Schoolboy Rowe Marquee

He won sixteen consecutive decisions between June and August of 1934, tying the American League record, and finished 24-8 for the Detroit club that won the pennant. During the streak a radio interviewer asked how he was doing and he said hello to his fiancée on the air, which followed him for the rest of his life.

He hit .263 with 239 hits and 18 home runs, was used as a pinch-hitter throughout, and is one of the better-hitting pitchers the game has had. Fifteen seasons gave him 158 wins against 101, a 3.87 earned run average and 137 complete games, with three All-Star selections.

Arm trouble cost him most of three seasons in the late 1930s and he came back to go 16-3 for Detroit in 1940 and pitch in a third World Series. He spent the war in the Navy, returned to Philadelphia at thirty-six and won 14 more. Four writers' ballots gave him no more than seventeen votes. He died in 1961, at fifty.