James Thomas "Jumbo" Elliott (October 22, 1900 – January 7, 1970) was an American professional

baseball player Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding te ...

. He was a left-handed

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

, playing in the major leagues over parts of ten seasons (1923, 1925, 1927–1934) with the

St. Louis Browns The St. Louis Browns were a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they p ...

, Brooklyn Robins, Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Braves. He was the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

wins leader in 1931 with

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. For his major league career, he compiled a 63–74 record in 252 appearances, with a 4.24

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

and 453 strikeouts. He was born in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. When he retired from baseball, he resided in Terre Haute, Indiana, the county seat of Vigo County. He first came to Terre Haute in 1922 as a pitcher for the Three-I League professional Class B minor league baseball team. Elliott was a long-time Deputy Sheriff in Vigo County and ran for Vigo County Sheriff as a Democrat in the 1968 election. His opponent was 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m)

Clyde Lovellette Clyde Edward Lovellette ( ; September 7, 1929 – March 9, 2016) was an American professional basketball player. Lovellette was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. He was the first basketball player in history to ...

, then retired from an extraordinary college and professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

career. The campaign earned national notoriety because both candidates were such big men (Elliott was approximately 6 ft 5 in and 250 lb, or 1.96 m and 113 kg) and sports celebrities. Lovellette won the election. Elliott died in Terre Haute at age 69.

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1900 births 1970 deaths Major League Baseball pitchers Baseball players from Missouri St. Louis Browns players Brooklyn Robins players Philadelphia Phillies players Boston Braves players National League wins champions Terre Haute Tots players San Antonio Bears players Seattle Indians players Columbus Red Birds players Indianapolis Indians players {{US-baseball-pitcher-1900s-stub

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