New information discovered about missing ballplayer Jack Dalton
From David Sturm at the Baltimore Sun on March 20, 2012, with mention of SABR member Al Quimby:
New information has surfaced about Tolbert Percy “Jack” Dalton, a one-time Catonsville resident who disappeared in 1948.
A researcher of baseball history has discovered the missing man’s death certificate, which shows that Dalton, who once played major league ball, died in a Pittsburgh hospital of a heart ailment on Feb. 17, 1950.
Some accounts, including an article in the Catonsville Times in 2004, have said that Dalton was living in Catonsville when he vanished on July 4, 1948, but it is now evident he moved in 1947 to Emmitsburg, in western Maryland.
According to the Emmitsburg Area Historical Society, Dalton had lived there for a year, having taken a job as editor for the Emmitsburg Chronicle newspaper.
There are very few deceased major league baseball players for whom the time and place of their death is not known, but Dalton was one of them. Prior to the discovery of Dalton’s death certificate, A small group of investigators belonging to the Society for American Baseball Research had been trying for decades to solve mystery of Dalton’s disappearance.
Baseball researcher Al Quimby, of Tennessee, discovered the death certificate when the State of Pennsylvania recently opened access to death records prior to 1961. The records show that a Tolbert Dalton, age 64, died of a heart ailment at Allegheny General Hospital.
Read the full article here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/baltimorecounty/sports/ph-ca-jack-dalton-0321-20120320,0,33116.story
Originally published: March 23, 2012. Last Updated: March 23, 2012.