A short time ago, we took a quick look back at Japanese ballplayers that have played for the Boston Red Sox. With today being St. Patrick’s Day and the team breaking out the green uniforms for its game at Fort Myers this afternoon, it made us wonder about how much of an Irish influence there has been on the franchise in team history. Of course, Boston has always had a rather large population of Irish descent and it would not be surprising to find that there have been several players with Irish heritage to wear a Red Sox cap, but we were curious as to how many Boston players were native to the Emerald Isle.

As it turns out, according to Baseball-Reference.com, there has been exactly one player born in the Land of Saints and Scholars: the legendary flycatcher Jimmy Walsh. Well, actually, not quite that legendary, as he played just the better part of six seasons with three American League teams and was barely a blip on the radar in Red Sox history. Born in Kallila, Ireland, he began his career in 1912 with the Philadelphia Athletics following a trade from the Baltimore Orioles of the International League. He was picked up by the New York Yankees to begin the 1914 season, but was then traded back to Philadelphia at mid-season; just over two years later, in early September, he found himself traded once again, this time to the Boston Red Sox. After a brief appearance with the club in 1916, Walsh returned to play the entire 1917 season in Boston, but that would mark the end of a rather unremarkable career in which he batted just .232.

The only other individual to have donned a Red Sox uniform was Patsy Donovan, born in Queenstown, Ireland and who played 17 seasons, mostly in the National League, as one of baseball’s top outfielders between 1890 and 1907. His career numbers were much better than what Walsh accomplished: over 2000 hits, a .301 career batting average, and 518 stolen bases, having finished in the top 10 five times in his career and leading the league one year (1900) with 45 for the St. Louis Cardinals. He often served as a player-manager, taking on that role eight times in his career. However, his playing days were behind him when he accepted an offer to manage the Boston Red Sox in 1910. In two seasons at the helm, Donovan compiled a record of 159-147, but the team seemed to take a step backwards during his tenure as they finished fourth and fifth, respectively. As the Red Sox prepared to move from the Huntington Avenue Grounds into a brand-new venue named Fenway Park, Donovan was replaced by player-manager Jack Stahl; Stahl immediately turned the club around, not only winning a franchise single-season record 105 games but the club’s second World Series title.

As a final note: in total, according to Baseball-Reference.com, there have been exactly 40 players born in Ireland to play baseball for a professional major league club. As would be somewhat expected, most played in the nineteenth century, with only nine such players to have donned a uniform in the 20th century. In fact, the last Irish national to play for either an American or National League club was Joe Cleary, born in Cork, Ireland in 1918, who appeared in exactly one game as a relief pitcher for the Washington Senators (later the Minnesota Twins) in 1945. In just one-third of an inning pitched, he gave up seven runs on five hits and three walks, giving him a career ERA of 189.00, and the only out he managed came by way of a strikeout.

Tags: Boston Red Sox, Irish baseball players

13 March 1938 – Ted Williams dons a Red Sox uniform for the first time in an exhibition game, playing right field and batting third in a 6-2 exhibition loss to Cincinnati in Sarasota, FL; Williams is hitless in four at-bats. Born in San Diego on 30 August 1918, the same day that Carl Mays wins two complete game efforts for the Red Sox on the way to Boston’s fourth World Series championship in seven seasons, Williams played high school baseball at Herbert Hoover High School. After graduation, the youngster turned pro and signed on to play for his hometown Padres of the Pacific Coast League; it soon became apparent that he was the real deal and scouts quickly got the word back to American and National League clubs.

In the fall of 1937, then-Boston general manager Eddie Collins made the trip west to broker a deal with the Padres for the rights to Williams; the trip paid off not only with the Red Sox sending Dom Dallesandro, Al Niemiec, and cash to the Padres in exchange for the 19-year-old future Hall of Fame player, but Collins’s trip also landed another future Hall of Fame player, Bobby Doerr. After his spring training stint with the Sox in 1938, Williams was farmed out to Minneapolis of the American Association; a year later, he arrived in the majors for good, becoming one of the best hitters over the next two decades and perhaps the greatest ever, in his own words.

Tags: Bobby Doerr, Boston Red Sox, Carl Mays, Eddie Collins, Ted Williams

Since 1901, there have been 201 instances where a pitcher has lost 20 games or more in a single season. The most recent pitcher to suffer this dubious “honor” was Mike Maroth in 2003, who went 9-21 for the Detroit Tigers ballclub that lost 119 games, one loss shy of the modern record for most losses in a season by one club. Before that, you have to go back to Brian Kingman, who lost 20 games with the Oakland Athletics in 1980.

In the team’s 106-year history, the Boston Red Sox have had exactly ten 20-game losers. The last time it happened, in 1930, the team actually had two 20-game losers in the rotation: Milt Gaston, who led the team with 13 wins against 20 losses, and Jack Russell, who posted a record of 9-20. That club also lost 102 games, the fourth time in six seasons that the club had lost 100 games or more. Gaston and Russell were also two of five pitchers that had lost 20 games or more over the previous six seasons; Red Ruffing, a future Hall of Fame pitcher whose career would blossom after being traded to New York in 1930, lost 25 and 22 games in 1928 and 1929, respectively; Slim Harriss lost 21 games againt 14 wins in 1927; and Howard Ehmke went 9-20 in 1925.

The four other pitchers in Red Sox history to lose 20 games in a season were: “Sad Sam” Jones, in 1919, two years before he would win a career-high 23 games while still with Boston; Joe Harris, who won just two games while collecting 21 losses in 1906; the legendary Cy Young, who lost 21 games in 1906, the third time in his career that he had lost 20 games or more in a season; and Bill Dinneen, who matched his 21 losses with 21 wins in 1902. Dinnenn was also the only pitcher to lose 20 games for a Boston club that had a winning record.

Tags: Bill Dinneen, Boston Red Sox, Cy Young

Growing up in the shadows of Boston, it’s not surprising that writer Robert Sullivan, who has been published in TIME, Sports Illustrated, and LIFE, among others, became a Red Sox fan. His first exposure to its mystical aura came in 1960, when his father took him and his older brother to Fenway Park, with the main purpose of being able to see the legendary Ted Williams play in what would be his last season. Years later, he continues to align his loyalty towards the Boston nine but he must do so behind enemy lines, since he lives in Westchester County, New York, or, as the back cover of the book reads: “…in the backyard and too often in the shadow of the Yankees.”

Our Red Sox: A Story of Family, Friends, and Fenway obviously touches a lot on Boston’s successful 2004 campaign, but the main focus of the book is what it has meant to Sullivan, his family, and his friends to live through the agony and ecstacy of wearing that spoked “B” on your cap and rooting for a team that year after year had you wondering: What if…. Sullivan first tells of his father who, like many others, had often stated: “I hope that they win it in my lifetime.” (For “Artie” Sullivan, that would not happen, unfortunately, but he would take his intense loyalty to Ted Williams, “a class guy,” to the end.) He speaks to his membership with the Benevolent Loyal Order of Honorable and Ancient Red Sox Diehard Sufferers (BLOHARDS) of New York, founded years before Red Sox Nation came to fruition, as he quietly roots for his team from afar. He also talks of doing everything that he can to pass on that love to his children, errant foul balls at a Lowell Spinners game, Lowell being the Single A affiliate of Boston, and the horrific sight of finding the unfamiliar sight of Yankee blue all around him in Westchester aside. Of course, the book would not be complete without speaking the suffering endured by Sox fans after witnessing the horrific end to the 2003 campaign at the hands of those very Yankees, setting up what would be a memorable 2004 season in which the collective weight of he and other Red Sox fans would be lifted.

In short, Sullivan’s book is a heart-warming tale that stretches across generations of star-crossed Red Sox fans, some who have waited exactly a lifetime to see Boston win that elusive championship; it’s a story that any baseball fan will enjoy, no matter whose cap you wear.

Tags: book review, Boston Red Sox