Exactly why "My Greatest Day in Baseball" was limited to 47 stories isn't clear, but it was obviously impossible to include the 175 or so that appeared in the Chicago Daily News. Nor does any information survive on the selection criteria. Naturally, those choosing the stories wanted to, and did, highlight the memories of the greatest players of the first half of the twentieth century. With so many to choose from, however, some very good players had to be left out. In addition, there were others, who had an interesting story to tell but didn't make the cut. Such was the case with Tom Sheehan, 1894-1982, a journeyman pitcher if there ever was one.
It was a long time ago that I made my bow in the major leagues. I’ve been a lot of places in baseball since then, and saw service with several big league clubs. Some years were bad; and then some others were good, like 1925 when I was with Pittsburgh and we won the pennant [and the World Series.]
But somehow or other, when big days are mentioned, my mind just naturally drifts back to the first season I pitched in the American League. Looking at it from one point of view, I don’t know why it should. I joined the Philadelphia Athletics on July 9, 1915, and that was one of the sorriest ball clubs I ever saw.
But it wasn’t nearly as bad as the next year. We still had such fellows as Jimmy Walsh and Amos Strunk and Stuffy McInnis in 1915. But we had Nap Lajoie playing shortstop – he was an old man by then, and a second baseman by trade. We had Rube Oldring, an outfielder playing third most of the time and Chick Davies, a former pitcher was trying to become an outfielder.
But, as I said, I guess that team wasn’t so bad. The next year - - 1916 – we set a record that still stands by losing 117 games [the 1899 Cleveland Spiders lost 134 games]. I won one game that year and lost 16. Think that’s bad? Hell, Jack Nabors won one and lost 21 – 19 of ‘em in a row – and nobody’s touched that record since, either. [Retrosheet credits Nabors with 20 losses, but he did lose 19 in a row, winning his second start on April 22, 1916, before losing all his remaining starts. It's not clear if Sheehan is claiming the 20 losses overall or the 19 in a row was a record, but neither was a record then or now].
Connie Mack
Then there was the first full game I ever pitched in the big leagues – that was a pretty good day, too [July 21, 1915]. I beat Detroit, 4 to 3, but they filled the bases on me in the eighth inning, with nobody out and no one but Cobb, [Sam] Crawford and [Bobby] Veach coming up next. But I retired ‘em without a run scoring. Cobb hit back to me and I threw the man out at the plate. Crawford hit to Lajoie and he threw a man out at the plate; and I struck out Veach. That wouldn’t be a bad day to pick as the big one.
But I’ll take Sept. 8, 1915, as my day, even though a faulty memory almost made it a bad one. The game was played in Boston. The Red Sox were in first place by a half a game over Detroit. I’d pitched two days before against Washington so I naturally didn’t figure on pitching that day, and I was fielding bunts in front of the grandstand when Jack Lapp one of our catchers, came out and told me that Mr. Mack said I was going to pitch.
As I look back now, there’s one particular thing that makes this game my best performance – I had trouble with only one fellow all afternoon, and that was Larry Gardner. He made four hits off me that day. And the first three didn’t hurt me at all. But the last one – well, I’ll tell about that as we go along.
We got off to a one run lead in the second inning when Lew Malone singled and Jim McAvoy scored him with a double down the right field line. But I went along in pretty good style, having an easy time of it, until the ninth inning.
In that round, Dick Hoblitzell singled with one out. I retired Duffy Lewis to make it two out and then Gardner came up again. He got his fourth hit – a single to right that sent Hoblitzell to third. Right then Oldring, McAvoy and I held a consultation and we decided if they tried a double steal, we wouldn’t throw the ball through – either we were going to win or we were going to get beat by somebody getting a base hit. [While seldom used in the major leagues today, the first and third double steal was a staple of offenses during the Deadball Era].
Well, Gardner stole second all right, and McAvoy threw the ball back to me. At bat was [Jack] Barry, a very pesky little hitter in those kind of places. So I decided I wasn’t going to let Barry get a good ball off me to hit if I had to walk him. I remember McAvoy telling me to keep ‘em outside to Barry – “give ‘im one inside and he hits to left and we’re beat,” he cautioned me.
So I kept ‘em away from him and got two balls and no strikes. Suddenly Mr. Mack – and I can hear him yet – raises up on the bench and hollers for me to make him hit. I couldn’t figure that out and neither could Oldring or McAvoy. We figured they’d used both their pinch-hitters, [Olaf] Henriksen and [Del] Gainer], and all they had left to bat for [Bill] Carrigan, who was next, were a couple of catchers, Forest Cady and Chet Thomas, and they didn’t figure to worry us.
But we’d forgotten that there was another guy on that bench, and apparently Mr. Mack remembered all about him, even though they were keeping him out of sight. He was a fellow named Babe Ruth, remember?
Ruth had just come up for his first full season after he and Eddie Shore had pitched Providence to a championship the year before, and boy, he was one helluva pitcher. And hit! I remember him in batting practice in Philadelphia smashing ball after ball over the right-field wall and nobody else did that in those days. He was hitting over .300 at the time, and I guess Boston wanted me to forget about him – they wanted me to walk Barry so they could get Babe up there.
But as I say, I didn’t remember about Ruth – just then, anyway – and I didn’t give Barry a good ball, so I walked him to fill the bases. Then to my amazement, out of the dugout popped Mr. Ruth and he walked up to the plate swinging about 10 bats to hit for Carrington. I remembered him then, all right.
McAvoy had forgotten about him too. So he came out to me and asked how I was going to pitch to this fellow. “We gotta throw him a curve,” I said. “He can murder a fast one.” So I broke off a pretty good strike, but Silk O'Loughlin thought otherwise and called it a ball. In those days I didn’t have very good control and was liable to walk a man at any time.
So McAvoy walked out to me again and asked me what I wanted to pitch. I said, another curve. It was a bad ball – low – but Ruth swung and missed. McAvoy came out again – he came out there after every pitch – and asked me again what I wanted to throw. I said: “Now’s the time to throw him one fast one.” I did. If he’d of hit it, we wouldn’t have won. But he ticked it foul.
Along about this time, out on the scoreboard, they posted the score of the first couple of innings of the Detroit game at Chicago, and Detroit had scored eight runs in the first inning. It looked like they were in, and if Boston lost this game, they’d drop out of first place.
Well, McAvoy comes out once more. “What now?” he asked. “Listen,” I told him, “I’ve only been fooling around with those other curves. I’m gonna REALLY break one off now.” I broke off a beautiful overhand curve ball. And it hit the dirt in front of the plate. But Ruth swung, missed and we had won the ball game. Jimmy McAvoy up in Rochester, still has that baseball.
This is the final 2023 post in A Manly Pastime. We'll be back in the first quarter of 2024. Thanks to everyone who has read the blog this past season - it's what keeps me going. Best wishes for the holidays and all of next year!
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