The MLB Pitcher Who Survived a Lightning Strike and Finished the Game

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for the Our American Stories podcasts, go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next story comes to us from Nick Rigone, host of the popular YouTube channel This Date in History with Nick Brigone. Ray Caldwell put on a Cleveland Indian uniform for the first time, and none of the twenty thousand fans at League Park had any idea that they were about to see something that defies belief. Let’s take a listen.

If you’re a baseball fan, you’re probably familiar with the term “electric stuff” to describe a picture was on top of his game. Growing up in the eighties, it seemed like Dwight Good and Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and other flamethrowers had their “electric stuff” every night. But what if I told you that the term actually originated in the early part of the twentieth century, that it wasn’t really used to describe a picture’s throwing prowess, but rather traces its origins to one of the strangest events in Major League Baseball history? Heck, one of the strangest events in sports history!

It was August twenty-fourth, nineteen nineteen, by all accounts, an uncomfortably muggy day at League Park in Cleveland. The first-place Indians were hosting the Philadelphia Athletics in front of twenty thousand fans. They were excited to see their new pitcher, the journeyman Ray Caldwell, who was recently let go by the Boston Red Sox. Once upon a time, Caldwell had been regarded as a generational talent, one of those guys with transcended stuff that screamed can’t-miss potential. But years of hard drinking and erratic behavior had left him a shell of his former self. By nineteen twenty-one, Caldwell was desperate for a last chance to show that he could still play the game. He no longer had his dominant fastball and nasty curve, but he did sport one of the game’s best spitballs, which in nineteen nineteen was still egal. On this particular afternoon, he had total command of a spider. The Athletic players were flummixed by the way it bobbed and weaved through the air, impervious to contact. A combination of the bright sunshine and saliva-ridden ball had resulted in just four base runners for the A’s to the first eight innings, given the Indians a slim one-run lead heading into the top of the ninth inning.

Fans would later say that they noticed dark clouds that seemingly materialized at a Lake Erie and descended upon the stadium with alarming speed, practically enveloping it. With droplets of rain beginning to sprinkle from the heavens, called a worked extra fast, hoping to avoid a rain delay. He quickly got ahead of the first batter and induced a meek pop-up to the shortstop for out number one. A nasty spider resulted in a second infield pop-up, and Caldwell and the Indians were now won out from putting the A’s away. By this time, the wind was howling. It was as if the stadium was mired in a total eclipse. Had become so dark. Some fans had already scattered from League Park. Accommodation of the rain, and censor forebode in chasing them away.

So picture this: Caldwell is towing the rubber and leaning in to get the sign when a flash from the sky explodes into the middle of the field. Indian Shortstot Ray Chapman would later say he felt a surge of electricity go down his leg, and the violence of the lightning strike caused the players to dive for the ground. “I took my metal mask and threw it as far as I could,” said Cleveland’s catcher Steve O’Neill after the game. “I didn’t want to attract any bolts towards me.” Seconds after the lightning hit the ground, the players were still staring at each other and disbelieve. On the mound lay Ray Caldwell, arms spread wide, completely unconscious. The lightning bolt had struck them directly. Players rushed to aid Cauldwell, but the first man who touched them leapt into the air, saying he had been zapped by Caldwell’s prone body. The players and ump stared over Caldwell, his chest smoldering from where the bult burned it. Shortstop Ray Chapman blurted out to nobody in particular, “Is he dead?” The players were terrified to touch him, to even take his pulse. Nobody knew what to do, believe it or not.

They were ready to pronounce Caldwell dead when the thirty-one-year-old pitcher started groaning and crawled back to his knees and then his feet. His teammates were thrilled to see him alive, but they kept their distance from the guy whose chest was on fire just minutes before. One of the umpires offered to assist him off the field and take him to a hospital, but Caldwell would have none of it. “I have one more out to get,” he testedly barked at the ump. He argued the point with the Indians’ player-manager, the legendary Tris Speaker, and his intransigents won the day, as Speaker reluctantly let him stay on the field to try and record the final out. “Give me the ball and point me towards the plate,” he commanded Shortstop Ray Chapman, who was still in semi-disbelief that Caldwell was alive, in pitching.

The umpires lingered around the mound as the players slowly took their positions. A shortstop Joe Dugan dug into the batter’s box, waiting for the umps to signal “play ball.” The umps just looked at each other for an extra beat and shrugged their shoulders. “Play ball,” one of them said. By this time, most of the fans that scattered in the cast of the lightning strike. But for the few hardy souls who stuck around, they were about to witness the conclusion of the strangest game in Major League history. With the first pitch, Cordwoll grows a fastball to Dugan, who hit a screaming line drive to third baseman Willie Gardner, who knocked it down with his chest and rushed the throat at first just in time to edge out Dugan. And with that, Ray Caldwell, in his first start as a Cleveland Indian, pitched a complete game victory, which included being struck by lightning.

With the media after the game, Ray Caldwell was as curt as he was brief. “I just wanted to complete the game,” he hurriedly told reporters as he rushed from the clubhouse, purportedly to hit his favorite watering hole. As if this story isn’t fascinating enough, there’s an interesting footnote—actually, two footnotes. Seventeen days after being struck by lightning, Ray Calboll would pitch a no-hitter against one of his former teams, the New York Yankees. Someone on his team jokingly told the media after game that he had “electric stuff” that day, and the term stuck. His stuff would remain electric for the rest of the year, as he went 5-1 with the Indians and nearly led them past the White Sox, who would famously go on to throw the World Series. The following year, he matched a twenty-win season. Sadly, that would be the same year that the Indian shorts up Ray Chapman tragically died after being beamed in ahead by the Yankees kral Maze. His death prompted several changes, including banning the spitball and requiring dirty balls to come out of play. So the next time you hear some pitcher has “electric stop,” just remember he’s no Ray Caldwell.

And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And his special thanks to Nick Ragone. He hosts the popular YouTube channel This Day and History with Nick Ragone. The story of Ray Caldwell here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here. As we approach our nation’s two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, I’d like to remind you that all the history stories you hear on this show are brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College. Go to Hillsdale.edu to find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series on communism is one of the finest I’ve ever seen. Again, go to Hillsdale.edu and sign up for their free and terrific online courses.