FABL BIO OF THE DAY
THE GOLDEN ARMS OF MANDEVILLE, LOUISIANA
Tiny Mandeville, Louisiana was best known as being a resort hangout for the New Orleans middle class since it's creation in the mid 1800s. While today Mandeville boasts a population of over 12,000 in 1900 there were barely 1,000 residents but two of them would go on to become pretty good FABL pitchers.
Jim (1909-20) and Rip (1913-22) Golden combined for 417 FABL victories, 5 World Championship rings and 2 Whitney Awards of the course of their careers. Each began playing semi-pro ball for local teams in nearby Hammond, Louisiana before being discovered by FABL scouts. The call came for Jim first, despite the fact he was 4 years younger than Rip, as the Detroit Dynamos signed him after witnessing him pitching for Hammond against a New Orleans club in 1908. He would go directly from the semi-pro circuit to the big leagues and did so with a bang. Rip, meanwhile, had been nursing a broken leg suffered that spring while working on the steamships that ferryed back and forth across Lake Pontchartrain between New Orleans and Mandeville, so he did not catch the attention of Detroit scouts. In fact it would not be until 1912 when Rip was finally signed by the Chicago Chiefs as a 26 year old and his big league debut would come the following season. In Rip's final year with Hammond ballclub he showed some of the skills that would later lead him to becoming a pitching coach as he mentored a then 16 year old Johnny Taylor before Taylor went on to pitch for St Blane University and spend 5 years in the big leagues himself.
By 1913 when Rip was preparing for his big league debut in Chicago, younger brother Jim was already a FABL veteran. Jim took the Federal Association by storm in 1909 when as a mere 20 year old he would win 23 games and then add two more victories in the World Championship Series to lead Detroit past Toronto for it's first of 5 FABL titles for the franchise. Jim was named the Most Valuable Player of the 1909 series and would play a key role for 4 more pennant winning Detroit squads, finishied with an 8-3 career postseason record to go with a 1.97 era and 4 World Championship rings. He would follow up his rookie season with two more twenty win campaigns including a league best 29-13 in 1911 but he was just getting started. 1913, the year Rip debuted in Chicago, Jim was named the Whitney Award winner as Most Valuable Player of the Federal Association after posting a league best 31 victories. Jim would win a second Whitney Award in 1916, when he went 35-9 and led Detroit to the first of three World Championships in a four year span. Only Mike Marner, with 36 for Baltimore in 1908, won more games in a single season since the turn of the century than Jim Golden's total that year.
Jim Golden remains to this day the all-time leader in career World Championship games won and only Woody Trease has pitched in more than the 100 World Championship Series innings that Golden has tossed.
Code:
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES WON
1 Jim Golden 8 1909-19 Detroit
2 Woody Trease 7 1902-11 Boston/Detroit
2 Charlie Wilson 7 1893-1901 Gothams/Sailors/Cleveland
4 Morris Harris 6 1893-1902 Gothams/Cougars/Stars
5 Bill Ross# 5 1922-33 Cougars/Keystones
6 Allan Allen 4 1895-1904 Cougars/Toronto
6 John Bigness 4 1899-1906 Cougars/Boston
6 Mike Marner 4 1907-14 Baltimore
6 Bill McDaniel 4 1902-05 Boston
6 Joe Myres 4 1919-21 Montreal
6 Dick Richards# 4 1924-32 Stars
6 Luke Smith 4 1924-25 Stars
# still active
As mentioned Jim led Detroit to 3 World Championships in a 4 year span starting in 1916. The one season the Dynamos did not win, 1917, the title went to the Chicago Chiefs, who had finished second to Detroit the previous season. Pitching for the Chiefs in that period was, of course, Jim's big brother Rip. In 1917 Rip was the number four starter for the Chiefs but he did win 13 games that year. Rip had an equally impressive debut as his brother - although he was 27 at the time - going 25-15 with a league leading 2.03 era in 1913. It would prove to be the best season of his career as he never again won twenty but did post a 148-158 record over 10 seasons with the Chiefs and Pittsburgh before retiring as a player at the age of 38 after spending a year in the minor leagues.
Jim, on the other hand, was a legend in Detroit, where he won 269 games and spent his entire career, one that had a tragic early end when at the age of 31 in 1920 he suffered a back injury that he would not return from. Both brothers remain active in the game after their playing days. Jim Golden has been the assistant General Manager of the Brooklyn Kings for the past seven years while Rip briefly managed an independent team in the Great West League before joining the St Louis Pioneers organization as a pitching coach for their AAA affiliate in Hartford.
It is believed the pair are the most successful pitching brother act in FABL and perhaps surpassed as a baseball family only by the legendary Barrell's, although Jim has witnessed first hand the rise of another pair of ball playing brothers from a small town in Louisiana as outfielders Doug and Frank Lightbody may one day surpass the Golden's as the premier baseball family of Louisiana.