Wilson: The last ride of baseball’s Dalton gang
From SABR member Doug Wilson at Doug Wilson’s Baseball Bookshelf on March 10, 2016:
According to history books, the outlaw Dalton Gang terrorized the old west for several years in the 1890s. Baseball had its own version of the Dalton Gang in the 1950s and early 1960s and–at least according to the oral legend passed down in dugouts, clubhouses and team buses–they were only slightly less terrorizing in their assault on bartenders, waitresses, maids, hotel rooms and team rules.
The gang’s hideout was the clubhouse of the Philadelphia Phillies and it was made up of Dick (Turk) Farrell, Jim (The Bear) Owens and Jack (The Bird) Meyer. Others, such as Seth Morehead and Don Cardwell, occasionally rode with the gang as well. If none of them seem to be household names, there’s a reason: most of their best work was done at night, away from the lights of the ball field.
The Daltons were all pitchers, big and rough, and most of them had talent; enough talent to keep them on a major league roster while they were driving management crazy. The name for the gang was handed down in 1959 by the Phillies pitching coach Tom Ferrick, the poor soul charged with corralling them long enough to make it to the mound.
Read the full article here: http://dougwilsonbaseball.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-last-ride-of-baseballs-dalton-gang.html
Originally published: March 18, 2016. Last Updated: March 18, 2016.