50-77, Chart

When Providence failed to win the pennant at the end of the 1883 season the franchise was on shaky financial ground. They brought in a new manager, Frank Carter Bancroft and made it plain; win the pennant or the team would be disbanded.

Jealousy and hatred between Hoss and Charlie Sweeney, the other ace pitcher on the team, broke out into violence in the club house. Hoss was faulted as the initiator of the fight and after a poor outing on July 16 was suspended without pay. (He deliberately lost the game by lobbing soft pitches over the plate). But on 22 July Sweeney had been drinking before the start of the game and continued drinking in the dug out between innings. Wild and plastered Sweeney managed to make it to the seventh inning with a lead of 6 to 2. Bancroft attempted to relieve him with the change pitcher playing right field but Sweeney stormed out of the park in a rage, leaving the Providence side with only eight players. With only two men to cover the outfield they lost the game.

The mood among the owners and managers that evening was gloomy. Both their aces gone and the rest of the team in poor morale. Consensus was that the team should be disbanded immediately. At that point Ole Hoss stepped out of the shadows and offered to start every game for the rest of the season in exchange for a small raise and exemption from the reserve clause next season. From that point, July 23 to September 24 when the pennant was clinched, Providence played 43 games, Radbourn started 40 of them and won 36. Soon, pitching every other day as he was, his arm became so sore he couldn’t raise it to comb his hair. On game day he was at the ball park hours before the start, getting warmed up. He began his warm up by throwing just a few feet, increasing the distance gradually until he was pitching from second base and finally from short center field. The other players would look at each other and say “Ole Hoss is ready and we can’t be beat” 3