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A PITCHING TRIPLE CROWN WINNER IN THE SEAL
The best league outside of the two ABA competitions, the Southeastern & Atlantic League, saw some pitching history made in 1897 as second-year starter Timothy Boyum of the Charleston Battery won the Pitching Triple Crown. His record for the season:
25-10, 2.52 ERA, 313.2 IP, 31 CG, 2 SHO, 56 BB, 169 K, 1.15 WHIP, 1.6 BB/9, 3.0 K/BB, 7.2 WAR
It wasn’t a particularly dominant season by pitching standards since the SEAL has been offense-heavy for three to four years (1897: .283 AVG, .725 OPS), but history is history nonetheless.
What made Boyum such a surprising Triple Crown winner was that he wasn’t highly regarded going into the season. The Canadian was signed by the Bunker Hill Cannons in the NEBA out high school in 1890 and never pitched for them before his release in the middle of the 1892 season. The Battery took a flyer on him, signed him to their Reserve Roster, and Boyum then didn’t pitch a single inning until he was moved into the three-man rotation during 1896. He was good (12-10, 2.98 ERA in 187 innings) but secondary metrics – 1.27 WHIP, 1.5 BB/9, 2.6 K/BB all led the SEAL – and a developing changeup showed him to be capable of taking a step further and supplanting Lloyd Eisner as the ace of the pitching staff.
The next season Boyum did just that, becoming the first Pitching Triple Crown winner in the thirteen-year history of the Southeastern & Atlantic League while helping lead Charleston, along with Charleston Kirk and Sullivan Nolan, to the SEAL championship by a handful of games.
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