<— NOV 28 NOV 30 —>

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1861 Harry Thomas (Shadow) Pyle
1864 Bill Sowders
1873 Jake Weimer
1878 Tom Hughes
1884 Marc Campbell
1885 John Forbes (Scotty) Alcock
1885 Jack Wanner
1889 Carl Weilman
1893 Charlie Snell
1893 Carter Elliott
1894 Charlie Mason
1895 Jack Enright
1896 Joe DeBerry
1898 Patrick Henry (Red) Shea
1901 Arthur Elliott (Buddy) Crump
1904 Maurice Young
1905 Harlan Pyle
1908 Pat Simmons
1909 Gus Brittain
1909 Jack Thornton
1910 Ed Leip
1911 Harry Boyles
1914 Joe Orengo
1915 Armando Torres
1922 Lynn Lovenguth
1923 Minnie Minoso
1924 Irv Noren
1926 Bill Currie
1929 Nino Escalera
1931 Paul Pettit
1937 George Thomas
1939 Jim Derrington
1939 Dick McAuliffe
1941 Bill Freehan
1943 Dan McGinn
1950 Otto Velez
1950 Mike Easler
1951 Gary Wheelock
1956 Joe Price
1956 Rick Anderson
1957 Dennis Burtt
1959 Brian Holton
1960 Howard Johnson
1967 Bob Hamelin
1968 Allen Battle
1968 Pedro Martinez
1969 Mariano Rivera
1970 Steve Rodriguez
1977 Jason Alfaro
1979 Francis Beltran
1980 Brian Wolfe
1981 Guillermo Quiroz
1982 Tony Giarratano
1983 Craig Gentry
1993 Dean Deetz
1998 MJ Melendez
1998 Raymond Burgos

OBITUARIES:

1901 Jim Sullivan

Daniel James Sullivan had been ill for a couple of years – even tried moving to Asheville, North Carolina to improve his health, which is something people did hoping to heal from tuberculosis. Only a few years earlier, Sullivan was pitching for Boston’s National League entry. At 34, he was pitching in the next league.

James Sullivan was born April 25, 1867 in Charlestown, Massachusetts to Timothy and Margaret (Desmond) Sullivan – the second of seven children born to the Irish imports. Timothy was a mariner and laborer, whilst Margaret was plenty busy raising a rather large family.

He started pitching professionally in 1888, pitching well enough to get one game tryouts with his hometown Boston (NL) and then Columbus (AA) teams. Sullivan next spent time pitching on minor league teams in Indianpolis and Providence. He pitched well enough with Providence to earn a second run with Boston where he was a decent alternate pitcher for a couple of years, going 22 – 21 with a slightly better than league average ERA. By 1897, though, he was feeling the effects of his illness. He made just one more start with Boston in 1898 and tried a season with Manchester in a lower league the next year.

Sullivan made a successful pitch to Mary McMahon. The two wed in 1896 and had two children, though only daughter Frances lived long enough to see her teens (and beyond).

Popular with his teammates, a Boston baseball fan of the day would have recognized the pallbearers at Sullivan’s final service: Herman Long, Hugh Duffy, Thomas McCarthy among them. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massacchusetts.

Notes:

Massachusetts Death, Marriage Records
1870, 1880, 1900 US Census

“Profusion of Flowers,” Boston Globe, December 3, 1901: 11

1906 Jim Foran
1916 Bob Unglaub

Had an interesting enough career as a player and manager of some note. I first met him when he managed for Minneapolis in the Northern League in 1914 while writing about Rube Waddell. My memory of him was that he was a bit, well, willing to argue with people – especially over money. Will have to write his biography and see if my memory is right.

Unglaub returned to his hometown of Baltimore in 1916 following a season in Fargo and took a job as a machinist in local railroad yards. On November 28, he was crushed while working on a locomotive, breaking ribs and lacerating a kidney. Doctors removed the damaged kidney, but they were unable to save him. Unglaub died the next day…

1923 Frank Pears
1929 Jimmy Whelan

Sure, his death is listed here on November 29th, but his newspaper obituary is correct, he died on Tuesday, November 26th. The obituary appeared in the Dayton Herald on the 29th (“Year’s Illness Causes Death of Former Baseball Player,” Dayton Herald, November 29, 1929: 48). His funeral was scheduled for the following Tuesday, so I’m thinking this was a typo – his Ohio death record says 11/29…

Anyway – Whelen got in a single game as a pinch hitter on April 24, 1913 in a loss to the Reds. He batted for relief pitcher Joe Willis in the eighth inning and flew out to left fielder Bob Bescher (who, ironically, also died on November 29th – see below). From what I gather, Whelen, the son of an Irish immigrant, had a crazy good year batting for Odgen in 1912 (where he must have met his wife, Laura Keenwright, whom he married in Salt Lake City that year) earning a shot with the Cardinals. He got his one at bat then was dispatched to the Minneapolis Millers in the American Association, but never hit that well over the next handful of seasons. He returned to Dayton, became a toolmaker for A.C. Delco, and worked there (and played amateur baseball) until illness took him away from his family and this world.

1933 John Humphries
1936 Ri Jones
1941 Ed Hahn
1942 Bob Bescher

Bescher, 55, was with another woman when the car he was driving collided with a passenger train at a railroad crossing. Both he and his friend, Delphine Morcher, were thrown from the vehicle and died instantly.

I read an article that suggested that Bescher’s playing football in the off-season (he played at Notre Dame) is one reason that baseball contracts now include language precluding a player from participating in a sport that might injure the player in the offseason.

1952 Arlie Latham
1954 Al Lawson
1962 Red Kress
1963 Arch Reilly
1966 Richard King
1969 Bun Hayes
1972 Bernie Neis
1973 Tom Hamilton
1974 Al Moore
1978 Al Williamson
1980 Bill Dunlap
1982 Al Cicotte
1982 Mays Copeland
1987 Spencer Alexander
1992 Tuck Stainback
1994 Charley Smith
1998 Jim Turner
1999 Tom Herrin
2001 Marcelino Lopez
2003 Jim Carlin
2004 Harry Danning
2005 Vic Power
2006 Pete Mikkelsen
2015 Ramon de los Santos
2021 Don Demeter
2021 LaMarr Hoyt

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!

Almost all of the really cool things that happened today were trades. So just skip this and go to the list of trades below…

TRANSACTION WIRE:

1887 Brooklyn sent $5,500 to St. Louis for Dave Foutz.

1958 Boston signs amateur free agent outfielder Carl Yastrzemski.

1965 Houston drafted Nate Colbert from the Cardinals in the Rule 5 Draft.

1966 The Mets sent Jim Hickman and Ron Hunt to the Dodgers for Tommy Davis and Derrell Griffith.

Also, among the Rule 5 Draft selections, the Mets took Amos Otis from Boston.

1967 The White Sox send Don Buford, Roger Nelson, and Bruce Howard to Baltimore for Luis Aparicio, John Mathias, and Russ Snyder.

1971 The Cubs sent Ken Holtzman to the Athletics for Rick Monday.

Also, the Reds sent Lee May, Tommy Helms and Jimmy Stewart to the Astros for Joe Morgan, Cesar Geronimo, Denis Menke, Jack Billingham, and Ed Armbrister.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Giants sent Gaylord Perry and Frank Duffy to the Indians for Sudden Sam McDowell.

1976 The Yankees sign free agent outfielder Reggie Jackson.