What follows is an article that appeared in the Shreveport (LA) Times back in 1921 that does a pretty good (and unique) job of breaking down the life and times of shortstop Bruce Hartford, who appeared in eight games with Cleveland in 1914. He also got a tryout with the White Sox in 1917, but things didn’t work out for him.

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Bruce Hartford, the boy who went up into thin air Sunday and pulled down a beeline drive is a Chicago youngster. The Windy City means the same to him as a picture of home-made pies. It was up there that he used his first slingshot on panes of glass and in his back yard shot holes through the family checker-board with his cat and rat rifle.

Hartford was not one of those bellowing young chaps who went up and down Dearborn Street with a chip on their shoulders. He believes in letting trouble come his way and when it does he usually handles it with red-hot tongs.

The early days of Hartford were free of baseball. He would rather go out swimming to one of the beaches than play ball on the sand lots. Even when he went to high school in the big city later he never felt the craving to have the girls draw his picture on their text books.  He put his mind to his studies for he wanted to go out into the world and give Edison the keys to science.

Newton, so the old rags tell us, was one day sleeping under a tree and an acorn stabbed him in the nose. This set him to thinking and he propounded the famous laws of motion. That was years ago, long before they ever thought of using rhubarb as pie filler. In like manner Bruce Hartford was awakened to big possibilities by being shoved into a game one day by slippery chance. He set the fans oogle-eyed. He played so brilliantly that the school paper wrote him up under fat headlines.

When ever a ball came near him he gobbled it quicker than a bass does a crawfish. He was quick with the pellet, too. He always got it away from him in time to make the runner to first look like as if he were pulling sand bags. Some fielders fight the ball just as a fat woman does a wasp. Tain’t right.  Watch Hartford. He shows ’em.

Well to cut off the current and burrow back into the time when Williams Jennings Bryan was still fresh and primeval, Hartford played amateur ball around Chicago and attracted so much attention that Terre Haute heard of his doings and in 1910 he packed his duds for the Central League. He stayed with them until Bloomington waved a pretty cheque in front of Hartford’s face. It maddened him to think that he was getting more of the golden mazuma at Terre Haute so he burnt his bridges in that fair city and went to Illinois.

In the early part of spring, before dealers could force straw hats on the populace Hartford went to the Cleveland Americans.  He played shortstop with them and made a good fielding record.  But it was decided by the generals of the Lake Erie hamlet that Hartford was a youngster and needed more hot suns and a deeper coat of tan. So he was sent to Des Moines.  But the powers that be at Des Moines so fixed it up with Cleveland that the fast sprinter remained in Iowa wheat fields for three years. (My note: It was six years. Back to the article.)

At the end of this time the Germans were shooting the arc lights into bits on the outer Parisian boulevards and Hartford thought khaki would agree with his complexion and went into the military game of chess. He made a few moves, mainly on the advice of the war department, and the latest one pleased his folks at home immensely. He was released from service with honors.

Last year two cities saw him play. In the beginning of the year he went away up to Seattle, where once can play ball and look at the wind freezing icicles up in the mountains. Down into Kansas City he came next. That was about the middle of last year, when Billy Smith’s team was struggling. But he remained in Kansas City for the rest of the year and this spring crossed the Red River full of hope. He is setting up tees here in baseball and spreading fame all over the landscape. The way he has played of late has the fans all worked up like young wine. He can hit, run like a fawn, and play spectacularly and dependably. “Watch Hartford,” is what Billy Smith says. We are watching him. Anybody that sees Gasser Park games cannot help but watch Hartford. He is a phenom, and when he gets up again his ability is going to keep him on an upper roost. Hartford is giving his best to Shreveport and the fans know it.

Quinn, Joseph J. “Vest Pocket Sketches of the Gassers: Bruce Hartford,” Shreveport Times, 05 April 1921: 14.

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Hartford stayed at Shreveport another season, then spent time with Birmingham, and then moved east to the New York-Penn League through 1929. Baseball-Reference.com says he played in more than 2200 games at the minor league level. He was never really a GREAT hitter – little power, not always over .260, but he could play enough. 2200 games is a very full career. From what I read, he was a remarkably good fielder and very durable.

He did get in trouble once. After taking a good amount of heckling from a fan, Hartford ran into the Rickwood Stadium seats to fight J. B. Norman, apparently getting in a couple of good shots. Norman filed suit against both Hartford and the Birmingham Barons, asking for $50,000 to cover his embarrassment, humiliation and whatever physical injuries he had that rendered him less able to work, citing Hartford’s “great physique.”

That, of course, didn’t match what happened (completely). On August 10, 1925 there had been some bad blood between Nashville and Birmingham, between pitchers and umpires, and between fans and outfielders throughout the game. Hartford, who was playing right field, chose to enter the bleachers between the eighth and ninth innings to go after a heckler, but before he could get to him the fans shoved Hartford back onto the field. Eventually Hartford returned to the dugout. Whatever came of the lawsuit was handled quietly and out of sight of the local media.

Let’s clean things up. Daniel Bruce Hartford was born on May 14, 1892 in Chicago to James and Ida (Winkler) Hartford, the last of four children born to the Hartfords. James worked as a moulder in a brass factory; Ida was in charge of raising a home full of kids…

After baseball, Hartford moved to Los Angeles (nearer to his brother) and took up shop as a bartender for local cafes and bars. He never married; he had no children… Daniel Bruce Hartford died in Los Angeles on May 25, 1975.

Notes:

Wisconsin Marriage Records/Milwaukee Marriage Certificates
WWI Draft Registration Card
WWII Draft Registration Card
1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1950 US Census

Ring W. Lardner,”In the Wake of the News,” Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1917: 11.
“Barons Lose Last to Vols and Fans Win Moral Victory,” Birmingham Post, August 11, 1925: 6.
“Hartford, of Barons, Sued by Ball Fan,” Atlanta Journal, August 20, 1925: 16.