Not even a dugout full of four-leaf clovers would have been enough to help Patsy Donovan turn the 1903 Cardinals into winners.
What Donovan needed more than the luck of the Irish was a dugout full of run producers and premium pitchers.
As player-manager of the 1903 Cardinals, Donovan (pictured here) did all he could. He was a crafty hitter and a smart manager _ and he also had a rookie pitcher who would become a Hall of Famer _ but that was not enough to compete in the National League 120 years ago.
The 1903 Cardinals finished in last place in the eight-team league at 43-94. Their .314 winning percentage is the lowest in Cardinals franchise history, and the 43 wins are the fewest by a Cardinals club in a season not shortened by labor strife or pandemic.
Popular lad
Born in County Cork, Ireland, Patsy Donovan immigrated to the United States with his family when he was a boy and settled in Massachusetts.
An outfielder and left-handed batter, Donovan reached the big leagues in 1890 and replaced Connie Mack as player-manager of the Pirates in 1896. “As a field general, Patsy ranks with the best in the business,” The Pittsburgh Press noted.
After the 1899 season, the Pirates had an ownership change and Donovan’s contract was sold to the Cardinals. Playing right field for them in 1900, Donovan hit .316 with 45 stolen bases, but the team finished 65-75.
Donovan became Cardinals player-manager in 1901 and led them to a 76-64 record. He hit .303 with 73 RBI and 28 steals. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch declared that “Donovan comes very near to being the best-versed man in the inside workings of the game.”
Many eyes, Irish or otherwise, were smiling on Donovan, whose “classic features (unlike those of some roughhouse ballplayers) don’t look as if they had been chiseled out with a crowbar,” the Post-Dispatch observed.
As the newspaper noted, “The ladies turned out in full force to see the old favorite of the fair fans, Patsy Donovan.”
Shuffling the Cards
Any hopes the Cardinals had of continuing a rise in the National League standings in 1902 were dashed when the fledgling American League made a raid on their roster. Five of their eight starting position players (first baseman Dan McGann, second baseman Dick Padden, shortstop Bobby Wallace, left fielder Jesse Burkett and center fielder Emmet Heidrick) and three top starting pitchers (Jack Harper, Jack Powell and Willie Sudhoff) were enticed to jump to the American League. Most went to the St. Louis Browns.
Donovan hit .315 with 34 steals in 1902, but with so much of his supporting cast departed, the Cardinals fell to 56-78.
Discouraged, Donovan resigned and planned to quit baseball. “He had no money (from the Cardinals) with which to build up a team,” the Post-Dispatch reported in November 1902. “With the prospect of going through another season like the one closed, Donovan concluded he wanted to change.”
Cardinals owners Frank and Stanley Robison convinced Donovan to change his mind and come back for the 1903 season. To help appease him, they acquired a third baseman, Jimmy Burke, from the Pirates and purchased the contract of a minor-league pitcher, Mordecai Brown.
Helping hands
A son of Irish immigrant parents, Jimmy Burke was born and raised in Old North St. Louis. Playing for the Shamrocks, an amateur sandlot team, Burke developed a reputation as a scrappy competitor. As The Sporting News noted, “He made up in hustle and fight what he may have lacked in exceptional ability.”
Mordecai Brown hailed from Nyesville, Ind., 30 miles northeast of Terre Haute. He was a youth when he mangled his right hand in a corn chopper accident, the Chicago Tribune reported. Soon after, he fell while chasing an animal on the family farm and did more damage to the hand.
As a teen, Brown worked in a coal mine and played baseball. Because of the unusual way he was forced to grip the ball in his deformed hand, Brown’s pitches had an unorthodox spin that often baffled batters, the Chicago Tribune noted.
Brown was 24 when he entered professional baseball with a minor-league team in Terre Haute in 1901. After posting 27 wins for Omaha in 1902, he was signed by the Cardinals, and by then he had a nickname _ Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown.
On the skids
Donovan began to feel optimistic about his 1903 team. In February, he told The Pittsburgh Press, “The Cardinals will be much stronger than they were last year.”
The good vibes continued when the Cardinals won their season opener, beating the Cubs, 2-1, on a five-hitter by Clarence Currie. Boxscore
“Three Finger” Brown made his big-league debut against the Cubs and pitched a one-hit shutout for the win in a game shortened to five innings because of rain. Boxscore
Before Brown’s next start, against Pittsburgh, “Patsy Donovan warned the Pirates that they would be surprised when they saw his find in the person of a pitcher with only three (usable) digits on his throwing hand,” The Pittsburgh Press reported. “The (Pirates) laughed, but their laughs turned to weeping when the battle was on.”
Brown gave up five runs in the fourth inning, held the Pirates scoreless for the other eight innings, and got the win. Boxscore
The good times faded fast. After a 6-7 record in April, the Cardinals were 4-23 in May. They collapsed over the last two months, losing 38 of 48 games. Their 43-94 mark for the season put them 46.5 games behind the National League champion Pirates (91-49).
The Cardinals gave up the most runs (787) in the league and scored the fewest (505). Their top home run slugger, Homer Smoot, hit four.
Patsy Donovan, 38, was the club’s leading hitter (.327) and also had 25 stolen bases. Jimmy Burke hit .285 with 28 steals.
“Three Finger” Brown led the pitching staff in ERA (2.60) and strikeouts (83), and tied Chappie McFarland for the team high in wins (nine).
On the move
After the season, the Cardinals made matters worse, trading “Three Finger” Brown and catcher Jack O’Neill to the Cubs for pitcher Jack Taylor and catcher Larry McLean. Patsy Donovan left to manage the Washington Senators.
Brown went on to help the Cubs win four National League pennants and two World Series titles. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Donovan finished with 2,256 hits and a .301 batting average. He managed the Senators, Dodgers and Red Sox after leaving the Cardinals.
In 1914, when he was a Red Sox scout, Donovan was sent to Baltimore to check out a pitching prospect, Dave Danforth. The player who got his attention was Babe Ruth. Donovan told the Red Sox to sign Ruth immediately and, acting on his recommendation, they did, The Sporting News reported.
According to the Associated Press, Donovan’s acquaintance with one of the Xavierian brothers who coached Ruth at a Baltimore orphanage helped get The Babe to sign with the Red Sox.
Described by The Sporting News as “a great developer of young players,” Donovan was hired to manage the minor-league Buffalo Bisons in 1915. He encouraged one of their infielders, Joe McCarthy, “to study the strategy of the game,” The Sporting News reported.
McCarthy followed Donovan’s advice and embarked on a managing career with the Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox that led to his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
RetroSimba 
He WAS quite handsome compared to the players (and the general public) of the time who looked mostly like their DNA was stepped on a few times before being conceived.
I’m always so interested in people who influenced the game in a major way but somehow fell between the cracks, so this was right up my alley. Thanks, Mark.
Your interest in baseball history is appreciated, Gary.
Related to Patsy Donovan, Babe Ruth and the Red Sox, I didn’t know until doing the research that The Bambino could have gone to the A’s.
In the book “Babe: The Legend Comes To Life,” author Robert Creamer wrote that Baltimore club owner Jack Dunn offered Ruth to Connie Mack before he met with Red Sox owner Joseph Lannin, “but Mack was not in a buying mood and was already making plans to get rid of the stars of his team after the season, which he eventually did.”
I agree with Gary. Interesting tale about an influencer of the sport many don’t know of.
Much appreciated, Bruce.
Patsy Donovan had a hand in reviving the pitching career of The Squire of Kennett Square Pennsylvania, Herb Pennock.
In 1916, Pennock was demoted by the Red Sox to the minor leagues and ended up with Buffalo, which was managed by Patsy Donovan. Under Donovan’s care, Pennock regained his confidence and control of his pitches, posting a 1.67 ERA in 13 decisions.
Pennock returned to the majors later that season and went on to earn election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In the 1940s, he was general manager of the Phillies.
It’s always good to learn a little history!! The Browns sure did a good job of raiding the Cardinals back then. I didn’t know that they had also convinced Christy Matthewson to sign with them. If they didn’t receive any compensation though for voiding that contract they got the short end of the stick. I had no idea of the connection between Patsy Donovan and Babe Ruth. Just this, along with his personal accomplishments as a player and manager, in my opinion, should have been more than enough to induct him I’m the HOF.
Thanks for all the good insights, Phillip. It is amazing that the Browns were for a while the more prominent franchise in St. Louis.
In his column of Jan. 19, 1949, Arthur Daley of the New York Times noted that many old-timers expressed the believe that Patsy Donovan was deserving of election to the Hall of Fame _ both for his playing career and for his achievements in finding and developing prominent talent.
In the final paragraph of his piece, Daley concluded, “Maybe Patsy Donovan doesn’t rate the Hall of Fame, but the special committee could do a lot worse than investigate his qualifications. A grateful Joe McCarhty is one chap who will fervently second the motion.”
Very good article. Like some others have commented, I love reading about personalities that are all but lost to history, and have them come alive again in print.
With the Cardinals being a consistent losing franchise over the first 25 years of the “modern” era, I sometimes wonder how the club kept going. With the Browns also in town, it is a wonder the Cardinals were not moved in those early days, maybe to Milwaukee or perhaps Indianapolis.
Donovan’s impact on the game was significant, with his recommendation of Ruth, and helping guys like Herb Pennock and Joe McCarthy hone their strengths. Like was said, you could do a lot worse than add Patsy Donovan’s name to the Hall of Fame roll call.
Thanks, Michael. Those were fascinating, if not always successful, times for the Cardinals.
After Patsy Donovan departed, the Cardinals hired longtime Boston Braves pitcher Kid Nichols to be their player-manager in 1904. Nichols, 34, was a tremendous pitcher. He posted a 21-13 record and 2.02 ERA in 35 starts for the 1904 Cardinals, who finished 75-79.
The next year, Nichols feuded with one of the Cardinals’ owners, Stanley Robison. In May 1905, Nichols was fired as manager (and replaced by infielder Jimmy Burke) but kept as a pitcher. Later that summer, the Cardinals let him go to the Phillies. He never managed in the majors again.
Kid Nichols is another name that rarely gets mentioned today, but he had a big-league pitching record of 362-208 and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
This is fantastic Mark! What an impact on baseball Donovan had, an under appreciated or under reported one. Thanks for bringing this, for bringing him to light.
One side note, the “raids on rosters” by the American League reminds me of what’s going on today with the MLB grabbing players from Japan, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela and other places and come to think of it, I guess we could say the MLB did it with the Negro Leagues too.
Thanks, Steve. Lots of changes in baseball since the Patsy Donovan days, but one thing that has remained constant: Ballplayers will follow the money. The American League was successful in its initial raids on the National League because its teams offered higher salaries. Players leave their countries today to play in the majors because MLB offers the highest wages.