<— OCT 23     OCT 25 —>

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1857 Ed Williamson

I co-wrote this article about Ed Williamson (the books have him as Ned, but he was called Ed – this is explained in the essay) with Sam Gazdziak of RIPBaseball.com, who, through SABR, arranged for Williamson’s grave site to get a headstone.

1857 Edmund Dana (Dick) Pierson
1858 Tobias Charles (Sandy) Griffin
1858 Bill Kuehne
1859 Jay Faatz
1861 Charlie Jones
1865 Peter (Edgar) McNabb
1870 Phil Routcliffe
1871 Louis Francis (Chief) Sockalexis
1871 George Henry (Heinie) Smith
1885 George Brown
1885 Del Young
1887 Hugh High
1887 Eddie Stack
1888 Emmett Key (Parson) Perryman
1892 Dick Niehaus
1895 Al Pierotti
1899 Walter Neils (Cuckoo) Christensen
1900 Ossie Bluege
1904 Harry Smythe
1905 Jack Russell
1905 Charlie Small
1906 Robert Hugh (Pete) McClanahan
1907 Grant Bowler
1908 Manuel Dominguez (Ralph) Onis
1927 Cal Hogue
1927 Jim Greengrass
1928 George Bullard
1929 Jim Brosnan
1933 Bill Bell
1937 John Goetz
1944 Johnny Jeter
1950 Rawly Eastwick
1952 Angel Torres
1952 Reggie Walton
1952 Omar Moreno
1956 Gary Serum
1957 Bill Hayes
1957 Ron Gardenhire
1957 Ed Jurak
1959 Junior Ortiz
1959 Dave Johnson
1959 Mike Brewer
1961 Danny Clay
1961 Steve Ziem
1961 Rafael Belliard
1962 Gene Larkin
1963 Mark Grant
1967 F. P. Santangelo
1968 Ken Ryan
1969 Arthur Rhodes
1973 Mike Matthews
1974 Wilton Guerrero
1977 Rafael Furcal
1978 Chris Bootcheck
1981 Beltran Perez
1981 Omar Quintanilla
1982 Macay McBride
1983 Chris Colabello
1984 Lucas May
1989 Eric Hosmer
1991 Tanner Banks
1994 Taylor Widener
1994 Trey Amburgey
1994 Peter Strzelecki
1995 Nick Gordon
1996 Rafael Devers
1996 Chase Shugart
1997 Colin Selby
1999 Gage Workman

OBITUARIES:

1897 Thomas Gorman

Gorman’s Missouri death record says he died at 37 of a valve disease of the heart, leaving behind a wife (the former Mary Devlin). Gorman was a St. Louis native – born and died there – and like many from that area, took up the sport of baseball.

In 1884 he was signed by Kansas City of the Union Association to play the outfield and pitch, but newspaper reports and records show he played first base (primarily) and dabbled in a few games at third base, too. Among the first notes about Gorman’s play was that he had “…the finest physique on the grounds.” In his 25 games, he batted .321 and modern analysis suggests he was 60% better as a hitter than his peers.

(That said, the record in Baseball-Reference is missing a bunch of stuff here… Gorman is listed as having played in June and July, but I found a bunch of box scores that suggest he played far more of the season than just 25 games. Maybe I should write more about either the team or Gorman specifically one day… Justin McKinney wrote a great book about the Union Association, but I don’t see much on Gorman there. And Nemec’s encyclopedia of ballplayers of the 1800s doesn’t include him at all. I digress.)

Despite being what appears to be a competent hitter, Gorman never played another professional game – at least in one of the big leagues.

Outside of the game, Gorman worked as a dry goods dealer and had a handful of civic interactions.

After his passing to the next league, he was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

MO Death Record, St. Louis County Death Record
“Notes,” Kansas City Journal, June 11, 1884: 2.
“Died,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 25, 1897: 5.

1913 Dan Shannon
1916 Hi Ebright
1925 Jim Price
1931 Pete Lamer
1935 Burdell Young
1938 George Borchers
1941 Emmett Rogers
1944 Pinky Swander
1948 Jack Thoney
1960 Wilbur Fisher
1965 John Dudra
1969 Jack Bentley
1970 Andy Oyler
1971 Howard Fahey
1972 Jackie Robinson

Massive heart attack…

1973 Al Brazle
1977 Bill Lewis
1977 Dennis Simpson
1987 Ray Sheppard
1989 Ollie O’Mara
1990 Jim Clark
1993 Johnny Cowan
2001 Bill Mueller
2006 Jack Radtke
2014 Pat McGlothin
2018 Benny Valenzuela

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!

1987 Kent Hrbek’s grand slam helps the Twins take game six from the Cardinals.

2007 Dustin Pedroia is the first player to lead off game one of the World Series with a homer as Boston clocks Colorado, 13 – 1.

2012 Pablo Sandoval hammers three homers in an 8 – 3 win for the Giants over the Tigers.

TRANSACTION WIRE:

1905 Cincinnati sent Harry Steinfeldt and Jimmy Sebring to the Cubs for Jake Weimer.  This is the rare trade where the Cubs were on the good side of a lopsided trade.

1951 Washington sends Willie Miranda to the White Sox for Floyd Baker.

1959 Milwaukee signs amateur free agent hitter Rico Carty.

1972 San Diego sent Fred Stanley to the Yankees for minor leaguer George Pena.

1973 Kansas City sends Dick Drago to Boston for Marty Pattin.

1974 Houston purchases outfielder Jose Cruz from the Cardinals.

1988 San Diego sends Lance McCullers, Jimmy Jones and Stan Jefferson to the Yankees for Jack Clark and Pat Clements.

On the same day, Philadelphia sent Shane Rawley to Minnesota for Tom Herr, Tom Nieto and Eric Bullock.