Anton Frank Welzer (April 5, 1899 – March 18, 1971) was a

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 ...

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), ...

who played from through for the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...

. Listed at 5' 11", 160 lb., he batted and threw

right-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

. Welzer, the third German to play for the Red Sox, entered in the majors as a member of the hapless Red Sox teams that lost 107 games in 1926 and 103 in 1927. His 4–3 mark in his rookie season represented the only

winning record In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of matc ...

in the Boston pitching staff. A year later he went 6–11, ending third behind

Slim Harriss Slim or SLIM may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Slim Goodbody, a fictional character who teaches about anatomy * Slim, one of the alien antagonists of the 1988 film ''Killer Klowns from Outer Space'' * Slim, the Pixl from ...

(14–21) and Hal Wiltze (10–18), as nobody on the team had a winning record. Welzer gave up the 43rd, 45th and 46th home runs of

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...

's record-setting 60 during a single week of the

1927 New York Yankees season The 1927 New York Yankees season was the 25th season of the New York Yankees of the American League. The team finished with a record of 110–44–1, winning their fifth pennant and finishing 19 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics and we ...

. In a two-season career, Welzer posted a 10–14 record with 85

strikeout In baseball or softball, a strikeout (or strike-out) occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It usually means that the batter is out. A strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters, and is deno ...

s and a 4.78

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. Compa ...

in 76 appearances, including 25 starts, nine

complete game In baseball, a complete game (CG) is the act of a pitcher pitching an entire game without the benefit of a relief pitcher. A pitcher who meets this criterion will be credited with a complete game regardless of the number of innings played—pitche ...

s, one

shutout In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

, and 310⅔ innings of work. Welzer died at the age of 71 in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

External links

Baseball Almanac

Boston Red Sox players Major League Baseball pitchers Major League Baseball players from Germany German emigrants to the United States 1899 births 1971 deaths Burials in Wisconsin {{baseball-pitcher-stub