Ed Donnelly

Who was Ed Donnelly?

Edward Vincent Donnelly was a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball for the Chicago Cubs.

Donnelly was signed as a free agent by the Kansas City Athletics before the 1956 season and was assigned to the Abilene Blue Sox. The Athletics either sold or traded his rights to the Cubs in June, and he made two more minor league stops in Ponca City and Lafayette. In the 1957-59 seasons, Donnelly worked his way through the system, toiling for Burlington and Fort Worth as well, before finally earning a promotion to the Cubs in the second half of the 1959 season.

Donnelly's major league debut came on August 1 in mop-up duty against the Cincinnati Reds. Cubs starter Glen Hobbie and reliever John Buzhardt had combined to surrender 10 runs in 4 innings of work. He induced the first batter the faced, Roy McMillan, to ground out to third base, and struck out Eddie Kasko for the second out, his first major league strikeout. The next batter was opposing pitcher Bob Purkey, who doubled for the first hit Donnelly surrendered in the big leagues, but he escaped the inning without giving up a run. Though he'd surrender two runs in the next inning, his debut was decent—three innings, five hits, a walk, two runs, two strikeouts. That first outing would also prove to be the longest of his major league career.