Harry Chapman
October 21, 1918: Harry Chapman dies of the Spanish Flu epidemic at a U.S. Army base in Nevada, Missouri. He was 30 years old, and 1 of 8 Major League Baseball players to die in the service during World War I -- in his case, in Nevada, Missouri, having been returned to the U.S. to treat combat injuries, unsuccessfully as it turns out.
A native of Severance, Kansas, Chapman was a catcher, who played for the Chicago Cubs in 1912, the Cincinnati Reds in 1913, the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League in 1914 and 1915, and the St. Louis Browns in 1916. Only in the FL was he anything like a regular player. His lifetime batting average was just .198, with 1 home run and 44 RBIs.
There is no memorial to him at Wrigley Field in Chicago, home of the Cubs; Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, home of the Reds; or Busch Stadium in St. Louis, home of the Cardinals.
Eugene Mayer also dies while serving in World War I on this day. The former halfback, sprinter, long jumper, shot putter and law school graduate at the University of Virginia, a native of Norfolk, never gets to play in the nascent NFL, because he dies at Camp Joseph E. Johnston in Jacksonville, Florida, a casualty of the Spanish Flu Epidemic. "Buck" Mayer was 26, and was posthumously elected to the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.
Buck Mayer
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October 21, 1918 was a Monday. The War Department had ordered that the baseball season end a month early, in September, and that all players obey the "work or fight order": Enlist, or get a job in an industry essential to the war effort, or get an otherwise necessary job (like police or firemen), or be subject to the military draft. Football was in midweek. Professional basketball barely existed. And hockey season hadn't started yet. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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