Burleigh Grimes

Scout

• Born: August 18, 1893
• Birthplace: Emerald, Wisconsin
• Died: December 6, 1985
• Place of death: Clear Lake, Wisconsin

Sport: Baseball

Early Life

The last of the legal spitball pitchers, Burleigh Arland Grimes was born on August 18, 1893, in Emerald, Wisconsin, a town known for its lumber industry. Burleigh was the son of a lumberman who also managed a local semiprofessional baseball team. His father was responsible for getting Burleigh interested in baseball, but not long after that accomplishment, his father died.

As soon as Burleigh was old enough, he signed up to work in a lumber camp in order to bring home one dollar a day to his mother. He was built perfectly for the work, and appropriately named—at maturity he would stand 5 feet 10 inches tall and weigh 195 pounds. He was indeed a “burly” fellow with a personality to match. One day at the lumber camp, Burleigh’s horse tripped over a tree stump, causing seven layers of 16-foot logs to roll down on top of him. The lumberjacks who pulled the boy out from the pile were shocked to find that he had lived through it.

The Road to Excellence

Burleigh played baseball constantly as a teenager, while attending Clear Lake High School. When he was eighteen, he signed a contract to play professionally with Eau Claire of the Minnesota-Wisconsin League, but he was never paid because the league folded soon after. Then, in 1913, he pitched for Ottumwa, Iowa. There he learned more fully what it took to be a fine pitcher and posted a 6-7 record. In 1914, when Burleigh eventually moved on to pitch for Richmond, in Virginia, he learned how to throw an effective spitball pitch. Burleigh’s spitters were not like those of most pitchers. He held the ball tightly in his fist—not loosely, like others did—and moistened it with slippery elm bark. His balls could break up to 7 or 8 inches.

While pitching for Richmond, Burleigh’s potential became evident. That season, he posted a 23-13 record in 296 innings. He struck out 190 batters. That was only the first of several highly successful minor-league seasons. In 1916, after compiling a three-year mark of 60-39, Burleigh was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates. For two years, he experienced a losing streak in which, at one point, he lost thirteen games in a row. In 1918, he was traded to Brooklyn, and suddenly everything changed dramatically.

The Emerging Champion

Playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Burleigh posted a 19-9 record and made forty-one mound appearances in his first year. In 1920, his twenty-three victories enabled the Dodgers to claim their first National League (NL) pennant. At only twenty-seven years old, Burleigh had become one of the finest pitchers in the National League. That winter, Burleigh served in the armed forces but returned to the Dodgers soon after. He began to be known by Dodger fans as “Ol’ Stubblebeard” because he never shaved on days he had to pitch. He claimed the slippery elm he chewed to increase saliva irritated his skin.

Burleigh was also known for his belligerence and aggressive baseball behavior. Often he raged at doubtful calls made against his team or got in arguments with his manager or the umpire. He never let a batter dig in at the plate. For him, an intentional pass seemed to mean pitching four times at a batter’s head. During the 1920’s, Burleigh was at his peak as a player. He led the league twice in victories and topped the twenty-win mark five times. Frequently he led the league both in innings pitched and in starts. Burleigh’s four appearances at the World Series resulted in three victories. In 1931, he beat the Philadelphia Athletics in the series in spite of severe pain from an inflamed appendix. For the last seven weeks of the season, he obstinately refused surgery, resorting to ice packs between innings. He courageously played the 1931 World Series with packed ice around his abdomen and left the game only when the final batter came to bat.

After leaving the Dodgers in 1927, Burleigh played with the New York Giants, then with the Pirates, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Chicago Cubs, and finally, for the third time, the Pirates in 1934. With the Pirates, Burleigh won his final—and 270th—major-league game.

Continuing the Story

In 1920, the joint rules committee of the major leagues outlawed the spitball. However, Burleigh and seventeen other pitchers known to rely on that specialty pitch for their living were allowed to continue using the spitball until they retired. Burleigh played the longest, until 1934, and was the last of those pitchers to resort to the tactic. More often than not, he did not use the spitter and merely faked it to deceive his batters. Eventually, one team, the Philadelphia Phillies, figured out that Burleigh’s cap moved whenever he actually spat on the ball, so Burleigh wore a larger cap to keep them guessing.

After retiring from the major leagues, Burleigh did not leave baseball. He began a career as a manager, coach, and scout for many teams. He worked as manager for the Dodgers but was fired when the team placed seventh. Always easily angered, he once got into a fight with an umpire, resulting in his suspension as manager of the Grand Rapids team. Later, he scouted for the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles and coached for the Kansas City Athletics.

Married to Inez Marguerite Martin in 1940, Burleigh maintained a lifelong residency in Wisconsin. After his wife’s death, he married Zerita Brickell, the widow of former major-league player Fred Brickell. In 1985, the cantankerous spitball pitcher died of cancer at the age of ninety-two in Clear Lake, Wisconsin.

Summary

Burleigh Grimes was best known as the last pitcher legally allowed to pitch the spitball. As one of the old-time players who would gladly break an opponent’s leg to win, he won 270 games and played for five major-league clubs. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964.

Bibliography

Faber, Charles F., and Richard B. Faber. Spitballers: The Last Legal Hurlers of the Wet One. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006.

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Ritter, Lawrence S. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It. Rev. ed. New York: Perennial Currents, 2002.

Shatzkin, Mike, Stephen Holtje, and Jane Charlton, eds. The Ballplayers: Baseball’s Ultimate Biographical Reference. New York: Ideal Logic Press, 1999.