Hall of Famer Jim O’Rourke was born on September 1st, 1850 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. O’Rourke was one of the star hitters of 19th century baseball, playing 22 seasons from 1872-1893 before a one-game cameo in 1904.
O’Rourke’s nickname was “Orator Jim” because of his loquaciousness. Orator Jim would entertain (or annoy) his teammates by reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy before every game. In an era where a great many players sported mustaches, O’Rourke’s was of the spectacular handlebar variety, the sort worn a century later by Oakland A’s reliever Rollie Fingers.
Like a great many 19th century players, O’Rourke was of Irish descent but he did not match the stereotype. He didn’t drink and he didn’t smoke, something he credited for his ability to keep playing baseball into his 50’s. During the 1,999 games of a career that spanned four decades, the right-handed O’Rourke played all 9 positions on the diamond, with over 100 games played at all but pitcher and 2nd base.
In his 30’s, still in the middle of his playing career, O’Rourke enrolled in Yale Law School and earned his degree. He was not just a great player but also an activist, taking the lead in the early battles between the lowly paid players and the owners who often took advantage of them.
According to Baseball Reference, O’Rourke is one of 30 players who attended Yale to play Major League Baseball. Today, in 2018, he’s not the most famous (that would be pitcher turned broadcaster Ron Darling) but by far he is the most accomplished, the only of those 30 Yalies with a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Because of his deeds on the diamond, O’Rourke was a part of the 10-man Hall of Fame Class of 1945, voted on by the Old Timers Committee, which was tasked with recognizing great players of the 19th century.
Cooperstown Cred: Jim O’Rourke (1872-1893 & 1904)
- Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1945 (voted by Old Times Committee)
- Career: .310 BA, 62 HR, 1,208 RBI, 2,639 Hits
- Career: 51.5 WAR (Wins Above Replacement), 134 OPS+
- Won two world championships with the New York Giants (1888 & 1889)
- In 1889 Word Series: hit .389 with 2 HR, 2 triples, 2 douibles, 3 SB, 7 RBI
(cover photo: National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)
Playing Career:
James Henry O’Rourke, the son of Irish Catholic immigrants, was a farm boy like a great many other 19th century baseball players. He made his professional debut with the Middletown Mansfields of the National Association (NA) in 1872. He was 21 years old. Middletown is a town in Connecticut not far from Bridgeport.
The Mansfields went 5-19 in the franchise’s one year in the NA. The team was shaky financially and folded in mid-August. According to his SABR bio, O’Rourke’s joining the Mansfields was conditioned upon the team finding someone else to perform O’Rourke’s chores on the family farm.
In December, he was recruited by Harry Wright (a future Hall of Famer as a pioneer) to become a member of the Boston Red Stockings, also in the National Association. The newly married O’Rourke only accepted upon the promise that his salary would be guaranteed.
O’Rourke’s teammates with the Red Stockings (for whom he played from 1872-75) included three Hall of Fame pioneers, shortstop George Wright (brother to outfielder/manager Harry) and pitcher Al Spalding (yes, that Spalding).
The catcher on those Red Stockings teams was Deacon White, who would join the others in the Hall of Fame but not until 2013. The 22-year old O’Rourke, playing both at first base and in the outfield, hit .350 in his first full professional season. Those Boston teams dominated the NA, winning over 80% of their games (205 wins against 50 losses).
At the end of the 1875 season, the Red Stockings and the National Association were disbanded. Most of O’Rourke’s teammates left for the Chicago White Stockings, which were managed by Spalding and featured future Hall of Famer Cap Anson as its third baseman. Orator Jim, however, decided to stay with the Wright brothers in Boston with the reconstituted Red Caps in the newly formed National League.
After the 1876 season (dominated by the White Stockings), Deacon White returned to Boston for one year; he and O’Rourke both had career seasons. O’Rourke hit a career high .362, leading the N.L. in runs scored, walks and on-base percentage. The Red Caps sat atop the N.L. in both ’77 and ’78, winning 83 out of 120 games over those two seasons.
George Wright became the player/manager for the Providence Grays in 1879 and O’Rourke joined him there but only for one year. One of his teammates in Providence was pitcher John Ward (better known as John Montgomery Ward), a future Hall of Famer.
As Orator Jim was playing in Providence, his older brother John was making a name for himself in Boston as a 29-year old rookie. Thus, the younger O’Rourke joined his brother, returning to Boston for the 1880 campaign. Both O’Rourke brothers, however had disappointing seasons and were allowed to leave.
John O’Rourke took a job with the New Haven Railroad; Jim O’Rourke took a job with the Buffalo Bisons as player/manager. O’Rourke had Deacon White on his 1881 squad, along with two more future Hall of Famers, a 24-year old pitcher named Pud Galvin and a 23-year old slugging outfielder named Dan Brouthers, who led the N.L. with 8 home runs.
New York Giants (1885-89, 1891-93)
O’Rourke, whose family was growing but had suffered the tragic loss of a daughter in 1883, desired to play closer to his home in Bridgeport. After playing and managing for the Bisons from 1881-84, O’Rourke signed with the New York Giants for the 1885 season.
For five seasons (1885-89), O’Rourke played with five other future Hall of Fame players, including Ward (now a shortstop), catcher Buck Ewing, first baseman Roger Connor, and pitchers Mickey Welch and Tim Keefe.
In 1888, the Giants won the N.L. and defeated the St. Louis Browns (from the American Association) in an early incarnation of the World Series. The Giants won the World Series again in 1889, defeating the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. O’Rourke was one of the team’s hitting stars, batting .389 with 2 home runs, 2 triples, 2 doubles and 7 RBI in the 9-game series.
It was while with the Giants that Jim O’Rourke pursued his law degree, following the example of his teammate John “Monte” Ward, who had earned a law degree from Columbia University. It was, in fact, stipulated in O’Rourke’s first contract with the Giants that the team pay for his tuition at Yale Law School.
O’Rourke earned his law degree from Yale in June 1887 and passed the Connecticut bar exam in November, at the age of 37. Even though he was now a lawyer, he continued his MLB playing career until he was 42 years old.
After the 1889 season, in one of the first organized labor revolts in baseball history, the players created their own league, aptly named the Players League. This was the brainchild of Ward, who was the leader of the revolt, with O’Rourke serving as one of his top lieutenants.
At the age of 39, O’Rourke was one of the top players for the New York Big Giants; he hit .360 with 112 runs scored and 115 RBI. Ewing was the team’s catcher and manager, Connor its first baseman, Keefe their top hurler. The Players League had been successful in recruiting many of the game’s top stars away from the National League but it was not successful financially. 1890 was the one and only season for the Players League.
O’Rourke, Connor, Ewing and Keefe all returned to the NL’s New York Giants for the 1991 season, joining Welch and 2nd-year wunderkind pitcher Amos Rusie, a 500-inning workhorse at the age of 20 and a future Hall of Famer.
After the 1892 season and two weeks after his 42nd birthday, O’Rourke’s contract was assigned to the NL’s Washington Senators. O’Rourke was the player/manager but this was not a squad filled with future Cooperstown inductees. The Senators went 40-89 in the one and only season O’Rourke served as player and manager and his career as both was essentially over.
The Naugatuck Valley League & Encore in New York
After the 1893 season, Jim O’Rourke was released from his duties as both player and manager. Now 43 years old, Orator Jim returned home to Bridgeport, where he practiced law. But, as his SABR bio notes, he was unable to get baseball out of his system. He spent a brief amount of the 1894 season as a N.L. umpire but decided the abuse heaped upon the men in blue was too much to bear.
O’Rourke played semi-pro ball in Connecticut and then, in 1896, assembled eight Connecticut teams into the Naugatuck Valley League. The Bridgeport team was renamed the Orators in 1898 in his honor and O’Rourke played into his 50’s. In 1903, the 52-year old O’Rourke, still playing, was joined on the Orators by his son Jimmy, an infielder.
In September 1904, the 54-year old O’Rourke, still playing regularly in the Naugatuck Valley League, had a cameo appearance with the New York Giants. Manager John McGraw asked O’Rourke, the last still-playing member of the ’89 championship team, to catch the title clincher, pitched by another future Cooperstown inductee, Joe McGinnity. The stunt was joined by Dan Brouthers, who appeared in two games at the age of 46, eight years after his playing career had come to an end.
O’Rourke kept playing into his late 50’s.
On New Year’s Day 1919, at the age of 68, O’Rourke caught a severe cold and soon contracted pneumonia. He died soon thereafter, on January 8th.
Jim O’Rourke was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1945, along with 8 other players (including his former teammate Brouthers) and manager Wilbert Robinson.
Jim O’Rourke’s Hall of Fame Career
At the end of Jim O’Rourke’s playing days (the end of the 1893 season), he was clearly one of the top position players from the first 23 seasons of recorded baseball history. Only Cap Anson had more than O’Rourke’s 2,638 hits or his 1,208 runs batted in. After the 1893 season, O’Rourke was the all-time leader with 1,728 runs scored.
The modern metric of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) lists O’Rourke as just the 8th best position player of the 19th century, behind 6 Hall of Famers and shortstop Jack Glasscock. Jay Jaffe, in The Cooperstown Casebook, wrote that he was “elected more for his fame than for his greatness.”
In the New Bill James Historical Abstract (published in 2000), the author ranked O’Rourke as just the 37th best left fielder in MLB history, in between Kirk Gibson and Brian Downing.
One thing that should be noted, however, is that WAR (or James’ Win Shares) is a “counting” stat, just like hits or RBI.
Because O’Rourke debuted in 1872, he didn’t play more than 100 games in a season until he was 33 years old. This wasn’t because he was missing time due to injury, it’s just because teams didn’t play many games in the 1870’s. So, it’s really hard to compare the WAR of a player who debuted in 1872 with a player who debuted in 1882. There were simply fewer games in which a ’70’s player could accumulate the statistics that WAR counts. For position players who debuted between 1871 and 1877, O’Rourke’s WAR is second best to Anson’s.
O’Rourke finished his career with 2,638 hits, despite playing an average of 59 games per season from 1872-1878. If those teams had played even 100 games per season, it’s a near certainty that O’Rourke would have topped 3,000 hits for his career. To me he’s a worthy Hall of Famer and not because he’s the only one with a degree from my alma mater, Yale University.
“He has made a brilliant record for himself as an outfielder, being an excellent judge of a ball, a swift runner, and making the most difficult running catches with the utmost ease and certainty. His average each season has proved him to be in the front rank in handling the bat, and shows that his usefulness is not merely confined to his fielding abilities. He has always enjoyed the reputation of being a thoroughly reliable and honest player, and one who works hard for the best interests of the club. His gentlemanly conduct, both on and off the ball field, has won for him a host of friends.”
— 1885 Spalding Guide (reported in the New Bill James Historical Abstract)
Thanks to Baseball Reference for the statistical nuggets in this piece and the Society of American Baseball Research for the biographical information.
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Jim O’Rourke Links
middletown is about an hour from bridgeport
Yes it is. I lived in Connecticut for parts of 29 years. I would say an hour is “not far.” Thanks so much for reading!