“It was such a radical sidearm motion that it almost ended up being an underhand throw,” adds Doxsie. “He felt that put less wear and tear on his arm. When he pitched a double header sometimes he would throw one game with an overhand, more conventional motion, and one using that underarm motion.”
According to baseball-reference.com, McGinnity said: “Nothing can hurt my arm. I can throw curves like that all day. Last year, I pitched a 21-inning game for Peoria that took four hours. I never hurt my arm.”
He and his wife lived in Springfield at 724 West Washington, with McGinnity spending his time between here and Decatur from 1894 to 1897. (Joe also lived in Springfield about a year as a kid.) He worked as a coal miner and bartender, and for a while co-owned a saloon on Sixth Street, Doxsie says. But he concentrated on ball.
McGinnity joined a Springfield semipro team that “played them all, from Peoria, Decatur, St. Louis, Bloomington or anywhere else,” according to the Nov. 15, 1929, Illinois State Journal. “And before long, he was tossing them over whenever needed, be it once, twice or eight times a week…Those were the days when a ball player was satisfied with a dollar a game and called it a big day if he collected $2 and $3.”
After 1897, McGinnity left Springfield for Peoria to play in its Three-I League. In 1899 the Baltimore Orioles signed him and he later played for the Brooklyn Superbas and the New York Giants.
The “Iron Man” pitched until he was 54.
The last minor league game he ever played was in Springfield for the Springfield Senators on July 28, 1925. Earlier that day he pitched an “old-timers game.”
McGinnity died in 1929. After his death, the Illinois State Journal commemorated him. The Nov. 15, 1929, edition said he was “a fighter with brains” who was a “hard player” and a “hard loser.” Doxsie says: “They took (his body) back to be buried in Oklahoma where his wife was buried, but on the way the train stopped in St. Louis and a lot of people from Decatur and Springfield went down to St. Louis just to see the train as it passed through, because he was so wellthought of.”
Contact Tara McAndrew at [email protected].
