Background
Edwin Americus Rommel was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the son of Frederick A. Rommel, who ran a pet shop, and his wife, Louisa (her maiden name is unknown).
baseball player coach manager senior clerk
Edwin Americus Rommel was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the son of Frederick A. Rommel, who ran a pet shop, and his wife, Louisa (her maiden name is unknown).
His formal education ended in the fifth grade when he left school to work for his father.
Rommel's connection with professional baseball, which lasted nearly fifty years, began when Jack Dunn of the Baltimore Orioles of the International League gave him a job as batboy. Rommel, a right-handed thrower and batter, began his playing career in 1916 as a pitcher with Seaford, Delaware, in the Peninsula League. He pitched well and was taken south by the Orioles in 1917 for spring training but was later released. During the winter of 1917-1918, Rommel scalded his hands while working as a steamfitter's helper, and it was feared that his hopes for a baseball career were dashed. But he was signed again by the Orioles in the spring of 1918. This time he was traded to Newark of the International League, where he won twelve games and lost fifteen. At the end of the season he was purchased by the New York Giants. Manager John J. McGraw of the Giants failed to see Rommel's potential as a pitcher, a mistake McGraw seldom made, and released him. After returning to Newark for the 1919 season, Rommel won twenty-two games. Earle Mack, Connie Mack's son, managed Newark in 1919 and told his father that Rommel was a good prospect. The elder Mack scouted him in a doubleheader with Toronto and saw him knocked out of both games but nevertheless signed him for the Philadelphia Athletics. When the surprised Rommel asked Mack later why he did so, Mack said, "Because you threw curves on the inside. " Rommel, who was six feet two inches tall and weighed 195 pounds, joined the Athletics in the spring of 1920. In his first year he won seven games and lost seven. During his minor-league days Rommel had effectively used the spitball in tight pitching situations. When the spitball was outlawed in 1920, Rommel took up the knuckle ball, a pitch he had learned from a minor-league player, Charles Druery, who is credited by some with inventing it. To throw a knuckle ball, the pitcher grasps the ball firmly with the tips of his fingers and fingernails, and throws it in such a way that it rotates little on the way to the plate. It "wobbles and dances, " as Rommel put it, making it extremely hard for the batter to hit solidly. Jimmie Foxx of the Athletics, an excellent hitter who faced Rommel often in batting practice, found his knuckler nearly impossible to hit squarely. Another teammate, the pitcher Lefty Grove, thought Rommel had the best control of the knuckler he had ever seen, but the pitch was difficult for the catcher to handle. Fortunately, during his years in the major leagues, Rommel worked with two very able catchers, Cy Perkins (until 1925) and then the great Mickey Cochrane. Rommel spent his entire major-league career (1920 - 1932) with the Athletics under Connie Mack, who considered him one of the smartest pitchers he ever managed. Rommel won 171 games and lost 119, with an earned-run average of 3. 54. His best years were in 1922, when he won 27 games to lead the league in wins, and in 1925, when he won 21. In 1922 the Athletics, a weak-hitting team, won only 65 games, so that Rommel was credited with an amazing 42 percent of their victories. Rommel's best years came while the Athletics were a struggling ball club. By the time Mack put together his great teams of 1929, 1930, and 1931, Rommel was in the twilight of his career, although he still pitched effectively. From 1927 on, Mack often used Rommel and Jack Quinn in relief, a role Rommel disliked, and relied on Grove, George Earnshaw, Rube Walberg, and Howard Ehmke as starters. In his final four years with the Athletics, Rommel won 29 games and lost 13. During his career, he won 51 games in relief and was credited with 29 saves. In 1929 the Athletics won the World Series, defeating the Chicago Cubs, and won again in 1930, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals. They won the American League pennant in 1931 but lost the Series to the Cardinals. The 1929 team, with its great pitching staff, and hitters such as Al Simmons, Bing Miller, Mule Haas, Jimmie Foxx, and Cochrane, is considered to be one of the best American League teams of all time. In the 1929 Series, Rommel, who pitched only briefly in two World Series games, one in 1929 and the other in 1931, figured in one of the most unusual games in Series history. In game four at Philadelphia on October 12, the Chicago Cubs, with Charlie Root pitching strongly, hammered Philadelphia's pitchers Walberg and Quinn for six innings. In the top of the seventh, Rommel came in and allowed two hits and one run. The Cubs led 8-0. But in the bottom of the seventh, with an incredible barrage of hits, the Athletics scored ten runs. Mack sent in Lefty Grove, his ace, who pitched two hitless innings. Rommel, probably to his dazed surprise, was credited with the win. In one of baseball's great pitching duels, Rommel faced Walter Johnson on opening day in 1926 in a game at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D. C. , against the Senators. Vice-President Charles G. Dawes tossed out the first ball. In the bottom of the fifteenth inning, with the score tied at 0-0, Joe Harris of the Senators singled off Rommel, scoring Bucky Harris with the winning run, a great victory for "the Big Train" and a tough loss for Rommel. At the end of the 1932 season, Connie Mack released Rommel as an active player but kept him on as a coach and batting-practice pitcher. In 1935, Rommel managed Richmond, a Philadelphia farm team. He was not notably successful as a manager, had a dispute with Mack over his salary, and with Mack's encouragement turned to umpiring. After two seasons of promising performance in the New York-Penn State League and the International League, he was hired by the American League in 1938. For the next twenty-one years he was a highly respected major-league umpire. He worked in the 1943 World Series between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals and the 1947 Series between the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. He also worked in five All-Star games. Rommel greatly disliked the unnecessary prolongation of games, stalling or dawdling pitchers in particular, having himself once pitched a two-hit shutout in fifty-six minutes. In 1956 he became the first American League umpire to wear glasses on the job. Rommel retired from baseball in 1959, finding he did not miss the game as much as he thought he might. Governor J. Millard Tawes of Maryland appointed him a senior clerk, a job he held for seven years.
Governor J. Millard Tawes of Maryland appointed him a senior clerk, a job he held for seven years.
Rommel married Emma Elizabeth Fahey on September 13, 1922; they had two children.
Rommel died in Baltimore.
