Henry Coppola
From BR Bullpen
Henry Peter Coppola
- Bats Right, Throws Right
- Height 5' 11", Weight 175 lb.
- Debut April 19, 1935
- Final Game May 7, 1936
- Born August 4, 1912 in East Douglas, MA USA
- Died July 10, 1990 in Norfolk, MA USA
[edit] Biographical Information
Henry Coppola was both better and worse than he first appears. He pitched for two seasons with the Washington Senators in the mid-1930's.
At age 22, he pitched in 19 games in 1935, with an ERA of 5.92, which sounds terrible. However, it was the lively ball era, and his team had an ERA of 5.25. Nine pitchers who pitched a game for the Senators that year had an ERA worse than that of Coppola.
The following year he was in 6 games through May 7. This time his ERA was 4.50 on an improved team whose seasonal ERA was 4.58, and which ended up with a record of 82-71. Bobo Newsom and Jimmie DeShong were acquired from other teams and became the winningest pitchers.
Although Coppola's ERA was decent, the stats underlying his ERA were not so good. He had given up a couple of unearned runs in addition to the earned runs. As for baserunners, in his 14 innings he had allowed 17 hits and 12 walks, so he had more than 2 baserunners per inning pitched. And he had gotten only 2 strikeouts in the 14 innings.
