Old Hoss Radbourn Won 60 Games In 1884

Published on March 28th, 2025 8:58 pm EST
Written By: Dave Manuel


In this day and age, a starting pitcher is lucky if he gets 30 starts in a season.

In 1884, Old Hoss Radbourn appeared in 75 games and won 60 of them.

Talk about an unbeatable record.

In 1884, Old Hoss Radbourn won 60 games, pitched 678.2 innings and struck out 441 batters.

As if this weren't impressive enough, Radbourn put up an ERA of just 1.38, giving him the Triple Crown for the season.

Back in those days, there weren't large starting pitching rotations or deep bullpens.

You usually had a couple of starting pitchers and a "change pitcher" who would provide relief when an outing was going really poorly.

The Providence Grays were in a bad spot heading into the 1884 season. The team was in a bad spot financially, and the message from the owners was clear - if the team didn't win, the Grays would be disbanded.

The two starting pitchers for the Grays heading into the 1884 season were Old Hoss Radbourn and Charlie Sweeney.

The two men hated each other - it was reported that Radbourn was jealous of Sweeney's success.

The tensions eventually turned into a physical alternation, with Radbourn getting suspended as a result.

About a week after the fight, Sweeney was caught drinking alcohol during a game that he was pitching in. The manager of the Grays attempted to take Sweeney out of the game, a verbal spat erupted, and Sweeney was kicked off of the team as a result.

Was this the end of the Grays? Radbourn had a different idea.

Radbourn, in exchange for a bit of extra money and some other perks, offered to pitch EVERY game until the end of the season.

The team agreed, and Radbourn would pitch in 40 of the next 43 games. The team went on a massive winning streak during that period, with Radbourn notching a total of 36 wins in his 40 appearances. The team would win the pennant and ultimately go on to win the World Series.

In fact, Radbourn pitched all three games of the World Series, allowing just three unearned runs as his team swept to victory.

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Radbourn's arm barely held up during his incredible streak - in fact, he said that his arm was so sore that he could barely hold his arm up to comb his hair.

Radbourn would play for seven more seasons, though his production would start to drop off almost immediately after his legendary 1884 season. It's safe to say that he probably blew his arm out in 1884, though given that we still talk about Radbourn to this day, he'd probably say that it was worth it.