Larry McLean
| Larry McLean | |||
|---|---|---|---|
McLean with the New York Giants in 1913
|
|||
| Catcher | |||
|
Born: July 18, 1881 Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada |
|||
|
Died: March 24, 1921 (aged 39) Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
|||
|
|||
| MLB debut | |||
| April 26, 1901, for the Boston Americans | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| June 6, 1915, for the New York Giants | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .262 | ||
| Home runs | 6 | ||
| Runs batted in | 298 | ||
| Teams | |||
|
|||
John Bannerman McLean (July 18, 1881 – March 14, 1921) was a professional baseball catcher between 1901 until 1915. During his years in Major League Baseball, he played for five different teams. Beginning his career with the Boston Americans, his final professional game was played with the New York Giants on June 6, 1915.
McLean was the tallest catcher in major league history. Known for his heavy drinking and violent behavior, McLean's career ended after a 1915 brawl with New York Giants manager John McGraw and coach Dick Kinsella. He was fatally shot by a bartender six years after his last major league appearance.
McLean was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He earned the nickname Larry after the alternate moniker ascribed to Nap Lajoie, a star baseball player who McLean was said to resemble. In 1901, while McLean and Fred Mitchell were playing for a local team in Saint John, New Brunswick, they were scouted and signed by the fledgling Boston Red Sox.
On December 12, 1903, McLean was traded from the Cubs to the Cardinals in what has been described as "one of the worst trades in Cardinals history." McLean and Jack Taylor were traded to the Cardinals in exchange for future Baseball Hall of Fame member Three Finger Brown and Jack O'Neill.
McLean was known to chew large amounts of Brown's Mule tobacco and was a heavy drinker of corn whiskey. When he signed with the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League in 1905, he became teammates with a pitcher who also struggled with alcohol use, Ned Garvin. Baseball author Dennis Snelling said that this pitcher-catcher combination formed "one of the most volatile batteries in the history of the game."
...
Wikipedia