Who am I? April 22, 2019

[dukecrunchybagel]

I was in the same group of pitchers as Burleigh Grimes and was the last Red to legally throw the pitch that made Grimes famous.

Nobody would consider me a HOFer, but I did pitch for 23 years and spend my last season at Redland Field at age 49.

Who am I?

[DocDirk]

Cool question; no clue how you guys come up with this stuff.

Found it, but researched heavily and don't want to ruin it for others.  Interesting name for a guy born in Slovakia.

[dukecrunchybagel]

Well technically, it was Austria-Hungary back then.

I'm a bit of a baseball history nut. I was reading about Burleigh Grimes (who was quite a character it seems) and discovered that the gentleman in question had the same exemption. I recalled he pitched for the Reds and voila, instant trivia question. I didn't realize he was 49 when he pitched for the Reds. I guess pitchers who had the Grimes exemption were the knucklers of their day and could pitch well past the point most starters have to hang up their cleats.

[dukecrunchybagel]

Time for a hint: The initial of my last name is shared by only one other Red's pitcher, and he was a converted outfielder who has a teammate of many of the BRM players.

I played in three major leagues and west best known for my time with Yankees & A's.

I also pitched in two World Series while while over the age of 45.

[schellis]

Apr 24, 2019 9:35:19 GMT -5 dukecrunchybagel said:

Time for a hint: The initial of my last name is shared by only one other Red's pitcher, and he was a converted outfielder who has a teammate of many of the BRM players.

I played in three major leagues and west best known for my time with Yankees & A's.

I also pitched in two World Series while while over the age of 45.

Jack Quinn

[dukecrunchybagel]

Yes, sir. Jack Quinn was not only the oldest Red to appear in a game; he was the one of the last pitchers allowed to throw the spitball legally.


Quinn won 246 games over his lengthy career, largely in the AL but was also in the Federal League in addition to the NL. The Reds picked him up in 1933 after the Brooklyn Robins let the aging spitballer go, and he pitched fairly poorly for the Reds until he was let go in July. Only Red Faber of the White Sox and the aforementioned Burleigh Grimes would legally serve up a spitter after Quinn.

When the spitball was banned in 1921 as a result of the reform of the games following the Blacksox Scandal and Roy Chapman's death, the spitball was made illegal except for a group of 16 pitchers who were already established as spitballers. Although it is probable that the pitch that killed Chapman was not a spitball (Mays would go on to play for for another nine years and was not one of those granted an exception), Chapman appeared to have not been able to pickup the flight of the ball after submariner Carl Mays released it, as he is generally held to have not taken any act to try and prevent being beaned. In those days, baseballs would routinely be used dirty and in fact, pitchers made a point of scuffing up the ball after receiving it. There are many contradictory accounts of the notorious beaning, but many of them indicated that the ball was in fact dirty. Of course, this "dirt" could have been blood, as Chapman was recorded as having blood pour out of his ear following the beaning. In any case, following the season, the spitter and other altered balls were declared illegal and umpires were instructed to change baseballs whenever they became dirty or scuffed.

Incidentally, Joe Mays, a distant cousin to Carl also pitched (briefly) for the Reds.


Quinn at age 46 for the Robins, hit a home run; the oldest player to hit HR until recent days when the never-aging Julio Franco hit one. Quinn's last game was July 7, 1933, at the age of 50 years, six days, his last of 14 relief appearances for Donnie Bush's squad.