Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 165

A couple of fans approached, older men who remembered him from 1901, from the Cubs, from the Whales. They didn’t ask for autographs. They just wanted to shake his hand.

“You still got it, Brownie,” one said.

Brown smiled. “Some days.”

He knew he wouldn’t have many more. But he also knew this. He’d posted an ERA he could be proud of, on a team that couldn’t score, in a town that had always felt like home. He’d gone out not with a roar, but with a clean, honest day’s work.

And for a man like Mordecai Brown, that was the perfect ending; a coal miner’s wildest dream.

Second Minor League Stint Pitching Record

Year Age Team Lg W L W-L% ERA G

1917 40 Columbus AA 10 12 .455 2.77 30

1918 41 Columbus AA 3 2 .600 N/A 12

1919 42 Indianapolis AA 0 3 .000 3.48 6

1919 42 Terre Haute IIIL 16 6 .727 2.88 33

1920 43 Terre Haute IIIL 4 6 .400 2.59 13

Total 33 29 2.87 94