ED REULBACH

Chances are you have heard of Big Ed's pitching contemporaries who made the Hall of Fame with records very similar to his: Chief Bender, Three Finger Brown, Jack Chesbro, Addie Joss and Rube Waddell. Three Finger Brown is the only one whose stats are clearly superior, making one wonder: "Does admission into the Hall really make that big a difference in name recognition?" There are plenty of other examples (like Paul Warner compared to Wally Berger), but it appears Reulbach was under appreciated even during his prime. In 1908, when he was 24-7, the Reach Guide commented, "Reulbach was effective at times but extremely wild and unreliable." This about a man who was 24-7, 2.03 (with 106 walks in 297 IP)!

The big man with the wicked curve starred at Notre Dame for 3 years, then for one more at the University of Vermont, where he took an engineering degree. As a rookie in 1905, he was 18-13. For the three consecutive years 1906-1908, Ed was the leagues' percentage champ, the only man besides Lefty Grove to accomplish that feat. He bad an incredible 60 wins against 15 losses, an .800 W-L percentage, for that period. His ERA was under 3 every year except for two, and four times it dipped below 2. He won twenty games twice and had five other years with 15 or more W's. His career 2.28 ERA is 11th all time. In 1908 he pitched 44 consecutive scoreless innings, including shutouts right before and after the Merkle game. He finished 67% of his starts. He beat Brooklyn nine times in '08 and threw a one-hitter in the World Series. He is the only 20th Century hurler to win 10 consecutive games twice, with 12 straight in '06 and 14 in '08 [editoršs note: Roger Clemens now also can claim this feat]. He averaged less than one hit per inning every year, something no Hall of Famer has done.

After retiring, he earned a Law Degree at Columbia and was one of the Founding Directors of the Baseball Fraternity, a progenitor of the Player's Union. A charter member of the All-Underrated Team, he died the same day as Ty Cobb and was robbed, even in death, of the headlines he deserved.