Alonzo P. "Lon" Knight, born Alonzo P. Letti (June 16, 1853 – April 23, 1932), was an American

right fielder A right fielder, abbreviated RF, is the outfielder in baseball or softball who plays defense in right field. Right field is the area of the outfield to the right of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the ...

, right-handed

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. He threw the first pitch in the first game played in the new

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

on April 22, 1876.

Early life and education

He was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and attended

Girard College Girard College is an independent college preparatory five-day boarding school located on a 43-acre campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The school was founded and permanently endowed from the shipping and banking fortune of Stephen Girard upon h ...

at age 9 after his father died of typhoid fever. At Girard College, he changed his last name from Letti to Knight possibly to avoid ethnic hostility toward Italians. After graduation, he worked for a brief time as an accountant.

Career

He began playing with the

Philadelphia Athletics The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, the team became the Oaklan ...

in when the team was in the National Association, then stayed with them when they joined the National League in 1876. When the team folded after the 1876 season, he did not play in the major leagues again until 1880, when he joined the

Worcester Ruby Legs The Worcester Worcesters were a 19th-century Major League Baseball team from 1880 to 1882 in the National League. The team is referred to, at times, as the Brown Stockings or the Ruby Legs; however, no contemporary sources from the time exist tha ...

of the NL for one season, and the

Detroit Wolverines The Detroit Wolverines were a 19th-century Major League Baseball team that played in the National League from 1881 to 1888 in the city of Detroit, Michigan. In total, they won 426 games and lost 437, taking their lone pennant (and winning the pre ...

for two. In , he was named the manager of the

of the

American Association American Association may refer to: Baseball * American Association (1882–1891), a major league active from 1882 to 1891 * American Association (1902–1997), a minor league active from 1902 to 1962 and 1969 to 1997 * American Association of Profe ...

, and the team won the league pennant with Knight also playing right field. In 1884 the team fell back to seventh place in a 13-team league. He finished his career in

1885 Events January–March * January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam. * January 4 – ...

when he split the season between the Athletics and the

Providence Grays The Providence Grays were a Major League Baseball team based in Providence, Rhode Island who played in the National League from until . The Grays played at the Messer Street Grounds in the Olneyville neighborhood. The team won the National Leagu ...

. On May 21, 1880, he was playing right field at Riverside Park in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

when

Lip Pike Lipman Emanuel "Lip" Pike (May 25, 1845 – October 10, 1893) the "Iron Batter", was an American who was one of the stars of 19th-century baseball in the United States. His brother, Israel Pike, played briefly for the Hartford Dark Blues during ...

hit a ball over the fence and into the river. Few parks at the time had ground rules concerning balls hit over the fence. It was not an automatic

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

, so Knight pursued the ball in a boat, eventually giving up. On July 30, 1883, Knight "

hit for the cycle In baseball, hitting for the cycle is the accomplishment of one batter who hits a single, a double, a triple, and a home run in the same game. Collecting the hits in that order is known as a "natural cycle". Cycles are rare in Major League Ba ...

" against Pittsburgh and is credited with the first ever natural-cycle in baseball. After Knight's playing career ended, he was an

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

for several seasons; his most active year was 1890, when he officiated 123 games in the

Players' League The Players' National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, popularly known as the Players' League (PL), was a short-lived but star-studded professional American baseball league of the 19th century. The PL was formed by the Brotherhood of Prof ...

. He umpired a total of 212 major league games. Knight died of poisoning at age 78 in Philadelphia when the

gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

line to the heater in his house leaked. He is interred at

Laurel Hill Cemetery Laurel Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia. Founded in 1836, it was the second major rural cemetery in the United States after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts. The cemetery is ...

in an unmarked grave in Section H, Lot 63–64.

References

External links

, o
Retrosheet
* *
Lon Knight
at

SABR The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball primarily through the use of statistics. Established in Cooperstown, New ...

(Baseball BioProject) {{DEFAULTSORT:Knight, Lon 1853 births 1932 deaths 19th-century baseball players Accidental deaths in Pennsylvania American people of Italian descent Baseball managers Baseball players from Philadelphia Binghamton Crickets (1880s) players Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia) Deaths by poisoning Detroit Wolverines players Lowell (minor league baseball) players Major League Baseball pitchers Major League Baseball player-managers Major League Baseball right fielders Philadelphia Athletics (AA) managers Philadelphia Athletics (AA) players Philadelphia Athletics (NA) players Philadelphia Athletics (NL) players Providence Grays players Rochester Maroons players Worcester Grays players Worcester Ruby Legs players

Early life and education

Career

See also

References

External links