Eligible: 1878
Contributions: For the duration of his brief career (1875-77), Devlin was baseball's best pitcher not named Tommy Bond, posting 22.4 fWAR in just three seasons. At the height of his powers, however, Devlin and three others were banned from baseball for life for throwing games, marking one of baseball's first instances of crushing pressure against gambling interests. Devlin was at once one of baseball's great players and a fine example of a recurring narrative in baseball history, the gambler.
Not that much is known about Devlin's early life and career. He was born in Philadelphia in 1849, and presumably grew up playing ball as the sport exploded in the northeast in 1850s and 1860s. He first appears in organised baseball for his hometown Philadelphia White Stockings in 1873 as a light-hitting utility infielder. He signed on with the Chicago White Stockings for 1874 and hit .286 off the bench as a reserve first baseman / outfielder, appearing in 45 of the team's 59 games.
The following year he was a stellar bat off the bench, slashing .289/.298/.381, which in 1874 was good for a 131 OPS+. He also recorded a pair of double plays as an outfielder, good for 4th in the league and displaying what would ultimately be his great gift: his arm. The following year Chicago's ace, old workhorse and amateur legend George Zettlein started to wear down and the White Stockings turned to the 26-year-old Devlin to relieve the veteran's arm (at this time, a team generally only carried a single full-time pitcher). Devlin was already blossoming as a full-time first baseman, establishing himself as one of the league's best fielders at the position and finishing 7th in the league in doubles as a hitter, but still came in to relieve Zettlein four times and made 24 starts of his own. He pitched well in 224 innings, his 1.93 ERA good for a 118 ERA+, and was then signed by the fledgling NL's Louisville Grays as their pitcher for 1876.
Little exists in terms of his repertoire, but we know Devlin had a live arm, and was a big, strong guy. He struck out lots of batters for his era and showed good control as well. He served as Louisville's ace for 1876-1877 and was the best pitcher in baseball outside of fellow Hall member Tommy Bond, going 65-60 with a 1.89 ERA (156 ERA+). He led the league both years in most counting stats, from innings pitched to WAR (18.3 in 1876, 13.4 in '77). He pitched all but 21 innings for the '76 Grays, and every single inning for the '77 edition.
His efforts did little for a rather thin Louisville team - they finished 5th in the NL in 1876 and 2nd after fading down the stretch in '77. By the end of the 1877 season Devlin was one of the top few pitchers in baseball history, even with just two-and-a-half seasons pitched, but his named was forever besmirched when he was indicted in a gambling scandal involving three other Louisville players, who were banned from baseball for conspiring to throw the 1877 NL pennant. Regarded as one of the best pitchers on the planet, Devlin would never play major league baseball again.
Devlin's 1877 banishment was not the first time he was connected to gambling. A previous telegram to Devlin had surfaced the previous season, from Louisville right fielder George Bechtel: "We can make $500 if you lose the game today. Tell John (Louisville manager John Chapman) and let me know at once." Devlin had replied by declining the offer, "I play ball for the interest of those who hire me." Still, the casual nature of the offer and the presumed ease of informing the club manager of a fixed game suggest that it was not a novel proposition. Bechtel was cut from the club and banned from baseball shortly thereafter.
On August 16, 1877 Louisville was in first place in the NL behind the stellar pitching of Devlin and the white-hot bat of left fielder George Hall (hitting .373 to that date), but went 0-8 with a tie on their subsequent road trip, losing a number of exhibitions along the way, and never regained their footing. Hall hit .149 over the next 18 games as the club fell off the pace and lost the NL Pennant to Boston.
Club management already knew what was up and when Devlin was reportedly seen around Lousiville wearing new jewelry, and pitched well in post-season exhibitions after stinking in the stretch run, the Grays held individual interviews with the players, where they pretended that they already had information from co-conspirators. Hall and Devlin confessed immediately to taking money from a man named McCloud to throw the pennant and implicated replacement player Al Nichols as well. No evidence ever surfaced to implicate the fourth man, but when veteran shortstop Bill Craver refused to hand over his telegraph records to the club, he was grouped with the other three and expelled from the club. The Louisville Courier-Journal printed the story on November 3, and the quartet never played major league baseball again.
In his testimony, Devlin confessed not just to taking $100 per game he threw, but to giving Hall, who had connected Devlin to McCloud in the first place, just $25 and telling him McCloud had only sent $50. Hall testified that he only ever accepted the money for exhibition games and that Devlin had never given him a cent for the (at least) nine League games they had fixed.
It was a watershed moment in baseball history, as league president William Hulbert came down on the four men like a hammer. He accepted no apologies or excuses, and listened to no arguments. Even in the cases of Craver and Nichols, who had little or no evidence against them, Hulbert made it abundantly clear: no gambling in baseball. There were far-reaching repercussions for baseball as well. Louisville folded, as did St. Louis, who had signed Devlin and Hall and had hoped to build a club around them. The NL was reduced to just three clubs, and Hulbert scrambled to accept entries from such small markets as Providence, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee. Once exclusive, the NL was now much more accepting of new clubs.
Devlin, self-described as 'dumb' and barely literate, had nowhere to turn after baseball. With a wife and young son at home, Devlin traveled to Chicagoafter his banishment to beg forgiveness after his banishment. Al Spalding, at that time sharing an office suite with Hulbert, later wrote:
The situation, as he kneeled there in abject humiliation, was beyond the realm of pathos. It was a scene of heartrendering tragedy. Devlin was in tears, Hulbert was in tears... I heard Devlin's plea to have the stigma removed from his name. I heard him entreat, not on his own account, he acknowledged himself unworthy of consideration, but for the sake of his wife and child. I beheld the agony of humiliation depicted on his features as he confessed his guilt and begged for mercy.
I saw the bulk of Hulbert's frame tremble with the emotion he vaibly sought to stifle. I saw the president's hand steal into his pocket as if seeking to conceal his intended act from the other hand. I saw him take a $50 bill and press it into the palm of the prostrate player. And then I heard him say, as he fairly writhed with the pain his own words caused him, "That's what I think of you, personally; but, damn you, Devlin, you are dishonest' you have sold the game, and I can't tryst you. Now go; and let me never see your face again' for your act will not be condoned so long as I live."Rebuked by organised baseball, Devlin then wrote a (hardly-legible) letter to Boston manager and baseball royalty Harry Wright begging for work, anywhere, in any league, as a player or even as a groundskeeper. "I have not got a Stich of Clothing or has my wife and child... The Louisville People made me what I am today, a Beggar"[sic]. If Wright ever replied, we have no record of it.
For his part, Devlin was finished as a major-league pitcher, though we have records of him playing for at least nine independent-league teams. The National Association, then little more than a semi-pro operation losing the war against the NL badly, reinstated Devlin for the 1879 season, and the Cincinnati Enquirer subsequently branded them amateurish: "Which can stand it longest - the Association who expels a dishonest player, or the one who welcomes him to their ranks." We know he was still playing ball in San Francisco as late as 1880. Outside of his time in were then known as the 'outlaw leagues', John Thorn suggests that he continued playing under a fake name.
Working as a police officer in his native Philadelphia, Devlin passed away in 1883, aged 34, of either tuberculosis or consumption fueled by his alcoholism, leaving his wife and son. One of many tragic stories in the early history of baseball, Devlin is one of a handful of great players banned for off-the-field behaviour, but he was, for a brief time, the best baseball player on the planet.
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