Photo of Josh Billings


Josh Billings

John Augustus Billings

Position: Catcher
Bats: Right, Throws: Right
Height: 5' 11", Weight: 165 lb.

Born: November 30, 1891 in Grantville, KS
School: Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK) (All Transactions)
Debut: September 9, 1913
Teams (by GP): Browns/Indians/Naps 1913-1923

Final Game: August 24, 1923
Died: December 30, 1981 in Santa Monica, CA
Buried: Body donated to UCLA Medical School,
    About biographical information

Standard Fielding

Year Tm Lg Age Pos G GS CG Inn Ch PO A E DP Fld% RF/9 RF/G lgFld% lgRF9 lgRFG G PB WP SB CS CS% lgCS% PO Awards
1913 CLE AL 21 C 1 7 4 2 1 0 .857 6.00 .967 6.60 0 1 1 50% 44%
1914 CLE AL 22 C 3 16 10 3 3 0 .813 4.33 .967 6.70 2 0 2 100% 46%
1915 CLE AL 23 C 7 35 29 6 0 0 1.000 5.00 .965 6.46 0 7 3 30% 42%
1915 CLE AL 23 OF 1 1 1 0 0 0 1.000 1.00 .960 2.00 0-1-0
1916 CLE AL 24 C 12 52 38 13 1 3 .981 4.25 .974 6.33 3 7 5 42% 42%
1917 CLE AL 25 C 48 190 134 51 5 2 .974 3.85 .971 5.71 1 32 33 51% 45%
1918 CLE AL 26 C 1 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 1.000 2.00 .970 5.50 0 0 0
1919 SLB AL 27 C 26 21 11 111 76 33 2 3 .982 4.19 .974 5.57 1 16 17 52% 45%
1919 SLB AL 27 1B 1 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 .500 1.00 .990 10.70
1920 SLB AL 28 C 40 38 37 180 138 36 6 1 .967 4.35 .973 5.11 3 24 14 37% 48%
1921 SLB AL 29 C 12 8 8 55 45 9 1 3 .982 4.50 .971 4.89 0 6 1 14% 45%
1922 SLB AL 30 C 3 1 1 6 5 1 0 0 1.000 2.00 .977 4.80 0 0 0
1923 SLB AL 31 C 4 1 1 12 8 3 1 1 .917 2.75 .975 4.82 1 1 1 50% 45%
11 Seasons C 157 69 58 666 489 157 20 13 .970 4.11 .972 5.54 11 94 77 45% 45%
1 Season OF 1 1 1 0 0 0 1.000 1.00 .960 2.00 0-1-0
1 Season 1B 1 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 .500 1.00 .990 10.70
11 Seasons TOT 159 69 58 669 490 158 21 13 .969 4.08 .972 5.55 0-1-0 11 94 77 45% 45%
Note: Fielding stats are a combination of official records and RetroSheet records. Both are likely to have substantial errors and will not match perfectly.
View Complete Notes on Fielding Data
Leagues historically made no effort to balance team, league, and player fielding stats. Since 1990 or so, computers have made this feasible, but prior to that there are hundreds or thousands of discrepancies each year in games played (even whether a player played a position), putouts, assists, double plays and errors.
  • Pre-1948 SB & CS data for catchers is estimated from catcher assists, games started and opposition stolen bases.
  • From 1948 on SB, CS, Pickoff, & WP data for catchers and pitchers is taken from play-by-play accounts in the retrosheet files. There are several hundred games without pbp from 1948 to 1973 and for those we may not have any data.
  • CG & GS come from the retrosheet data and should be complete and pretty accurate from 1918 on.
  • Innings played (like SB and CS) come from the retrosheet play-by-play data and should be considered mostly complete from 1948 to 1973 and complete from then on.
  • Stats (PO,A,G, etc) for LF-CF-RF positions (since 1918) is taken from play-by-play or box score data as available.
  • Stats (PO,A,G,etc) for C,P,1B,2B,3B,SS,OF positions is taken from the official reported totals and may have been corrected at various times since their publication.
  • For detailed information on which games retrosheet is missing play-by-play from 1948 to 1973, please see their most wanted games list
  • For detailed information on the availability of data on this site by year, see our data coverage page

Appearances

Year Tm Lg Age G GS Batting Defense P C 1B 2B 3B SS LF CF RF OF DH PH PR
1913 CLE AL 21 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1914 CLE AL 22 11 11 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1915 CLE AL 23 8 8 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0
1916 CLE AL 24 22 22 0 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1917 CLE AL 25 66 66 0 48 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1918 CLE AL 26 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1919 SLB AL 27 40 21 40 27 0 26 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 7
1920 SLB AL 28 66 38 66 40 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 25 1
1921 SLB AL 29 20 8 20 12 0 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 1
1922 SLB AL 30 5 1 5 3 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0
1923 SLB AL 31 5 1 5 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11 Seasons 246 69 246 87 0 158 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 41 9
Appearances table is calculated solely from full RetroSheet play-by-play data available from 1973 on. A combination of RetroSheet (starting with the 1918 season) and non-RetroSheet data is used for other seasons.

Appearances on Leader Boards, Awards, and Honors

Stats are Year-Value-Rank · Glossary

Caught Stealing %s c a p y
1917 AL  50.8 (3rd)
1919 AL  51.5 (2nd)

                                         

Other Resources & Links

Error?     Compare     Search SABR's Baseball Index     Other Links@google.com     Baseball Library     Baseball-Almanac.com     Retrosheet     The Baseball Cube     The Baseball Page     WhatIfSports: Josh Billings    

Viewed 3,292 times through May 31, 2012.
Name and misspellings: John Augustus Josh Billings

Player Page Tricks and Tips

Sum any set of rows by clicking anywhere (not red or blue) on the first and last rows of your selection. We will then compute the totals for the player between and including those two seasons.
Default Setting for this feature: Turn On / Turn Off
Summation of season totals only works for the initial case when the table is in year order. On a sorted table the results may get a bit goofy.

HIGHLIGHTING: Adding a range or series of player's career seasons or career game numbers (like '#1972:batting_standard', '#1970-1980-sum:batting_standard', or '#1998,1999,2001,2002,sum:pitching_standard') onto the end of a player page url causes the seasons to the highlighted and summed. After changing address bar, reload the page to see highlighting. This will work even in links e-mailed to others. Note that for tables with multiple pages the first table is the default. If you want to create a sum for a table other than the first one, select the rows and after the summation window appears click on "permanent link" link.

The play-by-play information both shown and used to create certain data sets was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by RetroSheet.