My foreword to John R. Husman’s new book
John R. Husman’s Roger Bresnahan: A Baseball Life will soon be published by McFarland Books. I commend it to your attention (https://amzn.to/3UrWZJY).
Over the past two decades baseball sophisticates have derided the voting patterns and special selections of the Baseball Hall of Fame as a measure of nothing except sentimentality, foolishness and cronyism. How did Rabbit Maranville get a plaque? Or Joe Tinker? Or Roger Bresnahan? Yet the Hall’s purpose in honoring worthies of a bygone age, once famous if no longer so, has been to secure for them a sure pedestal in the pantheon, beyond challenge from future statistical savants or the mere forgetfulness of a later generation.
In a baseball pantheon, renown may endure beyond record. It may provide a valuable context for understanding.
That’s what John R. Husman has done here for Bresnahan, who until now has been one of the few Hall of Famers without a book-length biography. In his day the Duke of Tralee, as he was mysteriously called, was famous as the favorite of McGraw and Mathewson and as the innovator of the catcher’s shinguards. Yet he also played other positions and for a batter in the Deadball Era, his OPS+ (era-adjusted on base plus slugging) was 126, or 26 percent better than an average batsman, which was outstanding. Of the more than 20,000 major league players, that figure was the 245th best ever; in his seven years with the Giants, his mark was 139.
Even without benefit of advanced statistics, the Hall’s electors of 1936 named Bresnahan on 20 percent of the ballots cast. (This was the election that created a “First Five” of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Honus Wagner.) In the ensuing elections up to 1945, when Bresnahan was named, only Buck Ewing was inducted as a catcher. This was odd, as catcher had been, in the memory of some living electors, the most important position of all.
What made for stardom in that perhaps simpler time was not mere proficiency but courage — steadiness, endurance, bravery … character, in short, which might provide a model for young fans. Like a pugilist who could not only dish it out but also take it, a catcher was admired for his pluck, especially in the days before mitt, mask, and mattress (let alone shinguards).
Before Jim Creighton introduced speed and Candy Cummings spin, the pitcher was not as admired as catchers Joe Leggett of the Brooklyn Excelsiors and Charles DeBost of the New York Knickerbockers. The latter became famous for his “ground and lofty tumbling” in fearless pursuit of errant pitches or foul tips, a term borrowed from the acrobatics of the gymnasium.
Before the advent of the mask in 1877, when fouls caught on a bounce were still recorded as outs, catchers played 15 to 20 feet back of home plate unless runners were on base. Nat Hicks of the New York Mutuals once went into the game with his right eye almost knocked out of his head and his nose and the whole right side of his face swollen to three times their normal size. Yet, notwithstanding his injuries, batter after batter went down before his unfaltering nerve.
Playing the position steadily, day after day, was more important to a team than what a catcher could do with the bat. Kelly and Ewing — and, more recently, Deacon White — would not have won their Hall of Fame plaques without their batting lines, but the weak-hitting Hicks — like Frank Flint, Bill Bergen, Chief Zimmer, Doug Allison, and Lou Criger — might be more appreciated if modern eyes could see them as their peers did.
It was into this tradition, when few men had caught 100 games in a season, that Bresnahan decided that he would enter. He transformed the position, especially in the media center of the nation, and went on to enjoy a long career in the game — especially in Toledo, Ohio, near the author’s hometown. Indeed, he and I first worked together in 1985 on a story he wrote about J. Lee Richmond who, after throwing the first perfect game in baseball history for Worcester in the National League of 1880, settled in Toledo.
It is delightful for me now to circle back with the pitcher’s kin, John Richmond Husman, to recommend his book to you, dear reader.
Roger Bresnahan was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.