Lewis (baseball)

Lewis (First name unknown) was a Major League Baseball player who played in 1890 with the Buffalo Bisons of the Players' League.

Lewis made his major league debut on July 12, 1890, as the starting pitcher for the Bisons in a game against the Brooklyn Ward's Wonders. Lewis gave up six runs in the first inning, six in the second, and eight in the third. After three innings, with Brooklyn leading, 20-4, Buffalo's manager Jack Rowe moved Lewis to left field, and called on left fielder Ed Beecher to pitch the final six innings. In Lewis's three innings as a pitcher, he gave up 20 earned runs, 13 hits, and seven bases on balls. He also collected one hit in five at bats. Brooklyn won the game by a score of 28-16.^[1][2]

According to author Norman L. Macht, the Bisons had been having problems with various pitchers and arrived in Brooklyn on the 12th, "when a local boy, whose last name was Lewis but whose first name remains mercifully unknown"^[3] told manager Jack Rowe that he was a pitcher and asked for a tryout. Rowe started Lewis and kept him in the game for three innings, before pulling him in favor of Beecher, who gave up eight more runs. Neither Lewis nor Beecher pitched in another major league game.^[3]

One newspaper account described Lewis's try-out as a "disastrous experiment" and called the game "one of the greatest slugging matches ever seen since curve pitching came into vogue."^[4] The Sporting Life reported: "The Buffalos tried a new pitcher named Lewis in the box, but after three innings he retired to left field, a much disgusted ball tosser. Beecher took his place and fared but little better."^[1]

References

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
• "The Wildest Opening Series Ever Played", by Joseph M. Overfield, Baseball Digest (April 1946) pp46–49
• box score, New York Times, July 13, 1890