What are the odds of a 40 year old Civil War veteran stating a game for Washington with no prior major league experience and marginal time in the minors. If you said the same as an actor being called out of the stands in New York City to play the outfield for Washington you would be correct.
In March 1888, short on catchers, temporary Manager Ted Sullivan, directs Tom Deasley who had been told to stay home to come south immediately. Tom told Sullivan that he knew a young pitcher, from his home town of Philadelphia, whom he wanted to be given a trial and requested permission to take bring along. Walter Hewitt declined to spend the money to do so, but promised to give Tom’s protégé a show latter in the season.
Deasley is a veteran catcher, well known for his defensive skills. He also has “issues” and is one of several players on the team’s watch list. Deasley by the way is said to be afraid of all phenomenons, he finds one ever day.
In early May with Jim Whitney sick, Frank Gilmore and Dupee Shaw lame, team treasurer and acting manager Luther Burket, perhaps best known for outrunning the Sherriff at Washington’s second Sunday game, decides to give Deasley’s prodigy a chance if Gilmore “should go entirely to pieces.”
Pat Deasley’s prodigy is John A Greenig, although it was spelled Grenning at the time. Greenig is in fact 40 years old in 1888. A 40 year old rookie hardly makes a baseball crank stand up and take notice, but at the time his true age is not known.
Deasley got to know Greenig in Philadelphia where he said he caught him several times in games. But Greenig was not an unknown; in 1887 he had a tryout with the Indianapolis Hoosiers, a team in the National League. Greenig pitched in an exhibition game and was released. He then sued the Indianapolis Club and won. This was mentioned in the local and other national publications and was not doubt known by Deasley.
It is thought that Greenig had been an amateur in Philadelphia for many years. His professional record is spotty. He had spent time with Oswego of the International League in 1886 (0-2 2.77 ERA) and also in 1886 with Charleston in the Southern Association (0-1 1.00 ERA. Greenig was a veteran of the Civil War. He is said to have served in several regiments including the 132nd Indiana Infantry. This was one of several so-called “One Hundred Days” regiments raised by that state to guard the rail lines in Tennessee and other areas under Union control. His service no doubt was not known either.
Greenig finally gets his major league start on 9 May in Chicago against Cap Anson’s Colts before 900 spectators. The press reports, “The Washington’s tried their new pitcher, Greenig, today, but he did not prove a success. The Chicago’s hit his delivery hard in the first two innings, making a home run, two triples, a double, and four singles. That, in connection with three bases on balls and two wild pitches, resulted in nine runs. Having the game in hand, the Chicago’s did not exert themselves further. Gus Krock pitched a fine game, and none of the Senators could do anything effective with his delivery except Dummy Hoy, who scored both of the Washington runs, one of them a home run. Both teams played splendidly in the field.”
Another paper records this, “A young man named Greenig, unknown to fame, essayed to puzzle the hitters of Chicago with shoots and curves and drops, but the Windy Citymen seemed to like his style and batted out a victory. In the first two innings the Chicago’s made a home run, two triples, and a double and four singles, Mr. Greenig made them a present of three bases on balls, and pitched wildly three times, giving a total result of nine runs in these two innings. The hits were seventeen for Chicago, while Gus Krock held the visitors down to five. Dummy Hoy was the only man who solved his curves, hitting him for a single and a home run. With the exception of the battery errors, the fielding on both sides was nearly perfect; Greenig making six errors and Deasley one, and for Chicago, Jimmy Ryan and Tom Daly taking one apiece.”
The always dependable RM Larner sums up the situation quite nicely. It shows the chaos that had engulfed the Washington franchise in the early part of 1888. Washington’s first time in the National League was not going well.
“The transfer from the east to the Wild West seems to have had no beneficial effect upon the fortunes of the Senators, and, lest of all, upon the cramped and confined style of batting which they are firmly welded. Had not the elements taken pity on them, and by a timely rain storm saved them from two certain defeats by Chicago, their present. That new pitcher must be an old-fashioned Rhode Island greening, put in for the special purpose of furnishing “pie” to the hard hitters of Anson’s team. The most discouraging thing is the management which puts in an utterly untried young twirler against a club like the Chicago’s, when the regular pitchers have had nothing to do from Saturday till Wednesday. Greenig was taken along as an emergency pitcher, in case Frank Gilmore and Ed Daily both gave out, but Luther Burket appears to have put in practice his favorite theory, that if a pitcher is under pay, he should be put in when his day comes, whether he be effective or otherwise. Daily was taken out of the field, and his batting and base running lost in the majority of the games, on the pleas that with only two pitchers to depend on no chance must be taken of accident to either. But for more than a week Daily might as well have been in San Francisco for all the use he was to the Washington Club. When at last he was put into the box on Friday, he did the most effective work of the trip, only three scatting hits being made off his delivery, emplacing the folly of not working him instead of the “mossagate” member of the team. Even with such pitching the game was nearly thrown away by Jim Donnelly and Al Myers, who were terribly off in their base play. The score of yesterday’s game is plain evidence that Gilmore is not yet in trim, and the boys evidently felt ashamed of batting the day before and went back to their old business of fanning out. On Monday Ted Sullivan was summoned from Troy as consulting physician and the patient carefully gone over in several anxious and protracted meetings of the entire corps of experts. No bulletins of the final result have been sent, but as Sullivan returned to his Trojans on Wednesday it is evident that no immediate help is to be expected from that direction. It is reported that after the Troy’s have made their first trip away from home and the fragments of the Senators have been unloaded at Capitol Park, Ted may come here and try to get them back into something of the shape in which he left them a month ago. At any rate, the Greenig incident showed that somebody must take the helm at once, and Walter Hewitt left of Indianapolis on Thursday morning, and will make the rest of the trip with the men.
The final word on Greenig. A reporter asked Luther Burket about the status of the pitcher. “Who is Greenig?” asked the reporter. “Oh,” with a shrug, “he’s a young fellow we picked up in Philadelphia whom Tom Deasley had been catching. We were in such a shape that we grasped anything like a chance. He did not amount to anything.” “What are you going to do with him?” asked the reporter. “I released him in Chicago,” was the reply.”
John Greenig died in his home town of Philadelphia in 1913, he was 65.
