Crazy About Baseball
Listen to this articleWith the World Series just ended, I have what I think is a very interesting baseball story. I grew up in Middletown, New York. It was a mixture of farmland, residential subdivisions and commercial, medical and manufacturing areas. It was a bucolic upstate hamlet surrounded by the Catskill Mountains, many lakes, streams and forests.
I was fortunate to have lived on the edge of a small woodsy area with large trees, a stream and a large black dirt farm. I spent many hours hiking, playing and daydreaming. in those trees. The hills around us served as a nice winter ski area for novice and rash beginner skiers.
My cherished set of skis were handmade wooden museum pieces. My boots were held on by tattered old leather straps — Throw aways to most, but treasures to me. The challenge was to drag them back up the hill after each run through, at times, deep and heavy snow.
Just a mile or so beyond the hill and farm was the Middletown State Hospital or Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital which at one time was the largest mental rehab facility in the nation. It consisted of 250 acres of hospital buildings, a huge self-sufficient farm and dairy and huge campus of treatment centers, housing et al. I spent many of my adolescent years playing every sort of sport with the foreign doctors’ kids on the massive grounds: Hockey, soccer, basketball, you name it! Little did we know what historic baseball events took place there.
In late 1869, the State Homeopathic Medical Society, passed a resolution to push the New York State Legislature to construct an institution for the treatment of mental disorders along homeopathic lines. The state legislature approved a bill for the establishment of a state hospital in Middletown to use homeopathic therapy methods on April 28, 1870.
The hospital, which opened in 1874 with 69 patients. Henry Reed Stiles the superintendent of the hospital in 1875 introduced strict dietary regimens. From 1877 until 1902, Dr. Seldon H. Talcott was the superintendent and developed a series of occupational therapy for all patients at Middletown. His treatment included art exhibitions, an institutional newsletter written by the patients (The Conglomerate), and especially athletics.
While superintendent of the hospital, Seldon H. Talcott began using a range of physical activity as treatment for mental disorders. In 1888, the baseball team was founded, consisting of patients, staff and some minor league players. The team began play in 1889 as the Asylums playing other teams in the region. By 1890, the team was playing regional teams from New York City and elsewhere, winning 21 games out of 25. This included a split with the Cuban Giants, one of the top baseball teams at the time. In 1891, they narrowly lost a game against the New York Giants, which had finished third in the National League that year, 4-3. In 1892, the team went undefeated except for two narrow losses to the New York Giants, defeating the Cuban Giants, the New York Gothams, and many other teams from New York and New Jersey. Over the next few years, a number of excellent semipro players played for the Asylums. Many were recruited directly from the Asylums to professional baseball.
One notable player was Jack Chesbro, a former starting pitcher for the New York American League, worked as a hospital attendant and pitched for the Asylums at the State Hospital in Middletown, Massachusetts in 1894.
Chesbro was a boyhood friend of Art Madison, who also worked and played ball at the hospital in 1894. Madison helped Chesbro get a tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1899.
John Dwight Chesbro was a professional baseball pitcher and was Nicknamed “Happy Jack” by an asylum patient, Chesbro played for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1899–1902), the New York Highlanders (1903–1909), and the Boston Red Sox (1909) of Major League Baseball (MLB). Chesbro finished his career with a 198–132 win–loss record, a 2.68 earned run average, and 1,265 strikeouts. His 41 wins during the 1904 season remains an American League record.[1] Though some pitchers have won more games in some seasons prior to 1901,[2][3] historians demarcating 1901 as the beginning of ‘modern-era’ major league baseball refer to and credit Jack Chesbro and his 1904 win-total as the modern era major league record and its holder. Some view Chesbro’s 41 wins in a season as an unbreakable record.[4]
Chesbro’s 1904 pitching totals of 51 games started and 48 complete games also fall into the same historical category as his 1904 wins total, as they are all-time American League single-season records.[5][6] These 1904 single-season totals for games started and complete games, like the wins total, are also the most recorded by a pitcher in either the American or National League since the beginning of the 20th century[7][8][9][10] and the co-existence of the American and National Leagues as major leagues. If one demarcates 1901 as the beginning of major league baseball’s modern era, Jack Chesbro holds the modern era major league historical single-season records for wins by a pitcher (41), games started by a pitcher (51), and complete games pitched (48).
Chesbro was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 by the Veterans Committee, though he had received little consideration from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA). Some baseball historians consider the 1946 election a mistake, and believe that Chesbro was elected solely on the basis of his 1904 season.
A number of other Asylum players went on to major league play but it all ended on 1906 when the hospital began focusing on other therapies.
Possibly the term “Crazy about baseball” originated in Middletown!!
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Editor’s Note: On Wednesday, October 30, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2024 World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 4 games to 1. Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman was named the World Series MVP, hitting .300 or higher in all five games. In Game 1 Freeman hit the first ever walk-off grand slam in World Series history.
