My uncle knocked out Joe DiMaggio

Well ... sort of. On discovering a hidden trove of family history, and how numbers never tell the whole story.

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So here’s a wild bit of family lore I recently discovered. My father’s uncle was (very, very briefly) a major-league pitcher. He threw exactly four innings for the Washington Nationals in 1939. And even in that short span of time, he faced three of the seven Hall of Famers pictured above … and got two of them to hit into double plays! (The third took him deep. Oh well.)

Let’s back up a second. A couple weeks ago, I published a story in Garden & Gun about my father, North Carolina and barbecue. (It’s good. You should read it.) The theme of the story is the fact that I didn’t ask my father enough questions about his life while he was still with us, and how I regret that to this day. And in the course of writing the story, I wrote about — and ultimately edited out for space — my father’s uncle Bill Holland.

Uncle Bill was a massive cast-iron stove of a man with a Carolina accent as deep as a well. He and his wife Marjorie never had children, so they doted on my father like he was their own. Uncle Bill was a prosperous tobacco-industry businessman in Goldsboro, North Carolina, the kind of guy always ready with a joke and a handshake that could crush your hand like breadsticks.

Oh, and Bill had a past, too. Turns out — well, I kind of spoiled it already — Bill had some game on the diamond. Here’s his official Baseball Reference page:

Now, if you don’t speak Baseball Statistics, well, those numbers … they ain’t good. He only threw those four innings over three games, struck out two, took a loss, and — had he pitched for an entire nine-inning game — would have theoretically allowed more than 11 runs to cross the plate. Not great! You can kind of see why he didn’t really stick in the majors.

But numbers don’t ever tell the whole story, so let’s switch to words. Uncle Bill pitched in the majors over the course of 10 days in 1939, from September 17 to September 26. And in that time, he faced several of the greatest ever to play the game, in old Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C.:

Griffith Stadium, where Uncle Bill once threw.

So imagine you’re a 24-year-old kid pitching your first game in the majors. This is a meaningless game in the grand scheme of baseball; your Nationals are 61-81 and ranked sixth in the American League, and the opposing Detroit Tigers are only marginally better. But it’s anything but meaningless for you. Your whole life has led to this moment.

It’s tied 2-2 in the top of the 10th, and the manager — a man with the spectacular baseball name of Bucky Harris — gives you the ball. You proceed to walk the first batter you face, and then give up a single to the next. Not great! But you record your first-ever strikeout, so you’ve got two men on, one out … with a future Hall of Famer stepping to the plate.

Take a look at that photo at the top of this story, taken at an All-Star Game at Griffith Stadium in 1937, two years before Uncle Bill would pitch on that same field. Left to right, you’ve got Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. Every single one of those players would eventually be elected to the Hall of Fame, and two of them are playing in this game.

Gehringer (third from right above), one of the greatest second basemen of all time and less than two years removed from an MVP season, digs in against young Uncle Bill … and proceeds to ground into a double play. Whoa! Inning over! Way to go, rook!

Uncle Bill’s 10th inning performance earns him another shot in the 11th, and, well … he immediately gives up a home run to the first guy he faces, Hank Greenberg, that massive oak on the far right. Hey, it happens; Greenberg hit another 330 of those over the course of his own Hall of Fame career. Uncle Bill, alas, takes the loss in that game.

His next outing comes six days later, against the monstrous New York Yankees, well on their way to yet another World Series title that year. He’s summoned as a sacrificial lamb in the top of the ninth; New York is already ahead 7-1.

Now imagine what ol’ Bill is thinking. He’ll be facing the murderous Yankee lineup, with DiMaggio (center, above) batting third in the inning and Dickey (next to Joe) coming to the plate if anyone gets on.

In what is surely the greatest moment of his baseball life, Uncle Bill takes out the Yankees. Three up, three down.

You can see what happened in the box score: he gets Red Rolfe to line out to second, he walks Charlie Keller … and then it’s Joe DiMaggio.

Joltin’ Joe was already a budding legend, and the 1939 season was one of his finest. He would win MVP, win the batting title, win the World Series. But on this day, against my uncle Bill, all he did was ground into an inning-ending double play. Amazing.

God, I wish I’d asked my uncle to tell this story.

Sadly, that was as good as it got for Uncle Bill. In his final outing, he took the mound against the Philadelphia (then Kansas City, then Oakland, now Sacramento, soon Vegas) Athletics. It didn’t go well. He gave up four runs on three hits and a wild pitch, and that was pretty much that for his baseball career.

Bill retired from baseball after that. My father was born four years to the day after Uncle Bill took down Joe DiMaggio, and for the rest of his days, Uncle Bill looked out for my dad, whom he called “Little Ha’rd.” (See the G&G article.) The Nationals were renamed the Senators and then moved to Minnesota in 1961. Griffith Stadium was demolished in 1965, and Howard University Hospital was built in its place; there’s still a floor marking inside the hospital designating where home plate once stood. (In a bit of family history come full-circle, my daughter often walked her dog right past the hospital, 85 years after her great-great-uncle pitched at that same spot.)

I love these kinds of stories, but I love hearing them from the people who lived them even more. I wish I’d asked Uncle Bill to tell me about getting DiMaggio and Gehringer out, I wish I’d asked what it’s like to stand on a major-league pitching mound. I wish I’d asked him to tell me his stories. But since I can’t ask him, I’ll ask you…

What’s the most notable act — famous or infamous — done by a relative of yours?

Me (baby) with Marjorie and Bill, who’s thinking, “I could strike this kid out, no problem. Four, maybe five pitches max.”

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Short week here this week; been busy at the day job covering the U.S. Open, Aaron Rodgers’ arrival in Pittsburgh, the Club World Cup and the Savannah Bananas (story forthcoming). Whew. I need a damn beer.

Stay cool this holiday week, and we’ll see you right back here soon …

—Jay
Land Cat, Georgia

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This is issue #165 of Flashlight & A Biscuit. Check out all the past issues right here. Feel free to email me with your thoughts, tips and advice. If you’re new around here, jump right to our most-read stories, or check out some of our recent hits:

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• Talking with Michael Farris Smith about Mississippi, the darkness and his new novel

• Talking with Will Leitch on the occasion of his new novel

• Win the lottery, kick a deputy: The American Dream!

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