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  "description": "A devastating bean-ball alters Ralph Shinners’ career, Billy Evans defends pitching prospect Owen Carroll, and baseball writers examine the uncertain path from rookie sensation to major league survivor in May 1926.",
  "path": "/bean-balls-billy-evans-and-ty-cobbs-pitching-prospect-baseball-features-from-may-1926/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-14T02:44:04.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.diamondghosts.com",
  "tags": [
    "Ralph Shinners",
    "John J. McGraw",
    "George Smith",
    "Rogers Hornsby",
    "Owen Carroll",
    "Ty Cobb",
    "PAUL ZAHNISER"
  ],
  "textContent": "Content from the DeKalb Daily News - May 13, 1926\n\n## In This Edition\n\n-Bean-Ball Spoils the Career of Rookie Star\n- Billy Evans Says\n- FOHL FLINGER\n\n\n\n## Bean-Ball Spoils the Career of Rookie Star\n\nThe bean-ball appears to have ruined the big league career of another promising youngster. The release of Ralph Shinners by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Oakland club of the Pacific Coast League adds another victim to the bean-ball, intentional or otherwise.\n\nShinners will be recalled as the price of the American association in 1921. With Indianapolis he had an average of .347, poled 50 doubles, 26 triples and 13 home runs, and was the leading base stealer in the circuit with 52.\n\nMajor league scouts immediately started the bidding on Shinners, but everybody fell by the wayside when John J. McGraw entered the scene.\n\nRalph Shinners, former Giants and Cardinals outfielder whose promising major league career was derailed after a devastating bean-ball injury in the early 1920s.\n\nMcGraw's bank roll usually makes the other fellows look like pikers and Shinners joined the Giants in the spring of 1922. In one of his early games Shinners was felled by George Smith, lean right-handed with the Phillies. They carried Shinners to a hospital and it was several months before he was ready for action again.\n\nReturning to the Giants, McGraw detected the change in Shinners' stance and how he ducked the fast ball at the chin. The bean-ball had left its mark and McGraw sent Shinners to the Toledo club.\n\nAmong the bidders for Shinners during his term with Indianapolis was Branch Rickey, then manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. He scouted Shinners when with Toledo in 1924 and felt that Ralph no longer was shy.\n\nShinners was drafted by the Cardinals for 1925 but when he continued to back away at the plate against the right-handers he was used only against the southpaws. And even the southpaws shooed him frequently.\n\nOne season was enough to convince Rogers Hornsby that the bean-ball had seriously handicapped the big league career of another promising youngster.\n\n* * *\n\nk\n\n* * *\n\n“Billy Evans Says” header featuring Hall of Fame umpire and columnist Billy Evans, whose syndicated baseball observations appeared in newspapers across the country during the 1920s.\n\n## Billy Evans Says\n\n### Highly Touted\n\nNo player in years has come to the majors more highly touted than Pitcher Owen Carroll, Holy Cross star.\n\nWhen he joined the Detroit Tygers at Boston in June of last season, it was an event extraordinary. New England folks flocked to the ball-yard to see the young man in action.\n\nAs a college pitcher, over four years of play, Carroll had won something like 50 games and lost only two.\n\nA big sensation in \"Rah, Rah\" circles, the supposition was that Carroll would stand the big league batters on their heads just as he did the collegians.\n\nIt so happened that I umpired the debut of Carroll as a member of the Detroit team in his so-called home town of Boston, also his first appearance at Detroit.\n\n\"They were flops,\" as they say in theatrical circles when an act fails to go over, as Carroll did not finish either game.\n\n* * *\n\n### Big Handicap\n\nWhile Carroll failed to go the route in his first two starts, I ventured the prediction that he was a great looking pitching prospect.\n\nIn a sense, Carroll's failure to get away to a good start in the majors last season might well be attributed to a matter of finance.\n\nFeeling that Carroll should have a year of minor league experience, Manager Cobb consented to let him make his debut in Boston, a few days after he joined the club, rather than nurse him along for a number of weeks as is customary with recruit pitchers.\n\nIt was asking too much of Carroll to come through under the circumstances but, at that, he pitched as well as his team played behind him. The Tygers, anxious to help put the youngster over in Boston, didn't play up to standard.\n\nAbout a week later he made his Detroit debut and it was no more auspicious.\n\nHowever, both games were played to standing-room only, so that Carroll soon brought back at the gate much of the money that had been paid out for him.\n\n* * *\n\n### Plenty of Courage\n\nIn some quarters the opinion was expressed that the rather forced starting of Carroll, which resulted in two defeats, might take some of his confidence and possibly ruin his career.\n\nThat thought never appealed to me. Carroll wasn't quite ready when he came to the majors. Pitching to big league batters for the first time, he had no knowledge of their weakness or strength.\n\nHaving plenty of courage, the severe test he had been put to, with accompanying failures, in no way handicapped Carroll.\n\n\"It is all so different up here,\" remarked Carroll to me after his second game. \"It looks as if there is a lot to pitching that I still have to learn.\n\n\"The batters wait you out up here. They don't swing at everything that is near the plate, as do many of the college players, and, when they get you in the hole, they murder the cripple.\"\n\n* * *\n\n### Going Great\n\nThis spring I watched Carroll for a couple of days with the Detroit Tygers at Augusta, Ga.\n\nManager Cobb had then practically decided that a year in some big minor league would give Carroll the polish he needed to be a major league star.\n\nHe was to be sent to the Toronto club of the International League. Catching for that team was the veteran Steven O'Neill, for many years the star backstop of the Cleveland Indians.\n\n\"What about Owen Carroll?\" I asked Steven, valuing his opinion highly.\n\n\"He looks great,\" replied Steven. \"Has a fine curve ball, a good fast one, and there is style to his every movement. He has the class, will make a great pitcher for Cobb.\"\n\nHanded by O'Neill, the collegian Carroll won his first six starts in International League.\n\nWhich makes Manager Tyrus Cobb of Detroit smile blandly.Highly Touted\n\nNo player in years has come to the majors more highly touted than Pitcher Owen Carroll, Holy Cross star.\n\nWhen he joined the Detroit Tygers at Boston in June of last season, it was an event extraordinary. New England folks flocked to the ball-yard to see the young man in action.\n\nAs a college pitcher, over four years of play, Carroll had won something like 50 games and lost only two.\n\nA big sensation in \"Rah, Rah\" circles, the supposition was that Carroll would stand the big league batters on their heads just as he did the collegians.\n\nIt so happened that I umpired the debut of Carroll as a member of the Detroit team in his so-called home town of Boston, also his first appearance at Detroit.\n\n\"They were flops,\" as they say in theatrical circles when an act fails to go over, as Carroll did not finish either game.\n\n* * *\n\n### Big Handicap\n\nWhile Carroll failed to go the route in his first two starts, I ventured the prediction that he was a great looking pitching prospect.\n\nIn a sense, Carroll's failure to get away to a good start in the majors last season might well be attributed to a matter of finance.\n\nFeeling that Carroll should have a year of minor league experience, Manager Ty Cobb consented to let him make his debut in Boston, a few days after he joined the club, rather than nurse him along for a number of weeks as is customary with recruit pitchers.\n\nIt was asking too much of Carroll to come through under the circumstances but, at that, he pitched as well as his team played behind him. The Tygers, anxious to help put the youngster over in Boston, didn't play up to standard.\n\nAbout a week later he made his Detroit debut and it was no more auspicious.\n\nHowever, both games were played to standing-room only, so that Carroll soon brought back at the gate much of the money that had been paid out for him.\n\n* * *\n\n### Plenty of Courage\n\nIn some quarters the opinion was expressed that the rather forced starting of Carroll, which resulted in two defeats, might take some of his confidence and possibly ruin his career.\n\nThat thought never appealed to me. Carroll wasn't quite ready when he came to the majors. Pitching to big league batters for the first time, he had no knowledge of their weakness or strength.\n\nHaving plenty of courage, the severe test he had been put to, with accompanying failures, in no way handicapped Carroll.\n\n\"It is all so different up here,\" remarked Carroll to me after his second game. \"It looks as if there is a lot to pitching that I still have to learn.\n\n\"The batters wait you out up here. They don't swing at everything that is near the plate, as do many of the college players, and, when they get you in the hole, they murder the cripple.\"\n\n* * *\n\n### Going Great\n\nThis spring I watched Carroll for a couple of days with the Detroit Tygers at Augusta, Ga.\n\nManager Cobb had then practically decided that a year in some big minor league would give Carroll the polish he needed to be a major league star.\n\nHe was to be sent to the Toronto club of the International League. Catching for that team was the veteran Steve O'Neill, for many years the star backstop of the Cleveland Indians.\n\n\"What about Owen Carroll?\" I asked Steven, valuing his opinion highly.\n\n\"He looks great,\" replied Steven. \"Has a fine curve ball, a good fast one, and there is style to his every movement. He has the class, will make a great pitcher for Cobb.\"\n\nHandled by O'Neill, the collegian Carroll won his first six starts in International League.\n\nWhich makes Manager Ty Cobb of Detroit smile blandly.\n\n* * *\n\n## FOHL FLINGER\n\n### Former Washington Hurler Expected to Help Red Sox.\n\nPaul Zahniser, young Washington Senators pitcher, shown in a full-body pitching pose during the 1926 season.\n\n* * *\n\nPAUL ZAHNISER**.**\n\n**Former Washington pitcher** , who is expected to prove helpful to the cause of the **Boston Red Sox** this season. Zahniser came to the **Fohl team** from the **Senators** a year ago after having served two campaigns with the **Nats**. He's been in professional basebal since **1918**.\n\n* * *\n\n1926 Chesterfield Cigarettes advertisement using a speeding battleship to symbolize the brand’s rapid rise in popularity with the slogan “Full speed ahead!”",
  "title": "Bean-Balls, Billy Evans and Ty Cobb’s Pitching Prospect — Baseball Features from May 1926",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-14T02:44:04.342Z"
}