Massillon has had its share of baseball stars. Tommy Henrich, the New York Yankees’ “Old Reliable” was born and raised in Massillon. Henrich played from from ’37-’50 for the Bronx Bombers. He was a solid starter among the legends that walked the field in his time in New York; Henrich was a 5-time All-Star and a 5-time World Champion with the Yankees. Joe Sparma was a World Champion starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers in the 1960s.
One star from Massillon that is often overlooked is quite a talented one– perhaps the most colorful character of them all, Detroit’s Bob “Fatty” Fothergill. Born in 1897 in Massillon, Fothergill lived a working-class life. His father William was a fireman in a Massillon steel rolling mill. Young Fothergill dropped out of school to pursue a career in football. He played for both his hometown professional team the Massillon Tigers and their rival the Canton Bulldogs. Fothergill eventually tried his hand at baseball as he heard that managers often fed their players well. He was a man that loved to eat, and he would not turn down an opportunity to get free food. After a few swings-and-misses, he ended up with the Massillon Agathons semi-pro baseball Steel League team, where he would play in the 1918 and 1919 seasons; he was also a blacksmith in Massillon. In 1920, Detroit Tigers scout and future White Sox manager Pants Rowland spotted Fothergill and signed him to the Tigers’ Three-I (or class B) team the Bloomington Bloomers. Rowland later told Sporting News that his greatest accomplishment that season was “bringing up Fat Fothergill.” Bob had quite the season in Bloomington to open his professional career, hitting .332 in 136 games. He also began to gain a reputation as a slugger, collecting 10 home runs, 21 doubles, and 15 triples. Bloomington’s The Pantagraph stated that Fothergill was a “drawing card” for baseball crowds due to his hitting ability and his habit of doing handsprings after beating out close throws at first base. The next season he made a jump up to Double-A with the Rochester Colts. Fothergill possessed remarkable speed for his size (although he only weighed 160 to start the season, he would gain weight, climbing to [officially] 230+ but possibly reaching 250-270), and he continued to hustle for hits, raising his slugging percentage to over .500 in the 1921 season while batting .338. The big man, known as “Fatty”, “Fats”, “Fat Fothergill”, “Rotund Robert”, “Roly Poly Bob”, “Round Robin”, and “The Blimp” was soon to have a new nickname– the “Massillon Mauler”.
Fothergill got his first shot at major league action in the 1922 season. He hit .317 in a month with the Tigers but was sent back down to Rochester. “We’d have to enlarge the ball parks in this league if we kept him,” said Ty Cobb. Fothergill weighed somewhere around 220-230 in his prime; he gradually gained weight as time went on. Back in Rochester, Bob was busy gaining weight and increasing his average. In 107 games with the Tribe (who had changed their name from the Colts) Fothergill was batting .383. In late August an injury to one of Detroit’s starters gave Fogerthill another opportunity. By the end of the season, he was batting .322 with the big league ballclub. He worked with the Tigers in 1923 as well but primarily found playing time as a pinch hitter. He batted a respectable .315 in 241 at-bats, driving in 49 runs as well. The year 1924 found Fothergill hampered by injury. Despite this setback, he still managed to hit .301 in 54 games. 1925 was the true breakout season for Fothergill. The “Massillon Mauler” batted .353 in 71 games (204 at-bats). Fothergill’s at-bats were still limited even with his high average due to his being at the “bottom of the pail”– three Detroit outfielders (Al Wingo, Ty Cobb, and Harry Heilmann) were batting around .400! In 1926, he increased his mark to .367, good for third in all of baseball (only Babe Ruth’s .372 and Heinie Manush’s .378 were higher). In ’27 Fothergill’s average of .359 ranked 5th best in baseball. He was listed frequently among those now considered the greatest of all time. A look at the top ten average hitters for this season reads– Harry Heilmann, Al Simmons, Paul Waner, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Bob Fothergill, Ty Cobb, Earle Combs, Babe Ruth, and Lloyd Warner. Fothergill also drove in 114 runs that season– a career best and 10th best in baseball.
As Bob Fothergill soared in playing performance, his popularity also soared. He became known as “The People’s Choice”, a fan favorite for his size, playing ability, and wild character. Diving through outfield fences, doing somersaults on the basepaths, and eating heartily made Bob wildly popular amongst the Detroit faithful. “Fothergill’s size helped to make him popular,” the Detroit Free Press said in 1938. “Built along Falstaffian lines, he provoked many hilarious moments as he took headlong dives after hard-hit balls. In fact, every time a Texas leaguer was driven toward Fothergill, Neil Conway, the Tiger groundskeeper, used to turn his head and call for the hired hands to be ready to fill in a cavity.” “Fatty” Fothergill was proud of his size and ever-eager to promote it. He was proud of his ability to hit with the best while eating (and drinking) as he pleased. The legend of “Big Bob” spread from Detroit to Massillon to New Orleans. “Detroit pays me to hit. I can’t hit if I ain’t got the power and I ain’t got the power if I don’t eat. And when I eat what I like I get fat. When I diet, I don’t hit. So what in blazes am I going to do?” Fothergill once told reporters. And eat he did. Porterhouse steaks and beer was Fothergill’s meal of choice. Much like Babe Ruth, he ate and drank in a way that seemed incompatible with his playing ability. Fothergill may have even rivaled the Babe. Legend says that Ruth and Fothergill went head-to-head in a drinking contest– Fothergill handily won. “If you get much fatter, Bob, the fans will begin to think you are an understudy for the Graf Zeppelin,” a teammate once told him. It seemed as if Fothergill was hungry on the field as well. While on a diet in 1928 which included the practices of wearing rubber suits and soaking in Turkish baths, Fothergill decided it was time to take a bite of something on the field. After a questionable strike call from home plate umpire Bill Guthrie, Fothergill protested by biting the umpire’s arm. After the umpire tossed Fothergill (presumably with his uninjured arm) the hungry outfielder could be heard saying, “It’s OK by me. That’s the first bite of meat I’ve had in a month.” Tigers’ manager George Moriarty may have thought similarly as he stated, “A ballplayer who will eat an umpire must be hungry or something,” and rescinded the diet order. Fothergill embraced his weight (he once told a manager that he was “fat on his mother’s side”) and would take jokes– one thing he would not take was an insult to his playing ability. Leo Durocher, who played shortstop and second base for the Yankees, Reds, Cardinals, and Dodgers before becoming a famous manager, once protested Fothergill to a home plate umpire. “He’s illegal!” Durocher complained to the ump, “Both those men can’t bat at once!” Fothergill spent the rest of the at-bat staring at the shortstop, taking three pitches for strikes without once looking at the pitcher or the plate. Following his strikeout he chased Durocher back into the dugout. The “People’s Choice” was an athletic man for his size, a fact that further endeared him to the Detroit faithful. He loved to steal bases for fun. In his career he went 42-96 in the stolen base department. Umpire-turned-manager George Moriarty once told the Tigers that stealing home was “easy” and therefore they should do it more often. Fothergill told his teammates that he could show them. The next at-bat he hit a triple and then stole home on the first pitch of the following at-bat. Much of Fothergill’s base running was similar to this; he was a tough runner and often (quite literally) dove into the bases. One time, however, he crawled. Detroit journalist and historian Richard Bak tells a story of Fothergill’s baserunning in his book Cobb Would Have Caught It: The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit. “Cobb looked down the bench and asked, ‘Who here can hit?’ Fothergill had a badly sprained and taped ankle, but he volunteered, ‘I’ll try.’ Cobb said, ‘My gosh, you can hardly walk.’ Cobb sent him in, and Fothergill hit a line drive into the right-field corner that should have been a double, but Fothergill fell about two-thirds of the way to first base. ‘He crawled the rest of the way and got a single. Just barely…. But that’s the way we played ball back there and then.'” Bak has another story about Fothergill in his book told to him by former Tiger Charlie Gehringer. “I remember we were in Philadelphia once and we were getting beat about 13–0 going into the last inning when he hit a home run. He’s rounding the bases nice and easy–and then when he gets to third base he comes running like a freight train and does a complete flip in the air and lands on home plate! Never saw him do that before.” Bob was fond of retelling stories of his prowess with the bat as well as baserunning. He often could be found in hotel lobbies after an away game telling tales of the ballgame. “Bob makes more base hits in hotel lobbies than any other player I have ever seen,” teammate Harry Heilmann once said of Fothergill.
Big Bob’s average dipped a bit in 1928– he ended the season with a .317 average. In ’29 it climbed back up to .354 although his at-bats declined, dropping from 347 to 277. Perhaps the declining playing time was a sign of things to come; the Tigers gave up Fothergill halfway through the 1930 season. Detroit had found a new left fielder (John Stone) and decided to place Fothergill on waivers. He was picked up by the Chicago White Sox in late July. Fothergill had batted .337 in his time with the Tigers, playing 802 games. He collected 823 hits and drove in 447 runs. Fothergill would bat .290 in his three years with the White Sox. He quickly adapted to the environment and hit .296 in his half season with the Sox following the trade. 1931 saw a .282 batting average and ’32 saw a .295 average. Following the 1932 season, the White Sox traded Fothergill to the Boston Red Sox. He mostly found a job as a pinch hitter (as well as the first base coach) for the Red Sox. In 28 games Fothergill was batting .344 for the Red Sox, but they needed room on their roster and cut him halfway through the season. Unfortunately for the Red Sox, neither of the players meant to replace Fothergill batted above .260. His last stop was the Minneapolis Millers, an American Association Double-A team that was affiliated with several big league ballclubs. He batted .344 in 96 at-bats for the Millers but was once again released; he would not play on a professional level again as he announced his retirement.
So ended the major league career of Bob Fothergill. One wonders what his career would have been had he continued or had he been able to play more consistently. In his career, Fothergill found himself pinch-hitting quite often. He often played behind younger talent or hitters such as Ty Cobb; an unfortunate situation for any player. Fothergill was the best at what he did. While pinch-hitting or playing consistently he kept a high average. No hitter except for Fothergill has ever hit over .300 in their career with over 200 pinch-hit at-bats– Fothergill hit .325. His career average is tied for 43rd in MLB history. His career mark of .337 for Detroit is 3rd in Tigers history behind two greats– his teammates Harry Heilmann (.342) and Ty Cobb (.368). Fothergill also had a couple of historic streaks. He had a streak in 1927 where he batted .500 for over 20 games. That feat has only been achieved 9 other times– Ty Cobb in 1918, Harry Heilmann in 1923 and 1928, Rogers Hornsby in 1923, Les Bell in 1926, Larry Walker in 1999, Chipper Jones in 2006, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in 2024. Fothergill also had a career-long streak– he never batted under .300 for his career average. Only a few other players (Maurice Archdeacon, Jimmie Fox, Earle Combs, Luis Arraez, Riggs Stephenson, Stan Musial, Dale Alexander, Joe DiMaggio, Barney McCosky, and Dale Mitchell) have batted over .300 in career average for every single game of their career.
Bob was not done with baseball, however. He took up semipro sandlot baseball in Detroit, playing for the Detroit Amateur Baseball Federation and quickly leading all players with a batting average of .800 in the 1934 season. Bob was also having a ball back home in Massillon– not with a baseball, but a bowling ball. As a member of the Massillon Noakers, Bob bowled a perfect 300 in the winter of 1934 (only the second perfect game in Intercity League history), although it was not enough to beat their Intercity Bowling League rivals Heck’s Grocers. While in Detroit for the season, Bob would bowl and work at the Ford Motor Company. He also took on a coach at Lawrence Institute of Technology, where he headed up both the football and baseball programs.
Fothergill suffered a stroke in 1938 which landed him in the hospital. While in the hospital he suffered a second stroke; this one proved fatal. Bob Fothergill was buried back in Massillon at the city cemetery. He was 40 years old.
This article was written using source material from the Evening Independent, The Pantagraph, Society for American Baseball Research, Massillon Museum, MLB.com, Baseball Reference, Baseball Almanac, the Detroit Free Press, the New York Times, the Hammond Times, the Los Angeles Times.
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