The South Bend Shortstop in the Hall of Fame

Max Carey played for South Bend under an alias 1909, hit .158, and went back to seminary in the fall. The rest is baseball history.

BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED JULY 10, 2026

Max Carey was never supposed to be in South Bend. He was never supposed to play baseball. His parents had only ever dreamed of a quiet life for their son. They wanted him to be a Lutheran minister. But for a chance encounter in Terre Haute, he might have been.

Instead, he made it all the way to Cooperstown and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1961, more than fifty years after he made his debut for the semi-professional team in South Bend, Indiana.

Of course, it's hard to believe the kid wasn't destined for greatness when you learn his real birth name:

Maximilian George Carnarius.

Maximilian Carnarius had mostly done what his parents wanted him to. They taught him to read, taught him the Bible, and practiced his prayers. By 13, he was already on a path toward ordination and enrolled in a ministerial program at Concordia College in Fort Wayne. Six years later he was in Seminary.

He was on his way.

And then he went to a baseball game.

Carnarius was visiting his family in Terre Haute in the summer of 1909. He attended a semi-pro ballgame between the squad from Terre Haute and the visitors from South Bend. The South Bend team didn't have a shortstop. Carnarius found the South Bend manager at the hotel and asked if he could join the squad as the team's shortstop. The manager asked if Carnarius had played baseball before. Carnarius said that he had, although, presumably, he did not admit that he had never been especially good at the sport.

It was good enough for the manager, and he offered the kid a spot on the squad. Carnarius shook the manager's hand, agreed to be at the diamond the next day, and then made a very non-ministerial request. In order to maintain his amateur status so that he could continue to play in college, he asked if he could play by a false name.

The manager agreed.

The kid became Max Carey for the rest of his life.

You could say that Carey's first season, with the South Bend team was underwhelming, but that would be overselling it. In truth, he was just bad. He hit .158 and made 24 errors across 48 games. People generally agreed that he was very fast, but that it was tough to steal bases if you couldn't get on base in the first place.

Maybe the most remarkable part of the story is that Carey came back in the summer of 1910 hoping for another chance with the team. Maybe the most remarkable part of the story is that the team offered him a contract. Maybe the most remarkable part of the story is that Carey hit .298 and stole 86 bases across 96 games.

But probably the most remarkable part is that by the end of 1910, he was playing in the major leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he would stay there for the next sixteen years. He finished his career with more than 2600 hits. Until 1974, he was the National League's all-time leader in stolen bases. Even now, there are only eight men in the history of Major League Baseball who have stolen more bases than Max Carey's 738.

In 1925, he led the Pittsburgh Pirates to the World Series, and that's when he made himself into a legend. Carey hit .458 during the Series, and in the seventh game, he went 4-for-5 with three doubles and a stolen base against none other than Walter Johnson to clinch the title for Pittsburgh.

They didn't yet have an award for the World Series MVP, but Max Carey would have won it.

Carey's baseball story didn't endwith his retirement from the big leagues in 1929. After bouncing around the league as a scout and doing a stint as manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Carey landed with All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. He visited South Bend frequently during those years, first as manager of the Milwaukee Chicks, then during a four-year run as the league's president, and later as manager of the Fort Wayne Daisies.

Max Carey was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1961. Carey died in 1976 at the age of 86. He is buried in Miami, Florida.