<— JANUARY 29     JANUARY 31 —>

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1859 Tony Mullane

Baseball player (pitcher) and sports writer…

1867 Harry Dooms
1868 James Joseph (General) Stafford
1872 Charlie Heard
1877 Wiley Dunham
1885 Charles John (Doc) Watson
1887 Ernie Herbert
1888 Vin Campbell
1889 Charles John (Doc) Shanley
1891 James Daniel (Red) Smyth
1911 Bob Katz
1911 Link Wasem
1917 Mickey Harris
1917 Al Veigel
1922 Mal Mallette
1923 Walt Dropo
1925 Brooks Lawrence
1929 Bill Abernathie
1930 Sandy Amoros
1931 Charlie Neal
1943 Davey Johnson
1947 Matt Alexander
1948 Dave Moates
1954 Joe Kerrigan
1954 Dave Stegman
1956 Bill Earley
1959 La Schelle Tarver
1964 Hipolito Pena
1965 Joel Davis
1973 Bob Henley
1977 John Lindsey
1978 John Patterson
1982 Jorge Cantu
1984 Jeremy Hermida

Hit a grand slam in his first major league at bat.  A patient hitter with a sweet stroke but he was so patient he killed his career leaving his bat on his shoulder and watching way too many strikes.

1986 Mark Rogers
1986 Nick Evans
1986 Jordan Pacheco
1987 Tyler Moore

He was with the Marlins and Andy Finch and I were in Atlanta to watch the Marlins play the Braves. When Moore came to bat, the Braves organist, Matthew Kaminski, played the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme as Tyler Moore’s walkup song – a tremendously clever idea.

1987 Luis Garcia
1989 Keith Butler
1990 C. J. Riefenhauser
1990 Eddy Alvarez
1993 Ben Meyer
1993 Brett Graves
1993 Kodai Senga
1996 Ariel Jurado
1996 Nick Duron
1999 Brailyn Marquez
2000 Bryan Woo

OBITUARIES:

1910 Pidgey Morgan

Daniel Morgan, who played third base, the outfield, and pitcher, died in his hometown of St. Louis from cirrhosis of the liver.

Morgan was the fifth child of Daniel and Letitia (Moore) Morgan. The older Morgan died around 1860, leaving Letitia to wash laundry to help pay bills. The younger Daniel Morgan got his MLB start playing with the St. Louis entry in the National Association in 1875; you could argue that he was the team’s best player that season. He reappears in 1878 with Milwaukee in the National League, but was not nearly as productive… Billy Redmond was on that Milwaukee team. You might guess that when Milwaukee had a need for an outfielder, he suggested his old teammate.

That said, I’ve found Morgan and many of his 1875 teammates playing together on the top St. Louis amateur and semi-professional teams in earlier newspapers. Here’s one from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat from July 20, 1874. Fans of the day would recognize many of the players on the Reds roster (Packy Dillon, Joe Blong, Trick McSorley, Billy Redmond for example) and perhaps a couple of the Empires. That Reds squad is the one that joined the National Association.

About the time he began his major league career, Morgan married Hannah (or Johanna) Cronin and they produced some seven children. After his baseball days, Morgan worked as a clerk in a stove factory and in other labor roles. When Morgan died on January 30, 1910, newspaper notices listed his age as 53, but other sources suggest he was older – starting with the 1900 US Census which lists a May 1955 birth and older census records which suggest 1853 or 1854. Morgan’s remains are in an unmarked grave in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

St. Louis Marriage Records
1860, 1870, 1880, 1900 Census Records
“Paid Ball-Players,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 6, 1891: 24.
“Burial Permits,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 1, 1910: 18.

1912 Ed Taylor

Edward Ruben Taylor pitched a single game for the St. Louis Cardinals, having come from Dallas to get a shot with a poor Cards squad. On August 8, 1903, Taylor entered an 11 – 0 game in the seventh inning – it was the second game of a doubleheader – and he set down the Reds in all three innings. The lone baserunner that reached first did so on a Dave Brain throwing error. One Reds batter struck out – his name has been spared (for now) to history. The St. Louis Republic suggested that Taylor arrived at the park on his own asking for a tryout and Patsy Donovan invited him to practice and to watch the doubleheader. With that second game out of reach, Taylor offered to pitch and Donovan let him go out there…

After his tryout, Taylor returned to Texas and pitched in a few Texas leagues, including the Texas League, until about 1905.

Arriving March 23, 1877, Taylor was one of fourteen (!) children born to Samuel Stephens and Hannah (Annie) Virginia (Dowling) Taylor. Samuel was a New York-born farmer turned carpenter who served in the Great War for Slavery as a private and later sergeant for a New York infantry company in the final years of that war. After the war, he moved to Texas where he met his Pennsylvania-born wife. Annie was busy raising nine of those fourteen children to adulthood.

Taylor died when he raced in front of an inbound Akard street car at Corinth and Wall Streets in Dallas (southeast of downtown) on January 30, 1912. The motorman, J. C. Mathis, said Taylor came out from behind a fence on Wall Street and ran in front of the street car, hoping to board on the opposite side. Mathis couldn’t stop in time, though (thankfully) the car did not run over Taylor’s body. That said, the divorced blacksmith was killed instantly, just 34 when he passed to the next league. Taylor was buried in Dallas’s Greenwood Cemetery.

Notes:

TX Death Certificate
TX Marriage Records
1880, 1900, 1910 US Census
US Civil War Pension Index

“Cardinals Break Even With Reds,” St. Louis Republic, August 9, 1903: Section III, 7.
“Man’s Skull Crushed by Akard Street Car,” Dallas Morning News, January 31, 1912: 16.
Obit, Dallas Morning News, February 1, 1903: 5.

1917 Cyclone Ryan
1922 Billy Rhines
1929 John Wood
1930 Rip Hagerman
1934 Frank McGee
1936 Sam Mongin
1944 Ed Clough
1948 Herb Pennock

NEW YORK, Jan. 30 (AP) – Herbert J. (Herb) Pennock, one of the greatest lefthanded pitchers of all time, died today after a cerebral hemorrhage.

The former New York Yankee, Philadelphia Athletic, and Boston Red Sox mound star, rounding out his fifth year as general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, collapsed as he entered the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to attend a National League meeting. He was rushed to the midtown hospital where he died an hour later.

Big League Pitcher at 18

The slender, gray-haired Pennock, who began his major league pitching career 36 years ago at the age of 18, would have celebrated his 54th birthday Feb. 10.

There had been no hint that Pennock was ailing. Only a few hours before he died he had invited friends to attend the fights at Madison Square Garden tonight.

Young Bob Carpenter, president of the Phillies, who accompanied Pennock to the hospital and remained at the bedside until he died, was broken up over the death of the man he had idolized since he was a child.

“This is the saddest day of my life,” Carpenter said. “It is too bad Herb couldn’t have lived to see the fruits of his efforts that were bound to come. He devoted the last years of his life to build up a strong organization in Philadelphia.”

Pennock’s death came as “one of the greatest shocks” ever experienced by Connie Mack, manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, the man who discovered and developed the great southpaw.

Mack, in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he is vacationing, said:

“He (Pennock) was not only a great pitcher but as a baseball man he was one of the best. Word of his death is one of the greatest shocks I’ve experienced in years. I really can’t say enough about him.”

Right up to the time of his sudden collapse Pennock was reported to have been negotiating a deal with the Cincinnati Reds for Eddie Miller, the Reds sure fielding but careless-talking shortstop.

“Herb Pennock Fatally Stricken at N. Y. Meeting”, Boston Globe, 31 January 1948, Page 4.

1959 Toots Shultz
1961 Aaron Ward
1962 Ray Roberts
1969 Sam Bennett
1973 Scotty Alcock
1981 Marino Pieretti
1992 Eddie Taylor
1992 Coaker Triplett
1995 Buddy Gremp
1997 Duane Josephson
2007 Max Lanier
2013 Red Witt
2022 Jeff Innis

The Mets side-armed pitcher lost a long battle with cancer at 59.

2025 Don Secrist

Secrist passed away at an assisted living facility in Centralia, Illinois just shy of 81 years old. He pitched in the Orioles, Reds, White Sox, and Cubs chains, making the big leagues for 28 appearances and 7 starts with the South Siders… His career took off as soon as he harnessed his control. In his first full year in the minors, he had 79 walks against 63 strikeouts in 112 innings. Something changed in 1965, though. Suddenly he had only 62 walks and 152 strikeouts in 169 innings. And a year later he went 151/50 in 132 innings at AAA Buffalo. The White Sox got him in a trade, but Secrist didn’t work out – way too many walks and nine homers allowed in 54.2 innings.

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!

1958 On the heels of a year where Cincinnati Reds fan stuffed the ballot box and got eight Reds elected to the All-Star Game, Commissioner Ford Frick announces that for future games, the players and managers would do the voting.

TRANSACTION WIRE:

1891 Boston purchased Cupid Childs from Syracuse for $2,000.

1923 The Yankees send Camp Skinner, George Murray, Norm McMillan and $50,000 to Boston for Herb Pennock.

1959 Cincinnati sends Smoky Burgess, Harvey Haddix and Don Hoak to Pittsburgh for Frank Thomas, Whammy Douglas, John Powers, and Jim Pendleton.

1991 Atlanta signs free agent defensive back Deion Sanders.