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Stan Coveleski

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Stan Coveleski was born on Saturday, July 13, 1889 in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Coveleski was 23 years old when he broke into the big leagues on September 10, 1912, with the Philadelphia Athletics. Despite the spitter's eccentricity, Coveleski was a control pitcher who averaged one walk every 3.86 innings over fourteen years. He was equally sparing with strikeouts. Because of his control many batters swung at his first pitch. A number of times he got out of an inning with three pitches, and on one occasion he went seven innings when every pitch was a strike, a foul, or a hit. He had claimed success in fanning Ruth and in reducing Cobb's effectiveness by feeding him fastballs inside.

Overall, he had 39 shutouts, a streak of 13 wins in 1925 when he was 36 years old, and six consecutive seasons pitching more than 276 innings. His best years were with Cleveland, particularly the championship year of 1920 when he won three splendid five-hitters against Brooklyn in the Series. He allowed a total of two runs and two walks, struck out eight, and had an ERA, Earned Run Average of 0.67. His 0.800 winning percentage and 2.84 ERA, Earned Run Average led the American League as the 1925 Senators repeated as American League champions. He lost two, however, in the Series against the Pirates. A quiet, modest man, Stan Coveleski was the youngest and most successful of his five ball-playing brothers.

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