All-Time Indians: Duster Mails

I always include a players stats to begin their All-Time Indians bio and if you see these out of context, you may wonder how a pitcher with an ERA near four and less than 400 innings pitched could deserve to be considered an All-Time great. In the case of Duster Mails it was all thanks to an eight game stretch at the end of the 1920 season. If you believe in clutch, Mails may have been the most clutch player in the history of the Cleveland Indians.

Mails originally signed out of St. Mary’s College of California with the Seattle Giants in 1914, but didn’t get picked up by a Major League affiliated team until the Brooklyn Robins brought him up a year later. With the Robins, he pitched two seasons out of the bullpen in an age where relievers were rarely used. When he was used, he pitched poorly, allowing 21 hits in 22.1 innings across both years. With little hope for the 21 year old, the Robins designated Mails for assignment and he was claimed by the Pirates before joining the Pacific Coast League Portland Beavers for the 1917 season. The Robins would regret sorely the decision the let him go just a few years later.

After taking off the 1918 season, Mails pitched for Seattle and Sacramento in the PCL in 1919 and put together his best season to date. He threw just over 300 innings and dropped his walk rate considerably. After one more similar season with the Senators, it would be enough for him to get another chance at the Majors, this time with the Indians, who purchased him outright from Sacramento on August 21st.

Still considered a rookie, Mails made his American League debut on September first in the middle of a pennant race. He would win his first start despite only pitching one inning and allowing three runs, but this was just the beginning. Never again during his last eight appearances in the regular season would he allow a home run and only once would he allow more than two runs in a game.

In his next six starts, he would throw a complete game every time out, winning all of them and throwing two shut outs. The Indians were in the heat of a pennant race, just a half game behind the White Sox before Mails made his debut. He essentially replaced Guy Morton in the rotation after he allowed 12 runs in 7 innings during his last regular start of the year. Thanks largely to Mails (and also to the White Sox star players who were suspended for the Black Sox scandal), the Indians moved ahead of Chicago and finished the season two games in front for the AL pennant. Mails earned the wins in 7 of his 8 starts and the team only lost his final game where errors cost him three runs.

In the World Series, the Tribe would face off against Mails original MLB club, the Robins. Stan Coveleski was the staff ace and played as such, winning all three of his starts with complete game efforts, allowing just two runs total between them, but Mails was not left out of the action. After Jim Bagby, Sr lost his start in game two, Mails relieved Ray Caldwell in game three, pitching 6.2 innings of shut out relief after Caldwell gave up two in the first. The Indians lost their second game of the series that day 2-1, but Mails couldn’t have pitched much better.

Coveleski won his second in game four and Bagby got his revenge in game five to put the Indians up 3-2 in the series. After his impressive appearance in game three, Mails would be given the ball to start game six and would pitch the most impressive game of the series. Both he and Brooklyn’s Sherry Smith would pitch complete games, but Smith would allow a single run on a George Burns double to score Tris Speaker. Mails would be almost perfect on the other side, allowing just three hits and two walks and no runs despite three errors made behind him. He would get the victory in the most important game played in his career, allowing Coveleski to finish the Robins off in game seven of the best of nine series.

The rest of his career would be much less exciting. He began 1921 in the starting rotation, but he was unimpressive compared to his previous season. He did throw 10 complete games including a shut out to begin the year and three in a row in September, but he spent much of the year in the bullpen and finished with just a 4.78 ERA and 1.54 WHIP (a 3.88 FIP if you must know). The following year was more of the same as he again started the season with a complete game shut out, but was ultimately pulled from the rotation by mid-July. His ERA was even worse this season at 5.28 and his win/loss record of his final seasons completely marred that of his first year as he finished at 25-15 after starting 21-8 in his first two.

After this, the Indians were ready to move on and they allowed the PCL Oakland Oaks to purchase Mails’ contract in the off-season before 1923. After two more years in the PCL, he was traded back into the big leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals, but at 30 years old, he pitched more like his final year in Cleveland than his first and he was gone after a season and one game in 1926. He would continue playing in the PCL afterwards and even attempt one comeback with the Washington Senators, but he never made it out of the minors. In the end, he would play 22 seasons at all levels before retiring in 1936 at the age of 41.

While Mails didn’t have the greatest single season for the Indians or the greatest career, if not for him (and the cheating Black Sox, the incredible story of Joe Sewell and many others worthy of recognition), the Indians might not have won their first championship. Without his seven wins down the stretch, they very likely could have been surpassed by the Yankees or even the talent deprived Sox. He certainly deserves credit for one of the most clutch performances in baseball history as a 25 year old rookie in 1920. One that ended with the Indians winning their first World Series as a franchise and their only until 1948. Mails died in 1974 at the age of 79.