Roger Francis Wolff (April 10, 1911 – March 23, 1994) was an American professional baseball player. A right-handed knuckleball pitcher, he appeared in 182 games pitched over all or part of seven seasons in Major League Baseball between and : three with the Philadelphia Athletics, three with the Washington Senators, and one season split between the Cleveland Indians and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wolff was born in Evansville, Illinois; he was listed as tall and .
Baseball career
Wolff's professional career began in 1930 and he spent 12 full seasons in the
minor leagues before getting his first major-league opportunity at the end of the 1941 season,
starting pitcher two games for
Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics. He was charged with the loss in each contest, but threw two
and compiled a decent 3.18 earned run average. The remainder of his pro career would be spent as a major leaguer, initially during the manpower shortage caused by World War II. He lost a combined 45 games during the three seasons of through (winning 26), but in —the last wartime season—he would experience a dramatic turnaround in performance.
Stellar 1945 campaign
As a member of Washington's four-knuckleball-pitcher starting rotation (along with
Mickey Haefner, Dutch Leonard and
Johnny Niggeling), Wolff helped lead the Senators to a second-place finish, only 1
games behind the eventual world champion
Detroit Tigers. He posted a 20–10 won–lost record and a 2.12 earned run average, and placed in the
American League's Top 10 in multiple statistical categories:
[Baseball Reference: 1945 American League pitching leaders]
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Most Valuable Player (seventh)
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Wins Above Replacement (sixth, with 5.6; third in WAR for pitchers, with 6.0)
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Games Won (third, with 20)
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Winning Percentage (sixth, with .667)
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Walks Plus Hits Per Inning Pitched (first, with 1.012)
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Earned Run Average (third, with 2.12)
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(tied for fifth, with 108)
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(tied for third, with 21)
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Shutouts (tied for fourth, with four)
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Innings pitched (sixth, with 250)
Wolff threw a one-hit shutout on June 19 against Philadelphia at Griffith Stadium, allowing only a fourth-inning double to Hal Peck.[Retrosheet box score (19 June 1945): "Washington Senators 6, Philadelphia Athletics 0 (1)"] No All-Star Game was played in 1945 due to travel restrictions caused by the war. Wolff returned to the Senators' rotation in and led the staff with a 2.58 ERA in 122 innings pitched, but he fashioned only a 5–8 won–lost mark. He was traded to Cleveland in March 1947, and worked in 20 games for the Indians and Pirates before leaving pro baseball.
Wolff's career won–lost record was 52–69 with an earned run average of 3.41. In 182 games, including 128 starts, he compiled 63 complete games, eight shutouts and 12 saves, allowing 1,018 hits and 316 bases on balls, with 430 strikeouts, in 1,025 innings pitched.
After baseball, he worked in private business and was the longtime athletic director at the Southern Illinois Penitentiary. He died at age 82 in Chester, Illinois.[ Vitty, Cort, Roger Wolff, Society for American Baseball Research Biography Project]
See also
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1945 Washington Senators season
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List of knuckleball pitchers
External links
