Interesting facts about Pre-War Players - share yours

[ParisianJohn]

Rice.jpg

In 1912 when a 22 year-old Sam Rice was pitching for his minor league team on the road in Illinois his wife and their two little children went to stay with his parents in Indiana. At that time a tornado came through and destroyed Rice's parents' home and killed his wife, both of their kids, his parents and two of his sisters.

Rice is then said to have wandered around the US for a year before joining the US Navy. He even wound up being involved in the Battle of Veracruz down in Mexico before leaving the service and returning to baseball. Rice switched to the outfield and wound up making the Majors in 1915 at age 25 - not too old, but probably a bit older than he'd have been if life hadn't detour him. He played only 4 games that season and 58 the next season in 1916. After being a full-timer in 1917, he played only 7 games in 1918 before being recalled to military service due to World War I. After training, Rice was sent to France but never saw action as the war ended. At that time he was 28 and had only 247 hits.

Rice made up for it and played until he was 44 and racked up 2,987 hits when he retired in 1934. There was no Hall of Fame yet, and with less folks like us around to let him know, Rice said he had no clue he was so close to 3,000 hits. Despite a .322 lifetime average he wasn't a big power hitter and he missed that "magic number" of 3,000 hits, so he didn't get into the Hall until the Veterans Committee elected him in 1963 when he was 73 years-old.

Rice had remarried and two years later in 1965 he was being interviewed about his life in front of his wife and stepchildren. It was only during that interview that they learned about that 1912 tornado and his old family.

Above is my 1933 Goudey of Rice.

[ValKehl]

A couple of additions to John's post about Sam Rice. Rice told very few, if any, of his teammates about the tragedy that befell his family.

Rice actually came to the Senators as a pitcher in 1915. Clark Griffith acquired Rice from the Petersburg Goobers of the Virginia League in exchange for cancelling a debt of several hundred dollars owed to Griffith by the cash-strapped Goobers owner. Rice's MLB pitching record for 1915-16 is 1 win and 1 loss with a 2.52 ERA. It wasn't until July 1916 that Rice was converted to a full-time outfielder.

Sam Rice's SABR bio is an interesting read: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Sam-Rice/

[ParisianJohn]

Originally Posted by ValKehl

A couple of additions to John's post about Sam Rice. Rice told very few, if any, of his teammates about the tragedy that befell his family.

Rice actually came to the Senators as a pitcher in 1915. Clark Griffith acquired Rice from the Petersburg Goobers of the Virginia League in exchange for cancelling a debt of several hundred dollars owed to Griffith by the cash-strapped Goobers owner. Rice's MLB pitching record for 1915-16 is 1 win and 1 loss with a 2.52 ERA. It wasn't until July 1916 that Rice was converted to a full-time outfielder.

Sam Rice's SABR bio is an interesting read: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Sam-Rice/

Thanks for that correction on when Rice switched to the outfield, thus making his career hit total more impressive.

In addition to his SABR bio Val posted, here is an article Sports Illustrated wrote about him in 1993. I read it as a teenager and was fascinated by the man, this his card was the first Goudey I ever bought (it does cover a lot of the same ground that the SABR bio has, but they don't totally overlap):

https://vault.si.com/vault/1993/07/1...re-was-nowhere

[darkhorse9]

George Browne played right field for the New York Giants in 1905. Late in a game against Philadelphia manager John McGraw took Browne out of the game and substituted him with a rookie named Archibald "Moonlight" Graham.
Attachment 577823

[ValKehl]

John, thanks for the link to the very enjoyable SI piece about Sam Rice.

[Tabe]

My go-to for this topic is this:

Hoss Radbourn is the first person known to have been photographed flipping the bird.

And he did it at least twice.

[Casey2296]

Amos Rusie is the reason they moved the pitchers mound to 60'6".

Bob Gibson is the reason they lowered the mound.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

Bob Gibson is the reason they lowered the mound.

You sure he was pre-war?

[z28jd]

Reddy Grey got into his only big league game by very lucky timing. The 1903 Pirates were short two position players on a road trip and needed a fill-in for their final game against Boston. Grey was on his way to Worcester that same day to report to his new team. Worcester had the day off, so he filled in for the Pirates, singled, walked and drove in two runs (online stats say one, but numerous sources from the day say two). He left the Pirates after the game and joined his new team.

Grey was a former minor league teammate of Zane Grey, the famous author, who was also his brother.

https://history.pittsburghbaseball.c...-smiling-pete/