×

A Major League Draftee

MLB pitcher traded for all-time great drafted from?Warren County

Spitballer Eddie “Big Ed” Klepfer

A man drafted into service during the Great War from Warren County was once traded for Shoeless Joe Jackson.

If you know who Jackson was, that phrase will stun you just like it did me.

If you don’t? Suffice it to say this – Jackson is one of the best baseball players of all time.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Edward Lloyd Klepfer was born in 1888 in Summerville, Pa.

At six feet tall at the turn of the century, Klepfer was often referred to as “Big Ed.”

He attended what was then called the Pennsylvania State College from 1909 to 1911 and played on the baseball team there.

Klepfer – known as a spitballer (yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like) – made his major league debut in 1911 as a member of the New York Highlanders (we know them as the Yankees now).

According to his baseball reference page, the Highlanders traded him to Sioux City in the Western League after two appearances, though they would pick him back up in 1913.

In 1915, he started the season with the Chicago White Sox, picking up a win and pitching a total of 12 innings.

That August, he was traded – along with $31,500, Braggo Roth and Larry Chappell – to the Indians for Jackson.

Klepfer found a niche with the Indians, posting a 2.09 ERA in 1915 over 43 innings and then a 2.52 ERA over 143 innings in 1916.

1917 was a real breakout season for him. He threw 213 innings, led the league in winning percentage going 14-4 over 41 appearances and 27 starts and posting an ERA of 2.37.

But that was the year the United States entered World War I and the nation came knocking at Klepfer’s door.

I couldn’t find anything to indicate that he lived in Warren or had family here, though I assume he must have since he was part of the fourth Selective Service Contingent to leave Warren County, departing on February 13, 1918, according to the book Warren County Boys Over There. (Note: There are several individuals that lived during the same time period buried at Oakland Cemetery but I wasn’t able to link any of them to Big Ed).

“Klepfer captained his contingent,” the book explains. “The judgment of the local board in selecting him for that position was later proven in France, when Klepfer was sent to Officer’s Training School and came out as a second lieutenant.”

When the contingent of men arrived for training at Camp Lee, Virginia, Klepfer was “immediately upon his arrival… made a member of the baseball team there and starred with the Soldiers in exhibition games against big league teams. He has since played baseball in France.”

The book The Baseball Necrology: The post baseball lives and Deaths of more than 7,600 major league players and others notes that Klepfer “served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I and was gassed.”

That was said to have hampered his post-war performance, according to Major League Baseball Players of 1916: A Biographical Dictionary.

He returned to the major leagues in 1919 and posted a 7.36 ERA in just 7.1 innings pitched, which marked the end of his career.

The Baseball Necrology explains that Klepfer was an independent oil operator before going to work as a broker for an oilman in Tulsa, Ok., where he died on August 9, 1950 after a lengthy illness and was subsequently buried.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today