The Worst Game by the Best Man



Aloysius Joseph Travers

On May 18, 1912, Aloysius Joseph (Allan) Travers was the starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers in a game in Philadelphia, against the defending World Champion Philadelphia Athletics. Travers pitched a complete game and lost, 24-2. He gave up 7 walks, 26 hits, and 24 runs. Those 24 runs are the most ever given up by a pitcher in one game in Major League Baseball history. It was the first and last appearance Travers ever made in a Major League game.

Over the 142 years and more than 150,000 games in MLB history there have been thousands of fantastic and horrific performances by players in the games they have played.

There have been perfect games and 20 strikeout performances by pitchers, and hitters getting 6 hits, or 4 homers in a game. Similarly, there have been awful displays on both sides, with a batter striking out 5 times in a game, or hitting into 4 double plays. However, with pitchers, things can and sometimes do get infinitely worse, and that’s the subject for this piece.

This year, on May 16, Vin Mazzaro was the starting pitcher for the Kansas City Royals against the Cleveland Indians. Cleveland won the game 19-1, with Mazzaro taking the loss. He gave up 14 earned runs in 2 and 1/3 innings. For that day, and that game, Vin’s earned-run average (ERA) was a neat 54.00. Awful, but not nearly the worst a pitcher can do. (For anyone that doesn’t know, an ERA is calculated by taking the number of earned runs, multiplying that total by 9, and dividing the sum by the number of innings pitched)

Luke needed God's help that day.

There were a couple of beauties in 2006. The Phillies Ryan Madson gave up 9 earned in one inning, posting an 81.00 ERA for that effort, but it pales in comparison to the Royals Luke Hudson’s stinker (also against Cleveland) on August 13, in which he allowed 10 earned runs in 1/3 of an inning. That computes to an ERA of 270.00, which is about the worst performance I can find before we get to all the single-game ERA’s that are "infinite," because the pitcher of record gave up one or more runs, without recording an out. These types of outings are almost an every day occurrence in baseball.

So, what was the story with Allan Travers?

On May 15, 1912, the Detroit Tigers were in New York playing against the Highlanders (now, the Yankees), and a New York fan named Claude Lueker was heckling Detroit star Ty Cobb with profanity and racial slurs. Cobb was perhaps the most reviled man in baseball history, and almost all of his own teammates despised him, but in this instance, to a man, they felt Cobb was justified in going into the stands and beating up Lueker. It happened that Lueker had recently been disabled in a work related accident in which he lost one hand, and 3 fingers of his other hand, so the end result was one that made Cobb out be a worse devil than he actually was, which was no mean feat.

Great player, awful human being

The American League President Ban Johnson suspended Cobb, but Cobb’s teammates to a man supported Cobb’s side of things, and said they would not play another game until the suspension was lifted.

The suspension was to begin on May 18. When Cobb went out on the field he was waved off the field, and his teammates followed. Johnson had threatened to fine Tiger owner Frank Navin, if he didn’t field a team. Fearing a hefty fine, Navin ordered his manager Hughie Jennings to cobble together a team on the chance that his players would refuse to play. Jennings had contacted a local acquaintance named Joe Nolan, who knew Allan Travers, who (in turn) found some sandlot players that would team with a couple of aging Detroit coaches (who were ex-players) to take the field, which is what happened. Everyone felt that the "farce" game would be called off, and perhaps the game would be ruled a forfeit, with the Tigers losing to the A’s? Philadelphia owner/manager Connie Mack saw 15 to 20 thousand fans in the stands, and was loathe to refund such a large gate. The game would be played.

At the time, Allan Travers was a student at St. Joseph’s College, and had never played much baseball. When he found out the Tiger pitcher that day was to receive $50.00 for the game, as opposed to the $25.00 that the other players were to get, he decided to take the mound. Travers, at the time, was more of a musician than anything else. His mother hoped that someday her son would play violin in the Philadelphia Orchestra, but her son chose a different path in life. In 1926, he was ordained, and thus became the only Catholic priest to have ever played in the major leagues. In 1943, he became the Dean of Men at his alma mater, and served in that post until his death in 1968.

There were a few important upshots from this series of events, more than 99 years ago, the first being that umpires would now have the authority to eject abusive fans from the grounds. It also gave impetus to a short-lived players "union."

The suspension was reduced, as was the fine, and Detroit went on with the business of playing baseball.

In Cobb’s home state of Georgia, the State Congressional delegation publicly commended Cobb’s actions in going after Claude Lueker, and stated that they were proud of their native son.

Could two men have been any more different than Tyrus Raymond Cobb and Aloysius Joseph Travers?

One was a son of the devil and the other was to become a man of God?

Oh yes, for those of you keeping score, only 14 of the runs that Travers gave up that day were earned, thanks to 6 errors by Tiger fielders, so Father Travers lifetime ERA in the record book goes down as a neat 15.75.

Quite a different kind of Father's Day story, huh?