Addie Joss Cleveland 1/27/10

This entry catalogs a Sporting News Supplement of Cleveland Naps right-hander Adrian "Addie" Joss dated January 27, 1910, distributed as a loose newsprint premium with the weekly paper. The player is Joss (1880–1911), the 6'3" right-hander whose corkscrew windup and 1.89 lifetime ERA — still the second-lowest in major-league history — made him the most respected pitcher in the American League aside from Walter Johnson. Joss batted and threw right-handed and pitched all nine of his major-league seasons in Cleveland after debuting in 1902. The 1/27/10 dateline places this supplement during what would prove to be his penultimate winter; he died fifteen months later, on April 14, 1911, of tubercular meningitis, two days after his 31st birthday. The Sporting News supplements of this era are oversized newsprint sheets, fragile and prone to creasing, with surviving copies in collectible grade scarce. Joss was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978 after the BBWAA's ten-year service requirement was waived in his case — the only formal exception ever granted.