Ed Klepfer

Who was Ed Klepfer?

Edward Lloyd Klepfer, who was commonly known as "Big Ed", is a former Major League Baseball spitball pitcher who played for the New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians from 1911 to 1919.

He was born on March 17, 1888 in Summerville, Pennsylvania. He batted and threw right-handed and was also 6 ft 0 in, 180 pounds. Klepfer attended Penn State University.

Klepfer made his big league debut on July 4, 1911 with the Highlanders. His career was chopped up due to time spent fighting in World War I, as part of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. At one time in his war fighting tenure, he was gassed.

Perhaps the most extraordinary part of his career was his second to last season-1917. He went 14–4 with a 2.37 ERA in 213 innings. He finished his career with a 22–17 record and a 2.98 ERA in 98 games.

Even though Klepfer was a fairly productive pitcher, he will still go down in history as one of the worst hitters to ever step on the diamond. In 125 career at-bats, he collected 6 hits for a paltry .048 batting average.

He played his last game on September 5, 1919.

After baseball, Klepfer became an independent oil operator and then in 1946 went to work for C.W. Titus, an oilman in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Klepfer died on August 9, 1950 in a hospital in Tulsa. His body was laid to rest at Rose Hill Cemetery.