Happy Sunday!

One year and one day ago, I published my first book, The Underdog Mentality: Sports Stories That Will Change How You See the Game (and Yourself).

If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, what are you waiting for?

As one reader said:

In honor of the one-year anniversary mark, I’m releasing a story that, up until today, was a book-only exclusive.

I hope you enjoy it.

Let’s dive in 👇

Want the full book with 25 of the best underdog stories you’ve never heard? Click here to grab a copy 🐶

“Even though he was one of the best pitchers of his era, he seems remarkably unknown.”

Despite being the ace of the greatest baseball team in history – and dominating while battling a deadly disease – Urban Shocker’s name has largely been forgotten.

Born in Cleveland in 1890, Shocker was the fifth of eight children.  At an early age, he discovered his love for baseball on the sandlots around the city.

Youth baseball was different back then.

There were no 10U tournament teams.

Urban played for a milk and ice cream team before landing on the Leisy Brewing Company’s club.

Just before his 20th birthday, Shocker moved to Detroit to live with his older sister.  He landed a job at a newspaper printing plant as an electrotyper – described as a copymaker for printing presses.

At the time, baseball was a low-paying passion for him.

The job paid the bills, but the game fueled his fire.

By 1911, Urban Shocker was bouncing around the different sandlot and semi-pro teams in Detroit.  In 1912, he went up to The Great White North for his first dose of professional ball in the Canadian League.

He developed his reputation as a dominant pitcher with the Windsor Canucks and then the Ottawa Senators.

In 1913, a freak injury led to an advantage on the mound – a broken middle finger didn’t fully heal and left a permanent bend.

“It enabled me to grasp the baseball a little more firmly than ever before,” Shocker said later. “I would fit the baseball in my right hand against the bent finger and then throw. The crooked finger gave the ball an odd twist which fooled the batters.”

By 1914, Shocker had developed a devastating pitch – the spitball – which made him almost unhittable in the Canadian League.

Paired with confidence that one reporter called his “principal asset”, Urban led his team to another pennant.

After World War I broke out, Canadian baseball was torn apart.  Over the following few months, Shocker bounced between semi-pro teams and other ballclubs around Canada.

Then, in late September, the New York Yankees signed Shocker to an MLB contract for an annual salary of $1,350.

He made his major league debut as a 25-year-old and won twelve games over his first two seasons in New York.

But after a trade to the St. Louis Browns in 1918, Shocker came into his own.

“This guy had moxie,” said Steven Steinberg, author of Urban Shocker: Silent Hero of Baseball's Golden Age.

One day, while pitching for the Browns, he faced off against Babe Ruth.

During one of Ruth’s at-bats, Shocker turned toward his outfielders and waved them in after every pitch, before striking him out.

Urban Shocker struck out The Babe three times that day.  Ruth was reportedly so frustrated that he smashed his favorite bat on the dugout steps.

1920 marked the first year of the “live-ball era”, where hitting started to gain the upper hand over pitching.

Yet, over those first five years from 1920 to 1924, no pitcher won more games than Urban Shocker (107 wins).

When New York re-acquired him in a 1924 trade with the Browns, it was a relief for Yankee hitters.

“Shocker is a mighty smart hombre out there on the mound, believe me,” said Babe Ruth.

“...Shocker has two things that most pitchers lack. He has control and he has a lot of knowledge up there under that old baseball cap of his. And the two get him over many a tough, tough spot, believe me.”

Urban meticulously studied hitters and watched them “like a hawk” during batting practice and games.

“You can tell very often what is in a batter’s mind by the way he shifts his feet or hitches his belt or wiggles his bat,” Shocker said in Baseball Magazine.

“Keep him guessing. That’s the point and if possible, get him to bite on bad balls. Once you have him swinging, you have his number. And still, as long as your control holds good, there is really nothing else for him to do. Sometimes I wonder why pitchers ever lose a game and then I reflect that there’s a fellow also pitching for the other side.”

Yet, off the field, almost no one knew about the personal battle Shocker was fighting.

It started with a cold that lasted 10 days.  Then, breathing problems.

Though it’s unclear when Shocker was diagnosed, doctors now say it’s likely he was suffering from mitral valve failure – a heart disease that reduces the amount of blood that’s able to reach the rest of the body.

It was not treatable in the 1920s, and Urban knew his days were numbered.

But he chose to suffer in silence, only sharing the news with his wife and son.

“He was going to keep it a secret,” author Steven Steinberg said.

“Why tell anybody about it?  The opposing batters would feel they’ve got an edge. The ownership might want to push your salary down…he kept it hidden quite well.”

Powerless to change anything with his heart, Shocker wanted to keep playing the game he loved.

So in 1925, Urban Shocker took the ball for Opening Day as the Yankees’ new ace.

Now in his mid-30s, he pitched through not only a fatal illness but other ailments, too: a dislocated finger, an ankle injury, shoulder surgery, and total sleep deprivation.

Because of the congestion caused by his failing heart, Urban couldn't sleep lying down.  So instead, he slept standing up or didn’t sleep at all.

“I’ve had a bum heart for some time,” he told writer Bill Corum, in secret, in 1928. “You’ve seen me sitting up late at night in my Pullman berth. I couldn’t lie down. Choked when I did.”

Yet, despite all of this, Urban Shocker put together 49 wins and a 3.31 ERA in his final four MLB seasons with the Yankees.

He didn’t know how much time he had left – in baseball or life – so he made every moment count.

After a disastrous 1925 season for the team, Shocker helped the Yankees win the pennant in 1926.  Then in 1927, pairing his dominance on the bump with their Murderers' Row lineup, the Bronx Bombers won the World Series.

Though he didn’t get a chance to pitch in the Series, Urban Shocker was declared by historian Bill James as “the best pitcher on the 1927 Yankees”.

While the team celebrated their world championship, Shocker was fighting his disease tooth and nail.  Over the following months, he dropped in weight from a healthy 190 to just 115 pounds.

But he was determined to keep playing.  He fought to regain the weight he’d lost and return to pitch for the defending champs.

By January of 1928, Urban realized he’d need more time to gain back the weight.  So he developed a cover story to keep his disease a secret.

He’d “retire” from baseball to pursue his interest in the electronics business.

As Steinberg wrote, “Had Shocker reported to St. Petersburg in early March, his physical activity would probably have been limited to hobbling and staggering.”

By April, he was ready.

“When I weighed enough,” he said, “I came east and saw [Yankees manager Miller] Huggins.”

Shocker came out of retirement to re-sign with the Yankees.

Scratching and clawing to stay on the field, he made his first and final appearance in Major League Baseball on May 30th, 1928 – firing two scoreless innings against the Senators.

A few weeks later, he collapsed in the clubhouse at Comiskey Park and nearly died.

But sports reporters kept it out of the news, per Shocker’s wishes.  His wife read the sports columns, and Urban didn’t want to upset her.

On the 4th of July, manager Miller Huggins made the difficult decision to release Urban Shocker.

Writer Frank Graham wrote later, “Although in releasing Shocker, Huggins took the only course that was left open to him as manager of the Yankees, he was affected to a greater extent by his enforced action than this writer has ever seen him affected by anything.”

Still, Urban was not ready to give up on baseball.  He left quietly, without a word to the team or fans.

He never said goodbye because he believed that he could beat his illness with everything he had.

“I’m going to Denver to fight this thing,” he said at the time.

On the edge of death, Shocker found solace in the one thing that made him feel alive: playing baseball.

He found a semi-pro tournament, where a team called “Piggly Wiggly” brought him in as a ringer.

On Sunday, August 5th, Urban Shocker took the mound for the very last time.

Facing off against an unbeaten team from Cheyenne, he battled through eight innings, mixing pitches and keeping hitters off balance.

When the manager finally came out to take the ball, Shocker was dizzy as he stumbled to the dugout.  His teammates rushed over to stop him from falling.

He’d pitched until he literally could not any longer.  He even protested when teammates brought him to the hospital and called his wife.

Lying in his hospital bed, Shocker devoured every newspaper article about his former team’s late-summer pennant race.

On the morning of Sunday, September 9th, he floated in and out of consciousness, asking the nurse on duty to bring him yesterday’s newspaper.

“I must see who pitched yesterday and who will do the hurling today.”

Despite the Yankees falling out of first place, he remained optimistic.

“I’ll be better today,” he said. “I’ll be able to enjoy the two victories of the Yankees today.”

Less than one hour later, Urban Shocker passed away.

“He played the game to the last,” said his wife, Rene.

“If you put a baseball in his hand, he would believe anything. His love for the game was more powerful than the word of a score of physicians.”

Over 1,000 mourners attended Urban Shocker’s funeral.  His Yankee teammates, including Lou Gehrig and Waite Hoyt, served as pallbearers.

Mark Gallagher, author of The Yankee Encyclopedia, called Shocker "quite possibly the most courageous man in sports history.”

“Ill with a swollen heart, Urban fought bravely in his last few years to play baseball and indeed for life itself."

🐶

If you enjoyed this one, you’ll love my book: The Underdog Mentality: Sports Stories That Will Change How You See the Game (and Yourself)

Inside, you'll meet:

And many, many more...

This book is more than a collection of stories. It's a roadmap for anyone who's ever been told, "You can't."

Get your copy here.

If you’ve already read my book, first of all, thank you! It means the world to me.

Secondly, would you mind leaving a quick 10-second review on Amazon?

It goes a long way in helping these stories reach and inspire more people 🙏

Til next time,
Tyler

🌟 Trivia Answer: C) Morgan Athletic Club. The franchise dates back to 1899!

👀 In case you missed it: A 19-year-old factory worker showed up at a baseball tryout. What happened next led him to the Hall of Fame.

🏈 This NFL Draft prospect opened up about his speech impediment, saying, “There is nothing wrong with us.”

⚾️ “A magician doesn’t reveal his tricks.” Check out this story of a Marlins pitcher who spends his downtime performing magic.

🥹 A comment that made my week: “Great segment. I didn’t know his back story. Very well written, edited, and delivered.” – @dh3279 on YouTube