Nicknamed "Cannonball", "Rubber Arm Gun", and "Rubber-Winged Gus", he played for nine different Major League Baseball (MLB) teams from 1887 to 1901.
He holds the record for most batters hit in a career, with 277, and was the last major league pitcher to play without a baseball glove.
[1] Weyhing was born on September 29, 1866, in Louisville, Kentucky, to immigrant parents from Württemberg, Germany.
[1] On July 6, 1888, during a game in Cincinnati, Weyhing left the field in protest of an umpire's call, earning him a $200 fine.
During one week in the 1888 season, he pitched three consecutive complete game victories against Brooklyn to eliminate that team from the pennant race.
His personal behavior became increasingly erratic as he dealt with the sudden deaths of his mother and brother, John, within a short period that year.
[1] He was ejected from a late-season start against Buffalo and then arrested for disorderly conduct when he drunkenly confronted the umpire after the game (though the charges were dropped).
In the offseason, an arrest warrant was issued against him for vandalizing a painting in a Buffalo tavern, though he left for Louisville before being served a summons.
[1] Weyhing struggled to adapt to changes made to the National League playing field in 1893, chief of which was the elimination of the "pitcher's box" 50 feet from home plate and its replacement with the pitcher's plate 60 feet, 6 inches from home.
[2] In 1895, Weyhing made three consecutive starts for three separate clubs—the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and his hometown Louisville Colonels—a unique feat until Jaime García replicated it in 2017.