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.
August 21st, 2009 at 8:08 am
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.
August 21st, 2009 at 8:12 am
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.
August 21st, 2009 at 10:16 am
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.
August 21st, 2009 at 5:53 pm
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.
August 21st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
The 11th guy on the list, Rogers McKee, is the guy who always turns up when I type Hornsby into bbref.