Top 106 Baseball Players: #80 - Ed Walsh

Ed Walsh

Ed Walsh was an amazing pitcher for the Chicago White Sox early in the last century, but he burned out early due to overwork, though what he did was enough to get him on this list.

He broke into the majors in 1904 just days before his 23rd birthday, and he spent his first couple of seasons as a spot starter and middle reliever. When he broke into the starting rotation in 1906, he was immediately the ace, not just of the team but of the entire league.

That season he led the league with 10 shutouts, while posting a 1.88 ERA, and the White Sox also won the AL pennant that year, with Walsh winning 2 games in the World Series. In Game 3, he struck out 12 batters, which was a record at the time, and he also recorded at least one strikeout in every inning, a feat that has only been matched by Bob Gibson in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series.

The following season he led the league in a lot of categories, including games pitched, started, complete games, saves, innings pitched and ERA. Even after that, he somehow improved the next season, leading the league in strikeouts, wins, and shutouts, in addition to everything from the previous season except ERA. That year he started 49 games, and completed 42 of them, 11 in shutout fashion, and he ended the season with 40 wins, something nobody has done since.

Two years later he posted a 1.27 ERA, best in the league, and ended up with the best ERA ever for a pitcher who finished with a losing record after at least 20 starts. He had 2 more dominant seasons after that, before his arm gave out and his career basically ended.

From 1906 to 1912, he had an ERA below 2.22 every year, pitched in at least 40 games 6 times, pitched at last 20 complete games every season, reached 200 strikeouts 5 times, and led the league in saves 5 times as well. The overwork ruined his arm, and he was rarely ever able to overcome the pain enough to pitch again.

Over the final 5 seasons of his career, he appeared in only 33 games, which is a number of games he surpassed 6 times in the previous 7 single seasons, and though he still pitched well when he appeared, his starts were so sporadic that he was eventually let go.

Walsh had one of the greatest 7-year stretches for a pitcher in history, and he still holds the all-time record for career ERA (1.82). He was by far the best pitcher in the 1906 World Series, and nobody has since come close to the number of innings pitched or complete games he threw in 1907 and 1908. Though he flamed out at age 31, he still deserves to be remembered as one of the all-time greats.