On September 30, 1904, White Sox pitcher Doc White pitched his fifth shutout in eighteen days when he defeated the Yankees at Chicago’s South Side Park, 4-0. It was a streak that began September 12th, and his performance helped keep the team in contention for the pennant. White’s shutout streak remained a baseball record for the next 64 years.
No man can have a “yellow streak” and last. He must pay much attention to his nerves or temperament. He must hide every flaw.
~Christy Mathewson
James Creighton, Jr. was born on April 15, 1841, in lower Manhattan to Irish immigrant parents. When Creighton was just eight years old, his mother passed away. Then, in late 1857, his father moved the family to Brooklyn, and by the time he was sixteen, young James had become recognized for his superior athletic skills in baseball and cricket.
At the age of seventeen, Creighton joined the Niagara of Brooklyn club as a second baseman. In a game on July 19, 1859, the Niagaras were being pummeled by the Star Club of Brooklyn, and Creighton was brought on as a relief pitcher. Under the rules at the time, a pitcher was required to deliver the ball underhanded with his arm locked straight at the elbow and at the wrist. However, Creighton somehow managed to apply a spin to the ball, making it harder for batters to hit it squarely. Players for the Star Club claimed that Creighton was using an illegal snap of the wrist to deliver the pitch. The Star Club would eventually win the game, but following the match, Creighton left the Niagaras and joined the Stars for the rest of the 1859 season.
Before the 1860 season began, Creighton left the Star Club and joined the Brooklyn Excelsiors. It was during his time with the Excelsiors that Creighton became one of baseball’s earliest stars. In addition to his pitching skills, Creighton was reportedly an excellent hitter and fielder. He helped popularize a more competitive style of baseball and is often considered one of the game’s first pitching innovators. The spin that Creighton managed to apply to his pitches would frequently cause the pitch to veer upwards, making Creighton the inadvertent inventor of the breaking ball. Due to his dominance on the mound, opponents naturally accused Creighton of cheating. However, other pitchers eventually started to mimic his technique, and it soon became a standard pitching tactic.
Tragically, Creighton died at only 21 years old, supposedly after suffering a serious injury while playing against the Union of Morrisania club on October 14, 1862. Hitting a home run in the sixth inning of the contest, Creighton allegedly suffered an injury in his abdominal area. After the game, he began to experience severe pain and hemorrhaging in his abdomen. He died in his father’s home on October 18, 1862.
Creighton’s cause of death remains disputed, however. Tom Shieber, senior curator of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, commented, “Dying while hitting a long home run is a great story; it’s just not true.” Shieber researched original news sources and found no references to Creighton hitting a home run in that game, although he did hit four doubles in the contest. Later research suggested that Creighton suffered from a chronic inguinal hernia, and that the overwhelming workload from playing both baseball and cricket contributed to worsening the hernia.
Despite his short career, Jim Creighton had a major influence on the development of early American baseball. Baseball writer John Thorn wrote that Creighton “was baseball’s first hero, and I believe, the most important player not inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.”
In a game against the Boston Braves on August 31, 1950, Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges hit four home runs in front of a crowd of 14,226 fans. Hodges joined Lou Gehrig as only the second player since 1900 to hit four home runs in a game without the benefit of extra innings, and he hit them against four different pitchers, with the first coming off Warren Spahn. Hodges also had seventeen total bases in the game, tying him for third-most in Major League history.
I have already written a treatise and it reads like this: Keep your eye clear and hit ’em where they ain’t; that’s all.
~Wee Willie Keeler
This piece was written by one Richard Leander Cary, Jr., a well-known Chicago sportswriter who wrote principally about horse racing. Cary chose to scribble his musings under the name of an Indian warrior and long-ago Sultan of Mysore, Hyder Ali. And though Cary wasn’t usually much of a baseball writer, Cap Anson apparently caught his eye, and the piece below was published May 1, 1897, in Anson’s twenty-seventh major league season.
It is said that Anson responded to this poem (or, perhaps, to some other complaint about his age) by appearing in a game wearing a gray wig and a waist-long beard. It is also said that he knocked in the winning run of that contest.
*
How old is Anson? Ask the stars
That glisten in the hair of Night
When day has drawn her golden bars
To shut the sunbeams from our sight;
The stars were present at his birth —
Were first to welcome him to earth.
How old is Anson? Ask the sun.
That’s seen him play a million times
Where silver rivers laughing run;
And in the tropics’ swelting climes
The sphinx has seen him play baseball
And heard him kick — but that is all.
How old is Anson? Rumor states
He played the game in Paradise,
Where Adam owned his vast estates —
But then such rumors “cut no ice,”
For rumors are but dying lies
That drift about beneath the skies.
How old is Anson? When the ark
First found once more a resting place
Old Noah, groping in the dark,
Discovered Anson on first base —
The grand old man had held it down
In spite of floods that came to drown.
How old is Anson? No one knows!
I saw him playing when a kid,
When I was wearing still short clothes,
And so my father’s father did;
The oldest veterans of them all,
As kids, saw Anson play ball.
On August 12, 1964, Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle set a major league record hitting home runs from both sides of the plate for the tenth time in his career. The feat assisted rookie pitcher Mel Stottlemyre in winning his major league debut.
Baseball is for every boy a good, wholesome sport. It brings him out of the close confinement of the schoolroom. It takes the stoop from his shoulders and puts hard, honest muscle all over his frame. It rests his eyes, strengthens his lungs, and teaches him self-reliance and courage. Every mother ought to rejoice when her boy says he is on the school or college nine.
~Walter Camp, 1889
I remember watching Carlos Beltrán during his early Major League years with the Royals, and he was exciting to watch from day one. He had quite the career, and I am glad to see him inducted into the Hall of Fame.
August 2nd is National Coloring Book Day — one of those random, unofficial fun holidays that someone somewhere decided might be fun to celebrate. What’s fun about coloring is that it is not just an activity for kids anymore. Many adults now get involved with coloring, not only for the fun of it, but also because of how relaxing the activity can be.
If you are interested in participating in this admittedly random, albeit enjoyable, celebration, here are a handful of fun, baseball-themed coloring pages I found:
