Great Names in Baseball: Orvil Overall

Feast your eyes on the great Orvil Overall, one of the workhorse starting pitchers from the great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1900s¹.

Overall came to the Cubs in 1906 after a mediocre 300-inning campaign the previous year with the mediocre Cincinnati Reds and was a fixture at West Side Park² until 1910. He then resurfaced for a few innings with the 1913 Cubs.

Overall, Overall pitched to a 3-1 record in the World Series for the Cubs in 1906, 1907, 1908, and 1910, including picking up two wins the last time the Cubs won it all³.

Overall was something of a strikeout king for his era, leading the league in strikeouts per innings pitched in both 1908 and 1909.

So we salute you and your great name, Orvil Overall.

Read more here.


¹ The decade, not the century.
² West Side Park (the second one) was the predecessor to Wrigley Field. It was bounded by Taylor, Wood, Polk, and Wolcott streets, which is not the location of the UIC Medical Center campus.
³ That's 1908, in case you didn't know.