The Way We Were: Baseball strikeout king Matt Kilroy won Augusta 1885 championship

In 1885 Augusta's professional baseball team was the champion of the South.

That September, the team (blandly called "the Augustas") defeated Atlanta to win the Southern League crown.

It was a really good team, and it was led by a really good pitcher named Matt Kilroy.

He was still a teenager, but Augustans were looking forward to him growing up and growing better in the upcoming season.

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He did, he just didn't do it here.

In 1886, Kilroy – nicknamed "Matches" because his pitches were said to be incendiary – completed a record-setting success by striking out 513 batters for the Baltimore Orioles.

Almost a century and half later, that remains the major league baseball high mark. For perspective, it is more than double the 248 strikeouts by Toronto's Robbie Ray, which led both leagues in 2021.

Kilroy was a strikeout machine, although he wasn't very big, 5-foot-9 and about 175 pounds. He threw left-handed and he threw fast. He was a terrific fielder, good hitter and Hall of Famer Christy Matthewson said he had baseball's best "pick-off" move, purging runners who had made it on base.

He also had another advantage. At the time, the distance from the pitching rubber to home plate was 50 feet. Today it's 60 feet, 6 inches, which gives a batter more reaction time.

On Opening Day 1886 Baltimore fans filled the ballpark to see the rookie sensation who had won 29 games and a league championship in Augusta the season before.

He did his best, winning that game and going on to end the season with 513 strikeouts. It wouldn't be enough. Baltimore would finish 1886 with only 44 wins and 88 losses. Kilroy won 29 games that year, but lost 34.

The worst defeat came the day after his older teammates took him out to celebrate his 20th birthday on June 21. Not accustomed to adult beverages, he struggled the next day to finish a 25-1 loss.

That is another thing about Kilroy. He usually finished his games.

In fact, during the 1886 season he pitched in a staggering 68 contests, completing all but two. He also threw 583 innings, a level that takes years for today's big leaguers.

The next year his strikeout total dropped to 217. However, both Kilroy and his team improved. He won 46 games, losing only 19. His team, the Orioles, won 77 and lost 58, a noticeable turnaround.

But the skill that had once thrilled Augusta baseball fans would begin to fade. Within 10 seasons he was out of the big leagues but still respected enough that he scouted young talent for the Philadelphia Athletics.

This was convenient because they played in a stadium across the street from the building that had been Kilroy's childhood home. He would turn that house into a bar, and it remained a popular place for both local and visiting ballplayers for generations, even after Kilroy's death in 1940.

Bill Kirby has reported, photographed and commented on life in Augusta and Georgia for 45 years.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: The Way We Were: Strikeout king won the Augusta 1885 championship