Who would have played the ten years normally required for Hall induction had he not sickened and died during spring training of 1911.
I see I was mistaken, partly. The DJ was sloppy in his description - intermixing the elections with the inductions! Still, on many other topics, this DJ needs to get the Straight Dope!
That category would also include Ty Cobb (3 games pitched, no starts), Stan Musial (1 pitching appearance), Honus Wagner (2), King Kelly (12), and probably some others – it was not unusual in the early days for a player to be used as a pitcher, either in an emergency, or just to mess around with it.
Some of us DJ’s already do! That said, take it easy on the guy - if hes new at this it’ll take awhile for him to get concise and correct everytime. Its harder than it looks… or in this case I guess “sounds”.
~NM
It’s still common enough today for a position player to be called on to pitch in the late innings of a blowout, when the manager doesn’t want to waste any more pitchers in a hopeless cause. I’m pretty sure that’s how Wade Boggs got his relief appearances.
One of the funniest things I ever saw in a game was when Yankee catcher Rick Cerone was called in to pitch in the late innings of a blowout, and the Texas Rangers sent in pitcher Bobby Witt to pinch-hit. Cerone kept shaking off his catcher with a big grin on his face, and finally struck out Witt.
If you wanted to know who was the most perfect pitcher in MLB history, the one with a 0.00 career ERA, 0 losses, and the most wins, you’d be surprised to find the answer to be Rocky Colavito.