Tony Mullane

Anthony John Mullane (January 30, 1859 – April 25, 1944), nicknamed "Count" and "The Apollo of the Box", was an Irish Major League Baseball player who pitched for seven teams during his 13-season career. He is best known as an ambidextrous pitcher who could throw left- and right-handed, and for having one of the highest career win totals of pitchers not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Career Born in County Cork, Ireland, Mullane emigrated to the United States in 1864. He made his major league debut with the Detroit Wolverines on August 27, , picking up his first career win 9–1 over the Chicago White Stockings. Mullane suffered an injury to his right arm and managed to teach himself to throw left-handed. He resumed throwing right-handed once the injury healed, and he even alternated throwing right-handed and left-handed in the same game, which was easy for him since he did not wear a glove. Mullane faced the batter with both hands on the ball, and then would use either one to throw a pitch. (It was over 100 years before another ambidextrous pitcher, Greg A. Harris, using a special ambidextrous glove, got to switch-pitch in one game shortly before he retired with the Montreal Expos. Harris was the only pitcher to do so in the 20th century. He had spent most of his career prohibited by the Boston Red Sox from pitching left-handed.) In , Mullane moved on to the American Association and joined the Louisville Eclipse, where he started 55 of the team's 80 games and compiled a record of 30–24 with a 1.88 earned run average, the first of five consecutive 30-win seasons. On September 11, he pitched a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Red Stockings. He recorded 35 victories with the St. Louis Browns.