Professional Baseball
Sexton appears to have made his professional baseball debut in Canada, playing for the Shamrocks, a team sponsored by the Shamrock Athletic Association in Saint John, New Brunswick. According to one account of the early days of professional baseball in Saint John, the Shamrocks went shopping for a new pitcher in 1890: "They obtained the services of F.J. Sexton from Brown University. Sexton was a superb pitcher and received the princely salary of $150 a month" In August 1890, Sexton helped lead the Shamrocks to the 1890 pennant with a 2–0 victory over the Saint John Athletic Association.
Sexton also played in the New England League for teams in Woonsocket and Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1891 and 1892, and for his hometown team, the Brockton Shoemakers, in 1894.
During the 1895 season, Sexton played Major League Baseball as a pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters where he was re-united with his battery-mate from Brown, Fred Tenney. In his Major League debut on June 21, 1895, Sexton allowed only two earned runs, but the Beaneaters were defeated by Brooklyn by a score of 4–2. The Boston Daily Globe reported on Sexton's debut: "Frank J. Sexton made his first appearance with the Boston club and pitched a first-class game, while Tenney, his old catcher, handled him in fine style." In his second start on June 25, 1895, Sexton got the win in a 5–2 victory over the New York Giants. The Boston Daily Globe praised Sexton's performance:
"Frank Sexton faced the Giants for the first time, and simply toyed with them, that, too, without using much speed. Five singles and one double were made by the visitors, and except for an excusable error by Long in the first inning, the Giants would have left town last evening with a shutout. Tenney and Sexton worked well, the latter holding his man at first in fine style and pitching a cool, heady game. As both Tenney and Sexton can hit and run, it made Boston by all odds the fastest nine ever put on a ball field."
Sexton played in his final Major League game two months later on August 17, 1895. He appeared in seven games for Boston and compiled a record of one win and five losses with a 5.69 earned run average. A history of the Boston baseball club published in 1897 noted that the club had signed several new pitchers in 1895, seeking to overcome the weak showing of the 1894 pitching staff. In the end, the author wrote of the new twirlers: "Stocksdale, Wilson, Yerrick and Sexton were more or less frosts, and were pitched in but few games."
In 1896, Sexton played for the Springfield Ponies in the Eastern League. He concluded his career as a professional baseball player with the New Bedford Whalers. During the 1896 and 1897 seasons, he was one of the stars of the New England League, "batting well and leading in the fielding of the league."
Read more about this topic: Frank Sexton (baseball)
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or baseball:
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