Just a few quickies to commemorate the occasion:
- 64 Major Leaguers were born on Independence Day. The first was Levin Jones (1847) who had 11 at-bats in three games over two seasons (1873-74) for the Baltimore Statistics (now there‘s a nickname). The most recent is Junior Perez (2001) who made his debut this year with the Fill-in-the-Blank Athletics.
There is only one Hall of Famer on the list: Mickey Welch (1859), who won 307 games for the Troy Trojan Statistics (now I’m wondering if that’s an actual team name) and New York Giants from 1880-92). He was voted in by the Veterans Committee in 1973.- Aside from Welch, only six players lasted for 10 seasons or longer: George Mullin (1902-15), Bill Tuttle (1952, 1954-63), Hal Lanier (1964-73), Jose Oquendo (1983-84, 1986-95), Vinny Castillo (1991-2006), and Jared Hughes (2011-20).
- There have been several books about what baseball means to America. These were especially popular at the turn of the 21st century. Among my favorites is Baseball as America: Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game, published by the National Geographic, which became part of a traveling exhibition. Another is Picturing America’s Pastime: Historic Photography from the Baseball Hall of Fame Archives. One more for your consideration: Baseball America: The Heroes of the Game and the Times of Their Glory by Donald Honig (not to be confused with The Glory of Their Times, by Lawrence Ritter).
- Needless to say, there are thousands of books about topics that incorporate the American spirit into baseball when it comes to architecture, international and race relations, pop culture, etc. Much to many to narrow down for the purposes of this post.
Enjoy the holiday responsibly!
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