Brad Hogg was a spitball pitcher from south Georgia, who graduated from Mercer Law in Augusta in 1911. Signed by the Boston Nationals (in order for him to raise the money for his necessary law library) he spent the summer in the minors (10-3 with Haverhill of the NE League) before being called up in September, 1911, and teaming with Cy Young as his doubleheader rotation-mate.
In 1912, in spite of a 1-1-1 record with Boston, he was sent down to New Bedford of the NE League in a trade for Rabbit Maranville. He spent 1913,14 and 15 with Mobile of the Southern Assn, where he became one of the premier pitchers in the league, averaging 20 wins a season with his spitter and his new shine ball.
Called up at the end of 1915 by the Cubs, with future Hall of Fame catcher Roger Bresnahan behind the plate, he pitched a shutout against the Reds and got a contract for 1916.
However, after the season, the Cubs were sold to Charlie Weeghman, and the new owner and his new manager, Joe Tinker, attempted to sell a surplus of players without putting them through waivers. One was Bradley, who took his case to the National Commission. He won, but lost anyway, as the Cubs eventually sold him prior to the 1916 season to Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast League, managed by Frank Chance.
While with LA, he went 16-9 and helped the Angels win their first PCL pennant in 7 years. The following season, (1917) the Angels failed to win the pennant by half a game, but Bradley ended the season as the premier pitcher in the Coast League with a 27-13 record, and an era of 2.23, and was the holder of a 15-game winning streak only ended by the end of the PCL season.
Bradley was sold to Philadelphia in 1918 as the replacement for Pete Alexander, and went 13-13 with one save and an era of 2.53 for the sixth place, light-hitting Phillies.
Retiring after the season, he was enticed to return in June by a large raise ($750) in 1919, but returned out of shape and fit in perfectly with a perfectly horrible Phillies' club that finished last in the National League.
Bradley and future Hall of Fame pitcher Eppa Rixey spent most of the 1919 season relieving each other, to little avail, Bradley winning 5 games. Rixey did little better, winning 6.
When baseball outlawed the spitball and the shine ball on February 9, 1920, Bradley officially and finally retired, becoming the first spitball pitcher to do so as a result of the new rules.
He became a successful lawyer in Americus, Ga, but ran into an unconquerable obstacle in 1932 when he drank water from a common dipper at the town well in Americus, contracting tuberculosis which killed him in 1935.
During his career, Bradley played with for or against 27 Hall of Famers, and owned Rogers Hornsby as well as the Cincinnati Reds.
A book on his life and the times in which he played titled "Spitting on Diamonds" will be published by the University of Missouri Press in the spring of 2005.
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Copyright © 2004 by Clyde Hogg. Posted August 2, 2004.
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