<— JULY 12     JULY 14 —>

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1850 Tom York
1852 George Bradley
1866 Taylor Shafer

The first three guys here were named after presidents Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Zachary Taylor.

1866 John O’Brien
1874 Wiley Piatt
1879 John Augustus (Jiggs) Donahue
1880 Tom O’Hara
1887 Gene Packard
1889 Stan Coveleski

Hall of Famer – not an especially long career, but for about a decade he was a horse and had a three-win World Series with Cleveland in 1920.  His career started slowly – four years in a low level minor league before he got a tryout with Philadelphia.  Even though he wasn’t too bad, Mack had other options.  Coveleski then took his talents to Oregon for three seasons before he got a second chance in 1916 with Cleveland.  At that point, Coveleski became an anchor in the Cleveland rotation.  He had one last great season with Washington in 1925, going 20 – 5 to help the Senators win a pennant, but he lost two games to Pittsburgh in the World Series.  His career degenerated quickly after that…

1892 Eusebio Gonzalez
1894 George Cunningham
1894 Ed Corey
1896 Luther Farrell

Farrell was a giant of a man – 6′ 2″ and at least 250 pounds – but he was graceful on the mound, tolerable in the outfield, and a remarkably good hitter.  His early Negro Leagues career was spent in the west, playing under the last name of Luther, but when he headed east he used his full name…

1900 Clarence Vick (Footsie) Blair
1902 Bill Lasley
1903 Chester Blanchard
1905 James Bailey (Tiny) Chaplin
1913 Lee Handley
1916 Hubert Glenn
1919 Vernon Harrison
1920 Frank Hiller
1921 Harry (Fritz) Dorish
1927 Ruben Gomez
1928 Daryl Spencer
1934 Ken Hunt
1938 Don Pavletich
1940 Frank Bork
1940 Jack Aker
1941 Don Bryant
1944 Louis Roberts (Buzz) Stephen
1946 Jerry Terrell
1948 Rob Belloir
1953 Joe Cannon
1955 Kevin Bell
1956 Bill Caudill
1957 Chris Jones
1959 Mark Brown
1960 Mike Fitzgerald
1962 Robbie Wine
1964 Greg Litton
1967 Pat Rapp
1971 Rich Aude
1972 Clint Sodowsky
1978 Ryan Ludwick
1979 Kei Igawa
1982 Shin-Soo Choo

In 2009, Choo had a rather odd game-winning hit.

When I saw the highlight, I couldn’t believe it – but the Indians got a bizarre bounce to win its game against the Royals on June 11th.  Choo’s line drive single to center went into a flock of gulls, hitting one of them, and the ball caromed past Coco Crisp to the wall, allowing the winning run to score.

1982 Yadier Molina
1988 DJ LeMahieu
1989 Tyler Cravy
1990 Casey Sadler
1991 Tyler Skaggs
1992 Seth Brown
1992 Alfredo Gonzalez
1994 Ty France
1995 Alex Bettinger
1995 Cody Bellinger
1995 Kyle Lewis

OBITUARIES:

1899 Lewis Smith

Smith was playing with the amateur Peacocks in Baltimore when the American Association team was in need of an outfielder.  So, Smith was called in to play on September 7, 1882 against the Allegheny club.  Batting four times, Smith never got a hit (if he did reach base, it was by walk or error – Baseball-Reference shows him as 0-3 in the game, but that’s wrong).  It was his only game.  Smith died at 41, leaving behind his wife Maggie, and his obit spells his name as Louis in the Baltimore Sun.

1913 Dan Sweeney

Sweeney died in his home – he was 45.  According to his death certificate, the cause was gastritis – so he had ulcers or some other problem that inflamed his stomach.  Anyway…  At the time Sweeney was the groundskeeper for the baseball stadium in Louisville, a job he got through a long relationship with Joe Cantillon.

“Little Sweeney, who is a Louisville boy, attracted a great deal of attention. His head reaches up to the waist of a man of average height, but what he lacks in height he makes up tenfold in ability.”

“Are Winners,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 15, 1895: 2.

As a baseball player, Sweeney was known for his lack of height.  He’s listed at 5′-5″, but a thick 160 pounds.  He used that height (or lack of it) to his advantage.  In his lone season with Louisville, he had 17 walks to just 2 strikeouts, batting .267 in his 90 at bats.  However, his OBP was excellent (.389) and he scored 18 runs in his 22 games – he slumped as Louisville fell apart; the team lost 31 of their first 37 games.  When their manager was fired, Sweeney was released – but the writing was on the wall.  The Louisville papers called him “Midget,” and in his six weeks as a Colonel he began as a leadoff hitter and the moved toward the bottom of the lineup before he was released in early June.

Sweeney was a minor league nomad, playing ball on both coasts – he spent four seasons in the California League, played in low level leagues in Pennsylvania, and, after he was released by Louisville, spent time with Syracuse.  He also played on amateur teams throughout Kentucky.

Sweeney was the fifth of five children born in Philadelphia to Patrick and Mary (Larkins) Sweeney on January 28, 1868.  (Census records suggest he was born in Kentucky, and when he registered to vote in California whilst a minor leaguer there, he said he was born in Kentucky.)  Patrick and Mary were grocers – Mary taking over after Patrick died and, before that, when she wasn’t also being a parent.  As you can tell, they were both Irish – though Mary was born on the Emerald Isle and Patrick’s parents were the immigrants in the family…

1940 Ollie Tucker
1954 Ed Porray
1956 Glenn Liebhardt
1958 Johnny Watson
1959 Nick Kahl
1959 Chick Keating
1960 Dan Kerwin
1966 Rip Vowinkel
1967 Art Shires
1969 Pat French
1972 Pepper Peploski
1989 Vern Olsen
1994 Jimmie Reese
1998 Red Badgro
2005 Mickey Owen
2008 Dave Ricketts
2009 Alec Distaso
2023 Eddie Bressoud

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!

1896 Phillies outfielder Ed Delahanty homers four times in a loss to the Chicago Colts.

1963 Early Winn, now 71 years old, throws five innings to earn his 300th win – this one over the Kansas City Athletics. (Not totally true. Wynn was only 51. Okay, 43.)

1977 A game I remember watching from my home in Buffalo Grove… The Cubs and Mets game is suspended as there is a massive blackout in New York City.

2013 Tim Lincecum blanks the Padres, 9 – 0, without allowing a hit. The Giant also throws more pitches in his no-hitter than any other to date – 148 pitches – to get the job done.

TRANSACTION WIRE:

1894 Baltimore sends Tony Mullane to the Spiders for John Clarkson.

1964 Washigton sends Bill Skowron and Carl Bouldin to the White Sox for Joe Cunningham and (later) Frank Kreutzer.

1987 Chicago sends Steve Trout to the Yankees for Bob Tewksbury, Dean Wilkins, and Rich Scheid.

2017 The two Chicagos make a trade – the White Sox send Jose Quintana to the Cubs for Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Crease, and two minor leaguers.