Tiny Bonham

Triumph and Tragedy

The Players

Playing out every game in your replay has its advantages. For example, the slower pace allows you the time and flexibility to do in-depth research on some of the players.

Now, we know a lot already about the big stars: Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Stan Musial and the like. However, you’ll find in your replay experience that you spend a lot more time with the “other” players, the names that you had never heard of before.

I thought it might be helpful to feature some information about some of these unknown players of the past.

I’ll be clear with you about where my sources come from. I’m not a professional researcher, and I don’t really have the time or the patience to dig deep into the archives and stacks. I’m primarily using the work of the historians at the SABR Baseball Biography Project to write these articles, combined with Baseball-Reference’s excellent player search tools, the extremely powerful Stathead search engine, and a sprinkling of research in what original newspapers I can find, using sources like Newspapers.com and Paper of Record.

This isn’t the last word on any of these subjects, and I’m certainly going to get some things wrong. The purpose of this isn’t to prove others wrong or enter into historical debates. All I want to do is add just that little bit of storytelling to our replays.

Tiny Bonham

Ernest Edward Bonham had one of those great sports nicknames. At 6’2” and 215 pounds, he had the physique of a linebacker.

Bonham actually played football in his high school days in northern California, but switched over to baseball instead in the mid-1930s. People love to talk about those interesting connections in the small world of baseball history. It turns out that the man who talked Bonham into converting to baseball was named George Oeschger. If you’re a real baseball history nut (and I emphasize the word “nut” here), you know that Oescheger name; George’s brother Joe famously pitched 26 innings for the Boston Braves in that crazy 1-1 tie game.

Bonham’s minor league history seems a tad sketchy. Per his SABR biography, it seems that he started out with the old Oakland Oaks of the PCL in 1935, but managed to become part of the New York Yankee farm system at the time. I’m not entirely certain how common this was back in the days before the farm system was widespread; I’m guessing that he was loaned out to various minor league clubs the way that Connie Mack used to do it. He played for Oakland, Modesto, Akron, Binghamton, and Kansas City, and it was with Kansas City that he had his first bout of severe back pain.

Bonham finally made it to the big leagues in 1940 — and he just happened to be on the New York Yankees.

Now, you probably already know that the 1939 New York Yankees were arguably the greatest baseball team of all time. Even after losing Lou Gehrig to a tragic illness, the 1939 Yankees simply dominated the American League, and capped off the season by demolishing Cincinnati in the World Series in only 4 games. Winding up pitching for the Yankees in 1940 must have seen like a dream come true for Tiny, even if the 1940 Yankees weren’t quite as successful.

The Glory Years

Tiny made an immediate impact on the Yankees. The Yankees were 9 games back of Detroit in early August when he showed up. A look at his game-by-game performance will show you just what an impact Bonham had:

Bonham’s impact was immediate. Despite a poor outing in his first start, the Yankees stuck with him, and he rewarded them with 9 wins in 2 months, eventually working his ERA down to a really impressive 1.90.

After Tom Tango reminded us that fielding independent pitching statistics are also important, I decided to keep that column intact as well. Bonham maintained a good strikeout-to-walk ratio throughout his career, didn’t give up many home runs, and was an extremely positive performer for his team right from the get go.

Bonham was good in 1941 as well, though his season was limited by more of that awful back pain. Only able to start 14 games, Bonham won 9 and lost 6, maintained a respectable 2.98 ERA, and earned a crucial start in Game 5 of the World Series:

I suppose Bonham was “unheralded” in 1941, but he certainly earned some glory over the next 3 years. Bonham went 21-5 in 1942, made the All Star Game, was 5th in MVP voting, and was arguably the best pitcher in all of baseball. He was 15-8 in 1943 and 12-9 in 1944, and seemed to be a long-term mainstay of the Yankee staff.

You can get a quick glimpse of him in action here:

Decline

Bonham would have been a star if it weren’t for his back.

The military gave him a 4-F classification after the 1943 season, saving him from military duty — but also serving as a harbinger of things to come.

Bonham’s back problems started to get to him in 1945, and his form started to decline. His control started to fall apart, and he started fewer games.

1945 was only a slight decline, with 23 games started, 12 complete games, and only 1.1 walks given up per game, good enough for best in the American League. But 1946 was much worse, as he walked almost as many batters as he struck out, managed only 14 starts, and barely pitched over 100 innings.

Phil MacPhail dealt the then 33-year-old Bonham to the Pirates before the 1947 season, and Tiny found himself suddenly on one of the worst teams in either league.

The back pain continued, and Bonham’s form kept declining. In early 1949 Tiny told his teammates that he planned to retire after the season, clearly bothered by the constant back pain.

We caught up with him early in our replay when he made the Cubs look silly in his first start. Bonham wasn’t quite as overpowering in 1949 as he had been earlier in his career. He still managed to go 7-4, however, and wasn’t quite as walk-happy as some of the other National League hurlers, allowing only 2.3 bases on balls per 9 innings pitched.

Bonham’s one and only baseball card came in the 1949 Bowman set:

He was 35 years old at the time, and still had that strong football physique. I wonder sometimes what would have happened had he stayed with football instead of becoming a pitcher.

I suppose they called him “Jumbo” as well. It would be interesting to learn more about the sources of some of these ironic nicknames.

Tragedy

Sadly, Bonham was never able to retire.

Bonham’s last Major League start came in Philadelphia on August 27, 1949.

Tiny pitched well, scattering 8 hits, allowing only 2 runs, and keeping the Phillies largely in check before a small crowd of 6,070.

The story is that he went to the doctor after complaining of fatigue and abdominal pain. The doctors discovered intestinal cancer when he went in for an appendectomy on September 8.

A week later, and less than a month after his final Major League start, Tiny Bonham was dead.

It’s a pretty sad story to tell, and kind of a tragic way to start off this series.

It does go to show you, though, that these players weren’t just names and statistics. They were real people with real stories, with both triumph and tragedy. And there’s nothing better to spice up a replay than learning about some of the players playing in it.