Stan Benjamin, a former big league infielder/outfielder who worked in the Houston Astros organization for nearly forty years, passed away this month at the age of 95.

The long time scout lodged a career .229 average in five seasons with the Phillies and Indians. He was an everyday player for the Phillies in 1941, and ranked second in the Senior Circuit with 17 stolen bases.

The oldest living Yankee, outfielder Tommy Henrich, passed away earlier this month at the age of 96.

A five time All-Star who played eleven seasons in the sun with the Yankees between 1937-1950, Tommy helped win four World Series titles for the Bronx Bombers. His best season came in 1948 when he hit .308 with 25 homers and a league leading 138 runs scored.

A great guy off the field too, Tommy “came pretty close in character and performance to being the ideal Yankee,” said New York Times columnist Arthur Daley.

Check out this great article about “Old Reliable” in the Washington Post.

Bert Shephard, the star of one of baseball’s most dramatic stories, has passed away at the age of 87. 

Bert was pitching in the minors when, in 1942, he put his baseball career on hold to join the Air Force and serve in World War II. On May 21st, 1944, Bert set out on what he hoped would be his 34th successful mission flying a P-38 fighter plane. Unfortunately, he was shot down in enemy territory and woke up in a German hospital to find that his right leg had been amputated below the knee.

Once Bert recovered he was transferred to the Stalag IX-C prison camp at Meiningen in central Germany. While there he longed to play catch with the other prisoners so, with the help of a Canadian medic and fellow prisoner, he crafted a make-shift artificial leg. Soon he was able to play catch and found that the ball still left his left hand with great speed.

Upon returning to the States in 1945 thanks to a Prisoner of War exchange, Bert met Undersecretary of War Robert Patterson at an Army medical center and told him that if he couldn’t fly combat missions, he wanted to play baseball again.

Patterson persuaded Clark Griffith, the then owner of the Washington Senators, to arrange a tryout for Bert. After the try-out he was signed “out of sympathy more than anything else,” Bert told the Los Angeles Times in 1973. “You know, ‘give him a uniform and a ball to play with over in the corner.’ ”

Bert was initially entrusted with duties no greater than pitching in exhibition games and during batting practice, but he eventually impressed the Senators enough to be put on the active roster. His big chance came on August 4th, 1945, in a game the Red Sox were blowing out 14-2. Bert took the hill with the bases loaded and two outs in the third and promptly struck out the first batter he faced to end the inning. He would pitch the rest of the game and finish having surrendered only one run in 5 1/3rd innings.

This would be Bert’s only major league appearance as the war soon ended and many major leaguers returned to reclaim their roster spots. Bert later played with a team of traveling all-stars in 1946, and in the minors.

After hangin’ ‘em up Bert sold typewriters for IBM before becoming a safety engineer. To this day he is believed to be the only amputee ever to play in the Show, and left behind a spiffy 1.69 career E.R.A.

The Los Angeles Times ran a very interesting obituary on Bert with lots more information. Check it out here. Another fascinating article tells the true story of baseball players like Bert who were prisoners of war in World War II.                                                     

Our former Big League heroes don’t always leave this mortal coil with the dignity they deserve. Cory Lidle crashed his plane into a high rise building in Manhattan, Bo Diaz fell off his roof while installing a satellite dish, and poor Ray Chapman faded to black after being hit by a pitch. As bad as these deaths were, however, they likely were more pleasant than the ones suffered by the players below.  So with no further adieu, let’s take a look at seven former Major Leaguers who were sent to the big show in the sky after having been murdered.  

Hiram Bithorn: The right handed hurler became the first player from Puerto Rico to play in the Major Leagues when he made his debut with the Cubs on April 15^th, 1942. Hiram won nine games that year before having a dynamite season in 1943 when he went 18-12 with a 2.60 ERA and a league leading seven shutouts. That campaign was the pinnacle of his career as, after spending the next two years overseas fighting in World War II, he returned to the Cubs much heavier and without the same zip on his fastball. He went 6-5 in 1946, then pitched only two innings with the 1947 White Sox before retiring with arm issues.

A few years later Hiram made an ill-fated decision to attempt a comeback in the Mexican winter leagues. He was throwing serviceably when, on December 30^th, 1951, a police officer shot and killed him under mysterious circumstances. The officer initially claimed that Hiram had been violent and screaming that he was part of a “Communist cell,” but this claim was later proven untrue and the officer went to jail. Hiram has since been honored by his homeland of Puerto Rico where the biggest ballpark on the island, Hiram Bithorn Stadium, is named after him.

Luke Easter: Like Butch Cassidy, James Dean, or even Princess Di, Luke was a legendary figure whose biography would seem strange if it didn’t end in a manner as epic as his life. Born anywhere between 1911 and 1921 (Luke’s actual birth date was harder to pin down than that of an aging socialite), the hulking first baseman never once heard the word “steroid” but was bigger than Mark McGwire nonetheless. After hitting epic home runs in sandlot and semi-pro games, Luke went on to play in the Negro Leagues where, as a member of the Homestead Grays, he hit .363 and lead the league in both homers and RBIs in 1948. The next year he joined the Cleveland Indians and, from 1950 -1952, average 29 homers and 100 RBIs per season. Injuries took their toll on the aging slugger, however, and after a year and a half more with the Indians he was sent to play for the San Diego Padres (Cleveland’s then AAA club). Luke never made it back up to the Majors, but he continued to play in the minors for nearly a decade and hit many more tape measure homers. In fact, when a fan told Luke he had seen his longest blast ever, Luke replied, “If it came down it wasn’t my longest.”

After hangin’ ‘em up around the age of fifty Luke went to work in Ohio as chief union steward for the Aircraft Workers Alliance at TRW. On March 29^th, 1979, Luke, while carrying $5,000 in company funds, was confronted by two men who insisted he hand over the money. Luke refused and was shot twice in the chest. He was dead upon arrival at the hospital at what was believed to be 63 years of age.  

Lymon Bostock: The murder of this young outfielder from Birmingham, Alabama, could be considered the saddest of this bunch (although they are all sad). Lymon, whose dad was a Negro League star, attracted interest from Big League teams following two great years at Cal State Northridge that saw him take his team to the 1972 College World Series. He was drafted in the 26^th round by the Twins and decided to turn pro, a decision that proved smart when the then twenty-four year old made the Twins’ roster in 1975 and hit .282 in ninety-eight games.  Things were only looking up for Lymon who hit .323, and then .336 with 90 RBIs, in the next two seasons. He joined the Angels as a free agent in 1978, and, after a lousy start, offered to give his salary back to the then Angels’ owner Gene Autry. Autry refused, so Lymon gave his April salary to charity. He finished the year with a less than shabby .296 average, and stepped off a Big League field for the last time with a very impressive career average of .311. Following the last game of the year against the White Sox (a game in which he went 2-4), the twenty-seven year old went to visit his uncle in Gary, Indiana. Following a dinner with a group of people, he climbed into the backseat of a car with a woman he had only met twenty minutes earlier. Minutes later the woman’s estranged husband, Leonard Smith, approached the car Lymon was in and, as it idled at a light, fired three shots inside hoping to kill his wife. He killed Lymon instead. Smith served less than two years in jail and was released on the basis that he had committed his crime while mentally ill.                                   

Tony Solaita: The only Major Leaguer ever to originate from American Samoa, Tony had played more cricket than baseball when, as an eight year old, his father moved the family to Hawaii so that he could join the Marines. The military life later took the family to California where Tony quickly made a name for himself as a slugger. The Yankees drafted Tony in 1965 and, following a season in which he hit 49 homers at AAA, he was called up to the Big Club. Tony never played much in the Bigs though, despite having a fine season in 1975 when he hit sixteen homers in just 231 at bats for the Kansas City Royals. Tony went on to play in Japan following the 1979 season where he smacked 155 homers in just four seasons. After hangin’ ‘em up in 1984 Tony made the surprise decision to return to his native American Samoa even though he hadn’t been back there in thirty years. Tony acquired some land and spent a lot of time helping to revitalize Little League baseball on the island before an unstable man by the name of Tapu arrived from San Francisco where he had been on welfare. Tapu, after not receiving any land from the local chiefs, vandalized Tony’s land in a fit of anger. Tony, upon confronting Tapu, was shot four times by Tapu. Public Safety workers took Tony to the hospital as fast as possible, but he was dead on arrival at the age of 43. 

Gus Polidor: Gus, like his fellow Venezuelan coutrymen Omar Vizquel and Luis Aparicio, was a slick fielding shortstop who played seven big league seasons between 1985 and 1993 with the Angels, Brewers, and Marlins. Gus’ best season came in 1987 when he hit .263 in a career high 137 at bats. The career .207 hitter made a brief comeback with the Reds during Spring Training in 1995 before returning to his country. On April 28th, 1995, the thirty-three year old was murdered in Caracas when two men attempted to steal his car.

Ivan Calderon: The native of Fajardo, Puerto Rico was sometimes called “Ivan the Terrible,” but it certainly wasn’t for anything he did on the field. The speedy outfielder hit .293 with 28 homers for the 1987 White Sox, then made the All-Star team in 1991 with the Expos after hitting .300 with 19 homers and 31 stolen bases. Injuries took a toll on his career over the next couple of years and, following a lackluster season with the Red Sox, he retired at the young age of thirty-one. Ten years later a forty-one year old Ivan was in a store when two people entered and, without a word, shot him seven times in the back, killing him. Police later announced that they believed the shooting may have been mafia related, but did not explain how Ivan ended up on their hit list.  

Dernell Stenton: One of eight children, the left-handed outfielder born in 1978 was drafted by Red Sox in the third round following a stellar high school career in Georgia. He left the Red Sox as a six year free agent after getting no higher than AAA Pawtucket, then signed with the Reds for the 2003 season. After a stellar AAA campaign the twenty-five year old Dernell was called up to the Bigs in September and hit .247 with three homers. That off-season, in hopes of bettering his chances of making the Reds’ club out of spring training, he agreed to represent the organization in the Arizona Fall League. Sadly, on November 5^th, 2003, Dernell was found dead as result of what initially appeared to be a carjacking. The crime was strange, however, as Dernell was found bound, shot in the head, and then run over with his own SUV. This, of course, indicated darker motives were afoot. Police initially focused on his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Gaddis, who had sent him text messages including one that read: “U better pray I never see U again. I swear Dernell U R worth a murder charge 4 & that is all U R worth.” She had also acted strangely previously and even had faked a pregnancy to attract Dernell’s attention. Nevertheless, she was eventually deemed not to have been involved. Dernell’s death, therefore, is still mysterious. Four men were eventually arrested and found guilty. The Arizona Fall League now offers an award in Dernell’s honor that recognizes his qualities of perseverance and humility. The Reds’ AA Chattanooga Lookouts also retired Dernell’s number.

Geremi Gonzalez, the former Cubs’ pitcher who won eleven games as a twenty-two year old in 1997, died Sunday after being struck by lightning on a beach in his homeland of Venezuela. He was just 33.

Geremi suffered the first of a series of arm injuries part way through the 1998 season that kept him out of Major League baseball for five long seasons. He never gave up though, and finally pitched again in 2003 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He finished that season with six wins and a very respectable 3.91 E.R.A.  

The tall righthander would go on to pitch for the Red Sox, Mets, and Brewers before being released by the Blue Jays during spring training in 2006. He later pitched in Japan for the Yomiuri Giants in 2007. His final record in the majors was 30-35.

Brewers’ manager Ned Yost, who managed Geremi in 2006, said, “He was so much fun to be around… He was just one of those guys that when he saw you he always had a smile on his face.”