Baseball Earth: Ireland

Part 28 of 68

The Republic of Ireland has never had a particularly strong baseball heritage. But 19th century immigration to the US was quite significant, and a lot of ballplayers were part of this migration.

As of the time of writing, 48 Major League ballplayers were born in Ireland. Since Ireland has never even been invited to try to qualify, we’re going to be relying on them exclusively.

Not a single player on this team played a game later than 1918. Also, we’ll have five two-way players, as well as several more players who would like to be two-way players but just aren’t good enough to make the team on both sides. This team will still only carry 14 pitchers (including the five two-way players) due to lack of quality options.

Stadium

The fundamental problem with assigning a stadium to Irish Baseball is that, well, it struggles to exist. Certainly, Baseball Ireland as an organization does exist, and there are baseball fields in Ireland, but nothing that would even approach having the reasonable professional facilities a league would demand. Additionally, to my knowledge there has never been an attempt by MLB or any other professional baseball association to play games in Ireland (like there was in Great Britain). So there’s no obvious answer here. What I will do instead, is consider three different approaches to the problem. I generally believe that my first approach is probably the one that would actually be used, but you can make a case that any of these are the correct one. I’ll only be getting a picture the first option, though.

Approach #1: Baseball is most similar to… Cricket.

The largest dedicated cricket ground in Ireland is the Malahide Cricket Club Ground in Malahide, a suburb of Dublin.

Malahide Cricket Club Ground. Credit: Dan Heap

The other approaches are possible, but honestly feel like either trying too hard or trying not hard enough.

Approach #2: This is a big event. Just convert the big one. That’s sort of what Great Britain did.

Croke Park in Dublin has a pitch that is 88 m wide (and much longer), and could arguably work. They’d definitely need to remove part of the 82,300 seats to expand the field a bit — in raw numbers, we’d be looking at likely around 280 feet to right, which is just not going to work (and that’s with very minimal foul ground left of third base). So they’ll need to clear some space.

Now, in the UK’s case, they specifically converted a tracked stadium, but Gaelic football pitches are already wider than association football pitches, so I’m not actually sure the track is relevant, and this probably works about the same. Either way we’re looking at a bandbox.

Approach #3: Let’s forget about home games and just find a spot to play that has some Irish-Americans and is a professional stadium and call it a day. No need to convert anything.

Citi Field in New York would be the spot here — at least if we also want a spot that another team isn’t already using. But I can’t imagine they’d want to do this.

Manager

Patsy Donovan of Cohb, Cork, managed 5 different clubs for a total of 11 seasons between 1897 and 1911, accumulating 684 wins.

Patsy Donovan. Credit: Library of Congress

Pitchers

The Starting Rotation

1. Tommy Bond (Granard, Longford, 1874-1884, 3628.2 IP, 2.14 ERA, 234 W, 972 K, 60.98 WAR)¹ — One of the underrated greats from old-time baseball. Simply unhittable for a decade.

   

   Tommy Bond. Credit: SABR

2. Tony Mullane (Cork, Cork, 1881-1894, 4531.1 IP, 3.05 ERA, 284 W, 15 S, 1803 K, 61.00 WAR) — Mullane leads in every counting stat but Bond’s low ERA puts him ahead in the rotation.

3. Hugh Daily² (1882-1887, 1415 IP, 2.92 ERA, 73 W, 846 K, 11.80 WAR)

4. Mike O’Neill (Maum, Galway, 1901-1907, 694.1 IP, 2.73 ERA, 228 K, 3.90 WAR)

5. Hugh Campbell (1873, 165 IP, 2.95 ERA, 7 K, 0.19 WAR)

Bullpen

Almost every possible Irish pitcher is starter-eligible, so let’s not bother to split long and short.

1. Curry Foley (Milltown, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, 1879-1893, 442.2 IP, 3.54 ERA, 127 K, -2.24 WAR)

2. Cozy Dolan (Athlone, Roscommon, 1895-1906, 255.1 IP, 4.44 ERA, 69 K, 1.46 WAR)

3. John Tener (Tyrone, 1885-1890, 515 IP, 4.33 IP, 177 K, -0.59 WAR)

4. Charlie McCullough (Dublin, Dublin, 1890, 241.2 IP, 4.88 ERA, 69 K, -1.17 WAR)

5. Pete Daniels (1890-1898, 82.2 IP, 4.79 ERA, 21 K, -0.51 WAR)

6. Con Lucid (1893-1897, 375 IP, 6.02 ERA, 65 K, -1.41 WAR)

7. Barney McLaughlin (1884-1890, 48.2 IP, 5.36 ERA, 14 K, -1.05 WAR)

8. Tom Dowse (Mohill, Leitrim, 1890-1892, 5 IP, 5.40 ERA, 0.05 WAR) — This is actually only one (relief) pitching appearance, and those years are for a batting career, but ironically we only care about him as a pitcher³. We’re not excluding anyone from the team with 6 IP or more.

9. Frank McLaughlin (1882-1884, 19 IP, 9.00 ERA, 4 K, -1.12 WAR) — The other non-starter on this team.

Batters

The Starting Nine/Ten

1. RF Patsy Donovan (Cohb, Cork, 1890-1907, 2256 H, 518 SB, .301/.348/.355, 19.38 WAR) — The manager is also clearly the top hitter.

2. 2B Reddy Mack (1885-1890, 524 H, .254/.352/.340, 6.36 WAR)

3. 1B Jack Doyle (Killorglin, Kerry, 1889-1905, 1811 H, 25 HR, 518 SB, .299/.351/.385, 24.85 WAR) — The offensive “power bat” of the team. Has played a little of everywhere, including catching and third base.

   

   Jack Doyle. Credit: Irish American Baseball Society

4. LF Jocko Fields (Cork, Cork, 1887-1892, 361 H, .272/.339/.397, 3.06 WAR)

5. DH Jimmy Walsh (Rathroe, Kerry, 1912-1917, 410 H, 92 SB, .232/.330/.317, 5.95 WAR) — Can play all over the outfield and is a backup option there.

6. CF/RP Cozy Dolan (Athlone, Roscommon, 1895-1906, 855 H, 114 SB, .269/.322/.333, 3.18 WAR) — Dolan is one of the top bullpen options as well as the starter here in center, even though he played more right than center. Walsh can head out to center when Dolan comes into pitch. And while he is the team’s 6-hitter, it’s not like any individual hitter is a massive loss here if he has to come out later as the team forfeits the DH.

7. SS Andy Leonard (Antrim, 1871-1880, 715 H, .299/.307/.362, 6.58 WAR) — Primarily an outfielder, but also played middle infield and we need him at short.

8. C Jimmy Archer (Dublin, Dublin, 1904-1918, 660 H, .249/.288/.333, 10.73 WAR)

9. Two players share this lineup spot.

   1. 3B/SP Tony Mullane (Cork, Cork, 1881-1894, 661 H, 112 SB, .243/.307/.316, 5.64 WAR) — Mullane was primarily a pitcher, and secondarily an outfielder, but he did play third, and is the best hitting option at third on this team, so we’ll go with it. It’s still not great, so there’s no reason to push him into the lineup when he’s pitching or recovering from pitching. We’ll thus platoon him.

   2. 3B Mike Muldoon (Ballyloughloe, Westmeath, 1882-1886, 450 H, .230/.270/.323, 3.90 WAR)

The Bench

• C Todd Needham (1904-1914, 311 H, .209/.274/.272, 2.65 WAR) — The fact that this statline produces positive WAR is really reflective of the difficulties of getting offensive production from catchers in this era.)

• C/1B Fergy Malone (Tyrone, 1871-1884, 288 H, .274/.295/.320, 3.56 WAR)

• SS/OF Jimmy Hallinan (1871-1878, 218 H, .287/.301/.371, 1.43 WAR)

• SS/2B/RP Barney McLaughlin (1884-1890, 169 H, .243/.312/.309, 0.91 WAR) — Really he probably shouldn’t be a two-way player, as he played the infield much more than pitched, but Ireland is thin on pitching options so he’s already on this team as a pitcher, and it’s not obvious he’d make the team without already being here.

• OF/RP Curry Foley (Milltown, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, 1879-1883, 373 H, .286/.304/.362, 1.52 WAR) — Already on the team so it wasn’t difficult to add him.

• LF/SP Mike O’Neill (Maum, Galway, 1901-1907, 97 H, .255/.306/.355, 2.46 WAR) — Already on the team so it wasn’t difficult to add him. O’Neill and Mullane are the only two-way players on this team that actually pitched more than played other positions.

• 1B/OF Tim Murnane (Lisfornane, 1972-1884, 426 H, .261/.287/.301, 2.08 WAR) — Despite how long this bench is, we still have an open roster spot, and he’s got the most hits available.

Honorable Mentions?

Honestly, nobody. Before adding someone new on offense to this team, I’d probably be looking to turn even more pitchers into two-way players. The only pitching not on the team: a guy with a 10.13 ERA in 5.1 IP, the fact that (starting left fielder) Jocko Fields once threw an inning in which he allowed 3 runs to score (none of them earned, but still), and a guy who gave up 7 runs and recorded just 1 out in his only time in the Bigs in 1945 (hey, that’s actually a lot newer than all these other guys). There’s just not a lot of depth here.

We’re back to the US next time, with a state that actually… has quite a few Irish people, really…

1. Tommy Bond might try to say that he’s 8th all time in hits for Ireland (correct, with 471) and played outfield, so he should be a two way player like several others. But a .523 OPS is going to have management telling him to shut up and pitch.

2. Birth city unknown per baseball-reference. Any time the city is missing, this is probably why. If you only see one name there, that’s probably the county, and exact city still unknown.

3. A .463 OPS doesn’t make this team. We’re not that desperate on offense. In general, my standard for putting one of these pitchers on the offense is going to be an OPS of at least .600 (and reasonable time playing a position other than pitcher).