• The Continuing Attempt To Educate A Montreal Fan About DC Baseball History:
In the same year that Spain turned control of Cuba's goverment over to the United States. The year that President William McKinley signed a bill to make Mount Rainier Park the fifth national park. The year that the Italian futbol club A.C. Milan was founded. The same year in which Pall Mall brand cigarettes were introduced by the Butler & Butler Company. The year Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" was first published in a three-part series in Blackwood's magazine, and the year in which Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Hemingway were born, 19-year-old Philadelphia, PA-born left-hander Silas Clarke "Lefty" Herring made his MLB debut with the National League's Washington Senators against the Boston Beaneaters, entering the game in the bottom of the eighth and pitching one inning, the results of which were captured in a Washington Post report cited in an article by The Baseball Biography Project's Craig Lammers entitled simply, "Lefty Herring":
"[Fred] Tenny [sic] nibbled at one of [Herring's] curves for a fly to [first baseman Pete] Cassidya neat catch by the way. [Herman] Long waited for a base on balls. [Jimmy] Collins was thrown out by [third baseman Win] Mercer and [Hugh] Duffy gave [left fielder Jack] O'Brien an easy fly."
Herring walked in his first AB in the top of the next frame but was doubled up. The left-hander would make just one more appearance that year, throwing another scoreless frame, walking in his second professional at bat and scoring from first on double by then-25-year-old Senators' rookie outfielder Jimmy "Rabbit" Slagle. The NL version of the Senators were contracted after the 1899 season, along with Baltimore, Cleveland and Louisville. A year later, the Nationals/Senators were reborn as part of Ban Johnson's American League.
Lefty Herring was not a part of the new Senators team at first. However, the pitcher turned into a fielder at some point after his last game with the Senators, focusing on his hitting instead of his pitching for the next few years and playing amateur ball locally. In 1904, Herring was given a tryout by the AL version of Washington's Senators and was signed as a hitter. Herring was 8 for 46 (.174/.283/.196), with a double, 2 RBI's and 7 walks for the Senators, playing his last game on September 3, 1904. According to The Baseball Biography Project's Craig Lammers, when Herring died, "on February 11, 1965, in Massapequa, New York, he was the next-to-last survivor of the 1904 Washington Senators. Catcher Lew Drill died on July 4, 1969."