Charles William "Jack" Harper (April 2, 1878 – September 30, 1950) was an American

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

. He pitched eight seasons in the majors, from 1899 to 1906. Harper started his professional baseball career in 1898. After a short stint with the

Cleveland Spiders The Cleveland Spiders were an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. The team competed at the major league level from 1887 to 1899, first for two seasons as a member of the now-defunct American Association (AA), followe ...

, he had a good season with the

Fort Wayne Indians The Fort Wayne Indians were a minor league baseball team based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. From 1896 to 1900, Fort Wayne teams played exclusively as members of the Class C (1896) and Class B (1897–1900) level Interstate League, winning the 1900 ...

of the

Interstate League The Interstate League was the name of five different American minor baseball leagues that played intermittently from 1896 through 1952. Early leagues Earlier versions of the Interstate League, with years active: *1896–1901: an unclassified ...

in 1900 (going 20-15). This got him into the majors for good. Over the next few seasons, Harper jumped from league to league, finally settling in with the

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Divisi ...

. He had his best season in 1904, when he went 23–9 with a 2.30

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

. Harper's professional baseball career ended in 1906, after pitching only one inning of his first start after being traded to the Cubs. According to a popular story at the time, Harper had hit Cubs

first baseman A first baseman, abbreviated 1B, is the player on a baseball or softball team who fields the area nearest first base, the first of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. The first baseman is responsible for the majori ...

and eventual player-manager

Frank Chance Frank Leroy Chance (September 9, 1877 – September 15, 1924) was an American professional baseball player. A first baseman, Chance played in Major League Baseball for the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees from 1898 through 1914. He also served ...

by pitches three times in a 1904 game, knocking him out with the third; Chance would trade for him two seasons later and bench him out of spite, effectively ending his career due to the

reserve clause The reserve clause, in North American professional sports, was part of a player contract which stated that the rights to players were retained by the team upon the contract's expiration. Players under these contracts were not free to enter into ano ...

. However, Chance had had other confrontations with pitchers, and contemporary newspaper accounts dispute that the hit-by-pitches were severe or malicious. In reality, Harper struggled with injuries after joining the Cubs and was hit by a

Dan McGann Dennis Lawrence "Dan" McGann (July 15, 1871 – December 13, 1910) was an American professional baseball first baseman and second baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1896 to 1910, and won the World Series in 1905 with the N ...

line drive in his only game with them. He would make an appearance for the minor league Columbus Senators the following season, but otherwise never played professional baseball again."Jack Harper - Society for American Baseball Research"
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Harper, Jack 1878 births 1950 deaths Major League Baseball pitchers 19th-century baseball players 19th-century American sportsmen Cleveland Spiders players St. Louis Cardinals players St. Louis Browns players 20th-century American sportsmen Cincinnati Reds players Chicago Cubs players Montgomery Senators players Fort Wayne Indians players Springfield Wanderers players Baseball players from Venango County, Pennsylvania

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