Samuel Newhall Crane (January 2, 1854 – June 26, 1925) was an American second baseman 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), ...

born in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

. Crane played for eight different major league teams during his seven-year career that spanned from to . During two of those seasons, he acted as a

player-manager A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the s ...

, once for the 1880

Buffalo Bisons The Buffalo Bisons (known colloquially as the Herd) are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Located in Buffalo, New York, the team plays their home games at Sahlen Fiel ...

of the

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 ...

and the

Cincinnati Outlaw Reds The Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of 1884, also called the Cincinnati Unions, were a member of the short-lived Union Association. One of the league's best teams, they finished third with a record of 69-36. The team was owned by former Cincinnati Stars a ...

of the short-lived

Union Association The Union Association was a league in Major League Baseball which lasted for just the 1884 season. St. Louis won the pennant and joined the National League the following season. Seven of the twelve teams who were in the Association at some poi ...

Career

His career ended when he was arrested after having an affair with the wife of a fruit dealer and stealing $1,500 from the husband. After his playing days, Sam had a long and distinguished career as a

sportswriter Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the n ...

. In , when he was writing for the ''New York Advertiser'', he had become the center of a controversy when he wrote an article that harshly criticized the owner of the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

Andrew Freedman Andrew Freedman (September 1, 1860 – December 4, 1915) was an American businessman who is primarily remembered as the owner of the New York Giants professional baseball team of the National League from 1895 to 1902. He also briefly owned the ...

. Freedman, upon learning of existence of the article, barred Sam from entering the

Polo Grounds The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...

. When Crane showed up for the August 16 game, he learned that his season pass was taken and his efforts to purchase a ticket were foiled. It was his connection to baseball as a player, manager, and sportswriter that lent credibility to his assertion that Cooperstown, New York be the location for a "memorial" to the great players from the past. Cooperstown was, at the time, the place that many people believed where

Abner Doubleday Abner Doubleday (June 26, 1819 – January 26, 1893) was a career United States Army officer and Union major general in the American Civil War. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter, the opening battle of the war, and had a p ...

had invented the game of baseball. It was this idea of a memorial that eventually led to the creation of the

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

in . Crane died at the age of 71 of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

in New York City, and is interred at the Lutheran All Faith Cemetery in

Middle Village, New York Middle Village is a mainly residential neighborhood in the central section of the borough of Queens, New York City, bounded to the north by the Long Island Expressway, to the east by Woodhaven Boulevard, to the south by Cooper Avenue and the forme ...

.Baseball-Almanac player page
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References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crane, Sam 1854 births 1925 deaths 19th-century baseball players Baseball players from Springfield, Massachusetts Major League Baseball second basemen Buffalo Bisons (NL) players Buffalo Bisons (NL) managers New York Metropolitans players Cincinnati Outlaw Reds players Detroit Wolverines players St. Louis Maroons players Washington Nationals (1886–1889) players New York Giants (NL) players Pittsburgh Alleghenys players Sportswriters from New York (state) Lowell (minor league baseball) players Rochester (minor league baseball) players Springfield (minor league baseball) players Worcester Grays players Indianapolis Hoosiers (minor league) players Scranton Miners players Kansas City Cowboys (minor league) players Lynn Lions players Major League Baseball player-managers Deaths from pneumonia in New York City Sportswriters from Massachusetts

Career

See also

References

External links