The Infinity ERA Club: One Of Baseball's Most Unfortunate Groups
The Infinity ERA Club: One Of Baseball's Most Unfortunate Groups
We salute the brave hurlers who tried their hardest to record an out in the Major Leagues ... and just couldn't get the job done.
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . On the flip side of the Infinity ERA Club is the “0.00 ERA Club,” pitchers who finished their career without allowing a single earned run. Through all of MLB history, there are only two pitchers who have thrown at least 10 career innings with an ERA of 0.00. John Dagenhard first accomplished this in 1943 with the Boston Braves, appearing in two games and tossing 11 innings while allowing zero earned runs (though he did surrender two unearned runs). Timothy Jones nearly bested him with the Pirates in 1977, when he made the only three pitching appearances of his career and tossed 10 innings without allowing an earned run.
. . . Gerardo Parra, noted member of the Infinity ERA Club, is entering his first year as a first-base coach for the Nationals, with whom he won the World Series in 2019 and spent two of his 12 Major League seasons, in ‘19 and ‘21.
Leading Off
The Infinity ERA Club
By Paul White
Baseball is largely built around math. From the distance between bases, to the speed of fastballs, to the angles outfielders take to catch fly balls, math is central to the game. That’s most obvious in the game’s statistics, with some of the more modern versions having complicated formulae that sometimes can’t even be agreed upon. But even some of the oldest statistics in baseball still have calculations, and one of them, earned run average (ERA), sometimes runs afoul of one of the oldest aspects of mathematics.
ERA is calculated by dividing the number of earned runs a pitcher surrenders by the number of innings he pitched, and then multiplying the result by nine. That almost always works just fine in producing a number that shows how many earned runs that pitcher surrenders, on average, in a nine-inning game.
Sadly, sometimes that formula is impossible to calculate. Sometimes a pitcher surrenders runs without getting anyone out. That means he technically didn’t pitch any innings, and that screws up the ERA formula since math won’t let us divide by zero. The result is the infamous “Inf” on a pitcher’s stats under the ERA heading, short for “Infinity.”
In the history of baseball, 26 players have a career ERA of infinity. This is the woeful tale of some of them.
The earliest infinity ERA is owned by a guy named Dave Pierson, and he wasn’t even a pitcher. In 1876, Pierson was a 20-year old catcher and outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds. He wasn’t very good, batting just .236 in what proved to be his only Major League season. At some point in that season, we don’t know exactly when since game logs and box scores aren’t available, Pierson was the Reds’ starting pitcher. He faced two batters, gave up a hit to the leadoff man and a two-run homer to the next man, and was immediately pulled. He lost the game and never pitched again.
The title of ugliest infinity ERA is a battle between two players who each surrendered six earned runs without retiring a hitter. In 1895 a pitcher named Bill Childress made his only Major League appearance in relief for the Louisville Colonels. That team had three Hall of Famers in its lineup, but Childress wasn’t in danger of joining them. He faced seven hitters, walked five of them, gave up hits to the other two, threw three wild pitches, and saw six of the seven men score. Twenty-seven years later, a pitcher named Doc Hamann just about matched him. In his only Major League game with the Cleveland Indians, Hamann also faced seven hitters and watched six of them score after he surrendered three hits, three walks, hit a batter, and threw a wild pitch.
Three members of the infinity club were so bad at pitching that no one even bothered to record their first names.
In 1926, someone known to history only as Smith while playing for the Dayton Marcos of the Negro National League faced three batters and walked all three of them. Two of them scored, sealing Smith’s infinity club status. There’s no record of the mysterious Smith ever playing baseball again.
Six years later, a fellow by the name of Carter had a similar experience pitching for the Atlanta Black Crackers of the Negro Southern League. He faced four batters and allowed all of them to reach by hit or walk. Two scored, thus his infinity ERA, and like Smith, Carter is not known to have ever played organized baseball after that.
Fast forward a dozen years and we get our final near-anonymous infinity club member. In 1944, someone known only as Carpenter pitched for the Philadelphia Stars. He walked one hitter, gave up a two-run homer to the next, and walked away into infinity club history.
Of the 26 players in the infinity club, only one of them pitched more than one game, and he wasn’t even a pitcher. On June 30, 1969, Cardinals outfielder Vic Davalillo started the ninth inning for St. Louis as they trailed the Mets, 10-2. He gave up a walk and a single before being pulled, but neither man scored. Three days later, Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst pushed his luck again as the Cardinals again trailed the Mets, 7-1, in the eighth inning. This time Davalillo gave up a walk and an RBI double by Ken Boswell. He was pulled from the game as the only multi-appearance member of the infinity club.
The most recent player to join the club is Gerardo Parra. While playing for the Washington Nationals in 2019, the outfielder was called upon to start the eighth inning of a game on August 3 against the Arizona Diamondbacks with Washington trailing, 11-4. Parra walked the first hitter he faced, threw a wild pitch, walked the next two batters, then gave up an RBI single to Alex Avila, then walked opposing pitcher Zack Godley to force in a run. Parra was mercifully pulled at that point and moved to third base. He was replaced by second baseman Brian Dozier, who surrendered a double and a homer that drove in all the runners Parra was responsible for.
Parra is no longer playing, but, unlike the others, he still has hope. He’s only 36. There’s still time for him to make a comeback and pitch again. Failing that, he’s going to be a member of the infinity club for, well, infinity.
Paul White is an IBWAA Life Member who writes at Lost in Left Field, and as a SABR member has written for their BioProject and Games Project. His book, “Cooperstown’s Back Door: A History of Negro Leaguers in the Baseball Hall of Fame,” will be published by McFarland & Co. later this year. He lives with his wife in the suburbs of Kansas City.