Arthur Albert Irwin (February 14, 1858 – July 16, 1921), nicknamed "Doc", "Sandy", "Cutrate" or "Foxy",
[ was a ]Canadian-American
Canadian Americans is a term that can be applied to American citizens whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, or citizens of either country that hold dual citizenship.
The term ''Canadian'' can mean a nationality or an ethnicity. Canadians ...
shortstop
Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists who ...
and manager
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities o ...
in Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
(MLB) during the late nineteenth century. He played regularly in the major leagues for eleven years, spending two of those seasons as a player-manager. He played on the 1884 Providence Grays
The Providence Grays were a Major League Baseball team based in Providence, Rhode Island who played in the National League from until . The Grays played at the Messer Street Grounds in the Olneyville neighborhood. The team won the National Leagu ...
team which won the first interleague series to decide the world champions of baseball. Irwin then served as a major league manager for several years.
Irwin occupied numerous baseball roles in the latter years of his career, having spent time as a college baseball coach, a major league scout
Scout may refer to:
Youth movement
*Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement
**Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom
**Scouts BSA, sectio ...
and business manager, a minor league owner and manager, and a National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
umpire
An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection.
The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...
. For most of Irwin's career, the collegiate and professional baseball schedules allowed him to hold positions at both levels in the same year.
Irwin also produced several innovations which impacted sports. He took the field with the first baseball fielder's glove, invented a type of football scoreboard, promoted motor-paced cycling tracks and ran a short-lived professional soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
league.
Irwin became terminally ill with cancer in the last weeks of his life. Shortly after his death from an apparent suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
, Irwin made headlines when it was discovered that two wives and families survived him in separate cities. He had been married to one woman since the 1880s and to the other since the 1890s. He was posthumously elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame
The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (french: Temple de la renommée du baseball canadien) is a museum located in St. Marys, Ontario, Canada. The museum commemorates great players, teams, and accomplishments of baseball in Canada.
His ...
in 1989.
Early life
Arthur Irwin was born in 1858 in Toronto, Ontario, to an Irish blacksmith and a Canadian mother. As a child, he moved with his family to Boston and attended school there. He played local amateur baseball from 1873 until he was recruited by the Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
team of the National Association in 1879.[
In late 1879, manager ]Frank Bancroft
Francis Carter Bancroft (May 9, 1846 – March 30, 1921) was an American manager in Major League Baseball for the Worcester Ruby Legs, Detroit Wolverines, Cleveland Blues, Providence Grays, Indianapolis Hoosiers, and Cincinnati Reds of the Natio ...
took Irwin and most of the other Worcester players on a baseball tour which included visits to New Orleans and Cuba. The team, which traveled under the name of the Hop Bitters (the usual nickname of a different National Association team), returned to the United States after only a few days due to financial and contractual difficulties. The team may have played as few as two games in Cuba.
Baseball career
Playing days
Irwin's major league career began when the Ruby Legs moved into the National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
(NL) in 1880. He led the league in assists in his rookie season,[ and remained with the team through 1882, when it folded due to poor attendance. Irwin next spent three seasons with the ]Providence Grays
The Providence Grays were a Major League Baseball team based in Providence, Rhode Island who played in the National League from until . The Grays played at the Messer Street Grounds in the Olneyville neighborhood. The team won the National Leagu ...
, and was captain and starting shortstop of the 1884 Providence team that became world champions. The 1884 Grays featured star pitchers Charles Radbourn
Charles Gardner Radbourn (December 11, 1854 – February 5, 1897), nicknamed "Old Hoss", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for Buffalo (1880), Providence (1881–1885), ...
and Charlie Sweeney
Charles Joseph Sweeney (April 13, 1863 – April 4, 1902) was an American Major League Baseball pitcher from 1883 through 1887. He played for the Providence Grays, St. Louis Maroons, and Cleveland Blues, and is best known for his performance in ...
; the two hurlers did not get along well, and Sweeney left the team in the middle of the season. The club folded after a fourth-place finish in 1885.
Irwin moved on to the recently formed Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...
in 1886 where he was named team captain during spring training. Tragedy struck the Philadelphia squad in 1888 when pitcher Charlie Ferguson developed typhoid fever, dying at Irwin's home.
During the 1889 season, Irwin went to the Washington Nationals
The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C.. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. From 2005 to 2007, the team played in RFK Stadiu ...
for his first opportunity as player-manager, although the team folded at the end of the season. He next played for the Boston Reds in the Players' League
The Players' National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, popularly known as the Players' League (PL), was a short-lived but star-studded professional American baseball league of the 19th century. The PL was formed by the Brotherhood of Prof ...
in 1890. That same year, Irwin coached the baseball team at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
. While Irwin served as a player-manager for Boston in 1890, he was able to focus on the managerial role for the team in 1891. That year the team signed his brother, John Irwin, on May 21. Newspapers brought accusations of nepotism and criticized John's mediocre play. John Irwin was released by Boston on July 16, and his major league playing career was over by the next month.[
Although Irwin's regular playing career ended after the 1890 season, he appeared in six games while managing the Boston team after it moved to the ]American Association American Association may refer to:
Baseball
* American Association (1882–1891), a major league active from 1882 to 1891
* American Association (1902–1997), a minor league active from 1902 to 1962 and 1969 to 1997
* American Association of Profe ...
in 1891. He also played in one game while managing the 1894 Philadelphia Phillies. A left-handed hitter, Irwin finished his playing career with 1,015 games played and batted .241 in 4,190 plate appearances. He tallied 396 runs batted in
A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the bat ...
and 552 runs scored
In baseball, a run is scored when a player advances around first, second and third base and returns safely to home plate, touching the bases in that order, before three outs are recorded and all obligations to reach base safely on batted balls ...
. Stolen bases were not awarded until 1886, but Irwin tallied 93 stolen bases in his last 532 games. He recorded an .878 career fielding percentage, committing 647 errors in 5,317 fielding chances. Irwin played 947 games at shortstop and 56 games at third base. He also appeared at second base, pitcher and catcher.
Early non-playing roles
Irwin coached at the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
between 1893 and 1895, and managed the Philadelphia major league club during those last two seasons.
In 1894, he angered Penn supporters when a talented first baseman named Goeckle nearly signed with Irwin's major league team just prior to a series of collegiate championship games. Nonetheless, by 1895, Irwin's coaching role at Penn included the selection of players and other duties that traditionally fell to the team captain. Irwin left Philadelphia in 1896 to manage the New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...
. Relieved of his duties after one season in New York, he was subsequently recruited to manage in Milwaukee. However, he returned to coach the minor league team in his native Toronto instead.
Irwin coached Toronto during 1897 and 1898. He faced arrest on a libel
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
charge in 1898, which stemmed from comments made by Irwin about the actions of the Philadelphia ownership during his time there. Though Irwin turned himself in, it appears that he was never arrested. In 1898, Irwin traded some of his best players to the Washington major league team. The moves were seen as particularly suspect when Irwin was named the Washington manager shortly thereafter.[ After 1899, Irwin did not return to the major leagues as a coach. He returned for a subsequent term as Penn's coach in 1900, but he left in 1902.] In August 1902, Irwin was signed as an NL umpire for the remainder of that season. Irwin, who had previously only filled in for one three-day umpiring stretch in 1881, umpired his first NL game on August 7, 1902. His last umpiring appearance came with the end of the 1902 season on October 3. In fifty games as an umpire, Irwin ejected nine players, including future Hall of Fame inductees Roger Bresnahan
Roger Philip Bresnahan (June 11, 1879 – December 4, 1944), nicknamed "The Duke of Tralee", was an American player and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). As a player, Bresnahan competed in MLB for the Washington Senators (1897), Chicago ...
and Fred Clarke
Fred Clifford Clarke (October 3, 1872 – August 14, 1960) was an American Major League Baseball player from 1894 to and manager from 1897 to 1915. A Hall of Famer, Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirat ...
. Irwin, who had retained partial ownership of the Toronto club, then returned to manage that team for a couple of seasons.[
By 1906, Irwin was manager of the Altoona Mountaineers in the ]Tri-State League The Tri-State League was the name of six different circuits in American minor league baseball.
History
The first league of that name played for four years (1887–1890) and consisted of teams in Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia.
The second leagu ...
. In July 1907, Irwin resigned as manager of the Mountaineers after fans became disgruntled. Even after entering baseball scouting, Irwin briefly managed the 1908 Washington club in the short-lived Union Professional League
The Union Professional League was a professional baseball league that played for less than two months in 1908. The league was founded by businessman Alfred Lawson (1869–1954), who had briefly pitched for the Boston Beaneaters and the Pittsbur ...
. The league was plagued by financial problems—including the inability to pay players at times—and it folded less than two months after play began. He was rehired to the Penn coaching staff in 1908.
Scouting
In the summer of 1907, Irwin became a scout for the New York Highlanders
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...
. In 1909, New York manager George Stallings
George Tweedy Stallings (November 17, 1867 – May 13, 1929) was an American professional baseball catcher and manager. He played in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and Philadelphia Phillies in 1890 and 1897 to 1898 and manage ...
rented an apartment overlooking Hilltop Park
Hilltop Park was the nickname of a baseball park that stood in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. It was the home of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball from 1903 to 1912, when they were known as the "Highlanders". ...
and sent Irwin up to steal signs from the opposing team. Using a system of binoculars and mirrors, Irwin read the signs and flashed them back to Stallings so they could be relayed to the batter. By 1912, almost the entire Highlanders roster had been scouted by Irwin. In a newspaper interview covering his scouting career, Irwin asserted that he preferred signing young prospects over expensive stars. "The chances are better with a young player, for by getting him early you can gradually break him into the style of play the team is using", he said.[
In December 1912, New York president ]Frank J. Farrell
Frank J. Farrell (c. 1866 – February 10, 1926) was an American baseball executive. He and William S. Devery were the first owners of the New York Highlanders (now New York Yankees). They purchased the Baltimore Orioles on January 9, 1903 fo ...
promoted Irwin from scout to business manager. Upon his promotion, a statement from the team said, "He has been of such service to the club in numerous ways that Mr. Farrell has invested him with full power to look after business details in future." The poor relationship between Irwin and New York manager Frank Chance
Frank Leroy Chance (September 9, 1877 – September 15, 1924) was an American professional baseball player. A first baseman, Chance played in Major League Baseball for the Chicago Cubs (initially named the "Orphans") and New York Yankees from 18 ...
was a factor in the manager's 1914 resignation after two years of a three-year contract. ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' said that Chance "did not think it was possible to collect so many mediocre players on one major league club." Irwin remained with the Highlanders until Farrell sold the team to Jacob Ruppert
Jacob Ruppert Jr. (August 5, 1867 – January 13, 1939) was an American brewer, businessman, National Guard colonel and politician who served for four terms representing New York in the United States House of Representatives from 1899 to 1907. ...
and T.L. Huston. Upon the sale of the team, Irwin and several other Highlanders personnel submitted their resignations.
Later coaching career
Irwin became part-owner of the Lewiston Cupids in 1915 and managed that club in the final season of the original New England League
The New England League was a mid-level league in American minor league baseball that played intermittently in five of the six New England states (Vermont excepted) between 1886 and 1949. After 1901, it existed in the shadow of two Major League B ...
. The 1915 Cupids featured 16-year-old Cuban pitcher Oscar Tuero
Oscar Tuero (December 17, 1898 – October 21, 1960) was a professional baseball player. He was a right-handed pitcher over parts of three seasons (1918–1920) with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Career
For his career, he compiled a 6–9 record in ...
, who won 17 games in his third professional season. The team did not win the pennant that year, but the race came down to the final days of the season. Irwin and Christy Mathewson
Christopher Mathewson (August 12, 1880 – October 7, 1925), nicknamed "Big Six", "the Christian Gentleman", "Matty", and "the Gentleman's Hurler", was a Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher, who played 17 seasons with the New York Giant ...
were considered for a coaching position at Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
that year, but former Highlanders catcher and professional scout Fred Mitchell was ultimately selected. In 1916, Irwin publicly accused Philadelphia's Connie Mack
Cornelius McGillicuddy (December 22, 1862 – February 8, 1956), better known as Connie Mack, was an American professional baseball catcher, manager, and team owner. The longest-serving manager in Major League Baseball history, he holds untoucha ...
of underhanded dealings in obtaining third baseman Jim Ritter from Baltimore. He said that Mack convinced the New England League's Baltimore club to draft Ritter so that Mack could later obtain him cheaply. Mack was outraged at the accusations and immediately severed all connections with the player. Ritter never appeared in a major league game.
Irwin managed the Rochester Hustlers
The Rochester Red Wings are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. They are located in Rochester, New York, and play their home games at Innovative Field, located in down ...
between 1918 and 1920. Rochester was not successful under Irwin; the 1920 Hustlers finished with 45 wins and 106 losses. Cray L. Remington of the ''Rochester Evening Journal'' later wrote, "Local fans used to pan Arthur Irwin in the old days when Arthur was as innocent of wrong as the little sparrows on the limbs. Arthur's job was to win ball games minus talent. He couldn't do it." While managing the Eastern League's Hartford Senators
The Hartford Senators were a minor league baseball team based in Hartford, Connecticut. They operated in the Connecticut League from 1902–1912, the Eastern Association from 1913–1914, the Eastern League (baseball, 1916-32), Eastern League from ...
in 1921 against a New York semi-pro team, Irwin noticed the play of Lou Gehrig
Henry Louis Gehrig (born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned f ...
and convinced him to sign his first professional contract with Hartford. Gehrig had already committed to play at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and professional experience would affect his collegiate eligibility, so he began playing for Hartford using assumed names like Lou Lewis. However, Columbia found out about Gehrig's play and the slugger was forced to sit out of college baseball for a year.
Sports innovations
While playing with Providence in 1883, Irwin broke the third and fourth fingers of his left hand. Not wanting to miss any games, he obtained an oversized buckskin driving glove, padded it and sewed the third and fourth fingers together to allow space for bandages. He used the glove even after his fingers healed. John Montgomery Ward
John Montgomery Ward (March 3, 1860 – March 4, 1925), known as Monte Ward, was an American Major League Baseball pitcher, shortstop, second baseman, third baseman, manager, executive, union organizer, owner and author. Ward, of English descent, ...
of New York soon took the field with a similar glove. By the following season, almost every professional player was using the "Irwin glove." Prior to 1884, use of gloves was limited to first basemen and catchers. In 1882, Irwin committed a league-high 78 errors in 84 games. He committed 66 errors in 98 games the following year. Over his next two seasons with the glove, Irwin committed 98 errors in 163 games.
Irwin organized and was president of the American League of Professional Football
American League of Professional Football was the first professional soccer league in the United States, existing for one season in 1894. It was also one of the earliest professional leagues in the world. It was created by the owners of the Natio ...
(ALPF) for its lone season in 1894. The organization represented the first American professional soccer league. Teams in the league were named after their MLB counterparts in the same cities. Some of the active baseball managers served as coaches for the soccer teams, and fans were sometimes enticed by the rumor of MLB players who might participate in the league. Irwin was also involved in an attempt to popularize roller polo.[
Irwin developed and patented a football scoreboard, which was in use in the Ivy League by the 1890s. The large scoreboard featured a miniature representation of a football field, and the ball moved along the board to report each play.] By 1915, Irwin's scoreboards were featured at each end of the field for the Army-Navy game at the Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...
.
Other influence
Irwin owned athletic facilities in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, often known by its initials A.C., is a coastal resort city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. The city is known for its casinos, boardwalk, and beaches. In 2020, the city had a population of 38,497. , and negotiated with baseball officials about bringing organized baseball there in 1900. Irwin opened a motor-paced bicycle racing track in the city in July 1902. His focus on the bicycle track enterprise had been a factor in his resignation from the Penn coaching staff in 1902.[ He also became involved with the Hartford Avenue Colosseum Company and oversaw its Philadelphia bicycle track.]
Death
On June 21, 1921, Irwin gave up his managerial role with the Hartford club in the Eastern League due to health concerns. He was experiencing abdominal trouble and severe nervous attacks. Irwin was diagnosed with stomach cancer; he had lost 60 pounds in two weeks. While in the hospital, he was told that he only had a few days to live. While traveling from New York City to Boston on the vessel ''Calvin Austin'', Irwin was lost overboard in an apparent suicide on July 16. Shortly after his death, a theory emerged that Irwin had been robbed for $5,000 and then murdered aboard the ship. This theory was discounted when it was learned from family members that Irwin had taken only $35 on the trip.[ When Irwin was last seen aboard the ship around midnight on July 16, he told a friend that he was "coming home to his brother John's to die."]
During the investigation into Irwin's disappearance and death, two widows emerged; one lived in Boston and the other lived in New York. He first married Elizabeth, the woman in Boston, in 1883.[ Together they had three children, including a son who was 37 at the time of Irwin's death, and nine grandchildren. In the 1890s he married again, this time in Philadelphia to May, a woman he met while coaching baseball at the University of Pennsylvania. They settled in New York and had a son who was 24 when Irwin died.][
In his final days, Irwin sold his rights from his scoreboard business for $2000. Though he sent $1500 to May and only $500 to Elizabeth, his Boston widow was surprised at the gesture since Irwin rarely visited Boston and provided almost no financial support to their family.][ In fact, May said that he had not been away from New York for more than a few days at a time in 27 years. She said that his only long trips were baseball-related, when he would scout players in other cities. Before he left New York for the final time, he told May that he was going to say goodbye to friends in Boston and that he would return to New York.] Though neither woman knew of the other, Irwin's New York son Harold learned about an unknown brother while he was visiting his father in the hospital just before Irwin's death.
In 1989, Irwin was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame
The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (french: Temple de la renommée du baseball canadien) is a museum located in St. Marys, Ontario, Canada. The museum commemorates great players, teams, and accomplishments of baseball in Canada.
His ...
.
See also
*List of Major League Baseball player–managers
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. Founded in 1869, it is composed of 30 teams. Each team in the league has a manager, who is responsible for team strategy and leadership on and off ...
*List of Major League Baseball umpires
The following is a list of major league baseball umpires. The list includes umpires who worked in any of four 19th century major leagues (American Association, National Association, Players' League, Union Association), one defunct 20th century m ...
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Irwin, Arthur
1858 births
1921 suicides
19th-century baseball players
Baseball players from Toronto
Boston Reds (PL) players
Boston Reds (AA) players
Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian expatriate baseball players in the United States
Major League Baseball players from Canada
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball shortstops
New York Giants (NL) managers
New York Yankees scouts
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Penn Quakers baseball coaches
People who died at sea
Philadelphia Phillies managers
Philadelphia Quakers players
Providence Grays players
Suicides by jumping
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) managers
Washington Senators (NL) managers
Worcester Grays players
Worcester Ruby Legs players
Major League Baseball umpires
Washington Nationals (1886–1889) players
Washington Nationals (1886–1889) managers
Washington Senators (1891–1899) managers