Slippery Elm Boy Update 1906
Elmer Stricklett and
Frank Corridon decided to call it quits and pursue other endeavors outside of baseball. Both had potential as coaches if not as players, but for both their experimentation of the spitball caused control problems they could never get over. Stricklett’s best year was with Minneapolis in 1904 when he went 15-20 with 134 strikeouts. A 37 loss season in ’03 with San Francisco derailed any confidence he may have had to make the bigs. His lasting impression on baseball may be with the emergence of Big Ed Walsh. Corridon never got a fair shake in Philadelphia since ownership changed hands. He pitched extremely well in Toronto but the big league magnate always brought in better talent via trade and mining other minor league teams.
Clark Griffith decided to concentrate on the front office side of baseball with the successful Pittsburg club and ended his long pitching career on a high note after a successful 1905.
Bill Dineen was traded to Brooklyn by Boston and he responded with a slightly better year, going 11-2 in June and July but faltered to 4-9 the rest of the way leading some to believe the 30-year old can no longer handle the workload of a regular starter. In what seems to be a rebuilding process in Boston, the Americans traded loyal
Tom Hughes in August to Seattle of the PCL, who was later released on account of a “dead arm.” Hughes managed to avoid a disasterous season by winning six games in July but by then the damage was done and he was off to the great Northwest. To pick up the slack in Boston, young
Ralph Glaze’s raw saliva shoot caused some Boston infielders to grumble about the difficulty in grabbing all the ground balls he induced. Glaze’s 1.86 ERA is a bit misleading on account of all the errors behind him.
Ed Walsh
Ed Walsh is establishing himself as one of the best hurlers in the game and whose success in Chi-town is rumored to have spurned an intense fascination of the spitball among the nation’s aspiring moundsmen. He finished his third season in the “bigs” with his second consecutive twenty win season and led the league in strikeouts with 218. He’s beginning to show near pin-point control, as if he can will the spitball wherever and whenever he wants it. He walked only 5 batters in the month of September, winning 6 games, 3 being shutouts, in Chicago’s push to catch Cleveland.
Former teammate
Harry Howell, who had a stellar 1905 campaign, packed his bags for California after a contract negotiation stalled with stingy magnate Charlie Comiskey. He promptly won 40 games for Seattle with 14 shutouts making any well-informed Chicagoan wonder what would have been if he’d been in town. Lefthander
Noodles Hahn was traded by Cincinnati to Portland in the PCL where he got lost in the crowd but looked strong enough to warrant a return somewhere in 1907.
Jack Chesbro
Fellow star
Jack Chesbro of New York has hit his stride with his second 20 win season, throwing the spitter on nearly every pitch. He’s clearly defied former mentor Griffith’s approach of using it only when needed, which has, along with Walsh’s success, has encouraged more to try the pitch.
Slow Joe Doyle and
Al Orth, formerly of Washington, have now joined Chesbro in throwing the wet one. The pitch may prolong Orth’s already long successful career while Doyle still struggles with controlling it, walking a less than bearable 134 batsmen.
Glenn Liebhardt
After three hard-working years in Columbus, righthander
Glenn Liebhardt joined the Cleveland ranks and helped propel them to the AL pennant in 1906, winning 25 game in his rookie year. His performance is reminiscent of
Earl Moore, who was mysteriously released by the club in January. Moore, known for his loud confidence and nasty sidearm delivery, disappeared, his whereabouts unknown. If a team can find him, he’d surely make them an instant contender next year. Also out of Cleveland by June was
Cy Falkenberg who spent time earlier in the year with Columbus. After a three-hit victory in his only start for the Naps, he was traded to the Cubs where he struggled for two months until a 6-0 September found his groove again.
Code:
Player Team W L SV ERA G GS IP HA BB K CG SHO
F. Corridon - retired -
E. Stricklett - retired -
C. Griffith - retired -
B. Dineen BRO 19 17 0 2.50 39 39 342.2 327 85 107 31 1
T. Hughes BOS 14 11 0 3.11 25 25 219.2 195 70 95 21 0
E. Walsh CHA 23 16 0 1.91 39 39 348.2 285 73 218 38 7
H. Howell PCL -statistics unavailable-
N. Hahn PCL -statistics unavailable-
J. Chesbro NYH 20 17 0 2.21 40 39 346.2 302 80 195 32 2
J. Doyle NYH 14 18 0 2.34 38 38 334.2 296 134 196 31 2
A. Orth NYH 20 14 0 2.48 35 35 304.1 282 79 115 32 3
G. Liebhardt CLE 25 13 0 2.01 38 38 339.2 283 99 149 38 5
E. Moore - no team -
C. Falkenberg CHN 15 6 0 2.50 22 22 197.2 169 65 100 17 2