Cribbed from THIS article on SABR Bio by Bill Nowlin.
Few players in professional baseball can claim to be as well-travelled in the game as Wilbur Kincaid Rodgers. Fewer still to as colourful a nickname as his: “Rawmeat” Bill.
Bill Rodgers entered the ranks of organised baseball when he joined Waterbury of the Connecticut State League in 1909, batting .302 in 115 games that season and being part of their pennant-winning 1910 squad. He was drafted by the Portland Beavers of the PCL at the end of that year and played second base for them over the next four campaigns, hitting close to .300 and becoming Club Captain in 1912. The Beavers won 3 pennants during that stretch.
It is during his time in Oregon the moniker “Rawmeat” seems to have come into use, although its true origins are debatable. He would spend almost the entire offseason while with the Beavers hunting in the Cascades, at the end of which he would emerge looking like a true Wildman, and some argue this is how it began. Bill himself, however, had a different story, claiming in his HOF questionnaire,
“My mother used to give me a slice of raw meat when she was cooking. Later when I would eat in a restaurant or hotel I would tell them to let me look at my steak before it was cooked, then I would eat the lean meat raw. The sports writers gave me the nickname.”
Cleveland had been sniffing around Rodgers since 1911 and, after turning them down flat in 1914, he eventually signed with them in early 1915. He started that season in the bigs and hit .311 in 16 games, driving in 7. But his iffy defence seemed to turn the Indians off him and he was unconditionally released in mid-May.
After a stint later that season with the Red Sox in which he went 0-for-6 with 3 walks and 2 runs scored, Bill was on the move again. Boston sold his contract to the Reds, where he would play out the remainder of that season, hitting .239 with 12 RBI in 72 games. He opened 1916 with Cincy, but after just 4 hitless at-bats he was sent back to Portland as if the past 18 months had been nothing more than a bad dream.
He played out the rest of that year and all of the following one at Portland before picking up stumps and heading south to California, taking the role of player-manager at the PCL-based Sacramento Senators. He played all 96 games of a 1918 season curtailed by WW1 and would return for three more, gradually reducing his on-field time each year until by 1921 – his last in Sacramento – he was basically a full-time skipper.
Bill moved to Denver as Manager of the Western League’s Bears in 1922 and spent the next three decades in a variety of roles in an itinerary of places that would make your head spin, with a number of stops back at Portland and roughly half a dozen different tenures with the Chattanooga Lookouts as either Manager, Scout or Coach. His last recorded job in the game was as a Scout for the Tribe in 1957, but he claims to have been in the game until the end of that decade.
Rawmeat Bill Rogers spent the rest of his life on his 1365-acre ranch in Berclair, Texas, presumably taking random bites out of his cattle whenever he felt peckish. His next-door neighbours were Bill Engle from the Lookouts and Hall of Famer Kiki Cuyler. He died aged 91 on Christmas Eve, 1978.
In the FL, Rawmeat Rogers was drafted in the 2nd Round (24th overall) of the Inaugural Draft by Brooklyn, where he has so far spent two productive and incredibly consistent seasons playing second base for the Superbas. He won the NL Platinum Stick at that position in 1901, and finished 4th in both doubles and steals in 1902. He’s also been in the top four in HBP both years. Other highlights have included a four-run game in 1901, as well as two walkoff hits and a five-fer game in 1902. Restaurants in Brooklyn and environs have reported a huge jump in servings of Steak Tartare over this time.
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