Lewis (baseball)

Lewis (first name unknown; fl. 1890) was a professional baseball player who played in one career game with the Buffalo Bisons of the Players' League (PL) on July 12, 1890. After asking the Bisons manager for a tryout and pitching three innings, his earned run average (ERA) of 60.00 and walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) rate of 6.667 became the highest in the history of the PL. As of August 2020, Lewis's first name, date of birth, and batting and pitching stances are unknown.

For other baseball players with the surname Lewis, see Lewis (surname) § Sports.
Lewis
Pitcher, left fielder
Born: Brooklyn, New York
Batted: Unknown Threw: Unknown
MLB debut
July 12, 1890, for the Buffalo Bisons
Last MLB appearance
July 12, 1890, for the Buffalo Bisons
MLB statistics
Games played1
Earned run average60.00
Innings pitched3.0
Hits1
Teams

The PL was formed by the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players in November 1889, after a dispute over pay with the National League (NL) and American Association (AA).  The NL had implemented a reserve clause in 1879, which limited the ability of players to negotiate across teams for their salaries, and both the AA and NL had passed a salary cap of US$2,000 per player in 1885, equivalent to $49,281 in 2018; the owners of the NL had agreed to remove the salary cap in 1887 but failed to do so. Major League Baseball (MLB) considers the PL a "major" league for official statistical purposes.

On July 11, 1890 the Bisons's record stood at 17 wins and 42 losses, a poor performance that was attributed to the team's weak pitching. The following day the Bisons played against the Brooklyn Ward's Wonders in Brooklyn, and Lewis, a "local boy" born in Brooklyn, New York who stated he was a pitcher, asked Bisons player–manager Jack Rowe for a tryout. Rowe agreed, and Lewis was the starting pitcher for the game. In the three innings he pitched, Lewis allowed twenty earned runs for an earned run average (ERA) of 60.00 before he moved to left field, where he played for the remainder of the game. The Bisons lost, 28–16; the total of 44 runs set a record for most runs scored in an MLB game that stood until 1922. In the third inning Lewis allowed two home runs to Lou Bierbauer: this was only the second time a batter in a major league game had hit two home runs in a single inning. Newspaper accounts described Lewis as a "failure", "unfortunate", and a "much disgusted ball tosser" by the time he moved to left field.

Lewis's statistics do not qualify for rate comparison among players on the baseball statistics reference site Baseball-Reference. After the season, the PL folded and teams either merged with the NL, joined the AA, or folded outright. Baseball-Reference does not list Lewis as having played any other major or minor-league games.

Background

Professional baseball had existed in America since at least 1871, when the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA) formed; two years earlier the Cincinnati Red Stockings of the National Association of Base Ball Players paid salaries to ten of their players. In 1876, the National League (NL) was formed, adopting six of the best teams from the NA, which then folded. In September 1879, in a secret meeting, the NL established a reserve clause by which teams could "reserve" five players per year that could not sign or negotiate with other teams without permission from the owner of the team on which the reserved player was signed.[1][2] This was an effort to limit player's salaries to reduce club losses.[3] By the mid-1880s, the reserve clause had been expanded to eleven players per team,[1] and after the 1885 season the NL and the American Association passed a salary limit of US$2,000 per player,[4] equivalent to $49,281 in 2018.[5] After the change, the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players, an organization once focused on issues such as helping former players' widows, turned to labor issues.[6] The club owners agreed to remove the salary cap in 1887, but reneged on their promise, and instead instituted a "classification system" which limited players' salaries based on their classification on a scale from A–E, "A" players being the highest-paid.[7] The Brotherhood, which had 107 players in 1886,[8] announced its intention to leave the NL on November 4, 1889.[9] After being advised by Brotherhood lawyers not to incorporate before each individual team incorporated,[10] the Players' League (PL) was launched on December 16, 1889, with clubs from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh.[9] Salary for the players for the 1890 season was set to the salary they had received in 1889, except that those affected by the classification system received their 1888 salary. The salaries were paid by gate receipts.[10] In 1968, the MLB's Special Baseball Records Committee determined the PL was a "major league" for official statistical purposes.[11]

Despite defeating the Cleveland Infants 23–2 on Opening Day and starting the season with four consecutive wins, Buffalo had fallen to last place in the league by May 17 and, after a brief stint in seventh place, returned to last place on June 2.[12] Author and baseball historian Norman L. Macht attributed Buffalo's poor record to the performance of their pitchers,[13] and author and baseball historian Ed Koszarek stated the Bisons still "needed" pitchers by the time John Buckley made his debut for the team on July 15;[14] by July 11, the day before Lewis made his debut, the team had a record of 17–42, the worst in the PL.[12]

Players' League game
A Sporting Life clip that describes Lewis as a "much disgusted ball tosser"; taken from an article dated July 19, 1890[15]

Born in Brooklyn, New York,[16] Lewis, according to Macht, was a "local boy" who stated he was a pitcher and asked for a tryout when Buffalo played against the Brooklyn Ward's Wonders on July 12, 1890, at Eastern Park in Brooklyn.[13][17][18] Bisons player–manager Jack Rowe started Lewis on the mound.[13]

Lewis probably[note 1] pitched in the top of the first, second, and third innings of the Bisons' game on July 12, during which he allowed 20 earned runs over three innings pitched for an ERA of 60.00.[note 2] After the third inning, he moved to left field and left fielder Ed Beecher switched to pitcher.[13][16][17] In the third inning Lou Bierbauer hit two home runs off Lewis's pitching;[22] this was only the second time a batter in a major league game had hit two home runs in a single inning.[11][23] Lewis did manage to record at least one strikeout as a pitcher.[16][20] Defensively, Lewis recorded two putouts and three assists on five total chances as a pitcher, with no putouts or assists on no chances as a left fielder. As a batter, Lewis recorded one hit over five at bats for a batting average of .200, and scored a run.[16] Baseball-Reference credits Lewis with only two innings played in the outfield,[16] though several box scores[17][15][24] only list nine players as having played for Buffalo in the game, the game as lasting nine innings, and Lewis as having played only in left field and as a pitcher. A July 13, 1890 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described Beecher as an "improvement" over Lewis as a pitcher, but Sporting Life's notes on the game say Beecher "fared but little better".[15][25]

Brooklyn won the game 28–16. The total of 44 runs set a record for the most combined runs scored in a single MLB game which stood until 1922.[26] Lewis recorded a loss for his pitching performance.[16] According to a box score in The New York Times, 600 people attended the game,[17] compared to attendances of 2,156 for a PL game in Boston, 2,508 for a PL game in Philadelphia, and 4,304 for a PL game in New York.[27] The game in which Lewis played lasted two hours and three minutes, according to The New York Times; Lon Knight and Charley Jones served as umpires.[17] The wind during the game was described as "chilly",[28] with "awfully stiff" winds blowing in from Jamaica Bay and fans "shiveringly [clinging] to their seats".[21]

Several articles recounted Lewis's performance in the game. A contemporary writer for The Pittsburgh Press described Lewis's tryout as a "disastrous experiment" and called the game "one of the greatest slugging matches ever seen since curve pitching came into vogue,"[24] while Sporting Life reported that "[t]he Buffalos tried a new pitcher named Lewis in the box, but after three innings he retired to left field, a much disgusted ball tosser".[15] The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said that "the way [Ward's Wonders] pounded Lewis' delivery must have convinced that aspirant for fame that the [P]layers' [L]eague [was] above his class", and described him as "unfortunate".[25] Other contemporary papers covered the game: the Buffalo Courier said Lewis was "slaughtered";[29] the New-York Tribune called him a "failure";[30] and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the game was "full of accidents", though "Lewis was used worse than all the rest, as he was knocked completely out of the box".[28] A 1963 article in Baseball Digest described Lewis as a "neophyte" whose "first name has been lost to posterity",[31] and as of 2007, Lewis’s first name remained "mercifully unknown", according to Macht.[13]

Aftermath

Lewis did not make another appearance for the Bisons during the rest of the season, and his first name, date of birth, and batting and pitching stances are unknown as of August 2020,[13][16] though a writer for The Pittsburgh Press described Lewis as a "young man" when he played for the team.[24] The Brooklyn Daily Eagle used the performance to argue that Buffalo should ask other clubs to borrow pitchers for the team.[25] Lewis's ERA of 60.00 and WHIP rate of 6.667 were both the highest on the Bisons and the highest in the history of the PL, though his statistics do not qualify for rate comparison amongst players on Baseball-Reference because he did not meet the minimum threshold of one inning pitched per team game for the season that the site requires for ERA and WHIP comparisons across players.[32][33][34] Lewis does not hold the MLB single-season highest ERA record among non-qualifiers, which is infinity.[35] Baseball-Reference does not list Lewis as having played in any other major or minor-league games.[16]

Buffalo finished the season with a 36–96 record, last in the PL and ​46 1⁄2 games behind the Boston Reds, who had the best record in the league;[36] the PL itself would fold after the 1890 season, due to a combination of lacking funds, poor leadership, inadequate playing fields, and a poor governance structure,[37] despite having future Hall-of-Fame players Hugh Duffy, Buck Ewing, Ed Delahanty, and King Kelly on club rosters and, according to one estimate, having better attendance numbers than the NL, though neither league kept accurate attendance data.[38] After the season, the Chicago Pirates, Ward's Wonders, the New York Giants, and the Pittsburgh Burghers merged with their respective teams in the NL, the Reds and Philadelphia Athletics joined the AA,[39] the Infants' players were released after owner Al Johnson purchased the Cincinnati Reds, and the Bisons folded.[14] According to Devine, "most" PL ballplayers were allowed to return to their former NL or AA teams, the NL still under the reserve system.[40]

gollark: No I'm not, I wrote all of the entries last round too.
gollark: > `# haskell ternary is cooler`I really agree, author of #6 and me.
gollark: Oh dear.
gollark: Hmm, the author of #3 (me) appears to have harvested insults from a conversation with andrew.
gollark: I assume it's a linear algebra library for C.

See also

Notes
  1. Home teams in the late 19th century could select which team batted first, the home team often opting to bat first to get the first opportunity to hit using the game ball, only one of which was often available for the entire game.[19] A recollection in The Illustrated Buffalo Express and in the Brooklyn Citizen state that Brooklyn batted first,[20][21] though Baseball-Reference states that Brooklyn batter Lou Bierbauer hit his two home runs in the bottom of the third inning.[22]
  2. Baseball-Reference lists Lewis as allowing 20 earned runs,[16] though various box scores[15][17][21] state Brooklyn only scored 14 earned runs over the entire game. A recap of Lewis's pitching in The Illustrated Buffalo Express was as follows: "Lewis sent Ward and Joyce to first on balls, and Ward scored on a passed ball. Orr made a home run and Joyce run in [sic] ahead of him. Van Haltren got a base on balls and scored on McGeachy's single. Daly [sic] hit safe and McGeachy scored. ... In the second the Brooklyns added six more runs to their credit on hits by Orr, Daly [sic], Sowders, Ward, Joyce, and Andrews. ... In the third on Bauer's two home runs, McGeachy's two-bagger, Daly's, Sowder's, Ward's and Andrew's singles added eight runs to the Brooklyn's score".[21] A different recollection appeared in the Brooklyn Citizen.[20]

References
  1. Eckard, E. Woodrow (May 2001). "The Origin of the Reserve Clause: Owner Collusion Versus "Public Interest"". Journal of Sports Economics. North American Association of Sports Economists. 2 (2): 114–119. doi:10.1177/152700250100200202.
  2. Devine 1994, p. 7
  3. Devine 1994, p. 13
  4. Turkin, Hy; Thompson, Sherley Clark (1979). The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball. Dolphin/Doubleday. p. 50. ISBN 9780385150927.
  5. Thomas, Ryland; Williamson, Samuel H. (2019). "What Was the U.S. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved April 6, 2019. United States Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the Measuring Worth series.
  6. Devine 1994, p. 18, note 73
  7. Devine 1994, pp. 19–20
  8. Devine 1994, p. 19
  9. Spink, Alfred H. (1910). The National Game: A History of Baseball, America's Leading Out-door Sport. The National Game Publishing Company. pp. 29–30.
  10. Palmer, Henry Clay; Fynes, James Austin; Richter, Francis C.; Harris, William Ingraham (1889). Athletic Sports in America, England and Australia. Hubbard Brothers. p. 149.
  11. Dickson, Paul (2011). The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (3rd ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. p. 527. ISBN 9780393073492.
  12. "1890 Buffalo Bisons Schedule". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  13. Macht, Norman L. (2007). Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball. University of Nebraska Press. p. 77. ISBN 9780803209909.
  14. Koszarek, Ed (2014). The Players League: History, Clubs, Ballplayers and Statistics. McFarland. pp. 50, 52–53, 87. ISBN 9781476609188.
  15. "Base Ball: Players' League" (PDF). Sporting Life. 15 (16). July 19, 1890. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 12, 2014 – via LA84 Foundation.
  16. "Lewis". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  17. "All our Local Clubs Won: The Cincinnatis Leave the Field, Causing a Scene" (PDF). The New York Times. July 13, 1890.
  18. Snyder-Grenier, Ellen Marie (1996). Brooklyn!: An Illustrated History. Temple University Press. p. 232. ISBN 9781592130825.
  19. Simon, Gary A.; Simonoff, Jeffrey S. ""Last Licks": Do They Really Help?". The American Statistician. 60 (1): 13.
  20. "The Baseball World: Results of Games Played on Many Diamonds Yesterday". Brooklyn Citizen. July 13, 1890. p. 4.
  21. "Just Think of It". The Illustrated Buffalo Express. July 13, 1890. p. 14.
  22. "Lou Bierbauer Career Home Runs". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  23. Vincent, Dave (2007). Home Run: The Definitive History of Baseball's Ultimate Weapon. Potomac Books. Chapter 1. ISBN 9781612344591.
  24. "A Disastrous Experiment". The Pittsburgh Press. July 13, 1890. p. 6.
  25. "Fine Fun for Ward: His Wonders have Taken Four Straight Games". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. July 13, 1890. p. 2.
  26. Liebman, Ronald G. (1980). "The Highest Scoring Games". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  27. "Yesterday's Ball Games: Player's League". The Boston Globe. July 13, 1890. p. 1.
  28. "Brooklyn, 28; Buffalo, 16". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. July 13, 1890. p. 24.
  29. "His Name Was Lewis: After the Game it Was Mud – Bisons Tried a New Pitcher". Buffalo Courier. July 13, 1890. p. 7.
  30. "Home Nines Win Again: Bridegrooms Increase Their Lead". New-York Tribune. July 13, 1890. p. 3.
  31. Overfield, Joseph M (April 1963). "The Wildest Opening Series Ever Played". Baseball Digest. p. 49.
  32. "1890 Buffalo Bisons Statistics". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  33. "1890 PL Standard Pitching". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  34. "Leaderboard Glossary". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC. Archived from the original on May 13, 2020. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  35. Spatz, Lyle, ed. (June 2004). "The Infinite Era Club" (PDF). Society for American Baseball Research. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 6, 2012. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  36. "1890 PL Team Statistics". Baseball-Reference. Sports Reference, LLC. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  37. Jebsen Jr., Harry (2007). "Review of The Players League: History, Clubs, Ballplayers, and Statistics". Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture. University of Nebraska Press. 15 (2): 137–139. doi:10.1353/nin.2007.0010. Archived from the original on June 2, 2018.
  38. Devine 1994, pp. 24–25
  39. Gattie, Gordon (2015). "The Legacy of the Players' League: 1890 Chicago Pirates". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  40. Devine 1994, p. 26

Sources

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