Westborough Native Revives Tale of 19th Century Pitcher

Westborough native Edward Achorn has had a very distinguished career in journalism since leaving his hometown. He has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and has been credited for being the force behind some historic reforms in Rhode Island state politics as deputy editorial page editor of the Providence Journal. Yet his finest moment in his writing career may have come with the publication of a book on his first love – baseball.

Fifty-nine in ‘84 has been called a classic in the annals of baseball literature and has received rave reviews from media outlets all over the country. It tells the remarkable and highly entertaining story of Old Hoss Radbourne, pitcher for the Providence Grays, who - as the title says - won an astonishing 59 games for the Grays in the 1884 season.

Achorn has been a baseball nut his entire life, with 19^th century baseball holding a special fascination for him. “One of the great moments of my life was when my father brought home the first edition Baseball Encyclopedia in 1969,” Achorn said recently. He recalled his amazement in reading that back in the 1880’s both Worcester and Providence had teams in the National League, and of Radbourne’s incredible win total in ’84, setting a record that has never been and will never be broken.

His curiosity about how that feat was accomplished stayed with him his entire life. “When I was a journalist down in Washington, I used to go to the Library of Congress every night and go through the microfilm of 1880’s newspapers of the major league cities,” Achorn said. Yet his decision to make it the subject of his first book came after he began working at the Journal. His publisher knew he loved baseball and “he gave me a painting of Old Hoss Radbourne which has been hanging behind my desk.” Achorn took that as a sign that he was destined to write this book.

One comment several critics made in praising the book is that it is not strictly a baseball story because it also wonderfully captures the social milieu of 1880’s Providence and depicted how life was back then away from the ballpark. 

Achorn was also delighted to find out what an interesting, irascible character Radbourne was. “He used to drink a quart of whiskey a day and was the first person ever photographed showing his middle finger,” Achorn said with a laugh. But he was also a very loyal friend to teammates and incredibly strong-willed.

He was the only pitcher on the team for much of the season, and he pitched almost every day during the season’s second half - amassing a mind-boggling 678 innings pitched for the season.

His romantic life had some grittiness to it too. “His girlfriend, who was later his wife, was a married woman who was running a house of prostitution in downtown Providence,” Achorn said, which almost seems fitting for such a fascinating character who just happened to have the greatest season ever for a pitcher in baseball history.

Radbourne would be happy to know that there is now a biography of him that matches the greatness of his amazing 1884 season.