Valentine Voss
by Martín Abresch
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Among the winningest pitchers in baseball history, Valentine Voss helped bring home championships to clubs in the nations two largest cities, Chicago and New York. Charismatic and self-absorbed, he alternately charmed and repelled fans. Perhaps the most famous player of his day, his social habits got him press on more than the sports page.
Valentine Voss was born in a small Kentucky town during interesting times: two days after the Confederate army violated Kentuckys neutrality and occupied the strategic river town of Columbus, and two days before the Kentucky General Assembly responded by declaring their allegiance to the Union. Growing up in an area mostly sympathetic to the Confederacy and with few prospects beyond shepherding sheep, Valentine dreamed of a more exciting life. In baseball, he found his ticket to one.
When he was 17, Voss left home for Cincinnati, 50 miles to the north. Joining the first neighborhood team that would have him, he quickly earned a reputation as the skinny kid with the live arm. When another team, one owned by a butcher, offered to put him up in a room above the butchers and to give him three links of sausage per day, Voss switched teams.
Over the next couple years, he became known as a kind of local ringer. Word of his exploits reached the Cincinnati Excellents manager, and he brought in Voss for a tryout. After watching him throw three pitches, Cincinnati signed the 21-year-old to a $252 contract.
The Excellents were spoiled for choice on the mound. Future Hall of Famer Hiram Ballard was in his prime. A youngster by the name of Royal Ricketts was emerging as Ballards successor. For Voss, innings were hard to come by. He spent several seasons mopping up from the bullpen. Despite playing on three ABBA Championship teams, he was frustrated.
In 1887, either deciding that he was surplus to their needs, or worried that he was putting too much energy into his nocturnal pursuits, Cincinnati traded him to the Chicago Haymakers. He showed immediate promise, but in his second season an arm injury ended his season early. Voss was 27, and his baseball career had yet to get going.
Things began to turn around in 1889. He posted a 2.40 ERA over 247 innings, but the Haymakers offense was anemic and Voss went 13-15. In 1890, he went 29-15, the first of twelve straight 20-win seasons.
Chicago was led by future Hall of Famer Duster Mundy. With the emergence of Voss, they now had the best one-two punch in baseball. In 1891, the pair combined to win 60 games. Mundy led the league with 34 wins and a 2.38 ERA. Voss won 26 games, had a 2.78 ERA, and led the league with 207 strikeouts. Chicago won the NBBL and played the ABBAs Baltimore Crabbers in the Worlds Championship Series. Mundy and Voss started all eight games. Voss won three of his four starts and led Chicago to the Championship.
While Mundy, the plainspoken son of an Iowa farmer, carried on the Haymaker tradition of agriculturally-minded baseball stars, Voss appealed to the Second Citys aspirations for glamor and excess. The press loved him, especially after he was spotted on the arm of Ethel Field, daughter of retail magnate Marshall Field, even as she was rumored to be engaged to Arthur Tree. Voss remained uncharacteristically coy about their relationship, but the story sold newspapers and the press began to report regularly on Vosss off-field escapades.
In 1893, the eyes of the world were on Chicago. All summer, the city hosted the Worlds Columbian Expositiona celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbuss arrival in the New World. Voss aided in the publicity by being among the first to ride in the original Ferris Wheel.
Chicago was also at the center of the baseball worlda world that had changed greatly with the folding of the American Base Ball Association, the expansion of the National Base Ball Association from eight to twelve teams, and the separation of those twelve teams into two, six-team divisions. Mundy won 35 games and a one-year wonder named Jim Hutchinson won 29 games, but it was Voss and his 23 wins that drew in the fans. Chicago walked away with the Western Division, finishing 10 games above second place Detroit. A late-season injury hobbled Voss, and he was unable to pitch in the Championship Series. The press played up the tragedy, and it almost seemed fated when Philadelphia barely defeated Chicago, four games to three.
In 1894, Vosss womanizing ways finally got him in hot water. Rumor had it that he had an affair with the owners wife. Despite a hot start in which he had won 20 games by the end of July, Voss was traded mid-season to the New York Knickerbockers.
New York had plenty of offense, with Pierre Ellsworth, Emmet Carlin, and Russel Fankester all featuring in the lineup, but they were short in pitching. Voss immediately became the ace of the rotation. He won 10 games down the stretchgiving him 30 wins on the seasonand New York won the Eastern Division. Voss lost both his starts in the Championship, and Cleveland won their franchises first championship. The New York press was unsparing, accusing him of beginning to celebrate a series too early.
In 1895, they reached the Championship again. Not only was Voss eager to make up for his poor performance the previous year, he was eager to defeat his opponents: Cincinnati, the team that had carelessly traded him away as surplus. Voss won both his starts, and New York won the series, four games to one.
The Championship earned Voss a temporary reprieve from his media critics, but second place finishes in 1896 and 1897 intensified the spotlight. Late in the 1897 season, Voss left a game due to what was officially reported as a strained back. Unofficially, it was said that Voss was still drunk from the night before and was sleeping in the dugout between innings. The team sent him away for one month to get sober.
In 1898, Voss won 24 games but lost 25. Two months in, it was clear that sobriety had not taken. At seasons end, it was widely understood that New York was looking to trade away their distracted and distracting star.
A few years prior, New York had traded away their star second baseman, Russel Fankester. Now with Pittsburgh, Fankester urged management to take a chance on Voss. They did.
Leaving the New York nightlife behind, Voss had the best season of his career. At the age of 37, he won a career high 37 games. That mark ties him for the seventh highest single-season win total of all time. He led the league with a 2.22 ERA, and in August of that year he won his 300th game. Unfortunately, the Industrials could only manage another 40 wins when Voss was not on the mound.
In 1900, Voss again won 30 games. In 1902, he failed to win 20 games for the first time in over a decade. Having won 146 games for Chicago and 110 games for New York, Voss just missed winning 100 games for a third team, winning 99 for Pittsburgh.
Voss didnt want to hang up his glove, but no team would have him in 1903, and he reluctantly retired.
Voss led the league in wins (1899), ERA (1899), and strikeouts (1891). He won Player of the Week three times and Pitcher of the Month twice. He played on three ABBA Championship teams (Cincinnati 1884-86) and two NBBL Championship teams (Chicago 1891, New York 1895). His 369 career wins rank seventh all time. He is one of only a dozen pitchers to throw 6,000 innings. He struck out over 2,000 batters, had a 3.01 career ERA (121 ERA+), and accumulated 97.4 WAR.
In 1903, the Chicago Traders retired No. 8 in Valentine Voss's honor. In 1957, Voss was inducted into the Hall of Fame.