Your baseball encyclopedia listed him as Bill Dam, but he was born Elbridge Rust Dam and people who knew him called him Elbee – as they did when cheering for his baseball exploits in and around Boston.

Elbridge Dam played but one game for the Boston Doves (now Braves) in the National League on August 23, 1909. He was a mid-game replacement in left field (never mind that he spent most of his days as a diminutive lefthanded pitcher). To his credit, Dam played well – he hit a double and scored a run, drew a walk, and struck out once, too. One ball was hit his way during the three innings Dam was in the field, but he made the catch cleanly. Dam also appeared as a pitcher in an exhibition for Boston, but his major league days would be short.

What makes Dam a fun footnote in your baseball history lesson? Well – you are probably already thinking of odd Dam pun phrases. You aren’t alone and a Boston Globe artist chose to scribble his thoughts, turning out in cartoon form an early play on words that Abbott and Costello might have considered.

Elbridge was the oldest of six Dam kids born on April 4, 1885 to William and divorcee Lizzie (Wilson) Moore. Lizzie brought an older son, Richard, into the marriage and he lived with the Dam family. Soon after, William Dam moved from Cambridge to Braintree, Massachusetts when Elbridge was a little tyke. William worked for a major fertilizer company before taking a position with Young & Kimball, oil manufacturers in Boston. William was a successful businessman, but an unlucky one in that he passed away a year before his oldest son would pitch in a major league game.

Elbridge had a traditional schooling in Braintree, completing high school, but no further. Instead, he took up baseball with the local Braintree White Sox and eventually played in a number of amateur and low-level minor league teams in the Massachusetts State League and New England League between 1907 and 1912. He got his lone chance with Boston in 1909, returned to the New England League, and then took up a position in a shoe factory as his baseball career ended. In time, he left the factory and instead was a clammer at Houghs Neck, a coastal community of Quincy, Massachusetts.

He was at home on June 22, 1930 when, like his father, Dam died suddenly – perhaps Elbridge had a heart attack similar to that of William Dam. He left behind his wife, the former Hazel Goodwin, and five children. Elbridge and Hazel Dam are buried in Mount Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy.

Possibly to avoid the Dam puns, his children changed the spelling of their last names from Dam to Dame.

Notes:

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 US Census
New Hampshire Marriage Records
Massachusetts Death Records

Image Source

“Burkett Disposes of Several Players,” (Lynn) Daily Item, August 19, 1907: 6.

“Burkett Lets Players Go,” (New Bedford) Evening Standard, April 29, 1908: 3.

“Revered Resident No More,” Boston Globe, September 10, 1908: 8.

“Baseball Notes,” Boston Globe, August 22, 1909: 13.

Wallace Goldsmith, “Both Vanquished and Victors in Yesterday’s Game Hoped There’d Be Nothing in the Papers About it,” Boston Globe, August 24, 1909: 5.

“Chicago Makes it 11 Straight,” Boston Globe, August 24, 1909″ 5.

“Lynn 3, Lawrence 0,” Fall River Herald, May 2, 1910: 6.

“Bench Breezes and Fanfare,” Lynn Daily Item, May 12, 1910: 6.

“Holbrook 7, Braintree W. S. 0,” Boston Globe, August 4, 1912: 12.

“Elbridge Dam of Houghs Neck Dead,” Boston Globe, June 24, 1930: 5.