<— MAY 04     MAY 06 —>

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1852 Henry Kohler
1857 Lee Richmond

Among the first left handed pitchers, certainly the first successful one – and author of the first perfect game in baseball history.

1858 Bill Watkins
1860 Jim Reilly
1863 Paul Cook
1867 Tom Vickery
1871 Jimmy Bannon
1880 Andy Oyler
1882 Lee Quillin
1882 Pat Paige
1883 Gene Curtis
1884 Charles Albert (Chief) Bender

Teammate of Rube Waddell (and others) with Philadelphia – a smart pitcher who regularly won with the Athletics. He was also an early John Tudor – occasionally frail, but if he could pitch he was going to win.  Bender never racked up the inning counts of his contemporaries.

1887 Henri Rondeau
1889 Dick Wright
1891 Jack McCandless
1891 Bruno Haas
1905 Jack Ryan
1905 Mickey Casey
1908 Tony Freitas
1917 Lennie Merullo
1917 George Dockins
1918 Leroy Bass
1918 John Leovich
1921 Walter Crosby
1923 Jim Kirby
1925 Bob Cerv
1925 Johnny Rutherford
1930 Harley Grossman
1932 Chuck Locke
1933 Joe McClain
1934 Don Buddin
1935 Jose Pagan
1941 Tommy Helms

Rookie of the Year, right? And then he was traded for Joe Morgan and the Reds, already pretty good, completed the construction of the Big Red Machine.

1943 John Donaldson
1945 Jimmy Rosario
1947 Larry Hisle

A forgotten AL RBI Champ (1977).

1953 Gary Christenson
1956 Ron Oester
1958 Dave Gumpert
1962 Ramon Pena
1966 Reggie Williams
1967 Charles Nagy
1969 Hideki Irabu
1970 Juan Acevedo
1971 Mike Redmond
1976 Keith Ginter
1977 Tom Gregorio
1980 Chad Bentz
1981 Chris Duncan
1991 James Pazos
1991 Austin Adams
1993 Tyler Cyr
1994 Beau Sulser
1995 Brian Serven
1996 Alejo Lopez
1997 Logan Gilbert
1998 Eduardo Salazar

OBITUARIES:

1889 Felix Moses

Felix Inglesby Moses is listed as the manager of the 1884 Richmond Virginias of the Union Association. He really wasn’t a manager in the sense of today – Moses was more of a business manager, but he would have had some inputs into things. Moses was involved first as a business manager for the franchise in what was going to be called the Union League, but later became the Eastern League because the owner, W. C. Seddon (Moses’ boss) was to lead that organization. Then Richmond got a franchise in the Union Association and Moses was put in charge of that franchise. His role couldn’t have been that significant (even as business manager) – Justin McKinney’s excellent book on the Union Association doesn’t even mention him.

That said, Moses did leave a greater impresion on his friends. Admitting this was written about Moses after he died, it’s still a kind sentiment. “Of few men in Sheffield could it be said as it is said of Felix Moses: “He did not have an enemy in the city. Everybody respected him and all who really knew him, knew him to love him.”

Felix himself was a merchant of sorts, a partner in Moses & Clemmons, dealing in cotton and fertilizer in Richmond, until that organization dissolved in 1883. He actually started as a clerk in New York, working for a family friend who was originally from his native Charleston, South Carolina. After the Union Association also dissolved, Moses and his wife, the former Agnes DeLeon, took their two daughters and moved to Sheffield, Alabama. (Agnes herself is a Daughter of the American Revolution; her great-great grandfather is Captain Jacob DeLeon, who fought in the Battle of Camden.)

Anyway – Moses was still a young man when he passed to the next league – eight days shy of his 36th birthday (May 13, 1853). That said, his grave stone says he was born on September 9, 1852. He is buried in the Congregraton B’Nai Israel Cemetery in Sheffield.

North American Family Histories
1870 US Census

“Dissolution,” Richmond Dispatch, December 2, 1883: 4.
“The Eastern League,” Richmond Dispatch, January 6, 1884: 4.
“Virginia News,” Norfolk Virginian, May 9, 1889: 4.
“The State at Large,” Weekly Age-Herald (Birmingham, AL), May 15, 1889: 1.
Obit – Agnes Deleon Moses, Charlotte Observer, December 15, 1936: 17.

1892 Peter Connell
1900 Denny McKnight

Like Moses, above, McKnight was listed as manager of the Alleghenys in 1877 and the Pittsburgh entry of the American Association in 1884.

1907 Sam Moffet
1931 John Riddle
1933 Steve Dunn
1936 Lou Sylvester
1936 Bill Anderson
1940 Bill Wise
1940 Otis Francis
1947 Ty LaForest
1956 John Godwin
1959 Verne Clemons
1959 George Harney
1969 Eddie Cicotte
1973 Bert Griffith
1974 Vito Tamulis
1974 Tom McNamara
1977 Bill Marshall
1979 Virgil Cheeves
1987 Frank McAllister
1989 Joe Batchelder
1994 Tony DePhillips
1999 Will Owens
2008 Cal Howe
2012 Don Leshnock
2018 Roy Wright
2021 Del Crandall
2021 Gerry Schoen
2023 Ray Newman

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!

1904 Cy Young fires the first perfect game in American League history – he tops Rube Waddell and the Philadelphia Athletics, 3 – 0.

1917 Browns pitcher Ernie Koob tosses a no hitter to beat Eddie Cicotte and the White Sox, 1 – 0. Koob may have gotten some help from a scorer who changed a Buck Weaver hit in the first inning into an error by second baseman Ernie Johnson. In the first, it was a single. As Koob approached the end of the game, it was changed.

“Some Doubt About Two No-Hit Games”, Washington Herald, 27 May 1917, Page 12.

1933 Pepper Martin goes 4 – 5 and completes the cycle.

1939 With his four hits, Sam Chapman hits for the cycle.

1962 Bo Belinsky, in his fourth career start, throws the first Angels no hitter, beating the Orioles, 2 – 0.

1978 Pete Rose slashes hit #3000 off Steve Rogers.

TRANSACTION WIRE:

1975 Oakland releases Herb Washington.

1982 Toronto sends John Mayberry to the Yankees for Dave Revering, Tom Dodd, and Jeff Reynolds.

2000 The Yankees sign free agent pitcher Chien-Ming Wang.