August 15, 1926: The Dodgers Have Three Men On Base

Babe Herman

August 15, 1926, 100 years ago: Legend has it that Babe Herman of the Brooklyn Dodgers tripled into a triple play.

The legend isn't quite true. Ring Lardner, the top baseball writer of the era, wrote, "Babe Herman did not triple into a triple play, but he doubled into a double play, which is the next best thing."

Also, the Dodgers weren't even officially called the Dodgers at this point. I'll get to that at the moment.

Floyd Caves Herman was born in 1903 in Buffalo, and grew up outside Los Angeles in Glendale, California. After starring in the Southern Association for the Atlanta Crackers, the Memphis Chicks and the Little Rock Travelers; in the Texas League for the San Antonio Missions, and the Pacific Coast League for the Seattle Rainiers, he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In 1914, the Dodgers hired former star catcher Wilbert Robinson as their manager, and they changed their name to the Brooklyn Robins, in his honor. They won the National League Pennant in 1916 and 1920, and finished 2nd in 1924.

But by the time "Babe" Herman -- nicknamed for a boxer who was from Edmonton, where Herman played early in his career, not for Babe Ruth -- reached the major leagues in 1926, the Dodgers weren't so good anymore. They became known as "The Daffiness Boys." Around this time, a fan known as Abie the Truck Driver was heard to yell, over and over, "Come on, you bums!" and was thus credited with creating the nickname that would stick with the team, first in agreement, and later, as they became good, as a term of endearment: "Dem Bums." And this was despite having Charles Arthur "Dazzy" Vance, the fastest pitcher in baseball at the time, and a future member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Dazzy Vance

Like Grover Cleveland Alexander, Vance was a righthander from Nebraska with a great fastball. Unlike Alexander, he was not known to have had a drinking problem. Like Alexander, he debuted in the major leagues at age 24. Unlike Alexander, who was an immediate success, Vance had precious little control, and did not gain his 1st major league win until he was 31 years old.

That was in 1922. Starting that year, over the next 9 seasons, through 1930, he went 18-12, 18-15, 28-6, 22-9, 9-10, 16-15, 22-10, 14-13 and 17-15, mostly for weak Dodger/Robin teams. He led the NL in wins twice, earned run average 3 times, shutouts 4 times, strikeouts 7 times (all in a row, which remains an NL record), and, not that anybody knew what WHIP (Walks plus hits, divided by innings pitch) was at the time, that stat 3 times.

His 28 wins in 1924, when the Robins finished 2nd, remains the most for the Dodger franchise since the pitching distance became 60 feet, 6 inches in 1893. Don Newcombe won 27 in Brooklyn in 1956, and Sandy Koufax won 27 in Los Angeles in 1966. His 262 strikeouts in 1924 were the most in the NL between the 267 of Christy Mathewson in 1903 and the 269 of Koufax in 1961.

In a way, Vance was like Koufax, in that, once he found his control, he became the best pitcher in baseball. But, whereas Koufax was shaky in the 1st 1/3rd of his career, one of the best ever in the 2nd third, and didn't have the last 3rd, retiring just before he turned 31, Vance had half a career, starting at 31, and lasting until he was 44.

If the late 1920s and early 1930s Dodgers sound like a precursor to the 1960s expansion Mets, the last team that Casey Stengel managed, there are other parallels, including the fact that, in 1934, the Dodgers became the 1st team that Stengel managed. Come to think of it, in the off-season, Casey lived in Herman's hometown, Glendale. Certainly, the Daffiness Boys could, like the early Mets, have been called "lovable losers."

It would be unfair to compare Babe Herman to "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry. It true that Babe was known as a terrible fielder. While Marv's travails at 1st base were often seen on television, Babe's poor play in right field had to be seen at the ballpark. He always insisted that he was never hit on the head by a fly ball. A writer asked him if he'd ever been hit on the shoulder, and he said, "That doesn't count." With no TV to record his travails and tribulations, his poor fielding remains a legend.

But he was a heck of a hitter. He batted .324 for his career, including .381 in 1929 and .393 in 1930. Twice, he had at least 113 RBIs in a season; 5 times, he had at least 91. Phil Rizzuto, the eventual shortstop and broadcaster for the New York Yankees, grew up in Queens as a Dodger fan, and, even after getting into the Hall of Fame himself after a long wait, believed Herman should also have been elected.

But in his rookie year, no one would have suggested it. On August 15, 1926, the Robins hosted a Sunday doubleheader at Ebbets Field, against the Boston Braves. Vance started the 1st game, and before the 1st inning was over, there was already an unusual occurrence. Prior to striking out, Eddie Brown fouled off a Vance pitch, which hit umpire Eddie Quigley, and he had to leave the game with an injury. Since major league games then had only 3 umpires, this game was now down to 2.

(Quigley shook it off, and umpired behind the plate for the 2nd game. He umpired in the major leagues from 1913 to 1938, including 6 World Series. He was also a respected referee in college football and basketball, elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. He served as athletic director for the University of Kansas, and the school's baseball complex is named for him.)

The game was scoreless until the top of the 6th, when the Braves scored. Then came the bottom of the 7th. Bear with me: This was complicated. Johnny Butler led off by singling to left. Hank DeBerry doubled to left, scoring Butler and tying the game.

With a runner on 2nd and nobody out, it was an easy choice for Robinson: He allowed Vance to bat for himself, and bunt DeBerry over. Except it turned out not to be a sacrifice: He beat it out. And starting pitcher Johnny Werts hit Chick Fewster with a pitch. The bases were loaded, and there was nobody out. Braves manager Dave Bancroft, a Hall of Fame shortstop, took Werts out, and replaced him with veteran hurler George Mogridge. He got Merwin Jacobson to pop up to him.

That brought Herman up. He hit a drive off the screen in right field. Under the ground rules at Ebbets Field, that meant that the ball was still in play. DeBerry scored easily, making it 2-1 Robins. Vance held up right after 2nd base, to see if the ball would be caught by right fielder Jimmy Welsh. It wasn't. Vance took off for 3rd base, and thought he could score. He probably would have.

But the Dodgers' 3rd base coach was Otto Miller, who had previously managed Herman in Atlanta. He saw Fewster coming in hard for 3rd base, and yelled, "Go back! Go back!" But, being a pitcher, Vance was not used to running the bases, and thought that Miller was telling him to go back to 3rd. So he did. Fewster apparently didn't hear Miller, and kept going, and ended up on 3rd. And so did Herman, who neither heard nor saw Miller. All three men were standing on third base.

Chick Fewster, earlier in his career,

with the Cleveland Indians

The Braves' 3rd baseman, Eddie Taylor, received the ball when it came in from the outfield, and, faced with an unprecedented situation in baseball, did the only thing he could think of: He tagged all 3 runners with the ball, even though each of them had a foot on the base, and thought of himself as safe.

The 2 remaining umpires, John "Beans" Reardon (so nicknamed because he was from Boston, a.k.a. "Beantown") and Charlie Moran, discussed the situation, and applied the correct ruling: Since Vance was the lead runner, he was the only one entitled to the base, so he was safe, and Fewster and Herman had been legitimately tagged out.

Thus, the 7th inning was over, and the Robins were leading, 2-1. Herman was credited with a double and an RBI -- the game-winning RBI, as it turned out. But it entered the public memory as "Babe Herman tripled into a triple play." (It couldn't have been, as there was already 1 out.)

The Robins scored 2 more runs in the top of the 8th, and won, 4-1. They also won the nightcap, 11-3. That success tends to get forgotten, due to the "daffiness." Over the 2 games, Herman went 4-for-8 with 4 RBIs.

But the play took on a life of its own. In those days, prior to regular radio broadcasting of baseball games in New York, the legend grew of a taxi driver who pulled up to the right field corner, at Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place, and yelled up to a fan in the last row, "Hey, how are the Dodgers doing?"

"Great!" the fan yelled down. "They have three men on base!"

"Yeah?" the cabbie asked. "Which base?"

After the 1931 season, Robinson was fired, and, with the Robins name having never really caught on, the Dodger name, still used by most Brooklynites, was officially restored.

Herman was traded to the Cincinnati Reds, and he bounced around. He had rotten luck: The Chicago Cubs won the Pennant in 1932 and 1935, but he was only with them in 1933 and 1934. The Reds brought him back, but got rid of him in 1936, winning the Pennant 3 years later. The Detroit Tigers won Pennants in 1934 and 1935, and would win another in 1940, but Herman was only with them in 1937.

The Tigers released him in the middle of that season, shortly before his 34th birthday, even though he had batted .300 in 17 games for them. He spent the 1938 season with the Jersey City Giants of the International League, and then went back home to the Pacific Coast League, playing 6 seasons for the Hollywood Stars, batting at least .307 every year.

In 1945, desperate for players due to the manpower drain of World War II, the Dodgers brought him back, at age 42. Appearing in 37 games, mainly as a pinch-hitter, he batted .265, and that was it for him. Having previously played for the Dodgers before uniform numbers were worn, in that season, he wore the Number 4 that would later be retired for Duke Snider, and the Number 32 that would later be retired for Sandy Koufax.

Lawrence Ritter interviewed him for his book The Glory of Their Times, published in 1966. Of the play, Herman said, "If there was any justice, Vance would have been the one declared out because he's the one caused the traffic jam in the first place. But down through history, for some strange reason, it's all been blamed on me."

Who knows, maybe that one play is why Babe Herman is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in 1987. He outlived Robinson, who died in 1934, while Herman was still playing; Fewster, who died in 1945, during Herman's comeback; Moran, one of the remaining umpires, who died in 1949; Quigley, the umpire who was hurt and couldn't participate in the call, who died in 1960; Vance, who died in 1961; Miller, who died in 1962; and Reardon, the umpire who made the correct ruling, who died in 1984. Taylor, the 3rd baseman who tried to tag everybody out, lived until 1992. And, of course, Herman long outlived the Brooklyn Dodgers themselves, who were moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season; and Ebbets Field, which was torn down in 1960.

My grandmother, growing up in Queens, was a Dodger fan, but while she told me this story when I was a boy, she wasn't quite old enough to remember it herself. Her favorite poet was Ogden Nash, even though he was a fan of the Dodgers' arch-rivals, the New York Giants. In 1949, Nash, wrote "Line-Up for Yesterday" for Sport magazine, an alphabetical list of star players. For the letter V, he wrote:

V is for Vance

The Dodgers' very own Dazzy.

None of his rivals

Could throw as fast as he.

Baltimore's All-Time Baseball Team

From 1972 to 2004, the Baltimore Orioles' "territory" consisted of the entire State of Maryland, plus southern Delaware, all of Virginia, and a good chunk of West Virginia. And even some of south central Pennsylvania, as Gettysburg and York are actually closer to Baltimore than to Philadelphia. (See how important the Battle of Gettysburg was? If the Confederates had won... the Atlanta Braves really might have been "America's Team.")

But with Major League Baseball having returned to Washington, D.C., the O's now have the smallest territory by area in the majors. Unless you want to limit the Oakland Athletics to just the East Bay region, without considering that other parts of Northern California might root for the A's -- including the State capital of Sacramento, where the River Cats are the Triple-A farm team for the A's.

Still, it's possible to put up a pretty good all-time team of players from "the Baltimore Area," which includes northern and eastern Maryland. Although people in the resort town of Ocean City may consider their town a "neutral zone" between the O's and the Nats. (The town also seems to be evenly divided between Ravens and Redskins fans.)

UPDATE: A subsequent visit showed me that this is not the case: OC is almost entirely Baltimore-driven.

One thing I found absolutely amazing is how many Maryland-born players played for one team or another called the Baltimore Orioles, from the 1890s National League powerhouse to the International League team of 1903 to 1954 (which won 7 straight Pennants in the 1920s and fed Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics for a few years), to the American League version that began in 1954. It’s not just the Ripken brothers: Jack Fisher, Steve Barber, Brady Anderson, and Tom Phoebus, who even threw a no-hitter for the Orioles in 1968.

9. Baltimore's All-Time Baseball Team

1B Jimmie Foxx of Sudlersville, on the Eastern Shore. He hit 534 home runs. He was 2nd on the all-time list from 1940, when he passed Lou Gehrig, until 1966, when he was finally passed by Willie Mays. He was the all-time leader among righthanded hitters until Mays passed him as well, and not until 1973, when Harmon Killebrew passed him, was he no longer the leader among AL righthanders.

It's too bad that he lost most of his money due to drinking and bad investments, that he choked to death before he turned 60, and that he's now remembered mostly as the basis for the Tom Hanks character in A League of Their Own. He deserved better.

And it doesn't help that the Oakland Athletics, while now hanging the 5 World Championship banners from their Philadelphia days, don't recognize that era's greats from their era. The Boston Red Sox have elected Foxx to their team Hall of Fame, but neither franchise has retired his Number 3. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 15 -- clearly, the publication once known as "the Bible of Baseball" remembered.

Frankly, I don't think Mark Teixeira of Severna Park will ever take this position away from Double X, but that will hardly be his fault. Bob Robertson of Frostburg, a slugger with the 1970s Pittsburgh Pirates (he caught the last out of the '71 Series), also doesn’t make it, but is worth mentioning.

2B Clarence "Cupid" Childs of Calvert County. Records being what they were then, a definitive town is not available, although he appears to have lived in Baltimore his entire adult life, which included a .306 lifetime batting average, and an OPS+ of 119, mostly in the 1890s with the Cleveland Spiders. He’s been dead for over 100 years (in 1912, aged only 45), but a case can be made for him for the Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention to Charles "Buck" Herzog of Baltimore. Not a great hitter, but a good fielder, and he stole 320 bases in a career that lasted from 1908 to 1920. He won Pennants with the New York Giants in 1911, '12, '13 and '17.

If you want one since Herzog, the best I can come up with is Jake Flowers of Chestertown, and he's not much more recent. He was never even a regular, but for whatever reason, he did get an MVP vote while with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1928. And he did play on a World Series winner, the 1931 St. Louis Cardinals.

SS Cal Ripken Jr. of Havre de Grace. Tough choice, there. After all, he holds the record of grounding into 350 double plays. And his lifetime batting average was just .276, peaking at .340 in 1999. Lou Gehrig, the man with whom he is so often linked? He batted .340 for a career. And it can be argued that Ripken's devotion to his consecutive games played streak, which eventually reached 2,632, actually hurt the Orioles, because the occasional day off might have given him the rest he needed to play better.

But who's kidding who? Cal surpassed Brooks Robinson and Johnny Unitas as the most popular athlete in Baltimore history, and there's plenty of reasons why: 1982 AL Rookie of the Year, 1983 and '91 AL MVP, 1983 World Championship, 19 All-Star Games, 5 .300+ seasons, 4 100+ RBI seasons, 2 Gold Gloves, OPS+ 112, 3,184 hits, 431 home runs. To put it another way: Of all players with more hits, only Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Carl Yastrzemski, Willie Mays, and his longtime teammate Eddie Murray have more home runs.

He was named to the Hall of Fame and the All-Century Team. His Number 8 was retired by the Orioles. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 78. He and his brother Billy founded the minor-league Aberdeen Ironbirds (named for Cal, sort-of), right across the Susquehanna River from their HDG hometown, and through their fundraising got Ripken Stadium built -- named for the entire family.

3B Frank "Home Run" Baker of Trappe, on the Eastern Shore. The 1st Marylander to be a superstar for Mack's A's, and by no means the last, he formed "the $100,000 Infield" with shortstop Jack Barry, 2nd baseman Eddie Collins and 1st baseman Stuffy McInnis. Together, they won 4 Pennants and 3 World Series from 1910 to 1914. He would later play for the Yankees, and help them win their first 2 Pennants, in 1921 and '22.

He got his nickname from hitting a pair of key home runs for the A's against the Giants in the 1911 World Series, off future Hall-of-Famers Rube Marquard and Christy Mathewson. It was the Dead Ball Era, and his career home run total was 96, and the most he ever hit in a season was 12 -- but he did lead the AL 4 straight times, 1911-14. He also led the AL in RBIs in 1912 and '13.

Lifetime batting average, .307. OPS+, 135. He hit 315 doubles and 103 triples to go with those 96 home runs, so he probably would have been considerably more productive in the Lively Ball Era. He is in the Hall of Fame, but he played before numbers were worn, so he has no number to retire.

LF Lewis Pessano "Buttercup" Dickerson of Tyaskin, on the Eastern Shore. I had to go way back to find a suitable left fielder, to the Rutherford B. Hayes Administration. Buttercup -- I can't find an explanation for the nickname -- was good enough to reach the National League at age 19, to lead the League in triples at 20, and to hit .316 for the Worcester Ruby Legs at 22 in 1881. (The Rubies became the Philadelphia Phillies in 1883.)

He hit .315 in 1884, yet for some reason -- a reason apparently unknown to Baseball-Reference.com, which nonetheless provides dates -- he played his last game on June 1, 1885, just 26. In those days, before the invention of antibiotics, an illness easily treatable today could kill you, but he lived on until 1920, age 61. So whatever it was that ended his career, it didn't end his life.

Italian on his mother's side, he appears to be the 1st player of Italian descent to reach the major leagues, a title usually given to the later Ed Abbaticchio (who does appear to remain the 1st Italian-American professional football player).

I wanted to pick 1940s Yankee slugger Charlie Keller, but his home town of Middletown is in southern Maryland, and much closer to Washington than to Baltimore.

CF Wilson "Chick" Fewster of Baltimore. A fair hitter who played for the Yankees' 1st Pennant winner in 1921, he was traded to the Red Sox for 3rd baseman "Jumpin'" Joe Dugan in 1922, and was the first batter at the original Yankee Stadium the following spring.

He's best remembered now for his days with the Brooklyn Dodgers, where, in 1926, his baserunning blunder caused Babe Herman, a sensational hitter but a player to whom weird things happened, to double into a double play, due to the Dodgers having three runners -- Dazzy Vance, Fewster and Herman -- on 3rd base. Dazzy, Chick and Babe? No wonder the 1920s Dodgers were called the Daffiness Boys.

RF George Herman Ruth Jr. of Baltimore. What can we say about the Babe that hasn't already been said? Not much, so let me add this:

In 1999, when The Sporting News made end-of-the-century lists for the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and the 100 Greatest Football Players, editor John Rawlings went on CBS' The NFL Today and admitted that picking the Number 1 football player was tough, as they debated whether it should be Jim Brown or Jerry Rice.

But when NBC did the special for the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, host Bob Costas got Rawlings to admit that, basically, the debate was going to be about Numbers 2 through 100 (and Willie Mays came in at 2), because there was never any doubt that Babe Ruth was going to be Number 1.

From 1915 (when he was only 20) until 1918 (his last full season as a pitcher), the Babe was one of the best lefthanded pitchers in baseball. In 1917, he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball. Then, from 1919 to 1933, he was the best hitter in baseball. Or, to put it another way: For 4 years, he was Randy Johnson without the mullet; then, for 15 years, he was Barry Bonds without the steroids. Show me another player capable of doing that, and I'll admit that he was the greatest all-around baseball player ever.

You say Mays was a better all-around player, because of speed and defense? Do you really think Mays' speed produced more runs than the Babe's power? And as for defense, who do you think can prevent more runs over the course of a season: The best-fielding center fielder who ever lived (if, indeed, Mays was that, which is hardly decided), or one of the top 3 pitchers in the game (as the Babe was in the late 1910s, along with Walter Johnson and Grover Cleveland Alexander)?

You say Ruth never played against black players. This is true -- during the regular season. After the season, he would play exhibition games against teams of Negro League all-stars, and do you think the black pitchers stepped up their game to play the Babe? You bet your ass they did. Do you think they did any better against him than white pitchers did? Think again: According to the records that survive, the Babe batted well over .300 against them.

Had there been a Bob Gibson, a J.R. Richard, a CC Sabathia permitted to pitch in regulation games against the Babe, he would have treated them just the way he treated Johnson and Lefty Grove. Also, while he never had to face black, Hispanic or Asian pitchers, he played in an 8-team League, with no Interleague play, so the talent pool he faced was a lot smaller than it is now. (This is also part of the case of why Wilt Chamberlain was better than Michael Jordan, and Gordie Howe was better than Wayne Gretzky.)

You say Ruth never had to fly coast-to-coast. True. But he did have to ride on a train for 24 hours. You say Ruth never had to face the split-fingered fastball, and rarely had to face the knuckleball or the screwball. True. But the knuckler and the screwgie did exist in his time, and until 1920 (and, in limited form, until 1934) he had to face the various pitches that fell under the category of "spitball." Modern players hardly ever see that, because, with so many TV cameras, it would be too hard to get away with it for long.

Also, while the Babe was the 1st person in America, outside of boxers, to hire what we would now call a "personal trainer" (he wasn't always fat), he hardly had modern exercise equipment, or a modern diet or exercise regimen. Imagine what the Babe could have done if he could have gotten, say, into the kind of shape as Frank "Big Hurt" Thomas.

Now take him out of those 1920s ballparks with their 450-feet-plus center field fences, and put him in today's ballparks. Think Phil Rizzuto would have a few "Holy cow"s for him? Think ESPN wouldn't have a Ruth highlight every night? Oh yeah: The Babe would have loved the attention.

Hall of Fame, All-Century Team, Number 3 retired, Monument in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium, statue at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and the rowhouse where he was born has been turned into a museum honoring him, and the baseball legacy of the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland.

I could, I suppose, make the Babe one of my starting pitchers, and make my starting right fielder this guy:

Honorable Mention to Al Kaline of Baltimore. In 1955, he became the youngest player to win a batting title. Ted Williams predicted he'd be the next player to bat .400. That didn't happen, but he did collect 3,007 hits (getting Number 3,000 in Baltimore), and he remains the most popular player in Detroit Tigers history.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame, and the Tigers retired his Number 6 and dedicated a statue of him at Comerica Park. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 76. Unfortunately, playing where and when he did, he doesn't get the kind of acclamation (outside of Michigan, anyway) that his right field contemporaries Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente and Frank Robinson get.

How strong is right field for the Baltimore region? Chestertown native Bill "Swish" Nicholson, a slugger for the Cubs who made 4 All-Star teams, finishing 3rd in the NL MVP voting in 1943 and 2nd in '44 -- and he isn't even the 2nd-best right fielder here. Nor is Baltimore native Ron Swoboda, one of the heroes of the 1969 Mets. Nor is Princess Anne native Dick Porter, a pretty good hitter for the early 1930s Cleveland Indians. In fact, it seems a little unfair that Baltimore and its environs are so loaded at right field, but considerably weaker at left and center.

You know who else could qualify for right field on this team, but couldn't finish ahead of Ruth and Kaline? So I'll make him my designated hitter for this team:

DH Harold Baines of Easton, another Eastern Shore guy and another Marylander who played for the O's, although he's best remembered for his days (in 4 separate stints!) with the Chicago White Sox, who retired his Number 3 and dedicated a statue to him at U.S. Cellular Field. His usual position was right field, but he did DH a lot. He's eligible for the Hall of Fame now, and he should be in.

C Ernest "Babe" Phelps of Odenton. Wow, 9 position players, and 2 of them are fat guys nicknamed Babe. Phelps, who was also nicknamed "Blimp," was a .310 lifetime hitter, with an OPS+ of 125, and was one of the players that helped make the Brooklyn Dodgers respectable again after their Daffiness Boys days. Unfortunately, he ran out of gas just before the Dodgers won a Pennant in 1941, and didn't play in the World Series. It is also unfortunate that catcher is a weak position for Maryland, but Phelps isn't a bad choice at all.

SP Bobby Mathews of Baltimore. He might be the greatest pitcher you've never heard of. He won 297 games -- between 1871 and 1887. (Yes, he goes back to the 1st term of Ulysses S. Grant.) Because 131 of those wins were in the 1st professional league, the National Association, (1871-75), which is frequently considered not to have been a major league, his MLB win total is usually officially listed as 166 -- still good, but not a Hall of Fame total. If he'd gotten 3 more, to push his combined NA-NL-AA total to 300, he might be in the Hall. Then again, maybe not: Until 1893, the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate was just 50 feet, and until 1884 it was all underhand.

In 1872, pitching for his hometown Baltimore Canaries (seriously), he went 25-18. His best year was 1874, when he went 42-22 for the New York Mutuals. In 1879, he appeared in only 27 games for the Providence Grays, but his 12-6 record was enough to help them win the Pennant. He died in 1898, only 46, so he didn't exactly live long enough to speak up on his own behalf on radio, let alone on television.

SP Lefty Grove of Lonaconing. This may be stretching it a bit, as Lonaconing is in the panhandle and thus could be seen as Washington territory. But there haven't been many pitchers in baseball history this good, and he did pitch for the IL Orioles before going on to the A's.

He helped them win 3 straight Pennants, 1929-31. He led the AL in wins 4 times, 5 times in winning percentage, 9 times in ERA, 7 times in strikeouts, 5 times in WHIP (even though that stat wasn't known then). He was chosen for the first All-Star Game in 1933, and then every year from 1935 to '39.

In 1931, in the midst of a power-hitting era, he went 31-4, had an ERA of 2.06, an ERA+ of 217, and a WHIP of 1.077. Considering the competition, it may have been the best season any pitcher has ever had. This was the 1st season that the Baseball Writers' Association of America gave out the modern MVP award, and Grove won it for the AL.

Tom Yawkey later bought him for the Red Sox, and was a big reason why they got back to respectability in the late 1930s. It was said that his fastball was so good, "He could throw a lamb chop past a wolf."

He is a member of the Hall of Fame, the All-Century Team, and the 300 Wins Club, but neither the A's nor the Red Sox have retired his Number 10. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 23.

SP Eddie Rommel of Baltimore. No relation to the German field marshal. Perhaps the 1st great knuckleball pitcher, he was Grove's teammate on those powerhouse A’s of 1929-31, and forged a fine 171-119 record. He later became a respected umpire.

SP Vic Willis of Cecil County. Another whose exact birthplace isn't traced, he was a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Boston Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates at the turn of the 20th Century. He went 249-205, mainly for some awful Braves teams, but was a member of the Pirates' 1909 World Champions. His career ERA+ was 117, and his WHIP was 1.209, a good figure in any era.

SP Denny Neagle of Gambrills. He went 20-5 for the 1997 Atlanta Braves, but other than that was more steady than spectacular, going 124-92. He was a 2-time All-Star, and reached the postseason with the Pirates in 1992, the Braves in 1996, '97 and '98, and the Yankees in 2000.

RP Tommy Byrne of Baltimore. He actually started a lot more games (170) than he relieved (111), but I wasn't satisfied with the relief pitching options for the region. In 2 separate stints with the Yankees, the blazing lefty helped them win Pennants in 1949, '50, '55, '56 and '57. He was an All-Star in 1950, and had 15 wins in '49 and '50 and 16 wins in '55, leading the AL in winning percentage. He won 85 games in his career, and saved 12 others. He later moved to Wake Forest, North Carolina, and was elected its Mayor. 

MGR Cal Ermer of Baltimore. He didn't manage for long, but he did get the Twins to within 1 win of the 1967 AL Pennant, and that's closer than any other Maryland native came to winning a Pennant as a manager. Certainly, it's closer than Aberdeen native Cal Ripken Sr. ever came.