His assist, caught stealing, and stolen bases allowed totals remain current major league records.

His best season was 1895 when he caught a major league record 133 games and compiled a .336 batting average with 10 home runs, 97 RBIs and 17 stolen bases.

[4] McGuire first gained note playing baseball for a team in Hastings, Michigan, where he was paired with pitcher Lady Baldwin.

McGuire was reputed to be "the only catcher within a 50-mile radius who could handle" the left-handed Baldwin and his "incendiary fastball and sinuous curve, a so-called 'snakeball.

[1] At Toledo, he shared the catching responsibilities with Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first African-American player in Major League Baseball.

Detroit sent two representatives (Marsh and Maloney) to Indianapolis, principally to sign the Hoosiers' battery of Larry McKeon and Jim Keenan.

The Wolverines were outbid by the Cincinnati Reds for McKeon and Keenan but wound up with the Hoosiers' manager (Bill Watkins) and the rest of the team's starting lineup.

[1] In late August 1888, McGuire met and signed with Tom Loftus, the manager of the Cleveland Blues of the National League.

John Barleycorn, and his association with this noted gentleman led to frequent and divers bouts with one Ben Booze who invariably gave Mac the worst of it and came near causing his downfall.

[5]Another account, published in Sports Illustrated 1984, stated that McGuire's Brooklyn teammates gave him the nickname in 1900 because he was "so straight-arrow" and had never been fined or ejected from a game.

[4] Multiple accounts support the widely publicized claim that he was never fined or ejected from a game and describe McGuire as "placid, easy-going, hard-working and thoroughly conscientious.

"[24] The Sporting Life closed with this observation: " If Mac felt bent on doing missionary work his duty is to remain right where he is.

Defensively, McGuire led the American Association's catchers with 130 assists, 56 errors, 204 stolen bases allowed and 129 runners caught stealing.

"[29]He also led the National League's catchers with 312 putouts, 180 assists, 40 errors, 12 double plays turned, 28 passed balls, 293 stolen bases allowed, and 189 runners caught stealing.

[32] McGuire appeared in fewer games, 73 at catcher and six at first base, compiled a .343 batting average (the highest of his career), and earned a 2.5 WAR rating.

[1] On July 14, 1899, McGuire received good news; he had been traded to the Brooklyn Superbas,[1] a team managed by Ned Hanlon and competing for the National League pennant.

[1] The team finished strong with the addition of McGuire, compiling a 39–14 record after August 12 and winning the National League pennant by eight games.

"[40] McGuire argued that his contract with Brooklyn was invalid on the ground that the "reserve clause" was a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

The evidence adduced is by no means conclusive upon the question whether the services which the defendant contracted to render were so unique and peculiar that they could not be performed and substantially as well by others engaged in professional ball playing, who might be easily be obtained to take his place.

[45] At age 38, McGuire was the fourth oldest player in the American League, his batting average dropped to .227 – his lowest level since 1886 ---, and his WAR rating fell to 0.7.

[53] McGuire was credited with having "whipped the bunch of veterans and kids from tailenders into a fighting machine, laying the foundation for the whirlwind team" that went 88–63 in 1909.

In resigning his post, McGuire stated that he was disappointed in the team's showing and hoped that better results could be achieved with a new man in charge.

"[57] In May 1912, when the Detroit players refused to play in protest over the suspension of Ty Cobb for attacking a fan, the club's management was forced to come up with a substitute team for a game in Philadelphia.

[58] In January 1914, McGuire was assigned to coach Detroit's young pitchers during spring training with the understanding that he would then leave the club to assume "his regular duties as chief of scouts.

"[58] Salsinger wrote that McGuire "resorted to a primordial method" by stuffing his glove with a piece of raw steak to absorb the shock.

McGuire played before the advent of most modern protective equipment, and his fingers were reportedly "gnarled, broken, bent, split and crooked" by the end of his career.

The maimed and misshapen members which he will carry with him after he quits the game and to the grave are mute reminders of many a foul ticked off the bat, a wild thrown ball stopped with the finger tips after a leap into the air, or a low one clawed up out of the roots of the plate, and an occasional one caught full on the end of a digit, splitting the flesh and nail.

"[21] Crane also described McGuire's hands:His big, brawny, strong hands, now grotesquely disfigured by the continuous battering they have received from the viciously wicked inshoots, curves, slants and benders of the speediest pitchers known in the long history of the game, have acted as an unflinchable barrier to the accumulation of momentum that if concentrated would have an irresistible force capable of crushing a battleship or of pulverizing a backstop construction of Harveyized steel armor plate.

[21]In 1907, newspapers across the country published an x-ray of McGuire's left hand (pictured, above at right), showing "36 breaks, twists or bumps all due to baseball accidents.

[5] The "wet goods emporium" appears to refer to a saloon in Albion known as "McGuire Brothers", originally located at 204 S. Superior St., which moved in 1912 to 103 West Porter Street.