Joe Nuxhall - Teenage Debut

Teenage Debut

On June 10, the Reds were playing the first place St. Louis Cardinals at Crosley Field and trailing 13-0 in the ninth inning when Manager Bill McKechnie called on Nuxhall to enter the game. He started well, retiring the first batter he faced, Cardinals shortstop George Fallon, on a groundout. But he was unable to get out of the inning, yielding five walks, two hits, one wild pitch and five runs before being relieved. He spent the rest of the 1944 season in the minor leagues. But unlike Jake Eisenhart, who made his debut for the Reds the same day by getting the last out of the frame, Nuxhall would return to pitch in the majors.

Nuxhall remains the youngest person to play in a major league game in history. During his lifetime, it was believed that a 14-year-old named Fred Chapman pitched five innings in one 1887 game. However, in 2009, the Society for American Baseball Research discovered that this player's name and age were both incorrect. The 1887 player was actually named Frank Chapman, and he was 25 years old at the time of his only major league appearance. There have also been sources listing Billy Geer, who played for the 1874 New York Mutuals of the National Association, as having a birth date in 1859, but this is questionable as well, as is whether the National Association was a major league.

Joe Reliford, a batboy for the Class D Minor League Fitzgerald Pioneers, became the youngest person to ever play in a professional baseball game in 1952 when he was 12 years old.