Honoring The Irish!

The Year Baseball's Hall of Fame Inducted a Class of Irish Americans

By John Mooney

There was little doubt that this year's Baseball Hall of Fame inductees would include Cal Ripken, the Iron Man shortstop for the American League Baltimore Orioles, and Tony Gwynn, the San Diego Padres' eight-time National League batting champion. The source of controversy surrounded former slugger Mark McGwire, whom many people believe used steroids to help supply his home run power.

Debate will undoubtedly continue over the credentials of the former Oakland A's and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman. In 1998, McGwire shattered the long standing record of 61 home runs in a season until Barry Bonds, another player suspected of using performance enhancing drugs, topped it just three years later. As spring training opens for a season in which he has a realistic shot at becoming baseball's all-time home run king, Bonds's likelihood of entering the Hall of Fame also will be

discussed frequently. A controversy of a different sort in 1945 set the stage for a large class - primarily comprised of Irish Americans - to make the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. When the initial vote was taken at the end of January, no player collected the 75 percent of baseball writers' votes required to elect a new inductee. Frank Chance, Rube Waddell, and Ed Walsh, stars in the first two decades of the 1900s, came closest.

The Hall of Fame Committee responded to the deadlocked writers' voting by selecting inductees whose careers bridged the turn of the 20th century: Roger Bresnahan, Dan Brouthers, Fred Clarke, Jimmy Collins, Ed Delahanty, Hugh Duffy, Hughie Jennings, King Kelly, Wilbert Robinson, and Jim O'Rourke.

"A mixture of societal and economic factors contributed to the predominance of Irish American players in the late 19th century," said John Fitzgerald, who produced and directed the award-winning film, The Emerald Diamond. "It was similar to the abundance of Latin players today - the Irish used baseball as a way out of poor economic situations."

Baseball represented a way out of poverty for the children and grandchildren of Famine-era immigrants. The Irish far outnumbered any other ethnic group in the game's early days. Many of them became some of the sport's greatest and most popular players.

Roger Bresnahan

Born in Toledo, OH, Roger Bresnahan could field all nine positions and was one of the few catchers in baseball history fast enough to bat leadoff.

Despite taunts by other players and protests from managers, he introduced to major league baseball the protective gear used by college teams. His innovation eventually led to widespread acceptance and usage of catchers' masks and shin guards.

Nicknamed "The Duke of Tralee," Bresnahan played primarily for the Washington Senators, the now defunct Baltimore Orioles of the National League (NL), and John McGraw's legendary New York Giants teams. He was the battery mate of "Iron Joe" McGinnity and Christy Mathewson, both Hall of Fame pitchers. Ironically, Bresnahan began his career as a pitcher throwing a six-hit shutout in his big league debut. He ended his career as a player-manager for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. In 1944, Bresnahan died of a heart attack at age 65. He became the second catcher in the Hall of Fame the following year.

Big Dan Brouthers

Playing for a variety of teams during a career that spanned four decades, Dan Brouthers won more batting titles (five) than any other 19th century player. The first baseman, one of baseball's first great power hitters, led his league in slugging percentage seven times and was one of only three players to hit 100 home runs before 1900. Brouthers' lifetime .349 batting average ranks in the all-time top 10.

Jimmy Collins

Jimmy Collins was considered the best fielding third baseman in baseball history until Brooks Robinson came along in the 1960s. A native of Buffalo, NY, the popular Collins was the first Hall of Fame inductee who played primarily as a third baseman.

A clutch hitter, Collins batted .346 in 1897, and hit .337 with a league-high 15 home runs the next season. He joined the Boston Red Sox in 1901 as a player-manager, leading the team to victory in the first-ever World Series in 1903 and the American League (AL) pennant in 1904. He was traded to the Philadelphia Athletics in 1907 and retired after the next season. During his career, Collins scored 1,055 runs, hit 65 home runs, drove in 983 runs and had a .294 batting average.

Collins' defensive wizardry made him a star, particularly among Irish fans in the Boston area. He is still second in putouts by a third basemen and was one of the best ever at fielding bunts, a frequently used offensive tactic in the "Dead Ball" era. He played with Hall of Fame Irishmen Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy on the Boston Beaneaters (later called the Braves) in 1895 and was also a teammate of the great Cy Young.

Big Ed Delahanty

Edward James Delahanty played major league baseball from 1888 to 1903. He was the eldest and most talented of five siblings (Ed, Frank, Jim, Joe and Tom) to play in the majors.

"Big Ed" was a powerful slugger in an era of slap hitters. In 1893, he led the NL with 19 HR and 146 RBI and missed winning the Triple Crown by finishing third in batting with a .368 average. On a Philadelphia Phillies team that featured four .400 hitters, he batted .407. (He lost the title to Hugh Duffy, who hit an amazing .438 that year.) Delahanty won his first batting crown in 1899 with a .410 average, along with nine homers and 137 RBI.

On July 13, 1896, Big Ed tied the major league mark with four home runs in a game - all of them inside-the-park. (He is the only player ever to accomplish that feat.) Delahanty switched to the higher paying American League in 1902 and won his second batting title with a .376 mark for the Washington Senators. To this day, he is the only man to win a batting title in both leagues. Over the course of 16 seasons, the outfielder slugged 101 HRs, had 1,464 RBI, hit 522 doubles and 185 triples, and stole 455 bases. His .346 lifetime batting average ranks 4th all-time.

Ed Delahanty died under mysterious circumstances on July 2, 1903, when, at age 35, he fell into Niagara Falls. Thrown off a train by a conductor for being drunk and disorderly, the slugger started to walk across the International Bridge from which he either fell or jumped. The life story of one of America's first "bad boy" athletes is documented in Jerrold Casway's book, Ed Delahanty in the Emerald Age of Baseball, published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

Hugh Duffy

Hugh Duffy began his career with the National League Chicago White Stockings in 1888. His best seasons were with the NL's Boston Beaneaters from 1892 until 1900. Duffy knocked in 100 runs or more eight times. In 1894, he had one of the greatest seasons in baseball history, winning the Triple Crown with 18 home runs, 145 RBI and an almost unimaginable .438 batting average (still the major league single season record).

A brilliant defensive centerfielder, Duffy finished his career in 1906 with 106 home runs which was, at the time, one of the highest totals ever.

Hughie Jennings

A hyperactive manager who taunted opponents with shouts and whistles, Hughie Jennings led the Ty Cobb-era Detroit Tigers to AL pennants from 1907 to 1909, his first three years as manager, but never won the World Series. His distinctive "Ee-yah" yells from the third base coaching box became the feisty redhead's trademark. He guided the Tigers until 1920 and later became a coach for his friend (and fellow Hall of Famer) John McGraw with the Giants, whom he also managed in 1924 and 1925. Jennings' career managerial record was 1,131-972, a .538 winning percentage.

As a player, Jennings was a star shortstop for the NL Baltimore Orioles. He led the league in fielding percentage three times and had a 17-year career batting average of .314, including a season in which he hit .397. He also was hit by a record 287 pitches -- 49 times in 1896 alone! His major league mark could be broken this year, as Houston Astro Craig Biggio enters the 2007 season with 282 HBP.

Born in Pennsylvania's coal mining area, Jennings attended Cornell Law School and worked at his brother's law firm in Scranton, PA, after he retired from baseball.

Michael Joseph "King" Kelly

Born on December 31, 1857 in Troy, NY, Michael Joseph "King" Kelly was an innovator credited with devising the hit and run, the hook slide, and the catcher's play of backing up first base.

Kelly joined the Cincinnati Reds in 1878 and became a star with the Chicago White Stockings from 1880-86, a time during which he was among the NL leaders in almost every offensive category. He led the league in runs scored from 1884-86 and won batting titles in 1884 and 1886 (.354 and .388 respectively). While he was on the team, Chicago won five league championships.

In one of the biggest transactions in the early baseball history, Kelly was sold after the 1886 season to the Boston Beaneaters for a then-record sum of $10,000. He continued to be a key run-producer, scoring 120 runs in 1887 and 1889. King Kelly then managed and played in the short-lived Players League.

Kelly retired after the 1893 season, with a .308 career batting average, 1,357 runs scored, 69 home runs (during the "Dead Ball Era") and 950 RBI. Although record-keeping during his earliest playing days was unreliable, statistics in his later years show that he regularly stole 50 or more bases in a season, including a high of 84 in 1887. His daring base running made him popular among the fans, prompting the cheer, and eventually the song, "Slide Kelly Slide!", the first non-operatic, non-patriotic hit record.

"Kelly was baseball's first superstar, a matinee idol. He was the first guy - aside from U.S. Presidents - that people asked to sign autographs," said baseball historian Marty Appel, author of SLIDE, KELLY, SLIDE: The Wild Life and Times of Mike "King" Kelly, Baseball's First Superstar, ranked by the Daily News as one of the top 10 sports books ever written.

"He was a real fan favorite, particularly in Boston, where an oil portrait of him sliding hung in almost every bar," Appel added. "He was good looking, a flashy dresser, and a big drinker - a real man's man. The fans loved him."

One of baseballs earliest "characters," Kelly played fast and loose with the rules of the game. At the start of his career, the rulebook said that players could be substituted at any time. Legend has it that during one game, when Kelly was on the bench as the opposing team batted, he ran onto the field shouting, "Kelly now catching!" He caught a pop-up near his dugout, and the player was called out. (Later the rules were changed limiting substitutions to times when the ball is not in play.)

Off the field, Kelly was equally outrageous. He walked around with a monkey on his shoulder and had a Japanese valet. He also wrote baseball's first autobiography, Play Ball: Stories of the Ball Field, in 1888. A known drinker (sometimes at the ballpark with fans), Kelly was once asked if he imbibed while playing. His response: "It depends on the length of the game." He even became a member of Boston's Elks Club, which enabled him to drink on Sundays, when saloons were closed.

The first ballplayer to put together a vaudeville act, Kelly was on his way to Boston for Mike Murphy's Burlesque show in the fall of 1894, when he caught a cold that turned to pneumonia. He was taken to the hospital on a stretcher, from which he either fell or was dropped. His final words reportedly were, "This is my last slide." Three days later, he was dead, and Boston gave him the largest funeral ever held for an athlete in that city.

Jim O'Rourke

One of the earliest players in the Hall of Fame, James Henry O'Rourke collected the first base hit in National League history on April 22, 1876. Born in 1850 in Bridgeport, CT, he was primarily a leftfielder. During his time, "Orator Jim" ranked second in career games played (1,644), hits (2,146), at-bats (6,884), doubles (392), total bases (2,936), and runs scored (1,370).

He left the majors after the 1893 season, but continued to play in the minors until well past age 50. In 1904, he made a final major league appearance with the New York Giants (his friend, John McGraw was the manager) and became the oldest player to ever hit safely in a game. In 1912, he caught a complete game in the minor leagues at the age of 60.

Jim O'Rourke was known as excellent defensive outfielder, a swift runner with a strong arm who got a good jump on the ball. He was credited with once throwing a baseball ball 365 feet.

Wilbert Robinson

Robinson, a catcher for the NL's Baltimore Orioles, once had seven hits in one game and was durable enough to catch a tripleheader and a doubleheader the next day! A teammate and co-owner of a billiards parlor with John McGraw, he joined his friend as pitching coach for the New York Giants. The men were close friends until October 12, 1913, when McGraw hosted a reunion of former Orioles players. During a night of heavy drinking, McGraw blamed Robinson for making too many coaching mistakes in the World Series. When Robinson retorted than McGraw made more mistakes than anybody, the manager fired him. Robby doused his former friend and teammate with beer and left. Six days later, he signed with Brooklyn, where he managed for the next 18 years. The team would be known as the Robins -- as well as Dodgers -- during his tenure.

"Uncle Robbie" twice guided his teams to pennants in seasons in which they were not given a chance of winning (1916 and 1920). He ran the club in a relaxed manner, the polar opposite of the tyrannical McGraw. Robinson had a knack for evoking evoke winning performances from cast-offs, but also had star players, including Hall of Famer pitcher Dazzy Vance (a fireballer whom Robinson gave more rest than was the norm between starts), and sluggers Babe Herman, Zach Wheat, and Casey Stengel, who would one day become a successful manager in his own right.

Robinson listed his heritage as English. He was married to an Irish woman.

Fred Clarke

Fred Clarke was the only 1945 inductee with no Irish ties. One of baseball's toughest competitors, Clarke went 5-for-5 in his first major league game in 1894 and continued his aggressive play until 1915. He managed and played leftfield for the Pittsburgh Pirates alongside fellow Hall of Famers Honus Wagner and Vic Willis. Clarke won four NL pennants, including 1902, when his team lost only 36 games - still a record for fewest losses in a full season.

Clarke's Pirates lost the first World Series in 1903 to the Boston Red Sox of the upstart American League, but beat Hughie Jennings' Detroit Tigers in the 1909. As a player, he collected 2,703 career hits and batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895, equaled by Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies last year, is still one of the longest ever. When he retired, Clarke ranked among the all-time leaders in batting average, runs scored, hits, triples, and stolen bases. At one time, Clarke was the winningest manager in major league history (1,602 victories) until John McGraw broke his record in 1918.

Sources for this article included www.appelpr.com/books.htm, www.baseball-reference.com, www.baseballalmanac.com, www.baseballlibrary.com, and www.baseballhalloffame.org.