Jim Brosnan

For the former Gaelic football player and manager, see Jim Brosnan (footballer).

Jim Brosnan
Pitcher
Born: October 24, 1929 (1929-10-24) Cincinnati, Ohio
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 15, 1954 for the Chicago Cubs
Last MLB appearance
September 21, 1963 for the Chicago White Sox
Career statistics
Win-Loss	55-47
ERA	3.54
Strikeouts	507
Saves	67
Teams
Chicago Cubs (1954-1958) St. Louis Cardinals (1958-1959) Cincinnati Reds (1959-1963) Chicago White Sox (1963)

James Patrick Brosnan (born October 24, 1929, in Cincinnati, Ohio) was a Major League Baseball player from 1954 and 1956 through 1963. He was a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago White Sox. Coincidentally, he was born on Black Thursday, the beginning stage of the Stock Market Crash.

While known as a moderately effective pitcher, both as a starter and a reliever, he gained additional fame by becoming one of the first athletes to publish a candid personal diary. Generally speaking, up to that point such books were "sanitized" for the general public and used a ghost writer. Brosnan was known as an intellectual, relatively speaking, for keeping books in his locker to read; and the authorship of the books he wrote listed only himself as the writer. Wearing glasses also contributed to his "Professor" persona.

The first of his books was about his 1959 season, a season which found him being traded from St. Louis to Cincinnati around the halfway point, and was titled The Long Season. It garnered some degree of criticism by those who felt Brosnan had violated the "sanctity" of the clubhouse. In that way it anticipated, by ten years, the firestorm of opinion that would come in the wake of Jim Bouton's book, Ball Four. However, Brosnan's book focused more on feelings and less on the kind of salacious details that Bouton's book would contain. Regardless, its critics included Joe Garagiola, whose own autobiography, Baseball Is a Funny Game, was entertaining but was of the traditional variety. He characterized Brosnan as a "a loner; a rebel".

Two years later, Brosnan again kept a diary, a fortuitous circumstance as the Reds would win the National League championship in 1961, before falling to the New York Yankees in the World Series. Brosnan also had one of his best years statistically, with 10 wins, only 4 losses, and 16 saves in 53 games as a relief pitcher. Brosnan's book was published under the appropriate title Pennant Race.

After his playing days, Brosnan continued writing and also became a sportscaster.

See also

• List of Major League Baseball all-time saves leaders

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)
• A review of The Long Season