Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #108B: Allan E. "Rubberarm" Russell. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1923-1925. 70 wins and 42 saves in 11 MLB seasons. He also pitched for the New York Yankees (1915-1919) and the Boston Red Sox (1919-1922). For his MLB career, in 345 appearances, he posted a 3.52 earned run average with 603 strikeouts. Russell played on the 1924 World Series champion Senators, making one appearance in the World Series, giving up one run over three innings of work. He was a spitball pitcher who was allowed to throw the pitch after it was banned following the 1920 season. He was one of 17 pitchers exempt from the rule change. His brother Lefty Russell also played Major League Baseball.

We go back to Russell's SABR biography for the less-than-stellar end to his MLB career: In 1924 Russell ranked second in saves in the league with eight. In addition he won five games in relief. However, by now his teammate Fred Marberry was emerging as the leading relief pitcher of the decade, and Russell’s appearances became less frequent. Together the two relievers won or saved 39 of Washington’s 92 wins that season as the club won its first American League pennant. Russell made one appearance in the 1924 World Series, relieving in the fourth inning with his team trailing 3-2. He got Hank Gowdy to fly out; then New York Giants pitcher Rosy Ryan came to the plate. With the count two balls and one strike, Ryan hit a home run into the upper tier of the right-field stands, the first homer ever hit in a World Series by a National League hurler. Russell pitched three innings, giving up four hits and two runs, one of which was unearned.

The Senators captured the flag again in 1925, but Russell did not appear in the World Series that year. His final major-league game came on September 19. He did not go out in a blaze of glory. Relieving Tom Zachary in the fourth inning with his team trailing 7-0, Russell pitched one scoreless inning and was blasted in the next, giving up a total of eight hits in 1 2/3 innings. Win Ballou, who relieved Russell, fared little better, being roughed up for nine hits in the remainder of the game. All told, the three Washington pitchers gave up 26 hits and 17 runs, while their mates collected only one hit off Ted Lyons in a 17-0 loss. The sole hit came by Bobby Veach with two out in the ninth inning. After the game, Veach went to the visitors clubhouse and apologized to Lyons for depriving him of what would have been the American League’s first no-hit game in more than two years.

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