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Goto Baseball-Reference.com for Ed Sproat
Ed Sproat was playing in Cairo, Illinois in 1886 when he was described by the Sporting News in August as "the speediest pitcher ever seen on the home grounds" of Evansville after striking out 20 batters. He signed with Denver of the Western League for 1887, where he went 10-16. During his time there, he was fined and suspended for throwing a game, although he did finish the season with the club. In December 1887, he signed with the St. Louis Whites.
Ed Sproat didn't report to Spring Training until early April. A blurb in the St. Louis Globe Democrat in April indicated that he was still sick during spring training, which is probably why he didn't appear in a single game. His first appearance with the Whites was in their second game of the season on May 1. The club opened at home against Milwaukee on April 28, with Staley starting. The St. Louis papers reported on April 29th that the starter that day would be Jim Devlin, except that game, and the makeup game the next day (May 30), were both rained out. Devlin was still listed as the starter in the papers on the morning of May 1, but Sproat started instead. The Sporting Life reported
"Sproat returned to the city last Tuesday morning [May 1], where he was confined to his room for a couple of weeks. Sproat pitched the same afternoon of his arrival and won a twelve inning game. Pretty good feat for a sick man." (May 9, 1888).Ed Sproat appeared in two more games with the Whites, May 3 and May 7. After winning the first two games, he was shelled in his third start. After that start, he drops out of the news completely. Fred Nyce made his first start of the season on May 8, and then Harry Staley started the game on May 9. It seems like the plan at this point was to go with a three-man rotation (else Staley would have pitched on May 8). That put Sproat in line as the starter for the game on May 10, but the St. Louis Republican listed the starter for that day as Jim Burns, a local amateur pitcher. The actual starter was Nyce. Nyce and Staley would alternate starts for the rest of the season, with the exception of a few starts in late May and early June.
So what happened to Ed Sproat? Reports from the May 7 game indicate that he had been sick for a week prior to his start. "The little man did well for three innings and then his strength seemed to desert him and he merely tossed the balls over the plate during the remainder of the game." (St. Louis Republican, May 8, 1888) He got hammered for seven runs in the fourth and seven more over the rest of the game. The most likely scenario would be that he got sicker again and left the club. There was no mention of his being dropped from the team in the newspapers of the time. An article in the Philadelphia Times on May 13 listed three players cut from the Whites to that point (Alcott, McCormack, and Somers), and noted that Sproat got pounded in his previous start, but it didn't include his name in the list of players cut. That was the last blurb about him during the 1888 season. There was no mention of him in the St. Louis papers after May 8. He was not mentioned when the Whites disbanded later in the summer, or in several subsequent articles about what happened to the former Whites players. Sproat did not pitch another game in organized ball until 1895, when he played a few games for Montgomery.
After Sproat left the Browns, he moved back to Louisville and became a fireman. In 1895, he returned to baseball and pitched briefly in the Southern League (identified as "Sprout" in Baseball-Reference (sprout001---)). A box score from the Montgomery Advertiser on March 26, 1895 indicates he pitched for Montgomery in an exhibition game against the Browns. (Harry Staley was one of the pitchers for the Browns that game.) He was released by Montgomery in early May of 1895, and there is no record of his playing again in professional baseball.
Ed Sproat died September 29, 1915. His obituary in the Louisville Courier-Journal indicates he spent three years in the army in the Philippines during and after the Spanish American War. Afterwards he returned to Louisville and resumed his career as a fireman. He was the fuel wagon driver of the No. 17 engine company at the time of his death in 1915 at the age of 50. He was survived by a wife, five children and a step daughter, and six sisters.
Ed Sproat's obituary describes him as a former pitcher "who gained fame in the latter eighties as a National League baseball pitcher", even though he never played in the majors. It also says he was "drafted by the St. Louis team of the National League". By 1915, St. Louis had been in the National League for almost 25 years, and it is likely that few remembered or cared about the distinction between being in the American Association or the National League, let alone recalled a short-lived team from St. Louis in the Western Association.
Stats with the St. Louis WhitesBatting stats
Year Team Pos Age G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1888 STW -- 3 14 1 2 0 0 0 0 0.143 0.143 Pitching stats
Year Team Pos Age W L ERA G GS CG SH S IP R H HR BB K ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1888 STW P -- 2 1 4.97 3 3 3 0 29.0 27 39 6 9