Ed Holley
Written by Justin D. Lamb
(Collection of the Author)
“Ed Holley is a serious man and does not look like a professional ball player off the field,” wrote the 1933 Who’s Who of Professional Baseball. “One might mistake him for a college professor or an attorney at law. He moves with a quiet dignity.”
The seventh of nine children, Edgar “Ed” Holley was born on July 23, 1899 on Holleytown Road (now Benton-Briensburg Road) near the town of Briensburg, Marshall County, Kentucky to Columbus Napoleon “Lum” Holley and Sarah Melvinia Gordon. His grandfather, Nathaniel Holley of the Olive community, served as a Private in the 46th Tennessee infantry for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Ed Holley’s childhood days consisted of hard farm labor on his father’s farm and he received his formal education at Clark one-room school and Benton High School. At a young age, Holley took a liking to baseball and played throughout the county. He soon began playing in the KITTY league for the Louisville Colonels beginning in the summer of 1922. During his first season as a relief pitcher, he won two games and lost three. A few months after his debut, the Colonels sent him to Madisonville, but no records have survived from his time there. Holley transferred to the Sally league at Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1923 where he won two and lost none. He soon came back to Louisville where he won three straight games. Holley became the regular pitcher in 1924, winning 10 and losing 12.
Luck finally broke for the tall and stout western Kentucky boy when in 1925 he captured 20 wins for the Louisville Colonels while only losing 7. The next two years, however, Holley was in a slump and his career looked over. However, the Chicago Cubs in the Major Leagues were in desperate need of a pitcher and manager Joe McCarthy, who had once managed at Louisville, remembered Holley’s pitching skills and hired him. At age 28, he began his Major League career with the Chicago Cubs on May 24, 1928. Holley only appeared in 31 innings in the 1928 season and gave the same number of hits. He was listed in the Coshocton Tribune newspaper as an outstanding rookie pitcher.
Holley returned to the minor leagues for the 1929 season and played for the Reading Phillies in Reading, Pennsylvania where he won 18 and lost 9 and averaged 3.60 earned runs. He was soon passed to the Kansas City Blues for the 1930 and 1931 seasons.
Holley returned to the major leagues in 1932 during the grueling years of the Great Depression and when the Phillies were in the process of rebuilding and were in search of talent. Holley was brought in and his two years with the Phillies are considered the best of his career where he accounted for 24 wins, and outdueled the best pitchers in the major leagues at the time including Carl Hubbell of the New York Giants and Dazzy Vance of the St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, and Brooklyn Dodgers.
Holley was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1934 for a very dismal season which resulted in several injuries which permanently affected his game. Holley returned to the minor leagues in 1935 playing for the Louisville Colonels and Buffalo Bisons. Holley’s career eventually landed into obscurity and he returned to Kentucky settling in Paducah with his wife Shirley. Holley passed away on October 26, 1986 in Paducah and was laid to rest in Mount Carmel Cemetery.