“The Greatest Dead Ball Era Pitcher Most Baseball Fans Don’t Know – Deacon Phillippe!”

Deacon Phillipe and the 1903 World Series Photo Gallery
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“The Greatest Dead Ball Era Pitcher Most Baseball Fans Don’t Know – Deacon Phillippe!”

OK…So he wasn’t in the same league as Dead Ball Era superstars like Christy Mathewson, “Big Ed” Walsh, or Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. Few were. Although overshadowed by these greats, Deacon Phillippe was an outstanding pitcher in his own right, and we’re glad to finally give him a little overdue recognition.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that:

-Deacon Phillippe was the starting and winning pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the very first World Series game against the Boston Americans, striking out 10 batters and defeating Cy Young. In the 1903 World Series, he pitched 44 innings, over five complete games, winning three and losing two. His five decisions in the World Series are a record we can safely say will never be broken.

-Deacon Phillippe was a six-time 20-game winner and never had a losing season in a 13-year major league career that didn’t begin until he was 27 years old. Over his career, he went 189-109 (.634, currently 43rd all-time), with a 2.59 ERA. He was the National League leader in opposing batting average twice (1900 and 1903), and completed 242 of the 288 games he started.

-Deacon Phillippe may have been the greatest control pitcher of all time. His 1.25 walks per nine innings is the lowest ratio of any pitcher since the pitching distance of 60 feet 6 inches was established in 1893.

In the featured photo above, we see a beautiful colorization of Deacon Phillippe by our resident baseball artist, Don Stokes, one of Don’s best efforts.

Thanks to one of our readers, actor Dean Phillipi, for furnishing information about his distant family relation, Charles “Deacon” Phillippe, the ace of the Pirates’ staff during the first decade of the 20th century. Amazingly, in doing family genealogical research, Dean was able to trace their relationship back to a common ancestor living in Bern, Switzerland in 1650. Family descendants then came to America in 1790 landing in Philadelphia. Dean’s family eventually settled in western Pennsylvania; while Deacon Phillippe’s branch moved to Rural Retreat, Virginia, where Deacon was born on May 23, 1872; and then eventually migrated to South Dakota..

After a number of years playing minor league ball, including two years with Minneapolis of the Western League, he broke into the major leagues in 1899 with the Louisville Colonials. He went 21–17 in 321 innings, including a no-hitter in his seventh career game.

The Colonels disbanded after the 1899 season, and owner Barney Dreyfuss moved Louisville’s best players, including Honus Wagner, Fred Clarke, Rube Waddell,Tommy Leach, and Deacon Phillippe, to the Pirates which Dreyfuss co-owned. Phillippe soon established himself as the ace of the Pirates’ staff, winning 20 games for four straight seasons, as the Pirates won three straight National League pennants from 1901 to 1903. His best season was 1903 when he went 25-9, with a 2.05 ERA, giving up just 265 hits in 289 innings, and posting a league-leading 1.030 WHIP. At one point in the season, the Pirates posted six consecutive shutouts, with Phillippe winning the first and fifth games of the streak.

Phillippe missed half of 1904 due to a sore arm, before winning 20 for a sixth time in 1905. His years as the Pirates’ ace ended in 1908, when he suffered another sore arm and missed nearly the entire season. He returned in 1909 to play a bit role on the 110-42 World Series champion Pirates. In 1910, he was primarily used as a relief pitcher going 14–2, his.875 winning percentage leading the league. He retired after the 1911 season after making only three appearances.

Standing a shade over six feet and a muscular 180 pounds, Phillippe was described by biographers as “a handsome man with a sturdy oval face, a lantern jaw, and dark hair parted a shade left of center,” as surviving photos clearly indicate. He acquired the nickname “Deacon” because of his “refusal to play on Sundays, his reticent demeanor, his humility, and the way in which he lived his life.”

This sanitized description of Deacon Phillippe was at least partially disputed by his great-grandson, Rob DuBree, who claimed Deacon was either “thrown out of the house” by his wife Ella for joining the Louisville Colonials (at the time, considered the equivalent of joining a circus); or else he abandoned her and his three children of his own volition. Either way, Deacon never again had anything to do with his family. He later lived with a common-law wife with whom he had at least one child.

In 1969, he was voted by Pirates fans as the greatest right-handed pitcher in Pirate history. He is near the top of the Pirates’ all-time list in innings pitched, wins, strikeouts, and complete games. He was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1982. In 1999, he was ranked among the 50 Greatest Sports Figures by Sports Illustrated. He has been nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame numerous times without selection. Deacon Phillippe passed away in 1952, aged 79.

Deacon Phillippe is a distant relative of actor Ryan Phillippe, former husband of Reese Witherspoon, who named their son Deacon in honor of their distant family relation.

-Gary Livacari

 

Photo Credits: From photos provided by Dean Phillipi; and from Google search. Beautiful colorizations of Deacon Phillippe by Don Stokes: https://www.facebook.com/Don-Stokes-Old-Time-Baseball-Colorizations-923346241033508/?fref=ts

Information: Excerpts edited from information provided by e-mail by Dean Phillipi. Visit his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Dean.PhillippiSR?fref=ts; From the Deacon Phillipe SABR biography by Mark Armour: http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/939993be; and from the Deacon Phillipe Wikipedia page.

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