“From the Archives” James Shaw of the Washington Senators Baseball Team

Saint Mary Cemetery is the final resting place for a major league baseball player, James Aloysius Shaw (1893- 1962). He played for the Washington Senators from 1913 to 1921.

A pitcher, Shaw was nicknamed “Grunting Jim” for the loud grunting noise he made every time he threw a pitch off the mound. Signed by Clark Griffith as a teenaged star in Pittsburgh, Shaw was considered a pitching genius and compared to the legendary Walter Johnson. But he never really lived up to his potential, plagued by injuries and inconsistency. He appeared in 287 games, starting in 193 of them and with a win-loss record of 84-98, including 17 shutouts, 767 strikeouts and 1,600 1⁄2 innings pitched. He had double-digit wins in five seasons and was known for his many saves. But he also led the American League in walks allowed (137) in 1914 and the number of wild pitches (10) in 1919. In his nine-year career (all spent with the Senators), he allowed 1,446 hits, 674 runs, 546 earned runs, 28 home runs and 688 walks. He also threw pitches that hit 24 batters and threw 58 wild pitches. His career earned run average (ERA) was 3.07. One rather dubious distinction is that he was the pitcher who gave up Babe Ruth’s 100th home run in 1920.

After leaving professional baseball, Shaw became an agent with the U.S. Treasury Department. He lived and raised a family in the Cherrydale neighborhood of Arlington. He was active in the Knights of Columbus and youth baseball in Northern Virginia. He died in Washington, DC, at the age of 68 on January 27, 1962. He and other family members are buried in Saint Mary Cemetery.

– Kitty Guy, Parish Historian

In 2020, to commemorate the 225th anniversary of our parish, we started “From the Archives” as a weekly feature online and in our bulletin to spotlight the history of Saint Mary’s. Due to its popularity, we are continuing the series in 2021. An archive of the features is located here.