Before Their Time

                                          I was watching “The Natural” the other day, and I got to thinking about players who died young and never really made their mark. The premise of the movie, Hobbs being shot, is loosely based on what happened to former MLB player, Eddie Waitkus. For those of you who do not know anything about Eddie, his first year in the majors was 1941. He only played in 12 games for the Cubs. By the way, his nickname as a rookie was “The Natural.” He enlisted in the US Army after Pearl Harbor and would see some of the bloodiest fighting of the war in the Philippines. He was awarded four bronze stars. During “Operation Cartwheel”, he saved the life of a badly bleeding fellow soldier, leaving his foxhole during an attack on his position and using safety pins to stop the bleeding. 

                                       When he returned from the war, he became a star first baseman for the Cubs. Following the 1948 season, he was traded to the Phillies. On June 14th, 1949, my first birthday, just a few years into what was a promising career, he was shot by Ruth Ann Steinhagen, an obsessed fan in Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel. It was one of the first recognized cases of criminal stalking. Seeing him every day when he was a Cub kept her infatuation in check. But when he was shipped to the Phillies, it escalated to dangerous proportions. 

                                      She checked into a hotel room using the alias, Ruth Ann Burns. She left a note at the desk asking him to come to the room on an urgent matter. When he came to the room, she shot him with a .22 Remington Model 501, bolt action rifle, just missing his heart. She immediately called the front desk reporting the shooting. She was found cradling his head. He was taken to the Illinois Masonic Hospital. He nearly died several times on the operating table before they successfully removed the bullet. Steinhagen was never brought to trial, but she was confined to a mental institution for several years. Waitkus would return to baseball in 1950. Waitkus was lucky. He could very easily have been killed.

                                    The Dodgers have not been immune to losing players at an early age. In 1892, Hub Collins, a second baseman for Brooklyn, died of typhoid fever at the age of 28. Players in the pre-1900 era were prone to diseases we rarely see today. In 1890, Bill Blair, a 26-year-old pitcher for the Cubs died of influenza. In 1906, 23-year-old Joe Cassidy, a SS for the Senators, died of purpura hemorrgahia. Purpura are associated with a reduction in circulating blood platelets. 

                                     What I will do in this post is show some of the more prominent players who left before their time. There were guys in the Negro Leagues who were very young when they passed too. Josh Gibson was just 35 when he died of a brain tumor that led to a stroke. He was considered the greatest power hitter the Negro Leagues ever produced.  Before Ray Chapman was killed by a pitched ball in 1920, George Fleishman, a catcher with the Stapleton Baseball club, died when struck in the head with a pitch in 1904.

                                  One of the first I remember well was in 1964, 1962 ROY award winner, Ken Hubbs was killed in a plane crash on February 13th, 1964, when the plane he was piloting crashed during a snowstorm outside of Provo Utah. In 1962, he hit .260 with 172 hits. Hubbs had taken flying lessons to face his fear of flying head on. He had just gotten his pilot’s license in January. He and his friend Denny Doyle flew to Provo to surprise Doyles wife who had just given birth. He left on the 13th for Colton California trying to beat the snowstorm. His father reported that he had not arrived on the 14th. The plane was found one quarter mile south of Bird Island on Utah lake. Both Doyle and Hubbs were killed in the crash.

                                While I was in the Army, I used to go watch the Angels AA Texas League team play. They had a young SS named Mike Miley. Miley had played quarterback at LSU. He was a first-round draft pick by the Angels in 1974. They sent him to AA El Paso. The 21-year-old Miley played 84 games for the Diablos. He batted .288 with 13 homers and 45 RBIs. He also had 20 doubles and 3 triples. His double-play partner for about 6 games was Kurt Russell, yep, the actor. He was a pretty decent prospect until he tore up his shoulder. Miley was promoted to AAA in 75, and had a cup of coffee in 75-76 with the Angels. On January 6th, 1977, Miley was killed in a one-car crash in Baton Rouge Louisiana.

                               Ross Youngs was 30 years old when he died in 1927. Most of our younger readers have probably never heard of him. Myself, I only learned about Youngs when I was about 11 years old and Fleer made a set of baseball cards of players who were Hall of Famers. Got my first Babe Ruth card that way. Youngs was an outfielder for the New York Giants from 1917-26. John McGraw considered him one of the best outfielders he had ever seen. Youngs batted over .300 9 out of his 10 years in the majors. His lifetime BA was .322. He was not a power hitter at all hitting just 42 in his career. He played on four pennant winning teams and two of them won the World Series. He became ill during the 1926 season with what was called at the time, Bright’s disease. Bright’s is a form of kidney disease. He was exposed to a streptococcal infection in 1924. He was sent home by McGraw when he became too ill to play. He never got better. He went from his playing weight of 170 to 100 pounds by the time of his passing. He was elected to the Hall of Fame by the veterans committee in 1972. He is the youngest player inducted into the Hall.

                            Some have passed from things you would never expect. In 1872, a 22-year-old Al Thake, an outfielder for the Brooklyn Atlantics, drowned while he was fishing. Lon Koenecke, an outfielder for the Dodgers in 1935, died from a cerebral hemorrhage which was sustained while on a plane flight.  Danny Frisella, a pitcher for the Padres died when his dune buggy flipped. Ed Delahanty, an outfielder with the Senators died when he was swept over Niagra Falls in 1903. This one really stumped me. Doc McJames, a pitcher for Brooklyn in 1901, died of TB, complicated by injuries suffered in a carriage accident! James who had left baseball to pursue medicine, had made a house call and was thrown from a horse-drawn carriage. He died within a month. He was 27. But he had an interesting lineage. His great-grandfather, Judge William Dobein James, had enlisted at age 16 and fought with Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, during the Revolutionary war. His Great-great grandfather, Major John James, was Marion’s second in command.  William wrote a book about Marion which is still much used today since it was based on first-hand information. 

                           Another really strange one was catcher, Bo Diaz. Diaz played for three teams over his 12-year career. He was an All-Star twice, 81 in the AL with the Indians, and 87 in the NL with the Reds. During his career, he was included in 3 big trades. The first was from Boston to the Indians with Rick Wise and 2 minor leaguers for Dennis Eckersley and Fred Kendall in 1978. The next was a three-team trade with the Phillies and Cardinals in 1981. He went to the Phillies; Lonnie Smith went to the Cardinals from the Phillies, Silvio Martinez and Larry Sorenson went to the Indians. In 1985, he was traded to the Reds with a minor leaguer for Tim Foley and 2 minor leaguers. At home in Venezuela in November of 1990, he was killed when a satellite dish he was trying to install fell on him crushing his neck. 

                           Like Waitkus, some players have been shot. Several died, Waitkus was extremely lucky. Lyman Bostock, an outfielder who had just signed a long-term deal with the Angels, was shot and killed while riding in a friend’s car in September of 1978 in his hometown of Gary Indiana. His killer was sentenced to a psychiatric hospital but released after seven months. That spurred the Indiana legislature to pass the guilty but mentally ill verdict so that mentally ill people would still have to serve prison time after being released from a medical facility. Bostock was 27. 

                        Plane crashes have claimed the lives of several ballplayers. Most of us remember when Thurman Munson crashed his private jet in 1979. He was practicing landings at the time. Munson was 32. Another Yankee, pitcher Corey Lidle died in 2006, just four days after the Yankees had been eliminated in the ALDS. He was with his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger, when they were blown by a strong gust of win while making a 180-degree turn into the Belaire Apartments complex. They were both killed instantly, but 26 other people suffered injuries, a majority of them NYC firefighters. A third former Yankee, Jim Hardin was killed in a plane crash in Key West in March of 1991. He had just taken off from the airport when his propeller failed due to fatigue. He tried to make it back to the airport, the plane stalled, causing the crash. It was reported that Hardin avoided a field filled with kids playing baseball. It crashed in the parking lot of a TGIF restaurant that was under construction. 

                       Former Dodgers who met an early demise, Mike Sharperson, killed in an auto accident in 1996. Jake Daubert died from appendicitis in 1924. Roberto Clemente, plane crash in 1971, Tim Crews, a member of the 88 champs, he was killed in a boating accident that also took the life of his teammate, Steve Olin. Dodger pitcher, Bobby Ojeda survived the crash. Crews was with the Indians at the time. Steve Howe, who was suspended by baseball 7 times due to drug abuse, died in a one car accident in 2006. He was not wearing a seatbelt, and he had meth in his system at the time of the accident. 

                     Drugs have taken several young players in the last several years. In 2003, Steve Belcher, a promising young Oriole pitcher died from complications of the use of Ephedra. Tommy Hanson, a pitcher in the Angels organization, died from complications of cocaine addiction, and one of the more recent, Tyler Skaggs, a pitcher for the Angels, who died from asphyxia after aspirating in his own vomit while under the influence of fentanyl, oxycodone, and alcohol. In October of that year, 2019, the Angels director of communications, Eric Kay, was indicted on charges relating to Skaggs’s death when he admitted to providing opiates to various members of the Angels including Skaggs. He was convicted of two-counts relating to Skaggs death in 2022. 

                 One never knows what the next day might bring. Over the years, I have lost several friends, lately mostly due to old age, but several from accidents or other things. Enjoy the time you have. It is precious. Baseball makes it better. One other player caught my eye. Most Dodger fans won’t remember him fondly, but Reyes Montoya, who pitched in 22 games for the Dodgers in 2022, was killed in an accident on his ATV in front of his father’s house in the Dominican Republic. One just never knows.