Shoeless Marlin
Marlin Stuart's Unforgettable Outing
Shoeless Marlin
I told you yesterday that we’re going to have to talk a little bit about Marlin Stuart. That day has come.
Stuart was a really unremarkable major league pitcher. He played for parts of 6 seasons, seeing the most action in 1952 and 1953. He was never particularly effective, walking almost 100 batters more than he struck out, compiling an ERA+ of 88 for his career, putting up an abysmal 1.647 WHIP, and ending up with -0.3 WAR for his efforts.
But we should be thankful that his name and statistics grace the official records of Major League Baseball. In fact, I think we should have more players like him.
The Beaning
First off, Marlin was almost remembered for the wrong thing.
Stuart started his professional baseball career in 1940, playing for a minor league club in Mayfield, KY. I’ve never been to Mayfield, though I understand that it’s quite small today, with a population of just over 10,000. If Wikipedia is correct, its population back in 1940 was actually less than that — kind of a small place to have a minor league club at any level.
Anyway, this is what happened:
I haven’t been able to find much more news about Homer Johnson. The Kentucky papers reported that he was recovering:
Apparently Johnson was eventually able to recover, since his averages feature in coverage of the Kitty League in 1941:
You can also find Johnson’s name in news about Kitty League games in 1941, like this one:
Anyway, that’s a relief — Stuart wasn’t a Carl Mays after all.
The Outing
As you can tell, it’s not entirely all that easy to find information about the Kitty League of the early 1940s. We just don’t have a whole ton of newspapers from Kentucky.
There is one story that I wish I could find more about. Below is what I could make out.
On September 7, 1940, Mayfield played its final of the season against Fulton. Marlin had a special favor to ask of his coach:
Yes, you read right. Stuart didn’t just ask if he could hit or field barefoot, as Shoeless Joe allegedly was forced to do once. He wanted to pitch the entire game with no shoes or socks on.
I’m having a hard time envisioning this. I’m certain that no pitching coach in his right mind would advise doing such a thing. I don’t think I’ve ever read of anybody else deliberately doing this in a professional baseball game at any level.
And the crazy thing is that Stuart did it.
That’s right: not only did Stuart pitch and hit barefoot, but he stayed in for the entire game. He got a hit, too, and managed to strike out 11.
Now, Stuart wasn’t exactly a magical pitcher. That same newspaper reports his record at the end of the season at 11-14, with more hits allowed than innings pitched (you’ll have to look down a bit to find him):
The official Spalding-Reach Baseball Guide of 1941 corrected the record to 13-14, crediting Stuart with 186 strikeouts and 135 walks in 216 innings pitched — 9 of which, of course, were barefoot.
Sadly, I wasn’t able to find much else about this outing. I did find what seems like an AP wire article about it later in September, though:
By the way, as a sort of a side note, I found an identical newpaper to this one in Montana just two days later. I mean, every single article was exactly the same, not just this one. Here’s the Nebraska page:
And here’s the one in Montana:
The rest of the papers are also exactly the same. It turns out that these were part of the National Catholic Welfare Council news service, which I had never heard about before.
Just goes to show that you learn something new every day!
Anyway, Stuart’s barefoot exploits have gone largely forgotten. Even the back of his 1952 Topps card doesn’t mention it:
It’s kind of a shame. I wish we had more players that were willing to do crazy things like this.