Tombstone Whispers:

John A. Wood

Description

Following up on Professor Wood’s 2016 Beyond the Ballpark: The Honorable, Immoral, and Eccentric Lives of Baseball Legends, which was listed in Sport’s Collector Digest’s top forty baseball books of 2016, he examines twenty-five additional legends. Included are such notables as the lovable Yogi Berra, Stan Musial, and Gil Hodges, the feisty Billy Martin, the complex Ted Williams, the tragic Shoeless Joe Jackson, the delightful Pepper Martin, and the crook Hal Chase. Wood tracks down how these players acted away from the ballpark, and the circumstances surrounding their deaths. The author also includes his pictures of all the gravesites, except for two who were not interred. There is much funny and sad stuff here.

Sujets

• Sports
• Béisbol
• Recreation
• John Wood
• History
• Baseball

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798823002226
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

TOMBSTONE WHISPERS:
 
DEPARTED LEGENDS OF BASEBALL – THEIR MORAL (AND IMMORAL) LIVES
 
 
 
 
 
JOHN A. WOOD
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
 
 
 
 
© 2023 John A. Wood. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse  03/17/2023
 
ISBN: 979-8-8230-0223-3 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-8230-0222-6 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023903652
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I:“When the Saints Go Marching In”
Harry Hooper 1887-1974
Pepper Martin 1904-1965
Stan Musial 1920-2013
Gil Hodges 1924-1972
Yogi Berra 1925-2015
Part II:“A Few Good Men”
Wee Willie Keeler 1872-1923
Johnny Kling 1875-1947
Herbert Jefferis Pennock 1894-1948
Francis Joseph “Lefty” O’Doul 1897-1969
Al Lopez 1908-2005
Richie Ashburn 1927-1997
Part III:“Life Isn’t Fair”
Addie Joss 1880-1911
“Shoeless Joe” Jackson 1888?-1951
Ross Youngs 1897-1926
Hugh Casey 1913-1951
Roy Campanella 1921-1993
Curt Flood 1938-1997
Roger Maris 1934-1985
Part IV:“Who Are Those Guys?”
Hal Chase 1883-1947
Kenesaw Mountain Landis 1866-1944
Paul Richards 1908-1986
Fred “Dixie” Walker 1910-1982
Theodore Samuel Williams 1918-2002
Carl Furillo 1922-1989
Billy Martin 1928-1989
Appendix I: The Death of Ray Chapman
Appendix II: Gravesite Locations
Bibliography
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
S ince I have in Appendix II pictures that I took of all of the grave sites (except for two who have no burial sites), I am indebted to Findagrave.com for locating some of them, as well as my debt to Stew Thornley’s website that lists the GPS coordinates of all Half of Famers.
Special thanks to those who read all or parts of the manuscript: Baylor colleague Michael Parrish, son Kevin Wood, and former student Ben Simpson. Each made helpful suggestions and corrections.
In 2016, Rowman and Littlefield published my other baseball book, Beyond the Ballpark: The Honorable, Immoral, and Eccentric Lives of Baseball Legends . One of their editors, Christen Karniski, edited several chapters included in this current book that had to be cut from Beyond, in order to keep the book at a reasonable length.
INTRODUCTION
T his book is a follow-up to my 2016 Beyond the Ballpark: The Honorable, Immoral, and Eccentric Lives of Baseball Legends, published by Roman and Littlefield. In that book I tried to uncover the character and personality of fifty Hall of Famers. I also noted that I had visited the gravesites of each of them. This new book examines twenty-five men and not all of them are in the Hall of Fame, although several are. Also, there are two who have not been interred: Roy Campanella was cremated and his ashes given to his family, and Ted Williams’ body underwent vitrification and is in the Alcor facility in Arizona, where he is joined by his son Ted, and where his daughter Claudia will join them upon her death. I visited the gravesites of the other twenty-three. 1
I continue to marvel at the accomplishments of ballplayers. Baseball is a unique sport which combines skill and luck in incredible combinations. Anything can happen in a baseball game, and the better team doesn’t always win. A superior team can blow out an inferior team one day and be blown out by that very team the next day. It really is a game of inches.
But in spite of the level of luck and chance, the players in this book were a cut above (or in some cases several cuts above) the average player. Also included are notable non-playing characters such as manager Paul Richards and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Several were choice individuals and so highly regarded that they achieved virtual sainthood. Then we have a few good men. Sadly, several fall under the “Life isn’t Fair” category. Finally, some were complex and mysterious enough that we are forced to ask, as Butch Cassidy asked The Sundance Kid, “Who Are Those Guys?”
My late, dear friend, Tom Parrish, to whom Beyond the Ballpark was dedicated, once confronted one of his caregivers, whom he affectionately called “Bruiser,” that she seemed always to be arguing with him. Bruiser replied, “I’m not arguing. I’m just explaining things to you.” Likewise, I try to explain to the reader what made these guys tick. I hope it is an enjoyable read even if you don’t always agree with my assessment of them.
Under each category, the individuals will be listed in chronological order, the key date being the beginning of their major league career.
PART I “WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN”
I t’s pretty rare for any athlete to be called a saint. Especially in today’s world where the lives of star athletes are often examined under a microscope. The slightest misstep may be blown out of proportion. Furthermore, fans are often a fickle lot. On the one hand they may set up shrines in their homes for their favorite players, and then turn on them with a vengeance if they stray too far.
This was not always the case. In earlier years sportswriters rarely, if ever, wrote about the private lives of athletes. They knew about, and often witnessed, the drinking and carousing of ball players, or the way they treated their families and fans. But they ignored those flaws in their reports. Some observers point to Jim Bouton’s Ball Four as a major turning point in sports reporting. His tell all book opened a window into the personal lives of several of his Yankee teammates. It proved to be a bombshell. Now other writers felt free to report negative things about the stars of the day.
In my previous baseball book, Beyond the Ballpark: The Honorable, Immoral, and Eccentric Lives of Baseball Legends , I didn’t have a category of “Saints” or “Really Good Guys,” but if I had at least two of the “Good Guys” would have qualified. In my judgment Walter Johnson may have been the finest human being to ever set foot on a ball diamond. George Kell would be a close second. These two men were admired, and even loved, by teammates and foes alike. It would be hard to find a negative statement relating to their moral character.
The five players listed as saints in this book might not quite place them alongside Johnson and Kell, but they deserve a place in the moral Mt. Rushmore of baseball. Their lives were exceptional. May their tribe increase.

Harry Hooper
1887-1974
Career: 1909-1925
Harry Bartholomew Hooper was a right fielder who played for the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1971.
Good guy Harry Hooper is not exactly a household name, even within households containing baseball fanatics, even though he, along with Tris Speaker and Duffy Lewis, was a member of what many experts believe to be the greatest outfield of all time. Hooper was overshadowed during his time by such greats as Speaker, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Cy Young, and Walter Johnson. He was less a Superman than an Everyman. 2 He possessed none of the flamboyance of a Ruth or a Cobb but went about the game in a business- like manner. He was a consummate professional in a day when baseball was finally shedding its rough neck image due to an influx of college educated men like himself. These men were slowly replacing the rowdy bunch who spent their off hours in bars and brothels.
Hooper’s restless father left the east coast and lived briefly in numerous places before settling down to farm in California, where Harry was born. Harry was such a bright child that his family realized that education would become a major part of his life. Harry fell in love with baseball at a very early age, and he eventually attended St. Mary’s College in Oakland, a private Catholic college that would send several players to the Major Leagues. Although he seems to have initially “majored in baseball,” he was so proficient in math and the sciences that he became a first- rate engineer and probably would have pursued that as a profession had not opportunities opened up to enable him to play professional baseball. He approached the game like a dedicated engineer would approach a project - - - with fierce attention to detail and a pursuit of excellence. His study of the game and his dedication to a high level of physical conditioning enabled him to achieve what came easier and naturally to more gifted athletes. He might not have had the near pathological work ethic of Ty Cobb (who did?), but he wasn’t far behind. He earned nothing but respect from his teammates and from his opponents. Negative statements about him are hard to find.
Like most teams at that time, the Red Sox were a cliquish and divided team. Speaker and Lewis disliked each other intensely and rarely spoke to each other. Although Hooper had his close friends on the club, most notably Smokey Joe Wood and Larry Gardner, Hooper got along well with all members of the team and seemed to function as a unifying force. No doubt this was the reason he was named captain of the team. In fact, managers Jack Barry