In his last start, Madison Bumgarner struck out 10 batters, giving him 241 strikeouts on the season, breaking a 118-year-old Giants franchise record for the most strikeouts in a season by a left-handed pitcher.
The record was previously set in 1898 by Cy Seymour. Seymour struck out 239 that season — leading the league in strikeouts for the second year straight.
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Seymour had something else in common with Mad Bum, besides a big left-arm. He could hit. He could really hit. No pitcher-turned-position player hit quite like Cy Seymour —except for Babe Ruth, of course.
Seymour occasionally spot started in the outfield on his non-throwing days in his first two big league seasons, but during that 1898 season he played 35 games in the outfield to go along with his 45 games on the mound. And by 1901, he stopped pitching almost entirely, throwing just three more innings for the rest of his career, which ended in 1913.
Seymour was a rather pedestrian batsman early in his career, up until he was released by the Orioles, along with six other players who the original Orioles could not afford, on July 17, 1902, then signed with the Reds on the same day.
Note: These were not the Orioles we know today; this team was actually the beginning of the Yankees, as they moved to New York in 1903, becoming the Highlanders, who would become the Yankees in 1913, though the Yankees claim no real connection to these Orioles. It's a long story.
Seymour batted .340/.378/.414 (136 OPS+) after signing with the Reds for the remainder of the 1902 season. In the two seasons following, 1903-04, it was more of the same from Seymour, as he batted .328/.367/.459 (135 OPS+).
Seymour exploded in 1905. He batted .377/.429/.559 (182 OPS+), leading the league in batting average, slugging percentage, OPS (.988), OPS+, hits (219), doubles (40), triples (21), RBI (121), and total bases (325). He added eight home runs, all but one inside the park, falling just shy of the Triple Crown, finishing second in homers only to teammate Fred Odwell, who hit nine of his 10 career home runs that season.
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On July 12, 1906, Seymour was sent back to the Giants for $12,000 (that is $393,375.75 in today’s dollars), this time to play for his former Orioles manager, Hall of Fame player-coach John McGraw.
Interesting aside: Seymour may very well be responsible for modern base coaches. In a game during the 1909 season, Seymour was coaching third base — player’s would alternate coaching third base, much like you see in modern slow-pitch softball, in the days prior to full-time coaches — and he tackled his teammate, Moose McCormick, in an attempt to hold the runner (literally). Moose, as guys nicknamed Moose tend to do, overpowered Seymour and scored anyway.
According to Christy Mathewson's 1912 book “Pitching in a Pinch," manager John McGraw was infuriated with Seymour's antics. Seymour excused himself by saying, “The sun got in my eyes, and I couldn’t see the ball.” But, according to Matty, Moose hit the ball “due east” and the game “was being played in the afternoon, so Seymour had no alibi.” From the moment of Seymour’s blunder, “McGraw realized the value of scientific coaching, which means making the most of every hit in a game,” recounted Mathewson. Christy Mathewson, perhaps the original sabermetrician. Sort of.
McGraw would hire Arlie Latham as the first ever, full-time third base coach. Latham’s coaching tactics included screaming obscenities while running up and down the third base line in attempt to distract the opposing pitcher during his windup — which brought into existence the third base coaching box — and somersaulting as he waved runners home from third. And if this isn’t strange enough, on Aug. 18, 1909, at 49 years old, Latham was inserted into a game as a pinch-runner. He and Tillie Shafer, who was 29 years his junior, successfully executed a double-steal. And to this day, Arlie Latham is the oldest player in baseball history to steal a base.
Baseball is weird.
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Seymour would continue to play with the Giants into the 1910 season, until he was purchased by, get this, the Baltimore Orioles — again not the Baltimore Orioles we know today, or even the aforementioned Baltimore Orioles, who were now the American League’s Highlanders and today’s Yankees, but the Baltimore Orioles of the Eastern minor leagues. Seymour batted .294 in 1910-11 with the Orioles before being released. He would bat .306 for the Buffalo Bisons (AA) in 1912 and then split 1913 between the Newark Indians (AA) and the Boston Braves, making his final major league appearance on July 17, 1913, at the age of 40 — though he would play 13 games for Newark Bears (AA) in 1918.
In all, Seymour ended his career with a 61-56 record, a 3.73 ERA and 591 strikeouts in 1,038 innings. He batted .303/.347/.405 with 737 runs, 1,725 hits, 229 doubles, 96 triples, 52 homers, 799 RBI and 222 stolen bases — winning two strikeout titles as a pitcher and a batting crown as a batsman. He is still the Reds' all-time leading hitter, batting .332 during his time in Cincinnati, and held the Giants' single-season record for most strikeouts by a left handed pitcher for 118 years, until Bumgarner, a pretty good hitter in his own right, bested him in his last start.
This is not to say that Mad Bum will go on to be “Babe Ruth after Babe Ruth,” as Seymour was very much "Babe Ruth before Babe Ruth," but Bumgarner’s arm and bat are producing numbers we've not seen since the 19th century. Bumgarner now has three seasons with at least 215 strikeouts and three or more home runs hit, tying a major league record that was set by John Clarkson, when he struck out 308, 313, 237, and hit four, three, and six home runs, in 1885, 1886, and 1887, respectively.