OT (Sort of) Weirdest Story with ties to Pre-war Baseball Ever!
 

I was doing some research on Mike Martin the longtime Washington Senators Trainer the other day and stumbled on this article. He started out as the Yankees Trainer when he was a young man (1903-1907) and I believe this "Scandel" probably led to him leaving the Yankees for the Senators. Not surprising that is somehow involved probably the slimiest of all pre-war players Hal Chase (Chase once hit on Edd Rousch's wife while Edd was in the bathroom at a team event in the 1910's among countless other stories of this guys ill-repute).

Anyways, its WEIRD and probably involes an abortion and I apologize in advance if it offends anyone, but in 20+ years of Baseball research I have never stumbled on anything quite like this.

http://baseballhistoryblog.com/tag/mike-martin/

I remeber reading about that in a Hal Chase book a few years ago but it was kind of passed over and I always wondered exactly what the real story behind it was. With Chase you know it had to be something shady. A botched abortion is probably the right answer unfortunately.

By the way I always enjoyed your blog, your stories are well written and researched and I've been disappointed that you haven't updated it in a while. It's in the top 5 historical baseball blogs that I recommend to people who ask me for blogs to read. I miss checking in and getting another interesting story!

pretty morbid, but not as bad as Marty Bergen...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_B...%28baseball%29

Wow I grew up right outside of Suffern.

"He began sitting in particular positions, and walking sideways, so that he could spot assassins approaching from either side of him."

Um....hilarious!

Seems like something you would never think of that time, but it was going on of course. Just not discovered as often as today, or at least publicized.

back then never heard too many "bad stories" like today, but they happened all the time just today there is way more media and internet that gets the storys out there.

Thats some real crazy story!