Quote:
Originally Posted by KCRoyals15
Well, I know Jim Creighton is real (and was really baseball's first superstar and was probably one of its first paid players)...though in real life he died in 1862 as the result of a freak injury that was purported to be on-field but will probably never be known
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Long story short based on what I've read...
Creighton was so dominant that batters used the rules of the time - there were no called balls/strikes and a hitter didn't have to swing at pitches they felt were "unfair" - to force Creighton to frequently deliver 300+ pitches in a game at a time when there were no substitutions. However, back then the pitcher had to deliver with a one-step, underhand motion similar to slow-pitch softball, so pitching wasn't the extreme-stress activity that it was today. The overhand pitching that we're all familiar with was accepted and codified in the mid-1880's, with the pitching mound & 60-foot distance coming over the next 10-15 years.
Still, that forced excess of pitching more than likely caused Creighton to develop an undetected hernia that then reportedly ruptured during a game in October of 1862, which caused him to die of internal bleeding days later.