Ray Fisher

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Ray Fisher baseball card

Ray Lyle Fisher (October 4, 1887 in Middlebury, Vermont -November 3, 1982 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball. His debut game took place on July 2, 1910. His final game took place on October 2, 1920. During his career he played for the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds.

Ray Fisher (nicknamed "Pick" in college) played football, basketball, and baseball at Middlebury College. After stellar performances on the college mound, he was offered a position pitching with a semi-pro team in Valleyfield, Quebec in the summer of 1907. In 1908 and 1909 he pitched in the minor leagues for Hartford in the Connecticut League, going 12-1 in his first partial season and 25-4 the following year with 243 strikeouts. His contract was sold to the Highlanders/Yankees, and he reported there in 1910 following his graduation from Middlebury. Dubbed the "Vermont Schoolmaster", Ray pitched for New York from 1910-1917, spending 1918 in the Army stationed at Fort Slocum off New Rochelle. During his tenure with the Yankees, Fisher was once cited by future Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie as one of the twelve best pitchers in the American League, both players also listing Ed Walsh, Russ Ford, Walter Johnson, and Smokey Joe Wood. His ERA ranked fifth in the league in 1915. The following year, a bout of pleurisy was to cripple his effectivness. From 1911 to 1915, during the off season, Fisher was also employed as Middlebury College's first Physical (Athletic) Director. About the time of his discharge from the Army, Fisher was selected off waivers by Cincinnati (thereby taking a $3100 cut in pay) and pitched for the Reds in 1919 and 1920. He went 14-5 in 1919 and pitched game three in the infamous 1919 World Series. In 1920, the spitball had been declared a banned pitch. However, 17 pitchers known to rely on the pitch were "grandfathered" and allowed to continue to throw it. Though he had largely discontinued use of the spitter by 1914, Fisher was one of those allowed to continue to use the pitch.

Fisher is known for being one of the few people to be re-instated into professional baseball after being banned for life. Prior to the 1921 season, the Reds offered him a contract in which the salary was $1000 less than the previous season's contract. After making his objections known in a letter to Red's president August Herrmann, Fisher signed the contract. Before the season began, however, Fisher learned that a position had opened at the University of Michigan as head baseball coach, a position he had applied for the previous year on the recommendation of Branch Rickey. Fisher requested, and was apparently given by manager Pat Moran, permission to interview for the job. When he was offered the position at Michigan, the Reds' management tried to induce Fisher to remain with the team by offering to restore the $1000 cut from the previous year's contract. Fisher thought the Michigan position held greater long-term promise and accepted the job, believing that he had been given his release from Cincinnati or placed on the list of voluntarily retired players (both were reported in the local papers). After Michigan's playing season was over, other teams began contacting Fisher, inquiring as to his availability to pitch, Rickey's St. Louis Browns among them. Fisher contacted the Reds for clarification on his status and was to learn that he was being placed on the list of those ineligible to play. Fisher appealed to the commissioner of baseball, and the commissioner promised to look into the matter. After obtaining the Red's version of the negotiations, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the commissioner at the time, upheld the Red's position and banned Fisher. Ray ended his major league career with a 100-94 record and a 2.82 ERA.

Fisher remained head coach for the University of Michigan's baseball team for 38 seasons, also serving as freshman football coach and assistant basketball coach for about 25 years. (In football he was to coach future President Gerald Ford.) While at Michigan, he would lead the team to 14 Big Ten championships and the 1953 College World Series championship, after which he was named Coach of the Year. Fisher was active in the startup of the National Association of College Baseball Coaches and served as its first vice president. During the 1940s he was hailed by Esquire Magazine as a close second to Jack Barry of Holy Cross as the top college baseball coach in the country. While coaching summer teams in Vermont's Northern League, Fisher mentored future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts who sent many accolades in Fisher's direction once he was signed into the major leagues. By the time he retired in 1958, Fisher had compiled a 636-295-8 record with only two losing seasons, and he held the record as the University of Michigan's winningest coach for 70 years (1930-2000). For five years during the 1960s Fisher coached pitchers for the farm teams of the Milwaukee Braves and the Detroit Tigers. In 1970 the baseball stadium at U of M, until then unnamed, was dedicated as Ray Fisher Stadium. In 1980, after an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his leaving the Cincinnati Reds, Commisioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn re-instated Fisher declaring him a "retired player in good standing" with professional baseball.

In the summer of 1982, Fisher was invited to the yearly Old Timers' Day at Yankee Stadium, his first visit to the famous facility which had been built after he'd left the team. Approaching age 95, he was then the oldest former Yankee, Cincinnati Red, and World Series player. He received two standing ovations by the fans and threw out the opening pitch for that day's Yankees-Rangers game. He died three months later in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Through the efforts of the Vermont chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research, an historic site marker was placed near Ray Fisher's birth place in Middlebury, Vermont in 2003 by the State of Vermont.