In 1910, 31 year-old John Frill made his Major League debut with the New York Highlanders. He appeared in 10 games, starting 5 of them. He went 2-2 with an ERA of 4.47 over a total of 48 innings pitched. Nothing too interesting about any of that. Just a career Minor Leaguer getting a cup of coffee and eating some inning for the big league club. Only July 13th 1910, Frill was back in the Minors, his contract having been purchased by Eastern League club Jersey City. In 1911, he turned in a 16-17 record with a 3.78 ERA for the Jersey City club . That same year, American Tobacco Company made a curious decision when they included Frill in the 460-Only portion of the T206 set.
There is no shortage of obscure players in the T206 set, but Frill may be the most extreme example, at least among Major Leaguers. He was a bit of a late-bloomer in baseball terms. His first taste of professional ball came as a 27 year-old in the Connecticut State League, where he pitched parts of the 1906 Season with Bridgeport and Springfield starting 29 games and going 11-15. In 1907 he started 6 games for Newark of the Eastern League, before joining East Liverpool of the Pennsylvania-Ohio-Maryland League. He appeared in 30 games for East Liverpool, but no other stats were kept. In 1908, Frill re-joined Newark, where he turned in solid seasons in both 1908 and 1909. In 1908 he went 13-10 with a 2.39 Run Average (the ERA stat was not kept, presumably because errors were not recorded). In 1909 he was 16-13 with a 3.34 Run Average.
Including Frill in the set as a member of Newark in 1910 would have made a lot of sense. Including him as a member of the New York Highlanders in 1911 is a real head-scratcher however. My best guess as to why Frill was chosen for inclusion in the set is that he may have been a relatively well known player at the time as a result of his 1908 and 1909 campaigns in Newark. This still doesn’t make a lot of sense, as most fringy Major Leaguers in the set either had a long Major League career, or a short and notable one.
Whatever the reason, Frill’s T206 card is one of my favorite of the 460-Only Series. Though there are a number of cards with green grass and blue sky backgrounds, the colors on this one have always stood out to me.
In 1912, John Frill returned to big leagues for another cup of coffee. He appeared in 3 games with the St. Louis Browns before being selected off waivers by the Cincinnati Reds. He pitched in 3 games for the Reds, and then returned to the Minor Leagues for good. In 1915 he pitched for Albany and Syracuse of the New York State League before hanging up the spikes at 35 years of age. In 1918 he passed away far too young in Rhode Island at the age of 38.
John Frill’s T206 can be found with Uzit, Lenox, American Beauty 460 and Cycle 460 backs. The Uzit was recently discovered and is the only copy known as of this writing.