Henry Chadwick, who is often referred to as the “Father of Baseball”, pioneered statistics and overall was a huge proponent of the game of baseball. He is credited with some of the first journalistic covering of the sport, as well as the first database of statistics of the sport. Chadwick was an outspoken critic of the ‘bound rule’ – if a batted ball bounced once and a fielder caught the bounce, it was recorded as an out. In 1864 this rule was changed for fair territory, but it took until the 1880’s
for it to change with foul balls.
In addition to all of these advancements, he also used the word ‘battery’ to mean the duo of catcher and pitcher for the offensive team. It later evolved to mean a pitcher and their favorite catcher.
There have been many famous batteries throughout baseball history, and some cool facts about those duos.
The record for most games together belongs to Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada. Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina have the most team wins together, with 213 of their 328 games started as a battery.
Max Scherzer and Willson Ramos had two no-hitters together in 2015 for the Washington Nationals. One duo had already done them one better, however.
In 1938, Johnny Vander Meer and Eddie Lombardi orchestrated back-to-back no hitters with no runs allowed in a five-day span. The second of those was against the Brooklyn Dodgers and happened on the night of the first ever night game at Ebbets Field. Vander Meer somehow managed to complete the second no hitter despite walking three (!) batters in the ninth inning. For a more complete look at that crazy game, ESPN has a great article covering it here.
Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey were the first battery mates to each hit a grand slam in the same game when they both did it on July 13, 2014, against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The first battery comprised of all Black players was that of George Stovey and Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1887. The duo played for the Newark Little Giants. Over their first 10 starts together, Stovey went 10-0. On July 15th of that year, the players from the Chicago White Stockings refused to take the field if Black players were allowed to play, an incident which helped usher in the league’s segregating baseball again.
As far as the Dodgers go, both Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale had over 200 starts with catcher John Roseboro. Roseboro took over backstop duties for the Dodgers after Roy Campanella was involved in an auto accident that ended his career. Roseboro went on to catch four World Series, with the Dodgers winning three of those.
In 1965, Roseboro was involved in a game in which Juan Marichal took things too far in retaliation, and was hit in the head at least twice by Marichal’s bat. Roseboro sustained a huge gash on his head which required 14 stitches.
The Dodgers had the first all Jewish battery in MLB history in brothers Larry and Norm Sherry. Larry was on the mound for all four of the Dodgers wins in the 1959 World Series and was the winner of record in two of them.
The most recent favorite battery in Dodgers history was of course that of Clayton Kershaw and A.J. Ellis. The duo had 64 regular season starts together, including Kershaw’s no-hitter in 2014. Both players were devastated when their careers together came to an abrupt end when the Dodgers traded Ellis to the Philadelphia Phillies in August of 2016.
Who is your all time favorite pitcher-catcher pairing?
