The wet pitches of Bill Doak left batters high and dry.
One hundred years ago, in 1922, Doak pitched a pair of one-hitters for the Cardinals.
A lean, almost frail, right-hander, Doak’s signature pitch was a spitball. He started throwing the spitter in 1913, his first season with the Cardinals. Big-league baseball banned the spitball in 1920, but allowed 17 pitchers, including Doak, who regularly threw the pitch before then to continue using it for the remainder of their careers.
Adapt and innovate
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Doak reached the majors with the Reds, pitching in one game for them, against the Pirates, in 1912.
The Cardinals purchased Doak’s contract in 1913. Manager Miller Huggins suggested Doak try the spitball, and it turned around his career, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.
Doak was 19-6 for the 1914 Cardinals and led the National League in ERA (1.72). He told Baseball Magazine the spitter was “the easiest ball in the world to pitch.”
“The spitter is thrown with the same arm motion as the fastball, only you don’t have to put as much stuff on it to fool the batter,” Doak said.
In 1920, Doak earned 20 wins for the Cardinals. He also was credited with designing the modern fielding glove. It was his idea to put webbing between a glove’s thumb and first finger. Rawlings introduced the Bill Doak model in 1920, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.
Doak led the league in ERA (2.59) for a second time in 1921.
Beating the best
After posting 87 wins and finishing third in the league in 1921, the Cardinals, managed by Branch Rickey, were expecting to contend again in 1922.
Doak, 31, helped them to an 18-12 start, winning his first six decisions. The most impressive win in that stretch was a one-hitter against the reigning World Series champion Giants on Thursday afternoon May 11 at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis.
The first batter of the game, shortstop and future Hall of Famer Dave Bancroft, got the only Giants hit, a bunt single along the first-base line. He then was caught attempting to steal second.
The Giants, who had future Hall of Famers High Pockets Kelly, Ross Youngs and Bancroft in their starting lineup, and used another, Frankie Frisch, to pinch-hit, were hitless the rest of the game, a 2-0 Cardinals victory.
Doak, who walked four and struck out two, was the first pitcher to shut out the Giants in 1922. Boxscore
(In its game report, the New York Daily News noted, “The Cardinals are wearing a flossy home uniform this season. Across the breasts of their monkey suits are embroidered baseball bats, on each end of which are perched cardinal birds. The supposition is that two birds on a bat are worth one in a bush.”)
Infield hits
Two months later, on Thursday afternoon July 13 at Sportsman’s Park, Doak pitched another one-hitter against the Phillies.
Leading off the seventh inning, Curt Walker hit “an ordinary infield bounder” to the right of first baseman Jack Fournier, who gloved the ball about 20 feet from the bag, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Expecting Doak to cover first, Fournier looked to toss to him for the out, but Doak “was standing there on the hill apparently contented with himself and life in general,” the Philadelphia Inquirer wryly noted.
The grounder, described by the Post-Dispatch as “an out 999 times out of a thousand,” resulted in a single, depriving Doak of a no-hitter. The Cardinals won, 1-0. Boxscore
It was the second time Doak’s failure to cover first base cost him a no-hitter.
Two years earlier, on Tuesday afternoon Aug. 10, 1920, at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, Doak pitched a one-hitter versus the Phillies. In the seventh, Cy Williams hit a grounder to the right side. Fournier and second baseman Rogers Hornsby both pursued it. Hornsby got to it, but Doak again was frozen on the mound, allowing Williams to reach base safely with a single. Boxscore
(According to the Society for American Baseball Research, Doak had a bad back and that might have been the reason he failed to cover first base on those plays.)
High achiever
After his second one-hitter of 1922, Doak had a 10-6 record. but he lost his next seven decisions. He finished the season with an 11-13 mark and 5.54 ERA. The Cardinals went 85-69, eight games behind the champion Giants.
Doak continued to pitch in the majors until 1929 when he was 38.
In 13 seasons with the Cardinals, Doak was 144-136 with a 2.93 ERA.
He ranks second among Cardinals pitchers in career shutouts (30). Only Bob Gibson (56) pitched more shutouts for the Cardinals.
Doak also ranks sixth among Cardinals pitchers in both career wins (144) and innings pitched (2,387). He is fifth in starts (320) and ninth in strikeouts (938).
In 16 seasons with the Reds, Cardinals and Dodgers, Doak was 169-157 with a 2.98 ERA.