James Creighton Jr. (April 15, 1841 – October 18, 1862) was an American baseball player during the game's amateur era, and is considered by historians to be the sport's first superstar and one of its earliest paid competitors. In 1860 and 1862 he played for one of the most dominant clubs of the era, the Excelsior of Brooklyn. He was also a superb cricketer, playing in both amateur and professional matches.

During the early, pre-professional period of baseball's evolution, Creighton's pitching technique transformed the sport from a game that showcased hitting, running, and fielding into a confrontation between the pitcher and batter. Under game rules of the 1850s, a pitcher was required to toss the ball in an underhand motion with a stiff arm/stiff wrist movement. The intention was to induce the batter to swing and put the ball in play, thus initiating action around the diamond. The pitcher was essentially just another position player, a "fielder" once the ball was struck by the hitter.

Creighton's swift delivery confounded opposing batters, who were accustomed to balls being lobbed slowly over the plate and easy to hit. Historian Thomas Gilbert, in his 2015 book Playing First: Early Baseball Lives at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, which includes a chapter on Creighton and his family, referred to Creighton's pitching style as "weaponizing the ball." Gilbert said Creighton "was the first pitcher in the modern sense of the word." By age 16, James had become recognized for his superior athletic skills in baseball and cricket.

According to contemporaneous hearsay, often later repeated in biographical chronicles, in 1857 Creighton helped form a club known as the Young America, which lasted one season; however, there are no authoritative historical accounts of this being accurate.

At age 17, Creighton joined the Niagara of Brooklyn club, playing second base. Star batsmen claimed that Creighton was using an illegal snap of the wrist to deliver the pitch. The Star Club eventually won the game, but following the match, Creighton left the Niagaras and joined the Stars. With their new dominant pitcher, the Excelsiors organized the first documented baseball road trip, playing matches outside their home region against upstate New York clubs in Albany, Rochester, Troy, Buffalo, and Newburgh, as well as in Baltimore and Philadelphia. After a string of victories, the club became a sensation outside the New York metropolitan area. In a baseball game against the St George's Cricket Club at Hoboken's Elysian Fields on November 8, Creighton hurled baseball's first shutout, with a final score of 25–0.

In addition to his pitching skills, Creighton was reportedly an excellent hitter and fielder. (The Excelsiors, along with most organized clubs, did not play ball in 1861, as countless players of military age enlisted to fight in the Civil War.)

Pitching style

The speed with which Creighton was able to hurl the ball had previously been considered impossible without movement of the elbow or wrist, which was prohibited by existing rules. If there were any such movements by Creighton, they were imperceptible. In addition to the rapid velocity of his pitches, when Creighton released the ball, he managed to apply enough spin to cause the pitch to veer upwards, away from the batter, making Creighton the inadvertent inventor of the breaking ball. However, rumors circulated that clubs had started paying exceptional players in an under-the-table manner. Clubs would hire the player ostensibly for a position of responsibility within their administration, or the player would be given a sinecure in a municipal department, with the understanding that there were no actual duties required beyond playing for the sports club.

In 1860, the Excelsior Club lured Creighton, along with teammates George Flanley and the brothers Asa and Henry Brainard, from the Stars. All but Henry Brainard were quietly paid a salary, with Creighton earning $500, thus making these men some of the earliest "professional" baseball players.

In September 1862, rumors circulated that Creighton and teammates George Flanley and Asa Brainard were jumping from the Excelsior Club to the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn. After three weeks of speculation, and without any of these men having played in a game for the Atlantic, they returned to the field for the Excelsiors.

Cricket

Creighton was considered a prominent member of the cricket community, playing both amateur and professional. He performed for the American Cricket Club in both 1861 and 1862, often playing against the all-England team, whether at Hoboken's Elysian Fields or elsewhere. After the game, he began to experience severe pain and hemorrhaging in his abdomen. He died in his father's home on October 18 at the age of 21. In an 1887 issue of an early sports newspaper, the Sporting Life, a letter-writer, who signed only as "Old Timer", sent in his account of the event. This account reported it as a ruptured bladder; in the light of modern medical understanding, the injury was an inguinal hernia.

thumb|left|200px|Jim Creighton monument at Green-Wood CemeteryHowever, subsequent research indicates that Creighton's death by hitting a home run was fabricated years later to dramatize his martyrdom. "Dying while hitting a long home run is a great story; it's just not true," said Tom Shieber, senior curator of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Shieber researched original news sources and found no references to Creighton hitting a home run in that game. (In fact, he hit four doubles that game. Countless historians have refuted this legend, but it has taken root as factual.

Later research has suggested that Creighton's hernia was chronic, and that the tremendous workload from baseball and cricket contributed to worsening the hernia. In that era, balls and strikes were not called, and batters who could not hit Creighton's rapid deliveries adapted by refusing to swing at good pitches, forcing Creighton to throw well over 300 pitches per match. Pitching with great force and the exaggerated body contortions necessary to achieve high velocity exacerbated his condition.

Creighton's death caused concern in the sports world that public perceptions of baseball and cricket would focus on the inherent dangers of their play, hurting the sports' popularity. Though it is generally accepted that Creighton fatally injured himself while playing baseball, it was reported that the Excelsior president, Dr. Joseph Jones, made comments during the National Association convention of 1862 that constituted an attempt to "correct" this notion. He claimed that Creighton had suffered the injury, instead, while playing cricket in a match on October 7. Later research claims that Dr. Jones' assertions are correct; Creighton had died of a "strangulated intestine", and did not hit a home run during his final game. Dr. Jones' remarks have been interpreted as his attempt to save baseball's image, and its nearly equal standing with cricket, as well as his club's legacy after losing their best player.]]Baseball writer John Thorn commented in his book, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, that Creighton "was baseball's first hero, and I believe, the most important player not inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame." For years following his death, the Excelsiors' program included a portrait of their club with Creighton, shrouded in black, featured prominently in the center.

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Posthumous postscripts

thumb|right|200px|Jim Creighton commemorative plaque at Green-Wood Cemetery

Creighton was buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. His gravesite was marked by a 12-foot marble obelisk crowned with a large marble baseball. However, the finial went missing and was presumed stolen in the late 19th or early 20th century.

The television series The Simpsons made reference to Creighton in the Season 3 episode "Homer at the Bat", where Mr. Burns has him pegged as the right fielder for his company's softball team. His assistant Smithers has to point out that all the players Mr. Burns had selected are long dead, making reference in particular to Creighton by saying "In fact, your right fielder has been dead for 130 years."

References

Bibliography

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRD5lIyu9UA