Bill Breckinridge

Born in what is now Oklahoma shortly before it became a state, Bill Breckinridge was a right-handed pitcher who appeared in three games for the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics. A Dartmouth College standout, Breckinridge was one of many ballplayers that manager Connie Mack brought directly to the big leagues from an institute of higher learning. Breckinridge also shared a last name and bloodline with five U.S. Congressmen and two U.S. Senators, one of whom was the nation’s 14th Vice President.

Rostered but unused in the A’s World Series triumph over the Chicago Cubs, Breckinridge was voted a full share from the players’ bonus pool, nonetheless. When he was given a minor league assignment the following spring, Breckinridge retired instead and returned to college. For years after, the Depression-era press – and at least one prominent former teammate – took exception to his quitting after reeling in a signing bonus, full season’s salary, and World Series money for 10 innings of work.

Done with professional baseball at the age of 22, Breckinridge became a lawyer. As might be expected for the product of a family that included multiple high-ranking military officers as well as politicians, Breckinridge spent over two years in the U.S. Army during World War II; previously he ran for Congress. Along the way he raised a family during a rollercoaster marriage with the daughter of Oklahoma philanthropist Waite Phillips – the couple twice divorced and then remarried.

***

William Robertson Breckinridge was born on October 27 – either in 1907, or possibly as early as1905 – to Maurice A. and Julia Breckinridge (née Robertson) in what is now Tulsa, Oklahoma. Breckinridge’s Sporting News contract card lists 1905 as his year of birth and his death certificate claims he entered the world in 1906, but a 1932 marriage license, World War II military registration, and headstone all indicate a 1907 birth. This pattern suggests that Breckinridge might have trimmed his age after leaving the professional ranks.1

From a Scottish family that came to America in the 1730s, Maurice was the son of George William Breckinridge (1847-1911), a Virginia judge claimed to have been the youngest captain in the Confederate Army. William’s great-great-great-grandfather, Robert Breckenridge (1720-1772) sired John Breckinridge (1760-1806),2 a U.S. Senator from Kentucky and Attorney General under Thomas Jefferson, who in turn was the grandfather of John Cabell Breckinridge (1821-1875), U.S. Vice President during the Buchanan administration. Staunchly pro-slavery, John Cabell was one of two Democratic candidates on the 1860 presidential ballot after pro-slavery delegates at the National Convention refused to support Stephen A. Douglas. Breckinridge lost the general election, finishing second to Republican Abraham Lincoln.3

Possessed of more earthly ambitions than his Kentucky kin, Maurice studied law at Virginia’s Washington and Lee University, where he pitched for the school’s baseball team.4 Admitted to the bar in New York, Maurice settled in 1905 in what was known as Indian Territory.5 Two years later, he was elected Tulsa’s first county attorney. He was sworn into office on November 19, 1907, the day that neighboring Indian and Oklahoma Territories were combined to form the nation’s 46th state.6

In 1909, the Breckinridges had their second child, a daughter named Anne. Julia died in 1916 from complications after a tonsillectomy, after which Maurice, by then a superior court judge and prominent member of Tulsa society, married the former Mrs. A. F. Burton.7

Breckinridge’s parents initially enrolled him at Tulsa’s Central High School, where he played football and baseball for an unofficial team that represented the school, then sent him off to the Culver Military Academy, a boarding school in Culver, Indiana.8  The alma mater of New York Yankees managing partner George Steinbrenner and two sons who followed in his footsteps, Culver in the early 1920s was a national sports powerhouse.9 Between 1922 and 1923 alone, Culver finished second in the academy division of a national high school track and field meet held in Chicago, topped all academy teams for the national indoor rifle championship, and won the football “‘prep’ championship of the Midwest.”10 So dominant was the football team, it took to playing, and usually beating, college freshman teams.

Pitching for the school’s baseball team, Breckinridge shut out Loyola Academy of Chicago in the 1924 season finale, and his 13 strikeouts against another Chicago school the next year drew notice in the Chicago Tribune.11  Yet it was Breckinridge’s play on the gridiron, where for two years he was CMA’s starting quarterback, that generated the most big-city newspaper ink. In November 1924, the Cincinnati Enquirer highlighted his game-winning touchdown in a win over Butler University’s freshman team, and a year later after Breckinridge led Culver to victory over an Indiana junior college, the Indianapolis Times called him an “outstanding star.”12 Back home, the Tulsa Tribune labeled Breckinridge a “flashy little field general” and remarked how his “coolness under fire was noticeable.”13

Breckinridge graduated from Culver in the spring of 1926 and enrolled the next fall at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. At the school’s football team’s winter “practise [sic]” he was listed as a right guard, but by fall was considered a “light” backfielder.14 One later report identified Breckinridge as an end with All-American potential.15 Ineligible to play football as a sophomore due to what he termed “my scholastic standing,”16 Breckinridge took part that academic year in a decidedly more violent competition.

Interclass rivalries, particularly between freshman and sophomore classes, were common in American colleges in the 1920s, as they had been since the mid-1800s. Often fueled by a strong sense of class identity, these rivalries played out in activities that ranged from organized games to violent skirmishes.17  When a group of Dartmouth freshmen raised their class banner on the school’s flagpole in mid-April 1928, a number of sophomores tried to stop them. The leader of that second-year group – future U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller – was pummeled, triggering a town-wide melee that forced the local citizenry to flee and sent many students “to the college hospital unconscious.”18 Breckinridge was hailed as the “Hero of Dartmouth” by the Tulsa World for “feats with his fists in defense of his class honors.”19

Three days later, Breckinridge pounded Boston College with his bat, homering for the Dartmouth baseball team in a Patriots’ Day win.20 The starting pitcher that day for coach Jeff Tesreau, a former New York Giants spitballer,21 Breckinridge  didn’t get credit for the win but finished the season 7-1. Several of those wins came via shutout, one of which (against Tufts University) featured 15 Breckinridge punchouts.22 Undefeated against collegiate foes, Breckinridge’s only loss came against a team of Marines stationed in Quantico, Virginia. The New York Daily News identified the 1928 crop of college pitchers as one of the best ever, and listed Breckinridge alongside future major leaguers Art Smith, Johnny Murphy, Ray Dobens, Russ Van Atta, John Shea, Ed Wineapple, and others as “a set of pitchers whose equal will be hard to find.”23

Two years at Dartmouth was enough for Breckinridge and so he transferred to the University of Oklahoma before the fall of 1928.24 Removed from the East Coast but not forgotten, Breckinridge was pursued by the St. Louis Browns and Detroit Tigers before signing with one of Connie Mack’s scouts, Mike Drennan, in February 1929.25 Drennan had seen Breckinridge shut out Harvard the previous spring, and rated him major-league ready, with a “good curve” to back up his fastball and “rare pitching intelligence.”26

Perhaps no major league manager of the early 20th century placed more importance on a ballplayer’s intelligence than Mack did. As sabermetrician Bill James put it, “[h]e preferred educated players [who were] self-directed, self-discipled and self-motivated.” Many of those Mack, or his scouts, found on college campuses.27 Mack’s World Series champions of 1910, 1911, and 1913 each included two former collegians in the rotation, Jack Coombs (Colby College) and Charles Bender (Carlisle), and a college-educated double play combination: Eddie Collins (Columbia) and Jack Barry (Holy Cross).28 The 1928 A’s counted Collins as their captain and former Boston University undergraduate Mickey Cochrane as their stellar young catcher.  

Breckinridge was one of several former college pitchers/football players trying to make the A’s roster during 1929 spring training in Florida. He had to sit out the start of camp after taking a line drive off a knee, but made a big impression in his first outing.29  After only one St. Louis Cardinal batter reached base off Breckinridge over three innings, the Fort Myers Press called him “a bright spot in the sky.”30 James C. Isaminger of the Philadelphia Inquirer described Breckinridge as “a purposeful youth with skill, courage and poise,” and noted that Mack, Collins, and coach Kid Gleason all “like[d] his peak manners.”31 Gleason, manager of the infamous 1919 Chicago Black Sox, saw Breckinridge as very different from his peers. “He seems to know that a pitcher ought to throw at the plate and that a plate has corners. Most college pitchers you see are out there on the mound trying to fool the batter.”32

The Athletics broke camp in early April with “Breck,” as his teammates called him, and three other rookie hurlers in tow.33 Nine weeks into the season, Breck had yet to appear in a game that counted. The others – George Malicky, Arthur Jones, and Roger (later “Doc”) Cramer – were all gone without having appeared in a regulation game.34 Breckinridge started and pitched four innings in an exhibition game in New Bedford, Massachusetts, but mostly just pitched batting practice as the A’s pulled ahead of the rest of the American League.35

When the Athletics brought only four pitchers to Washington D.C. for a single game with the Senators on Sunday, June 30, Breckinridge finally got his chance.36 With the A’s down 12-2 and the other three hurlers (Jack Quinn, Carroll Yerkes and Eddie Rommel) battered out of the game, Mack brought in Breckinridge for the last two frames. He allowed two earned runs on one hit and four walks, the runs scoring on a Sam West double.37

Over the next two months, Breckinridge sat idle as the A’s built a double-digit-game lead over the second-place Yankees and kept it there. He made his second appearance on September 1, allowing three runs on three hits and seven walks over four innings on the tail end of another Griffith Stadium drubbing administered by the Senators. In that outing, Breckinridge recorded his first strikeout, against little-used first baseman Harley Boss.

Breckinridge’s third and final appearance for the A’s came at Shibe Park on September 21, in the club’s final home game. By that time, Philadelphia had secured its first pennant in 15 years, and Mack was turning his attention to the team’s upcoming World Series opponent, the National League champion Chicago Cubs. With his charges one win shy of 100, a level the franchise had last reached in 1911, Mack gave Breckinridge the start opposite George Uhle and the sixth-place Tigers. Breckinridge lasted four innings, surrendering five runs (four earned) on six hits, five walks and a run-scoring wild pitch. He also reached base for the only time in his career, on a second-inning error by shortstop Bill Akers. Down 5-3 when Breckinridge left, the A’s rallied to win 10-7.

The meager stats that Breckinridge compiled during the season weren’t anything to write home about (0-0, 8.10 ERA, with 16 walks and 2 strikeouts in 10 innings over three appearances), but that didn’t stop the Tulsa World from singing his praises. After Breckinridge’s decidedly mediocre second appearance, the World claimed that he had twirled a scoreless dandy (which he hadn’t). The paper also wove a tale involving Breckinridge’s father and Mack’s son, suggesting that the A’s skipper believed Breckinridge was the best pitching prospect in the league; superior even to rookie Wes Ferrell of the Boston Red Sox, who was well on his way to a 21-win season.38

On the A’s roster for the World Series, Breckinridge watched the team’s five-game triumph from the sidelines, but he did more than just spectate. The World published three articles under Breckinridge’s byline that purported to “tell of [his] innermost thoughts of the A’s” in the waning days of the season, and “his gleanings” once play in the Fall Classic began.39  It’s impossible to know whether the articles were ghostwritten, like those syndicated under Babe Ruth’s name in the 1920s, but they did include some interesting observations. Take Game One, in which surprise starter Howard Ehmke recorded a World Series-record 13 strikeouts in a 3-1 win. Breckinridge (or his ghost-writer) called it “the most thrilling and suspense providing exhibition” that wizened veterans Gleason and Collins had ever seen. He also wrongly judged that Philadelphia’s 24-game winner George Earnshaw would be “the arsenic in the Cubs coffee” ahead of the hurler’s shaky Game Two victory and solid but not-good-enough Game Three loss.40

When it came time to distribute their cut of the World Series bonus pool, A’s players agreed to award 24 full shares to members of the World Series roster, including Breckinridge. His share, $5,821.30, was nearly double the $3,000 salary (roughly $55,000 in 2025 dollars) that he earned for the six-month regular season.41 That money would soon come in handy. Before the month was out, financial chaos on Black Friday effectively ended the Roaring ’20s and tipped the country into the Great Depression.

Unlike the bank accounts of most Americans, the Athletics’ pitching staff was blessed with abundance heading into the spring of 1930.

• Frontline starters Earnshaw, Lefty Grove, and Rube Walberg were back, ready to defend the A’s crown.
• Second-year man Bill Shores had earned more playing time.
• Pacific Coast League 21-game winner Roy Mahaffey had been added in the offseason.
• Old hands Quinn, Ehmke, and Rommel were back to fill in where needed.

As a result, Mack had no need for Breckinridge and told him to report to Double-A Portland in the PCL.42 Sensing that he had a brighter future in the law, Breckinridge refused. He chose to retire instead and finish his schooling back home in Oklahoma.43

Two weeks later, the Wilkes-Barre Evening News became the first of dozens of newspapers to note, in either prose or cartoon form, how good baseball had been to Breckinridge. The Evening News claimed that he had taken in $15,000 – a $5,000 bonus for signing, $5,000 in salary, and $5,000 more in World Series money, for “work[ing] less than nine innings in the box.”44

One can quibble with the anonymous author rounding down Breckinridge’s World Series share, guessing at his unpublished salary, and artfully reducing his game action to less than the length of a game. Even so, earning anything close to $15,000, the 2025 equivalent of over $285,000, for so little toil would have been viewed at that time with a mix of jealousy and disgust by many Americans.45 More than seven years after last wearing an A’s uniform, Breckinridge’s financial windfall earned him what one Tennessee sportswriter called former teammate Cochrane’s choice “for the big league bench warming prize.”46

Over the next few years, as Breckinridge completed his studies, he took up tennis, served as a regatta timekeeper, and found time to pitch for teams in a Tulsa sandlot circuit known as the Petroleum League.47 He earned a law degree from the University of Tulsa Law School, and in 1933 was admitted to the Oklahoma bar.48

In August of that year, the Tulsa Oilers of the Class A Texas League sought to have Breckinridge pitch for them in a league game against rival Oklahoma City. Believing that Breckinridge had been put on a suspended-but-eligible-to-be-reinstated list when he retired, the club sought Mack’s permission to roster him. As it turned out, Breckinridge had been declared ineligible, the same designation that Organized Baseball applied to ballplayers banned for gambling. Mack told Oilers management that his hands were tied in that ineligible players by rule could not be reinstated after the end of July.49

Denied the chance to be a Tulsa Oiler, Breckinridge had better luck courting the progeny of one. In December 1932 he married Helen Jane Phillips, daughter of Waite Phillips, a Tulsa philanthropist. Like his brothers Frank and L.E., founders of Phillips Petroleum and Phillips 66, Waite made his fortune as an oilman.50 A Tulsa socialite, Helen was a prominent member of several charitable organizations.51  The following November, the couple had a son Phillips; in 1937 they had another boy, Peyton.

Before his brother arrived, young Phillips had an eerie brush with fame. While visiting his grandfather Waite, he appeared in one of the last photographs taken of humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post. The pair were visiting Waite at his sprawling New Mexico ranch before traveling to Alaska, where they perished in a plane crash.52

After passing the Oklahoma bar, Breckinridge joined his father’s law firm. In 1938, he tried his hand at politics, challenging incumbent Democrat Wesley E. Disney for Oklahoma’s 1st District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.53 Described as a “hard fighting, loyal Democrat” who supported the platforms and policies of second-term U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Breckinridge was trounced in the Democratic primary, garnering less than 25 per cent of the votes.54

Perhaps not coincidentally, 1938 was also a rocky one for Breckinridge’s marriage. In January, his wife was granted a divorce after charging Bill with mental cruelty, but over the next two weeks the couple reconciled and had the divorce decree set aside.55 The following summer, Helen refiled for divorce on the same grounds. The presiding judge granted the divorce, giving both parents shared custody of the two children.56 Helen married the son of the mayor of Oklahoma City in July 1940, then divorced him a year later and remarried Breckinridge. The reconstituted family made their home in Jacksonville, Florida,57 then within a year or two relocated to Lexington, Virginia, not far from where the Breckenridge clan had first settled in the mid-18th century.58

A few months before the U.S. was dragged into World War II, Breckinridge was rejected for military service but proved more attractive in July 1943 when he was inducted into the Army.59 For a time he was stationed at Fort Riley, where the camp baseball team included major leaguers Pete Reiser, Harry Walker, Rex Barney, Lonny Frey, and Al Brazle.60 Breckinridge wasn’t part of that group but he did tell a reporter that his “old arm seems strong and live.”61 Also stationed at the Kansas facility in 1943 was Jackie Robinson. Told he had to play for the camp’s non-existent Black team, Robinson was later transferred to an Army facility in Kentucky, In a sad bit of irony, that place was named for Breckinridge’s racist second cousin, twice removed: Camp [John Cabell] Breckinridge.62 Breckinridge was discharged in October 1945 having spent time in Europe, though where and with which unit(s) is uncertain.63

A Virginia gentleman farmer upon his return home, Breckinridge and family returned to Tulsa by the mid-1950s. From there, his younger son went off in the spring of 1955 to attend his high school alma mater, Culver Military Academy. In June 1958, his elder son got married.64 Two months later, Breckinridge died from cerebral vascular thrombosis (a stroke brought on by heart disease) after a brief stay at Tulsa’s St. John’s Hospital.65 Survived by his wife and two sons, he was buried at Tulsa’s Memorial Park Cemetery.

In 2004, Breckinridge was posthumously designated a “Wearer of the Green” by Dartmouth College, a distinction honoring “Dartmouth alumni and students who have excelled in Ivy League athletics or as Olympians, All-Americas [sic, World and National Champions, Members of Halls of Fame, or major league professionals.”66 One of hundreds of former Dartmouth athletes from various sports so honored, he was inducted alongside more than 25 who had reached the major leagues, from Lee Viau of the 1888 Cincinnati Reds to future Tigers manager Brad Ausmus.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Cassidy Lent, director of the Baseball Hall of Fame library, for providing a copy of the library’s Bill Breckinridge clippings file.

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Bill Lamb and fact-checked by Rod Nelson.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the Notes, the author consulted R. J. Lesch’s SABR biography of Jeff Tesreau and websites Baseball-Reference.com, retrosheet.org, statscrew.com, and stathead.com.

Notes

1 Oklahoma Department of Health death certificate in Breckinridge’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame, dated September 3, 1958; Marriage license, military registration card and image of headstone found on familysearch.org. Sporting News contract card is archived on the LA84 Digital Library website at https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/9782/rec/1.Various sources incorrectly list October 16 as Breckinridge’s date of birth, including Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

2 Members of the family generally spelled their name “Breckenridge” before the American Revolution, and “Breckinridge” afterwards. Katherine Kennedy McNulty, “Gen. James Breckinridge, Frontier Man for All Seasons,” Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume 7, Number 2, undated, p. 2, https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6347/JHSWV_07_02_NoYear.pdf, accessed December 14, 2025.

3 Only 36 when he was sworn in as V.P., Breckinridge remains, through 2025, the youngest Vice President in U.S. history. Defeated by Stephen A. Douglas in his bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president at its 1860 National Convention, John C. Breckinridge won a splinter Democratic nomination from protesting pro-slavery delegates in a parallel proceeding.  He won every state south of the Mason-Dixon line except Tennessee, but no others. Breckinridge’s 72 electoral votes were second to the 180 that Lincoln won. In parallel with his bid to become president, Breckinridge ran for and won election to the U.S. Senate. Named a brigadier general in the Confederate Army after fleeing his home state for Tennessee later that year, Breckinridge resigned from the Senate, after which, in December 1861, he was formally expelled.

4 Bill Dooly, “’I’ll Make Good’ Declares Young Phillies [sic] Anno,” unknown newspaper article from Breckinridge’s Baseball Hall of Fame file.

5 Cecil Brown, “Death Takes Breckinridge in Colorado,” Tulsa World, August 10, 1947: 1.

6 “New Officers Commence Work,” Tulsa World, November 19, 1907: 1.

7 “Mrs. Breckinridge Called By Death,” Tulsa World, May 23, 1916: 3.

8 An article published in 1949 identifies Breckinridge as one of a group of Central High ballplayers that earned the school’s endorsement in 1924 by defeating a state champion team from Cushing, Oklahoma. Breckinridge was attending Culver by 1924, so if true, that triumph must have happened a year or two earlier. “Alumni Elevens of Sapulpa, Tulsa Highs to Battle New Years,” Tulsa World, December 24, 1925: 14; Bob Foresman, “Ex-Newsboy Heads for Top on Wheels,” Tulsa Tribune, November 28, 1949: 17.

9 Steinbrenner attended Culver in the 1940s, Hank and Hal Steinbrenner in the 1970s. “Notable Alumni,” Culver Academies, https://www.culver.org/about/notable-alumni, accessed December 10, 2025.

10 “Okmulgee Youth Ties for Fourth in Pole Vault,” Okmulgee (Oklahoma) Democrat, May 28, 1922: 2; “Rifle Champions of 1923,” Spokane (Washington) Sportsman-Review, December 30, 1923: C-4; “On Culver Team,” Oklahoma City Oklahoma News, November 17, 1924: 7; “St. John’s Undefeated Team Finally Loses,” Hartford Courant, December 1, 1923: 12. Culver concluded its 1923 season by shutting-out undefeated St. John’s Military Academy of New York, 13-0, giving it claim to the unofficial title of top academy football team in the nation.

11 “Culver Cadets in Double Win,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, June 8, 1924: 13; “Culver Cadets Nose Out Lindblom Nine, 2 to 1,” Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1925: 2-2.

12 “Sample is Star,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 9, 1924: 26; “Culver Beats Elgin,” Indianapolis Times, November 27, 1925: 27.

13 “Sapulpa Grads Beat Former Crimsons,” Tulsa Tribune, January 2, 1926: 4.

14 “Big Green Starts Football Practice,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Union, February 22, 1927: 13; “Dartmouth,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, October 13, 1927: 5.

15 Norman E. Brown, “The Rookie Crashes Through,” Worcester (Massachusetts) Telegram, March 26, 1929: 13.

16 Dooly, “’I’ll Make Good’ Declares Young Phillies [sic] Anno.”

17 See, for example “The Interclass Rivalry of Colgate University,” Colgate Traditions, https://colgatetraditions.wordpress.com/birth-of-traditions-2/, accessed December 11, 2025.

18 “Tulsa Boy Hero in College Fight,” Tulsa World, April 17, 1928: 7; “Tulsa Student Hurt in College Class Fight,” Tulsa Tribune, April 16, 1928: 18.

19 “Tulsa Boy Hero in College Fight.” The article mistakenly identified Breckinridge as a freshman, the class deemed the winner of the battle. Learning of his son’s role in the affair, Judge M.A. Breckinridge said “Well, well, guess I had better wire the boy that it is better to be a live dog than a dead hero.”

20 Melville E. Webb, Jr., “Dartmouth Plucks Eagle in the Ninth,” Boston Globe, April 20, 1928: 29.

21 The NL ERA leader in 1912 and shutouts leader in 1914, Tesreau compiled a 119-72 record for the Giants across seven seasons.  Through the 2025 season, his lifetime ERA of 2.43 ranks fourth in franchise history among pitchers with 500 or more innings, behind only Christy Mathewson, Slim Sallee and Joe McGinnity. A winner of 379 games as Dartmouth’s head coach from 1919 to 1946, Tesreau’s most accomplished ballplayer proved to be infielder Red Rolfe (Class of 1931), a four-time All-Star with the New York Yankees.

22 “Holy Cross, Providence Top East,” New York Daily News, July 1, 1928: 53; “The Rookie Crashes Through.” A March 1929 Worcester Telegram article lists Breckinridge as compiling a 9-1 record, but considering the tendency of stories of that era to be embellished in the retelling, the author considers the unadorned tabulation published by the New York Daily News immediately after the 1928 college season to likely be more accurate. “Breckinridge Blanks New Hampshire, 5-0,” Boston Globe, June 3, 1928: 19; “Breckinridge Fans 15 As Dartmouth Blanks Tufts,” Boston Globe, June 16, 1928: 11; Brown, “The Rookie Crashes Through.”

23 “Holy Cross, Providence Top East.”

24 B. A. Bridgewater, “Those Tulsa ‘Kids’,” Tulsa World, September 2, 1928: Sports-2; “Dartmouth End Returns, But Status Is Uncertain; Gordon Lost for Year,” Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript and Telegram, September 20, 1928: 15.

25 Bill Dooly, “Tulsa Youth Picked as A’s Best Rookie,” Tulsa World, March 17, 1929: Sports-3.

26 James S. Isaminger, “Barnard Predicts Sox Will Play Sunday Games at Braves’ Field; A’s Go Tuesday,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 14, 1929: 18.

27 Bill James, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers from 1870 to Today (New York: Scribner, 1997), 63

28 The rotation also included Eddie Plank, who pitched for Gettysburg College but was not a student there. Jan Finkel, “Eddie Plank,” SABR Biography project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/eddie-plank/

29 “Breckinridge Faces Hard Task With A’s; Doing Well,” Tulsa Tribune, March 14, 1929: 19.

30 James L. Kilgallen, “Rookie’s First Real Game Seemed Like World Series,” Yonkers (New York) Statesman, March 26, 1929: 15; W. A. Biggs, “Former Dartmouth Star Impresses Mack,” Baltimore Sun, March 12, 1929: 18; “Two Thumpings From Cards ‘No News to Write About’ – Connie Mack Puzzled,” Fort Myers Press, March 9, 1929: 5;

31 James C. Isaminger, “Tips From the Sport Ticker,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 10, 1929: S9.

32 “Breckinridge Faces Hard Task With A’s; Doing Well.”

33 Brian Bell, “Connie To Start Coming Campaign With 1928 Lineup,” Wilmington (Delaware) Every Evening, March 15, 1929: 20;  James C. Isaminger, “Eddie Rommel Will Ascend Peak to Hurl Against Jones in Opener with Senators,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 1929: 20.

34 “Young Yanks Turn Tables on O’Leary Tossers,” Chambersburg (Pennsylvania) Public Opinion, May 10, 1929: 4; “George Burns Signs with Connie Mack Again as Protection,” Reading (Pennsylvania) Times, June 20, 1929: 14. Cramer, shipped off to the Martinsburg (West Virginia) Blue Sox of the Class-D Blue Ridge League, returned to the A’s later in the season as an outfielder. A five-time All-Star whose career spanned 20 years and nearly 10,000 plate appearances, he made only one major league mound appearance, for the 1938 Boston Red Sox.

35 “New Bedford Defeats Mack’s Sluggers,” Boston Globe, May 28, 1929: 33.

36 Chuck Egan, “Brown to Tackle A’s at Philly Today,” Washington Daily News, July 1, 1929: 19.

37 James C. Isaminger, “Griffes Get 8 in 3rd and Sew Up Verdict,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1, 1929: 16.

38 B. A. Bridgewater, “Breck’s Prospects,” Tulsa World, September 3, 1929: 16.

39 Bill Breckinridge, “’Whipped, Huh? — Well,” Tulsa World, September 18, 1929: 18.

40 Bill Breckinridge, “First Game A Real Thrill, Says ‘Breck’,” Tulsa World, October 12, 1929: 17; Bill Breckinridge, “’Breck’ Says Macks Fit After Relaxing,” Tulsa World, October 7, 1929: 8.

41 “A’s Divide Series Money Into 28 Shares,” Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning Call, October 16, 1929: 25; Salary estimate attributed to researcher Michael Haupert by Baseball-Reference.com. Current value of Breckinridge’s salary was calculated to October 2025 using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation calculator located at https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

42 “Breckinridge Won’t Pitch; Hyatt May Play,” Tulsa Tribune, August 13, 1933: Sports-A.

43 “Breckinridge Quits Baseball for School,” Providence Journal, February 26, 1930: 9.

44 “Pitches Less Than Game – Gets $15,000,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Evening News, March 6, 1930: 12. See also, for example “Sport Sidelights,” Jack Sords, Moline (Illinois) Dispatch, May 3, 1930: 21.

45 Current value of Breckinridge’s purported earnings was calculated to October 2025 using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation calculator located at https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

46 Alan Gould, “M’Phail Promises Many Changes for Manager Grimes,” Johnson City (Tennessee) Chronicle, January 21, 1938: 9.

47 “Haynes Supply Defeats Texas,” Tulsa World, May 21, 1931: 18; “Texas Scores Six in Ninth For Win,” Tulsa World, August 27, 1932: 16; “Barnes Drops Out of Open Net Tourney,” Tulsa Tribune, August 31, 1931: 6; “First Program at Regatta,” Tulsa Tribune, October 28, 1932: 1.

48 “Breckinridge Rites Pending,” Tulsa World, August 24, 1958: 2

49 “Breckinridge May Pitch for Tulsa Against O.C. Nine,” Tulsa Tribune, August 6, 1933: Sports-A; “Breckinridge Won’t Pitch; Hyatt May Play,” Tulsa Tribune, August 13, 1933: Sports-A. As late November 1934, Breckinridge was listed under the A’s roster as ineligible, along with retired New York Giants manager John McGraw. “271 Under Reserve in American League,” The Sporting News, November 15, 1934: 6.

50 Waite was the founder of a vertically integrated oil company that owned refineries, railcars and gas stations, which he sold for $25 million in the mid-1920s. The couple was married in Bentonville, Arkansas, home to the Walton family that founded Wal-Mart. “Phillips Family History,” Philmont Scout Ranch, https://www.philmontscoutranch.org/museums/villa/history/, accessed December 5, 2025.

51 “Wedding of Miss Phillips Announced,” Tulsa World, January 8, 1933: 4-1.

52 A Cherished Tulsa Photograph,” Tulsa World, December 22, 1935: 38.

53 “Tulsa Attorney Opposes Disney,” Tulsa World, May 8, 1938: 1-1.

54 “Bill Breckinridge A Fighting Democrat,” Bartlesville (Oklahoma) Enterprise, June 20, 1938: 3.

55 “Breckinridge Divorce Granted,” Tulsa Tribune, February 1, 1938: 6; “Judge Sets Aside Divorce Decree of Tulsa Couple,” Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman, February 15, 1938: 5.

56 “Divorce Granted Mrs. Breckinridge,” Tulsa World, July 25, 1939: 1.

57 “Waite Phillips’ Daughter Is Wed,” Okmulgee (Oklahoma) Times, July 17, 1940: 3; “Waite Phillips’ Daughter Sues Hefner for Divorce,” Tulsa Tribune, July 28, 1941: 7; “Helen Breckinridge Weds Ex-Husband,” Tulsa World, October 8, 1941: 1.

58 James Breckinridge, who represented Virginia in the House of Representatives from 1809 to 1817, moved his family in the 1740s from Philadelphia to a property roughly 40 miles northeast of Lexington, near what is now Staunton, Virginia. McNulty, “Gen. James Breckinridge, Frontier Man for All Seasons.”

59 Bridgewater, “Telling the World”; “Montgomery, Carroll County Men Inducted,” Roanoke (Virginia) World-News, July 23, 1943: 2.

60 Mark Stewart, “Pete Reiser,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/pete-reiser/

61 “Telling the World.”

62 David Vergun, “Sports Heroes Who Served: Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Was WWII Soldier,” U.S. Department of War, February 9, 2021, https://www.war.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Article/2490361/sports-heroes-who-served-baseball-great-jackie-robinson-was-wwii-soldier/

63 “21 City, County Men Released at Fort Meade,” Roanoke World-News, October 18, 1945: 16.

64 “Peyton A. Breckinridge,” Tulsa World, March 2, 1955: 13; “Patricia Flint Exchanges Vows,” Tulsa World, June 15, 1958:4-2.

65 “Breckinridge Rites Pending.”; Death certificate in Breckinridge’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame, dated September 3, 1958.

66 “Wearers of the Green,” Commemorative Program from 2004 Induction, p. 28, accessed at https://dartmouthsports.com/documents/2014/2/10/2637126.pdf. The program listing the inductees mistakenly identified Breckinridge as a member of the 1930 A’s.