What if I told you a pitcher made his debut in 1944 with a stat line of 2/3 IP, 2 H, 0 K, 5 BB, and 5 ER (Which would be a horrific day for most pitchers), but on June 10th of that year, the youngster walked away from his first ever action in the big leagues with a smile on his face. The reason, he was only 15 years old.
Due to a players shortage during World War II, teams would often look around for local talent and even have open tryouts. The Reds were one of the teams that tried using this tactic. Many scouts would get tips on players seen at pickup games with some scouts that kept hearing about a semipro pitcher from Hamilton Ohio that could fill a void on left on the Reds due to the war, his name was Orville Nuxhall.
The Reds organization offered Orville a spot on the team but he wasn’t interested. Wanting to only stay local so that he could keep working to support his family with 5 kids. Interestingly enough though, one of those 5 kids was Joe, a 14 year old boy who pitched lefty. After watching a handful of his pitches the scouts liked what they saw and signed the young man on February 18th, 1944, only waiting for his High School basketball season to end.
Once the high school principal signed a permission slip allowing Joe to attend Opening Day, he was able to call himself a Big Leaguer as he stepped made the roster day 1. The Rookie of all Rookies wasn’t given an oppurtunity to play however until June 10th when the Reds were getting banged around by the Cardinals.
13-0 in the ninth inning, Reds manager Bill McKechnie called Joe Nuxhall’s number to pitch the last three outs. Things went well for Joe at first getting batter number one to groundout but the wheels came off quick after that jolt of adrenaline wore away. Allowing 5 runs while having a hard time finding the strikezone with 5 walks and giving up two hits ended his day early but the historic footnote was already made.
Joe Nuxhall is the youngest ballplayer to ever appear in a Major League game, a record that still stands to this day.
Joe’s story wasn’t over either. After finishing High School he rejoined the Reds, spent several seasons finding his game in the minors before being called up. Once he got back to the Bigs, he pitched for Cincinnati for 8 seasons and earned two All-Star nods in 1955 and 1956.
Not bad for a kid that was just trying to help out during a player shortage...
