Bill Leinhauser

Who was Bill Leinhauser?

William Charles "Bill" Leinhauser played in the outfield for the Detroit Tigers on May 18, 1912, against the Philadelphia Athletics.

Three days earlier, Tigers' star Ty Cobb was taunted with racial slurs in New York by a fan named Claude Lueker. Cobb lost his cool, went into the stands, and attacked the heckler. The heckler was handicapped, having lost one complete hand and three fingers from the other hand in an industrial accident, and unable to defend himself. When fans yelled at Cobb that the man had no hands, Cobb shouted back, "I don't care if he has no feet!" American League president Ban Johnson responded by suspending Cobb indefinitely.

Cobb's teammates voted to strike in response to Cobb's suspension, declaring that they would not take the field again until Cobb was reinstated. Ban Johnson refused to back down and told Tigers owner Frank Navin that the team would be fined $5,000 for every game in which they failed to field a team.

Navin ordered manager Hughie Jennings to find players willing to take the field. The Tigers were on the road in Philadelphia, and so Jennings recruited eight replacement "Tigers" from a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. Each man was paid $25. An 18-year-old Bill Leinhauser was a Philadelphia native who was a noted amateur welterweight boxer. For one day, Leinhauser switched from boxing to baseball and ended up playing in one of the worst defeats in major league history.