July 2, 1903: One of baseball's greatest and strangest players comes to one of baseball's saddest and strangest ends.
Edward James Delahanty was born on October 30, 1867, in Cleveland. He was 1 of a record 5 brothers to play Major League Baseball. Tom got 16 career hits. Joe had 222. Frank had 223. Jim had 1,159. Between them, they had 1,620. But Big Ed had 2,596 all by himself.
A left fielder for most of his career, which started in 1888, Ed batted .346 lifetime, peaking at .410 in 1899, and put together an astonishing 152 OPS+. He had 7 100+ RBI seasons, which was stunning for the time. On July 3, 1896, he hit 4 home runs in a game, making him only the 2nd player to do it, after Bobby Lowe of the Boston Beaneaters (forerunners of the Atlanta Braves) in 1894.
Ed played most of his career with the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1902, he jumped to the American League, playing for the Washington Senators. That season, by hitting .376, he won the batting title, to go with the one he won in the National League in 1899. He remains the only player to win them in both Leagues.
He died while still an active player, on July 2, 1903, only 35 years old. The incident is shrouded in mystery: He jumped the Senators while they were in Detroit to play the Tigers, and boarded a train for New York, a train that cut across Canada, through its Province of Ontario, before crossing back into the U.S. at Buffalo. He got drunk on the train, was accused of threatening passengers with a straight razor, and the conductor kicked him off.
He tried to walk across the International Railway Bridge between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, got into a fight with the bridge's night watchman, and went over the bridge into the Niagara River. His body was found at the bottom of Niagara Falls a month later.
The International Railway Bridge
Did he jump? Did he fall? Was he pushed? We will never know. The watchman was not charged.
Delahanty was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945, his career legendary, but incomplete due to his own misbehavior -- and, perhaps, someone else's. He was also elected to the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame.
As for his brothers, Joe died in 1936, Tom in 1951, Jim in 1953, and Frank was the last survivor, living until 1966.
The Bridge is still in use, but for freight traffic only.
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July 2, 1903 was a Thursday. King Olav V of Norway was born on this day, and reigned from 1957 until his death in 1991.
These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Highlanders beat the St. Louis Browns, 3-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. This stadium would be replaced by another on the same site with the same name in 1909, be renamed Busch Stadium in 1953, and last until 1966. Willie Keeler went 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Highlanders, who in 1913 officially took up the name that people had been calling them by for a while: The Yankees.
* The Brooklyn Superbas lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-4 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Honus Wagner went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Boston Beaneaters, 2-0 at the South End Grounds in Boston. Frank "Noodles" Hahn pitched a 7-hit shutout. The Boston team of the National League went through several name changes before settling on "Braves" in 1912.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-2 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.
* The Cleveland Naps beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 11-6 at League Park in Cleveland. This stadium would be replaced with one on the same site with the same name in 1910, and last until 1946. The Cleveland team was named for its manager and 2nd baseman, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. They became the Cleveland Indians in 1915, and the Cleveland Guardians in 2022.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 1-0 at Bennett Park in Detroit. This stadium would be replaced with one on the same site in 1912, named Navin Field, renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961. George Mullin pitched a 3-hit shutout. This game was played hours before Delahanty's death. No games were canceled: The Senators were not scheduled to play the next day, anyway, as they were traveling from Detroit to Cleveland.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Boston Americans, 6-2 at South Side Park in Chicago. The Americans became the Red Sox in 1908.
* And the New York Giants were supposed to play the St. Louis Cardinals, at the 1890-1911 version of the Polo Grounds, but got rained out. It was rescheduled as part of a doubleheader on August 13, and the Giants swept, 6-2 and 9-7. Christy Mathewson was the winning pitcher in the 1st game. The losing pitcher was a rookie named Mordecai Brown, a.k.a. "Three-Finger" Brown, due to a childhood disfigurement that gave him a great curveball. He later became the ace of the Cubs, often starting against Mathewson, ace vs. ace, future Hall-of-Famer vs. future Hall-of-Famer.
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