could borrow a piece of slippery elm, then he approached an older pitcher on the team and asked if he could instruct him how to throw a spitball.25 As Shaughnessy remembered, Shocker was “so clever he learned the spitter the first time he threw it.”26
Shocker tried out his new pitch for the first time in a July 19 Senators game against the St. Thomas Saints. A blazing headline in the next day’s Ottawa Journal proclaimed: “Champs Slaughtered Saints on Sunday winning 19 to 1.”27 A subheading summed up in block capitals the performance of the Senator’s pitcher: “SHOCKER TWIRLED WELL.”28 The Ottawa Citizen similarly praised Shocker for pitching “clever ball from start to finish.”29 Shag’s mentorship was already paying off. The same Citizen article noted that Shocker had “used his ‘spitter’ for the first time” in this game and “had things all his own way.”30 Shocker continued to improve his new pitch throughout the summer and by August the Citizen had begun referring to Shocker as the “Senators’ spitball artist,” noting that batters swung without effect at Shocker’s “moist ball.”31
In 1914 Shocker won 20 games with the Ottawa Senators. Throughout, he continued to hone his impressive control with, now, in addition to his slow ball developed in Windsor, his spitball learned in Ottawa. This growing arsenal of specialized pitches enabled him to strike out 158 batters that year. In September, Shocker helped lead the Senators to their third straight Canadian League title. The Senators sealed their championship on September 7 (see sidebar) and within a matter of days Shocker was called up to try out for the majors.
The Ottawa Citizen reported, “Pitcher Shocker goes to Detroit Tigers and will get a trial immediately,” referring to him in the article’s subtitle as the “Canadian League ‘Iron Man.’”32 The Citizen also commented on Shocker’s character and general contributions to the team describing him as the “most willing pitcher who has ever worn the Ottawa spangles,” and a “thorough gentleman on and off the field.”33 The Citizen pointed out that Shocker’s rapid movement up the ranks that season had taken place mainly owing to his improvement as a pitcher, beginning in “the middle of the season, when he began working on his spitball.”34
The Ottawa Journal similarly trumpeted the news. In their article they included a dramatic photograph of Shocker mid-pitch while wearing his Senator’s uniform with its prominent white “O.” A caption above the photo read: “PITCHER URBAN SHOCKER, who will receive a tryout with the Detroit Tigers;” to which they added, “Shocker was easily the class of the Senator’s twirling staff.”35 Shocker did not make it into the majors on that occasion and ended up returning to Ottawa. With his expert support, the Senators won the Canadian League pennant again in 1915.
Meanwhile, scouts for the major leagues had continued to watch what was happening with Shocker. An article in the Detroit Free Press in August 1915 proclaimed, “Shocker Fairly Burned Up the Canadian Circuit During Month of July.”36 The same article said the next time the team was on the road a National League scout intended to check out “the young spitballer.”37 Shocker was recruited at the conclusion of the 1915 season by the New York Yankees and never returned to the Senators. However, he did make a return trip to Ottawa in October 1916 as a participant in an exhibition game between Tris Speaker’s All-Star American Leaguers and a team of “Internationals” (for whom Shocker played) in Lansdowne Park. An article in the Ottawa Citizen noted that Shocker— had enjoyed a “flashy season” with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Yankees. The article said Shocker was held up before his first trip to the plate to be presented with a gold locket from “local admirers,” for which he bowed his thanks.38
SHOCKER’S SPITBALL IN THE MAJORS
After his major-league debut on April 24, 1916 with the New York Yankees, Shocker spent some time optioned by the Yankees, who had a pitching surplus, to the International League. In this way Shocker ended up playing again in Canada, this time in Toronto.39 After spectacular play for the Maple Leafs that summer he was recalled by the Yankees, and in the spring of 1917 Baseball Magazine included Shocker in its list of the most promising major-league recruits.40 In January 1918 Shocker found himself traded by the Yankees to the St. Louis Browns as part of a multi-player deal. It was for the Browns from 1918-24 and then with the New York Yankees from 1925-28 that Urban Shocker served out his career in the majors.41
When the Browns acquired Shocker from the Yankees in 1918, a St. Louis sports reporter raved about the hurler’s “wicked spitball.”42 The Ottawa press had not forgotten Shocker’s connections to the city, and local coverage of this trade noted that the deal had almost been scuttled by the Yankees’ unwillingness to let Shocker go. Ottawa sports writers proudly claimed Shocker as part of Ottawa’s baseball history by referring to him in their coverage of the trade as an “Ex-Ottawa Heaver”43 and “the former Ottawa spit baller.”44
In 1920, for a variety of reasons – including wishing to recalibrate the relationship between batters and pitchers for a higher scoring game – major-league baseball’s club owners agreed to ban “trick” pitches, a list in which, with some debate, they considered including the spitball.45 The league’s spitball pitchers protested this anticipated change noting that they had acquired this specialization when the throw was legal. An example of the arguments made appears in the November 25, 1920 edition of The Sporting News in which Burleigh Grimes—the “Brooklyn Moist Ball Artist”—argued that it was unfair to suddenly remove from a pitcher’s repertoire something that had been a legal throw, and a skill, that for most spitballers good enough to throw in the majors, had taken 10-15 years to perfect.46
For his part, Shocker reacted to the proposed spitball ban by saying that he felt he would be fine since he used the spitball sparingly, and mainly “only in the pinches” although he also added that he bluffed it frequently.47 Although major-league baseball’s owners ultimately decided that the spitball should be included in the list of banned trick pitches, in a concession to the arguments made by the spitball pitchers, they decided that those hurlers for whom the spitball was an important pitch would be grandfathered, and therefore able to continue to use this pitch. Shocker was among the 17 spitballers to whom this exemption applied.48
Throughout his time in the major leagues—which included playing for the World Series-winning 1927 Yankees—Shocker persistently impressed onlookers with his pitching smarts and range of pitching styles, including his Ottawa-derived spitter. An article in a September 13, 1924 St. Louis newspaper was typical of sports coverage of the 1920s in its praise of Shocker’s ability to learn the batters’ individual styles and getting them to “hit at pitches tossed to their weaknesses.”49 This intellectual form of pitching was something they described as the key to his “puzzling effectiveness.”50 Similarly in 1922, in its coverage of a Browns/Yankees match (with Shocker playing for the Browns) the New York Times reported that Shocker had risen to “magnificent heights in the pinches” and that his control was perfect as his “spitball broke across the corners, and a puzzling slow ball floated past Yankees’ bats.”51
In 1926, in assessing Shocker’s value as a pitcher, reporters for The Sporting News suggested Shocker was “worth his weight in diamonds,” noting the “big spitball expert” had become a Yankee mainstay.52 And when Burleigh Grimes, who was the last legal spitballer in the majors, was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1964, he was asked who, in his opinion, had been the best spitball pitcher. Grimes responded that it had been Urban Shocker, “because he had everything else to go with it.”53
In 1928 the Yankees were forced to release Shocker owing to his by then obvious health issues. Shortly before his unconditional release from the team, in an interview with The Sporting News Shocker revealed that for the previous two years he’d had to sleep sitting up because lying down, even a little, choked him.54 He’d been suffering from–and playing through–heart failure. He died in Denver, Colorado on September 9, 1928 at the age of 37.
The next day, the Ottawa Journal ran a story about Shocker’s death under the headline “Heilmann Grieves at Death of Friend: Pays Tribute to Urban Shocker as one of the greatest right-handers.”55 Harry Heilmann, a champion batter with Detroit of the American League, described Shocker in this article as “the greatest right-handed pitcher of the last decade.”56 The article also mentioned Shocker’s Canadian apprenticeship, as someone who had played in both Toronto and Ottawa.
Ultimately, it was that initial training in Ottawa, under Shaughnessy, when Shocker had played for the Senators that had helped shape him into the kind of major-league pitcher he became at his best—as he was that day in July 1920 in front of a record crowd of 38,823 fans at the Polo Grounds when he bested the Babe. An unbeatable force, he tossed the ball with such controlled mastery observers said it “jumped away from the Yankee bats like a grasshopper.”57 At that moment, Shocker was at the top of his game, using the skills he’d fine-tuned during his formative years in Ottawa, to tame some of the game’s greatest batters, including Ruth. Commenting especially on the potency of his Ottawa-originating spitball, awed New York scribes remarked, “the slippery ball never cut such capers at Shocker’s command before.”58
is the chair of the Society for American Baseball Research’s (SABR) Century Research Committee, which celebrates important milestones in baseball history. She served as project manager for the special 100th anniversary SABR Century 1921 project at SABR.org and for the web project on Jackie Robinson and the 75th anniversary of baseball’s re-integration.
NOTES
1 “How’s this for a Star Battery?” The Sporting News, July 22, 1920: 3.
2 “38,823 Paid Fans See Shocker Tame the Babe,” New York Herald, July 14, 1920: 11.
3 “Shocker’s Hurling in First Game Gives Browns Split with Yankees,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 14, 1920: 7.
4 “38,823 Paid Fans See Shocker Tame the Babe,” New York Herald, July 14, 1920: 11.
5 Steve Steinberg, Urban Shocker: Silent Hero of Baseball’s Golden Age (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), ebook.
6 Steinberg, Urban Shocker.
7 Steinberg, Urban Shocker. Steinberg notes that Shocker also played for some Southern Michigan League teams during this period as well.
8 “1912 Border League,” https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?id=e19fecf2, Accessed September 4, 2023.
9 “Windsor Takes a Game of Detroit,” Evening Record (Windsor), May 1, 1911: 1.
10 “Catcher Shocker Leads List of Windsor’s Heavy Sluggers,” Evening Record (Windsor), June 14, 1911: 2.
11 “Catcher Shocker Leads List of Windsor’s Heavy Sluggers.”
12 “Windsor Loses to Both Ypsi. and Port Huron” Evening Record (Windsor), June 9, 1913: 3.
13 Baseball Magazine, January 1921, 381 qtd. in Joseph Wancho, “Urban Shocker,” Society for American Baseball Research, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/urban-shocker/, Accessed April 9, 2023.
14 “Shocker Made Good in Box,” Evening Record (Windsor), May 20, 1913: 3.
15 “Shocker Made Good in Box.”
16 M. R. Winters, “Team Plays Behind Shocker,” Evening Record (Windsor), August 12, 1913: 3.
17 “Team Plays Behind Shocker.”
18 “Windsor Plays First Rugby Game Sept. 17,” Evening Record (Windsor), September 19, 1913: 5.
19 See, David McDonald, “Frank Shaughnessy: The Ottawa Years,” Our Game, Too: Influential Figures and Milestones in Canadian Baseball, Andrew North, editor (Phoenix, Arizona: Society for American Baseball Research, 2022), ebook.
20 “The Frank Shaughnessy Story,” The Sporting News, December 14, 1960: 18.
21 “Canadian Ball League Race Will be in Full Swing Two Weeks from Today,” Ottawa Citizen, April 24, 1914: 8.
22 “Ottawas Began Important Home Series with Shutout Victory over Hamilton ‘Doc’ Yeats and his Tigers Beaten 6-0,” Ottawa Citizen, June 26, 1914: 8.
23 The Frank Shaughnessy Story,” The Sporting News, December 14, 1960: 18.
24 This dialogue is recreated based on Shaughnessy’s description of this exchange in “The Frank Shaughnessy Story.”
25 “The Frank Shaughnessy Story.”
26 “The Frank Shaughnessy Story.”
27 “Champs Slaughtered Saints on Sunday winning 19 to 1,” Ottawa Journal, July 20, 1914: 5.
28 “Champs Slaughtered Saints on Sunday winning 19 to 1.”
29 “Senators Avenged Saturday’s Waterloo by Burying St. Thomas Pitchers Under Avalanche of Hard Hits in Final Clash,” Ottawa Citizen, July 20, 1914: 8.
30 “Senators Avenged Saturday’s Waterloo by Burying St. Thomas Pitchers Under Avalanche of Hard Hits in Final Clash.”
31 “Heavy Hitting and Good Pitching in Pinches Resulted in Double Win on Saturday,” Ottawa Citizen, August 24, 1914, 8.
32 “Pitcher Shocker goes to Detroit Tigers and will get a trial immediately,” Ottawa Citizen, September 10, 1914: 8.
33 “Pitcher Shocker goes to Detroit Tigers and will get a trial immediately.”
34 “Pitcher Shocker goes to Detroit Tigers and will get a trial immediately.”
35 “Shocker to get tryout by Detroit Tigers,” Ottawa Journal, September 10, 1914: 4.
36 “Former Local Mound Artist Making Good,” Detroit Free Press, August 15, 1915: 19.
37 “Former Local Mound Artist Making Good.”
38 “With Urban Shocker in box Royals Turned Tables on Americans in Final Game,” Ottawa Citizen, October 10, 1916: 9.
39 For more on Shocker’s time in Toronto see Steve Steinberg, “A Shocker on the Island,” Dominionball: Baseball Over the 49th (Cleveland, Ohio: SABR, 2005), and Sharon Hamilton, “The Canadian Apprenticeship of Jazz Age Baseball Superstar Urban Shocker,” Journal of Canadian Baseball vol 2: no. 1 (2023) https://ojs.uwindsor.ca/index.php/jcb/article/view/8348/5632
40 J. C. Kofoed, “The Youngsters of 1917,” Baseball Magazine, August 1917: 434.
41 In the midst of his major-league play, Shocker was also called up for the draft. He served in France with the 340th Regiment of the 85th Infantry Division from the summer of 1918 until the spring of 1919. Biographer Steve Steinberg believes he likely did not experience combat.
42 Sid C. Keener, “Browns Trade Pratt and Plank to Yankees,” St. Louis Times, January 22, 1918, qtd. in Steinberg.
43 “Urban Shocker Goes to St. Louis Browns,” Ottawa Journal, January 23, 1918: 10.
44 “Yanks didn’t want to give up Shocker,” Ottawa Journal, January 24, 1918: 8.
45 For a detailed overview on the banning of trick pitches, including the spitball, in 1920 see Steve Steinberg, “The Spitball and the End of the Deadball Era,” https://sabr.org/research/article/the-spitball-and-the-end-of-the-deadball-era/. Accessed April 9, 2023. This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 23 (2003). For an examination of how this rule change affected Shocker while he played for the Browns see Rick Huhn, The Sizzler: George Sisler, Baseball’s Forgotten Great (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004), 81-86.
46 “Burleigh Grimes as Pleader for Spitters,” The Sporting News, November 25, 1920: 3.
47 Sid C. Keener Browns, “Spitball Hurlers use more Speed and Wider Curve with Ban on Freak Shoots,” St. Louis Times (St. Louis, Missouri), March 4, 1920. Qtd. in Steinberg.
48 Although Shocker threw a variety of pitches, and said he used the spitter only sparingly and mainly in a game’s tightest moments, he clearly viewed this pitch as a key tool in his arsenal and was among the 17 pitchers who asked in 1920 when the new rules against trick pitches were introduced that they be exempted from the prohibition on the spitball. This exemption was granted to Shocker and the others who applied for it in 1920, and this exemption was later made permanent, lasting for each one of these spitters until the end of their careers (see Steinberg: “the seventeen veterans who had registered for the 1920 one-year exemption.”).
49 “Shocker is in Form and Browns Shut Out Indians, 5 to 0,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat (St. Louis, Missouri), September 13, 1924: 9.
50 “Shocker is in Form and Browns Shut Out Indians, 5 to 0.”
51 “Yankees Outluck Browns in Opener,” New York Times, July 12, 1922: S16.
52 Joe Vila, “Yank Boss makes a few ‘Mind Bets’” The Sporting News, July 29, 1926: 3.
53 Ed Rumill, “Shocker Threw Best Spitball,” Christian Science Monitor, July 30, 1964 qtd. in Steinberg.
54 Arthur Mann, “Gamest of the Game,” The Sporting News, August 11, 1938: 3.
55 “Heilman Grieves at Death of Friend: Pays Tribute to Urban Shocker as one of the greatest right-handers,” Ottawa Journal, Sept. 10, 1928: 16.
56 “Heilman Grieves at Death of Friend: Pays Tribute to Urban Shocker as one of the greatest right-handers.”
57 “38,823 Fans See Yanks Break Even,” New York Times, July 14, 1920: 11.
58 “38,823 Fans See Yanks Break Even.”