CEMETERY WINS ABOVE REPLACEMENT, Vol. 5
DC and Delaware
We’re browsing through the Mid-Atlantic for this entry in the countdown of baseball player cemeteries. Here’s the how?/why?/no really, why are you doing this?
District of Columbia sports a surprising 172.7 total WARpC in its graveyards, landing between 34th and 35th place. (DC doesn’t get a number because I already started numbering from 50. Like Sean Doolittle, I’m all for DC statehood. As soon as that happens, I’ll update the charts and re-number everything. I swear.)
We’ll start with Art Devlin (36.1 WAR, Congressional Cemetery), considered one of the best all-time third baseman for the New York Giants (1904-1911), but is also remembered as an all-time great fullback for the Georgetown football team.
Slugger Paul Hines (44.9 WAR, Mount Olivet Cemetery) started playing professional baseball in 1872 at age 17 with the original Washington Nationals. His career wrapped up 20 years later with the Washington Statesmen of the American Association. He won the triple crown in 1878 with four home runs, fifty RBIs, and a .358 batting average. Different times, but a career 132 OPS+ also tells of his long dominance.
Guy Harris “Doc” White (48.6 WAR, Rock Creek Cemetery,) was a skinny left-handed junk-baller, who pitched in 427 games to a 2.39 ERA over thirteen seasons. White pitched five straight shutouts in 1904 for the Chicago White Sox, a record not broken until Don Drysdale beat it 64 years later. In the off-season, White was a dentist and a songwriter. He’s credited with co-writing the song “Gee, It’s a Wonderful Game” with baseball writer Ring Lardner. The song was used in Ken Burns Baseball.
In Delaware, you can see the four of the top five WAR leaders and two Hall of Famers (that’s 144 WAR!) in a 20-mile drive. I mean, it’s Delaware, so maybe that’s not so surprising.
Sorry Chris Short (28.7 WAR, Union Cemetery, Georgetown), you’re the fifth dentist who doesn’t fit into this story.
We’ll start with turn-of-the-century pitcher Vic “The Delaware Peach” Willis (63.2 WAR, St. John Cemetery, Newark). He won 25 games as a 22-year-old rookie in 1898. He won 22 games as a 33-year-old veteran, helping the 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates secure a World Series championship. Maybe all pitchers were work-horses back then, but Willis averaged twenty-seven complete games per season over his 13-year career. That’s why he’s in the first of our two Hall of Famers residing in the “First State.” “The Delaware Peach” faced “The Georgia Peach” in that 1909 World Series. Willis pitched in relief in game two and Cobb stole home on the first batter Willis faced. Willis rebounded, holding Cobb to a 1-for-5 against him the rest of the series.
Drive from Newark on DE-2 East for a half-hour to find John “Sadie” McMahon (40.8 WAR, St. Joseph-on-the-Brandywine Church Cemetery, Wilmington). Connie Mack called him, “The one-man pitching staff,” which wasn’t far from reality, as McMahon averaged thirty complete games per season as a star for the Baltimore Orioles from 1890-1896. Sadie shares a cemetery with Beau Biden, son of President Joe Biden.
Next we’ll visit William Julius “Judy” Johnson (13.9 WAR, Silverbrook Cemetery, Wilmington), Negro Leagues star and our second Hall of Famer. Renowned as one of the best third basemen of his time, Johnson was also a .300 hitter over his career (1923-1936). Johnson was a mentor to many players, most notably Josh Gibson. Johnson was a first several times over. He played in the first Negro League East-West All-Star Game in 1933. After the major leagues started integrating black players, he was one of the first black scouts with the Athletics. He was the first black coach in the majors when he went to spring training in 1952 with Connie Mack’s A’s. He was a member of MLB’s first committee to select Negro League players for induction into the Hall of Fame in 1971.
Johnson was interviewed late in life and said, “I love to teach baseball and would rather do it than anything. I even coach a sandlot team here in Wilmington. It’s like putting a seed in the ground, you like to watch it develop. As long as they’re ballplayers, they’re my kids. I love ’em all.”
From Wilmington, go six miles south to visit Bill Bruton (26.2 WAR, Gracelawn Memorial Park, New Castle). Burton went from an Alabama high school with no baseball team, to an Army stint, to men’s league softball in Delaware, to a tryout with the Boston Braves in 1950. We have some Delaware nepotism here as the scout that sent him to the tryout was the aforementioned “Judy” Johnson, Bruton’s father-in-law. Bruton struggled in three minor league seasons, but figured it out in time to be the starting center fielder for the Braves’ first season in Milwaukee at age 27. He led the league in stolen bases his first three big league seasons on the way to a solid 12-year career. After finishing with the Detroit Tigers, he worked for Chrysler Motors as an executive for 23 years, concluding as a special assistant to Lee Iacocca in 1988.
Let’s return to “Judy” Johnson to wrap up our Delaware detour.
After stepping down from the Negro League Hall of Fame committee, Johnson was himself elected to Cooperstown in 1975. His acceptance was an emotional one. At one point, tears prohibited him from continuing. Bill Bruton, the son-in-law and major leaguer thanks to Johnson, joined him on stage to console him. Johnson returned to the podium and finished his speech. His last words were, “I am just so grateful.”
Johnson has been memorialized in Wilmington with a statue outside Frawley Stadium and as multiple bobbleheads, including the Bobblehead Museum’s Negro League Centennial series. Another statue of him stands at the Negro League Museum in their Field of Legends.
Family. As a kid, you need them around to simply survive. As an adult, you simply survive being around them. Family is like your own personal Delaware. Bridges to cross. Tolls to pay. Tax shelters. Pharmaceuticals. Family instigates life-changing opportunities. Family are present for the biggest moments in each other‘s lives. Your mileage may vary, of course. We should all be so lucky as to have one relationship in our lives like Johnson and Bruton’s. That’s good family.
I'm serious! Get back to you privately.
There's a possible KC baseball trip triple if the independent American Assoc. Monarchs are in town! Want to make a doc on the Mom-and-Pop-owned Monarchs, as they now have an official relationship with both the museum and MLB.