Portrait of Burleigh Grimes

Birthday profile

Burleigh Grimes

Burleigh Grimes, American baseball player and manager (died 1985)

Born
August 18, 1893
Died
December 6, 1985
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1893

About Burleigh Grimes

Burleigh Arland Grimes was an American professional baseball player and manager, and the last major league pitcher who was officially permitted to throw the spitball. Grimes made the most of this advantage, as well as his unshaven, menacing presence on the mound, which earned him the nickname "Ol' Stubblebeard." In his career, Grimes won 270 games, with 190 of them occurring in the 1920s, the most for all pitchers in the decade. He pitched in the World Series four times in his nineteen-season career and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964. A decade earlier, he had been inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. With the Pirates in 1928, he posted a 25–14 record, posting the most wins, complete games, shutouts, and innings pitched of any NL pitcher. He started 21 games for the team, recording a 2.34 ERA and a 10–5 record. Prior to a game against the Giants late in 1924, Grimes organized a team meeting and said, "Anyone who doesn't want to play today's game to win, let me know right now." Then, on his first pitch, he knocked down a Giant.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Burleigh Grimes timeline

  1. Prior to a game against the Giants late in 1924, Grimes organized a team meeting and said, "Anyone who doesn't want to play today's game to win, let me know right now." Then, on his first pitch, he knocked down a Giant.
  2. With the Pirates in 1928, he posted a 25–14 record, posting the most wins, complete games, shutouts, and innings pitched of any NL pitcher.

The world when Burleigh Grimes was born

Burleigh Grimes was born in 1893. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineWorld's Columbian Exposition in Chicago
  • Technology milestoneFirst Ferris wheel debuts at Chicago World's Fair
  • Notable inventionFerris wheel (264 feet tall)
  • World population~1.53B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderGrover Cleveland
  • U.S. population66.0M

1893 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Burleigh Grimes's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18932026
Population66.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Baseball Reference, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.