Family and life outside of baseball is usually the difficult stuff to come up with, and I can't tell you much of anything that isn't already covered on Brouthers' wiki page.

In "The Ballplayers", the SABR researcher states that John McGraw put him in charge of the press gate at the Polo Grounds after his playing days. In "The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract", this is translated as being a watchman:

"Rusie, by the way, is now assistant watchman at the Polo Grounds. Dan Brouthers is the other watchman. Often we get together and talk over old times. Always I have had a deep sentiment for veteran ball players, and I try to get them a good place any time there is a chance -- John McGraw, "My Thirty Years in Baseball" (1923, Boni and Liveright)

Other than his Irish Setter, I don't know anything about his family... but, speaking of SABR, they easily come up with the most thorough histories on players, and their on-going biography project is usually unmatched when it comes to detailed information about players' families and life before and after baseball. Unfortunately, they haven't yet completed an entry for Brouthers. Oddly enough, their home page rotates old baseball pictures through nine squares, and when I first went to the page to see if they had an entry for Brouthers, one of the pictures was Big Dan himself. Anyway, you might want to contact them, as someone could be working on it or already have some of that research at hand.

*

Thought this was a fun article about Julio's career from the Akron Beacon Journal's Sheldon Ocker, who's known Julio better than most.

*

Interesting... a couple of factors that I don't think could be replicated in simulations would be media pressure and in-game strategy, both of which probably work against players today. I think DiMaggio's hitting streak could be broken, but also suspect it's less likely than the simulations show.

When Joe Baseballstar feels a twinge today, it will be reported globally within ten minutes... there's a lot of demand on any player who even approaches a 30 game hitting streak (not that there wasn't a lot of media attention on DiMaggio's streak).

I think the biggest factor though, might be relief pitching. I can't find splits for DiMaggio's career, although I think it's safe to say he hit both RHP and LHP pretty well. With more emphasis on particular matchups in today's game, and also maybe with fresher pitchers/relievers, I think there's an increased probability that an opposing manager is going to find the right combination to get the guy out one of those nights.

*

From The Onion

NEW YORK—Citing a need for physical and spiritual cleansing after a Boston Red Sox fan entombed a David Ortiz jersey in the floor of the new facility, the New York Yankees buried former centerfielder Bernie Williams under 4,650 pounds of concrete Wednesday in the foundation of the new Yankee Stadium for good luck.

According to team sources, the instant the 39-year-old Williams was completely submerged in the rapidly setting structural material, stopping his voice as his lungs and mouth filled with concrete, the sun broke through the clouds and shone on the yet-incomplete field. Yankees part-owner Hank Steinbrenner called the occurrence a sign indicating that the "Curse Of A Red Sox Fan's David Ortiz Jersey" had been reversed, and that God was once again on the Yankees' side.

"Any attempt to put a hex on the New York Yankees has been successfully averted," Steinbrenner told reporters while standing over the still-wet concrete slab beneath which, judging by the sluggish ripples and lopsided bubbles in the hardening agglomerate, Williams still struggled. "Not that this organization believes in curses. We're the Yankees. We believe the success of our team is based purely on our players and their on-field performance. And we act accordingly."

"However," Steinbrenner continued, "Bernie was on our last World Series team in 2000, so we figured burying him under our new home certainly couldn't hurt. Also, he was available, and his appearance fee was quite reasonable."

The burial ceremony, which delayed the completion of the stadium approximately three weeks and cost roughly $1.5 million—$1,000 of which will go to Bernie Williams' family—involved placing Williams into a six-foot-deep concrete hole directly where the tattered Red Sox jersey was found.

Dressed in his full Yankees uniform and batting helmet, and clutching an autographed ball signed by all members of Yankees' 1996 World Series team, Williams was lowered into the ground and then covered with a combination of concrete, fly ash, slag cement, and coarse aggregate consisting mostly of gravel limestone.

Though Yankees officials did not allow Williams' family to attend the burial, citing the fact they were not "true Yankees," they permitted the former centerfielder to take with him a picture of his wife and three children after Williams provided video evidence proving that all of his family members were present and cheered during the Yankees' championship run between 1996 and 2000.

"Now, we're not necessarily hoping that having him in the foundation will mean our outfielders will start throwing like Bernie, our hitters will begin hitting like him, or our faster baserunners will start running like him," Yankees first-year coach Joe Girardi said. "Most of our guys are already better than he was. We just know—and this is what I told Bernie's family—that the good deed of letting a former Yankee permanently come home will be recognized by the baseball gods and will translate into Yankee victories, which will be good for the entire human race."

Williams, who was smiling from the moment he arrived at the new stadium until his face could no longer be seen, was grateful for the opportunity.

"I would do anything to help this ballclub win another World Series," Williams shouted up to reporters while standing in rapidly filling pit. "Just to be part of this organization again in some capacity is an honor and privilege. And even though I haven't received a thank you from the Steinbrenner family, I know they are appreciative."

"This is what it means to be a lifelong Yankgluh [sic]," Williams attempted to add.

According to Yankees president Randy Levine, the organization had been discussing various ways to exorcize the curse of the buried Red Sox jersey, under which the Yankees went an "unacceptable" 4-4. Levine said that it was Hal Steinbrenner who suggested submerging a former or current player in concrete as a good luck charm.

Interoffice e-mails confirm that players who made the short list were Yogi Berra, Paul O'Neill, and current Yankee outfielder Shelley Duncan.

"Truth be told, we didn't even think of Bernie," Levine said. "But then we got a call from his agent. It took a bit of convincing on their part, but in the end it seemed like this fulfilled both of our needs."

"By giving Bernie this chance, we have once again proven why we are the classiest organization in all of sports," Levine added. "Lesser teams would have overreacted to this whole curse thing and buried Derek Jeter."

When asked if burial in the new stadium guaranteed that Williams' No. 51 would be retired in the new Monument Park, both Steinbrenners had no comment, saying only that they appreciated Mr. Williams' commitment to the team.

From: nytimes.com with cool graphs.

A Journey to Baseball’s Alternate Universe

With the baseball season under way and the memory of scandal in the sport so fresh, many fans yearn for an earlier era, a time when mythology mingled with baseball. The sport’s most mythic achievement is Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, a feat that has never come even close to being matched. Fans and scientists alike, including Edward M. Purcell, a Nobel laureate in physics, and Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary biologist, have described the streak as well-nigh impossible.

In a fit of scientific skepticism, we decided to calculate how unlikely Joltin’ Joe’s achievement really was. Using a comprehensive collection of baseball statistics from 1871 to 2005, we simulated the entire history of baseball 10,000 times in a computer. In essence, we programmed the computer to construct an enormous set of parallel baseball universes, all with the same players but subject to the vagaries of chance in each one.

Here’s how it works. Think of baseball players’ performances at bat as being like coin tosses. Hitting streaks are like runs of many heads in a row. Suppose a hypothetical player named Joe Coin had a 50-50 chance of getting at least one hit per game, and suppose that he played 154 games during the 1941 season. We could learn something about Coin’s chances of having a 56-game hitting streak in 1941 by flipping a real coin 154 times, recording the series of heads and tails, and observing what his longest streak of heads happened to be.

Our simulations did something very much like this, except instead of a coin, we used random numbers generated by a computer. Also, instead of assuming that a player has a 50 percent chance of hitting successfully in each game, we used baseball statistics to calculate each player’s odds, as determined by his actual batting performance in a given year.

For example, in 1941 Joe DiMaggio had an 81 percent chance of getting at least one hit in each game (this statistic can be calculated using his total number of hits in the season, the number of games he played and his number of plate appearances). We simulated a mock version of his 1941 season, using the computer equivalent of a trick coin that comes up heads 81 percent of the time.

But the right question is not how likely it was for DiMaggio to have a 56-game hitting streak in 1941. The question is: How likely was it that anyone in the history of baseball would have achieved a streak that long or longer?

To answer this, our simulation repeated the coin-flipping experiments for every player in the history of the game, for every season in which he played. This is what we mean by a simulation of the entire history of baseball.

To tease out the meaningful lessons from random effects (fluky streaks that happen by luck), we redid the whole thing 10,000 times. In each of these simulated histories, somebody holds the record for the longest hitting streak. We tabulated who that player was, when he did it, and how long his streak was.

And suddenly the unlikely becomes likely: we get a very long streak each time we run baseball history. These results are shown in Figure 1. The streaks ranged from 39 games at the shortest, to a freakish baseball universe where the record was a remarkable (and remarkably rare) 109 games.

More than half the time, or in 5,295 baseball universes, the record for the longest hitting streak exceeded 53 games. Two-thirds of the time, the best streak was between 50 and 64 games.

In other words, streaks of 56 games or longer are not at all an unusual occurrence. Forty-two percent of the simulated baseball histories have a streak of DiMaggio’s length or longer. You shouldn’t be too surprised that someone, at some time in the history of the game, accomplished what DiMaggio did.

The real surprise is when the record was set. Our analysis reveals that 1941 was one of the least likely seasons for such an epic streak to occur.

Figure 2 shows the number of times, out of 10,000 simulations, that the longest streak occurred in a particular year. The likeliest time for the longest streak to have occurred was in the 19th century, back in the misty beginnings of baseball. Or maybe in the 1920s or ’30s.

But not in 1941, or afterward. That season was the miracle year in only 19 of our alternate major-league histories. By comparison, in 1,290 of our baseball universes, or more than a tenth, the record was set in a single year: 1894.

And Joe DiMaggio is nowhere near the likeliest player to hold the record for longest hitting streak in baseball history. He is No. 56 on the list. (Fifty-six? Cue “The Twilight Zone” music.) Two old-timers, Hugh Duffy and Willie Keeler, are the most probable record holders. Between them, they set the record in more than a thousand of the parallel baseball universes. Ty Cobb did it nearly 300 times.

DiMaggio held the record 28 times. Plus once more, when it counted.

On July 23, 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charley Radbourn begins what may be the most remarkable feat in baseball history. "Old Hoss" pledges to pitch every game for the rest of the season if the Grays would agree not to reserve him for the following year. He pitches in nine straight games, winning seven, losing one and tying one. He takes a "day off" and plays right field before returning to pitch six more consecutive games. He plays shortstop for a single game and then pitches in 20 more consecutive games, winning 10 before having his 20-game win streak stopped. He would lead the NL in wins with 60, an ERA of 1.38, innings pitched with 678.2, strikeouts with 441, complete games with 73 and winning percentage with a .833 mark. The Grays would win the pennant by 10½ games over the Boston Beaneaters.

Source

"Delehanty's relatives hint at foul play, but there is nothing in the case, apparently, to bear out such a theory."

I can't find where I've read it now (which makes it a little difficult to say how credible the source was), but supposedly the night watchman was found to have one or two of Delahanty's belongings in his possession.

*

Ping Bodie was known for and by a number of things. However, his real name didn't happen to be one of those.

As you can see above, he was born as Francesco Stephano Pezzolo, which was Americanized to Frank Stephen Bodie. He picked up the "Ping" when he started playing baseball, because it echoed the sound the ball made off of his bat. "Bodie" had become his last name because it was one of the California towns he had lived in, and his uncle had played ball under that surname as well, because Italians weren't always welcome in the game at the time.

Bodie had also lived on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, which led to one of his two interesting nicknames -- "The Rockefeller of Telegraph Hill" -- although I have no idea what the source is for the Rockefeller part. Maybe it was simply because of Bodie's reputation as a braggart.

The other nickname that Bodie picked up in those days before political correctness was "The Wonderful Wop". The fun-loving Bodie was sometimes referred to as the first Italian in the major leagues, although he clearly wasn't. Ed Abbaticchio had reached the majors 14 years earlier, and was the first known major leaguer of Italian ancestry. Both Abbaticchio and Bodie were first generation Americans. However, it is possible that Bodie opened the pipeline of West Coast Italians to the New York Yankees (Lazzeri, Crosetti, DiMaggio).

Bodie is one of a few different players purported to be the inspiration behind Ring Lardner's fictional baseball hero Jack Keefe. Considering Bodie's time with the White Sox, while Lardner covered baseball for the Chicago Tribune, it's probably a bit more credible than some of the other candidates, although Keefe was no doubt an almagamation of sorts.

There are at least two timeless lines associated with Bodie. As Babe Ruth's first roommate with the Yankees, Bodie was once asked what the experience was like, to which he replied, "I don't room with Ruth; I room with his suitcase." Also, when Bodie was retired easily on a stolen base attempt, Bugs Baer wrote: "There was larceny in his heart, but his feet were honest."

*

From CNNSI

Coolbaugh dead at 35
Tulsa Drillers' first base coach killed by line drive

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Tulsa Drillers coach Mike Coolbaugh died Sunday night after being struck in the head by a line drive as he stood in the first-base coach's box during a Texas League game with the Arkansas Travelers, police said.

The game was suspended in the ninth inning after Coolbaugh was struck by a hard-hit foul ball off the bat of Tino Sanchez and taken to Baptist Medical Center-North Little Rock.

Travelers spokesman Phil Elson said Coolbaugh was hit on the right side of his head or on the forehead -- "I'm getting conflicting reports," he said -- and fell to the ground immediately.

According to a report posted on the Drillers' Web site late Sunday, Coolbaugh was knocked unconscious and CPR was administered to him on the field.

Sgt. Terry Kuykendall, spokesman for North Little Rock police, said Coolbaugh was still alive when he was put in an ambulance, but stopped breathing as the ambulance arrived at the hospital.

"They tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at 9:47 p.m.," Kuykendall said.

Coolbaugh, 35, played 44 games in the major leagues for the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers over two seasons. The Drillers' Web site said Coolbaugh joined the Tulsa staff on July 3 as a batting coach. He played for the team briefly in 1996.

Tulsa is a Colorado Rockies affiliate.

A native of Binghamton, N.Y., Coolbaugh went to high school in San Antonio and was drafted in 1990 by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 16th round.

He played third base and bounced around the minors for a decade, before making his major league debut with the Brewers in 2001. He played five more big league games for the Cardinals in 2002. He hit two home runs in 70 major league at-bats.

Coolbaugh's older brother, Scott, also played 167 major league games over parts of four seasons with Texas, San Diego and St. Louis in the early 1990s.

The Travelers, an Angels affiliate, led 7-3 at the time the game was suspended with no outs and a runner on first in the top of the ninth inning. Officials said a date and time for finishing the game had not yet been chosen.

Coolbaugh is survived by his wife, Mandy, and two young sons, Joseph and Jacob. Mandy Coolbaugh is expecting another child in October.

Of all players who have started their careers since 1957 (the first season I can find complete game logs for), it would appear that no one has maintained a higher career batting average than Juan Pierre. In fact, his career average has never been lower at the end of a game than the .300 he's currently sitting on after last night's game.

Pierre singled in his first major league at-bat (which is what trips up most players) in 2000, and was 2-for-5 in the game. He would collect 3 hits over his next 12 at-bats, dropping him to .294 (5-for-17). That's the lowest average of his career, and he only dipped below .300 again a couple of days later when he was 8-for-27 on the season (.296). His .310 average at the end of the season was actually the lowest batting average he ever had at the completion of any game.

Pierre's current career batting average is .3004. If he goes hitless in his next six at-bats, it would technically drop below .300, but he would have to go hitless in his next 14 at-bats before it would round down to .299.

*

I can't believe I screwed this up. I swear I looked up his first game to verify that he had a hit in his first at bat. That pretty much invalidates everything in my first post. Nevermind...

Is that a record? Who would have a shot at beating that?

Joel

Nolan Ryan's seven no-hitters:

May 15th, 1973
July 15th, 1973
September 28th, 1974
June 1st, 1975
September 28th, 1981
June 11th, 1990
May 1st, 1991

Wally Berger is the only starter (out of eighteen) from the 1934 All-Star Game who is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The other 17 starters and the year that they were inducted into the Hall of Fame:

Joe Cronin - (1956)
Bill Dickey - (1954)
Jimmie Foxx - (1951)
Lou Gehrig - (1939)
Charlie Gehringer - (1949)
Lefty Gomez - (1972)
Heinie Manush - (1964)
Babe Ruth - (1936)
Al Simmons - (1953)
Frankie Frisch - (1947)
Gabby Hartnett - (1955)
Carl Hubbell - (1947)
Travis Jackson - (1982)
Joe Medwick - (1968)
Bill Terry - (1954)
Pie Traynor - (1948)
Kiki Cuyler - (1968)

Mike Greenwell holds the record for most RBI's in a game (nine), where one player accounted for all of his team's RBI's.

box score