BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:
1837 Morgan Bulkeley
That Morgan Bulkeley is in the Hall of Fame is rather a fluke. Son of the guy who founded Aetna Insurance, a Civil War veteran, and a decendant of a passenger on the Mayflower, he was a backer of the Hartford team that followed other teams from the National Association to the National League in 1876. When league founders had a drawing to see which of the owners would become the league president, Bulkeley’s name was drawn first. His reputation, however, was solid and he was well-liked by the others so he was voted president of the league. Bulkeley had other businesses to attend to; he was NL president for just that one season. He eventually became the governor of Connecticut and a US Senator. Anyway – as the first president of the National League, he was given a plaque in the Hall of Fame.
1861 George Tebeau
1863 Dick Burns
1866 Bob Murphy
1874 Frank Hansford
1879 Frank Ellsworth “Jerry” Freeman
1883 James Stephen “Jimmy” (and not “Queenie”) O’Rourke
Yale grad and son of Hall of Famer Orator Jim O’Rourke – they actually played together in the minor leagues on a Bridgeport, CT team.
As a player, O’Rourke was known as Jimmy. Not Queenie. My favorite writer of SABR Biographies is Bill Lamb. He is an intelligent craftsman of remarkable sentences, and few are better than the closing sentence to this endnote in O’Rourke’s bio.
“Throughout his 13-year career as a major- and minor-league ballplayer, James Stephen O’Rourke was known as Jimmy. The putative nickname Queenie did not appear in newsprint during O’Rourke’s lifetime. Rather, it debuted some months after his death in December 1955 in the second edition of The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball by Hy Turkin and S.C. Thompson. Like other biographical data published in T&T, the provenance of this heretofore unknown O’Rourke nickname was not provided, and has proved untraceable. Notwithstanding that, Queenie O’Rourke was adopted as our subject’s name by ensuing baseball reference works and remains in use today. The effort to extirpate this fictitious appellation from current authority is ongoing at this writing.”
1887 Jim Clark
1889 John Henry
1889 Tillar H. “Pug” Cavet
1889 Andy Rush
1892 Lee King
1895 John Burnette “Bonnie” Hollingsworth
1895 Herman Pillette
1899 Art Gardiner
1899 William Julius “Judy” Johnson
1899 Logan Drake
1901 Milt Laurent
1901 Edward Stephen “Doc” Farrell
1902 Bill Cronin
1907 Harry Taylor
1913 Al Milnar
1919 Gene Markland
1927 Stu Miller
1927 Danny Schell
1935 Al Jackson
1936 Wayne Causey
1939 John Braun
1940 Ray Sadecki
1947 Carlton Fisk
1948 Chris Chambliss
1948 Dave Rader
1950 Mario Mendoza
1950 Mike Willis
1954 Ozzie Smith
1960 Jeff Stone
1961 Jim Traber
1961 Storm Davis
1964 Jeff King
1967 Esteban Beltre
1971 Carlos Valdez
1971 Jay Tessmer
1974 Brian Fitzgerald
1974 Corey Lee
1975 Yoshinori Tateyama
1978 Charles Thomas
1979 J. C. Boscan
1981 Omar Infante
1981 Dustin Moseley
1981 Alvin Colina
1983 Yohan Pino
1984 Brett Sinkbeil
1984 Darin Downs
1985 Chris Carpenter
1987 Mike Minor
1989 Sean Nolin
1993 Yonny Chirinos
OBITUARIES:
1908 Shadow Pyle
Complications associatiated with asthma.
1908 Charlie Householder
Householder died in his home following a long battle with tuberculosis. His death notice said he was 52, but other documentation suggests he was 53 when he passed to the next league. (The death certificate itself has 1854, but then scribbled a 5 where the 4 was…)
1913 Frank O’Connor
1915 Art Ball
1918 Bob Blakiston
1924 Doc Gessler
1926 William Stecher
1934 George Kopshaw
1934 Jule Mallonee
1936 Bill Clymer
1939 Clyde Engle
1945 Frank Lange
1947 Roxey Roach
1947 Phil Stremmel
1948 Joe Pate
1957 Tom Fleming
1970 Jack Stansbury
1971 Cliff Daringer
1977 Al Mahon
1980 Bill Crouch
1980 Johnny Oulliber
1983 Josh Billings
1983 Sid Graves
1984 Johnny Gill
1985 Les Bell
1985 Jim Bilbrey
1989 Roy Joiner
1992 Tom Gorman
1994 Allie Reynolds
1995 Bob Veselic
1998 Dewey Adkins
2001 Tom McBride
2002 Frank Reiber
2003 Paul Owens
2006 Chris Brown
2007 Jim Castiglia
2013 Paul Blair
2015 Jim O’Toole
2018 Pete Lovrich
2020 Phil Niekro
Baseball-Reference.com shows his death date as December 27th (as of today when I noticed he wasn’t on their list – making sure I didn’t miss anyone). Wonder what they know that everyone else doesn’t know. Even his SABR Bio says he died on the 26th… (He died in his sleep following a long battle with cancer.)
2022 Fred Valentine
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!
1950 The Gillette Razor Company agrees to purchase the television rights to the next six All-Star games at a cost of $1 million per game.
TRANSACTION WIRE:
1904 Boston sends George Stone to the Browns for Jesse Burkett.
1917 Philadelphia sends Dode Paskert to Chicago for Cy Williams.
1919 New York purchase Babe Ruth from Boston for $100,000 and a guarantee on a loan worth $300,000 using Fenway Park as collateral.
1934 Brooklyn sends Johnny Frederick, Art Herring and cash to Sacramento for Frenchy Bordagaray.
2008 San Francisco signs pitcher Randy Johnson.
Mighty Casey Baseball 