James Creighton, Jr.

James Creighton, Jr. (April 15, 1841 – October 18, 1862) was a pitcher in baseball's earliest era. Among his many accomplishments, he was in all likelihood the first professional ballplayer, threw the first fastball, completed the first recorded triple play, and is considered by baseball historians to be the game's first superstar. cite news |first=Jim |last=Thorn |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Jim Creighton |url=http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&bid=770&pid=0 |quote=James Creighton was the greatest pitcher of his day. Famous principally for his exploits on behalf of the champion Excelsiors of Brooklyn in the years 1860 to 1862, he possessed an unprecedented combination of speed, spin and command that virtually defined the position for all those who followed. Prior to Creighton, pitchers had been constrained by the rule that "the ball must be pitched, not thrown, for the bat." This meant that (a) the ball had to be delivered underhand, in the stiff-armed, stiff-wristed manner borrowed from cricket's early days and (b), in the absence of called strikes, an innovation of 1858, or called balls, which came into the game six years later, the ball had to be placed at the batter's pleasure: the infant game of baseball was designed to display and reward its most difficult skill, which was neither pitching nor batting, but fielding. |publisher=SABR |date= |accessdate=2007-08-21 ]

Personal life

Little is known about Jim Creighton's life before his baseball career. He was born in New York City, New York, and he and his family later lived at 307 Henry Street in Brooklyn.

Early career

Before the formation of organized baseball leagues, a career in the sport was a far different proposition than it is today. Amateur ballclubs would form and spend much of the time playing intrasquad matches, holding exhibitions with other clubs. Much of baseball prior to the Civil War was centered in New York. In 1857, at the age of sixteen, Creighton helped to form his first club, the Young America Base Ball Club. It lasted only through the year, at which point Creighton and a friend, George Flanley, founded the Niagara Club.

Discovered by the Stars

In 1859, Creighton and the Niagaras were losing a match to the well-established Star Club when Creighton, who had to this point been used primarily in the infield, came into the game as a relief pitcher and proceeded to throw the ball unthinkably hard for the time; the Star batsmen claimed that he used a snap of the wrist to deliver the "speedball", as he called it. (At the time, the rules of baseball stated that a pitcher must deliver the ball underhanded, locked straight at the elbow and the wrist.) Regardless of the legality of his pitch, the Stars immediately snapped Creighton and Flanley up, and the two finished the season with them.

The Stars were unable to keep Creighton, either, and before 1860 he joined one of the highest-profile clubs in the game at the time, Excelsior of Brooklyn, which considered themselves the champions of America. In 1860 and 1861, with Creighton fast becoming a national sensation, they backed up that claim by going on the first national tour, down the eastern coast of the United States. Creighton defeated the hometown teams wherever the Excelsiors went, and gained such popularity that many youth teams in the areas they played named themselves the Creightons in his honor. It was during this 1860 tour that he pitched baseball's first recorded shutout.

Such was his dominance that after he held the famed Brooklyn Atlantics to five runs, an extraordinarily low total for the era, the "Brooklyn Eagle" dispatched a reporter to determine whether or not his pitch was legal; in the end, it was determined he was throwing a "fair square pitch", rather than a "jerk" or an "underhand throw."

The year 1862 was business as usual for the 21-year-old Creighton, who had become the game's greatest player as a hitter and a pitcher. During that year, it is said that he was not put out a single time at the plate, and only four times overall. (At the time, players out on the basepaths were charged with the out, instead of the batter as today.) His pitching, which had also spawned the first changeup (he called it his 'dew-drop'), continued to be exceptional.

Death

However, in October of 1862, in the midst of his greatest season, Creighton died suddenly. Such was his fame at the time of his death, and such was the grief of the baseball community, that a 12-foot marble obelisk, topped with a large baseball, was erected at his gravesite. For the next several years, the Excelsiors' programs had a portrait of their fallen star, shrouded in black, featured prominently in the center.

There are several explanations for his death. The generally accepted explanation, which has existed from the time of his death, is that he fatally injured himself while playing baseball. At the time, players swung massive bats almost entirely with their upper body; it is said that a particularly hard swing from Creighton – some versions of the story have it as a home run swing – caused an internal injury. Remarking to teammate George Flanley that he had perhaps snapped a belt, he continued playing but was in extreme pain hours later. A few days later, he died at his parents' house.

In an 1887 issue of early sports newspaper "The Sporting Life", a letter-writer, who signed only as "Old Timer", sent in his account of the event. Robert Smith ("Baseball in America", Holt Rinehart Winston, 1961, p.10,13) as well as the Findagrave website [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3296] reported it is a ruptured bladder. SABR researcher John Thorn concluded ruptured inguinal hernia. [http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=770&pid=16900] Others speculate that it was some already-present injury or disease, or that his appendix or spleen had burst after the game. Contemporary writers were vague, only stating that he had suffered a "strain".

Regardless, baseball's first superstar was dead. Had he survived, he would have been thirty when baseball's first professional league, the National Association, was founded.

He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= Ground as Hallowed as Cooperstown; Green-Wood Cemetery, Home to 200 Baseball Pioneers |url= |quote= Before A-Rod and Jeter, there were J-Creigh and Woodward. That would be James Creighton Jr., the world's first true baseball star, and John B. Woodward, an outfielder who became a Union general in the Civil War. Both played for the Excelsior Club -- sort of the Yankees of the early 1860's -- and now both reside in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. ... Mr. Nash discovered some monuments, like that of Duncan Curry, by sheer chance, while walking through the cemetery. Curry, first president of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club, is immortalized with a monument that proudly dubs him "Father of Baseball" because he headed the club that scholars say first codified many of the game's rules. ... Another Green-Wood resident, DeWolf Hopper, a thespian, delivered a rendition of the Ernest Thayer poem, "Casey at the Bat," shortly after it was published in 1888, and proceeded to perform it more than 10,000 times over the next half-century. One of his six marriages was to a Hollywood socialite who took his name: Hedda Hopper. At Tulip Hill, the imposing granite vault of the three Patchen brothers -- Sam Patchen (shortstop), Joe Patchen (right field) and Edward Patchen (infielder) -- is the only crypt of early baseball players, the Alou brothers of their time. ... A happier story is that of Charles J. Smith, "one of the great players of the 1860's," Mr. Richman said. He was buried in a seemingly unmarked grave at Green-Wood. But investigation by a grounds crew discovered his monument last year, a few feet underground, where it had sunk. It has now been restored. |publisher=New York Times |date=April 1, 2004 |accessdate=2007-08-21 ]

References

External links

* [http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/4197/42/ Essay on Creighton]