James Thomas "Jumbo" Elliott (October 22, 1900 – January 7, 1970) was an American professional
baseball player
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding te ...
. He was a left-handed
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 ...
, playing in the major leagues over parts of ten seasons (1923, 1925, 1927–1934) with the
St. Louis Browns
The St. Louis Browns were a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they p ...
,
Brooklyn Robins,
Philadelphia Phillies and
Boston Braves. He was 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 ...
wins leader in 1931 with
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
. For his major league career, he compiled a 63–74 record in 252 appearances, with a 4.24
ERA
An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth.
Comp ...
and 453
strikeouts.
He was born in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
. When he retired from baseball, he resided in
Terre Haute, Indiana, the county seat of
Vigo County. He first came to Terre Haute in 1922 as a pitcher for the
Three-I League professional Class B minor league baseball team. Elliott was a long-time Deputy Sheriff in Vigo County and ran for Vigo County Sheriff as a Democrat in the 1968 election. His opponent was 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m)
Clyde Lovellette
Clyde Edward Lovellette ( ; September 7, 1929 – March 9, 2016) was an American professional basketball player. Lovellette was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. He was the first basketball player in history to ...
, then retired from an extraordinary college and professional
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
career. The campaign earned national notoriety because both candidates were such big men (Elliott was approximately 6 ft 5 in and 250 lb, or 1.96 m and 113 kg) and sports celebrities. Lovellette won the election.
Elliott died in Terre Haute at age 69.
See also
*
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
External links
1900 births
1970 deaths
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Missouri
St. Louis Browns players
Brooklyn Robins players
Philadelphia Phillies players
Boston Braves players
National League wins champions
Terre Haute Tots players
San Antonio Bears players
Seattle Indians players
Columbus Red Birds players
Indianapolis Indians players
{{US-baseball-pitcher-1900s-stub