finalyear bats death_date death_place birth_place debutyear finaldate statvalue position finalteam statlabel debutdate birth_date article_title debutteam name throws
1912 right 14 april 1977 elkins park , pennsylvania philadelphia , pennsylvania 1912 may 18 .000 0 0 center fielder detroit tigers batting average home runs runs batted in may 18 4 november 1893 bill leinhauser
 detroit tigers bill leinhauser right
bill leinhauser

william charles `` bill '' leinhauser -lrb- november 4 , 1893 -- april 14 , 1978 -rrb- played in the outfield for the detroit tigers on may 18 , 1912 , against the philadelphia athletics .
three days earlier , tigers ' star ty cobb was taunted with racial slurs in new york by a fan named claude lueker .
cobb lost his cool , went into the stands , and attacked the heckler .
the heckler was handicapped , having lost one complete hand and three fingers from the other hand in an industrial accident , and unable to defend himself .
when fans yelled at cobb that the man had no hands , cobb shouted back , `` i do n't care if he has no feet ! ''
american league president ban johnson responded by suspending cobb indefinitely .
cobb 's teammates voted to strike in response to cobb 's suspension , declaring that they would not take the field again until cobb was reinstated .
ban johnson refused to back down and told tigers owner frank navin that the team would be fined $ 5,000 for every game in which they failed to field a team .
navin ordered manager hughie jennings to find players willing to take the field .
the tigers were on the road in philadelphia , and so jennings recruited eight replacement `` tigers '' from a neighborhood in north philadelphia .
each man was paid $ 25 .
an 18-year-old bill leinhauser was a philadelphia native who was a noted amateur welterweight boxer .
for one day , leinhauser switched from boxing to baseball and ended up playing in one of the worst defeats in major league history .
leinhauser was given the daunting task of taking ty cobb 's spot in center field for the replacement tigers .
he went hitless in four at bats but played flawlessly in the outfield with one assist and no errors .
in front of 20,000 philadelphia fans , the athletics set a club scoring record in trouncing the replacement tigers by a score of 24 -- 2 .
the tigers ' starting pitcher , allan travers was a college student who later confessed he had never pitched a game in his life .
travers later became a catholic priest .
after the embarrassing display , ban johnson met personally with the striking tigers and told them they would be banned for life if the strike continued .
ty cobb urged his teammates to end the strike , and the tigers complied .
accordingly , the major league career of bill leinhauser and the other replacement tigers was cut short at one game .
a rumor making the rounds in 1912 was that `` when leinhauser 's wife found that he had the audacity to replace the great ty cobb , she hit him with a skillet . ''
-lsb- http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1937&pid=14325] by playing in this game , leinhauser became a small piece of baseball history with his name and `` career '' statistics recorded forever in the records of major league baseball along with ty cobb and other legends of the game .
leinhauser served in france for the u.s. army during world war i .
when his boxing career came to and end , leinhauser became a philadelphia police officer .
he retired as captain of the north central detective division of the philadelphia police department in 1959 after 41 years , 29 in the narcotics squad .
bill leinhauser died at age 94 in 1978 in elkins , pennsylvania .
he is buried at holy cross cemetery in yeardon , pennsylvania .
