This week’s entry: Old Hoss Radbourn
What it’s about: Everyone’s favorite 1880s baseball player. Charles Radbourn had old-timey baseball’s best nickname, best mustache, best legendary exploits, and set baseball’s most enduring record by winning 60 games in a season.
Biggest controversy: We’re not 100% sure how many games Old Hoss won in 1884. Sixty is the agree-upon number, according to the Hall of Fame, and the ultimate authorities in print (Baseball Encyclopedia) and online (baseball-reference.com). But MLB.com and baseball-almanac.com credit the pitcher with just 59 wins. Radbourn came in as a reliever in the sixth inning of a July 28 game, and the scorer ruled that he had been the most effective of the game’s three pitchers and awarded him the win. Under modern rules, the starter would have the win, so some sources don’t consider it a “real” win for Radbourn. (Wins and losses are usually awarded to the starting pitcher, although sometimes a reliever will get the credit or blame through some mysterious formula we don’t pretend to understand even after a lifetime of casually following the sport). Radbourn’s tombstone arrived at its own number, crediting him with 62 wins.
Strangest fact: There was a baseball strike so severe in 1890 that the players started their own league. After getting his start with the Buffalo Bisons and Providence Grays (early National League teams that both folded after the 1885 season), Old Hoss went to pitch for the Boston Beaneaters (which would become the Boston Braves, then the Milwaukee Braves, then the Atlanta Braves, then presumably a name less offensive to Native Americans a few years from now. We’re rooting for them to go with the Atlanta Beaneaters).
The National League had a reserve clause, which meant players couldn’t switch teams for more money, and a salary cap, limiting the amount of money a player could make for the same team. The league agreed to drop the salary cap in 1887 but reneged, so frustrated players staged a season-long walkout, and started their own eight-team league, the Players’ League. While most of the NL’s best players joined the new league and attendance was good, they didn’t have much financial backing, and the players decided to fold the league after one season. The irony is, their walkout hurt the rival American Association more than the National League—it would fold a few years later and while it was eventually replaced by the American League, in the meantime, the NL became the only game in town, giving it even more leverage with the players. The reserve clause remained in effect for another 85 years.
Thing we were happiest to learn: Old Hoss’ career almost ended before it began, but for a lucky second chance. He joined the 1878 Peoria Reds, playing right field and “change pitcher.” The early rules of baseball didn’t allow for substitutions, even on the pitcher’s mound, but players already on the field could switch positions. It was common practice to put a second pitcher in the outfield, so if the starting pitcher was getting shelled, a team could move him into the outfield, and bring its change pitcher in to save the day. Radbourn was good enough in this role that two seasons later, the then-major league Buffalo Bisons called him up to the bigs as a second baseman and change pitcher. But he practiced so hard that he hurt his shoulder and was released without ever taking the pitcher’s mound. (He played six games in the field and batted only .143.) His career was only saved because, while rehabbing his injury, he played a pickup game against the Providence Grays, who were so impressed that they signed him on the spot, and he was back in the majors.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: He also needed a lucky third chance. In three seasons with the Grays, Radbourn established himself as one of the league’s best pitchers, finishing first or second in strikeouts, wins, and ERA in both 1882 and ’83. But the following year, Providence brought in another pitcher, Charlie Sweeney, who began to overshadow Old Hoss. Radbourn resented his teammate’s success, and the tension broke out into a fight—Radbourn was reportedly the instigator and was suspended without pay. But a week later, Sweeney showed up to a game drunk and continued drinking between innings. (Despite this, he still made it to the seventh inning, with the Grays up 6-2.) When the manager tried to swap him out for Radbourn, Sweeney cursed him out and was thrown out of the game. This left the Grays a man short, (remember, no substitutions meant there was no one on the bench waiting to come into the game), and they blew their lead.
Sweeney was fired. The prevailing view was that the team—already on shaky financial ground—should disband. But Radbourn saved the day by offering to pitch every single game in exchange for a small raise and an exemption from the reserve clause at season’s end. He then embarked on one of the most superhuman feats in baseball history, pitching 40 games in 60 days, winning 36. Modern pitchers generally get five days of rest between outings, and by late season Radbourn’s arm was so sore that he couldn’t comb his hair. But he finished the season having pitched 73 complete games, leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA (the first two were sheer numbers, but a 1.38 ERA meant he was also dominating opposing batters during his grueling tenure). The Grays went on to play the American Association’s New York Metropolitans in the World Series.* Old Hoss started all three games of what was then a best-of-five series. He won all three, allowing only three unearned runs for the series.
*Major League Baseball considers the World Series to have begun in 1903, when the National League and American League champions faced off for the first time. But the 1884 game between the NL and AA was billed as the “World’s Series,” and was played annually until 1890, after which the AA folded, to be replaced by the AL in 1901.
Also noteworthy: Radbourn was able to save the season, but not the Grays. The team folded after the 1885 season, and Radborn signed with the Boston Beaneaters, then the Boston Reds of the Players’ League, then returned to the NL for one season with the Cincinnati Reds before retiring at age 36. He opened a successful billiards parlor and saloon, but soon after was injured in a hunting accident, losing an eye. He spent most of his years hiding out in a back room of the saloon, ashamed to be seen after his disfigurement. He died six years after retiring from baseball.
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: The “charley horse” may have been named after Radbourn, as he suffered leg cramps during his playing days. He’s also the first person ever to be photographed giving the finger, as an 1886 team photo showed him sending a message to a New York Giants player. Flipping the bird is an unexpected cornerstone of Western civilization, as it first appeared in Ancient Greece “as a symbol of sexual intercourse, in a manner meant to degrade, intimidate and threaten the individual receiving the gesture,” as Wikipedia dryly puts it. Like many aspects of Ancient Greek culture, the gesture was embraced by the Roman Empire and endured long enough to be brought to America by Italian immigrants, where it was popularized just in time for the development of photography and Old Hoss’ second bid for immortality.
Further down the Wormhole: Radbourn is far from the only baseball Hall of Famer to have made an obscene gesture. Dick Williams, who played for five teams and managed six, was weeks away from being voted into the Hall when he was charged with indecent exposure, as he was accused of masturbating while naked on his hotel balcony. (He copped to the nudity but denied the masturbation; it will come as no surprise that the incident took place in Florida.) Wikipedia clinically describes indecent exposure as “the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior.” It maybe not even be the most indecent thing one can do in public, as there’s also public pooping. Outside of a camping trip, public defecation is usually only done as a last resort. But for one woman, it was practically a hobby. We’ll meet The Mad Pooper next week.
80 Comments
It’s a good name but it’s no Mordecai “three fingers” Brown.
Interesting thing about Mordecai Brown is that not only did he have a great nickname, but that his full legal name also told you the year he was born. His given name was Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown. Born in 1876, of course.
Now I wish my parents had given me the middle name “Bicentennial.”
My progeny shall be named Kennesaw Mountain Cadwalader Bicentennial.
Oh, we’re too good for Lou “Horse Cock” Gehrig I see…
‘Biscuit Pants’ had the junk in the trunk, too.
But the best names belong to the pre-integration black players:
Satchel PaigeCool Papa BellJelly Roll Gardner Bullet Rogan Double Duty Radcliffe (so-called because in a double header he would pitch relief in one, and catch in the other)
Great googly moogly, but they had some nicknames back then. Bill James, in his New Historical Baseball Abstract, lists several dozen of the best, most colorful nicknames from the Negro Leagues, including Ankleball Moss, Boogie-Woogie Pardue, Tank Carr, Mule Suttles, Dooflackem Brewer, Showboat Thomas, and Satan Taylor, who got his nickname changed to Jelly because otherwise his mother refused to attend his games.Cool Papa is still the best nickname in all of sports history, though.
And it’s no Rusty Kuntz either.-d
As good as that is it still doesn’t hold a candle to “Death to Flying Things” Ferguson.
It’d be great if that nickname wasn’t because he’d lost some fingers, but was just what the baseball groupies called him. If you get my drift.
It is not difficult to figure how a pitcher other than the starter is awarded the win. The win goes to the pitcher who is in the game when the eventual winning run is scored. Example: Starting pitcher goes six innings for the home team and after six full, the score is tied at 1-1. Relief pitcher comes in for the top of the seventh and retires the side. Home team scores a run in the bottom of the seventh, making the score 2-1, and the relief pitcher again retires the side with no score in the top of the eighth. In the top of the ninth, the closer comes in, retires the side with no runs, and the home team wins 2-1. The first relief pitcher gets the win, the closer gets the save. Starter gets a “quality start”, which is not a real statistic, but is something made up recently.
Its kinda funny how I’ve heard a good number of people say they’re confused by this. I wonder if it has something to do with the somewhat counterintuitive idea of a defensive player winning a game?
But what if, say, instead of a pitcher, we have a belly itcher?
or, for that matter, a belly-scratcher?
Also made up recently: the “Hold”, where a middle reliever neither starts nor ends the game but maintains the lead.
In Vago’s defense, the main wrinkle is if the starting pitcher doesn’t go at least 5 innings— if the starter comes out after, say, 3 innings (because of injury, fatigue, being bad, etc) but has the lead, and then a series of relievers maintains that lead through the end of the game, it can then get kind of tricky for the scorer to assign the official win if there was no clear standout among the relievers.
You are completely correct, but even as a huge baseball fan, the win is still one of sport’s most arbitrary stats.A relief pitcher can enter the game win his team leading, blow that lead and still collect the win if his team retakes the lead in the next half inning while he is still the pitcher of record.Of course you know this, but many people don’t.
Yeah, that used to bug me when I was kid: “He blows the lead and then gets rewarded with a win even though took the chance of a win away from the starter? What?” I guess that situation happens less often now, because managers use more pitchers as a matter of course, and the reliever who blows the lead would be pulled as soon as it happened. He wouldn’t get the opportunity to benefit from the comeback as often, although there are certainly situations where it happens.
Eh, he wasn’t good enough to be one of Mr Burns’ ringers.
“Best moustache”? From the picture on Wikipedia…I’m sure you could find better contemporary handlebar or walrus moustaches among players of that era. He looks like a Hungarian woodcarver. Impressive enough, but hardly an Otto von Bismark, Wyatt Earp, Lord Kitchner or Rolly Fingers.
I love the first 3 episodes, or innings, of Ken Burns Baseball. It’s full of characters like this and just an interesting portrait of America at the time.
Fully agree. “Rube” Waddell was probably the biggest character if even half of the stories of the guy are true. I love the second “inning” of that do when it covers 1900 to 1920, and you see the NY Giants of John McGraw, Cobb, Wagner and the rest.
I’m reading Crazy ‘08 right now … it’s about the 1908 baseball season. Highly recommend if you’re into baseballs prehistoric days.
Is that the one with the boner for the NY Giants? That’s a great read and I loved how it shows the standings throughout the book
Rube is one of my favorite old-time ballplayers. How can you not love a guy who’s so easily distracted that the other teams’ fans lure him off the field with puppies, and who runs out of the stadium during games to chase fire trucks?
Such depressing origin stories too. “John McGraw was the youngest of 14 children. They lived in a one-room shack in Manhattan. His father died of consumption, and 9 of his siblings died of [curable diseases today].
And McGraw carried in his pocket a piece of rope used in a lynching –for good luck. That dude had issues.
“9 of his siblings died of [curable diseases today].”But mah freedoms from getting microchip vaccinated!
The country music documentary is pretty much the same in that regard. Every time they give you the background of somebody new it’s like, “Robert Lee Bedford Forrest Terwilliger, junior was born July 23, 1909 to a family of dirt farmers on a mountain outside Bunghole, Tennessee. When I say they were dirt farmers, I mean they literally farmed dirt. Terwilliger was the 43rd of 44 children, 36 of whom never made it to adulthood. When he was eleven, his mother was eaten by a bear in front of him. The bear then grabbed his father’s hands and made him hit himself for a full twenty minutes, while repeatedly referring to him as “a miserable little pantywaist.” After that Terwilliger, senior descended into alcoholism, and the children were raised by various relatives. Young Bob lived with a maternal aunt who believed in harsh discipline. If he didn’t finish his chores before dinner, she would bury him up to his neck in mud for three days and let the vultures attack him. When he was fourteen, the family bought a radio. And that was when Terwilliger discovered the liberating power of music… *The Carter Family sings “Wildwood Flower” on the soundtrack.*”
I was guffawing as I read this. It’s why I gave up on The National Parks. Every episode was basically the same: “Outsider and failure in life wanders without purpose until he finds land unspoiled by humankind, and devotes his life to preserving it.” That’s good for a one hour program. We didn’t need twelve goddamn hours of it.
I actually think the Burns documentaries are just about the only ones that justify a ten hour or so running time. I’d much rather see a comprehensive dive into a large topic that covers several years or decades of history than twelve episodes exploring every person with a tangential relationship to a murder mystery/art heist/whatever that ends with, “The real answer may never be known.”
And see, I ADORE Burn’s work, and would agree with you wholeheartedly. Of his entire body of work, the only one that missed for me was the National Parks one, simply because I didn’t find enough there to justify the length. The narratives felt repetitious, and after a while, all the stunning visuals just kind of run together and lose their impact…at least, for me they did, and it never seemed like it was able to transcend being a very, very, very expensive and long commercial for the National Parks Service.
I’ve seen National Parks, but remember almost nothing from it, unlike every other Burns documentary, so I’m inclined to believe you have a point.
I’ll tread carefully because I don’t want to nostalgize an era where black players were excluded, but I do love the 1900s era of play, because of the dead ball playing tactics. I find power hitting and home runs boring. I LOVE building runs – bunting, chopping, base stealing. I like how the best players didn’t score many homeruns, but man could they get on base, steal base, and bat runs in. I love that you only played with a few balls, and they got all beat to hell. Frankly, I wish it were legal for pitchers to alter the ball, because I see that as not so much a cheat, as it is a skill. You can alter the ball all you want, you’ve still got to have the pitching chops to know how to throw that ball effectively. There is as much skill to being an emoryballer or a spitballer, as anything else.
And yeah, I love the personalities. I love how on the NY Giants, you had on the same team arguably the most pugnacious manager of all time – John McGraw – paired with the most kind-hearted, beloved of pitchers – Christy Mathewson. I love the uniforms. I love the antics. I love the profanity. I’d give anything to have seen a dead ball game.
My dad thinks the NBA adding the three-pointer was a mistake, and with Steph Curry being to the three what Babe Ruth was to the homer it seems like more and more people think they’re getting out of hand.
McGraw and Hanlon’s inside baseball went beyond play to roping in the groundskeepers as well. Everything was fair game, even cheating.
Ned Hanlon was one of the great Hibernian rogues of American sports. When he owned the old Baltimore Orioles of the International League (the first pro team to sign Babe Ruth), he told his groundskeepers to dig up the area in front of home plate to about six feet, fill the hole with rocks and concrete and then cover the last four or so with dirt and pack it down hard. He then instructed players to hit down on the ball so it would strike the very hard ground, with the idea that the resulting high bounce could not be fielded by the pitcher or catcher with enough time to throw the batter out at first. Thus, the invention of the “Baltimore Chop”.
I wholeheartedly agree on your whole spitball/scuff-ball stance. It takes just as much dedication and practice to learn to throw them effectively as any other pitch. It’s a well known and documented fact that Christy Mathewson was a big proponent of the spitball. Some even claim he invented it, though I view that the same way I view Chick-Fil-A’s claim of inventing the chicken sandwich—I’m sure somebody had to have had that idea before they came along. Anyway, Mathewson famously threw the spitter when it was legal. His success with it may be a reason altering the ball was banned. That, and the fact that it became easier to tell something had been done to the ball when they started making better ones. Legendary ball doctor Gaylord Perry had a good side-hustle teaching other pitchers his methods, but none of his pupils had the kind of success he had. Perry was a really good pitcher to start with. As you mentioned in your post, most of the art of effectively using a doctored ball is knowing when to use it. Like any pitch, it loses its effect if you use it too much. Perry probably got as many strikeouts by throwing a nothing pitch when they were expecting a fastball, or throwing a fastball when they were worried about getting a pitch slathered in K-Y Jelly.I think Perry’s antics were largely theatrics designed to get in batters’ heads, though he definitely doctored the ball more than the average pitcher in his era.
As you say, Perry had such a reputation for doctoring pitches that he got to the point where he didn’t have to throw spitters, he had batters so suspicious and distracted.
It’s still amazing that he was only ejected from a game for doctoring the baseball once in 22 years! He was often challenged—I think he was even told to strip a few times—but he was only actually caught that one time, about a year before he retired.Everybody knew he was doing it. Hell, he even wrote a book about it in the ‘70s called Me and the Spitter: An Autobiographical Confession.
This is probably on hold for Covid like so many other things, but there were a bunch of hipsters in Brooklyn who started an 1885-rules baseball league in Prospect Park a few years ago. They played by old rules, a lot of them dressed up in period uniforms, and of course they already had the right facial hair…
you’re right, it may be on hold…. but besides just that team you mentioned in NYC? there are leagues, around the country, who do the same thing…
Where I live (and pre-COVID), our Historical Society throws an annual turn of the century baseball game at a local farm. It’s a hoot seeing old-timey baseball uniforms and playing style (though thanfully, not the racial exclusion).
The early days of baseball is a very entertaining subject. I read “The Glory of Their Times” by Lawrence Ritter from 1966, which consists of recorded interview transcripts of players from the late 19th and early 20th century (up to about the late 1930s). Reminiscences about people like Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner, and Waddell, who was noted for his habit of chasing fire engines. There are also stories about the widely liked and admired deaf outfielder William “Dummy” Hoy, who played when umpires still called balls and strikes while standing behind the pitcher. Hoy could not hear the umpires voice, and he is credited with getting umpires to signal balls and strikes with hand signals and also to use hand signals for “out” and safe”.
I read that book as well and it was vastly entertaining. You ever read “The Giants of the Polo Grounds”? It really goes in depth with those early McGraw teams and it’s vastly entertaining.
I love that series so much. And one of my favorite anecdotes is the one about King Kelly, who once exploited an archaic rule that allowed players to announce substitutions at a given moment, to call himself in the game from the dugout, so he could catch a pop foul and record an out.
His twitter is pretty good too: https://twitter.com/OldHossRadbourn
So Old Hoss quite literally played in Peoria?
No mention of the great twitter account? One of the few decent parody accounts out there.
Literally came here looking for a mention of the Twitter account.
What’s this about
Fifty-Nine in ‘84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had is one of the great baseball “season” books I’ve read. The sport was just so different then, and that’s before the utterly bonkers thing he did in pitching the entire second half of the season himself.
I made this recommendation above, but I’ll recommend it again: I’m reading Crazy ‘08 now, about the 1908 season.
Absolutely, that’s another wonderful choice.
I think we should have one game a year where they bring back some of the ancient rules of the game. Like how you used to be able to score an out by throwing the ball AT the runner.
Soaking!
Thanks for the recommendation; it sounds like it’ll pair well with The Pitch That Killed: Carl Mays, Ray Chapman, and the 1920 Pennant Race.
I feel bad for Carl Mays, who should probably be in the Hall of Fame, but he never lived down being the pitcher who killed a guy in a game, even though by all accounts it was accidental, and Chapman was apparently crowding the plate.
So genuine question – when they talk about these nineteenth century pitchers doing all this impressive stuff, do they address what substance use looked like at the time? Because when they talk about a guy pitching forty games in sixty days, I’m guessing there was a delicate balance of cocaine, opiates, and liquor involved.
It was also an era when substances could be used to doctor the baseball, most commonly spit. Players would use hidden objects and fingernails to cut and scuff the ball’s surface, and would suck cough drops or candy to insure an adequate supply of viscous saliva in their mouths.
It was also an era where these guys made shit and weren’t training in any regular manner. As a consequence, these natural athletes like Radbourn were able to to dominate. He’s pitching against lineups consisting of maybe a couple of naturally-gifted guys and then a bunch of mooks.
This is the only examination of old time baseball that I’m interested in:
WHAT HO! WHAT IS THAT DEMONRY!
Old time baseball is full of so many stupid rules and traditions. I love it. Even modern baseball keeps a lot of those stupid traditions.
And crazy rules. Used to be the winner of the game was the first to score 27 runs. Can you imagine how modern MLB games would go for if that were the case? You’d be looking a multi-day games like they do in test cricket.
I’m gonna go with 60 wins since it’s a nice round even number.
I hope the article will mention her copycat, the menace of Wagstaff School.
That’s funny, I was thinking of ANOTHER Bob’s Burgers episode from this season where Linda got arrested for public pooping. And that wasn’t even the only poop-based episode of this season, earlier there was Gene having diarrhea on Thanksgiving. I love that show.
The Butt-ler, get it?
60 wins is an unbreakable single season record, but I would say Cy Young’s 511 career wins and Walter Johnson’s 110 shutouts are equally unbreakable
It may not be the most unbreakable record, but my favorite is Owen Wilson’s 36 triples in 1912. No one else in major league history has gotten more than 31; no one in minor league history, where seasons have lasted for 200 games, has gotten more than 32. Wilson’s own seasonal totals for triples are 7, 12, 13, 12, 36, 14, 12, 6, 2. It’s one of the greatest flukes in baseball history.
That is a good one, too. I think the size of modern ballparks limits triples also
Owen Wilson? Wow
I mean if we are talking athletes giving the finger Will Power still has the best moment:
What I hated about baseball back then was no nighttime games.
I find it remarkable just how stat-dense baseball was already, even in the post-Civil War era. If some of the early industrial statistical analysts of the pre-WWI era had happened to put their minds to it, perhaps the “Moneyball” era could have begun 75 years or so earlier.
He opened a successful billiards parlor and saloon, but soon after was injured in a hunting accident, losing an eye. He spent most of his years hiding out in a back room of the saloon, ashamed to be seen after his disfigurement. He died six years after retiring from baseball.I don’t know about anyone else, but that was the thing I was “unhappiest” to learn.