Tim O’Rourke

An itinerant late-19th century jack-of-all-trades, Tim O’Rourke played for more than 30 different ball clubs in a professional career that spanned almost two decades. His resume, however, includes only five seasons as a major leaguer. In retrospect, it appears that O’Rourke’s time at the game’s highest level was diminished because the assets that he presented to prospective employers came with decompensating deficiencies. At the bat, for example, O’Rourke was a competent contact hitter whose keen eye for the strike zone yielded above-average on-base percentages. But he was utterly without power, hitting only one home run in more than 1,500 major league at-bats, and was not much of a run producer.

O’Rourke’s fielding reiterated the plus-minus scenario. His innate athleticism allowed managers to deploy him all over the diamond, a valuable attribute in an era of limited player rosters. For one club or another, he was a regular at every position on the field, except pitcher. Unhappily, his defensive performance was no better than adequate at best, and often substandard. In the end, Tim O’Rourke seems to fall into the not-quite-good-enough category when it came to having an extended stay in the majors.

Once out of uniform, O’Rourke eventually settled in Seattle. There, he remained on the fringes of Organized Baseball, serving as a Northwest talent scout for various major and minor league clubs. He also became an active participant in local old-timers’ affairs. And he was proudly following the high school diamond exploits of his two youngest sons when felled by a stroke in April 1938. His life story follows.

According to modern reference authority, Timothy Patrick O’Rourke was born in Chicago on May 18, 1864.1 He was the second of at least eight children2 born to railroad flagman Daniel O’Rourke (1839-1912) and his wife Anne (née Connery, 1845-1908), both Irish Catholic immigrants. Little is known of our subject’s early years, but he presumably received the grammar school education generally afforded the children of immigrants and then entered the local work force. The 1880 US Census lists 16-year-old Timothy O’Rourke as a common laborer and still living under his parents’ roof in Chicago.

The origins of O’Rourke’s baseball playing are unknown, but he likely got his start on Windy City sandlots. A sturdy 5-foot-10, 170-pound clean-shaven redhead, he threw right-handed but batted from the left side, something of an anomaly at the time.3 His professional career began in 1886 when he was signed as a catcher by the Minneapolis Millers of the Northwestern League.4 In 49 games, he posted a .268 batting average (55-for-205), second-highest on the club.5 Only stationed behind the plate occasionally, O’Rourke spent most of his time in the Millers outfield, finishing the season with a lackluster .841 fielding percentage.6

He began the following season catching for the Arkansas City club of the Kansas State League. When the circuit folded in early August, he joined the Emporia Reds,7 a Kansas State League refugee that became a replacement franchise in the Western League. His play with his new club soon drew praise from the local press, the Emporia Evening News declaring that “O’Rourke is as good a catcher as plays in the Western League. He is a sure hitter. He can’t be beaten running bases.”8 In 18 late-season games, Tim batted .321 (26-for-81) for the Reds.

The Emporia franchise dissolved, so O’Rourke started the next season catching for the Lima (Ohio) Lushers of the Tri-State League. Released in early June, he subsequently hooked on with the Dallas Hams of the Texas League. There, his penchant for contact, rather than power hitting, was duly noted. O’Rourke “never strikes for more than a hit,” observed the Dallas Morning News.9 Playing mostly third base, he batted a meek .215 (26-for-121) and was given his walking papers during the offseason.

O’Rourke returned to the Texas League the following spring, signed by the Galveston Sand Crabs, for whom he alternated between catching and playing third. But making good use of his defensive versatility, the club also used Tim at every other position in the field, save pitcher.10 Meanwhile, on offense, O’Rourke upped his batting average to .260 and stole 44 bases before the Galveston club folded on August 12. He then finished the season with the Peoria (Illinois) Canaries of the Central Interstate League, where his batting average regressed to a sorry .119 (12 singles in 101 at-bats).

Like scores of others, O’Rourke was an incidental beneficiary of the Players League’s intrusion into the major league scene in 1890. The arrival of the rebel circuit increased top-level playing opportunities by one-third – but not immediately for O’Rourke, who began the campaign three-peating in the Texas League, engaged by the Houston Mud Cats. He was batting an unimpressive .246 (42-for-171) when the league went under in early June. Despite his numbers, O’Rourke was promptly signed by the Syracuse Stars, a former minor league ball club elevated to the major league American Association for the 1890 season.11

Tim O’Rourke made his major league debut on June 14, 1890, playing third base and going 0-for-4 against Rochester Broncos right-hander Bob Barr during a 4-3 Syracuse triumph. He broke into the base hit column with a single off righty John Fitzgerald in the nightcap of the date’s doubleheader, and soon settled into the Stars everyday lineup. Later that month, “Tim O’Rourke won a game for the Stars to-day by timely batting [two singles] and base-running [two stolen bases]” against the Brooklyn Gladiators, reported the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.12 And after a four-hit outburst against the Louisville Colonels on July 16, O’Rourke was “leading the [American] Association batters by a good per cent, and if he repeats his work of yesterday often he is likely to continue in first place for some time,” declared the Louisville Courier-Journal.13

His bat eventually cooled, but O’Rourke still finished the season with a solid .283 batting average (94-for-332), with 20 extra-base hits that included his only home run as a major leaguer. He also scored 48 runs and knocked in 46 more. On defense at third base, however, O’Rourke drew the displeasure of Syracuse manager Wally Fessenden, who fined him $25 for “poor work” (three errors) following a 6-1 loss to the St. Louis Browns on July 30.14 But for the season, O’Rourke’s work at the hot corner (.866 fielding percentage in 87 games) was tolerable for a barehanded third baseman.15

The 1890 Syracuse Stars were largely a major league team in name only, and the club accepted a buyout offer tendered by American Association brass during the offseason.16 But O’Rourke did not accompany the Stars to the minor league Eastern Association for the 1891 season. Instead, he signed with the St. Paul Apostles of the Western Association.17 There, his numbers roughly replicated those of the previous season. In 96 games, he batted .261 while posting an .870 fielding percentage at third base. Like the year before, these facially unimpressive stats did not foreclose major league interest in O’Rourke. When his WA club went belly up in mid-August,18 free agent O’Rourke was back in the American Association, scooped up by the Columbus Solons.19

Much as the year before, O’Rourke handled AA pitching capably, registering a .279 batting average (38-for-136) that was second-best on the weak-hitting Columbus club.20 Once the season concluded, Columbus re-signed him for 1892.21 By then, however, the American Association was on its deathbed, debilitated by financial pressures and an ill-considered decision to abrogate the National Agreement that had left its clubs vulnerable to player raids by the much healthier National League.22 When the AA went under that winter, the Columbus Solons were not one of the four AA members absorbed into a bloated 12-club NL for the 1892 season, which relegated O’Rourke to the minors once again.

O’Rourke began the 1892 season with the Columbus club, which became a member of a new iteration of the Western League.23 History then repeated itself. O’Rourke batted a humdrum .256 in 64 games but was nevertheless signed by a major league club when the Columbus Reds disbanded in mid-July.

Before that happened, however, the first discovered newsprint mention of O’Rourke’s singular speaking voice appeared in newsprint. “‘The Man with the Lost Voice,’ is what they call Tim O’Rourke out West,” reported the Pittsburg Dispatch.24 Whether it was the product of a foul tip that injured his larynx while catching in the Tri-State League,25 or a hot shot that smashed into his throat while later playing the infield,26 a non-baseball-related mishap, or a congenital defect, O’Rourke could not speak above a raspy whisper. Soon after his condition was publicized, the enduring nickname Voiceless Tim was coined.

Engaged to play shortstop for the National League’s Baltimore Orioles, O’Rourke’s defensive work secured surprising praise. Eight chances accepted flawlessly in his Orioles debut drew a belated commendation from the Kansas City Times.27 The same month, a widely circulated wire service dispatch gushed, “This O’Rourke is the find of the year. He plays short field much better than he did third last season, and he is quite a hitter, too.”28 However, just-installed Baltimore manager Ned Hanlon was less taken with his new shortstop’s fielding – O’Rourke’s .869 mark ranked near the bottom of the 20 NL shortstops graded that year.29 Late in the campaign Hanlon acquired shortstop Monte Cross from the Eastern League’s Buffalo Bisons to man the position for the Orioles in 1893.

Rather, Hanlon valued O’Rourke’s contributions to the Baltimore offense. As the season headed to a close, his two-out, bases-loaded double in the bottom of the ninth propelled Baltimore to a 6-5 win over Pittsburgh. It was a rare come-from-behind victory for a bad Orioles ball club. Inserting O’Rourke into the lineup provided an offensive spark for a beleaguered (46-101-5, .313) last-place finisher. In 63 games, he posted a team-leading .310 batting average. His .373 on-base percentage, enhanced by ability to draw walks, was second only to George Van Haltren (.382) among late-season Orioles regulars.

Over the winter, O’Rourke enjoyed security for once, being on the preseason roster of the same ball club for which he had played the previous year. He would prove an important component in Hanlon’s team improvement plans – only not in the way O’Rourke likely expected. Promising youngster John McGraw was entrusted with shortstop duties because Monte Cross had been released during the offseason. Thus, O’Rourke was consigned to the Baltimore outfield, where he committed only one error in 25 appearances. However, his hitting was the revelation. With the pitching distance elongated to the modern-day length of 60 feet, six inches and the pitcher’s box eliminated, O’Rourke got off to a roaring start at the plate. By early June, his batting average stood at a robust .363, although only five of his 49 base hits took O’Rourke past first base.

On June 7, Hanlon acquired another key member of the championship Orioles club that he was assembling: future Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings, then a part-time player for the Louisville Colonels. Louisville first baseman Harry Taylor was also included in the transaction.30 All it cost Baltimore was Tim O’Rourke and $1,000.

How the trade affected O’Rourke’s psyche is unknown. But it unmistakably worsened his hitting. In 92 games for Louisville, his batting average fell more than 80 points. He finished at .281 (99-for-352), although 77 walks (as compared to only 15 strikeouts) yielded an excellent .421 on-base percentage. O’Rourke’s defense also suffered. His .861 fielding percentage in 61 games at shortstop was about on par with his 1892 mark, but his play in the Louisville outfield elicited harsh criticism by the Louisville Courier-Journal. “O’Rourke’s inability to properly cover right field [encompassed] any ball that comes his way. He seems absolutely unable to gauge the direction in which it is going, and has allowed several balls to get away from him through misjudging them, and then doubles and triples resulted.”31

Yet O’Rourke was not without local admirers. Sporting Life’s Louisville correspondent was a prominent booster, informing readers that “Tim made himself a great local favorite by his good work. … Tim’s handiness with the stick, his life and dash, and general ability soon made … it … recognized on all sides that Jennings was not, and never will be, in the same class as the whispering Irishman.”32 Ensuing events entirely refuted this assessment, however: Hughie Jennings went on to enshrinement in Cooperstown. The major league career of Tim O’Rourke, meanwhile, was on its last legs.

The 1894 season was a trying one for O’Rourke, by then 30 years old – he bounced from one non-competitive National League club to another. He began the campaign underperforming for a Louisville club destined for the NL cellar. It was a season of turbocharged offense – National League batsmen posted an aggregate batting average of .309 – still a record. However, O’Rourke hit a powerless .277 in 55 games for the Colonels. Stationed primarily at first base, his defense was adequate there (.977 fielding percentage in 30 games) but was substandard during turns in the outfield (.854 in 18 games) and lousy filling in at the other three infield spots (.769 overall in seven games).

Released by Louisville in early July,33 O’Rourke’s next stop was the second-division St. Louis Browns. There, his batting average (.282 in 18 games) replicated his Louisville performance; his defense at third base (.861) was, as usual, no better than mediocre. Cast adrift before the month was out, O’Rourke was thereafter signed by the 11th-place Washington Nationals.34 But he did not hit well (.200 in seven games) and his limited range at second base brought brickbats from the press.35 On August 15, release by Washington brought the five-season major league career of Tim O’Rourke to a close.

In 387 games for six different clubs, O’Rourke had been a competent contact hitter, posting a career .291 batting average. His .380 on-base percentage was also above the norm. But he supplied little power to his teams – 85% of his 440 base hits were singles. O’Rourke’s defensive work was also uncompelling, ranging from mediocre at first and third base to shaky at shortstop to poor in the outfield and at second base. Perhaps his most sterling attribute was deportment. Voiceless Tim was a (necessarily) quiet, sober, and congenial man, well-liked by teammates, club management, the sporting press, and fans.

Although his big-league days were now behind him, O’Rourke’s baseball journey was far from over. During the ensuing decade, he played for 16 different minor league clubs. This professional odyssey began with the Sioux City (Iowa) Cornhuskers of the Western League, with whom he finished 1894, batting .381 in 31 late-season games. O’Rourke spent the following summer with another Western League club, the St. Paul Apostles. His offense (.323 batting average, with 145 runs scored) was high quality, while his defense at third base was adequate.36 Thereafter, he spent time playing for the Oakland entry in the California Winter League.

O’Rourke returned to St. Paul for the 1896 season. His hitting (.321 batting average, with 156 runs scored)37 matched his excellent numbers of the previous year. However, his third base defense – plagued by throwing problems – was so erratic that local fans began to turn on him. Stung by unaccustomed grandstand hostility, O’Rourke threatened to quit the game if obliged to return to the club for the following year. Nonetheless, he agreed to a new contract with the Saints (as the team had become known).38 He also began offseason farming in Tracy, Minnesota, an isolated rural outpost situated about 170 miles southwest of St. Paul.39

A marked decline in O’Rourke’s performance became evident in 1897. He began the season with St. Paul but was sold to a Western League rival, the Kansas City Blues, in early June.40 Unproductive – O’Rourke batted a combined .245 (98-for-400) for the season – he was released by the Blues before the Western League season ended.41

Thereafter, O’Rourke began an extended tour of lower minor leagues. His itinerary included these stops:

• 1898: Interstate League – New Castle (Pennsylvania) Quakers and Springfield (Massachusetts) Governors;
• 1899: Western Association – Rock Island (Illinois) Islanders; New York State League – Schenectady Electricians; Interstate League again – Youngstown (Ohio) Little Giants; and Indiana-Illinois League – Bloomington (Illinois);
• 1900: encores in the New York State League (Schenectady again) and Western League: Omaha Omahogs;
• 1901: Southern League: Shreveport (Louisiana) Giants;
• 1902: Three-I League: Rock Island Islanders (again) and Bloomington Blues.42

In February 1903, it was announced that “‘Voiceless Tim’ O’Rourke will be found on the Pine Bluff, Ark., team in the Cotton States League this season.”43 Signed to play first base, his stay with the Lumbermen was brief and disagreeable. Flustered by the work of a volunteer umpire during a game against the Vicksburg (Mississippi) Hill Billies, O’Rourke uncharacteristically lost his temper. He “abused [umpire] Towers, and suddenly, without warning struck Towers a hard blow and knocked him to the ground.”44 O’Rourke was promptly arrested by a local deputy sheriff and thereafter fined $50 by a Vicksburg court. He was also sanctioned by the Pine Bluff club ($25 fine) and Cotton States League President George Wheatley ($100 fine).45 Days later, his release by Pine Bluff seemed to bring O’Rourke’s time in Organized Baseball to an ignominious end.

A desire to keep playing, however, soon transported the nomadic O’Rourke to Waterloo, Iowa, where he joined an unaffiliated professional nine and began to put down roots.46 In 1904, he reentered Organized Baseball as the first baseman for the Waterloo Microbes, a member of the fledgling Iowa State League.47 But after posting an anemic .197 batting average in 27 games,48 O’Rourke was let go.49 His playing time was then over for good.

Reports that O’Rourke was to manage the Waterloo club in 1905 proved unfounded. However, he remained connected to the game, serving as area talent scout for manager Bill Armour of the Detroit Tigers.50 Waterloo was also the site of a momentous change in O’Rourke’s personal life. Long a bachelor,51 at age 41 he took Mary Margaret Schultz, formerly a local restaurateur, as his bride that August.52 Shortly thereafter, he opened a tavern in Waterloo.

The following year, O’Rourke enlarged his connection to Organized Baseball, serving as a scout for the St. Paul Saints, by then a member of the top-tier minor league American Association.53 He also assumed ownership of the Waterloo club in the Class D Iowa State League (although there was suspicion that O’Rourke was actually a straw man for Saints President George E. Lennon, the true purchaser of the Microbes).54

On the surface, his affairs were going well. Thus, O’Rourke’s sudden and unexplained disappearance from Waterloo in January 1907 caused a stir. He left both his saloon business and family (which had come to include infant son Lawrence) behind.55 According to Mary O’Rourke, her husband was simply visiting his ailing father in Chicago and would return home soon. But local concern about his intentions was heightened when it was discovered that saloon debts had not been paid and that business creditors were filing suit.56 Weeks later, O’Rourke resurfaced 1,500 miles away in Seattle, sending for his wife and son but leaving his financial troubles behind in Iowa.57 He would remain in Seattle for the remainder of his life.

With the assistance of Seattle baseball impresario and old friend Dan Dugdale, O’Rourke quickly established himself in his new haunts. In addition to scouting for Dugdale, he became player-manager for the Seattle-based Ryan’s Rainiers, “one of the strongest amateur teams in this part of the country.”58 And once settled, he resumed scouting for several major league clubs, particularly the Pittsburgh Pirates. In years to come, his signees included Ham Hyatt and Vin Campbell, both outfield regulars for the Pirates.59 Otherwise, O’Rourke busied himself with various non-baseball pursuits – tending bar, working as a machinist and boilermaker, etc. – and by fathering children, ultimately eight in all.60

In his later years, O’Rourke became active in the Association of Professional Ball Players of Seattle, an old-timers organization. He became a favorite of local sportswriters, always good for a yarn about baseball’s bygone years.61 His boys’ prowess doubtless reinvigorated O’Rourke’s interest in the game. Son Dan, a backstop like his father once had been, got as far professionally as spring training with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1929.62 Eight years later, youngest sons Tim and Bill formed a crack underclassmen battery for Seattle’s Cleveland High School.63

Tim O’Rourke did not get to see his sons complete their high school careers. On April 14, 1938, he suffered a stroke; he died at home six days thereafter. Timothy Patrick “Voiceless Tim” O’Rourke was 73. Following a Funeral Mass said at St. George’s Church, his remains were interred in Calvary Cemetery, Seattle. Survivors included his widow, seven of his eight children, his brother Joe, and sister Jane O’Rourke Hahn.

Acknowledgments

This story was reviewed by Darren Gibson and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Dan Schoenholz.

Sources

Sources for the biographical info imparted herein include the Tim O’Rourke file at the Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York; the O’Rourke profile in Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Vol. 1, David Nemec, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011); US Census reports and other government records accessed via Ancestry.com; and certain of the newspaper articles cited in the endnotes. Unless otherwise specified, statistics have been taken from Baseball-Reference.

Notes

1 Contemporary sources place O’Rourke’s birth year from 1859 to 1867.

2 The other identifiable O’Rourke children are John (born 1862), Katherine (1867), Jane (1868), Mary (1870), William (1874), Martin (1885), and Joseph (1887).

3 In the mid-1880s, perhaps the only prominent lefty batter/righty thrower was future Hall of Famer Dan Brouthers.

4 Per “The Minneapolis Team,” St. Paul Daily Globe, May 4, 1886: 2.

5 Per Northwestern League stats published in the 1887 Reach Official American Association Guide, 64. The Millers’ leading batter was Jay Faatz (.289).

6 1887 Reach Guide, 68. O’Rourke played 30 games in center field (.818 fielding percentage) and 17 in left (.880).

7 The signing of O’Rourke and two others by Emporia was reported in “Personal,” Emporia (Kansas) Evening News, August 10, 1887: 1, and “Purely Personal,” Arkansas City (Kansas) Evening Dispatch, August 9, 1887: 3.

8 “Base Ball,” Emporia Evening News, September 10, 1887: 4.

9 “The Dallas Base Ball Team,” Dallas Morning News, June 10, 1888: 13.

10 For the season, O’Rourke appeared at catcher (44 games), third base (29), shortstop (14), outfield (9), first base (5), and second base (1).

11 The Syracuse engagement of Tim O’Rourke was noted in “Western Association Bulletin,” Minneapolis Tribune, June 17, 1890: 2; “Clippings from All Over,” New Haven (Connecticut) Daily Morning Courier & Journal, June 12, 1890: 2; and elsewhere. The Stars also signed catcher Tom O’Rourke (with whom our subject is occasionally confused).

12 “Syracuse, 4; Brooklyn, 3,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 27, 1890: 4.

13 “Notes,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 17, 1890: 6.

14 As reported in “Ramsey in Good Form,” St. Louis Republic, July 31, 1890: 6. See also, “Notes and Gossip,” Sporting Life, August 2, 1890: 4. The following week, Fessenden fined and then released Stars catcher Tom O’Rourke. Heartily disliked by his charges, Fessenden himself was fired shortly thereafter by Syracuse club management.

15 Although the Spalding Guide had advertised primitive fielding equipment since 1875, most infielders remained barehanded in 1890. Four years later, however, O’Rourke’s photo with the Washington Nationals depicted him with a glove.

16 With the Players League dissolved at the conclusion of the 1890 season, the American Association jettisoned stopgap franchises in Toledo and Rochester (as well as Syracuse) for the 1891 campaign.

17 O’Rourke also signed a contract to play for a WA rival, the Minneapolis Millers. See “O’Rourke’s Signature,” Minneapolis Times, February 26, 1891: 7. Much to Minneapolis’s chagrin, the National Board subsequently resolved the competing claims upon O’Rourke in St. Paul’s favor. See “We Have Been Robbed: The National Board Awards O’Rourke to the St. Paul Ball Team,” Minneapolis Times, March 10, 1891: 2.

18 The St. Paul club had been relocated on June 16, continuing Western Association play thereafter as the Duluth (Minnesota) Whalebacks.

19 See “Donnelly Released,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 22, 1891: 4.

20 Only outfielder Charlie Duffee (.301) posted a higher batting average for the 1891 Solons.

21 As reported in “Columbus Signing Players,” Washington (DC) Post, October 8, 1891: 6. See also, “Baseball Notes,” Buffalo Enquirer, October 10, 1891: 3, and “Base-Ball Review,” Baltimore Sun, October 8, 1891: 4.

22 The National Agreement was promulgated in 1883 and obligated signatories to respect the player contracts of fellow NA signees. Following the dissolution of the Players League, the American Association, dissatisfied with the repatriation decisions pertaining to two former AA players, unilaterally withdrew from the National Agreement, forfeiting the protections afforded AA club rosters in the process.

23 The latest version of the Western League was “built up out of fragments of the [defunct] Western Association of 1891, and of the bought-out clubs of the American Association.” 1893 Reach Official Base Ball Guide, 15.

24 “The Diamond,” Pittsburg Dispatch, June 20, 1892: 6.

25 According to “Voiceless Tim O’Rourke Will Live in Seattle,” Seattle Daily Times, January 20, 1907: 15; “Puffs from the Pipe,” Omaha Daily News, June 26, 1900: 3. See also, the Tim O’Rourke entry in Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Vol. 1, David Nemec, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 427.

26 As reported in Royal Brougham, “The Morning After,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 22, 1938: 23; “O’Rourke for Manager,” Marshalltown (Iowa) Evening Times-Republican, April 8, 1905: 7; and elsewhere.

27 “Notes from the Diamond,” Kansas City Times, August 7, 1892: 14. In his July 20 debut, O’Rourke also had two hits in the O’s 20-7 rout of Pittsburgh.

28 See e.g., “Base Ball Notes,” (Lincoln) Nebraska State Journal, August 21, 1892: 9; “On the Diamond,” Meridan (Connecticut) Daily Journal, August 6, 1892: 8.

29 According to the 1893 Reach Guide, 88-89, O’Rourke’s fielding percentage ranked 18th out of 20 NL shortstops considered.

30 For commentary on the trade, see Albert Mott, “Baltimore Budget,” Sporting Life, June 10, 1893: 2.

31 “Bad Week for the Colonels,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 3, 1893: 7.

32 Sam McKee, Jr., “Louisville Lines,” Sporting Life, November 11, 1893: 2.

33 O’Rourke’s release by Louisville was reported in “Out at First,” Boston Herald, July 4, 1894: 8; “O’Rourke in the Cold,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 4, 1894: 3; and elsewhere.

34 See “Yelps from the Bleachers,” Omaha Daily Bee, August 5, 1894: 17: “Voiceless Tim O’Rourke of memory fond has been sworn in as one of [Washington manager Gus] Schmelz’s Senatorial curios.”

35 See e.g., “From Washington,” Sporting Life, August 18, 1894: 1: “Tim O’Rourke did not do very well at second. He was tried for several days, but was very heavy on his feet for some reason or other.”

36 An .867 fielding average placed O’Rourke sixth among the 11 Western League third baseman whose stats are memorialized in the 1896 Reach Official Base Ball Guide, 39.

37 Per Western League stats published in the 1897 Reach Official Base Ball Guide, 23.

38 See “Baseball Gossip,” Kansas City Journal, December 14, 1896: 6; “Diamond Dust,” Milwaukee Journal, December 14, 1896: 8; “Comiskey Sawing Wood,” Detroit Sunday News-Tribune, December 13, 1896: 6; “Can This Be True?” St. Paul Daily Globe, December 11, 1896: 6.

39 See “Said Before the Game,” St. Paul Daily Globe, April 8, 1897: 7. See also, “Puffs from the Pipe,” above.

40 Per “Notes on the Diamond,” Kansas City Times, June 6, 1897: 20. Kansas City reportedly paid St. Paul $250 to secure O’Rourke’s release.

41 O’Rourke’s release by Kansas City was reported in “Base Ball Gossip,” St. Paul Daily Globe, September 4, 1897: 7, and Kansas City Star, September 2, 1897: 2.

42 Omitted from the Baseball-Reference catalog of O’Rourke’s minor league stops are Youngstown and Schenectady in 1899 (as memorialized in “Tim O’Rourke Comes Back,” Rock Island (Illinois) Argus, August 14, 1899: 1, and “Base Ball Briefs,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, August 4, 1899: 3), and Schenectady again in 1900, per “Sporting Notes,” Albany Times-Union, July 30, 1900: 6.

43 “All the Latest Sporting News,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Leader, February 26, 1903: 7.

44 “Around the Circuit,” New Orleans Item, May 14, 1903: 6.

45 Per “Baseball News,” Pine Bluff (Arkansas) Daily Graphic, May 11, 1903: 6.

46 Per “1903 Team Disbanded,” Waterloo (Iowa) Courier, September 10, 1903: 8: “Tim O’Rourke will settle in Waterloo and be on tap when the 1904 team is launched.”

47 As reported in “Iowa State League Gossip,” Marshalltown (Iowa) Evening Times-Republican, April 1, 1904: 7.

48 Per Iowa State League stats published in the 1905 Reach Official Base Ball Guide, 261.

49 O’Rourke’s release by Waterloo was reported in “Happenings in the League,” Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican, July 7, 1904: 7.

50 As reported in the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Evening Gazette and Decatur (Illinois) Daily Herald, August 11, 1905: 5.

51 Years earlier, there was a published report that stated: “Tim O’Rourke, the third baseman of the St. Paul team, was married to Miss Carin Lundquist of Minneapolis, at Hudson, Wis., Wednesday evening. Judge Randall performed the ceremony. Tim had been keeping very quiet over the affair, and his friends will be surprised to learn the news.” See “Tim O’Rourke Signs,” St Paul Daily Globe, December 12, 1896: 5. The specificity of detail lends the report credibility, but the O’Rourke-Lundquist marriage report was never republished by any other news outlet. Nor could a marriage-suitable Carin Lundquist be discovered in US Census reports. And no mention of Tim O’Rourke being married ever appeared in newsprint prior to his betrothal to Mary Schultz in August 1905. In sum, the Daily Globe report of an earlier O’Rourke marriage is a puzzlement, its veracity undetermined.

52 Per State of Iowa marriage records accessible online, Timothy P. O’Rourke and Mary Margaret Schultz (age 27) wed in Waterloo on August 23, 1905. Both parties averred that it was their first marriage. The O’Rourke-Schultz union was also reported in the Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican, August 24, 1905: 7.

53 See “Looking for Good Ones,” Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican, June 22, 1906: 6.

54 For sale of the club to O’Rourke, see “Waterloo Team Is Sold,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, August 15, 1906: 3, and Des Moines Register, August 15, 1906: 7. For suspicions about Lennon (who was barred by Organized Baseball rules from owning a second minor league team), see “Wants a Winner,” Minneapolis Journal, August 30, 1906: 11; “‘Tim’ Owner and Manager,” Waterloo Courier, August 28, 1906: 2.

55 See “‘Tim’ O’Rourke Missing,” Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican, January 3, 1907: 8; “Tim O’Rourke Has Skidooed,” Waterloo Courier, January 2, 1907: 1.

56 Per “Outgrowth of Tim’s Troubles,” Waterloo Courier, January 4, 1907: 2.

57 See again, “Voiceless Tim O’Rourke Will Live in Seattle,” above.

58 “Ryan’s Rainiers for 1907,” Seattle Daily Times, March 24, 1907: 16, complete with team photo depicting O’Rourke in uniform with his new charges.

59 Per “Good Players Sent from the West,” Missoula (Montana) Daily Missoulian, January 8, 1911: 4.

60 In addition to Lawrence (born 1906 in Iowa), the O’Rourke offspring were Daniel (1909), Eugene (1911), Helen (1914), Mary (1916), John (1919), Timothy (1920), and William (1921).

61 See e.g., Royal Brougham, “The Morning After,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 14, 1934: 11; “Now, When I Was in the Series,” Seatle Post-Intelligencer, October 9, 1931: 5.

62 As reported in “Athletics Start Light Workouts,” Worcester Evening Gazette, February 23, 1929: 19; Paul A. Weadon, “Connie Mack’s Team Puzzle as He Plans Shifts for 1929,” New Orleans Item, January 9, 1929: 15, which misidentifies Dan as “John O’Rourke, a Seattle youth [and] a son of Tim O’Rourke.” Actual son John O’Rourke, sadly, did not survive infancy.

63 See “Off the Old Block,” Seattle Daily Times, April 4, 1937: 18. Sophomore Tim was a catcher while freshman Bill was a left-handed pitcher.