Buck O'Brien Stats

Did you know that Buck O'Brien threw the first pitch in the first baseball game played in Fenway Park ? The green cathedral is located in Boston, Massachusetts, at 4 Yawkey Way, near Kenmore Square, and was christened on April 20, 1912, when 27,000 fans watched the Boston Red Sox defeat the New York Highlanders ( Yankees ) 7-6 in eleven innings.

Fenway Park First Game | Buck O'Brien First Pitch | The Washington Post | April 21, 1912

Did you know that when Buck O'Brien was charged with a balk, in Game 6 , of the 1912 World Series , it was the first balk ever committed during a Fall Classic ? That mistake even affected his career:

O'Brien was a big star with the Boston Red Sox in 1912 , when that team won the American League pennant and then whipped the New York Giants for the world's title. With the Boston club under Jake Stahl , O'Brien won eighteen of thirty-one games pitched, which was a great help in the winning of the flag for the Red Sox . He was in the list of the leading pitchers of the league, finishing with an average of .581. Jack Hendricks had O'Brien at Denver one season and knows the value of the big right hander.

It is said that O'Brien was dropped from the Red Sox last spring because of a quarrel with manager Jake Stahl , which had it's beginning in the world's series of 1912 . O'Brien worked in two games of the championship series and an unintentional costly balk, made in the first inning of the second game (Baseball Almanac Note: It was in the first inning, of Game 6 , O'Brien did not pitch in Game 2 ), is given as the reason for the pitcher's release.

Source: The Indianapolis Star. 28 Mar 1914. Eddie Ash. O'BRIEN SIGNS INDIAN CONTRACT. Page 12.

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