Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
Mordecai Brown
Page 7
Brown, by contrast, was a miner, a farm kid, a man with a mangled hand, and a pitcher whose brilliance was described as "crafty" rather than "heroic."
Mathewson became the marble statue. Brown became the footnote.
His nickname worked against him. "Three Finger Brown" is memorable, but it also pigeonholed him as a curiosity rather than a titan. Fans remember the deformity. They don't remember his 2.06 career ERA – the third-best ever; his 1.04 ERA in 1906 – the third-best single season ever; his six straight 20 win seasons; his utter dominance in pressure games; and his five consecutive years, and six out of seven years of an ERA under 2.00.
His nickname turned him into a trivia answer instead of a legend.
Modern fans gravitate toward home runs, strikeouts, video clips, iconic moments, personalities, and scandals.
Brown's greatness was precision, movement, control, ground balls, and quiet dominance.
“One time I was warming up Brown and Bill Klem, the umpire, pushed me aside. He put a piece of paper the size of a half