October 6, 1886: The Rookie With 513 Strikeouts

October 6, 1886: The Baltimore Orioles beat the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, 6-0 at Recreation Park in Pittsburgh. This is a game in the American Association. It is virtually meaningless: The Alleghenys finished 12 games behind the Pennant-winning St. Louis Browns; the Orioles, 41 games back.

Both of these teams would go on to join the National League. The Alleghenys would be accused of a transaction that was "nothing but piratical," and became known as the Pittsburgh Pirates, and became a dominant team in the 1900s. The Orioles won the Pennant in 1894, 1895 and 1896, and nearly did so again in 1897, and then were broken up, to the point where their elimination from the NL after the 1899 season was just an afterthought.

In 1886, the Orioles gave no indication of being a dominant team later on. They won 48 games and lost 83. The winning pitcher in 29 of those games, and the losing pitcher in a league-leading 34 of them was Matt Kilroy, who pitched a no-hitter in the October 6 game.

Matthew Aloysius Kilroy was born on June 21, 1866 in Philadelphia. In 1885, the lefthander pitched for the Augusta Browns of the Southern League, and went 29-22 with an earned-run average of 0.97, and 363 strikeouts.

That got the Orioles' attention. In 1886, overhanded pitching was still relatively new, and the distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound was just 50 feet, not reaching the current 60 feet, 6 inches until 1893. "Matches" Kilroy, just 20 years old and a major league rookie, went 29-34, had an ERA of 3.37, and struck out 513 batters, still the all-time single season record. The 1893-onward record is 383 by Nolan Ryan in 1973, and Kilroy exceeded that by one-third.

But it ended up being almost half the strikeouts in his entire career. In 1887, the Orioles were better, and he went 46-19, and probably would have won the Cy Young Award, except that Cy Young hadn't yet made his major league debut. Kilroy won 127 games before turning 24 -- but he must have burned himself out, because he ended up just 141-133 for his career, with a 3.47 ERA.

He pitched only 13 major league games after turning 28. He did, however, pitch for the Boston Red Stockings team that won the one and only Players League Pennant, in 1890. (Alas, there was no World Series then, and his team, in an "outlaw" league, wouldn't have been eligible for it anyway.) After leaving baseball for good in 1898, he returned to Philadelphia, married, had 7 children, and owned a saloon.

He died on March 2, 1940, at the age of 73. He was buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. Also buried there are baseball figures Connie Mack, Steve Yerkes and 1919 Black Sox scandal figure Billy Maharg; rowing Olympic medalists Jack Kelly Sr. and Jr., father and brother of Princess Grace Kelly; Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Bill Hewitt; and Philadelphia's legendary racist Mayor Frank Rizzo.

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October 6, 1886 was a Wednesday. These other games were played in the American Association:

* The New York Metropolitans split a doubleheader with the Cincinnati Red Stockings at American Park in Cincinnati. Cincinnati won the opener, 12-6; while New York won the nightcap, 8-3. These are the modern Reds, but the other team is not the modern Mets.

* The Brooklyn Grays beat the Louisville Colonels, 7-4 at Eclipse Park in Louisville, Kentucky. The Grays eventually became the Dodgers.

* The St. Louis Browns, the team that would become the Cardinals, and the Philadelphia Athletics, not the team that would have that name in the American League, were not schedule.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants beat the Chicago White Stockings, the team that would become the Cubs, 4-1 at the original Polo Grounds in New York.

* The Boston Beaneaters, the team that would become the Braves, beat the St. Louis Maroons, who went out of business after the season, 11-5 at the original South End Grounds in Boston.

* The Kansas City Cowboys, who went out of business after the season, and the Philadelphia Philllies played to a 6-6 tie at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia, before darkness stopped the game.

* And the Detroit Wolverines beat the Washington Nationals, 2-1 at the Swampoodle Grounds in Washington. Neither team would survive to the 20th Century.