Mike Donlin

Michael Joseph Donlin was born on May 30, 1878, and died on September 24, 1933. He built his reputation primarily as a professional baseball outfielder whose Major League career ran from 1899 to 1914, though he also pursued a parallel life in theater and film. His Broadway appearances spanned from 1911 to 1930 and included the play This One Man, the play Smooth as Silk, and the musical A Certain Party.

Donlin's path to professional baseball began in California, where he played for the Santa Cruz Sandcrabs in 1899 before being purchased by the St. Louis Perfectos. He learned of the transaction while jailed in Santa Cruz for drunkenness. Despite arriving mid-season, he batted .323 and finished tenth in the National League in home runs. The following year he hit .326 and placed third in home runs while appearing in roughly half of St. Louis's games. Seeking more regular playing time, he jumped to the Baltimore Orioles of the American League in 1901, where he batted .340, second-best in the league. In March 1902, however, he was sentenced to six months in prison for assaulting two people in Baltimore while intoxicated and was released by the club. After serving his sentence, the Cincinnati Reds picked him up, and he hit .287 in the final month of that season. In 1903 he batted .351, finishing third in the National League, and ranked in the top five in virtually every offensive category.

Donlin hit .356 in 1904 before another alcohol-related incident in St. Louis prompted the Reds to suspend him for thirty days and then trade him to the New York Giants, where he was reunited with manager John McGraw. His combined batting average for 1904 was .329, second in the league, and he helped the Giants capture the National League pennant. His finest individual season came in 1905, when he batted .356, third in the National League, and led the league in runs scored. The Giants defeated the Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series that year for their first championship, with Donlin batting .263 and scoring four runs across five games. His .333 career batting average ranks twenty-eighth all time, and he finished in the top three in batting five times, also placing in the top ten in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and home runs in each of those same seasons.

Known by the nickname "Turkey Mike" for his distinctive strut, Donlin was a flamboyant figure whose personality and talent made him widely celebrated as the baseball idol of Manhattan. Alcoholism, however, repeatedly created friction with club officials and led to legal trouble. On April 11, 1906, he married Mabel Hite, a vaudeville and Broadway actress. Early in that season he broke his ankle and missed the remainder of the year. When Giants owner John T. Brush refused his demand for his previous salary plus a $600 sobriety bonus for 1907, Donlin sat out the entire season, spending the time traveling with Hite and developing an interest in theater.

He returned to the Giants in 1908 and batted .334, finishing second in the league in hitting for the third time in his career. That same year, on October 26, Donlin made his stage debut in Stealing Home, a one-act play he co-wrote with Hite. Critics responded warmly to Hite's performance in particular, and the production became a commercial success. Donlin subsequently left baseball, claiming the play generated more income, and the couple performed in Stealing Home for approximately three years.

As the play's popularity faded around 1911 and Hite struggled to secure new roles, Donlin attempted a return to baseball. He rejoined the Giants but appeared in only twelve games before being sold to the Boston Rustlers, for whom he batted .315. Boston then traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he served as a reserve in 1912 and batted .316. In October of that year, Hite died of cancer. Pittsburgh placed Donlin on waivers in December, and though the Philadelphia Phillies claimed him, he refused to report and retired from the game again. He made a brief attempt at a comeback in 1913 with the minor league Jersey City Skeeters and joined a McGraw-organized barnstorming tour through Europe, Asia, and Africa that winter. McGraw gave him a roster spot on the 1914 Giants, but Donlin batted only .161 in 35 games before retiring permanently from baseball. He reached one hundred games played in just five of his major league seasons, a figure that reflected how frequently acting, injury, holdouts, and suspensions interrupted his career.

Beginning in 1914, Donlin partnered with Marty McHale for a stage act they called Right Off the Bat. His Broadway career continued through 1930, encompassing This One Man, Smooth as Silk, and A Certain Party. He gradually shifted his focus from stage to screen, aided by his close friend John Barrymore, who helped him find work in Hollywood. Donlin appeared in at least fifty-three films, including the silent feature The General in 1926 and Paramount's first sound feature, Warming Up, in 1928. He also served as an advisor on several baseball-themed productions. Despite the volume of his screen work, prominent stardom never came. Donlin remained in Hollywood pursuing his acting career until his death on September 24, 1933.