April 23, 1915: Rupert Brooke, already an admired poet, dies in the service of the Royal Navy, on a hospital ship in the Aegean Sea -- not from combat injuries, but from an infected mosquito bite. This was the era before antibiotics. He was only 27, and was buried on the nearby Greek island of Skyros.
Rupert Chawner Brooke was born on August 3, 1887 in Rugby, Warwickshire, England -- the town with the private school of the same name, where the sport of the same name was allegedly invented. Brooke attended the Rugby School, and King's College of Cambridge University.
At Cambridge, the Bloomsbury Group of writers was formed in 1912. Many of them, including Brooke, E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, were gay, some of them entering marriages of convenience that both parties understood to be open marriages.
He enlisted in the Royal Navy when World War I broke out in 1914. Having already had poems published in The Westminster Gazette, The Times Literary Supplement -- with the approval of the British government, which might have censored them had they not been complementary to the nation and its troops -- began publishing his war poems.
Brooke sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on February 28, 1915, but developed severe gastroenteritis while stationed in Egypt, followed by streptococcal sepsis from an infected mosquito bite. Antibiotics, which could have saved so many in World War I, had not yet been discovered.
French surgeons carried out two operations to drain the abscess, but he died of septicemia on April 23, on a French hospital ship. As the expeditionary force had orders to depart immediately, Brooke was buried in an olive grove on Skyros. His brother, William Alfred Cotterill Brooke, was killed on the Western Front on June 14.
Yes, that photo really is of Brooke. It's not Hugh Grant playing him in a movie. In fact, as of 2022, there is no film biography of him. Which is a little odd, since he was one of the earliest well-known creative artists to have died at the specific age of 27.
Among those that preceded him in the "27 Club" were Brazilian composer Alexandre Levy, of an unknown illness in 1892; Louis Chauvin, a ragtime composer from St. Louis, of neurosyphilitic sclerosis in 1908; and George Trakl, an Austrian poet, of a cocaine overdose in 1914.
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April 23, 1915 was a Friday. This was early in the 2nd of the 2 seasons of 3 major leagues. In the American League:
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-4 at League Park in Cleveland. Ty Cobb went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and a stolen base. Shoeless Joe Jackson went 0-for-5 for the Indians.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Eddie Collins went 0-for-1 with 3 walks.
* The Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Athletics were rained out at Fenway Park in Boston. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on June 30. The Sox swept, 10-5 and 10-7. Over the 2 games, Tris Speaker went 4-for-6 with 3 walks and an RBI. Babe Ruth, a rookie at the time, did not appear in either game.
* And the New York Yankees and the Washington Senators were rained out at the Polo Grounds. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 3. The Senators won the opener, 8-7. George McBride hit a home run in the top of the 11th inning, and Walter Johnson came in to pitch the bottom of the 11th, getting the save, not that anybody knew what a "save" was back then. Johnson then started the nightcap, which the Yankees won, 4-1, as "The Big Train" was outpitched by Ray Caldwell.
In the National League:
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Braves, 2-1 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. George "Possum" Whitted went 3-for-3, but both Phils runs came in the 3rd inning, on a double by Fred Luderus.
It was the Phillies' 8th straight win to open the season. The Braves beat them the next day, but the Phils went on to win their 1st Pennant, succeeding the Braves as NL Champions.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Ivan "Ivy" Olson went 3-for-3 with a walk. Honus Wagner went 1-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base. He was 41 years old.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-4 at Robison Field in St. Louis. The interregnum where the Cubs' biggest rivals were the Giants had ended, and the Cards retook their former place as such.
* The Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known during Wilbert Robinson's managing of them, 1914 to 1931) and their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, were rained out at Ebbets Field. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 3. The Robins won the 1st game, 2-1. The Giants won the 2nd game, 4-3.
And in the Federal League:
* The FL's 2 New York Tri-State Area teams played each other, with the Brooklyn Tip-Tops beating the Newark Peppers, 9-5 at Harrison Park in Harrison, New Jersey, across the Passaic River from Newark. Steve Evans went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs for Brooklyn.
* The Baltimore Terrapins beat the Buffalo Blues, 6-5 at Federal League Park in Buffalo.
* The Pittsburgh Rebels beat the St. Louis Terriers, 5-2 at Handlan's Park in St. Louis. Former Detroit Tigers star Davy Jones went 3-for-5 with an RBI.
* And the Chicago Whales and the Kansas City Packers were rained out at Gordon and Koppel Field in Kansas City. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader 2 days later, a Sunday. The Whales won the 1st game, 10-3. The Packers won the 2nd game, 4-2.
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