Shieber: A glimpse of Moonlight Graham

From SABR member Tom Shieber at BaseballHall.org on April 20, 2015:

One of the nearly 20,000 books in the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library is a volume published in 1911 and titled “Humor Among the Minors: True Tales from the Baseball Brush.” In the book, career minor leaguer-turned-author Eddie Ashenbach (sometimes misspelled “Ashenback”) reminisces about his two decades in professional baseball. One story he recounts is titled “An Alias That Did Not Last Long.”

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Just who was this Graham? Like Ashenbach, he was a minor league ballplayer. But, unlike the author of “Humor Among the Minors”, Archibald Wright Graham managed to crack the big leagues for a brief “cup of coffee.” Though virtually unknown for most of the 20th century, Graham later gained fame as a character in “Field of Dreams,” a movie based on the novel “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella.

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Recently, the Hall of Fame received the donation of a rare postcard of the 1905 Class B New York State League Scranton (PA) Miners. Nine players, Manager Ashenbach, and his son piled into a 1905 Oldsmobile touring automobile for the team photo. In the back of the car, identified by a number 5 written on his shoulder, sits the 27-year-old Archie “Moonlight” Graham.

Read the full article here: http://baseballhall.org/archive-collection/short-stops/a-glimpse-of-moonlight



Originally published: April 21, 2015. Last Updated: April 21, 2015.