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1 career start, 1 career complete game

Posted by Andy on August 21, 2009

Kevin of The Great 1965 Topps Project pointed out to me that Dave Dowling made one career start and threw a complete game in that outing. Turns out that the list of players to accomplish this feat is pretty interesting:

  Cnt Player            Year  GS  CG From  To   Ages   G  SHO  GF  W   L   W-L%  SV   IP     H    R   ER   BB   SO    ERA  ERA+  HR   BF  IBB HBP  BK  WP Teams
+----+-----------------+----+---+---+----+----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+-----+---+------+----+----+----+----+----+------+----+---+-----+---+---+---+---+-----------+
    1 Frank Williams    1989   1   1 1984 1989 26-31  333   1  85  24  14  .632   8  471.2  418  194  157  227  314   3.00  124  23  2018  40  20   7  22 SFG-CIN-DET
    2 Larry Anderson    1977   1   1 1974 1977 21-24   16   1   8   2   3  .400   0   41.1   48   28   26   22   23   5.66   68   4   191   4   0   0  11 MIL-CHW
    3 Dave Dowling      1966   1   1 1964 1966 21-23    2   0   1   1   0 1.000   0   10     12    2    2    0    3   1.80  205   0    42   0   0   0   0 STL-CHC
    4 Eddie O'Brien     1958   1   1 1956 1958 25-27    5   0   2   1   0 1.000   0   16.1   16    6    6    4   11   3.31  115   3    68   0   1   0   0 PIT
    5 Luis Aloma        1953   1   1 1950 1953 26-29  116   1  55  18   3  .857  15  235.1  212   98   90  111  115   3.44  120  21  1001       4   2   5 CHW
    6 Ray Martin        1948   1   1 1943 1948 18-23    5   0   4   1   0 1.000   0   14.2   10    4    4    6    3   2.45  154   0    59       0   0   0 BSN
    7 Len Perme         1946   1   1 1942 1946 24-28    8   0   5   0   1  .000   0   17.1   11    6    6   11    6   3.12  114   0    74       1   0   0 CHW
    8 Al Tate           1946   1   1 1946 1946 27-27    2   0   1   0   1  .000   0    9      8    5    5    7    2   5.00   70   0    39       0   0   0 PIT
    9 Don Fisher        1945   1   1 1945 1945 29-29    2   1   1   1   0 1.000   0   18     12    4    4    7    4   2.00  196   0    74       2   0   0 NYG
   10 Len Gilmore       1944   1   1 1944 1944 26-26    1   0   0   0   1  .000   0    8     13    7    7    0    0   7.88   47   2    36       0   0   0 PIT
   11 Rogers McKee      1944   1   1 1943 1944 16-17    5   0   3   1   0 1.000   0   15.1   14   10   10    6    1   5.87   58   1    68       0   0   2 PHI
   12 Woody Wheaton     1944   1   1 1944 1944 29-29   11   0   7   0   1  .000   0   38     36   17   15   20   15   3.55   98   1   166       1   1   1 PHA
   13 John Dagenhard    1943   1   1 1943 1943 26-26    2   0   1   1   0 1.000   0   11      9    2    0    4    2   0.00    0   0    46       2   0   1 BSN
   14 Jim Mains         1943   1   1 1943 1943 21-21    1   0   0   0   1  .000   0    8      9    5    5    3    4   5.62   60   0    36       0   1   0 PHA
   15 Hank Leiber       1942   1   1 1942 1942 31-31    1   0   0   0   1  .000   0    9      9    9    6    5    5   6.00   56   0    42       1   0   0 NYG
   16 Paul Masterson    1942   1   1 1940 1942 24-26    8   0   6   1   0 1.000   0   24.2   26   16   16   13   14   5.84   62   1   110       0   0   0 PHI
   17 Steve Rachunok    1940   1   1 1940 1940 23-23    2   0   1   0   1  .000   0   10      9    5    5    5   10   4.50   89   0    43       0   0   0 BRO

These are the guys just since 1940. See the full list here.

The last guy to do it was the late Frank Williams, who also had by far the longest major-league pitching career of these guys, appearing in 332 games in relief. Williams threw a shutout that day, as did several other players on this list. (For those who don't know, Williams led a very troubled life after leaving baseball, including alcoholism and homelessness. He died earlier this year at age 50.)

Anyway, reading the full list, it seems that many of these guys appeared during war years, either in the 1940s during WWII or the 1910s during WWI.

5 Responses to “1 career start, 1 career complete game”

  1. SJBlonger Says:

    It should be noted that Frank Williams' complete-game shutout was a 5-inning game. The next four on the list were all 9-inning games.

  2. leatherman Says:

    Frank Williams' shutout was a 5 inning, rain shortened game. For his career, he had two games with 5 or more IP (including the shutout). In the other game, on July 13, 1984, he pitched 6 shutout innings (innings 12-17) in relief before being replaced by Dusty Baker as a pinch hitter in the top of the 18th. Williams' Giants lost in the bottom of the 18th.

  3. BunnyWrangler Says:

    Some of these guys, like Ed Konetchy and Hank Leiber, were position players who were apparently pressed into emergency duty or just begged their manager for a chance to start.

    Henry Mathewson was Christy's brother.

    This is a fun list. I only knew of one guy who threw a complete game in his only start, and that was Al Travers in the 1910s. After Ty Cobb got suspended, the rest of the Tigers went on strike. Detroit had to round up a team in order to continue playing, so they threw together a rag-tag bunch of guys, none of whom were major leaguers, and got clobbered by the A's by a score of 24-2 or something. Despite all of the runs allowed, Travers, the guy they found and chose to start, pitched the entire game for the Tigers.

  4. DoubleDiamond Says:

    Larry Anderson - not to be confused with Larry Andersen, whose big league career started around the same time but lasted a lot longer. Someone mentioned that the most recent one was a 5-inning rain-shortened game. I didn't check the details of any of these games, but I wonder how many of them were 8-inning or walk-off-in-the-9th-inning complete game losses on the road.

  5. gerry Says:

    The 11th guy on the list, Rogers McKee, is the guy who always turns up when I type Hornsby into bbref.