Toad Ramsey
| Toad Ramsey | |||
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| Pitcher | |||
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Born: August 8, 1864 Indianapolis, Indiana |
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Died: March 27, 1906 (aged 41) Indianapolis, Indiana |
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| MLB debut | |||
| September 5, 1885, for the Louisville Colonels | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| September 17, 1890, for the St. Louis Browns | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Win–loss record | 113–124 | ||
| Earned run average | 3.29 | ||
| Strikeouts | 1,515 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Thomas H. "Toad" Ramsey (August 8, 1864 – March 27, 1906) was an American Major League Baseball player who pitched in the Majors from 1885 to 1890. Ramsey spent his entire career in the American Association, split between two different teams. He played for the Louisville Colonels, and later, the St. Louis Browns. He is sometimes credited as the inventor of the knuckleball pitch, and was one of the top pitchers in the Association for more than two years, with statistics that put him in the top five in multiple pitching categories.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and a former bricklayer, Ramsey is credited as the inventor of the knuckleball pitch. He had severed the tendon in the index finger of his pitching hand with a trowel. The result was that Ramsey's pitches had a natural knuckleball motion. He threw with a fastball motion, holding the ball with his index finger retracted, since he could not straighten it, and with just his finger tip on the ball. Some historians have disputed that he threw a knuckleball in the modern sense, in that his ball movement was like what is now known as knuckle curve. He was playing for the Chattanooga, Tennessee team of the Southern League, when he was traded to Louisville Colonels of the American Association in exchange for John Connor and $750 on August 29, 1885. He was brought in to spell star pitcher Guy Hecker, who had a sore arm, and made his Major League debut on September 5, in a complete game 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Browns. In that first season with the Colonels, he started nine games, completing them all with a 3-6 win-loss record.
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