Rick Ferrell

Richard Benjamin Ferrell grew up on a 160-acre dairy farm near Greensboro, North Carolina, the fourth of seven sons. Six of his brothers threw pitches and Rick caught them, which is how a farm boy who fought 18 county middleweight boxing matches to pay for college at Guilford became one of the most durable catchers the American League ever produced. Ferrell caught 1,806 games across 18 seasons, an AL record that stood until Carlton Fisk broke it in 1988. He batted .281 with a .378 on-base percentage, struck out only 277 times in 6,028 at bats, earned seven All-Star selections, and caught the first All-Star Game in history. His brother Wes won 193 games as a major league pitcher, and for the better part of four seasons they formed a brother battery in Boston and Washington. "Brother or no brother, he was a real classy catcher," Wes said. "You never saw him lunge for the ball." The Veterans Committee elected Rick Ferrell to the Hall of Fame in 1984.

Greensboro

Ferrell was born on October 12, 1905, in Durham, North Carolina, to Rufus and Alice Ferrell. The family's dairy farm outside Greensboro supplied the practice ground where the brothers threw to each other daily, and Rick settled behind the plate because somebody had to catch. Ferrell attended Guilford College, where he lettered in baseball and basketball and financed his education by boxing. He won 18 of 19 bouts as a county middleweight.

The Detroit Tigers signed Ferrell in 1926 for $1,500 and assigned him to the minors, but the arrangement turned sour when Ferrell discovered that Detroit and Cincinnati had secretly colluded to sell his contract between organizations without his knowledge or consent. Ferrell petitioned Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who investigated, sided with the player, and declared him a free agent in one of the earliest landmark decisions of its kind. Ferrell signed with the St. Louis Browns for $25,000.

The Knuckleball

Ferrell debuted with the Browns on April 19, 1929, and hit .306 by his third season. The Red Sox acquired him from the Browns in a May 1933 trade for catcher Merv Shea and a reported $50,000 in cash. When Bill Dickey and Mickey Cochrane were both injured before the inaugural All-Star Game at Comiskey Park on July 6, 1933, Connie Mack turned to Ferrell to catch the entire game. The American League won 4-2, and both Rick and Wes were on the roster.

The Red Sox traded Ferrell and his brother Wes to the Washington Senators in June 1937, and it was in Washington that Ferrell encountered the challenge that defined his reputation. The Senators of 1944 and 1945 deployed an unprecedented all-knuckleball starting rotation of Dutch Leonard, Johnny Niggeling, Roger Wolff, and Mickey Haefner, four pitchers throwing a pitch that could change direction three times between the mound and the plate. Ferrell caught all four of them, the only catcher in major league history to handle four knuckleball starters at once. He led the league in passed balls both seasons because the knuckleball does what it pleases, but his ability to keep the ball in front of him with runners on base kept the staff functional. "Never reach for the knuckleball," Ferrell said. "I just let it come to me." An unnamed scout later said Ferrell "would have deserved the Hall of Fame for catching four knuckleball pitchers at one time."

Ferrell returned for a final season in 1947 at 41 and batted .303 in 37 games, a parting reminder of the contact ability that produced 931 walks against only 277 strikeouts across his career, a ratio of better than three to one.

The Front Office

Ferrell's playing career ended in 1947 but his life in baseball continued for another 45 years. He coached for the Senators and Tigers, scouted the Southeast for Detroit, became the Tigers' scouting director in 1958, and served as vice president from 1959 through 1974, holding the general manager title during the early 1960s. He sat on baseball's Rules Committee for 20 years and stayed with the organization as an executive consultant until 1992 when new ownership took over the franchise. Sixty-six years in professional baseball, from catching his brothers on the farm to overseeing a championship franchise.

George Kell, who spent decades beside Ferrell in the Tigers organization, said, "I don't know how they kept him out for so long." Ferrell died on July 27, 1995, at a nursing home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, at 89.