The last Major League Baseball player to hail from Ireland (prior to P.J. Conlon of Northern Ireland) had a day to forget in his only big league game.
In 1945, Joe “Fire” Cleary pitched one-third of an inning for the Washington Senators. He was relieved by Bert Shepard, a one-legged World War II veteran, after posting this incredible stat line:
Cleary came in with runners on base, thanks to a poor pitching performance from the starter, Sandy Ullrich. He actually thought he pitched the first batter perfectly, getting him to ground into an inning-ending double play … until the ball took a bad hop. Things unraveled from there.
At least he had the one strikeout (of opposing pitcher Dave “Boo” Ferriss), which he described to the Baltimore Post as such:
“The man was up to bat for the second time during the inning. He hit two wicked fouls down the third base side. I decided to waste a pitch at that point. I did such a good job of wasting it, that it sailed about two feet to the right of home plate, and by the time the catcher had retrieved it, the runner on first had made it to third. The batter was laughing so hard that he totally missed my next pitch and struck out.”
Here’s how that mound “meeting” went:
“Someone threw me the ball and I’m standing on the mound rubbing it up,” Cleary recalled the incident to author Richard Tellis. “I look over at the dugout and I see [Washington manager Ossie] Bluege waving at me. He’s got one leg on the step of the dugout and he’s waving at me to come out. I thought, he’s got to be kidding. What the hell can he be thinking? No manager takes his pitcher out that way. You go to the mound. You don’t embarrass him. So I stood there rubbing the ball and waiting. [First baseman] Joe Kuhel came over and he said he never saw anything like that and he’d been around a long time. He called it bush league. I told Kuhel, ‘I’m not leaving.’ Finally, the umpire came over and said, ‘Son, I think you better go,’ so I left.” Only after Shepard reached the mound, though, to take his place. “Anyone can have a bad day, but imagine being replaced by a guy with one leg,” Cleary lamented to New York Times writer Richard Margolick in 1999. “I took 30-mile hikes in the Army that weren’t as long [as that walk to the dugout].” Cleary said Bluege then yelled an expletive at him after he sat down in the dugout. When Cleary swore back at Bluege, the Washington players had to separate the two from a fist fight. The next day Cleary’s contract was transferred to Buffalo of the International League, where Bucky Harris, the Nats’ skipper in 1941, was the manager.
Rob Neyer also wrote about the exchange:
With that, Nats manager Ossie Bluege didn’t bother with a trip to the mound; instead, he simply motioned for Cleary to exit the field. Grudgingly, the pitcher took his seat in the dugout. And then, as Cleary later recalled, “I heard Bluege say, ‘Pitcher, my f***ing ass!’ and I yelled back at him, ‘Go f*** yourself!’ We went for each other, but the other players got between us and shoved me down the stairs into the dressing room.”
The next day, Cleary was sent to Buffalo in the International League, and he never pitched in the majors again.
<p value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">Cleary never got another chance with an MLB club, owning the highest ERA possible for anyone who retired a batter. Cleary never got another chance with an MLB club, owning the highest ERA possible for anyone who retired a batter.Altogether, there have been 47 Irishmen in Major League Baseball — such as Tony Mullane and Tommy Bond, pitchers who won 284 and 234 games, respectively. Both pitched before the 1900s. Following a 17-year playing career, Patsy Donovan managed the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Senators, Brooklyn Superbas and the Boston Red Sox.
However, Cleary wasn’t bitter about his Major League experience.
“You know, in the neighborhood bars they kid me,” Cleary told author Brent Kelley. “I take an awful needlin’ about that, that one appearance. The main thing I get kidded about is the earned run average; it’s the highest in major league history, you know. [laughs] But I always say to them, ‘I was there.'”
While I love seeing Irish-American players (such as, yes, Giancarlo Stanton), I’d really love to see the next Irish ballplayer in the Major Leagues soon. Baseball is really growing in Ireland, thanks to the efforts of the Baseball United Foundation. Go ahead and give them and Baseball Ireland a like. They’re working to expand the game of baseball in Ireland — and to give Joe Cleary someone to root for.
Justin Lafferty 