On this day in 1897, future Cub Kettle Wirts was born. He joined the team in 1922. The Cubs had three catchers on the roster; starter Bob O'Farrell and two young backups with awesome nicknames, Gabby Hartnett and Kettle Wirts. Wirts and Hartnett both caught 27 games that season for the Cubs, but their careers would go in very different directions. Hartnett would develop into such a force that the Cubs would find O'Farrell expendable. (They traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals, and he led them to their first World Series title in 1926.) Wirts, on the other hand, drifted off into obscurity. He played his last major league game in 1924.
In parts of four big league seasons, Elwood Vernon Wirts managed to get only 86 at bats. Although he accumulated a total of only three extra base hits (two doubles and one home run) in those at bats, he also acquired a great nickname. Unfortunately, the origin of that nickname has disappeared into the ether like Kettle himself. Wirts died in Sacramento California in 1968 at the age of 71.
