Welcome to Baseball History Podcast, featuring baseball biographies. I’m your announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 32 of the 2011 baseball season.
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 2 week of August.
August 13
1906 After pitching 1727 consecutive complete innings, including fifteen games in relief, Cub pitcher Jack Taylor’s streak comes to an end as the Brooklyn Superbas knock him out of the game in the third inning.
John W. Taylor, nicknamed “Jack”, was born January 14, 1874 in New Straitsville, Ohio.
For a five year period, from June 20, 1901 to August 9, 1906, Taylor achieved a remarkable pitching record of never once being relieved in a game. During the span he started and completed 187 games.
Pitching mostly for losing teams, Taylor relied on pitch location and guile to compile a lifetime record of 152-139 with a 2.66 Earned Run Average. One reporter wrote this about Taylor’s pitching, “Corner working is his forte. He mixes up pitches. Fast and slow come along with almost the same motion.”
Ed Reulbach, who played with Taylor on the 1906-07 Cubs, claimed that his veteran teammate had a mastery over Honus Wagner. Reulbach had this to say about it, “Had Wagner been obliged to bat against Old Jack Taylor all through a season his average would have shrunk to .150. No other pitcher had Wagner’s number as Taylor did. He would make Wagner so sore that the Dutchman frequently shifted and tried to hit left-handed. Honus simply could not guess Taylor right and he knew it.”
Taylor first achieved baseball notoriety pitching for semipro teams in Marietta, Ohio, and Parkersburg, West Virginia. Late in the 1896 season, Connie Mack’s Pittsburgh Pirates played an exhibition in Parkersburg and Taylor beat the big-league club. Mack was impressed. When he left Pittsburgh the following year to take the helm of the Milwaukee Brewers in Ban Johnson’s Western League, he signed Taylor to his first professional contract. Aided by Mack’s guidance, Taylor blossomed into a star with Milwaukee. His 1897 season was cut short by a broken arm, but the following year he pitched in 44 games, compiling an impressive 28-14 record with 41 complete games. Taylor tied for the league lead with four shutouts and finished third in wins.
The National League’s Louisville Colonels held an option on Taylor, but relinquished their rights and allowed him to go to the Chicago Orphans for a late-season trial. In his National League debut against Pittsburgh on September 25, 1898, Taylor pitched a complete game to win by a score of 7-4. The rookie appeared four more times that season, each a complete-game victory, two of them against Louisville.
In light of his sensational 5-0 debut, Taylor’s first full major-league season was a little disappointing. He ended up with an 18-21 record and a 3.76 Earned Run Average, though his 39 complete games mark was just one behind the league leaders. One of the season’s highlights occurred on April 16 when Taylor, sometimes known as “Jack Taylor II”, out-pitched Cincinnati’s “Brewery Jack” Taylor who, in turn was known as “Jack Taylor I”, for an 8-4 victory.
The fortunes of the Chicago team continued to decline in 1900, as the club finished only five games ahead of the last-place New York Giants. Despite his record of 10-17, Taylor actually pitched well, finishing third in the National League with a 2.55 Earned Run Average.
In 1901 he improved his record to 13-19, though his Earned Run Average rose to 3.36, slightly above the league average. On June 13 of that season, Taylor lasted only four innings against the Giants. It was the last time that he was relieved until August 13, 1906. During that span Jack completed all 187 of his starts, including both ends of a doubleheader on one occasion, and finished an additional 15 games in relief. Given the changes in the game over the last century, it is a record that is sure to stand the test of time.
Jack Taylor was the National League’s best pitcher in 1902. Finishing at 23-11 for a team with a losing record, Taylor led the National League in Earned Run Average with a mark of 1.33.
On June 22 he handed the Pittsburgh Pirates a rare defeat, holding Honus Wagner hitless in eight at-bats and beating Pittsburgh, 3-2, in 19 innings, the second longest game in National League history to that point. Taylor had another fine year in 1903, going 21-14 for the rapidly improving Cubs even though his Earned Run Average rose to 2.45.
Again he ranked third in the National League in fewest hits per game and fewest walks per game. That season marked the end of the three-year “war” between the rival leagues, and the Cubs agreed to play their American League counterpart, the Chicago White Sox, in a City Series after the conclusion of the regular season. Coming off a fine year, Taylor naturally was the choice to start the first game, and he handily mastered the seventh-place White Sox by a score of 11-0. In his other three starts, however, he lost by scores of 10-2, 9-3, and 4-2.
Suspicious of Taylor’s work during the series, Cubs president Jim Hart traded him and rookie catcher Larry McLean to the St. Louis Cardinals during the off-season for pitcher Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown and catcher Jack O’Neill.
In early 1904 Taylor made his first visit to Chicago as a Cardinal. Responding to jeers from the stands over his poor performance in the city series, Jack stated, “Why should I have won? I got $100 from Hart for winning and I got $500 for losing.” At that point Hart went public with his charges of dishonesty, but no immediate action was taken against Taylor. In July, however, Jack was accused of throwing a game against the Pirates. This time Garry Herrmann, chairman of the National Commission, declared that Taylor was “not an honest ball player,” but he was allowed to continue playing and finished the 1904 season with a 20-19 record and a league-leading 39 complete games.
After the season a hearing was held to consider the charges against Taylor. He testified that he and teammate Jake Beckley had been on a drinking and gambling spree the night before the game in question. He credited his poor performance to wildness rather than dishonesty. On February 15, 1905, the National League Board of Directors handed down its verdict: Taylor was acquitted of the charge of throwing games, but he was found guilty of bad conduct and fined $300. Jack angrily refused to pay, saying, “They had no case against me for crookedness over in Pittsburgh.” In a letter to Garry Herrmann discussing the case, Pittsburgh club secretary W. H. Locke made a prophetic statement: “If Taylor escapes punishment the crusade will be a difficult one, as gamblers will be convinced that the league is only bluffing.”
The next month Taylor was called before the National Commission for a hearing on the charges from the 1903 Chicago City Series. At the hearing Hart submitted three affidavits from people who overheard Taylor’s statement about being paid $500 to lose, and stated that he could provide many more affidavits along the same lines, but the Commission held that “the evidence submitted, alleging that the player made certain remarks relative to the post-season game of 1903, is insufficient to find him guilty of conduct detrimental to the welfare and good repute of the game.”
Following his acquittal, Taylor resumed pitching for the Cardinals, finishing the 1905 season with a 15-21 record and a lousy 3.44 Earned Run Average. He was again accused of throwing games during the 1905 City Series between the Cardinals and St. Louis Browns, won by the Browns, five games to two, but no action was taken on those charges and he returned to the Cardinals for 1906.
Jack Taylor got off to a solid start that season, going 8-9 with a 2.15 Earned Run Average, but on July 1 St. Louis traded him to the Cubs, of all teams. By then, Hart was no longer connected with the Cubs.
Finally joining a pennant-outfit, the 32-year-old Taylor finished out 1906 in superb form, going 12-3 with a 1.83 Earned Run Average to give him a combined record of 20-12 for the season.
Thus he was part of the wonder team of the 1906 Cubs; that year the Earned Run Average for the entire pitching staff was 1.76. He also contributed to the World Series-winning season in 1907. However, it proved to be his last hurrah in the major leagues. Taylor managed only a 7-5 mark with a 3.29 Earned Run Average for the 1907 Cubs before drifting to the minors.
Retiring from baseball after the 1913 season, Jack returned to Ohio where he worked as a coal miner until his health failed.
Jack Taylor died on March 4, 1938 in Columbus, Ohio at the age of 64.
A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by Daniel Ginsburg. It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org
Leave a comment at the BHP web site at baseballhistorypodcast.com or write a review on iTunes, search for Baseball History Podcast.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com.
Well, that’s it for today’s Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
