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I believe he held that status for a number of years. An easy answer would be that I think you are wrong. The progression of professionals entering the big leagues early has been astounding. Feller and the Indians conjure up lots of memories. I have the notion it was a pitcher from the Cubs or Sox in Chicago a decade or so ago that might carry that distinction. Brain fart. Will have to call Harry Cary in the afterlife for a legitimate answer. alright i dont know im not to up to my baseball history but im gonna take a guess with joe nuxhall sorry i think i slaughtered his name he played for the reds and was 16 dwight gooden the answer is Joe Nuxall,and,he was15 Joe Nuxhell Richard M has the correct answer.
Baseball Reference.com lists Chapman as:
Born November 24, 1872
Debut July 22, 1887 (also his final game)
He would turn 15 in November of 1887.
Joe Nuxhall was born July 30, 1928 and made his debut June 10, 1944, just a month and a half shy of his 16th birthday.
Bob Feller was born on November 3, 1918 and made his debut on July 19, 1936 , so he was about 4 months shy of his 18th birthday when he played his first game.
When I was growing up, we were always told that Joe Nuxhall was the youngest player to play in the major leagues... and I'm sure I saw that in the Guinness Book of World Records at some point as a kid.
There are probably two reasons for the discrepancy of the record holder in this category. The first is, it's possible that the American Association might not have always been recognized as a 'major league' by major league baseball, and so Chapman's status as a 'major leaguer' might have been questionable. However, baseball clearly does now recognize the American Association to have been a true 'major league'.
What also might have happend is that at the time Nuxhall 'established' the record, we did not have complete biographical information on all of the players of the 19th century (such as Chapman). If you look in some older editions of the Macmillan Encyclopedia, you'll sometimes see only a last name of a player (because that's all the researchers were able to obtain from the box scores). Also, the exact birth dates (as well as date of death) were unknown for many, many 19th century players.
It's possible that Chapman's true date of birth may not have been known at the time Nuxhall 'established' his record, and indeed may have only been recently discovered.
A third possibility is that 19th century players just may have been flat out excluded from records like this... researchers might have ignored them entirely, because so much biographical data was missing from the men who played during that time.
Chapman, btw, is listed as pitching one game (which he started), but only pitching 5 innings...he was still credited with a complete game, so the game may have been rain-shortened (or called because of darkness).
Chapman pitched 5 innings and gave up 6 runs (4 earned) on 8 hits, walked 2 and struck out 4. He ended his career with an ERA of 7.20. He died in December of 1957. well done tweety Nuxhall was 15 years old
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