(Entry No. 4)

Name This Week’s Mystery Player!

How well you do know your old-time players?

Each week, I’ll post an old-time ballplayer and you can test your knowledge of “the old days” of baseball.  Some of them will be easier than others, so it’s time to put your thinking caps on!

My goal in this feature is to shine our baseball spotlight on some very good players from days gone by who have been overshadowed by the likes of Ruth, Gehrig, Speaker, Hornsby, Grove, Greenberg, Robinson, Gibson, and Williams, among many other superstars the game has produced. Hopefully, we can give them a little exposure before they are totally lost over the passage of time. 

Player Identity: Hooks Wiltse

As always on Baseball History Comes Alive, we can have some fun while enhancing our baseball history learning experience. Each entry will include a short description of the player and highlights from his career. And I might even add my own personal comment or two about him.

SEND ME YOUR ANSWERS VIA EMAIL RATHER THAN POSTING! Livac2@aol.com

So as to give everyone a chance to guess without the player’s identity being immediately revealed, send me your answer via e-mail instead of leaving your answer in the comments section. At the end of the week, I’ll post the names of everyone who got the correct answer.

Send to me at: Livac2@aol.com.

This week’s mystery player: 

Today we go deep into the Dead Ball Era. This week’s mystery player was a major leaguer for 12 seasons from 1904 to 1915, mostly for the Giants. He earned a unique nickname because of his exceptional curveball and was one of the earliest pitchers to have a curveball regarded as being much more effective than his fastball. Very few people ever called him by his given first name. 

From 1904 to 1914, he pitched for the National League‘s New York Giants. During that time, he combined with teammate Christy Mathewson for 435 wins, making them one of the best lefty-righty duos in history. He won five pennants with the Giants and pitched 3 1⁄3 innings in the 1911 World Series. Who is he?

For some unknown reason, this player has always been one of my favorite DBE guys. Maybe it’s because I’ve done a lot of identifying of DBE players over the years, and he was always easy to pick out because of his angular, skinny face. Whatever the reason, I’ve always liked him. 

This week’s bonus questions:

What Federal League team did he also play for?

His brother played in the majors and also had a unique nickname. What was it?

If you’d like to take a stab at identifying this player, please send me your answer via email: Livac2@aol.com. But feel free to add any comments or personal reflections you might have about him in the comments section below.

Last Week’s Winner:

Congratulations to Paul Doyle, as the first to correctly identify last week’s mystery player as Wally Berger.

The following all identified the mystery player correctly: Terry Farmer, Paul Doyle, Murray Cook, Fred Holbrook, Ed Cassidy, Michael Bresina, Alex de Ravel, David R. Niven, Al Citro, John Shreve, Bob Rambo, Michel Keedy.

Congrats to all! You guys are hard to stump!

Click here to see previous Mystery Player entries