Happy Hogan (born Wallace Louis Bray, formal baseball name Wallace Louis Hogan; 1877–1915) was an American minor league baseball catcher and manager in the early 20th century. He is a member of the

Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

Hogan was born on October 13, 1877, in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...

. He played at

Santa Clara College Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

and then the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

(USC), captaining the

USC Trojans The USC Trojans are the College athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC), located in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. While the men's teams are nicknamed the ' ...

to a championship. He first played professionally in 1901 in the 1899–1902 iteration of the

California League The California League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in California. Having been classified at various levels throughout its existence, it operated at Class A-Advanced from 1990 until its demotion to Single-A following Major Leag ...

. His team, the

Sacramento Solons The Sacramento Solons were a minor league baseball team based in Sacramento, California. They played in the Pacific Coast League during several periods (1903, 1905, 1909–1914, 1918–1960, 1974–1976). The current Sacramento River Cats began pl ...

, moved to the

Pacific Coast League The Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Western United States. Along with the International League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A level, which is one grade bel ...

(PCL) as a founding member in 1903, and Hogan remained in the PCL for the rest of his career. He played through the 1914 season, serving as a player-manager 1909–1914. Hogan changed his last name, at least for baseball purposes, from Bray to hide his participation in the then–somewhat–déclassé profession of baseball from his father. Although Hogan was a very poor hitter (his lifetime

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

is .180 and

slugging average In baseball statistics, slugging percentage (SLG) is a measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats, through the following formula, where ''AB'' is the number of at bats for a given player, a ...

is .217), he was a good catcher, had a scrappy larger-than-life personality and was a well-known figure in the beginning days of the PCL, was the longest-serving player from the PCL's founding year (1903–1914), and managed the Vernon/Venice Tigers (1909–1915), dying in harness. He was selected to the league's hall of fame either in 1943 or at some unknown point between 1943 and 1958 (detailed records have not been kept). After Hogan took over the manager's chair of the Vernon Tigers in 1909, newspapers sometimes called the team "Hogan's Tigers". As a manager, Hogan was an advocate of the controversial innovation of uniform numbers. Hogan contracted pneumonia and died on May 17, 1915 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

at age 37.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hogan, Happy Sacramento (minor league baseball) players Vernon Tigers players 1877 births 1915 deaths Sportspeople from Santa Clara, California Deaths from pneumonia in California