Three Finger Brown and the Curious Names of the Chicago Cubs’ 20-Game Winners
Posted by BMT on 12th March 2010

A kind soul made the bold claim somewhere on this site that Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay would each win 20 games this season. That aggressive prediction has sparked quite a bit of interest in the topic of 20-game winning pitchers. But by far the most interesting thing to come out of this is the list of names of Chicago Cubs pitchers who’ve won 20 games in a season. How the Cubs pitching successes over the years coincided with such outrageous names is beyond me, but I’m certainly happy it happened.
Three Finger Brown won at least 20 games 6 years in a row for the Cubs starting in 1906. Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1948, Brown managed to turn a childhood farm machinery accident that cost him parts of two fingers on his pitching hand into an asset. His Christian name, of course, was not “Three Finger” but Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown, which isn’t too bad a name by itself. Interestingly, the Cubs may well be the only team in MLB history to have had a 3-fingered pitcher (4-fingered, including his thumb) as well as a 6-fingered pitcher years later in the person of Antonio Alfonseca.
Jack Pfeister was a teammate of Brown’s who won 20 games in 1906 for the Cubs. Presumably the Obamas would have loved his illustrative surname. In a nod to the greatness of that Cubs team’s names, the team doctor was none other than Bonesetter Reese.
Orval Overall won 23 games in 1907 and 20 games in 1909. He had a lifetime ERA of 2.23 and was a college All-American and captain of the football team during his days at Cal.
King Cole won 20 games in 1910. I’m just going to let you think about how awesome that name is. His birthname was Leonard Leslie Cole.
Hippo Vaughn won at least 20 games 5 times between 1914-1919. Amazingly, his real middle name was Leslie, the same middle name as fellow Cubs’ 20-game winner, King Cole. Vaughn pitched in a game at Wrigley Field against Fred Toney of the Cincinnati Reds on May 2, 1917 in which neither team recorded a hit through 9 innings. The Reds eventually won the game in extra innings but to this day, this is the only game in MLB history in which a regulation 9 innings has passed without either team recording a hit. While Hippo Vaughn lived to the ripe old age of 78, an attempt on his life was made in 1920 by his enraged father-in-law who stabbed him in his corpulent stomach.
And of course, who can forget Guy Bush, who went 20-12 in 1933. I realize that a century ago the vernacular was a little different but come on, Guy Bush? Bush was portrayed by Richard Tyson in the 1992 John Goodman film, The Babe. When Bush died in Tupelo, Miss. in 1985, The New York Times pointed out in his obituary that he was the last pitcher to give up a home run to Babe Ruth. The Babe hit home runs 713 and 714 off Bush in a game between the Boston Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates in May of 1935.
So there you have it, a proud Cubs franchise which has amassed a total of 48 seasons in which they’ve seen their pitchers win at least 20 games. The Cubs with the most 20-win seasons are Three Finger and Ferguson Jenkins, who both did it 6 times.
Surprisingly, in 23 Major League seasons, 355-game winner Greg Maddux only won 20 games in a season once. It was in 1992 with the Cubs.
And the last Cub to win 20 games in a season? Former Phil, Jon Lieber did it in 2001 when he went 20-6. Of course, if any of these modern guys had names like King, Bonesetter or Hippo, who knows how many more great years they could have had.
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Game 1 starters have been announced for one of the most anticipated games in recent memory. Roy Halladay will take the mound tomorrow in Clearwater as the Phillies try to redeem themselves against C.C. Sabathia and the New York Yankees. This will be the first of 5 spring training games played between the two teams that fought for the World Series title last winter.
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