A native of
Chelsea, Massachusetts, Whittaker played baseball at
Somerville High School, where he was the winning pitcher in eight of the team's 15 victories in 1911. He then attended
Worcester Academy and
Tufts University. While at Tufts in 1914 and 1915, he played summer baseball for the
Falmouth Cottage Club in what is now the
Cape Cod Baseball League. One of the top pitchers in the league, he threw a no-hitter for Falmouth against
Oak Bluffs in 1915. Whittaker played a key role in what has been called the "greatest college baseball battle ever waged," a 1916 championship game between collegiate baseball powerhouses Tufts and
Harvard. Whittaker received his
Doctor of Dental Medicine degree in June 1916 from the
Tufts University School of Dental Medicine along with his batterymate
Doc Carroll. Whittaker's only major league appearance came for
Baseball Hall of Fame manager
Connie Mack's historically poor-performing
1916 Philadelphia club. Whittaker tossed the final two innings for the Athletics on July 6 at
Shibe Park in Philadelphia's 9-4 loss to the
Detroit Tigers, whose lineup featured Hall of Famer
Ty Cobb. He declined a reassignment to
the minors and chose instead to begin practicing dentistry. He died in 1965. ==References==