Paul Horine Wachtel: Texas League Baseball Legend (1888–1964)

Paul Horine Wachtel, professional baseball player who, through the age of forty-two, pitched in the Texas League, was born on April 30, 1888, in Myersville, Maryland. He was one of nine children born to Annie Malonza (Horine) Wachtel and Daniel Joshua Wachtel, a stonemason. Wachtel and his brothers played amateur ball in the Mid-Atlantic region before he enrolled at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1910.

Early Career

Beginning his professional career in 1911 at age twenty-three, Wachtel played in the minor leagues with the Brattleboro Islanders of the integrated Twin State League, the Green Bay Bays and the Milwaukee Creams/Fond du Lac Molls of the Wisconsin-Illinois League, and the Dayton Veterans and the Muskegon Reds/Muskies of the Central League. In 1917, his second year in Muskegon, Wachtel had a breakthrough season; he fashioned a 19–11 record with a league-leading 176 strikeouts and threw a no-hitter. This brought him to the attention of the Brooklyn Robins. In August the Robins, who finished the season in seventh place, purchased Wachtel even though he was a bit old (at twenty-nine) for a major league rookie.

After playing in an exhibition game on September 17, Wachtel made his major league debut on September 18 in the second game of a double-header against the St. Louis Cardinals at Robison Field in St. Louis. He made his second and final major league appearance on September 27 against the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh in front of an estimated crowd of 400. In his two major league appearances Wachtel gave up seven earned runs in six innings. He was returned to Muskegon. Wachtel never played another game for the Muskies, however, as the team folded. Before the 1918 season, he was sold to the Fort Worth Panthers (usually referred to as the Cats) of the Texas League.

Fort Worth Cats

Wachtel, at age thirty, got off to a great start with the Cats in 1918. He won seven of eight decisions before he left for military duty. After the nation entered World War I, the Texas League suspended operations, at which time the Cats were in second place at 47–39. Wachtel returned to Fort Worth after being discharged in early 1919. That season the team finished first, beginning a string of pennants that ran through 1925. They were the Texas League representatives in the first six (1920–25) post-season Dixie Series against the Southern Association champions and lost only in 1922 to the Mobile Bears. In 2001, in ranking the greatest minor league teams of all time, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues placed five Cats teams from that era in the top fifty: 1924 (4), 1920 (14), 1922 (17), 1925 (33), and 1921 (46).

As the Cats rewrote the Texas League record books, so did Wachtel. Of the Panthers’ 726 victories during their 1919–25 run, Wachtel was the winning pitcher in 160. He fell below the twenty-win mark only once (nineteen in 1923). He peaked with league-leading twenty-six wins in both 1920 and 1922. During his time with the Cats, Wachtel also threw two no-hitters (in 1918 and 1924).

Given his success at Fort Worth, another tryout in the big leagues might have seemed warranted, yet it never happened. Though the Detroit Tigers were affiliated with the Cats throughout Wachtel’s tenure in Fort Worth, they never gave him a shot with the big club. One reason the Tigers and other major league teams ignored Wachtel was his age. A more serious drawback was his out pitch, the spitball, which was banned from the big leagues in 1920. A major league pitcher who had established himself as a spitballer before then was allowed to continue, but all other pitchers were prohibited from throwing the pitch. Wachtel’s “cup of coffee” with Brooklyn in 1917 was not enough to qualify him to throw the spitball in the major leagues, though he was permitted to continue throwing the pitch in the minors.

Later Career and Retirement

Wachtel soldiered on with the Cats through the 1928 season. That season he was dubbed the “Iron Man” of the Texas League by sportswriter Homer L. Holliday. In 1929 the Cats traded Wachtel, but his Texas League career continued with the Houston Buffaloes. In 1930 he pitched, though inconsistently (he was forty-two), with two more Texas League teams, the Dallas Steers and the Waco Cubs. Nevertheless, shortly before being released by the Cubs, he threw his final shutout against Fort Worth.

When he retired, he was (and still is) the all-time Texas League leader in victories (231, including 216 with the Cats), complete games (242), shutouts (32), and innings pitched (3,177). Adding in his wins from other minor leagues, he won a total of 312 games.

Family and Honors

Wachtel married Elizabeth Lena “Bessie” Womack in Fort Worth in May 1921. Along with her son from a previous marriage, they made their off-season home in San Antonio, where Wachtel worked as a salesman after he retired from baseball. Wachtel at age seventy-six died of a heart attack on December 15, 1964, in San Antonio. He was buried in Sunset Memorial Park in San Antonio. His wife, who died in 1979, was buried alongside him. Stepson Marvin, who died in 1953, is also interred there.

In 2004 Wachtel was among the inaugural inductees into the Texas League Hall of Fame. He was inducted with Fort Worth teammates Joe Pate, who won 168 games from 1919 to 1925, and slugger Clarence “Big Boy” Kraft, as well as manager Jake Atz. Curiously, Wachtel has not been inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, although Atz, Kraft, and Pate have been so honored.