Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:01 pm
Good grief. It took half an hour. Yes, his name was Charlie Faust and he joined the Giants in late July of 1911 , while they were in St. Louis, likely on the 29th when they were 3rd, 3.5 games out. Initially, they just let him run around on the field during batting practice and they won the final 3 games of that road series. But McGraw left him off the train for Pittsburgh and the Giants concluded the road trip by going 1-2 in both Pittsburgh and Chicago, returning home 2.5 games out and still in 3rd.
But Faust met them at the Polo Grounds and McGraw gave him a uniform. The Giants proceeded to go on a 32-8 tear. His SABR biography says that the Giants were 39-9, and 36-2 when he was in uniform, but I think they're wrong, although his on-again, off-again roster spot could mean that they are correct. He was with the team sporadically during their long August home stand, performing in vaudeville and briefly trying to hook on with the Dodgers. But McGraw took him with the team on their long September-October road trip. They went 19-4 (again, the SABR article has their record wrong, although several of the games were makeups of games that had been rained out in New York)) and returned home having clinched the pennant.
Once the Giants clinched, McGraw let him pitch the 9th inning a couple of times; he allowed 1 run in the two appearances and managed to score a run in the last game of the season.
