Dean Phillippi, originally from Washington, Pa., and now living in Jacksonville, Fla., was kind enough to send us this writeup about his relative, Charles Louis "Deacon" Phillippe, one of the greatest pitchers in Pirates history and a man who has received serious Hall of Fame consideration.Charles Louis "Deacon" Phillippe was the winner of the first game of the first World Series in 1903 against Cy Young. Deacon set iron-man marks in the Series by pitching 44 innings of the eight game series and completing five games. Twice, he started consecutive games and he is the only pitcher in baseball to win three series games for a losing team.
In 1969, Pittsburgh fans voted Deacon Pittsburgh's all-time right-handed pitcher. Incredibly, Deacon never had a losing season in his 13 years of Major League Baseball (1899 with Louisville; 1900-11 with Pittsburgh).
He was born Charles Louis Phillippi near the small rural town of Rural Retreat in Wythe County, Virginia, on May 23, 1872, a son of Andrew Jackson and Margaret Jane (Hackler) Phillippi.
Career highlights
- Lifetime record of 189-109 with a 2.59 ERA
- Five seasons with 20 or more wins
- Completed 242 of the 288 games he started over his career, while striking out 929
- His best ERA was in 1902, when he posted a 2.05 mark to go with a 20-9 record.
- Over a four-year period (1900-1903), he pitched 1136 1/3 innings.
- He is near the top of the Pirates' all-time pitching list in innings pitched, wins, strikeouts, shutouts and completed games.
- Best year: In 1903, he was 24-7 with a 2.43 ERA. He struck out 123, walked only 29 and gave up 265 hits in 289 innings.
Note: Information for this story below was compiled by Tom Bralley of Wytheville. Bralley is a vice president and branch manager at Premier Bank and is a baseball historian.Rural Retreat man pitched in the very first World SeriesThere have been a lot of excellent athletes who have come from Rural Retreat. Many residents of Rural Retreat and Wythe County are no doubt aware of people who have done well at the high school level and gone on to achieve notoriety in college sports.
But probably few people are aware that one of the greatest Major League baseball players in history was born in Rural Retreat. Charles Louis Phillippe was born May 23, 1872, in Rural Retreat. Phillippe pitched for 13 years in the Major Leagues. Perhaps the highlight of his career was pitching in the first World Series in 1903. In that Series, Phillippe, who was nicknamed "Deacon" because of his mastery over batters, and his family would not let him play baseball on Sundays as well. In the World Series, he pitched five complete games and won three for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Phillippe died in 1952, but in 1969 Pittsburgh fans voted him Pittsburgh's all-time right-handed pitcher.
Phillippe signed his first professional baseball contract in 1897 with a team in Minneapolis. He was drafted into the National League by Louisville in 1898. The next year, he finished the season with a 20-17 record which included a no-hitter against New York.
Phillippe joined the Pittsburgh team in 1900 and was one of its leading pitchers for the next 11 years. He led the Pirates to pennants (league championships) in 1901, 1903 and 1909. Probably his most successful season came in 1910, when he finished at 14-2 and had a 7-1 record as a relief pitcher.
But his moment in the spotlight was the 1903 World Series when he carried the team that had an injured and decimated pitching staff. Although Pittsburgh eventually lost the Series to Boston, Phillippe won his first three games (the Series then was the best-out-of-nine games) which prompted a local newspaper to write in a headline: "Deacon Phillippe has the American League Champions at his mercy."
Phillippe completed all five games he pitched in the Series, but lost the last two mostly because of pitching with very little rest. And a definite lack of support at the plate from his teammates.
He finished his career with an overall record of 186 wins [Harry's note:
Baseball-Reference.com credits Phillipe with 189 victories] and 108 losses. He finished with an ERA of 2.59 over 372 games and 2,607 innings.
While Phillippe's complete game mark was noteworthy, pitchers back then were expected to pitch more. According to Abby Mendelson in "The Birth of a Classic, "a pitcher was "expected to last nine innings - not because he was stronger, but simply because he wasn't supposed to overpower a hitter. By and large, pitches were meant to go over the plate so that a batter could hit the ball and put it in play. Therefore, a 1903-style moundsman threw more easily and less often in a game (which consequently made a contest shorter than we're used to)."
"On top of that, new balls were rarely brought into a game, and the pitcher worked with a scuffed and welted ball. That he made it dip and slide with less arm exertion than today is an understatement," he continued. "Pitching, in short, was much like tossing batting practice today. Pitchers, from their looks in old photographs, threw standing fairly straight, using only a short step and a lot of arm movement to get the ball humming."
Two of the hitting leaders for that 1903 Pittsburgh team were the great shortstop Honus Wagner and left fielder-manager Fred Clarke. Both ended up in the baseball Hall of Fame.
Wagner finished the season with a .355 batting average; it was one of eight years in which he won that title. Clarke finished the year batting .351.
Wagner said that Phillippe was always eager to pitch. "He wanted to hurl against the other team's best pitcher and often worked out of turn to do it."
The first game of the 1903 Series was played in Boston. Phillippe pitched the entire game as Pittsburgh won 7-3. "Much of the credit belongs to Phillippe," said Clarke. "The steady man had delivery that was most difficult to solve ... The Deacon was never in better condition, the way he cuts loose with his benders is a caution."
And the Boston manager [future Hall of Famer Jimmy Collins] also praised the Deacon. "Phillippe pitched in masterly style."
And the Boston pitcher who lost the game was none other than the immortal Cy Young.
Boston came back and won the second game 3-0.
Phillippe returned to pitch the third game with only one day's rest and led the Pirates to a 10-3 victory. Manager Clarke told Phillippe, "You stood them on their heads the last time, Deacon, you can do it again."
The Pirates went back to Pittsburgh with a 2-1 game lead. When the train pulled into the station, however, Phillippe was not on it. Anticipating the huge crowd gathered there, the shy man got off the train at a previous stop and took a street car to his home.
Phillippe also pitched game four and won, 5-4. According to Mendelson, "Phillippe allowed only four hits in the first eight innings, but was touched up for five more in the ninth. A newspaper account of the game reported that the Deacon "never turned a hair and finished without a tremor." Phillippe also wowed the crowd, said Mendelson, "with some fancy base running, scoring a tally himself."
In the fifth game, Boston came back with Cy (short for "Cyclone," because fastballs were called that then) Young and Boston won to close the gap to 3-2. Boston also won the next game to even the Series at 3-3. Phillippe was back on the mound for game seven. He was matched again with Cy Young. Boston won 7-3 to take a one-game lead. Young was called "invincible" by a newspaper.
Mendelson said, "The
Sunday Post ran a photo of Phillippe with the accompanying comment that he 'went to the rubber too often.' The game, according to the paper, was 'sad, chilly and tedious.' Both teams were exhausted, players slid all over the muddy field, and the stalwarts on both sides committed a total of seven errors. It was, in short, a disaster."
One of the few positive notes for Pittsburgh came in the third inning, when Phillippe came to the plate. A fan walked up and gave him a diamond horseshoe stickpin, paid for by the fans, as a token of their appreciation.
Phillippe thanked the fans and then belted a clean single off of a Cy Young fastball. News accounts said the ovation was deafening.
The Deacon was called on one more time, but his arm didn't have much left. Boston won the game 3-0 and thereby won the Series, five games to three. But the Pirate fans gave the team a warm welcome on its return home. Manager Clarke received a raise to make him the highest paid player-manager at that time. Phillippe was given 10 shares of stock in a nearby business.
After he retired from baseball, Phillippe worked in a Pittsburgh steel mill and then as a bailiff in a local court.
Phillippe died at the age of 79 in 1952. Mendelson described Phillippe as a shy man who stood over six feet tall and weighed a muscular 180 pounds. "He avoided the limelight because of modesty. A handsome man, Phillippe had a sturdy oval face, lantern jaw, and dark hair parted a shade left of center."
Mendelson prefers to remember Phillippe after he won his third game in the 1903 World Series. "This, after all, is one of the great tales of World Series heroism," he wrote. "A story of a man who pitched because he had to. The image that best sticks in the mind of the quiet man with the bewildering curveballs is from the victory celebration after Game four. After Phillippe's first home victory, and his third straight, the crowd hoisted the sweating pitcher to its shoulders and carried him all around Exposition Park. Deposited in the Clubhouse, Deacon proceeded to shake hands with everyone in sight.
"Let us remember him that way, joyful, flushed with victory, confident in his team's future and surrounded by a host of Pittsburgh fans in the early autumn of 1903."
