Jack Chesbro

John Dwight Chesbro won 198 games across 11 major league seasons and threw the spitball with more command than anyone in the American League. In 1904, he won 41 games for the New York Highlanders, the highest single-season total in modern baseball history. He also threw the wild pitch that cost the Highlanders the pennant on the final day of the season, and that one pitch eclipsed everything else he accomplished.

North Adams to Pittsburgh

Chesbro was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, in 1874 and worked as an attendant at Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital before committing to professional baseball. He pitched in the minor leagues for several years before reaching the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1899. He went 6-9 in his first season, then improved steadily. He won 21 games in 1901 and 28 in 1902, helping the Pirates win consecutive pennants. His primary weapon was the spitball, a legal delivery at the time that Chesbro threw with a sharp downward break. He applied moisture to the ball with his fingers, and the wet surface killed the spin, causing the pitch to dive as it crossed the plate. Hitters could identify it out of his hand and still could not square it up.

When the American League began raiding National League rosters after the 1902 season, Chesbro jumped to the New York Highlanders, managed by Clark Griffith. The American League offered better money, and the Highlanders needed a workhorse.

Forty-One Wins

Chesbro's 1904 season was the greatest individual pitching year in modern baseball. He started 51 games, completed 48, pitched 454.2 innings, and finished 41-12 with a 1.82 ERA. No pitcher since has reached 41 wins in a single season. The workload was extraordinary even by dead-ball standards, when starters were expected to finish what they began and relief pitching barely existed. Chesbro threw on short rest throughout the summer and into October, carrying the Highlanders into a pennant race with the Boston Americans that came down to the final series.

On October 10, the Highlanders needed to sweep a doubleheader against Boston to win the pennant. Cy Young had pitched Boston to the top of the standings, and a single game separated the two clubs. Chesbro started the opener.

The Wild Pitch

In the top of the ninth inning, with the score tied and a Boston runner on third, Chesbro threw a spitball that sailed over catcher Red Kleinow's head. The runner scored. Boston won the game, clinched the pennant, and ended Chesbro's season in the worst way possible.

The loss defined Chesbro in the public record far more than the 41 wins did. He returned in 1905 and won 19 games, but the arm that had carried 454 innings the year before was not the same. He went 23-17 in 1906, then declined to 10-10 in 1907 and 14-20 in 1908. He pitched his last major league game in 1909. He retired to Conway, Massachusetts, where he ran a sawmill and lumber yard and kept a poultry farm.

A Long Campaign

In 1939, eight years after Chesbro's death, his wife Mabel launched a public campaign to reclassify the wild pitch as a passed ball, arguing that catcher Kleinow should have handled the throw. Clark Griffith supported the effort, and the New York Journal-American published her account, but the official scoring was never changed. Chesbro died on November 6, 1931, at age 57. The Old Timers Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1946, and his 41-win season has stood for more than a century. The closest anyone has come was Walter Johnson's 36 victories in 1913.