Deacon Phillippe's fine pro baseball career is the source of an interesting bit of sports history trivia. As a right-hander for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1903, he was the first World Series pitcher to win three games and the only pitcher ever to complete the five games he started in a single World Series.
Phillipe was born in Rural Retreat, Virginia on May 22, 1872. He spent all but one of his 13 seasons in the National League, with Pittsburgh. His lifetime record was 186 victories and 110 defeats with an earned run average of 2.59. He was a 20 game winner six times in his career.
Equally impressive as Phillipe’s World Series feat is the fact that he completed 242 games in 288 starts. He pitched 2,607 innings, allowing 2,518 hits while striking out 929 opposing batters and walking only 363. Phillipe still holds the Pirates record of 13 consecutive victories and was one of the first to use the spitball pitch. The "spitter" wasn't outlawed until more than a decade after his retirement in 1911. In 1969, Pittsburgh voted him their all-time best right-hander.
