Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 24 of the 2010 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 3 week of June.
June 15
1940 At the Polo Grounds, Harry Danning hits for the cycle becoming the last player to have an inside-the-park as part of this rare feat. The Giant catcher is able to circle the bases because the ball gets stuck behind the Eddie Grant memorial and Pirates’ center fielder Vince DiMaggio cannot free it in time.
Edward Leslie Grant was born May 21, 1883 in Franklin, Massachusetts.
Eddie Grant was a typical Deadball Era third baseman: mediocre offensively but defensively reliable, particularly against the bunt. He was fast on the bases and dependable in the clutch. Today, however, he is best remembered as the most prominent major leaguer killed in combat during World War I.
While attending Harvard University, Eddie got his first taste of organized baseball-at the major league level. In early August 1905 the Cleveland Naps were in Boston, but Napoleon Lajoie was laid up with an infected leg. The best local substitute the Naps could find was Eddie Grant, who filled in at second base and collected three hits in his big league debut.
For the next three years Grant attended Harvard Law School during off seasons and played professional baseball during summers.
While with Jersey City in 1906, his first full season in organized ball, Eddie led the Eastern League with a .322 average. That mark earned him a shot with the Philadelphia Phillies, for whom he split time with Ernie Courtney in 1907 before taking over as the regular third baseman in 1908. During the offseason of 1908-09 Grant received his law degree and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and for the rest of his baseball career he practiced law in Boston during the winter months.
Grant enjoyed his finest big league season in 1909, batting .269 as Philadelphia’s leadoff hitter and finishing second in the National League with 170 hits. Before a doubleheader against the New York Giants that year, he supposedly found a domino with seven white spots. As the story goes, after joking with teammates that the domino was an omen that he would have seven hits that day, Eddie went five-for-five against Christy Mathewson in the first game, then batted safely in his first two at-bats against Rube Marquard in the nightcap. The seven consecutive hits were believed to be a National League record, but Eddie remained modest. He recalled, “I didn’t get another hit off Matty all season”.
Grant put up similar numbers for Philadelphia in 1910, when one commentator called him “perhaps the best-hitting third baseman in the National League.” That season he batted .268, drove in 67 runs, and stole 25 bases. However, the 1910 season proved to be the apex of Grant’s career.
In February 1911 he was sent to Cincinnati in a trade. Playing for the Reds, Eddie slumped to a .223 average in his final season as a regular and improved only slightly to .239 as a part-timer in 1912.
Many attributed his sudden decline to a tragedy in his personal life. Eddie had married Irene Soest in Philadelphia in 1911, but she died of heart trouble less than nine months after the wedding.
The Giants purchased Grant in the midst of the 1913 season. Eddie played sparingly as New York captured its third consecutive pennant, and that fall he participated in his only World Series, appearing as a pinch-hitter and pinch-runner.
He held on for two more seasons as John McGraw’s bench coach and seldom-used utilityman. Before spring training in 1916 Eddie announced his retirement, intending to devote himself to his Boston law practice. He was 32 years old.
Grant’s career as a full-time lawyer lasted barely one year. When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, he became the first major leaguer to enlist.
After four months of officer training in Plattsburg, New York, Grant was commissioned as captain of Company H of the 307th Infantry Regiment and sent to Camp Upton on Long Island for several months of training with the troops he would lead.
Arriving in France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces, Grant’s division saw some combat before being assigned to the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the final great American drive of the war.
On October 2, 1918, the 307th Regiment launched an attack in the Argonne Forest, a rugged, heavily wooded area with thick underbrush, deep ravines, and marshes. By the morning of the third day Grant was exhausted. He hadn’t slept since the beginning of the offensive, and some fellow officers noticed him sitting on a stump with a cup of coffee in front of him, too weak to lift the cup.
One of his troops, a former policeman at the Polo Grounds, remembered: “Eddie was dog-tired but he stepped off at the head of his outfit with no more concern than if he were walking to his old place at third base after his side had finished its turn at the bat. He staggered from weakness when he first started off, but pretty soon he was marching briskly with his head up.”
Later that day the 307th was moving forward when Major Jay, as he was carried past on a litter, ordered Captain Grant, the highest-ranking officer left in his battalion, to assume command. The major had hardly spoken when a shell came through the trees, wounding two of Grant’s lieutenants. Eddie was waiving his hands and calling out for more stretcher bearers when a shell struck him. It was a direct hit, killing him instantly.
Eddie Grant was buried in the Argonne Forest, only a few yards from where he fell. Later his remains were moved to the Romagne Cemetery.
On Memorial Day 1921, a monument to his memory was placed in the Polo Grounds’ deep centerfield. Each Memorial Day thereafter, a wreath-laying ceremony was conducted at the memorial.
A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by Tom Simon. It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: F
Fastball
A pitch thrown at top speed and with great power. It has a relatively even trajectory but usually has a backward spin, which can cause it to hop when it reaches the plate. When thrown by a right-handed pitcher, a fastball tails off to a left-handed batter. It is the most common pitch in baseball..
Because overhand pitching was not allowed until 1884, the fastball as we know it did not come along until then. Before then fastballs existed, but came from the waist or below.
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Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
