On the list of people who died on February 2nd was Jack Crooks, who died on February 2, 1918.

Crooks spent about a decade in the bigs and was an early version of Luke Appling and Max Bishop – a low average walk machine who hit foul balls until he walked – combined with the goofy prankishness of, say, Jay Johnstone.

Converting from baseball player to salesman, his life changed when he developed elephantiasis. Two plus years later, he was gone. (Oh – and he didn’t join the Browns until 1892 no matter what the headline [below] said…)

Not long after Crooks passed, wire copy included a story that Crooks once recognized that he couldn’t make a play on a bunt, so he got down on his knees and blew the ball foul – much like the more recent Lenny Randle effort in 1981. The story held that it prevented a run from scoring. And, it’s likely that something like this happened as it was also told in 1896 by Billy Hoy. Too bad we didn’t have video back in the 1890s.

Other sources:

“Crooks, Veteran Player of 1890 Browns, is Dead,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 4, 1918: 14.

“Late John L. Was Clever Umpire,” New Castle News, April 19, 1918: 23. (Funny story about this – the article above this one had a note about Crooks’ sense of humor in the headline but a story about boxers like John L. Sullivan umpiring baseball games. Yep – they got the headlines flipped with the articles. Oops.)

“The Realm of Sport,” Buffalo Commercial, January 11, 1896: 9.