Arthur Irwin

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Arthur Irwin : biography

February 14, 1858 – July 16, 1921

Irwin managed the Rochester Hustlers between 1918 and 1920. Rochester was not successful under Irwin; the 1920 Hustlers finished with 45 wins and 106 losses. Cray L. Remington of the Rochester Evening Journal later wrote, "Local fans used to pan Arthur Irwin in the old days when Arthur was as innocent of wrong as the little sparrows on the limbs. Arthur’s job was to win ball games minus talent. He couldn’t do it." While managing the Eastern League’s Hartford Senators in 1921 against a New York semi-pro team, Irwin noticed the play of Lou Gehrig and convinced him to sign his first professional contract with Hartford. Gehrig had already committed to play at Columbia University and professional experience would affect his collegiate eligibility, so he began playing for Hartford using assumed names like Lou Lewis. However, Columbia found out about Gehrig’s play and the slugger was forced to sit out of college baseball for a year.

Sports innovations

While playing with Providence in 1883, Irwin broke the third and fourth fingers of his left hand. Not wanting to miss any games, he obtained an oversized buckskin driving glove, padded it and sewed the third and fourth fingers together to allow space for bandages. He used the glove even after his fingers healed. John Montgomery Ward of New York soon took the field with a similar glove. By the following season, almost every professional player was using the "Irwin glove." Prior to 1884, use of gloves was limited to first basemen and catchers. In 1882, Irwin committed a league-high 78 errors in 84 games. He committed 66 errors in 98 games the following year. Over his next two seasons with the glove, Irwin committed 98 errors in 163 games.

Irwin was president of the American League of Professional Football (ALPF) for its lone season in 1894. The organization represented the first American professional soccer league. Teams in the league were named after their MLB counterparts in the same cities. Some of the active baseball managers served as coaches for the soccer teams, and fans were sometimes enticed by the rumor of MLB players who might participate in the league. Irwin was also involved in an attempt to popularize roller polo.

Irwin developed and patented a football scoreboard, which was in use in the Ivy League by the 1890s. The large scoreboard featured a miniature representation of a football field, and the ball moved along the board to report each play. By 1915, Irwin’s scoreboards were featured at each end of the field for the Army-Navy game at the Polo Grounds.

Death

On June 21, 1921, Irwin gave up his managerial role with the Hartford club in the Eastern League due to health concerns. He was experiencing abdominal trouble and severe nervous attacks. Irwin was diagnosed with stomach cancer; he had lost 60 pounds in two weeks. While in the hospital, he was told that he only had a few days to live. While traveling from New York City to Boston on the vessel Calvin Austin, Irwin was lost overboard in an apparent suicide on July 16. Shortly after his death, a theory emerged that Irwin had been robbed for $5,000 and then murdered aboard the ship. This theory was discounted when it was learned from family members that Irwin had taken only $35 on the trip. When Arthur was last seen aboard the ship around midnight on July 16, he told a friend that he was "coming home to his brother John’s to die."

During the investigation into Irwin’s disappearance and death, two widows emerged; one lived in Boston and the other lived in New York. He first married Elizabeth, the woman in Boston, in 1883. Together they had three children, including a son who was 37 at the time of Irwin’s death, and nine grandchildren. In the 1890s he married again, this time in Philadelphia to May, a woman he met while coaching baseball at the University of Pennsylvania. They settled in New York and had a son who was 24 when Irwin died.

In his final days, Irwin sold his rights from his scoreboard business for $2000. Though he sent $1500 to May and only $500 to Elizabeth, his Boston widow was surprised at the gesture since Irwin rarely visited Boston and provided almost no financial support to their family. In fact, May said that he had not been away from New York for more than a few days at a time in 27 years. She said that his only long trips were baseball-related, when he would scout players in other cities. Before he left New York for the final time, he told May that he was going to say goodbye to friends in Boston and that he would return to New York. Though neither woman knew of the other, Irwin’s New York son Harold learned about an unknown brother while he was visiting his father in the hospital just before Irwin’s death.

In 1989, Irwin was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Other influence

Irwin owned athletic facilities in Atlantic City, New Jersey and negotiated with baseball officials about bringing organized baseball there in 1900. Irwin opened a motor-paced bicycle racing track in the city in July 1902. His focus on the bicycle track enterprise had been a factor in his resignation from the Penn coaching staff in 1902. He also became involved with the Hartford Avenue Colosseum Company and oversaw its Philadelphia bicycle track.