Wood Gets Called Up to a Higher League

He passed across America’s early baseball scene like a comet, dropping as quickly from sight as he appeared. And when he died, 14 years ago today, at 95, he was the oldest former big leaguer.

Joe Wood, best known as Smokey Joe Wood, burst out of small town America in 1906, when scouts descended on Ness City, Kan., to see the 16-year-old right-hander who threw so hard, it was said, the hiss on his fastball could be heard from the bleachers. Hence, the nickname, “Smokey Joe.”

Signed by the Red Sox, Wood struck out major leaguers almost as routinely as he did batters from Kansas town teams. He was a Red Sox starter at 18 and in 1912 had one of baseball’s greatest seasons.

He went 34-5, struck out 258 in 344 innings and registered a 1.91 earned-run average. He threw 10 shutouts and won three more games in the World Series.

And then, at 22, his career was over.

In 1913, at spring training, he slipped on wet grass, fell, and broke the thumb on his pitching hand. It healed, but he never again threw without pain.

“I went to a hundred doctors,” Wood said in the 1960s. “None were ever able to help me. Nowadays, a cortisone shot probably would have fixed it, but that was over 50 years ago.”

From 1922 to 1942, he was Yale’s baseball coach. He lived in West Haven, Conn., in his final years, fit and healthy into his nineties. A reporter visiting him in 1982, when he was 92, found him with another broken thumb.

He’d fallen off his roof, he explained, trying to repair a leak.

Also on this date: In 1968, Detroit Tiger pitcher Denny McLain, on his way to being the last 30-game winner, reached 20 victories.