Twenty Runs in a Game: Doc Parker and Allan Travers
While looking for something else I found two pitchers who allowed 20 or more runs in a single game since 1901:
Doc Parker, Cin, 1901: 8 IP, 26 H, 21 R, 14 ER, 1 HR, 2 BB, 0 K, -42 GSc
Allan Travers, Det, 1912: 8 IP, 26 H, 24 R, 14 ER, 0 HR, 7 BB, 1 K, -52 GSc
First off, wow. Second...
In Willie Keeler: From the Playgrounds of Brooklyn to the Hall of Fame, Lyle Spatz recounts Parker's outing against the Brooklyn Superbas:
For Parker, who had last pitched in the major leagues with Chicago in 1896, this was his first appearance of the season--and his last. The Reds released him the next day, ending his big league career. The twenty-one runs and twenty-six hits allowed by Parker remain National League records.
Keeler, for his part, went 5-for-5 with a double, a homer, and five runs scored before being lifted after the seventh inning.
Baseball-Reference game logs only go back to 1914, but since then, the Reds as a team have never allowed 26 hits in a game (a little surprising, given that it's happened 69 times in MLB during that stretch). They have allowed 21 or more runs in a game on three different occasions:
This is the only MLB game Travers would ever pitch. No, he didn't get sent back to the minors. In fact, he never pitched in the minors.
Courtesy of the SABR Bio Project, Gary Livacari notes the curious circumstances surrounding Travers' lone professional pitching appearance:
The date was May 18, 1912--surely one of the most bizarre days in major league history--and the site was Shibe Park, Philadelphia. The pitcher was Allan Travers, a student at nearby St. Joseph's College. A few years later, he would become Father Aloysius S. Travers, S. J., and to this day he is the only Catholic priest ever to play in a major league game.
On the previous Wednesday, May 15, the sixth-place Detroit Tigers were in New York's Hilltop Park for a regularly scheduled game against the New York Highlanders. As the game started, no one could possibly imagine that it would become the infamous game in which an enraged Ty Cobb savagely beat an abusive, handicapped fan named Claude Lueker. On this fateful day he had been taunting Cobb with a steady barrage of profanity-laced abuse peppered with racial slurs.
Unfortunately for Cobb, American League president Ban Johnson was in the park that day. He had witnessed the horrific incident and was aghast, later informing Detroit manager Hughie Jennings that Cobb was hereby suspended indefinitely. After the next game on Friday in Philadelphia, sixteen Tiger players voted to strike in protest of Cobb's suspension. They would not take the field again, they declared, until Cobb was reinstated.
During the spring exhibition season, the Philadelphia Athletics had fielded a team of second stringers called the "Yannigans" against the nearby St. Joseph College varsity baseball team. Nolan was acquainted with the team's assistant manager, Allan Travers, a twenty-year-old junior from Philadelphia. Before the Saturday afternoon game, Nolan contacted Travers asking him to find ten to or twelve amateurs in case the Tigers went through with their threatened strike. Nolan informed Travers that the recruited group would not be expected to play in the game, but were only required to take the field.
Seeing the large crowd and fretting over the potential loss of substantial revenue, Connie Mack had a sudden change of heart. He now insisted that the game be played. Why cancel the game, Mack reasoned, when his team had an opportunity to fatten their individual statistics?
The next problem was to find a pitcher. Enticed by the $50 fee offered by Jennings, Travers volunteered, even though he later confessed that he had never pitched a game in his life. The revamped Tigers, with Al Travers ready to take the mount, awaited the start of the game against the World Champion Athletics.
What may have started as a thrill for the replacement players quickly turned into an embarrassing farce. As expected, the A's won handily, 24-2, with Travers allowing all 24 runs on 26 hits, walking seven, and striking out one. The score was a respectable 6-2 through four innings until the A's erupted for 16 runs over the next three innings... The crowd viewed the game as a joke, and after the third inning many left in disgust, seeking a refund of their money. Fortunately, there were no serious disruptions during the game, and the players were escorted off the field by local police. By the end, the weary players knew they had been used and had participated in a travesty.
I have quoted perhaps too liberally here, so do yourself a favor and read Livacari's entire biography of Travers. It's well worth your time.
