Carl Mays

He threw like nobody else in the league -- arm dropping low enough to nearly scrape the mound, the ball rising toward right-handed hitters from an angle their eyes weren't built to track. That submarine delivery made Carl Mays one of the best pitchers in baseball for the better part of five years in pinstripes, an 80-39 workhorse who anchored the Yankees' first pennant-winning rotation. It's also, unavoidably, the reason a single pitch on an August afternoon in 1920 has followed his name into every conversation about his career since.

Boston, Then a Trade

Mays broke in with the Red Sox in 1915 and pitched well there for years, but by the summer of 1919 the fit had broken down entirely. He was 5-11, unhappy with the team's direction, and after a mid-July incident on the field he simply left the club and refused to pitch for Boston again. Owner Harry Frazee, chronically short on cash, sold him rather than fight it out. The Yankees sent Bob McGraw, Allen Russell, and $40,000 to Boston on July 29, 1919, and Mays went 9-3 with a 1.65 ERA the rest of the way. It was the first move in a pipeline that would empty Frazee's roster into New York's for the next several years -- Babe Ruth followed five months later.

The Best Pitcher in New York

Mays spent 1920 and 1921 as the best pitcher on the best team in the American League. He went 26-11 in 1920, then topped it in 1921 with a 27-9 record, leading the AL in wins, innings pitched (336.2), and appearances as the Yankees won their first pennant. Miller Huggins built that rotation around him. When New York finally reached the World Series that October, Mays got the ball for Game 1 and shut the Giants out 3-0 -- the first World Series start by a Yankees pitcher in franchise history. He lost his next two starts in a Series the Yankees ultimately dropped, and lost again in the 1922 World Series rematch, but by then the bigger story of his tenure had already been written a year earlier.

August 16, 1920

That story is the death of Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman. Mays's submarine fastball struck Chapman in the head during the fifth inning at the Polo Grounds on August 16, 1920. Chapman died early the next morning. He remains the only player in Major League Baseball history to die from an injury sustained during a game. The district attorney investigated and ruled it an accident; no charges were filed. Mays finished that season 26-11, the same ace he'd been all year, but the incident stayed with him for the rest of his life and shaped how history has judged everything else he did on a mound.

The Decline and the Sale

Mays never fully got right with Huggins after that. His numbers slipped to 13-14 in 1922, and in 1923 the manager barely used him -- five wins, a 6.20 ERA, just seven starts in 23 appearances (Huggins had seen enough). Mays was still on the roster when the Yankees won their first World Series that October, though he didn't pitch in it. Two months later, on December 11, 1923, New York sold him to Cincinnati. He rebounded with the Reds, won 20 games in 1924, and pitched until 1929, finishing his career with well over 200 wins across four teams.

The Hall of Fame Question

Mays's career numbers read like a Hall of Famer's resume, and more than one baseball historian has said so directly. He never got close to Cooperstown anyway. The Chapman tragedy is the reason usually given, compounded by a reputation as a difficult teammate that predated it by years. Whether that's fair is a debate that's outlived nearly everyone who played alongside him. What isn't debatable is what he did in a Yankees uniform: five seasons, 80 wins, an ERA under 3.30, and a role in building the first winning era this franchise ever had.