Frank McGinn played a single game for Pittsburgh of the National League, an 8 – 2 loss in his native Cincinnati on June 9, 1890 when the Ohio town was burdened by threatening weather. He went hitless in four trips and made a single putout in centerfield. Pittsburgh gave the member of the Hamilton Club in Cincinnati a tryout. McGinn struggled to hit Billy Rhines, who was only throwing straight pitches (high and low) due to the weather, and the next day he returned to the amateur game or the society pages of the Cincinnati papers.

Frank John McGinn arrived sometime around 1869, the oldest son of John and Mary McGinn, a railroad employee and his wife. In the late 1880s, McGinn would appear among the ranks of the athletic and baseball clubs. Prior to joining the Hamiltons, for example, McGinn and longtime friend Thomas Eagan played on the Grays for the 1889 season. By 1892, McGinn and Eagan managed the Shamrocks baseball club. Among the last times he appears in the papers for playing baseball, he was one of several people arrested for playing baseball on a Sunday.

After his baseball days, Frank would host parties in his Price Hill house that made the paper; as a younger member of the athletic clubs, McGinn was involved in wrestling matches as well. In fact, he and his future wife frequently appeared on stage at Knabe Hall in shows produced by the Olio Dramatic Club.

No longer a ballplayer, McGinn was a bookkeeper for a meat packing company in Cincinnati when he fell ill in November, 1897. People weren’t necessarily concerned, given that Frank was 28 years old, but he had a hemorrhage in his lung and it killed him on November 17, 1897. He left behind his young wife, the former Lillian Keenan, and is buried in an unmarked grave at St. Joseph Cemetery in his home town.

Notes:

1880 US Census
Baseball-Reference.com
FindaGrave.com

“Another Recruit,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 10, 1889: 2.
“Signed Articles for a Match,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 8, 1890: 6.
“Still There,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 10, 1890: 2.
“Base Ball Gossip,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 30, 1892: 2.
“Dismissed,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 30, 1893: 12.
“Random Notes,” Cincinnnati Enquirer, February 18, 1894: 21.
“Olio,” Cincinnati Enquirer, January 13, 1895: 19.
“Hemorrage,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 18, 1897: 12.