Jim Creighton: a Baseball Superstar's Untimely Death
Posted: Saturday, October 08, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
James Creighton, Jr. (April 14, 1841- October 18, 1862) was ‘big league' baseball's first superstar. A pitcher in the sport's earliest era, he is credited with throwing the first fastball, having developed the first change-up pitch and having completed the game's first triple play. He is also thought to be the first player who was paid for his services as the organization transformed from an amateur to a professional sport. He tragically died in agony several days after sustaining an injury while playing a baseball game. He was twenty-one years old.
From the first effort to organize the sport in the late 1840's, to the formation of professional leagues in the 1870's, baseball was an exclusively amateur endeavor. There were no schedules or regulated seasons. Ball clubs spent most of their time practicing and playing intra-squad games. They played on any available field. They would occasionally schedule ‘matches' against other clubs. Regardless, the game was extremely popular with athletes and the public. There were at least 50 clubs in Manhattan alone when baseball was first called "America's pastime" in an article in the New York Mercury in 1856.
At age 16, Jim Creighton formed his own ‘team' in his Brooklyn neighborhood, the Young America Base Ball Club. It didn't last a year, but he and another player, George Flanley, formed the Niagra Club in 1858. When the Niagra's were playing (and being beaten badly by), the well established Star Club, Creighton, an infielder, came in as a relief pitcher. He threw the ball incredable hard.
During that era, the pitcher was expected to ‘serve up' the ball for batters to hit. The ball had to be delivered underhand with a locked and straight elbow and wrist. The object was to have the ball ‘put into play,' not to strike out the batter. The Star batters claimed Creighton used wrist snap to pitch his "speedball" as he called it. Regardless of the legality of the pitch, the Stars immediately invited Creighton and Flanley to join their team, which they did.
In 1860 Creighton joined one of the best known clubs in the sport, the Excelsior of Brooklyn, which considered themselves the champions of America. By the following year, Creighton was fast becoming an national pitching sensation. To prove they were the best team "in the world," the Excelsior went on the first national tour, traveling down the East Coast. Creighton dominated the hometown teams where ever they played. He became so popular that many youth teams began naming themselves the Creightons in his honor. During the 1860 tour he pitched baseball's first recorded shutout (the opponents scored no runs).
Creighton's speedball so dominated a ‘match' that, when he held the famed Brooklyn Atlantics to only five runs (an extraordinarily low total for the era), the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper began an investigation to determine if the pitch was legal. The conclusion was that he was throwing a "fair square pitch," that it was not a "jerk" or "underhand throw."
In 1862, the 21 year old Creighton had become the game's greatest player, as both a pitcher and a hitter. It is said that that year he was not put out at the plate a single time, and was put out on the bases only four times (during that era, the runner, not batter was charged with the out if tagged or forced out while on the bases). He had also developed a new pitch; the "dew-drop," as he called it, which is credited with being the first change-up pitch (a pitch with a much reduced velocity).
Creighton's greatest year was also his last. In October, 1862, baseball's first superstar died suddenly. His fame had become so great that a 12-foot marble obelisk, topped with a large baseball was erected at his gravesite. For several years the Excelsiors maintained a team poster with a portrait of Creighton, shrouded in black, prominently featured in the center.
It is generally concluded that Jim Creighton died from an injury suffered while playing a baseball match. At that time, players used massive bats and swung them almost entirely with their upper body. Creighton had taken an especially hard swing. Some claim it was a homerun swing. When he returned to the sidelines he commented to his friend, George Flanley, that he thought he had snapped his belt. He continued to play the game, but a few hours later was in extreme pain. He died in excruciating agony at his parent's home a few days later.
There are several explanations of Creighton's untimely death. Investigations after the fact concluded that he had either ruptured his bladder or ruptured an inguinal hernia. Contemporary writers were very vague and said that he had simply suffered "a strain." Regardless, Jim Creighton, baseball's first superstar was gone. He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in his home town of Brooklyn. But, as is the case in "America's game," all players stand side by side with, and are compared with all other players of all time. Jim Creighton still stands tall.
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