Former Pro Pitcher Notorious For Hitting Batters Buried In Jerome

When the words "record holder" are spoken in the context of baseball the first professional athletes that come to mind for most fans are likely home run king Barry Bonds (762), pitcher Nolan Ryan for most strikeouts (5,714), and perhaps Cal Ripken for most consecutive games played (2,632). We don't often associate the distinction of plugging over 200 batters with a baseball as anything particularly noteworthy, but records are records, and one former major league pitcher that sits at number two on that notorious, pain-inflicting, all-time list is buried just 15 miles from Twin Falls, Idaho.

Getting hit with fastball sucks. Anyone who's played knows this. I received my share of bruises growing up playing, but thankfully I never had to take one from a professional pitcher.

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Charles "Chick" Fraser passed away in southern Idaho in 1940. He pitched in the majors for 14 seasons between 1896 and 1909. In Fraser's final season he started one game and gave up two hits before his day on the mound ended for an unknown reason. He played for the Colonels, Phillies, Athletics, Cubs, and a couple of other organizations.

Fraser drilled a grand total of 219 batters and is second only to Gus Weyhing, who beamed 277 batters, according to numbers on baseball-almanac.com. He pitched in 433 games, had 1,098 strikeouts, and a shockingly respectable 3.68 career earned run average (ERA). As a batter, Fraser hit three home runs.

I imagine he was hit himself quite a few times while batting by opposing pitchers as payback for his wildness. His final resting place is the Jerome Cemetery in southern Idaho.