Samuel Beresford Childs was an influential and pioneering doctor who happened to play a single game of major league baseball in 1883.

Childs arrived November 6, 1861 in East Hartford, Connecticut; after graduating from high school he enrolled in Yale. He came from a family of doctors (the seventh and youngest child born to Dr. Seth Childs, a Canadian import, and his wife Juliette Wood); his children followed in their footsteps. Childs married Henrietta Willett; they had two sons. One, however, died from cholera in his infancy. After Henrietta died, he married Anna Starling and they had a third son. The two sons who lived to adulthood practiced medicine. After Anna’s death, Dr. Childs married Nan Bullione; they remained a couple until Child’s death.

Dr. Childs was an early adopter of x-ray technology and was one of the pioneers of modern radiology. In fact, he was the first president of the American College of Radiology and Physiotherapy. Before the turn of the century, Childs’ health failed (tuberculosis) and he moved to Denver in hopes of recovering – which he did. He then started practicing medicine there and would do so for nearly forty years. Upon his death in 1938, the publication Radiology included a complete look at Childs’ significant contributions to medicine; a copy of that article can be found here.

This is a baseball history site; we should address his baseball career. The Yale first baseman was invited to play a game for the Columbus Buckeyes when they faced the Metropolitans in the Polo Grounds of New York. Batting last against the great Tim Keefe, Childs went 0 – 4 (or 0 – 3, depending on the source) but fielded all eleven chances at first without an error. He returned to his Yale team for the rest of the summer and then played the 1884 season with a minor league outfit in Hartford. He gave up baseball to continue his formal medical studies and begin his career.

Childs died of bronchial pneumonia on May 21, 1938 at his Denver home and is buried at Denver’s Fairmount Cemetery.

Sources:

Elias Child, “Child, Childs and Childe Families,” Curtis and Childs, Printers, Utica, NY, 1881: 483.
John S. Bouslog, M.D. “Samuel Beresford Childs, M.D., 1861-1938,” Radiology, Volume 32, Issue 2, February 1939.

“Base-Ball,” New York Times, June 1, 1883: 8.
“An Easy Thing,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 1, 1883: 2.
“The Base-Ball Season,” New York Times, June 24, 1883: 5.
“The New Yorks Again Beaten,” New Haven Journal and Courier, October 1, 1885: 3.
“Funeral of Dr. Childs’s Son,” Hartford Courant, September 11, 1893: 2.
“Dr. Samuel B. Childs,” Hartford Courant, May 30, 1938: 4.

Photo Source: Samuel Beresford Childs – Sam Childs – Wikipedia