Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #46A: James C. "Jim" Delahanty. Second baseman for the Washington Senators in 1907-1909. 1,159 hits, 19 home runs and 151 stolen bases in 13 MLB seasons. Debuted with the Chicago Orphans in 1901. His best season was 1911 as he posted a .411 OBP with 15 stolen bases for the Detroit Tigers in 628 plate appearances. In all he had 5 MLB seasons with more than 500 plate appearances.

Delahanty's SABR biography discusses his baseball career and time in Washington: Remembered mostly for his more famous older brother Ed, Jim Delahanty was a fine player in his own right, and one of the most well-traveled hitters of the Deadball Era. During a professional career that lasted nearly two decades, the free-swinging right-hander played for fifteen different clubs, including eight in the major leagues. Despite his lengthy itinerary as a professional ballplayer, Delahanty bore an excellent reputation within his profession. “Delahanty is looked upon as one of the ‘classy’ boys of the American League,” Alfred Spink wrote in 1910. “He is a most graceful fielder and a congenial sort of a fellow both on and off the field.” Though second base was his primary position, during his career the versatile Irishman filled every position on the diamond except catcher, and finished his career with an excellent .283 batting average in 1,186 career games.

Delahanty lasted only 33 games with the Browns, contributing a disappointing .221 batting average with only three extra base hits before St. Louis sold him to the Washington Senators on June 11, 1907. Shifted to second base full time, Delahanty found his new environs to his liking, batting .292 in 108 games for Washington. The following year, Delahanty put in another fine season, batting .317 in 83 games, though his campaign was marred by nagging injuries and an ugly incident in his hometown of Cleveland on August 4. In a game which Washington lost 7-5, Delahanty and teammate Otis Clymer were ejected for arguing with umpire Silk O’Loughlin. According to reports, Delahanty responded to the ejection by unleashing a torrent of profanity that could be heard throughout the park. American League president Ban Johnson responded to the incident by suspending Delahanty, fining him $50, and banning him from the Cleveland park for one year. Not surprisingly, Delahanty considered the ruling unfair and excessive. “O’Loughlin’s decisions were way off and I told him so, and when he put me out of the game I grew sore and said things to him, but I did it quietly and no one in the stands heard it,” Delahanty insisted. In order to be fair to the other contenders in that year’s hotly contested pennant race, Washington manager Joe Cantillon decided that if Delahanty could not play in Cleveland, he also wouldn’t play him in Detroit, Chicago, or St. Louis, a decision which resulted in Delahanty missing 14 games in addition to the 13 Johnson had suspended him for. At the start of the next season, Johnson lifted the Cleveland ban.

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