Charles Radbourn

During Radbourn's first season with the Grays in 1881, he split pitching duties with John Montgomery Ward. Radbourn pitched 325.1 innings and compiled a win–loss record of 25–11. He became the team's primary pitcher in 1882, pitching 466 innings and going 33–19 with a 2.11 earned run average. He led the NL with 201 strikeouts and six shutouts and was second-best in wins and ERA. In 1883, he pitched 632.1 innings and led the league in wins, going 48–25. His 2.05 ERA and 315 strikeouts both ranked second in the NL.[5]

The 1884 Providence Grays. Radbourn is standing at the far left.

When Providence failed to win the pennant in 1883, the franchise was on shaky financial ground. Ownership brought in a new manager, Frank Bancroft, and made it plain: win the pennant or the team would be disbanded.

Early in the season, Radbourn shared pitching duties with Charlie Sweeney. Radbourn, who had a reputation for being vain, became jealous as Sweeney began to have more success, and the tension eventually broke out into violence in the clubhouse. Radbourn was faulted as the initiator of the fight and was suspended without pay after a poor outing on July 16, having been accused of deliberately losing the game by lobbing soft pitches over the plate. But on July 22, Sweeney had been drinking before the start of the game and continued drinking in the dugout between innings. Despite being obviously intoxicated, Sweeney managed to make it to the seventh inning with a 6–2 lead; when Bancroft attempted to relieve him with the change pitcher, Sweeney verbally abused him before being ejected and storming out of the park, leaving Providence with only eight players. With only two players to cover the three outfield positions, the Grays lost the lead, then lost the game.[6]

Afterward, Sweeney was kicked off the Grays, and this left the team in a state of disarray with the consensus view that the team should be disbanded. At that point, Radbourn offered to start every game for the rest of the season (having pitched in 76 of 98 games the season before)[7] in exchange for a small raise and exemption from the reserve clause for the next season. From that point, July 23 to September 24 when the pennant was clinched, Providence played 43 games and Radbourn started 40 of them and won 36. Soon, pitching every other day as he was, his arm became so sore he couldn't raise it to comb his hair. On game day he was at the ballpark hours before the start, getting warmed up. He began his warm up by throwing just a few feet, increasing the distance gradually until he was pitching from second base and finally from short center field.[8]

Radbourn finished the season with a league-leading 678.2 innings pitched and 73 complete games, and he won the Triple Crown with a record of 60–12, a 1.38 earned run average, and 441 strikeouts. His 60 wins in a season is a record which is expected never to be broken because no starter has made even as many as 37 starts in a season since 1991.[9] Also, his 678.2 innings pitched stands at second all-time, behind only Will White (680 in 1879) for a single season.

After the regular season ended, the NL champion Grays played the American Association champion New York Metropolitans in the 1884 World Series. Radbourn started each game of the series and won all three, while allowing just three unearned runs.[10]

Radbourn's plaque at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

There is a discrepancy in Radbourn's victory total in 1884. The classic MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, the current edition of The Elias Book of Baseball Records, his National Baseball Hall of Fame biography, and Baseball-Reference.com all credit Radbourn with 60 wins (against 12 losses).[11] Other sources, including Baseball Almanac, MLB.com, and Edward Achorn's 2010 book, Fifty-nine in '84, give Radbourn 59 wins. Some older sources (such as his tombstone plaque) counted as high as 62. There is no dispute about the 678+2⁄3 innings pitched, only over the manner in which victories were assigned to pitchers; the rules in the early years allowed more latitude to the official scorer than they do today.

According to at least two accounts, in the game of July 28 at Philadelphia, Cyclone Miller pitched five innings and left trailing, 4–3. Providence then scored four runs in the top of the sixth. Radbourn came in to relieve, and pitched shutout ball over the final four innings, while the Grays went on to score four more and win the game, 11–4. The official scorer decided that Radbourn had pitched the most effectively, and awarded him the win. Under the rules of the day, the scorekeeper's decision certainly made sense. However, under modern scoring rules, Miller would get the win, being the "pitcher of record" when he left the game, and Radbourn would have been credited with a save for closing the game and "pitching effectively for three or more innings". Some modern sources retroactively awarded the win to Miller.

Radbourn pitched effectively in the majors for several more years but was not able to duplicate his success of 1883 and 1884. In 1885, he pitched 445.2 innings and went 28–21. The Grays folded after the season, and the roster was transferred to NL control.