Barnes-storming

I had a late brainstorm on my Seven Starts for Seven Brothers piece (see below), which was to go back and check the game story of the Martinez matchup over at the Nando Sportserver to see if the other pairs of brothers were mentioned then (the Sportserver has a very useful archive which goes day-by-day back to 1995). Lo and behold, this yielded the answer: Virgil and Jesse Barnes.

The Barnes brothers were the first duo to oppose each other, on May 3, 1927. Virgil started for the New York Giants, while the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jesse came on in relief of one Doug McWeeny and tossed seven innings. Jesse took the W as the Dodgers rallied for six runs in the 7th and 8th innings off of Virgil, to win 7-6.

Not being particularly well-versed in that era, I never would have thought of the Barnes brothers myself. And I likely wouldn’t have found them because I had been skimming the Retrosheet team game logs for games in which two brothers both started. So while I hadn’t checked for the other pairs of brothers facing each other when one came on in relief, this does bring our total to seven and jibes with the pairs listed in the Martinez story, thus accomplishing our mission. Here’s the complete list of the brothers’ first matchups, with the winning brother listed first:

- Jesse and Virgil Barnes: May 3, 1927

- Phil and Joe Niekro: July 4, 1967

- Gaylord and Jim Perry: July 3, 1973 (the Indians won, but Gaylord didn’t get the W)

- Pat and Tom Underwood: May 31, 1979

- Greg and Mike Maddux: September 29, 1986

- Pedro and Ramon Martinez: August 29, 1996

- Andy and Alan Benes: September 6, 2002

Doug McWeeny? One of the most unlikely baseball names this side of Mickey Klutts. Mr. McWeeny finished his career with 37 wins, 57 losses and a 4.17 ERA for three teams between 1921-1930. He led the league in walks and shutouts for the Dodgers in 1928. Those ’28 Dodgers, who went 77-76, were the only winning team McWeeny ever played on in the bigs. And he was no Cary Grant, either.