Kaiser Wilhelm
I love it when sport and history intersect in a somewhat meaningful way. It reassures me that, despite their many incompatibilities, the two dominant components to my personality just might be able to get along. It also provides sustenance for someone obsessed with the minutiae of certain sports and (necessarily) history that there might be a greater relevance in one or both of them.*
* You might at this juncture say something like ‘But history is always relevant.’ And I accept that. It’s just that when your life has, for four years, involved the production of a history thesis, the whole thing can seem a bit much. There is an existential crisis buried in every footnote.
Anyway, I was delighted today to discover that in the early twentieth century, there was a professional baseball player who went by the name of Kaiser Wilhelm. Fine, so his birth name was Irvin Key Wilhelm, but he was popularly known as Kaiser Wilhelm. This shouldn’t be particularly surprising to us now – there was a sizable ethnic German population in the United States which numbered about 14 million by 1914. And, needless to say, the real Kaiser - Wilhelm II – was held in greater esteem in the United States before the First World War than after.
However, it turns out that the similarities run beyond mere monikers. Lets have a look.
1) Irvin Key Wilhelm both pitched and batted from the right side.
I think it’s fair to say that Wilhelm II’s politics were of the right. Also, his withered left arm meant that if by some quirk of fate he had played baseball, he would’ve been a righty.
Similarity.
2) According to Baseball Reference, Wilhelm’s best year (statistically) was 1908. That year he set career high marks in wins, ERA, Innings Pitched, and ERA+ (if you like the new fangled stats).
It’s a bit trickier to isolate a year when it comes to Wilhelm II, and lets just say that there has been ample historical scholarship on the matter. However, I’d say 1908 isn’t a bad bet. Yes, there was the embarrassing Daily Telegraph interview, but there was also the Bosnian Crisis, where German support for Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia was crucial. In the years leading up to the First World War, there weren’t many clear or even proxy victories for Germany, so this might be the best we can offer.
Similarity.
3) Irvin Wilhelm’s last full season was 1914. He pitched one inning in 1915 before retiring.
1914 was also the beginning of the end for Wilhelm II.
Similarity.
4) Wilhelm was out of baseball between 1910 and 1914.
While it’s a bit of a stretch, Wilhelm II’s Germany was not the primary player in any major international incident after the 1911 Moroccan Crisis until the outbreak of war in 1914. Coincidence? You bet your life it sort of kind of wasn’t!
Similarity. Sort of.
5) Kaiser Wilhelm threw one shutout in 1914.
Wilhelm II was shutout once in 1914 ( Battle of the Marne).
Similarity!
6) Kaiser Wilhelm (the baseball player) attempted a comeback in 1921. Wilhelm II did not. Oh well.
