Eddie Grant: First A Rookie, Always a Veteran
This article was written by Jay Gauthreaux
This article was published in Baseball in New York City (SABR 21, 1991)
When America issued the call to “Work or Fight” in 1917 to battle the Hun, Baseball answered. Some players like “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and “Lefty” Williams of the Chicago White Sox went to work in the shipyards; Babe Ruth joined the New York National Guard; others like utility player Alfred Von Kolnitz also of the Chisox rose to the rank of Major when the war finally ended in 1918, and Hank Gowdy of the Boston Braves were the first to enlist. Eddie Collins, Ty Cobb, Grover C. Alexander, and Christy Mathewson also followed, to name a few.
One ballplayer who enlisted when his country’s call to duty was sounded, but who in now all but forgotten was Edward Leslie Grant. Grant was born on May 21, 1883 in Franklin, Massachusetts. For ten years he was a mediocre player with a batting average of .249. He played for the Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, and the New York Giants. With the Giants, Grant was a backup third baseman and an excellent dugout assistant. But his major distinction was that he was the first major leaguer to be killed in the raging combat of World War I.
At the end of the 1915 season, Grant retired from baseball to enter his law practice. He acquired the nickname of “Harvard” Eddie Grant to signify his alma mater.
When war was declared in 1917, Grant enlisted and went to Officers Training School where he soon rose to the rank of Captain. Grant was later sent to France after his training was complete and assigned to the 307th Infantry Unit of the 77th Division. On October 5, 1918, while leading a patrol into the Argonne Forest to locate and rescue Colonel Charles Whittleby’s “Lost Battalion,” Grant was killed.
In Noel Hynd’s fine work The Giants of the Polo Grounds, he states Grant “was buried where he fell. After the war, his body was never located.”
On Memorial Day May 29, 1921, representatives from the armed forces, baseball and sisters of the slain Grant unveiled a monument in deep centerfold of the Polo Grounds. It was dedicated to the memory of Captain Edward L. Grant: a professional both on and off the field.