Leslie Ambrose Bush, nicknamed “Bullet Joe” was born November 27, 1892 in Brainerd, Minnesota.
In 1913 the A’s were forced to rush young pitchers into the breech. Twenty-year-old Joe Bush came through with a 14-6 mark to help them win the pennant then added a five-hit win in the World Series. Although plagued by wildness, the durable youngster continued to pitch well in the next few years.
Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 36 of the 2009 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 5 week of August.
August 26
1916 At Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, A’s hurler Joe Bush no-hits the Indians, 5-0. ‘Bullet Joe’ will win 15 of the last place Athletics 36 victories this season.
Leslie Ambrose Bush, nicknamed “Bullet Joe” was born November 27, 1892 in Brainerd, Minnesota.
In 1913 the A’s were forced to rush young pitchers into the breech. Twenty-year-old Joe Bush came through with a 14-6 mark to help them win the pennant then added a five-hit win in the World Series. Although plagued by wildness, the durable youngster continued to pitch well in the next few years.
He threw with great velocity and was generally compared with the best speed-ball pitchers of the day. He had a very good curve ball, and would later develop a forkball when arm trouble made throwing the curve more difficult. Although not the first to throw the unusual flutter ball, Bush would be credited as one of the earliest major leaguers to popularize the delivery, throwing the pitch with consistency and effectiveness. Some say he “invented” it, including Joe, himself.
He had a pirouette style of delivery called the “Joe Bush twist-around” pitch that Babe Ruth considered quite effective. Ruth encouraged other young Yankees pitchers to mimic the style.
When Joe was 19, the Missoula, Montana, club of the Union Association signed him to a contract for the 1912 season. Cliff Blankenship, an ex-major leaguer, then catcher-manager for Missoula, took Bush under his tutelage and helped him with the rudiments of pitching.
Bush described his pitching style when he first arrived in Missoula as “depending on speed alone to win.” Blankenship took him under his wing and taught him how to pitch. It was effective. Missoula won the Union Association championship. Bush posted a league-leading 29-12 record.
The nickname “Bullet Joe” took hold in Missoula. The club president, Hughie Campbell, began to call him Joe Bush after a former local bronco buster. Later, the local media began to call him Joe Bullet, because of the speed of his fastball. Bush credits the nickname – Bullet Joe – to teammate Eddie Collins, who applied the label after observing a letter in the clubhouse that was addressed to “Joe Bullet” Bush. The nickname stuck for the rest of his baseball career.
Upon the advice of Blankenship, Connie Mack, part-owner and manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, purchased Bullet Joe from the Missoula team on August 20, 1912. He made his debut with the A’s on September 30 against the New York Highlanders, a game the A’s won in 11 innings, 11-10. Bush pitched eight innings, yielding all 10 runs. This was Bush’s only appearance in 1912.
Mack’s ace pitcher, Jack Coombs, fell ill in 1913 and missed most of that season. This unfortunate turn of events for the A’s proved to be a break for Joe, who was called on to be an added starter for Mack, and he fulfilled the role nicely, winning 15 of 21 decisions in the regular season.
At 20, he was one of the youngest to play in a World Series at that time, but he stemmed the momentum of a New York team that had defeated the A’s at the hands of Christy Mathewson the day before. Bush gave up 2 runs on 5 hits as the A’s won Game 3, 8-2. The A’s went on to win the Series, four games to one.
Though he had an illustrious 17-year major league career, young Joe’s victory over the Giants in 1913 would be one of only two victories in his seven World Series’ decisions. He would long share the dubious distinction of five World Series losses with future Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson, Rube Marquard, and Eddie Plank, a record eventually surpassed by Whitey Ford of the Yankees in 1963. Ford would lose eight Series games, along with his ten victories. But Bullet Joe’s World Series losses are distinguishable from the others; his five losses were consecutive, a record that still stands.
Bush had another fine year with the Athletics in 1914, winning 16 games and losing 12, with a 3.06 Earned Run Average. As part of a strong staff with Chief Bender, Eddie Plank, and Bob Shawkey, he led the team into the 1914 World Series against the Boston Braves. Once again he was given the pitching assignment for Game Three, but this time the result was different.
Bush’s pitching heroics in the 1913 World Series had buoyed his team to a championship but his misplay in the 1914 Series helped lead to their downfall. He had pitched well and was locked in a duel with Lefty Tyler through nine innings, knotted at 2-2. Both teams scored two runs in the 10th. Then, in the 12th inning, Hank Gowdy, a .243 hitter during the regular season, stroked a double. After an intentional walk to Larry Gilbert, the next play was a sacrifice bunt by Herbie Moran that Bush threw past the third baseman, allowing the winning run to score. The Braves won the fourth and final game by a score of 3-1, and made a clean sweep of Connie Mack’s team.
In 1914 Connie Mack began to dismantle his club selling off star players rather than compete in a bidding war with the Federal League.
Bush would find little support from the fractured ranks of a team that bore no resemblance to the great Athletics teams of years past. The A’s were woeful, plummeting from first place in 1914 to last in 1915. Bush won five games and lost 15 with a 4.13 Earned Run Average that year.
The same ineptness that characterized the A’s in 1915 continued in both 1916 and 1917. The A’s lost more than 100 games in 1915 and 1916, and nearly as many in 1917, dropping 98 and finishing 44½ games behind the leader. In 1916, the A’s lost 117 games and, astonishingly, they finished 40 games behind the seventh-place finisher, Washington.
Despite little run support and a poor defense behind him, in 1916 Bush still won 15 games, while losing 24. He put together a remarkable 2.57 Earned Run Average, including eight shutouts and 25 complete games.
In 1917, he improved his Earned Run Average to 2.47, despite an 11-17 won-loss record.
Cash-strapped Connie Mack dispensed with three more members of his once-great teams on December 14, 1917. He dealt Bush, Wally Schang, and Amos Strunk to the Boston Red Sox for three undistinguished players, and $60,000. All three ex-Athletics would contribute to the Boston ballclub in their run for the pennant in 1918, especially Bush.
Bullet Joe managed a 15-15 won-loss record in 1918, but with a career-best – and team best – 2.11 Earned Run Average, a career-high 26 complete games, including seven shutouts and a team-high 125 strikeouts. Bush, Babe Ruth, Carl Mays, Sad Sam Jones, and Dutch Leonard formed a strong pitching corps that led the Red Sox into the 1918 World Series, which the Sox took in six games from the Chicago Cubs.
Bush appeared in two games in the 1918 Series. He lost Game Two, a well-pitched 3-1 contest, and saved a win for pitcher Babe Ruth.
The following year was a difficult one for Bush, who developed arm trouble and remained out of action most of the season. It was also not a good year for the Red Sox. They finished sixth.
It appeared that Bullet Joe was all but washed up due to the injury, but his toughness sustained him and pushed him to a comeback with the Red Sox in 1920. Essentially, he reinvented himself, coming up with a new pitch – the forkball – that enabled him to pitch another nine years in the big leagues.
In a Saturday Evening Post series, Bush described his “invention” this way: “Probably one of the most bewildering balls ever pitched was my own invention – the fork ball, which I discovered in 1920 when I was essaying a comeback with the Boston Red Sox after I had hurt my arm several years before and was forced to stop throwing curve balls.”
1920 was a comeback year for Bush, and he put together another 15-15 won-loss record. But the Red Sox bore no resemblance to the champions of 1918. Owner Harry Frazee had begun to dismantle his championship team at the end of the 1918 season. Once again Bush found himself on a team in the process of being sold off.
The Red Sox were now mired in mediocrity, finishing 1921 in fifth place. Bush had a good year, however, with a 16-9 won-loss record and a 3.50 Earned Run Average. He also hit .325 with 39 base hits in 120 plate appearances.
On December 20, 1921, the Red Sox traded Bush to the Yankees. It was a trade made in heaven for Bullet Joe, who expressed delight at the move, saying, “It’s the greatest Christmas present imaginable. Then another good point is that I will have Babe Ruth with me instead of against me. That always makes a pitcher’s life a happier one.”
Bush joined a strong Yankees club that had won the American League pennant in 1921, and would go on to win two more pennants and a World Series during his stay with them.
He had a career year in 1922 with a team-high 26 victories, losing only seven. The Yankees won the pennant but then were swept in the World Series, 4 games to none, with a controversial tie, to McGraw’s New York Giants. Bullet Joe started the opening and final games, losing both, by 3-2 and 5-3 scores.
The Yankees had another strong year in 1923, finishing in first place by 16½ games over second-place Detroit. Bush did not match his 1922 performance, but had a good year nevertheless, with a 19-15 won-loss record, a 3.43 Earned Run Average. The Yankees beat the Giants in the World Series this time, four games to two.
Game One of the 1923 World Series was the first Series game to be played in Yankee Stadium and the first to be broadcast nationally. Bullet Joe pitched well in relief that day, but his World Series jinx continued; he lost to the Giants, 5-4, when Casey Stengel hit an inside-the-park home run off him in the ninth. He came back in a crucial fifth contest with the teams locked at two wins apiece, however, pitching a masterful game and shutting down the Giants, 8-1.
The Yankees would not repeat in 1924, finishing second to the Washington Senators. Joe posted a 17-16 record with a 3.57 Earned Run Average.
On December 17, 1924, the Yankees traded Bush to the St. Louis Browns. This was a major disappointment for Bush, who had had three solid years with the Bronx-based team.
The Yankees finished a dismal seventh in the American League in 1925, while the Browns finished third, though 15 games behind league leading Washington.
Bush compiled a 14-14 record that year, with 63 strikeouts, but had an unimpressive 5.09 Earned Run Average. He pitched two shutouts, one of them a splendid one-hitter on August 27 over Walter Johnson of the American League champion Washington Senators, 5-0. Johnson got the only hit off Bush, a double in the sixth inning.
On February 1, 1926, the Browns traded Bush to the Senators. The Senators had won the World Series in 1924 and the American League pennant in 1925. Manager Bucky Harris was counting on him as the key player in the deal. The Washington Post quoted Harris stating that the addition of Bush “assured his team of a third American League pennant.”14
Harris’s predictions for Bush did not play out. On April 18, Joe was hit on the knee by a vicious line drive. Bush had pitched one-hit ball before he was struck by Combs’ shot in the top of the ninth. He was slow to recover, and was never able to regain form with Washington, posting a 1-8 won-loss record.
The Senators gave Bush his unconditional release on June 24, 1926.
On June 30, he signed to play for another contender, the reigning World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates.
Bush’s performance with Pittsburgh was more than respectable. The Pirates were in a pennant race and Bullet Joe was being counted on to bolster the staff. He was a contributor, as a pitcher and with his bat. Although his won-loss record was a mere 6-6, he finished with a 3.01 Earned Run Average, with two impressive shutouts, the second a two-hitter the Phillies. The Pirates were inconsistent as a team, however, and finished third.
Bush was on the Pittsburgh roster at the outset of the 1927 campaign, but his time with them was short-lived. He was given his unconditional release from the Bucs on June 15.
Once again Bush was on the outside looking in. But an old opponent, John McGraw – the victim of Bush’s heroics in the memorable 1913 World Series – was in need of pitching; he threw Bullet Joe another lifeline, signing him to a contract with the Giants on June 29. But Bush lasted barely long enough to dirty his uniform. He pitched in three games – starting two – beating the Boston Braves on July 2, with an impressive seven-hitter; but getting bombed by the Brooklyn on July 9, giving up seven hits and four runs in the first inning. He was released by the Giants on July 19.
Bush’s resiliency in always landing on his feet emerged again when, in late December 1927, Connie Mack signed the 35-year old veteran to a contract with the Philadelphia Athletics.
He was used sparingly by Mack, finishing with a 2-1 won-loss mark and was released in November 1928. It was the end of his major league career.
During his career he won 195 games, lost 183 and posted a quite respectable 3.51 lifetime Earned Run Average. He pitched 35 shutouts, including a no-hitter.
Bush was also a well-respected batsman and was used often as a pinch-hitter. Bush’s lifetime major league batting average was a solid .253 with 313 base hits in 1,239 at-bats.
During an interview in 1967 with sportswriter Bill Duncan of the Cherry Hill, N.J. Courier-Post, Bush described his “biggest kick” in baseball was picking off Ty Cobb at second base with the bases loaded. Joe had this to say of the incident, “Man, but he was furious! He pawed and kicked and howled at the umpire. It is a picture I’ll never forget,”
Joe Bush died on November 1, 1974 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the age of 81.
A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by Ron Anderson. It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: N
Nail-biter
A close, tense game in which both spectators and players are tense and on edge. It has been said of a poor relief pitcher that he can turn seemingly safe leads into nail-biters.
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