Charlie Faust

Who was Charlie Faust?

Charles Victor Faust was an American Major League baseball player whose career, statistically speaking, was only slightly lengthier than that of Moonlight Graham, but who was regarded by his team, the New York Giants, as a good luck charm.

His story was told by Giants center fielder Fred Snodgrass in Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times. Here is a capsule summary:

Also known as Charlie Faust, he won a spring tryout with the Giants in 1911, after informing manager John McGraw that a fortune teller back home in Kansas had told him he needed to go pitch for the Giants and help them win the pennant. Faust had no real pitching ability, but McGraw was a superstitious sort, and the Giants had not won the league championship since 1905, so he brought Faust along.

McGraw actually put Faust on the mound for a couple of innings in different games, late in the 1911 season, after the Giants had already clinched the league title: October 7, then again on October 12. In both games, the Giants were already trailing, and Faust was brought in at the top of the ninth.