Birthday of Victory

I'm still mystified by the save statistic. It's sorta like someone making a big deal over some jackass who comes into the local Walgreens which closes at 10, and works from 9 to 10. Just comes in and works the last hour of business. Does the same thing as any other employee, just does it later. Starter has to work five innings to get a win, yet you can get a save for just a third of an inning's work.

Anyway...happy birthday (even though he's long dead) to Charlie Faust, another figure in baseball history, the likes of which will never be seen again.

Charlie "Victory" Faust was a Kansas native who at age 30 was told by a fortune teller that he'd pitch the New York Giants to a championship. So he met up with the Giants one day in 1911 in St. Louis and demanded that John McGraw give him a roster spot. McGraw, sensing that this guy was a lunatic, decided to have fun with him and had Faust "try out" by running the bases. Faust was wearing his Sunday clothes, and eventually had holes in his clothes and rashes and bruises on his legs and arms. The Giants won that day 9-0. McGraw kept Faust around as a good luck charm. The Giants would go 36-2 on days Faust was on the bench in uniform, yet he still begged McGraw to pitch. Finally, October 7th, Faust pitched the ninth inning of a game. He would pitch another ninth on the twelfth and put together two innings of work on the season, yielding two hits and one run. Faust's luck would run out in the World Series, the Series where the Giants ran into The Philadelphia A's and their mascot, hunchback dwarf Louis Van Zelst, but more importantly Frank "Home Run" Baker. This would be the Series where he acquired his nickname by hitting homers in consecutive games off of two Hall of Fame pitchers, Rube Marquard (also born Oct. 9) and Christy Mathewson. Faust returned in 1912, although at his own expense. The Giants jumped out the Gate with a 54-11 record, but Faust continued to bother McGraw to pitch. And no longer was it a joke. Faust's begging this time was more like "a demented threat." Faust was finally urged to go back to Kansas, but his desire to come back to the team never waned. Faust was picked up in Salem, OR wandering the streets, and admitted into a mental hospital, and he died of tuberculosis in 1915.