George Leroy "Hooks" Wiltse (September 7, 1879 – January 21, 1959) was a

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

. He played 12 seasons 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) from 1904 to 1915. He was the brother of pitcher

Snake Wiltse Lewis DeWitt "Snake" Wiltse (December 5, 1871 – August 25, 1928) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, and New York Highlanders from 1901 to 1903. His brother w ...

Biography

"Hooks" earned his nickname because of his exceptional

curveball In baseball and softball, the curveball is a type of pitch thrown with a characteristic grip and hand movement that imparts forward spin to the ball, causing it to dive as it approaches the plate. Varieties of curveball include the 12–6 curve ...

and was one of the earliest pitchers to have a curveball regarded as being much more effective than his

fastball The fastball is the most common type of pitch thrown by pitchers in baseball and softball. "Power pitchers," such as former American major leaguers Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens, rely on speed to prevent the ball from being hit, and have thro ...

. From 1904 to 1914, he pitched for 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 ...

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. ...

. During that time, he combined with teammate

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 ...

for 435 wins, making them one of the best lefty-righty duos in history. Wiltse won five pennants with the Giants and pitched innings in the 1911 World Series. On July 4, 1908, Wiltse pitched a

perfect game Perfect game may refer to: Sports * Perfect game (baseball), a complete-game win by a pitcher allowing no baserunners * Perfect game (bowling), a 300 game, 12 consecutive strikes in the same game * Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, New York ...

through 26 batters until he hit

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 ...

pitcher

George McQuillan George Watt McQuillan (May 1, 1885 – March 30, 1940) was an American professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball from 1907 to 1918 for the Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians. I ...

on a 2–2 count in a scoreless game. This was the only occurrence of a pitcher losing a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning by hitting a batter until

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 ...

Max Scherzer Maxwell Martin Scherzer (born July 27, 1984) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the New York Mets of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played in MLB for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, and L ...

did so on June 20, 2015. Like Wiltse, Scherzer eventually completed a no-hitter, but unlike Wiltse, Scherzer had a 6–0 lead and was able to retire the next batter to end the game. Home plate umpire

Cy Rigler Charles "Cy" Rigler (May 16, 1882 – December 21, 1935) was an American umpire in Major League Baseball who worked in the National League from 1906 to 1935. His total of 4,144 games ranked fourth in major league history when he retired, and his ...

later admitted he should have called the previous pitch strike three, which would have ended the inning. Wiltse pitched on, winning 1–0 in ten innings, with the hit-batsman the only lapse separating him from a perfect game. Wiltse's ten-inning complete game

no-hitter In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...

still remains a Major League record.Cox, Joe (2017) ''Almost Perfect: The Heartbreaking Pursuit of Pitching’s Holy Grail'', Lyons Press, Guilford, Connecticut, pages 1-

/ref>

"I missed being the only pitcher of all time to pitch a perfect ten inning game because Cy Rigler miscalled a strike. He admitted afterward he could have called it one. It was a tough break for the next pitch struck McQuillan on the shoulder and put him on first base. It had been a perfect game for eight and two-thirds innings."

As a pitcher, Wiltse was an above average hitter and fielder and was occasionally used as a position player to include playing first base in game two of the 1913 World Series where he cut down two runners at home plate in the ninth inning. He posted a career .210

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

(156-for-743) scoring 81 runs with 2

home runs In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

, 79 RBI and drawing 50

bases on balls A base on balls (BB), also known as a walk, occurs in baseball when a batter receives four pitches that the umpire calls '' balls'', and is in turn awarded first base without the possibility of being called out. The base on balls is defined in Se ...

. In 1915, he jumped to the

Brooklyn Tip-Tops The Brooklyn Tip-Tops were a team in the short-lived Federal League of professional baseball from 1914 to 1915. The team's name came from Tip Top Bread, a product of Ward Baking Company, which was also owned by team owner Robert Ward. They were so ...

of the

Federal League The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the e ...

, which is where he ended his major league career. He continued to play minor league baseball on and off until 1926. His last appearance came with the

Reading Keystones The Reading Fightin Phils (also called the Reading Fightins) are a Minor League Baseball team based in Reading, Pennsylvania, playing in the Northeast Division of the Eastern League. The team plays their home games at FirstEnergy Stadium. The Read ...

, where he played in five games at the age of 46. Following his retirement from baseball, Hooks returned to his hometown of

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

, where he worked in real estate and became involved in local politics, serving as a local alderman and property assessor. Wiltse died as a result of

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

on January 21, 1959, at age 79.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiltse, Hooks Major League Baseball pitchers New York Giants (NL) players Brooklyn Tip-Tops players New York Yankees coaches Troy Trojans (minor league) players Jersey City Skeeters players Albany Senators players Reading Pretzels players Buffalo Bisons (minor league) players Reading Keystones players Buffalo Bisons (minor league) managers Minor league baseball managers Baseball players from New York (state) 1879 births 1959 deaths People from Hamilton, New York Burials at Oakwood Cemetery (Syracuse, New York)

Biography

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References

Further reading

External links