Eddie Ainsmith Marquee

b. February 4, 1890 · Washington Senators 1910–1918, Detroit Tigers 1919–1921, St. Louis Cardinals 1921–1923, Brooklyn Robins 1923, New York Giants 1924

Eddie Ainsmith was born in Russia in 1890 and became Walter Johnson's regular catcher in Washington, which meant nine seasons of receiving the hardest fastball anyone had seen. He is among the very few major leaguers born in the Russian Empire.

He was also, briefly, at the center of a legal argument: in 1918 the Secretary of War ruled that baseball was not an essential occupation, and Ainsmith's appeal to be exempted from the wartime work-or-fight order was the test case that lost.

Born in Moscow and raised in Massachusetts, he caught 1,078 games across fifteen seasons for five clubs, batting .232. He was ninety-one when he died, on September 6, 1981.

Honors

Award	Times	Years
Baseball Magazine All-Star	1	1912

Batting, season by season

Year	Team	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG
1910	WSH	33	104	4	20	1	2	0	9	6	21	0	.192
1911	WSH	61	149	12	33	2	3	0	14	10	33	5	.221
1912	WSH	61	186	22	42	7	2	0	22	14	38	4	.226
1913	WSH	84	229	26	49	4	4	2	20	12	41	17	.214
1914	WSH	62	151	11	34	7	0	0	13	9	28	8	.225
1915	WSH	47	120	13	24	4	2	0	6	10	18	7	.200
1916	WSH	51	100	11	17	4	0	0	8	8	14	3	.170
1917	WSH	125	350	38	67	17	4	0	42	40	48	16	.191
1918	WSH	96	292	22	62	10	9	0	20	29	44	6	.212
1919	DET	114	364	42	99	17	12	3	32	45	30	9	.272
1920	DET	69	186	19	43	5	3	1	19	14	19	4	.231
1921	DET/STL	62	160	11	45	5	3	0	17	16	11	1	.281
1922	STL	119	379	46	111	14	4	13	59	28	43	2	.293
1923	BRO/STL	84	273	22	58	11	6	3	36	22	19	4	.212
1924	NYG	10	5	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.600
Career	—	1078	3048	299	707	108	54	22	317	263	407	86	.232

Pitching, season by season

Year	Team	W	L	G	GS	SV	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	ERA
1913	WSH	0	0	1	0	0	0.1	2	2	0	0	54.00
Career	—	0	0	1	0	0	0.1	2	2	0	0	54.00

On this day & linked events

1890

Born February 4, 1890

Moscow, Moscow, Russia

1981

Died September 6, 1981

1910

Major-league debut: Eddie Ainsmith

Eddie Ainsmith made a major-league debut on August 9, 1910.

1924

Final major-league game: Eddie Ainsmith

Eddie Ainsmith played a final major-league game on July 21, 1924.

Image: American Tobacco Company, public domain