Jack Quinn while with Brooklyn
Some really good players have short, intense careers. Others have long careers that were never sterling. Then there’s Jack Quinn, who had a long career with sterling moments and a lot of questions about his initial years.
Jack Quinn was born somewhere under some name and that’s about all historians can agree upon. A number of sites have him born in Stevfurov, Austria (now Slovakia). Others have him born in Jeanesville, Pennsylvania or Mahoney City, Pa. Another bunch show his birthplace as Wilkes Barre, Pa. Still others pick St. Clair, Pennsylvania. The year varies between 1883 and 1885. Finally, there’s the question of his name. He shows up as Jan Pajkos, as John Quinn Picas, and as John Picas Quinn. His Wikipedia page picks the Slovakia site and 1883 as does Baseball Reference.com. His SABR biography accepts Slovakia and 1883 but chances his birthdate from 1 July to 5 July. It also indicates that the first four editions of Baseball Encyclopedia give four difference places and four different dates. So I’ll start by saying I have no idea when or where he was born, but 1883 in Slovakia seems to be the building consensus, so it works for me. For what it’s worth, he was elected, in 2006, to the Polish-American Hall of Fame, which might do a job on “Quinn” as his original last name, but who knows.
Where ever he was born and when ever, he came out of the Pennsylvania coal country a pitcher on local semi-pro teams. By 1907 he was in the minors as a spit-balling pitcher with good control, an excellent spitter, and a good enough fastball to pick up interest among the big league scouts. In 1909 he made his debut with the New York Highlanders (now the Yankees), winning the game and going 9-5 for the season. The next year he was 18-12, then fell off for the 1911 and 1912 seasons. He spent 1913 with the Braves then went to the Federal League for both 1914 and 1915. With the Baltimore Terrapins he went 26-14 and then 9-22, the 22 leading the Feds in losses for 1915.
With the folding of the Federal League, Quinn went back to the minors for 1916 and 1917. In 1918 he went back to the Majors, settling in with the White Sox where he went 5-1 over six games. But there was a question as to who retained his rights. New York claimed that although Quinn pitched for the Federal League, his American League rights were retained by his last “real Major League” team, them. League President Ban Johnson agreed and Quinn went back to the Yankees for 1919. He remained there though 1921. He did well in 1919 and 1920, but by 1922 he was 37 (more or less) and spent much of that season in the bullpen. He got into the 1921 World Series, taking the loss in relief in-game three. After the Series he was traded to the Red Sox for a couple of younger arms.
He stayed with Boston into 1925, serving about equal time as a starter and a reliever. He went 45-54 with 14 saves. Midway through the season he was sold to the Athletics for the waiver price and remained in Philadelphia through 1930. He was now 41 (give or take). He had good years with the A’s going 18-7 in 1928 at age 45 (again more or less). In 1929 he got into his second World Series, starting game four. He was 46 (we think), the oldest man to start a World Series game. He was shelled, but the A’s won when the team scored 10 runs in the seventh inning to pull out a 10-8 victory. He spent 1930 mostly as a reliever and pitched only two innings in Philly’s World Series victory. Now at 47 (I guess) he became the oldest man to ever relieve in a World Series game. For what it’s worth, Jim Kaat was 43 when he relieved in the 1982 World Series. Some believe that, because Quinn’s age is in dispute, he (Kaat) is the oldest man to pitch in a World Series.
Released at the end of the Series, Quinn caught on with the Dodgers in 1931. He stayed two years working almost entirely as a reliever (he started one game). He led the National League in saves in both 1931 and 1932 (as the save statistic wasn’t invented until much later, he never knew that). His 1931 total of 15 was an NL record that lasted until 1948. He was released after the 1932 season and signed with Cincinnati. He got into 14 games then was let go. He was 49 (give or take) and through. At his retirement, he had 57 saves, second to Firpo Marberry. He pitched a little in the minors as late as 1935. He was (depending on who you believe) 51. He died in April 1946.
Over a career lasting 23 years (at least we agree on the number of years he pitched) Quinn went 247-218 (a .531 winning percentage), struck out 1329, walked 860, gave up 4238 hits and 1837 runs in 3920 innings pitched. His ERA is an unexceptional 3.29, but his ERA+ is 114. In World Series play he is 0-1 with an 8.44 ERA. As a hitter, his average is all of a buck-84, but he did have eight home runs and 113 RBIs. His Baseball Reference.com version of pitching WAR is 59.
Quinn is one of the more unusual players ever. Not only did he pitch for 23 years, a major feat in itself, he was never a particularly great pitcher. In an era when wins were the most important statistic, he had 20 once (26 in 1914) and that in a marginal upstart league. He had 18 wins twice (eight years apart) and eight years with a losing record (although one of those years he went 0-1). Does that sound like a man who would have a 23 year career? He was, however, a pretty fair reliever (just over half his games pitched are relief appearances), but that wasn’t the same as it is today in the age of the “closer”. Is he someone the Hall of Fame has overlooked? Not in my opinion, but I supposed someone could make a case for him.
Tags: Baltimore Terrapins, Ban Johnson, Federal League, Firpo Marberry, Jack Quinn, Jim Kaat
Verdun2's Blog 
March 25, 2014 at 11:14 am
I don’t know why nothing I write on anyone’s blog doesn’t post.
March 25, 2014 at 11:25 am
this one did
v
March 25, 2014 at 11:52 am
A Slovak in the Polish Hall of Fame? Well, it’s understandable in that in parts of PA coal country, as well as in Bpt, CT, where I was born the Poles and the Slovaks often lived side-by-side (though, as far as I know, they didn’t necessarily intermarry a great deal.) My family on my mother’s side is 100% Slovak, and she told me about how the old Slovak women would come up from PA, where they became nuns, then would teach in the Catholic schools in the northeast. She said they were one mean and vicious bunch.
As for “Quinn” (about the least Slovak-sounding name you can get), Jan Pajkos sounds a lot more likely. (Andy Pafko shared a similar ancestry. You may have heard, incidentally, that Pafko just died about five months ago at age 92.)
Nicely researched,
Bill
March 25, 2014 at 12:36 pm
Well, to put it briefly what I said originally on the comment that didn’t post on your blog was that what makes the whole thing even more mysterious is that there’s no Mahoney City, Pennsylvania, but there’s a Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania that’s near to Hazleton. I know this because I lived in that area at one time. There’s no Mahoney City that I know of, unless that was a typographical error.
Wilkes-Barre and the other cities mentioned are not far from there. I lived north of Hazleton and south of Wilkes-Barre when I worked as a disc jockey at WNAK-AM, my first radio job, in 1984, and I lived in a town called Mocanaqua, which is considered to be the “Twin Cities” along with Shickshinny, which you might recall was the name of my original blog back in 2012. I think my blog was still called “Shickshinny” when you discovered it, V, and then I changed the name of it to “Foot In The Bucket”.
Anyway, a nice job and excellent research on this.
Frankly, though, I think that baseball’s “Mystery Man” was Lowell Palmer, the Phillies pitcher who was scarier to hitters than Ryne Duren because he actually was blind. (No he wasn’t, but he wore sunglasses, at least in his baseball card.) Real creepy looking, and to add to that, I never even saw him pitch. I had his baseball card, and, at the age of nine, I thought it was the strangest baseball card I ever had. Lowell Palmer, International Man of Espionage. Secret Agent Man.