of cork between layers of "heavy bedticking material". Out of a concern for spectators "roasting him for being chicken-hearted", he wore the device under his shirt. Durability as a catcher During Bennett's era, catchers lacked the protective equipment present in 20th-century baseball. It was not until 1888 that specialized catcher's mitts began to be used on the non-throwing hand. As a result, catchers' hands, fingers, legs, and bodies took a beating in Bennett's time. For this reason, catchers in the era were not every-day players, needing time to recuperate after catching a game. When Bennett began his major league career, the major league record for games caught in a season was 63 games. Most catchers of the 1870s and 1880s minimized wear and tear on their hands by playing some games at other positions. For example, the three "catchers" from the era who have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame each played less than half of their games as a catcher: (1) Buck Ewing, often cited as the greatest catcher of the 19th century, played only 636 of his 1,345 games (47%) as a catcher; (2) King Kelly played only 583 of his 1,455 games (40%) at catcher; and (3) Deacon White eventually moved to third base as his regular position, finishing his career with only 458 of 1,622 games (28%) as a catcher. Bennett, on the other hand, played 954 of his 1,084 games (88%) at the catcher position. Bennett's durability came not from avoiding injuries, but from playing through them. When he broke another finger during the 1887 World Series, The New York Times reported:It did not seem anything unusual to Bennett or his fingers. ... When he held up that battered right hand, with its fingers swollen and spread like a boxing glove, with rags tied around three of them, and a general appearance of having been run over by a freight-car about the entire hand, it did not seem as though there were room to split it in any new place. Accounts of Bennett's mangled or gnarled hands and fingers are common. In his book, Catcher: The Evolution of an American Folk Hero, Peter Morris cited one such account:Bennett 'declared that only a sissy would use a padded glove with the fingers and thumb cut off. During one of the games in which he figured a foul ball split the left thumb of Bennett's