Bob Harmon

Robert Green Harmon
(Hickory Bob)

• Bats Both, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 187 lb.

• Debut June 23, 1909
• Final Game June 28, 1918
• Born October 15, 1887 in Liberal, MO USA
• Died November 27, 1961 in Monroe, LA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Bob Harmon was a fastball pitcher for 14 years (1907-1920), nine in the Majors (1909-1916; 1918) and seven in the minors (1907-1909; 1917-1920). He broke into Organized Baseball in 1907 at age 19 with the Waterloo Cubs in the Iowa State League. After that, he pitched for the Freeport Pretzels in the Wisconsin-Illinois League (1908) and the Shreveport Pirates in the Texas League (1909). He was bought from Shreveport by the St. Louis Cardinals after pitching a no-hitter early in 1909.

He was 21 years old when he broke into the big leagues on June 23, 1909, with the Cardinals. He hurled a 16-inning victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in his rookie year. On May 13, 1911 the New York Giants scored 13 runs in the first inning and seven before the first out was made against three St. Louis pitchers: Slim Sallee, Harmon and Lowdermilk (not certain as to which one). Eight of these runs were charged to Harmon. On June 17, 1911, Harmon allowed only three hits in beating Christy Mathewson and the Giants, 2–1. Matty allowed just two hits in the loss. On May 20, 1913 Harmon shut out the Giants on two hits to win, 8–0. The Cards lit upon on Mathewson for 11 hits and four runs in six innings. On July 28, 1913 at Robison Field in St. Louis, Mathewson outpitched Harmon for a 4–0 Giants win. Matty allowed four hits and walked two. Harmon played for St. Louis (1909-1913) and after winning 23 games in 1911 and 18 in 1912, he lost his effectiveness and was traded to Pittsburgh on December 12, 1913 with Ed Konetchy (whom the Bucs had been after for years) and Mike Mowrey for Art Butler, Dots Miller, a 1909 World Series hero, Cozy Dolan, Chief Wilson(king of the triple), and 14-game winner Hank Robinson. In 1911, his best year in MLB, he was 23-16 with 28 complete games in 41 games started, 144 strikeouts, 181 walks and 2 shutouts in 348.0 innings pitched with an ERA of 3.13 and a WHIP of 1.353 in 51 games.

On August 7, 1915, for the second time in six weeks, Pirate hurler Al Mamaux combined to throw a doubleheader shut-out. This time his partner was Harmon, as Mamaux stopped the Phillies 6–0 and Harmon followed with a 9–0 win. Harmon played with the Pirates (1914-1916; 1918), where he played his final MLB game on June 28, 1918 at age 30. He returned to the minors and ended his baseball career in 1920 at age 32.

Overall in MLB, he was 107-133 with 143 complete games in 240 games started, 634 strikeouts, 762 walks and 15 shutouts in in 2,054.0 innings pitched with an ERA of 3.33 and a WHIP of 1.328 in 321 games.

He engaged in the oil business around Homer, LA until 1922. He then bought an 820 acre plantation near Monroe, LA and opened Roselawn Dairy. He was a prominent dairyman for several years. He died unexpectedly at age 74 at a hospital in Monroe and is buried at Riverview Burial Park in Monroe, LA.

Records Held

• Holds St. Louis Cardinals record for most games started, season (41), 1911
• Holds St. Louis Cardinals record for most bases on balls season (181), 1911

Career Highlights

• Pitched a no-hitter for Shreveport in the Texas League early in 1909
• Led National League in Bases on Balls (133), earned runs (117) and wild pitches (12), 1910
• Led National League in Games Started (41) ,Bases on Balls (181) and earned runs, (121) 1911
• Led National League in hits allowed (291), 1913
• Received 6 out of a possible 64 votes for the Chalmers Award, 1911

Quotes

• "[Roger] Bresnahan considers him one of the best and speediest young pitchers in America. Harmon is a fine fielding pitcher, being intelligent and having all the ear marks of a comer." -- The National Game -- (Alfred H. Spink, 1911) --

Sources

Principal sources for Bob Harmon include newspaper obituaries (OB), government records (VA,CM,CW), Sporting Life (SL), Baseball Digest, The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs (1912;1916-1917) (WW), old Baseball Registers (none) (BR), TSN's Daguerreotypes (none) (DAG), The Historical Register, The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase(PD), The Baseball Library (BL); various Encyclopediae including The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball by Turkin & Thompson (T&T), MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia (Mac), Total Baseball (TB), The Bill James Historical Abstract (BJ) and The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (LJ); Retrosheet (RS), The Baseball Chronology (BC), Baseball Page (BP), The Baseball Almanac (BA), Baseball Cube (B3), The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers by Bill James and Rob Neyer and obituaries at deadballera.com (DBE) as well as research by Reed Howard (RH), Pat Doyle (PD) and Frank Hamilton (FH).

Related Sites

• Harmon at the SABR Bio Project
• Bob Harmon at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at Baseball Page
• The Baseball Chronology for for Bob Harmon
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)