Charles Faust
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles "Victory" Faust (1880-1915) was a major league baseball player whose career, statistically speaking, was only slightly lengthier than that of Moonlight Graham, but who was regarded by his team, the New York Giants, as a good luck charm.
His story was told by Giants center fielder Fred Snodgrass in The Glory of Their Times. Here is a capsule summary:
Born Charles Victor Faust, and also known as Charlie Faust, he won a spring tryout with the Giants in 1911, after informing manager John McGraw that a fortune teller back home in Kansas had told him he needed to go pitch for the Giants and help them win the pennant. Faust had no real pitching ability, but McGraw was a superstitious sort, and brought Faust along. He actually put him in for a couple of innings in different games, late in the 1911 season.
According to Snodgrass, Faust stuck with the team for three seasons, mostly as a mascot rather than a roster player, and during that time the Giants won three pennants, although they failed to win a World Series (Snodgrass himself made an infamous error in the final game of the 1912 Series). After the 1913 season, Faust told McGraw he was not a well man, and would be unable to help them in 1914. And, as Snodgrass pointed out, the Giants did not win the pennant that year. However, Snodgrass said that Faust died that winter of 1913-14, which was not quite accurate. He actually died in the late spring of 1915, at the age of 34.
