eppa rixey (1921-33)
the tall (6’5″) virginia native was a rare case of a pitcher whose earned run averages actually improved once the dead ball era came to an end; calling the philadelphia baker bowl after his Home before the 1920s may have had something to do with it.Upon his arrival at the Reds, Rixey’s fortunes changed, spending the rest of his career in Cincinnati with rarely a bad year, a losing record, or a tantrum. post-game that earned him a notorious reputation as a clubhouse destroyer in Philadelphia.
Unlike most baseball players of the time, Rixey came from a wealthy family and chose baseball over chemistry in college. it’s debatable whether pitching made him more money in the long run, but he certainly gained more fame; In his first five years with the Reds, he won exactly 100 games, an average of 20 per year, as he passed the milestone three times between 1922 and 1925, capped by 25 league wins in 1922. Rixey’s success stemmed from a package of fine pitches that barely beat opponents but kept them on a leash. When his career came to an end at the age of 42, Rixey earned a place in the record book as the game’s winningest left-handed pitcher, and he stayed there until Warren Spahn came along.
bucky walters (1938-48)
Like Rixey, Walters was another Phillies refugee who came to the Reds at a time when there was a much greater disparity in fortune between the two franchises, when Walters escaped the bankrupt Phillies and found a team of cincinnati on the rise to total success.
walters arrived on the major league scene in boston as an infielder, working hard with the braves and red sox with little success both at his position and at the plate. With the Phillies, he was encouraged to try throwing, and it wasn’t until he developed a slider to go with a sharp fastball that he became an unlikely ace in the making.
with the reds, walters became an instant star. In 1939, his first full season in Cincinnati, Walters led the National League in just about everything. he completed 31 of his 39 starts, posting a 27-11 record and a 2.29 era in 319 innings, he even had his best year as a hitter, batting .325 in 129 at-bats, to capture the league’s most valuable player award. National League and lift the Reds to their first National League pennant in 20 years. he made a not-so-modest encore a year later, again leading the domestic league in wins (22, against just 10 losses) and era (2.48) as the reds repeated as league champions and, this time, took it all to the defeat detroit in a tense seven-game world series. Walters, who had flopped in the 1939 Fall Classic against the New York Yankees, was ready against the Tigers: He won in two complete games and added a double and a home run on offense.
walters played during world war ii as he did not enlist or be drafted; despite the weakened competition, his ERA actually dipped a point or two, returning with another bravura effort in 1944 when he compiled a 23-8 record and a 2.40 ERA. he suffered arm trouble a year later and was never the same again.
pete donohue (1921-1930)
The right-hander from Athens, Texas enjoyed a relatively short but immensely sweet tenure with the Reds, breaking out in 1922 at the age of 21 with an 18-9 record and a 3.12 era, then went on to win 20 or more games three times over the next four years, including a league-high 20 in 1926. Donohue had an immediate slump afterward, falling to 6–16 in 1927; He recovered somewhat, but not enough to satisfy the Reds, who traded him to the Giants in mid-1930. At the plate, Donohue wasn’t easy, batting .246 with 87 RBs in 732 at-bats in his career. career.
paul derringer (1933-42)
The Kentucky native experienced the ups and downs of the Reds during the 1930s, losing more than 20 games in Cincinnati during each of his first two years (despite respectable stretches) before teaming with Walters. to put together the best pitching double in baseball at the time and helped win successive National League pennants for the Reds.
In 1935, Derringer showed he was leading the team’s progress by winning 20 games while no one else on the staff won more than eight. He would secure three more 20-win campaigns, all in succession, from 1938 to 1940, capping the campaign with a world series knockout performance in which he clinched the classic seven-game bout against Detroit by forging a complete game, 2-1. . victory in the series finale with only two days’ rest. after the Reds’ pennant race, derringer’s run support slipped and he showed up on his win-loss totals; He was sent to the Chicago Cubs in 1943, where he would play three more years.
dolf luque (1918-29)
The Cuban native was one of the few, and certainly the best, Latinos to populate the majors during the first three decades of the 20th century, and he probably wouldn’t have gotten the chance if he hadn’t been light-skinned. In the midst of easily his best year in 1923, Luque unfortunately toyed with the hotheaded Latino stereotype when, fed up with the racist attacks from the Giants’ dugout, he stormed in and confronted all of its occupants, saving the most great. hit for an unsuspecting casey stengel.
luque ended that year leading the majors with 27 wins and a 1.93 era which, after pete alexander’s 1.91 mark in 1920, was the best seen in baseball during the 1920s outside of that remarkable campaign Luque came out as a .500 pitcher despite consistently strong eras against the jack-rabbit offense of the 1920s; in fact, he won a second-era title in 1925 at 2.63, but finished the year 16-18. Luque was sent to Brooklyn in 1930 and, two years later, to New York, where he took on the role of reliever; Appearing in the 1933 World Series for the Giants at age 43, he helped freeze the championship over Washington by throwing 4.1 scoreless innings of relief in game five as the Giants won in 10 innings.