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BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1845 Henry Burroughs

Burroughs was a member of the original Washington Olympics of the National Association, and had played with that club in the years prior to organized professional leagues. Like many baseball players in the nation’s capital, he held clerkship roles in a federal office.

1851 George Edward “Live Oak” Taylor
1860 Gene Derby

Derby was a catcher who got a tryout with Baltimore with the American Association in 1885, but didn’t hit enough to keep a major league gig.

1872 Lou Criger

Cy Young’s catcher for a long period of time, both with the Cleveland Spiders (when they were good) and the Boston Red Sox (when they were good). Criger also caught Rube Waddell in 1909 (when the Browns were bad) – sixteen seasons as a catcher was a long time back then. When the 1912 season ended, he was 11th in games caught (984) – the other ten made it to 1000 games behind the plate.

1879 Ralph Savidge
1880 Newt Randall
1882 Frank Barberich
1885 Harry Franklin “Slim” Sallee

Giants pitcher 100 years ago – I mentioned him once a few years back.

1890 Larry MacPhail
1894 Brother Pace
1896 Nelson Louis “Chicken” Hawks
1901 Ernie Maun
1902 Javier Perez
1903 Joe Stripp
1913 Sammy Burton
1915 Lee Ravon “Buck” Ross
1915 A. D. Lewis
1918 Sid Schacht
1918 Frank Bradley
1918 Quincy Smith
1921 Elmer Cable “Red” Durrett
1922 Jim Dyck
1925 Harry Byrd
1931 Glenn Cox
1935 Dick Tracewski
1935 Don Kaiser
1944 Celerino Sanchez
1944 Wayne Comer
1947 Joe Coleman

1949 Arnold Ray “Bake” McBride

As a kid, Bake McBride was a favorite because he had a fun name. I was probably eight when my uncle told me I could play a game of baseball with a deck of playing cards. I always played the Cubs against the Phillies – and I played this many summers until the eighth grade. That’s where Bake McBride settled in my head. A good hitter, quick enough on the bases, too. At the end, though, he lost the power in his bat. Sad that his career batting average was .299.

1951 Mike Wallace

1952 Fred Lynn

My first favorite baseball player who wasn’t on the Cubs.  He was the new kid on the 1975 Red Sox, a team I adopted and enjoyed as they made it to the World Series. He’d have big moments in some of the biggest games – circus catches or famous home runs. Lynn’s career wound down because he could never stay healthy, but for a few years there he was as good a ball player as any in baseball.

1957 Don Welchel
1961 Freddie Toliver
1962 Joe Klink
1965 Rich Scheid
1966 Paul McClellan
1969 Terry Bradshaw
1971 Scott Klingenbeck
1971 Eric Owens
1973 Ryan Long
1976 Bart Miadich
1980 Jared Michael “Skip” Schumaker
1986 Lucas Duda
1992 Orlando Calixte
1993 Kyle Dowdy
1993 Austin Davis
1994 Rougned Odor

Reigning boxing champion of baseball.

1994 Brooks Kriske
1995 Andrew Knizner
1995 Anthony Bender
1996 Nick Allgeyer

OBITUARIES:

1901 Tom O’Brien

O’Brien died of typhoid induced pneumonia, but the origins of his problems started on a trip to Cuba. Trying to get seasick (deliberately; he thought it would help strengthen his constitution), he guzzled a bunch of salt water. It made him grossly ill; losing 40 pounds in a relatively short period of time. He returned home and was told to head to Arizona in hopes of recovering, Anyway, for a while he got better then worse then better (etc.) until the final decision of the umpire said he was out.

Other papers reported he died of consumption…

“Pirate Tom O’Brien Dead,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, February 5, 1901: 6.
“Pittsburgh First Baseman Dead,” Kansas City Times, February 5, 1901: 7.

1905 Art Twineham

Twineham spent two years with St. Louis in 1893 and 1894 and, best as I can tell, didn’t prove to anyone that he couldn’t play. In fact, Chris Von Der Ahe made him the manager at the end of the 1894 season. ‘Old Hoss’ didn’t keep any friends when he showed up out of shape in 1895 (and he irked people in New Orleans for trying to steal players during spring training). He was eventually released. This earned him his ticket to the minors and for the rest of the decade he was a minor league nomad – mostly because he couldn’t stop drinking. He eventually landed in an asylum.

In 1904, news stories talked of Twineham taking a job with a New Jersey company that manufactured dynamite. I wonder if that’s how he wound up in China.

“Down on Twineham,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 27, 1895: 10.
“Von Der Ahe’s Misfits,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 2, 1895: 6.
“Base Hits,” The Weekly Missoulian (Missoula, MT), May 22, 1895: 1.
“‘Old Hoss’ is Insane,” Grand Rapids Press, June 8, 1901: 9.
“Magnates and Players,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 2, 1904: 6.
Notice, Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, March 24, 1905: 10.

1930 Gus Sandberg
1935 Richard Cannon
1936 Andy Boswell
1938 Mike Donovan
1942 Happy Finneran
1942 Frank Luce
1943 Jake Virtue
1950 Dick Spalding
1953 Frank Donnelly
1955 Fred Brown
1960 Lem McDougal
1961 Dana Fillingim
1968 Jake Pitler
1970 Cool Turner
1977 Chi-Chi Olivo
1978 Mike Herrera
1978 Ray Flaskamper
1978 Pete Compton
1983 Trader Horne
1985 Johnnie Bob Dixon
1988 Jocko Thompson
1990 Erv Kantlehner
1991 Walter Brown
1993 Perry Hall
1998 Roy Welmaker
2000 John Leovich
2002 Mel McGaha
2011 Ron Piche
2013 Steve Demeter
2018 Roy Dietzel
2019 Bob Friend
2021 Willard Hunter
2021 Wayne Terwilliger
2022 John Sanders

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!

1886 According to NationalPastime.com, Albert Spaulding opened his sporting good company with $800 of his personal savings. Spaulding would become the official ball of many sports at various times, including baseball, tennis, golf, and football. Maybe we should have been there to invest, no?

TRANSACTION WIRE:

1898 Louisville sends Bill Hill to the Reds to acquire Billy Hoy, Claude Ritchey, and Red Ehret. Hoy should be a Hall of Famer (great career; overcoming hearing loss), and Ritchey would pair with Honus Wagner for the next decade to turn double plays for the Pirates.

1979 Minnesota moves Rod Carew to the Angels for outfielder Ken Landreaux, Dave Engle, Brad Havens, and Paul Hartzell.

1987 Montreal sends Jeff Reardon and Tom Nieto to the Twins for Neal Heaton, Yorkis Perez, Jeff Reed, and minor leaguer Alfredo Cardwood.