Bill Steele

Biography

William Mitchell Steele (October 5, 1885 – October 19, 1949) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB). He pitched from 1910 to 1914 with the St. Louis Cardinals and Brooklyn Robins. Nicknamed "Big Bill", at 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m), he was one of the larger players of his era. His main pitch was a spitball. Steele grew up in Milford, Pennsylvania. He began pitching at the professional level in 1909, and after winning 25 games for the Altoona Rams in 1910, he was signed by the Cardinals. Steele appeared in nine games with the team that year, then pitched a career-high 287+1⁄3 innings in 1911. He led the National League (NL) with 19 losses while posting a 3.73 earned run average (ERA). In 1912, Steele posted the worst ERA (4.69) among pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the MLB ERA title. He claimed in 1913 that he had purposefully not been trying as hard as he could have in 1912, and this impaired his relationship with the front office. Bothered by rheumatism the next couple of seasons, Steele found himself used mainly as a mopup reliever by 1914. Sold to the Robins later that year, he finished his MLB career with eight appearances in a Brooklyn uniform. Steele then played minor league baseball for a couple more seasons. A few years after he retired, he and his family moved to the St. Louis area, where he worked as a mechanic for Swift and Company and later as a maintenance man at an A&P warehouse. He was killed on October 19, 1949, when a streetcar ran into him.

Bio from Wikipedia